5 thing Friday - storage, work woe, baby trees, reminders, the end of gifting season

The site of our new storage unit has a flat surface and gravel already:

Just need to buy the kit and build it, then move all of the barn contents into it so we can finish that out.  We want to do shiplap on a wall or two, and use some of the ideas we see in the tiny home at IKEA.

The hospital at night.

Things at work have not been rosy - I always want to feel hopeful because a lot of us that were there in the beginning still are, but there have been so many negative changes.  Its hard not to feel down in the mouth about it.  I remember we all had such great hopes...  While the new hospital was still on paper, the slogan was "do you see it?".  Now it might as well be "where did it go?"

Mother gave me some pecans that, while aren't especially good for eating as they are a year old, will grow into trees at Highlands given the chance.  Proof of that is a pecan tree that is growing smack dab in the middle of the fence line in our backyard.  The nut that was planted there by a squirrel many years ago was from nuts that we sat out there cracking, the kids and I.  Doesn't seem that long ago - less than 15 years, and it's a fairly large tree now.  I hope I can live long enough to see pecan trees at Highlands!

 

When we bought my Forrester, Hubby programmed a reminder or two in the memo screen that flashes on the dash.  One of them nags me for a week that his birthday is coming up, then on the actual day it posts a message.  It's fun - I need to program it to say random things throughout the year, just for grins.

In honor of his birthday I baked a Granny Smith Apple Pie before dashing off to work on Wednesday.  We ended up eating late - I was not home until 7:50 - but we got to chat and enjoy a bottle of wine as we waited for dinner to finish.  (side note: need to figure out why the oven takes so long to heat up)  He enjoyed getting a new pipe with some fresh tobacco, and a paper towel holder he wanted. (I'm not even kidding, he requested it....)  With his birthday over, it feels like the gifting season is really over.  It seems to start with The Girl's birthday in September and end Jan. 31 with Hubby's!

Welcome, February!  January was a loooong month...