We spent this past Sunday gardening. Even as I type this it feels weird. Gardening was, oh I don’t know, number five on the list of Ten Things I Never Thought I’d be Doing on a Sunday not so many years ago. Life always surprises you. Anyway, we spent the day planting rose bushes, spider plants, one cactus and various other little flowers, the names of which escape me now. It’s been raining off and on over the past couple of weeks and Sunday was the day in the middle of another storm front, so we seized the opportunity to put the finishing touches on the backyard. Now we’re finally ready to sell! Just kidding. Sort of. No, now we’re ready to have a party. Chuck has decided that the first party should be for the neighbors and realtors, so they can see all of the work we’ve done. When he first mentioned this to me, my heart actually skipped a beat and I nearly blacked out. I thought I recovered pretty quickly and had hidden my shock so well he wouldn’t notice. Not so; he started laughing and asked what I thought of this plan. I answered carefully, “Well, it’s certainly an idea,” which struck me as a nicely noncommittal answer. He said, “It scares you to death, admit it, the thought of all those strangers walking through the house and yard.” It was true; it really did alarm me. I chalk these sorts of differences of opinion to his being from Colorado and me being from southern California. Either that or he inherited a friendly gene that I entirely missed out on. The thought of strange people (I know, I know they’re our neighbors, but John Wayne Gacy was somebody’s neighbor too, it should be noted). Whatever the case, I’m sort of hoping that he will forget this whacky idea and go with his original plan to invite people we actually know over. Here’s hoping.

This concludes the seemingly endless saga of the backyard landscaping. Well, except for the debut of the pond. My friend Cheryl suggested we break a bottle of champagne on the pond to christen it, but that would probably just kill the goldfish and we’d end up with a lot of broken glass in the pond so we’re going with something safer, like a moment of silence, or a small prayer of thanks that it’s all over – something like that.