::Castle under construction::

Just joking?

2012-02-23T08:36:00.000-08:00

Over a year ago I posted about my 1st carpet cleaning experience:
http://castledebauchery.blogspot.com/2011/02/2010-ugly-truth.html

http://castledebauchery.blogspot.com/2010/09/edited-stairs.html

Today I take a look at my stats to see I have become quite popular with a forum post here
http://www.truckmountforums.com/general-carpet-cleaning-and-upholstery-discussion/25165-how-do-you-handle-your-customers-complaints-can-make-or-break-you.html

Welcome to the world of truck mounted carpet cleaners!

I was feeling justified with the original poster:

"How do you handle your customer's complaints can make or break you.

I ran across this blog accidentally,I just stumbled over it. What I found on there is a worthy read for any professional carpet cleaner. It is a blog by a lady who went into detail about her experience with a carpet cleaner she had hired to clean her home. I was astounded by it. Should give you pause about ever ticking any of your customers off and not taking their complaints seriously. The complaint is about half way down the page from this link. Btw, I think this was a legitimate complaint.
http://castledebauchery.blogspot.com...gly-truth.html/

And then I read on....
Why did I take the terrible picture of the van with a sign in the driveway?
(I took 10,000 pictures that year-because I never know what I am going to say here on the blog. Also it was on my camera phone, so quality was low, and I may have sent to Travis to show my glee at having fresh carpets!)

"She sounds a little wacky too, "he advertised in my driveway" LOL.( I had never hired a carpet cleaner before! And he didn't ask!)
All worried he knows where she lived and yet still decided to post a manifesto about a carpet cleaning job. Sounds like 2 fruitcakes found each other."
(Wow-really? I never posted his information! You did that.. read on...)

The next guy seems to be with me on the advertising thing and carpet cleaning thing...
He quotes me
"I should have sent him packing after reading this from his website:
High Powered Truck-Mounted "Quality" Steam Cleaning!
And then he showed up in this old van and advertised in my driveway."
ok ok, I was new at this blog thing. I am not that great of a writer. I am wacky. I was a novice at hiring carpet cleaners...but Truck mounted vs VAN mounted... Hey I was new! I didn't know truck=van!
Also below the picture where I said that--I also said, I do not mind his advertising, that was just details.. it was the only picture I had...and this gang of carpet cleaners slamming on me did not read the full 2 posts on the subject...

"She is a little wacky too"

Yes, yes I am. I write like I think. Who would ever read the blog if I wasn't slightly silly?
It would be a very very short blog. Something like:
We bought a house
We had our carpets cleaned.
Cleaner yelled at us
Tore out carpet on stairs.
Ho hum, maybe next time it will go better.
I planted seeds, they grew, we ate harvest, we Bbq'd a lot.
etc...

HECK NO!

Aww... and then the original poster again--I like this guy!
"I admit she may be a little fruity, but her complaint is valid. I've had fruity customers too, but if they complain I don't yell at them on the phone and disregard their complaints. I would have been all over this. I would have gotten over there asap to see what happened and try to make it right even if I had to buy them a new carpet. He shouldn't have soaked the stairs down in the first place, but if he had taken 10 extra minutes to get up the excess I doubt he would have had a problem. Now he has a sworn enemy out to get him. The difference between an excellent job and a poor job that causes call backs and problems is usually just a matter of a few extra minutes. Of course, knowing what you are doing helps too."

And then this guy
"She got upset he put out a sign!!"
(I did no such thing. I only stated he put out a sign! If this guy had read down to the next sentence, he would have known. Also, maybe I shouldn't use so many exclamation marks?!)
Same guy says
"If he ruined the stairs he should have taken care of the problem but I agree that she seems a little nutty."

So lets see.... I am nutty, fruity, wacky, fruitcake & fruitloops. Oh and I am lying about my experience. Because that is what this blog here is for... okay...

Moving on... what I did not do was share the evil carpet cleaners details, the carpet cleaning forum did that! How they got the info from the low quality photo I posted I do not know.

I really wanted to comment on that thread but I would have to register and I just don't care to register just to tell my story to the other carpet cleaners of the world.

