Friday

Today is day one of the city-wide garage sale. I am sitting in my garage, freezing my ass off. I am seriously contemplating closing up and going inside. It is 43 degrees. In May.

Our neighbor in the alley (she lives right behind us), Fran, stopped by and chatted for a while. She's a really neat lady. I have no idea how old she is, but I'm guessing late 70s. Very independent. She was telling me about all the different kinds of flowers she is growing from seeds. Still in her basement, of course, because it's just too cold for them outside. She gave me some vacuum cleaner bags to try to sell. She said that if I didn't sell them to just throw them away. I didn't tell her that I will probably end up doing just that with all the crap of mine that doesn't sell.

Among the things we're selling are the pictures that used to hang on our dining room walls in our Texas house. We have no use for them now, but it still makes me a little sad to sell them. I miss our Texas house so very much. Alex is so tired of hearing me complain about it. I love the layout of it, the big kitchen with lots of counter space, the huge walk-in closets, the attached garage... and it belongs to someone else now. I ask Alex from time to time if he thinks we could go back to that house and throw the current owners out and move back in. He always says no.

Our house here is okay. I thought I wanted an older house with character, but then I got one and realized that it's not all it's cracked up to be. Small closets, tiny kitchen (we're working on that, though), and small doorways - it was an ordeal to get our washer and dryer downstairs, and our kegerator will. not. fit. down in the basement. The detached garage is barely big enough for a car. And since it's detached, it really sucks in the winter when there is snow on the ground.

But - we have a backyard that has huge beautiful trees. Green grass (rather than brown dried-up stuff). A garden that actually produces things. We had a bountiful harvest of tomatoes last year. Alex tried for three years to get tomatoes to grow in our yard in Texas, with no luck.

And Minnesota's summers are far better than Texas' - but Texas definitely has Minnesota beat in the winter.

It's all relative, I suppose.