Murphy goes for a bike ride!

 OK  -- so yesterday didn't go quite as planned, but that's OK. I didn't empty the orange box, but I cleaned out another box of stuff on my computer desk, which was the equivalent of the orange box. I did NOT get the customer quilt quilted, but at least it's loaded on the long arm and ready to go today. 

What happened instead? I had a meeting to chat about classes for the fall as I wanted to get all classes organized by the middle of July. Mission accomplished -- we had a good discussion, and I've got a plan. Cathy came and picked up the boxes of scraps -- and she got two phone books for foundation paper. 

I made huge inroads in the paperwork that needed to be done. There are just a few more invoices to do, and then I'm up to date, and most of the paperwork that needed to be done before I go, will be done. Oh -- who am I kidding. I will need a couple more hours to get it all done.  

I also got more photos transferred to that little hard disk. I have a couple more folders to move, and then I'll have the bulk of the pictures in one spot, which has been my goal for a long, long time. I wish I knew how to MOVE files instead of COPY. I'll have to do a bit more research on that. Could it be as simple as holding down the SHIFT key while dragging? I'll try that later. 

Lexi is very skittish and WILL not come into the office. However, I threw a crochet rug on the floor that was on the back of a chair, and yep - she liked that! 

Lexi on the crochet rug

Chilling out in the office with Mom

But mostly -- did you see how clear the floor was in the office? Oh yes --- there is loads of free floor space in here. It's all good progress, and I've gone from a table where you couldn't get past the mess to an extra work surface where I could do some work! 

Working at the almost clear table

It's a complicated story, but I cannot print anything from my big computer. So if I want something printed, I must send it to my phone. That hasn't been working the last couple of days, so I had to use my laptop. That still wouldn't work, but I suspect the issue was there was no paper in the printer! But my big computer just won't make the connection to print, yet it will scan. An issue to be resolved later. 

I also had files on the laptop that I needed to send to some students, and I had room to work up here! Yippeee!!

And then something bizarre happened in the kitchen. I stepped on one of the mats at the backdoor and felt something hard under my foot. Hmm - what's that? 

An earring?

An earring, you say? Where the heck did it come from? Some boxes of M's stuff have been sitting in the kitchen for me to sort through (more crap to deal with), and perhaps Murphy stole it from there. That's the only thing I can think of. She is a thief, and it wouldn't surprise me. 

So what happened with the landscaping? I had some large rocks in the front garden, and I wanted to save them. Hey -- if I need them to repair the pond in the future (some stones are splitting), I would hate to have to buy new rocks -- they are NOT cheap. So the stones got moved to the backyard, into a corner that is not being used. One of them was reasonably large, and it was NOT an easy job to move it and ended up in a broken handle on a wheelbarrow!

Moving a big rock

Then the rest of the plants had to go. There was nothing special there -- cedars and some grasses. 

The remainder of the plants

It's easy to dig up that stuff when you've got heavy equipment! Murphy has loved watching the guys work from her window seat. 

Easy to remove!

It all got loaded onto a truck. 

Loading the plant material onto the truck

And before we knew it - the front yard was gone! 

Bye-bye landscaping!

Next to go was the bin. The bin alone must weight quite a bit, but with all that stone in there -- it must have weighed several tons. The truck latched onto it with a big hook and had zero issues pulling it up onto the truck. 

Loading the bin onto the truck

A few stones were left under the bin that went into the other truck with the plants. 

Loading the bin onto the truck

And just like that -- bye-bye interlock driveway. And I will NEVER get excited about interlock again. You can see the four tubs by the porta-potty that my neighbor has snagged, and she is slowly moving them into her backyard. 

Bye-bye driveway

While many houses around here are widening their driveways, we are making our narrower. Yeah -- less snow to shovel in the winter! So this trench used to be part of the driveway, now it will become a garden with some trees. 

A trench for trees

Here's the temporary gate, which Lexi could scale without any effort. She doesn't seem too interested in jumping it (too much work for a princess), but if the gate is open, she takes every opportunity to escape. I caught her in the neighbor's yard yesterday. The girls see rabbits in that yard all the time, and I guess she thought she could wander over and check it out a bit more. Let's just say that yard is a mess. 

The temporary gate

And if you want a big step --- how is this? That bottom step is HUGE, and they've removed the dirt in front of the step, which had somewhat shortened the drop. Now there are two BIG holes for the Sonos tubes, so you can't jump down right in front. Hopefully, those new cement tubes and rebar will prevent the step from sagging like the old one did. 

A BIG step

However, getting in and out of the house has become challenging. We have a side door, but that gate is nailed shut, so that's not possible. We can go out the back door and through the gate on the other side, but it's not as convenient to open and close the gate. We could go out of the garage, but we don't have a keypad, so that's not an option either. Nope -- I jump down and hop up that huge step! Good grief!!!

And my neighbor moved yesterday, so it was a colossal mess of coming and going on our street, and I have to say that I don't function well with all that coming and going. Hence the lack of work that got done. I was still productive, just not as much as I would have liked. You know what? I think my brain needed that break. 

Lots of activity on the street

Coming home, I spotted this on the plywood surrounding a construction site. How pretty is that? It almost looks real. 

A painted construction fence

And the Panookie Cookie is back at Boston Pizza. They had told us last week that it was coming back, and while it's NOT quite the same, it was nice to enjoy an "almost" old friend. 

The Panookie Cookie is back

I'll be putting my car in the garage while I'm gone, and I mentioned this to the crew. Imagine my surprise when I got home, and they had moved all the stuff in the garage (mostly my bikes) to one side and SWEPT the floor. OK -- that was a bit embarrassing since the floor was a mess. But that got me thinking about my bikes. I have one set up to walk a dog, and there's an actual sport called bike-joring.

I decided to take Murphy for a test run. I hooked her up to the harness and attached her to the lead. We WALKED down the sidewalk so she could get the hang of it. And then I SLOWLY rode the bike while she trotted in front. We will NEVER go as fast as they show in those videos!!!

Murphy out for a bike ride

She was happy as a clam, and although she did want to stop from time to time, she was pretty good with the voice commands, and we had a great little bike ride  -- just on my quiet street. I think we'll try it again. Look how dusty that bike is -- I haven't ridden this bike in years. I had bought the setup for Lexi, but she is such a princess that it never worked, and she is always BEHIND, not in front, so that wouldn't work.