I also did not review my 2nd carpet cleaner that I hired once we moved upstairs. A reputable company, decent price. I enjoyed the work both times I called them back... but the guy they sent out shared some overly personal information that he probably shouldn't have... so as great a job he did... I will keep it to myself. I am just not a reviewer.

So this has turned into a rant and not a single picture! When I first read those comments I was feeling like I should justify myself... but now as I am about to post it, it has become funny.
I almost deleted all my words and just posted the link that made me so famous, but didn't want to waste all those !!!!!!!!!!! I used.

Let us see what we were up to this time last year..

Picking a stain which went unused

Picking handles for the 2nd time

Ug--when my kitchen was in the garage!!

And the pink primer!

Also last February, we had a dusting of snow and Travis made a snow angel ;)

I am so glad we are done with the kitchen. I know we finished close to 6 months ago and I have cooked several new meals up here since... It is just about time to tell you about it in the next blog!!

In the new year

2012-01-02T12:35:00.000-08:00

Happy New Years everyone!

As the sun set on 2011... (and I wasn't upset about it going either) I had some grand ideas on how to proceed in 2012.

We all have the standard list of unkept resolutions :
Eat less, drink less, save money, pay off debt, see friends more often, make phone calls....

I think a more productive idea would be to get some going for the house!
Some people exchange shiny jewelry for Christmas, while we buy shiny things for the house!
It is a good thing we got started in December, as it breaks up the cost of my "lets get things done and not spend any money" list.

I was entertaining the idea of 30 mini goals in 30 days, but couldn't come up with all 30.
Not to mention while I am making my list they are getting achieved by a certain MF I know...
I am definitely NOT complaining about that.

Big cheap resolution #1
Tell you about my kitchen!
I am working on it-- Only J stand in the way now!
Then the long awaited oddly boring reveal "K for Kitchen"
Compared to where we were 1 year ago...I guess it is pretty exciting.

Which will bring us to my 2nd resolution:
#2 Cook 52 new recipes... starting... 2 days ago! Does that count? Or am I still at 52?
I put off making anything hard while we were in the basement due to the counter space and then while this kitchen was under construction. Now I have that bug again with a new cook book AND counter space.

Lemon Risotto is not picturesque but very tasty. Plus it includes vodka!

Served with pork stirfry, odd combo, but super delicious indeed.

We have got a head start during our holiday break(listed in bold) with the most important items. Though #2 is pretty darn important!

Clean under fridge grate
Install Smoke detectors $
Wipe window sills
Paint downstairs living room $
paint downstairs bedroom $
Install wire shelf in upstairs bedrooms $
Dust hanging lights in kitchen and dining room
Scrub front deck
Buy Ladder $
Scrape 1 part of ceiling
Investigate dishwasher
Research floors for kitchen
Bed room lights $
Paint accent walls in Kitchen(this justifies the ladder)
Dust plants
Install remaining outlets
Move light switch downstairs
Paint pantry & closet doors $
Make a 2 week meal plan
Clean bathroom ceiling fan
re caulk windows
re caulk bathrooms
inspect front outdoor light
tell you about my kitchen!
and 5 more boring things I am sure will come up along the way!

As you can see some are super easy and can be achieved quickly and others will take an investment and planning.

Now for the items we got a head start on...

#4 I am sure you all remember the awesome paint job in the basement?
The previous owner seemed to have only a 5 gallon bucket of paint but included the ceiling in the job--running out right over the fridge(with 3 colors showing!) so it was super noticeable and we were mocked accordingly by all who entered.

Also the florescent lights? Which the PO painted around instead of removing to paint? Which were sooo bright(6 tubes!) no one wanted to turn them on?

We fixed that! The light is much calmer now

A true before and after shot:

And the furnace vents that were sunk 6 inches deep with a half texture/paint job around the trim?
When I say half, I mean half was textured and the other half was painted...

Travis(MF) fixed that! I don't have the details but there was some wood and glue and some metal tape stuff that I now own 50 extra feet of!

Approx price for paint, lighting, supplies and furnace vents? $400-$500. Its so gorgeous down there now. I will post more pictures as it is completed.

