Friday... payday!

Miguel gets paid on Fridays, and this week is supposed to be a good check. Hooray! Chloe and I are listening to some ska and I took this picture as she was dancing and playing with a milk lid. She's a pretty good little dancer, but sometimes she gets too into it and knocks herself over. She's currently yelling at the kitty who is sitting in the window.

It's a pretty nasty-looking day outside. Windy and overcast. Good thing I mowed the lawn yesterday, because it really looks like it might rain today. Ooh, I had a scare yesterday. After I mowed the lawn I took my super-huge bottle of weed killer and sprayed in all the cracks in the driveway and around the AC unit and around the house and around the base of our huge 50-year old tree. I told my mom about it last night and she asked what I used to protect the tree. Of course I didn't use anything. I figured the tree is so huge that there's no way a little weed killer around it's base would kill it. I mean, it's roots go really deep to bring water and nutrients and its leaves wouldn't be touched by the weed killer, so it should be fine. But then I started to think about how trees can be killed if you remove the bark around the circumference of the tree. What if I'd killed all the bark around the base? So this morning I carefully read all the precautions and directions on the weed killer, and it's actually made to be used around the base of trees, as long as they're over 6 months old. The tree is well over 6 months old, so it should be fine. I would have been so sad if I'd killed our huge tree. It's the only big tree we have and it shades the grass so it stays pretty green. Plus, I've seen a golden-fronted woodpecker hanging out in there a few times.

Today I'm going to tackle the leak in my kitchen. I never noticed it before, but since I took the sink out, I have to keep a huge pot under one of the water supply hoses to catch all the water it's dripping out. And I noticed last night that it's actually leaking very slowly right at the shut-off valve. So I did some reading in my home plumbing book. I can try tightening the valve connections first, and if that doesn't work, I can replace the valve. It actually looks pretty easy. But I'm not going to touch anything until I figure out where the heck my water shut-off for the whole house is. I don't want to end up with water spraying everywhere and have no way to turn it off. That's really something I need to know anyway. There's a plumbing store right down the street who claims they can show you how to fix all kinds of leaks, so I hope they'll have a few ideas where I can look for the water shut-off.

UPDATE:
Talked to Miguel this morning- he knew right where the water shut off was and how to turn it off. I'm not going to go out on a limb and say I've stopped the leak, but with just a pair of pliers and a crescent wrench, I slowed it down considerably. Way to go me. AND, I just figured out how to have the correct time displayed on my blog. What a champ.