Champagne tastes on a beer budget...

Funny how simple often seems to cost more, and my quest for this or that leads to something totally impossible...

Take wind chimes...

I'd like a nice, large bamboo wind chime for the corner of the shed. I don't like little tinkly chimes, or fancy ones, or goofy ones; I prefer those that make you think of a mountain stream, or church bells, or a Tibetan monastery. The pentatonic scales ones are nice, too. Thinking, oh $20 tops.

Do not, repeat, do NOT go to this site--http://www.whimsicalwinds.com. They offer sound files, so you can HEAR their sound. The ones I really like are just a tad more...

OK, so we'll make one. I can find bamboo...it won't sound like Westminster Abbey, but then this isn't London...

So. We decided to have a motion sensor light on the deck, just so we know if someone's over there. (We HAVE been more than a little troubled by vandals this year...) We weren't in the mood to go shopping on the Saturday before the 4th, so I checked online...

TOO MANY CHOICES. And the one I liked best, a very simple, almost Japanese one that really seemed to complement the lines of the shed--it's more Craftsman style, really--cost way, way too much. As in WAY.

Meh.