And for #13 The master bedroom lighting-- something that has been bothering me since day 1.

Well, since we didn't sleep in this room until around day 465, I guess I should say it has bothered me since day #470 or so...
The light in the photo above, was a mockery of all things bright.
(Maybe that is why the basement was so bright--to make up for these)
I couldn't see to get ready in the morning with both of them on!
We installed one over each closet and it makes so much difference!
Total price ? $100. I. Can't. Believe. We. Waited.

So moving on--I will have to figure out a way to include some of these more picture worthy items in the blog going with my letter theme...

J--I got this
K-Definitely got this one!
L...oops, just told you about the lights
M...
N.....
O.....
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z

I sure have my work cut out for me! I only get ideas on about 2 letters ahead of time. Gotta get moving with spring around the corner, it will be time to get back to the garden and yard goals!
Spring is coming!!!
Spring is coming!!!
Spring is coming!!!

Home sweet home

2011-12-24T09:08:00.000-08:00

Home is where you want to call in sick and stay perfectly healthy.

Yet still lay on the couch all day and watch the sunlight shine through the windows on the walls.

Home is where I watch the trees go through seasons like it is television. This is channel 'Dry Winter'

Home is finally clearing the garage enough to park inside.
No more frozen car for me!
We still have a lot of work to do in the garage, but 1 stall empty is good progress. At least for me!

Home is where the LED lights are so bright you cannot see the ornaments!

I was quite excited this year to have our second tree--

Even bought some new lights to fancy it up some.

Next year we will go back to the other lights and hang these outside.

I can see our tree through the window while driving by on the main road.

It still makes me happy.

These are my favorite ornaments:

This one is new this year--how can you resist a

fluffy snowman with sticks for arms?

This concept is true enough--though, I do not think I will get a white Christmas this year.

This shocks no one--I have a thing for birds.

And here is Travis' favorite--boldly higher than all the rest the ornaments

Home is where Master Fantastic is...

I promised to refer to Travis as Master Fantastic (as in MF...) if he completed the beams

before I finished the kitchen.

Given that he started more than 6 months before I did, it was a long shot.

I had this.

He accidentally finished a whole phase early beating me by a few weeks.

He didn't need to stain them after all...

and it turns out you do not need cupboard doors to "move in"

Merry Christmas everyone!

Grumpy Gardening

2011-12-01T19:16:00.000-08:00

Garden Club.
The first rule of garden club, is you don't talk about garden club.
Right?
At least about the utter failures of the garden.

Well, kick me out. It is all I have.

Maybe it was that I suffered from the loss of Fred just days before planting the garden.

The distraction of planting during this time was about the only good thing the garden gave me this year.

Other than tons of cherry tomatoes and experience in disappointment.

It started with aphids. Aphids on my kale, aphids on my collards, aphids in my broccoli and aphids on my cabbage.
Next up my 2 plantings of snap peas all became ripe on the same weekend and I barely managed to harvest any of them before they tasted terrible.
With so many snap peas they shaded out my first planting of green beans.
2nd batch of green beans did alright, but the 2nd batch of snap peas didn't grow....

I planted more than twice as much this year and harvested less.
I am sorry to say I am quite familiar with the produce department this year.

Hard to imagine something so pretty causing so much misery.

These garden gnomes just sat back and laughed. They were supposed to be helping!

I got a lot of lettuce, a few peppers and a few zucchinis. My pumpkins didn't make it.

Final harvest of the peppers

And carrots! Oh my--what am I going to do with 10lbs of carrots?

The carrots did amazing. I over planted...failed to thin enough and ignored them til late November!

This is why you thin your carrots. But you only need to thin them if you didn't sow them 1 inch apart (then find that 5 went in each hole and you couldn't see where the seeds were anymore so sprinkled them all over!)

Unless of course you like oddly formed carrots--they taste no different!

Fun fact: Travis did not know carrots came in other colors than orange til he was 35yrs old.

So you can see why I didn't post a lot on the garden this year.

I guess try, try again. I learned something...
I will definitely be planting a smaller garden next year!
And potatoes! Plants that like good soil and neglect I seem to do well with.

