Friday morning

Here are a few more home pictures... It's Friday morning and now it looks like Wilma won't hit until mid to late Monday...

Here is Brad putting up our mailbox. You can see the empty lot across the street-- we're surrounded on three sides by empty lots which allows for amazing breezes and lots of quiet.
Then we bought our washer and dryer at Costco (thank you, Grandparents, for the wonderful gift!!!) and hooked them up ourselves. We couldn't use the normal flexible foil dryer vent hose but had to use a rigid metal one, so Brad had to squeeze behind the dryer and connect everything. We got the Whirlpool Duet front-loading high-efficiency washers-- super easy and they do a great job. We don't miss the days of slipping down the back stairway, hitting our head on the fuse box, and putting quarters into the washers in the basement of our apartment. We love these so much, we welcome you to pack only dirty clothes when you come visit and you can do your laundry while you're here.


On Tuesday we used the amazing Makita drill that my Uncle Allen sent us to fix the rickety chairs I had bought at a second-hand shop in Baltimore. They were in decent shape in Balty, but by the time they made a few moves and sat outside under my parents' porch for two years, they were coming unglued. We figured it was high time to get these in better shape, so we reinforced the joints with screws and voila! No more wobbly breakfasts. (And thank you, Uncle Allen, for the awesome drill. It is a great tool! And if anyone needs tools or woodworking supplies, check out Uncle Allen's store, Woodcraft.)

While Brad was mowing for the first time he came upon a lovely Wolf spider. They're harmles but nasty-looking and a little furry. We've killed two in three weeks, all outside. Not so bad.

This is our resident walking stick. He's harmless and visits us on the outside of our lanai sometimes.
The little frogs around here love to sit on the top of the window frames outside. They freak me out as I wonder if they're going to jump on my head when I go out the front door. But they don't move unless Brad pushes them off with the end of the measuring tape or a pole. Yesterday he went on a frog-be-gone streak while we were measuring for hurricane shutters and got 6 frogs off of the front door and front windows. They go flying through the air from a height of seven feet into the grass, waving their skinny flappy legs behind them. When we returned from Home Depot a few hours later, some of the frogs had returned to the front of the house and were hiding behind the coach light!

Here is our latest sky picture. As the bands of bad weather come through from the hurricane the skies are dramatic and breathtaking. The sunset yesterday evening was something to behold!