A So Cal Girl in the Desert

Another house update! Today they installed the blinds and built the rock waterfall for the pool. Take a look...

Here's the dude building the waterfall. They brought a bunch of big boulders and then broke them up into medium and smaller-sized pieces on-site. Kinda cool. It's not pre-made or anything...they just sort-of improvise as they go.



Here is a cool shot of the living room with blinds on the lower windows. We're leaving the upper windows bare.



Here's the family room with blinds...



And here's how the pool looked at the end of the day today...

I'm so excited about the house, I can't sleep. I've only had two hours of sleep, and I have to wake up in a little over two hours (I mean, if I was asleep, I'd have to wake up in two hours). You know when that sense of panic sets in and you know you won't be able to function the next day? That's where I'm at right now. They always say you should get up and do something else, so here I am. It's not working yet.

We met a landscaping contractor at the house yesterday morning, and while we were there, they started spraying the pool. Yes, spraying! I had no idea how a pool was made until I saw it with my own eyes. You've all seen pictures of the metal rebar shell. Well, a guy gets in the pool with a fire-hose-looking thing and sprays wet concrete up and down the sides and bottom of the pool until it fills in behind the frame and buries it. Then these other guys come in and shape the steps and the areas around the light and filter, etc., and smooth the surface. We watched the whole thing from our walk deck. The guy that has to spray the stuff has to be really strong and very skilled. He was trying to teach one of the other guys how to do it, and warned him not to kink the hose or he'd be shot up ten feet into the air and slammed down to the ground, not to mention we'd all be injured by the spraying concrete. No, thank you!!! Who ever knew that this type of dangerous job existed?

Unfortunately, we didn't have the camera with us. I got some poor quality pics with my cell phone, but I don't know how to upload them to the computer. If I figure it out, I'll post them.

Gonna try to get some sleep now...

When I went by the house this morning, the carpet was in! We love it, considering it's carpet. If I had my way, the whole house would be tile and wood, but that costs a small fortune, so we're happy with the carpet. It really looks like a home, now! It's still pretty messy, but the painters will be in today doing touch-ups, and then the cleaning crew comes in. Our superintendent was pressure washing the garage this morning. Oh! And our gas is on, so when I went in the heater was on and the house was toasty warm. I also got to see the fire places lit up for the first time! Yeah! So excited!!!! Less than four weeks now!

Here's the dining area...



And the staircase...



And the loft...

We've been thinking of taking up Geocaching for over a year, now, but when we found out our good friends, the Ds, go Geocaching, we just HAD to start. If you've never heard of it before, Geocaching is an adventure game that involves using a GPS to guide you to a waypoint that has a "cache" in it that another Geocacher has placed. A cache can be pretty much anything, but always includes a log book. The most common type of cache is a sealed container that contains several items. You can take an item if you leave one behind. Geocaching has also been described as "hiking with a purpose." You find the waypoints for the caches on the Geocaching Web site, where you also register a team name and log all of your finds. Our team is "The 'Copa Dog Cachers."

There are also special items called "Travel Bugs" that are tracked through the site. Pretty cool! The Ds, AKA Team Willy Nilly, allowed us to "grab" the "hannah Travel Bug" from them. As a first travel bug, it was great, because it involved looking at pictures of Geocachers' pets, and then adding photos of our own. We placed the Travel Bug in the Team Willy Nilly cache we found on Sunday. There are lots of special items, and lots of special types of caches, but we still have a lot to learn about them before I report on that.

Since we don't have our own GPS unit, yet, Team Willy Nilly let us borrow theirs, and they escorted us, too! They did a good job of letting us find it without giving us too many hints. We had to drive about twenty miles east of Maricopa, off-road through the desert, walk through a firing area (no one was there, thankfully), and then up a rock mound. We found the cache nestled under some rocks in a crevice. It was really fun to see it peeking out and know we had succeeded.

Here's a picture of B with the hannah Travel Bug before we placed it.



Here are Mrs. D and Little D getting set to hike.



Hubby and B with the GPS unit. Getting warmer...



Found it! Mr. D, Hubby, and B.



Examining the contents of the cache and enjoying the view...

I found out yesterday that one of my very favorite clients, Ozzie, passed away. I knew it was coming because I just saw him a couple of weeks ago, but it's still really hard to hear. Ozzie was ten years old. He was a beautiful Australian Shepherd/Chow Chow mix. When I first met him, his owners told me not to pay him much attention because he would fight with his brother if I did. I tried my best to follow their instructions, but I found Ozzie to be so sweet, so I couldn't help but give him attention. So every time I came to take care of him we would hug and kiss. He liked the natural tuna treats I gave him. He had a great smile. Poor guy had cancer. When I was there a couple of weeks ago, his right rear leg was all swollen with the disease. He could barely walk on it. At one point I thought he was going to pass away while I was there, but he didn't. It was very hard to say goodbye to him during my last visit. I laid on the floor with him and pet him a lot. I told him that he would get to run and play again soon and that he should be brave. This is part of the job that I wish I didn't have to deal with. I'll sure miss Ozzie.