I'm tired. We pressure washed the house so that some weekend coming up we can paint the house. Why are we painting the house? Besides the fact that it needs it we had to buy new shutters and they didn't have the same color we already had up. We already have some of the u-paint shutters and they just didn't hold up well so we wanted some plastic good-for-the-environment shutters. Now the shutters don't match the trim....well you get the picture.

I didn't do any of the pressure washing other than pointing to a spot here or there that needed a second dosing. Frodo, Tobey and the boys did most of the work and I spent a good amount of time in the garden raking and planting a few new babies in the garden.

Now you might be wondering why on earth, on a Thursday, would we be washing the house. Or maybe you aren't wondering at all. We had to do it today because just recently, like in the last few days, the water nazis have decided to ban home pressure washing. You can hire someone to do it but you can't do it yourself. Which makes me really glad Tobey didn't just buy a pressure washer to the tune of $300 - $1000 because he didn't want to pay the $60 to rent a machine.

It seems we are in a drought in the Tampa Bay area. They also banned putting sod in a few weeks ago but revoked that ruling because the sod companies complained so much. Some of the other restrictions now in place are: no home car washing, you have to go to a car wash, no sprinkler system lawn watering except for one day a week from midnight to 4 a.m., on a full moon and only if your name is Bob. All of these new rules go into effect tomorrow and end on June 30th.

Everyone in this area is up in arms over the stringent guidelines and the news channels have been running some interesting, investigative stories. There is one guy that lives off Bayshore Drive in Tampa that uses the most water in the entire Tampa Bay area. Granted he is uber rich and to say his house is a mansion is an understatement. But he uses a million gallons of water a month. A million. His property looks lush and beautiful and he uses a million gallons a month. To put that in perspective, our family of 7 uses on average 30,000 - 40,000 gallons a month. And I am a water nazi, having worked in the water division for the last few years I have heard all the horror stories. We now have flapperless toilets, a special lawn meter for our outside watering and removed the faucet handles outside lest someone try to steal our water.

You would think that someone would put the kibosh on this elitest sort of watering and maybe these restrictions will. A woman was actually arrested a few weeks ago because she got caught watering on the wrong day. A summons was sent and she ignored it and a warrant was issued for her arrest. For watering. On the wrong day. Don't we have better things to do with our courts time?