Chronologically reversed

I do not currently have the brain power to be sure of what has happened since I last took it upon myself to preserve an electronic chronicle of my life, so I'm going to start with what I am sure of and work backwards from there.

I am currently in bed, enjoying the scent of a delicious candle I got for Christmas.  I was playing minion rush, trying to kill time until it is acceptable to go to sleep, and also stay awake until Jesse's plane lands so that I can text him and say "yay, I'm glad you made it safely!", but then I decided I should probably write something.  It's a little more conducive to.....live brain cells.

Today it was sunny and 75.  I am so lucky to live in Texas!  And, being all alone with nothing better to do, I reorganized, polished, mopped, and swept the living room (in reverse order, of course).  My back hurts.  I knew it was going to be a bit of an undertaking, which is why I put it first on my list.  What list?  Oh, the My-Husband-Is-Gone-For-Most-Of-A-Week-And-I-Might-Go-Crazy-If-I-Have-Nothing-To-Do/Spring Cleaning list, of course.  For those of you who don't know, I am going to back up a little bit.  Just till this morning.  I can only do so much reverse order crap.
Jesse left this morning for Las Vegas, Nevada with Kent, Annie, and Dave to go to the shot show.  He was pretty super excited about it.  He spent three days packing, got his slacks dry cleaned, asked advice on how to fold his polo shirts, and even shaved.  It's a pretty big deal, I guess.
So I left him with his three bags and his buddies and went to WalMart to buy cleaning supplies.  The cashier told me that everyone was buying cleaning supplies today.  I guess spring cleaning comes early to Texas.  I also ended up buying a little $0.98 (plus tax) basil growing kit, and a bag of sweet onion bulbs.  I've been wanting a little herb garden for a while, and have never actually done it.  I thought about growing some rosemary at the cabin, but it likes lots of sunlight, which is pretty scarce at the little cabin in Colton, so that was out.  I wanted little window boxes of herbs at the apartment in Oregon City, but we only lived there for a month before moving all of our earthly possessions 2000 miles to Texas, so it's probably a good idea that I didn't.
  And then lately it's been cold enough that the only room I can keep warm is the bathroom (yes, I have been known to hang out in there and read.  Don't judge.), so planting anything, or even going outside, was not top of my list of things to do.
Today, however, was such a beautiful, blustery day, I couldn't resist the urge to at least try it out.  I grabbed a hoe, mixed up the dirt in the flower bed next to the side door, removed all the cigarette butts, shotgun shells, and other non-organic material that I happened to find, and stuck some onions in the ground.  

I only planted six, figuring that if it's still too early and they don't turn out, I still have 34 bulbs to try my luck with, so I should be ok.  I also planted a garlic clove that started sprouting, and set aside a potato to plant when it starts to sprout.  I did read that potatoes will only survive to about 90 degrees, so you should start them early.  I'm hoping January is early enough.  I assume it will be.  It should be at least a couple months before we have temperatures that high.  Besides, how can you go wrong with potatoes?  The basil, on the other hand, has already been a failure.  Remember when I said it was a "blustery day"?  Yeah, by that I meant the table and chairs on the porch were being blown around and there was a high wind advisory.  I initially put the little pot of basil seeds on the table in the living room, but when I started moving all the furniture around to do the floor, I put it on the porch.  In the sunshine.  A while later I found the empty pot on the other side of the house.  Oops.  I'll pick up another one tomorrow, I guess.

Anyway.  Behold, the fruits of my labor!  Shiny floors!  I also broke a bowl, which made me very sad...But, moving on.  Or backwards, rather.  Reverse!


Yesterday was also a nice day, and less windy, which prompted Mr. Wilcox, affectionately referred to as "Little Davie", to bring out his latest toy.  I didn't get a good picture of it, for which I apologize; I have failed
as a documentator.  It's a Can-Am side by side.  That meant nothing to me when Jesse told me, so for those as ignorant as I, it's basically a really fancy, really fast, go cart like thing with a big roll cage and nets to keep you in and such when you roll it.  Which Dave did after putting about 12 miles on it.  That was a while ago, though.  Everyone is perfectly safe, and the side by side got a new front bumper thing out of the deal.  Also, everyone now wears helmets while riding in it.
It was a good day.  Jesse had a blast tearing around in it, and Dave got his fix in, he said.  I also finished writing the story that I was working on for Laney for her birthday while Jesse killed water bottles with blow darts. It was nice and sunny, we had chicken nuggets and sweet tea, and bought two hammocks on Amazon with a gift card that we got for Christmas.  My sisters truly spoil me.
Ah...so many more days to cover, and it's getting late!  I will hurry on back.
Last Tuesday, that would be 1/7, I noticed a small drip coming from the ceiling in the dining room.
 A while ago, when our pipes froze last, we turned
off the water to the sinks in the upstairs bathroom because they were leaking, so I knew it wasn't them, and assumed it was the toilet.  Jesse was at work, and I figured that I could figure it out.  After all, I had managed to thaw out the frozen kitchen sink the day before.

Side note, I also took apart the sink and fixed it when the trap was clogged so it wasn't draining.  I'm practically a master plumber.  In the process I found a nasty drowned rat in the bucket that catches the water that leaks from the right hand sink, and then when I went to show Jesse, it had disappeared.  We probably will have an outbreak of zombie rodents here shortly.

So, full of self confidence, I shut off the valve looking thing behind the toilet, and went downstairs...where I

was met with a completely unexpected downpour.  I called Jesse, had a short lapse of capability to do anything, ran the 1/4 mile out to the road, tried to shut off the water, couldn't figure it out, called Jesse again, had to go back to the house, find a different wrench, go back out to the road, fight with the water main, get frustrated, beat on it for a while, and finally get it shut off after it had managed to fill a bucket, half the ice chest, and leave three rooms with standing water.  It was an adventure.  Jesse came home from work two hours early, and he and a couple guys that Kent called spent nearly two hours fixing multiple leaks in the pipes upstairs.  Gotta love primitive Texas living.  But it is good.  At the end of the day, we survived.  I learned how to shut off the water, I mopped behind the couch in the dining room which definitely needed to happen, and we can pay our bills because we have really cheap rent.
Taking another few steps backward...I will make this short and sweet and mostly pictures.  We went back to the shoot house a while ago and Jesse got to play with his new AR pistol.  I managed to shoot multiple times and have both shots hit within a foot of each other, so I consider that progress.  Also, Annie gave me a pair of pink browning safety glasses that don't hit my cheeks when I smile.  Score!

Well, a picture speaks a thousand words, so this is quickly becoming a 170000 word project, and that's 28 pages, single spaced.  So I will end this now.  Hopefully you feel all caught up!