The alligators are awake. They disappear in the winter perhaps napping somewhere close by.   We have water right behind our yard and the golf course is on the other side of the water.  This beautiful picture of wildlife is in our view from the back yard.  We highly respect this creature.  He likes to sit on the edge of the golf course everyday sunning himself.  We have been doing a lot of spring work in our yard.  He will slink into the water trolling up and down the water way watching us, perhaps wondering what we are doing.  Glancing in the water, only 2 eyes and a nose will be sticking out.  He can move very fast.  We do not have any problems coexisting with these creatures as long as no one has fed them.  Once people start feeding them, the alligators lose their fear of people which is not good.  We have lived here for eight years, and I am still as amazed by these creatures as when I saw the first one eight years ago.  Absolutely Breathtaking!!!

Diane

We’ve been busy spring cleaning lately! Yes, it’s actually summer now, but we were a little behind this year.  We are renting, so we had to check to see if we would be allowed to do some painting, and sure enough, we were! We’ve actually started in Williams room and cleaned everything out-toys, clothes et. al.  Then with all of the clutter out of the way, we realized how bad the walls looked! So, off to the store to look at paint swatches.  Usually it takes me a really long time to decide on a paint color, but today I decided to do it the preschooler way!  I asked him what color he wanted his room, and he immediately said “blue, please”. I let him look at all of the blues and pick the one he liked best.  Then, I used the lightest color in the collection.  That worked out great! It was blue, but just barely so everyone was happy.

Once his room was done, then we started looking at the baby’s room, and realized that it looked shabby too! Then we cleaned out all of her clothes and toys and baby things.  Then, you guessed, we realized how badly her walls needed paint too! So, back to the store to look at paint swatches for her! She couldn’t decide on pink or purple so we found a nice very light orchid color that is either pink or purple depending on the lighting.

Now, their rooms look great! Unfortunately, that makes the rest of the house look shabby.  It looks as if we’re going to end up cleaning out and painting the entire inside of the house by the end of the summer. It usually is such a challenge to me to pick out colors, but from now on I’m planning on taking a preschooler with me to help pick the colors out!  They did such a good job, and the lightest shade of just about any color seems to work nicely.

Today I decided to tackle the bathroom.  We’re in an old farmhouse, and the bathroom was, at some point, partly paneled, and then the rest of it was not.  I found a neutral beige, a paintbrush, and painted everything I could get my hands on or that I could reach.  It’s amazing how much nice it is take shower now, without worrying if the spot on the wall is supposed to be there or if it is a bug!

Then we’ll have to clean out the basement, because if we’ve got the entire house cleaned out we might as well clean out the basement! And if we clean out the basement, then we’ll need to clean out the storage with the livestock supplies…and then we might as well clean up the yard…..and then we’ll notice the field needs some work…and by then we’ll have to restart our work in the house! Reminds me of the children’s book “If You Give A Mouse A Cookie”! Our version would have to be “If you give a Mom a paintbrush.”

- Jenny