Thursday, December 22, 2011

Unexpected Gifts

I live in a small town in central Texas, and, perhaps because of its size or maybe because I'm retired and home all the time, we've come to know our delivery people more than we ever did back in Dallas. Each year at Christmas, we tip them: the postman, the alternate post-lady, the UPS guy, the newspaper delivery-person, and the garbage pick-up guys. The hub's mother did this when he was growing up so it's intrinsic to who he is. (My family didn't, but we barely had enough to make ends meet back then.)

All that to say that this year our post-lady (alternate) gave us a lovely thank-you gift: an aerial photo of our house.


We're the house at the bottom right of the photo. See the little building with the roof the same color as the main house? That's my studio. Behind it, with a different color roof (that was intentional, btw), is the hub's workshop. The metal roof covers where he parks his pick-up truck. To the side, or top as it appears in the photo, is the greenhouse. Our property goes from the street on the right (out of view) and the dirt road in the back.

Here's a cropped version of just our property.


I know the little thingies (actually they're trellises with vines) that appear to be in the middle of the back yard look odd aerially, but hey originally marked our property line. We bought the second lot several years after we moved in.

To the north of us is the golf course--see that outcropping of granite? Magnificent, innit? It looks even prettier from my back porch.

 

IMHO, the thank-you gift is worth far more than the gratuity we gave. What do you think?

I realize I've been very lax about posting and I can't promise that will change significantly anytime soon. So, those of you who are still reading this blog, thank you. Merry Christmas and a happy New Year to all of you.