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Today's assignment: Outdoor lighting

We're taking a trip to Lowe's this a.m. to scout for new outdoor lighting for the front and back of our house. The lights the house came with must be the cheapest possible ones they could find. Because they're all rusted out and were generic and ugly from the start.

Then there's the fact that one of the backyard lights lost its dome or bowl or whatever the glass part's called, thanks to the DirecTV guy. He was in a hurry to put up our dish, and it showed. I think he smacked it with a ladder or some sort of dish-installation paraphernalia. Anyway, it shattered in 412 pieces. It's been like that for a year. I think it's time to take care of business.

We'll probably go for something mission-style. It won't match the architecture of our house (early '90s cookie cutter) but it will suit our tastes. I'll post pics once they're up.

The dogs will be thrilled to better see their nighttime nemeses.

Update: This little project has resulted in many naughty words being flung about. Tim's also on his second trip to Ace Hardware to buy things that were not included in the lighting kit but which are necessary to be able to actually put the light up and have it fully functional. One, screws that are the right damn size to put the thing up and two, weatherproof caulking to fill the gaps around the light where we can't seem to get the base tight enough to properly seal the stinking light. I'm curious whether the difficulty in assembly is directly related to the price paid for the lighting. Because I'm not sure we'd have such troubles if we'd have bought the $70 lights instead of the $19.95 special.

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