I'm being bombarded by dogs.

[sarea]

Okay, I've been a member of doggie_pix for many months now, and there have been maybe 5 posts total. Suddenly today there are like, dozens! Post after post of doggie pics! I'm glad the community is more active, but does everyone have to post all at once? I'm going to have to stop watching it if this continues.

The pest control guy has come and gone. He was very nice. He took a look at the ventilation holes from the yard, and did a quick scan of the attic. He thinks it's all the work of starlings and didn't see signs of any other kind of rodent infestation (thank goodness). He didn't even see any nests, just all the insulation that the birds were starting to rip out. He quoted about $250 to cover the work he'd need to do. I know you're supposed to get several quotes and what not when you're looking for people to do work for you, but I think it's a reasonable amount, I liked the guy, and I'd like to get it done quickly (hopefully before I leave for Esalen), rather than take the time to have several people come out to give me estimates. He did mention something else that I already knew I'd have to do at some point: get the trees by the side of the house trimmed back. The branches have grown so much that they're now hitting the side of the house, which he pointed out is just easy access for critters to get to the roof. The reason *I* wanted to get them trimmed back is that when it's windy you can hear the branches scrape against the side of the house and it's really creepy. SIGH. These are the types of home maintenance things that I'm not used to having to deal with, having lived in an apartment/condo type setting for a lot of my adult life.

Also, the fic-writing situation is becoming dire. I've made a deal with myself; for every sentence I write of this journal entry, I have to write a sentence of fic.

Had a very good weekend. First was Saturday, which I've already written about. Next was Sunday, with the D/G gals! Yay! What a lovely bunch of ladies: adelagia, elle_blessing, lyndsiefenele, and slitherhither. <3 Y'all are fab. I hope you know that. Can't wait to get together again.

I woke up early, so made my way to Kirkland with the intention of checking out some of the consignment shops there before lunch. There were two quite close to one another. The first one was just opening as I got there, and it was tiny. Super, super small. It was a closet compared to the one corianderstem and I went to in Ballard. However, I managed to snag *3* pairs of 7 For All Mankind jeans (my absolute favorite kind of jeans; they just FIT me), all in excellent condition, all 3 for less than what I would have paid for 1 pair, new. This is especially good because my current 7s are on the verge of disintegrating (in a most inconvenient location), and I've been resigning myself to having to go to Nordstrom and getting a new pair. So yay! I also got another pair of WH/BM jeans (yes, I won't be needing to buy jeans for quite awhile), a sweater, and a long sweater jacket that I adored. I went to the other shop and got 3 tops (their jeans selection wasn't nearly as good), as well as an impulse buy ... a red leather jacket. It's not totally Heathers-style outlandish, but I've never had anything like that before and don't know how often I'd wear it. It just looked good on, and up-leveled the casual outfit I had on, without being overly garish. It's hard to explain and maybe I was on crack when I tried it on. However, the reason I bought it was because I figured it would be an easy way to "dress up" any of my outfits, which tend toward the comfortable rather than fashionable these days. So, yeah. All the shopping I intended to do on Saturday ended up getting done on Sunday instead.

Then was lunch w/ the D/G gals, and we managed to make it through almost the entire meal without mentioning fandom, but then of course we HAD to go there. I mean, it's what we have in common! It's why we were meeting up in the first place! I'm sure it sounded like total gibberish to anyone who might have overheard us, and that's perfectly okay. There was a tense moment when Draco/Hermione was mentioned and I wondered if there was going to be bloodshed, but we managed to make it through with all limbs intact.

It was such a nice day that when I went home, I actually did some gardening. I know, I'm as shocked as you are. Earlier that morning (I told you I got up early) I'd gone to buy some seed packets and soil. (I really don't understand all the different varieties of soil there are, or how to use them properly, but I hope that dirt is basically dirt and if I use potting soil outdoors it won't totally ruin everything. I mean, nature has somehow managed to propagate itself all these many years without the help of mankind, so surely if I don't use fertilizer correctly it won't backfire on me too much?) I 'planted' some of the seeds (depending on what it said on the back of the seed packet), including: zucchini, carrots, beets, chives, Swiss chard, and watermelon -- just for fun! Then, again due to packet instructions, I started some little indoor ones, such as 3 kinds of tomatoes, basil, rosemary, and cauliflower. I really, really want the tomatoes to do well. That's the only plant I really care about. The other ones will be fun to see if they do well, but if they don't, I won't be too sad about it. But man, I really want dozens and dozens of tomatoes. Also it'd be great if one or two of the basil plants did well. But that's all I'm really hoping for. The watermelon, especially, is totally pie in the sky. It will be interesting to see if anything comes of that.