Here is what it looks like now:

Bliss! No work to be done for several months! Hoping to keep the patio table semi weather free.

Oh wait--the asparagus, since I didn't expect to eat any this year it is doing great!!
Now it is time to chop it down and protect the bed for winter. I hope to enjoy some asparagus next year!
I have stumped every single visitor to Castle Debauchery with asparagus growing. No one has ever seen it before.
It is not the most beautiful crop when it turns to ferns, but it sure is interesting.

Look at this! Know what that means?

We are done sifting!!!

No more dirt, no more stones and the pile killed all the weeds underneath :)

Here is the dirt in Travis' garden, levelling it out and growing more grass!

Another sad subject: Ground cover!

This patch here is Elfin Thyme. Slow growing but very steppable. They came back this year and spread quite a lot.

And here is the little star creeper.....
Can't see it?

Exactly.

After planting it last year the snails became fond of it in February...
So I replanted early spring....
And then again early summer once we finished the patio(well almost!)
And then it mostly died back in the heat, because living upstairs(a plus!) we didn't remember to water our patio( a minus!) every hot day.
A small bit is growing in now in the fall--so we will see how that goes.

Travis gave me permission to spend 2x as much to get this planted successfully in 2012.
I think I will give the Elfin thyme more of a thought then. Even though it is slow growing and pretty ugly come January--at least it doesn't disappear in the night!

This is the Lavender plants I bought last September for my wisdom tooth extraction.
When I got around to planting them, they were sooo root bound, I vowed not to buy cheap plants any more(a lie). But once they got in the ground, they have doubled in size!! This isn't there final resting place, but I haven't figured out where I want them yet.

I also never got around to exacting a plan for the upper moat/garden of weedin. I did managed to weed, remove the weedy soil, fill with nicer soil and a layer of newspaper to keep out weeds!
But this a brave soldier just got a late start.
It is past the sunflowers time, but I managed to catch it in the sunlight.
Poor little guy.

A beautiful ending note for the garden of 2011

Now it is December and time to find a Christmas tree on Sunday!!

Let's just hope it snows a bit this year to make winter fun!

F the mountains

2011-11-17T07:39:00.000-08:00

We have been up to our latest adventure recently in Leavenworth Washington!

I am not sure who F'd the mountains, but it was said, and said often.
Maybe I can get the story in the comments? I know you are reading this Consuela!

I was mighty impressed at how these leaves fell in a perfect pattern around the tree--or maybe it was vacation brain? or fall? Or daylight savings?

FUN

We took a trip with some close friends(well 10 people + us) to Leavenworth this last weekend and had a fantastic time!

If you have never been to Leavenworth, it is a little tourist town that resembles an old Bavarian village--they do Octoberfest and Christmas really well--though we haven't been during these times--the pictures can tell!
Total tourist destination, unless you are a skier, then well, you ski! But once you go thru the shops, men become time bombs where as woman forget they have ever been before!
Going forward--I will limit Travis to a 2hr period in town and arrange girlfriends to take his place!

This picture is from Cashmere Mountain B&B website
http://www.cashmeremountainbandb.com/gallery.cfm
I haven't been there either-but I will definitely check it out.
We have previously been out here for a hiking day trip and had lunch and walked around the town.

This is the cabin we stayed at sleeps at least 12.
Nothing to look at from the front, but the view behind was amazing! And inside was huge! Slept 12 and fed 12 and entertained 12!
Thanks to another girlfriend Carleen who arranged this whole trips for a large group of November birthdays, sure made planning a mini vacation easy!!

Partial rear view

This is the Wenatchee river which you see on the 1 mile walk to town.

The trip was just what we needed! We haven't really left the house for 18 months!

FOOD

We have been to Country boys BBQ in Cashmere a few times before--and always look forward to going back!
Here are a few pics of Travis' meal--which as good as they look are NOT the best meal pictures I have seen. I could write an entire page on Country boys BBQ--from the sauce to the service to the food!!
I heard Dixies in Bellevue rates 2nd this this place after a 2 day taste test done by Jessica(but she lies sometimes!)

These are amazing Ribbon Fries that I just cannot get enough of. Curly potato chips made fresh!

