I may not have a vast expanse of real estate to play with but at least I have my own little patch of green eight floors up in the sky.

I was finally able to do something about my long-held plan to replace the tiles on our outdoor balcony with something more presentable and in the process got to play amateur landscape architect with some new plants from the garden center. If I had to complain, just clearing the ugly old tiles, cleaning the entire space of old leaves and dirt, and laying the new tiles, most of which required some measuring and sawing, took an entire @#$%$ day. It didn’t do my lower back any favors and I was sore all over for the next two nights. I’m really no longer cut out for all this manual labor. I did get a lot of compliments from my partner who told me more than a few times how great it now looked. Always nice to be appreciated.