My husband and a handful of tools.

On Saturday, I was very excited when I found blinds for our windows.  We've been looking for blinds for a few years for the living room, but never found any we liked that we were willing to lay out the cash for.  Hubs put woodwork in the bedroom this past fall and we've been without blinds in there since then.  Being that he put new woodwork up, we didn't want to put unnecessary holes into his fine craftsmanship and I certainly knew we wouldn't be replacing the $3.47 cheapie blinds that I bought at the Wal for the same.  Besides, I'm not a big fan of the Wal anyhow. 

When K- and I went to Lowe's for her building clinic on Saturday, we had some time to kill.  I decided to cruise on over to the department with the blinds.  I couldn't find what I wanted in the size I needed and in the price I could afford and when I did, they were yucky white slat blinds.  (No offense, we've had them in off white in our house for years.  Was just ready to ditch them, but know that they are still in K-'s room.)  I saw a clearance rack.  I saw blinds I liked, but they were 35".  Drat.  I needed 34" ish.  I read the box and on the front it said kind of small like, "Actual measurement 34 1/2"."  HOORAY!  I bought them, went back for 3 more boxes and announced my find to Hubs when he got home. 

"I found blinds."

"Really?"

"They were $30.00 and marked down to $7.60.  I bought 5 and I hope they fit."

And they do.  The man moved about the house with his tools for hours on Sunday and look:

We have blinds we can see out of, but they block much of the light so we don't get blinded. 

Then, he moved to the kitchen and hung my valances that I purchased while we were in Amish country.  Yes, I realize this doesn't actually show you what they look like.  Trust me, they are lovely.

And if all of that manual labor wasn't enough, Hubs took a trip to the hardware, bought up some 2x4s and built me this lovely garden box.  It is 4' x 8' and that is good enough for me.  We'll have collards and mizuna in there for the iguana, onions, potatoes (in the red bucket that are actually sitting on top of bricks for proper drainage) and beans for us.  I'll plunk the ground cherries into tomato cages (they flopped all over last year) in the back flower beds, we'll have two tomato plants (one next to the fence, one next to the house) and a red pepper on each side of the back steps.   Voila!

Smiles in my day:

-  Though K- hacked and coughed most of last night and she woke up with a monster stomach ache this morning, we've been able to straighten her out today and she'll be good to go to school tomorrow.  Allergy drainage is the pits. The tree pollen is high right now and Claritin can only do so much.  Poor kid, but she's feeling better!  Hooray!

-  Laundry washed and hung/dried. 

-  A nice hot meal in the crock pot.

-  I've been in my sweat pants all day long and I'm good with that.  Back to work tomorrow!

Have a great day!