Ah, what to post about? I'm sure you don't want to hear about me doing laundry- although I did get a new-to-me washer this weekend. My washer and dryer were my very first large purchases when I graduated from college and got my first place because I refused to go to the laundry mat. I thougt I'd surely meet up with an axe-murderer there and figured I'd be much safer doing laundry at home. So fast forward nine years and said washer has washed it's last load. I'm not actually even sure it was washing the clothes at the end since it didn't always agitate or spin. But thankfully, I found a great washer on Craigs List for $75 and it works perfectly. We figured if it only lasted for a year or two we'd still be getting a bargain.

Well, I guess this will be a post of randomness since the pics have nothing to do with anything except that I figured I could sneak more vacation pics in; it's kind of like making your friends sit through your vacation slides only not all at once. And I hadn't posted a picture of my brothers kids except for Ashton and I didn't want to leave the rest of them out. So the pic of all the little kids with Amanda and my brother are Megan, Tessa, Chloe and Dalton helping Halle blow out the candles on his birthday cake- what a sweetie!

Murray is dead. Yep, my poor little Venus Fly Trap has bitten the dust. He had really been through a lot; repotting, getting knocked into the sink by Sophie, I put him outside where it was too hot, etc, but he always pulled through. Apparently though no water for the 10 days while I was gone was too much for him. I asked Travis to water the plants and he did once but never even opened the blinds that are over the kitchen window and didn't see Murray to water him. Which, unfortunately, was the first thing I saw when we got home, which resulted in a gasp from me, which drew Chloe's attention to Murray, which resulted in uncontrolled sobbing, which was not the homecoming that Travis had pictured. Poor guy, he'd worked close to 70 hours that week so I don't blame him- I'm just glad we weren't gone longer. In other plant news- My lemon seedling is doing amazingly well. I repotted it and put it outside where it is thriving. My sunflower is doing well also along with some blackeyed susans. I planted them late in the season- the very end of June, well beginning of July but hopefully that was close enough, so I don't have any blooms yet and I'm wondering if I will. And if they don't bloom will they come back next year? They're perrennials but I'm not quite clear on how it all works. I also planted some other type of daisy-like flowers in the urns on the front stoop but Halle pulled a bunch out of one but the others look good so we'll see if I get any blooms from those. I've wanted to re-do the front planter but I'm sure I'd spend at least $50 on it and don't really want to shell out that kind of cash on plants right now. Home Depot has some great looking Gerbera Daisies which are one of my favorites but maybe next summer. Or I could start some seeds indoors next spring and then plant them. And I know I've shown you this website before but after taking a closer look I found out they are located in McMinnville so their trees and things aren't shipped from across the country. They also ship all of their orders for $6.50 no matter how big the order is. I have my eye on a black gum tree that I've wanted since I read in Southern Living about how beautiful it's red autumn foliage is. But in researching it I've also found out that it is a slow grower and since we're not planning on staying in this place forever I might want to find something that will give me more immediate satisfaction.

Oh, and in other random news, I have completely re-done our living room! I stayed up until about 4 o'clock one morning and just finished it. Well, actually, I still need to paint the trim and do some touch-ups since I was pretty much painting in the dark but it looks pretty good. We moved the chair and ottoman out and replaced it with a piano that we're piano-sitting for the next couple of years. But I suppose I should really post some pictures of that. It just seems that my living room hasn't been clean enough in the last week to get a picture of it. Every time I think I can get a picture-because it is clean- the girls have thrown off all the couch pillows to jump all over or someone has set a basket of clothes in the floor to be folded, you know how it goes. But I'll try to post that tomorrow. I also painted Chloe and Halle's room but that REALLY hasn't been clean enough to take pictures of.

So, until tomorrow....