Oh happy joy.

The electrician showed up yesterday, an hour late. He called Thursday night to give me an estimate, so Friday when i got home from work i was planning to remove the wallpaper, which needs to be replaced anyway, at least from the back wall where the light fixture will go. Unfortunately, i could not find my scraper, and the local hardware store was closed, and Home Depot was too far to go at that hour (7 pm) So i used my scouring tool, then a damp sponge, and proceeded to remove said wallaper with my fingernails.

Here's what it looks like.



A large rectangular mirror goes below the fixture; the electrician spackled 2 holes in that space, so i had to let that dry overnight, and he's coming back today to help me put the mirror back up and to get paid.

When he drilled the hole where the mirror goes, we could see that there was another wall behind it with a space of about 4 inches between the 2. The original exterior wall had some old wallpaper on it.

I've known that a lot of the wiring in this house was done by an amateur electrician, and in fact over the years as i've had work done i've discovered that nothing is grounded. So the electrician fixed that for this fixture.

After the electrician left, I ran out to do errands, first the bakery to pick my sister up a birthday cheesecake, then to fill up my gas tank at the cheapest station in my area ($3.29 vs. $3.36 in my town), then on to Stop N Shop for a few sale items, then to Xpect Discounts, where i went on a $75 spending binge. A few food items, suet for the birds, a tarp i needed for yardwork ($3.30 vs $15 at Target, a great find) and 4 large resin pots, 2 were $9 each and 2 urns were $16 each. Maybe a little more than i'd want to spend, but i guess i have spring fever and an really looking forward to a summer of tending my gardens. One of the pots i really like cus it has an Asian look to it with bamboo on it.



And these urns are great.



Last night, my friend R. came by for a visit. He's the one, you might remember, who is going thru his 2nd divorce, from the same woman.

Our plan was to visit my sister as her birthday was earlier this week, but she said she had plans to see her boyfriend and R. told me he didn't like cheesecake (!) so now i have a very rich, $13 cheesecake for myself. I had a slice last night, and maybe will bring it in to the office tomorrow as it probably won't last that long....sigh.

So since visiting my sister was out, R. and i went to a cute local coffeehouse and they had live entertainment, 2 guiatarists. I think we were the only ones in the place who weren't somehow related to them.

I'm devoting today to yardwork, as it'll be in the mid to high 40s. I want to try to finish rolling pieces of the cut-up locust tree to the driveway,to get them off the lawn.

I want to trim all the dead sedum stalks, the ornamental grass and also the massive burning bush in the front yard. I'd love to do it with my electric trimmer, but i know my 100 foot extension cord won't be long enough to reach it.

Its foliage spread is about 20 feet wide and 15 feet high. It's got a nice mounded shape to it, but the other day while hauling locust pieces i noticed how lovely the 2 evergreens behind the burning bush had become. They're quite nice and now reach about 12 feet high, but they're obscured by the burning bush, so i want to prune one side of it so i can enjoy those evergreens from the front door.

My employer gives me free access to check my credit report and score; when i checked Friday, all 3 were between 750 and 800. The highest, i think, was 778.