Margaret Wang Thirty-something year-old software developer, runner, traveller, and aspiring feng-shui master with the occasional observation on everything else.

Basement demo

To save a bit on labor costs, Mike and I volunteered to do some of the demolition ourselves. After my race yesterday and after Mike's workout at the gym, he strapped the kiddo to his back, and we knocked down the walls in our basement. The work went surprisingly fast, and maybe that was due to the shoddy job at putting them up in the first place (which we found receipts in the wall dated back to 1984!). It was great fun, though, and I'm excited to attack the kitchen cabinets...until I realize what a pain it is to not have a working kitchen!

I took some photos, though the "before" photo was taken after we started taking the walls down.

Where’s Buddha?

We have this flower box next to the front door. When we moved into the house, the box contained an overgrown, scratchy evergreen bush of some sort. It blocked access to the water spicket, and since neither of us were at all fond of it, Mike had hacked it to bits, ultimately pulling it out of the box. What was remaining were a few purple tulips (also planted by the previous owners), which were beautiful, but just not enough to fill the box and make it look intentionally planted. Last fall, I decided I wanted to plant succulents in our flower box to "fill in the space." In doing so, I decided to take out as many bulbs as I could find. It was after all, going to be a mini succulent garden, not a bulb garden. I figured the squirrels would find any remaining I missed. This spring, I come to find that not only did the squirrels not do their part, but I had also severely underestimated the number of bulbs planted in that space. Mike now teases me about Buddha happily being lost in a forest of tulips.