We can see the end in sight!!!!

We are finished with painting. HALLELUJAH!  And, I saved the worst until last..  Painting the soffits.  The horrible under-belly of the house, right up beneath the roof.  James did the really high soffits but I did the garage and back deck area - places that only needed a "small" ladder.  I broke it down into three mornings of work.  Happily, I didn't get vertigo as I had to reach around all four sides and deal with those poking down nails.  

James is 99% done with his part of the painting.  We sent him a list of remaining projects and hopefully, he can get them completed within a couple of weeks.  I sent an introductory email to a real estate agent in St. Louis today....eeee....exciting.

Our yard is mostly done - now it is just maintenance.  The newly planted grass is coming up.  I acquired three huge hostas from a friend and I was able to split them into NINE plants.  Below are before/after....

We still need to spread mulch around the flower beds in front and around some of the trees in back and Steve bought twelve bags on sale at Walmart yesterday for that purpose.  

Remember mama robin and the fledged baby robins?  Well, mama wanted to have a second family and she started to build ANOTHER nest right above our front door. Throughout Wednesday, just in one day, Steve and I removed four beginning nests!!!  I went right out to the hardware store and bought Birds Off - strips of clear plastic spikes to put on areas you do not want birdnests and, so far, they have worked.  

Speaking of Wednesday, Steve had a CT of his lungs and then he saw two pulmonology doctors after that.  When they learned that we had lived in Arizona for two years, light bulbs went off in their heads because Phoenix has its own set of fungi and bacteria and so they want to do a bronchoscopy on June 10th to rule out anything related to that.  Not sure if this fungi can cause kidney issues but I guess we'll see.  It might mean a different treatment.  In the meantime, he is still not eating calcium and he is still drinking 80 ounces of water every day.  And, he continues to shed pounds.  He was at 193 this morning.  

Our weather these past few days has been gorgeous - low temperatures and low humidity.  Perfect for grilling.  And, our friend, Elizabeth, invited us over last night for just that. She cooked each of us a ribeye steak along with grilled baby potatoes and a Caeser salad.  YUM!  I brought some fresh cherries and a yummy chocolate chip date cake.  Dates are somewhat of an acquired taste and I knew I was going out on a limb with this recipe I had never tried but, it was in a Betty Crocker cookbook and I had dates from Christmas that I needed to use so I went for it.  And, it was really tasty with the dates hardly a factor at all.

Movie update:  I haven't done one of these lately.  We watched "Secret Life of Pets" and the sequel this past week.  Very entertaining.  I made Steve watch our DVD of "The Last Holiday" which I have loved for a while.  He actually enjoyed it and appreciated the message of the film (which is a BIG factor in his movie watching).  I also watched "Honeyland" that I checked out from the public library that happily has opened with a drive-through service.  I enjoyed the film - it was fascinating and very well done.