Still here, still trying

I haven't been around much. We've been getting ready for Someone Small's first birthday, which is in a week and a half. Left brain rehabbed our deck in preparation for the festivities--the deck on the house is the original one and needed a lot of repairs. It had been damaged in Hurricane Irene when a branch came down on it, and it wasn't baby-proofed. He repaired it and expanded and added a place to put a little swing for Someone Small. We looked at new furniture, but decided that we're not spending more on the couch for outside than he spent on the couch for the inside and we'll put off that purchase.

And then the above picture happened. Thursday morning, terrible storms rolled through Crazyville. Left-brain was home, because they'd forecasted a derecho, and we didn't want to have the baby in daycare and both be stuck down-county and unable to get home to get her. He said it just turned black and descended. Quarter-sized hail, terrible winds, and this fell. It missed the deck, thank Goodness, but took out our back fence, and our bird-feeder (it's still standing, obviously, but it was sunk in the ground with concrete, and that's cracked and two of the birdfeeders had to be replaced). Left-brain said he stood, watching the cars out the front window, worried sick. None of them got damaged, surprisingly, blessedly; our friends can't say the same, their brand-new minivan (hadn't even made a payment) has so many dents in it, it's not fixable and will probably be totalled. Our roof is apparently badly damaged, and needs replaced, since there are holes in the shingles, the flashing around our skylights is toast, and there are holes in the gutter guards and screens.  There are also some big trees that need to be removed because one of these days, we're not going to be so lucky with them missing the house. And that would suck.  My tomato plants are pretty badly battered, but we'll just have to take a wait and see with them if they recover. It figures, I was proud of them and they were surviving.

The adjuster is supposed to be out looking at it today.   Left-brain did finally say we'd put in a real garden next year at the side of the house. It's going to be a project to rabbit-proof it, but if the fence needs replaced, we might as well try to fence it in. All this is not what we need right now, not when I start working from home on Friday, and with the party next week, but it is what it is. We can't have that fence down, can't have holes in the roof.
I did start a new project, a design from an old magazine, called "A Kitten for Christmas," by Pamela Kellogg. I plan on mounting it on a stocking for myself, but that may change. It's a lot of color changes, but I'm finding it moves quickly.

So that's what's up in Crazyville. After the birthday, I'm hopeful things will slow down for the summer. Fat chance, right?