Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for June 19, 2021

Garden magazine, just one of the many wish books.

Boy, is that the truth. I’m still addicted, though. Same with the garden books.

House porn?

I have lamented before about gardening and the lack there of which plagues my wife but this may be the year where her efforts may literally bear fruit. This may be the year when the “after” looks better than the “before.”

It’s also not as much fun when your back and knees no longer cooperate with your now feeble attempts to perform the tasks and build the projects in the DIY magazines. There are 3 precious commodities: good health, money and time. The trick is to have enough of all 3 simultaneously.

Learned a long time ago that seeds are the way to go, learn about the plants and where they will grow, not to mention getting the right soil for them!

hell of a lot cheaper than buying fully grown plants.

Have had many passersby comment on how they absolutely love our garden!

And then you realize that it’s OK that you’ll never afford a thing – because you never really needed it.

nicely said very true

That last panel hits too true for many of us millennials who are still working on affording houses. We’ll worry about gardening later.

https://www.investopedia.com/news/real-reasons-millennials-arent-buying-homes/

I used to love HGTV and seeing how to do projects. Then instead of “you can do this” it became “with a couple of hundred thousand dollars, you can pay someone to do this.” It kills me when someone starts out with a $250,000 budget and voila! Look what we did! I’d like them to say “I have a budget of $10,000, let’s see what you can do with that.” Maybe it’s different now, I don’t know because I have not watched in years.

When I see those lovely “outdoor rooms” I think, give them a couple of weeks and they are sweeping out spider webs, leaves, pine pollen, dirt dust, etc. Not so beautiful now, right?

I don’t subscribe to Good Housekeeping; I can’t pass the physical.

It’s a form of Turner’s triangle: you only get to have two of time, health, money.

This was nailed in the last century when Marge Simpson was seen perusing a copy of “Better Homes Than Yours”.

I enjoy the home improvement magazines with articles like “Turn your chimney into a laundry chute” and “Turn your septic tank into a swimming pool!”

Last panel…notice Arlo’s eyes.

That’s why it’s BETTER Homes and Gardens. Better homes than yours.

News"paper", has a news letter via email,(sort of headlines news) Love when they have an article on the lack of affordable housing..large number of evictions, etc. Followed shortly by the real estate section’s “House of the Week” for a mere $999.999

True story

I can’t speak for Janis, but, when I look at the cost of some things, I feel as if my wife and I should read “Home Tolerable.”

So, instead of stuff you could break your back doing yourself, it’s stuff you could go broke buying.

Less perspiration, more aspiration.

Same is true with all the sailing magazines Arlo probably gets.

Janis voices one of those quiet behind the scene truths.

Friend showed me one of her guilty pleasures.. https://www.homesandgardens.com/

Or need it.

We used to like Southern Living, especially in the fall with the pumpkin or pecan pie cover shots, but we stopped subscribing when we couldn’t tell the articles from the ads.

Same goes for car magazines. But you never know; maybe one day that ’68 Mustang Fastback in candy apple red will happen (or the 87 Buick Grand National or the Dodge Challenger Stars & Stripes edition in a stunning olive color with flat black racing stripes…)

I used to subscribe to Coastal Living and realized the same thing, Janis!

As a kid the sears catalog was the object of my desires, especially the winter / christmas one.

That’s what happened to Yankee mag. A Yankee can’t even relate to that rag.