So it was a good Christmas and New Year, but busy. Back and forth to the Rio Grande Valley before and after Christmas, house guests for the holiday itself, some sick kids who got better before too much vacation got eaten up by it, a trip to Mexico, a dog who somehow ripped an entire back claw off (he’s fine after a $200+ vet visit, the asshole), and starting on the brick patio install.

Here are some (sometimes random) pictures:

Happened across this while driving through a neighborhood after Christmas:

The husband and I took a trip to Mexico last week:

But then this happened:

So I got sick. And a little stomach upset is normal in Mexico, we expect it and generally it’s no big deal. But this time… whoa this time I got SICK with a capital S, I, C, and K. My poor husband had to walk 5 blocks to the store in the night for some medicine… that I then promptly threw up.

I remember thinking, as I puked in the dark of a Mexican bathroom that the lightbulb went out in (WHY GOD WHY, THE LIGHTBULB TOO?), that this is probably the kind of sickness that killed early settlers. This is both being overly and very under dramatic about the whole thing.

I was quasi better by later morning the next day but wasn’t 100% for a few after that.

And the LEAST this bucket of bolts coulda done after all that is lose some weight over the whole thing, but NOOOOO….

Back on the home-front the ground leveling is done in the back and the framing is going in for the patio install.

My input into this is I’ve held a tape measure twice so far. So all the credit on the finished product will not be mine either- just remember that when it looks all awesome in Spring.

Happy 2020!