It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood...

.... and the temperatures are finally back where they belong.

However, with all the snow storms pounding along the eastern coast, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we do indeed have a lot more of these sunny and warm days.

I've been calling workmen to get estimates on things to be done around the property... and I have high hopes that everyone I call will be here when they say they'll be here.  So far, one man was here right on time this morning, and said he'd get back to me next week with a diagram and his estimate.  Another man never returned my phone call, and if he doesn't call back tomorrow, then he's off the list completely. I have high hopes for the first guy, because he did work for a friend up the road and his project was more than satisfactory, it was very nicely done by a good crew.

So difficult to get handymen and construction-type men to do work out here.... and for the life of me, I don't know why.  My husband was 'in charge' of all of this project-work out on the property... but he finally realized that he doesn't have the time for this stuff and he certainly doesn't have the time to do the work himself.  So now I'm the one with the to-do list (which fills a bunch of pages in a notebook) and I was punching numbers into that phone as soon as the cold weather broke and the sun came out.

We were spoiled with the first handyman we hired a few years ago.... he did work here on and off for two years. Everything he did was done very well, he was always on time, very polite and very nice, and we thought he'd be working for us for years to come. Oh well.  He went on to bigger things, building houses and barns and the like..... and I guess doing little day-jobs here and there isn't what he wants to do now.

So now I'm searching for a new handyman.... one who gets here on time, does what we need him to do, doesn't charge a king's ransom, and cleans up his mess before he leaves so it doesn't look like a work-in-progress at the end of the day.

Maybe I'm being too picky... but I don't think we have to settle for a messy worker who shows up late with a cigarette in one hand and a cell phone in the other and couldn't care less if a two-hour job takes him two days to complete because he's so slow that you could count the hairs on his chin as he's trimming the blessed trees.

But on the bright side... and there always is one.... today was a beautiful day.