Maybe we will make o.k parents

We re-potted our nearly dead plant, and -


It's alive!

And, the green thumb must be contagious, because the plant on our patio that we had written off for dead after it lost all of its leaves and showed no signs of life for about 2 months, has survived. About 2 months ago leaves started coming back - although, only on half of it (the other half, the right side of the photo, is most certainly dead). Then this week, color:



It must be something in the water, because even Bella's hair is growing longer:

We have a wall

After nearly a month, many phone calls, the repairs are finished (we hope), and we have a wall. It was a bumpy ride though. During the repairs on the back part of the roof, they knocked our a/c out on two different occasions. Then, partway through the work, it rained and we had a water leak around the vent fan in the master bathroom. So, they had to reseal that part of the roof. Then, after they put the sheetrock up and spackled everything, it rained and the spackle was mushy. It doesn't look like they got the leak around the window (that led to the wall being torn out in the first place) done. Of course, it hasn't rained a whole lot, so, it is hard to say if all of the leaks have been taken care of. But, we have a wall. The carpet looks like it will clean up o.k., so, our next step is to paint the wall. Until then, here's what it looks like:

24 weeks

This is me at 24 weeks.

Ike Repairs, Redux

It is 2 steps forward, one step back on the repairs. They started the repairs earlier this week and in a day and a half had the mansard roof (the vertical part of the roof on the backside) stripped and re shingled. As you can see, it looks very nice.



However, it was somewhat curious because they stopped at our unit. The rest of the building was tar papered only.



It turns out they were not supposed to shingle the mansard roof portion. We are supposed to get hardiplank on the vertical sections, asphalt shingles on everything else. So, they have to tear the shingles back off. In the interim, they have continued on the rest of the roof and have gotten about half of the building completely done. Unfortunately, it is much slower going on the front because these buildings originally had ceder shingles over lathing. When fire codes outlawed cedar shingles, they just slapped asphalt shingles over them. So, now, they have to tear off the shingles and lathing and lay down plywood. It has slowed progress down a little bit and our roof still looks like this. Hopefully it will be finished this week.

Hopefully not a sign of things to come

It's official - we have the anti-green thumb. Try as we might, we cannot keep plants alive. In the past year, we have lost 2 hibiscus (hibiscii? hibiscuses?) - one was a victim of hurricane Ike. It was potted and sat in our humid house for the 3 days afterward and died. We killed some sort of bamboo plant thing that was supposed to be unkillable. Bella was probably largely responsible for killing off another one - it had long thin leaves like a spider plant and she liked to play tug of war with the leaves. We have one hanging on our patio that basically died, has since sort of recovered (half of it), but hasn't bloomed in a year. And finally, the latest - no idea why this one is dying. Not enough water? Too much water? Not enough sun, too much? Who knows - but, it is definitely on life support.

A Couple of pics of Kizzie

In practice for baby Lawrence, here's some pics of the current baby. She poses a lot.

AA for dogs

We've decided that Bella is a borderline alcoholic. She loves to hit the bottle. Empty water bottles, saline solution bottles, you name it, she likes to play with them. Pics of her in action.

It is fun watching her play - until it is 3 a.m. and she is chasing the bottle around the floor in the bedroom bouncing it off the walls and the furniture.