Well, they finished most of the major work on the house today! I'm amazed at how different it looks - it's SO much better than it had been before. The house had been a kind of dingy white with black shutters, but now the siding is kind of latte coloured with white trim at on the edges and corners - when Nyght gets some of the photos on the computer I may post a couple. They replaced the back door that was on the verge of falling apart because of Xander's tendency to try to eat anything he can - plus he and Tasha scratching on it to let us know they want to come back in - with a really nice STEEL door - it's gonna take Xan a bit more effort to damage this one, I think! They put in new windows that reported to reduce energy costs by up to 35%, so that will be helpful, too! They removed all the board with wood rot and replaced them with new wood, and completely re-landscaped the area where we had some crazy, overgrown bushes. They even planted some flowers at the base of this huge maple tree we have in our front yard (oh, is that tree beautiful - in the fall, when it's leaves are all flame red and bright orange, you can actually see our tree from a few blocks down the street!)

The tree lady (there were SO many people here, I really didn't get too many people's actually names, but it's ok, because she never did get my name right either - LOL!) managed to get me a birch and a rowan that she planted in the same hole so that they'll grow up together the way the birch and elm had, and I also now have an actual red oak tree in my yard! I'm really excited about this because when each of those species is tied in a very special way to my faith. The red oak is sacred to Thor, who is my Patron (hence my nick, thorswitch,) so having one in my yard is like having a piece of him there, helping watch over me. When it gets big enough to need some pruning, I'll probably see if I can't get someone to trim a decent sized branch and maybe have someone carve a blessing bowl for me or even a set of runes. An altar tool made from a sacred tree in on my land would be very special, indeed!

Thor is also associated with birch trees, and his wife, Sif, is associated with the rowan, so having the birch and rowan growing together from the same planting hole has a very beautiful symbolism, too. I'm amazed at how well that ended up working out. In many ways, it's actually a better arrangement for my grove than what I had before. The Gods to work in mysterious ways, eh?

I have to say, I am very grateful to my Gods for leading these people to us, and grateful to *their* God (or Gods) for encouraging the to do this kind of charitable work. I tend to be a bit cynical at times, so this kind of an outpouring of generosity just amazes the daylights out of me!

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Speaking of generosity, I saw a nice example of it today on one of the shows I watch. In the grand scheme of things, it's not a big deal at all, but it's just nice to see stuff like this sometimes. I was watching one of the Challenge shows they do on Food Network where they bring in a bunch of cake designers who know the basic concept of the cake they're going to be making, but don't know the specifics until they get there. In this episode - (which was a repeat, so some of you may have seen it before) - the challenge was to create an engagement cake for a couple who got engaged right before the competition. It was cute - the man had told his girlfriend that they had a chance to be on a Food Network challenge helping out some of the competitors, and she - knowing he was "wanting his 15 minutes of fame" (as she put it) agreed. So, when the show begins, they two walk out there and she's not quite sure what they'll be doing, when he turns to her, gets down on his knee and proposes. Luckily, she said yes, or this would have been a VERY short episode!

Anyway, about 5 hours into the 6 hour competition, one of the cake designers collapsed and they had to take her to the hospital. That left her assistant there with an uncompleted cake. One of the other competing teams decided that they could make make their cake a bit less fancy than they'd planned, so that one of them could go help the assistant finish her teams cake, while the other guy work on their own cake. Then, when the 2nd guy got done with their cake, he went over to help make sure the assistant's cake was done.

I just thought that was the coolest thing. I mean, it wasn't like they were completely done, they still had work to do, and in order to help their competitor be able to have a finished cake to show, they actually did LESS on their own cake than they'd planned - which was something that could have hurt their own chances - to make sure that another competitor could at least have something nice to offer as well.

Sometimes I think it's sad that small things like that really affect me, because it seems like those kind of things should be the norm, not the exception, and that they're rare enough that I take notice of them, it makes me kind of sad.

Unfortunately, my DVR cut off for some reason before the couple could give their opinions on the designs, taste the cakes and decide on a winner, but I think I probably saw the best part of it, anyway.