5 bullet Saturday - 20 for 2020 edition

Here are some things we have been working on at home that have been on our list of New Years resolutions.

1. Start an herb garden. I started from seed: basil, rosemary, thyme, and cilantro. They are outside on one of my decks. I have 3 decks so I have to specify "one of" my decks, you see. That's one of my favorite things to brag about. I have also upgraded one of my other decks by adding some patio furniture. I greatly regret not doing this sooner. Mike and I love having meals or coffee on this particular deck now because the view is incredible. Maybe I didn't think of it sooner because it rains so much or is otherwise too hot. Or the wasps. I don't know. But at the moment it is perfect and we love it.
2. Upgrade the record player. I bought a new one but haven't set it up yet. But I'm very excited about it.
3. Decorate the wall over the sofa. I don't know why I didn't do this sooner, but I just got out some existing Oregon artwork that we previously had hanging and I put it back up. I am also going to hang the girls' ukeleles over the piano so they function as artwork and are off of the floor. I guess I didn't do all this before because we kept rearranging the living room. But now we have finally settled on an arrangement that we like, so I can finally commit to putting something on the walls.
4. Make the 2019 photo yearbook. Done. I don't really like making the yearbooks so last year it took forever and Mae ended up doing a lot of it. This year I found out Shutterfly will make it for you and currently for free, so I took them up on it. I'm pretty sure I had looked into that about a year ago...it's called "make my book" or "design my book" or something like that, and at the time it was not what it sounds like. But since then it appears they got some humans involved and now an actual human will design the book. So Mae chose the photos and I sent them to the human and the human designed my book for free. I just added some text and then hit the Buy button. Done!
5. Learn the Wolf Song on the piano. I have completed this with chords and vocals so I guess it's technically done, but I still want the teacher to show me how to add some more melody to it. He tried to show me some improv techniques on Zoom but I'm not getting it so I might have to wait until we can do in-home lessons again. In the meantime I'm just practicing until I have it memorized. I still can't play it without the sheet music and I'd like to be able to do that someday.