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It's On!

First post from new house! After much trial and error, we finally have an internet connection. Wish I could say the same for the phone service, which seems to not want to work no matter what Verizon does for us. As for the post below, I wasn't really bemoaning my fall in stats, so much as I was saying that *I* am not happy with the content here of late. I guess I'm distracted. I discovered that the unknown plant in the front yard is a Japanese red maple. I was told that removing it would be umm...stupid, is what I think she said. Now if I could just figure out what the long, twisty tree-type plant is. It seems sort of phallic. Notice: Jose Contreras will now be referred to as Jose Effin Contreras. Reminds me more and more of Ed Whitson every time he pitches. Back to the power tool fun. Tonight's tool of choice is the electric sander. Love that vibration that lingers in your hand for hours after using it.

Comments

Cable modem? Try Vonage for your phone service instead. For $25 a month I get unlimited local calling and 500 minutes.

$30 gets you unlimited long distance.

You have to put up with 11 digit dialing, no phone when your cable modem goes out (however you can have it automatically transfer to another number if this happens, ie a cellphone), and ocasional echoes or dropped sound, but I used to pay twice as much just for basic phone anyway, so the savings more than makes up for it.

Michele

Woohoo! :-) Power tools AND a Japanese maple?!!

Me...I'm in love with gardening and interior design. I've been vicariously living through a couple of friends who've bought homes in the last year...I've sketched landscape options and drawn decor for window treatments..even scouted out swatches of material.

Hubby and I are poised to start looking to purchase our own home later this year (we've been leasing... ouch ouch ouch)... So. Cal market is insane. But I actually want a fixer upper.

Outside of blogging, I have HGTV on most of the time... :-)

Have you tried out power paint rollers (ie Wagner?)... Omigod...

I had my sister the plant expert come over and give my yard the once-over, telling me what belonged there and giving some tips on what to do...I'm a gardening retard.

And oddly enough, the walls in my bedroom and the downstairs den are the same color as your current background. I bought a done-fixed-upper, so no power tools for me for a while.

If you tear out a Japanese maple I will personally come up there and spank you.

Oh wait...

Koni-chee-wa, mo-fo!

It's OK to move a Japanese Maple, just don't remove it. The guy we bought our place from left the cherry trees but took out the maples. What that translates to, in English, is he chopped down a Japanese maple with about a 4" trunk diameter, planted a new one right in front of the porch steps so it's in the way of everything you want to carry into the house, and left the chokecherries. But he cut down a Japanese maple, and then paid good money for a much smaller one. He had to know what he was doing? Right? Right?

If it's in the wrong place, move it just after the spring thaw. Of course, I followed that advice and a week later we got a foot of snow, but the tree's still alive and that's all that counts.

As for Verizon, I can't really complain about this, but... Prior occupant had 2 phone lines, they hooked up the wrong one. It took an embarassingly long time to figure out what happened, since the working line only had one jack in the house, which was malfunctioning, so we figured the phone connection was buggered. Hilarity ensued. In retrospect at least.

Enjoy your power tools. But you haven't really done power tools until you've used a SawzAll. Serious fun.

a twisty phallic looking tree might be a blue point juniper. does it look like this?

Sounds an awful lot like tree hugging, and you know how that goes over around my place.

Oh, and Roger Clemmons can kiss my Cubbie ass.

Move towards the blinking green light....

Congrats on the house and the internet access. The phone is only important, anyway, if you need to report a fire, a break-in, or maybe order a monster pizza with sausage, pepperoni, onions, and green peppers. Internet uber alles!

Re: content, I still come by at least once a day (used to be more, but there's a bit of a net crackdown at work) and you knows I loves ya baby. It doesn't all have to be ridiculing the fools of the world - and if you ever get tired of it, just slap me up there as guest blogger, put my blog in your ad-bar, and whisper sweet nothings, and, Michele, I'm am SO all yours.

Electronically, that is. Or ass-slappingly. Or E-ass-slappingly, if you're into double-hyphenated words.

OK, this has been fun, ummm, moving along.

P.S. I hope you have room to put up me, the WWR wife, and the World Wide Runt should we come visit. The limey wife has never been to the NY area. Our next trip is probably Costa Rica (frequent flyrr miles you see), but you never know your luck on a cheap flyin' weekend!

I really like Japanese maples - they're so pretty. So, I pretty much concur that removing it would stupid. But it's your yard. :)

My maple draws hummingbirds like crazy.Don;t stress over the loss of bloggage focus,you have gone through a tunnel transition of monumental proportions,and the fact that you have payed ANY attention at all to the free ice-cream crowd is a testimony to your dedication.Cherish the settling in with your family,we will be patient.OK,I won't speak for the rest of the peeps,I will be patient.Fer Chrissake,I still check R.Lucas's site daily to see what she may kick in.Fret not fair damsel.

Congrats on the new digs, and congrats on surviving the move.

Jose Contreras? Who needs him. Tan-yon Sturtze, bay-bee.

if it's really twisted up and ugly looking, it might be what they call a walking stick tree.

Those things are gorgeous...in a Rodin sort of way.

I have two small ornamental japanese maples in my garden, and I love them to death. Come the fall, they'll turn turn crimson and you'll get awesome photos.

Once the Internet connection is up, you've well and truly moved in. Congratulations!

Even Ted Williams only batted .400 his best season, six out of ten at bats he didn't get a hit. Don't beat yourself up.
Re your earlier post I fail to see a lack of quality bloggers who are women. Nor do many have to resort to slutblogging. One of the finer Milbloggers is Jenifer Martinez at a Collection of Thoughts. You, of course, Ilkya, Venomous Kate, Meryl, Andrea.
Lots more, some that I read daily, some that are quality, even though I'm not interested in the same things they are so I seldom read them. Doesn't mean they aren't good, more likely my interests are narrow.
How much has your drop in traffic been due to most folks spending more time outdoors?
As for trees, there are two kinds of trees that I recognise, Oak trees and the ones that aren't.

OMG, keep the maple! Keep the maple! KEEP THE MAPLE!
One of the most purely beautiful things I ever saw and never took a picture of (!!!) was a small red maple tree, covered in dark red leaves, after the fist snowfall in early winter.
Red leaves, new white snow...

The maple we bought is probably the most we paid for any tree we have bought. The wife loves it, in fact she paid for it with her own money but I don't like anything that grows slowly and a jap maple it a real slow grower.