Location, location...location??

Sooooo....perception counts for a lot. Attitude, too. Focus.

Our little shed looks as if it's in an idyllic wooded setting, and it is...sort of.

It used to be a narrow city lot with a house on it much like this one, but it burned years ago. Then I bought it to prevent an apartment house being built where there's scarcely any parking now. Then it was my garden. THEN the trees grew up...so now it's a sort of wooded setting, yep...

But I do have to focus my attention...

This is looking back West, towards the house we live in...it's wonderfully close, which is why we're building here!

Looking East, at the base of the wooded hillside that has a house on it to the far left, I discovered an amazing stand of jewelweed! You'd think it was on a creek bank...of course as much rain as we've gotten this year, it sort of is. All the runoff from the hill comes down the alley. (Unless it's TOO much and then the street out front is a river, as are our yards, and basements are wading pools.)

Out in front of the shed's French doors and just beyond the small volunteer mulberry that offers its cool sweetness in the morning, this is what I see looking North. The alley isn't a through one, and isn't maintained by the City, though it used to be. We keep our end of it mowed and picked up...

That's our fence to the left, and the light diagonal at right is the road leading up the hill...also the path of all the runoff, of course, and the occasional vehicle that loses control on the turn when it's wet, icy, or snowy. EEP.

Looking South, however, there are cars, garages, trash cans, houses, and three houses down, the small, somewhat noisy state highway (especially during rush hour--or as Joseph calls it, the Excelsior Springs Rush Minute. You can tell he commuted to D.C. for years, can't you!). Hence the extended storage area on the South side of the shed! Blocks a lot of that...and offers privacy.

One of our longtime neighbors down that way can't seem to talk below a shout when he's outdoors. Sometimes it's a laughing shout, sometimes it erupts into violence. After all these years, I've learned to ignore it...but still go check it out when I see flashing lights of police cars or ambulances.

So not entirely idyllic, but the idea is that you learn to focus, and concentrate on the positive, and don't hold out for perfection.

As they used to say, it's "close enough for jazz." (Or is that "close enough for government work..."?)