progress shots

Once things calm down a bit, I'll get organized and pull together an album of before/during/after shots of The Great Landscaping Project of 2013...in the meantime, a few progress shots of the front half of the house:

Looking slightly left out the front door [the neighbor's house is further away than the steep hill makes it look]; hillside being replanted, new irrigation system being installed

Down the front of the house: driveway extension, more hillside prep. Eventually we will replace the shed with a garage/workshop.

Side of the house - lots being done here: water, electric, irrigation; paving and cleaning up what was a really random and ugly area; making a better spot for green/trash/recycling cans; fence being extended and gate added

more, but less

A close friend of mine has seen more rough times and draining circumstances than ten people should ever experience in their lifetime...they are currently dealing with yet another dying friend, sitting with them, getting hit with that reality check yet again. As we were sending messages back and forth, I found myself typing out the bit below. I'm posting it here so I can have it for later...it is the closest I've gotten yet to fitting words to some of the stuff rattling around in my head.

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I'm not afraid of death, and I really don't even worry about dying myself. It's the void, that hole shaped like the person you lose, that is hardest for me....the thousand and one times that you think "I totally need to tell them about this", only to have the reality hit you again. It hits a little less hard over time, but never completely goes away...and I sometimes feel like a bit of flimsy, delicate lace, riddled with holes that used to be filled with the people who were a fundamental part of what makes me "me". I'm still me, but a little less so for having lost them.