Did I mention the fabulous wine tasting?

We tried both Pasek & Swakane and came home with nothing to show for it!

Fires

In our first 18 months at Castle Debauchery we had all of 1 fire (on our Christmas eve anniversary!)
And now we have had a few and even bought a bellows!

The cabin offered a fire pit and wood--which we used-even wearing our winter gear! It was around 30 degrees in the evening.

Travis, Camilla and Jamie

There was also a hot tub!Which was a lovely refreshing treat after a day in town.
I love the fall--It is my favorite time of year. (until it gets cold, wet and dark--then it is Spring that is my favorite)
The garden is mostly done--but the trees are giving you the best show.

Some scenery on our walk to town

Friends

These are some of our friends that stayed at the cabin.
Trying to get everyones attention at the same time is like herding cats!
It takes more than one shot to get the full effect.

This IS what awesome looks like. Notice the flowers on the hat?

This is Leavenworth in the dusk.

This is the view on the trafficky part of my trip home from work--until DST started that is.
WA 202 from Redmond to Woodinville is gorgeous! Rolling hills, vineyards & farms.

Front porch light Our front light was replaced 11/8/11--It has been burning out every 3 months or so and we haven't had a way to document it. So here we are! Next time it burns out I will have the truth!

Soon I will cover G for garden and ramble thru H, I , & J before I can cover the K for Kitchen! I know how long you have waited!
This time last year my kitchen looked like this:

And now I can cook new recipes in it!!

Until then-I hope you enjoyed the pictures!

Eenie meenie minie moe...

2011-10-11T08:46:00.000-07:00

Well--it sure has been a while! The world of bloggers does not stop does it?

Every time I try to update I get busy uploading the latest pictures to the notebook--and check in to the Blogger--and just start reading everyone elses blog--and run out of time to write my own! And then I take more pictures and have to start all over again!

So here is a quick update on what we have been up too:

Easy Living!

We pretty much finished the to do list! A few months ago I decided not to keep adding to it so we COULD finish. There is still a few random items we have deemed unimportant or else too costly to take care of at the moment. So in the meantime--we get to enjoy ourselves. Finally!

The garden has kept me pretty busy, 2 hours a week is not really enough to keep it pristine like last year-so I stopped pulling weeds :) 2 hours has been plenty of time to harvest!

Actually I have been a bit disappointed in it this year--with the aphids and lack of curcubits and the bolting Chard.

I have grown plenty of tomatoes! They say this is terrible weather in PNW for growing tomatoes these last 2 years---but I haven't had any problems. Given it was my first 2 years--and my crazy gardener gave me 17 & 13 plants during these 2 years. I guess the trick is just to grown MORE!
Seas of cherry tomatoes--that I am not giving out this year--just too tasty and short lived!

I have plucked a colander of cherry toms every week for about 6 weeks!

And the big tomatoes! Oh my--here is last week! About the same for the last 3-4 weeks.
With these jalapenos and gorgeous tomatoes below I made salsa for a party! Red Salsa and Green Salsa.

This year I have made zucchini muffins, tzatziki and many a tomato, basil and cheese melts.

I also used my own crushed tomatoes in chili with all the splitting tomatoes.

Tzatziki was so easy I will definitely make it again!

All you need is Greek yogurt, grated cucumber, lemon, garlic & a pinch of dill.

We planted the entire back row (30ish foot) of Kale, Collards and Chard--but the aphids got the kale and collards, leaving me with lots and lots of chard. I was so disappointed I failed to harvest for a while and managed to get some decent size leaves. Last year ours were little more than palm size--where as the stuff at whole foods was bigger than my head and I could barely cram it in the produce bag.

Here is a decent head size harvest:

I will try and go more in to the garden woes when I get to G, but I really am not excited this year with the garden.

Travis had a few more projects up his sleeve--and tools play heavily in that--
Being able to find a tool--is MORE important than actually having the tool itself.
If you cannot find it--what good is having it?
So this lovely shelf has been dubbed our "tool shelf" (really creative right?)
It was a mess! Travis was constantly changing his game plan because he couldn't find the specific thing he was looking for. It is also in the center of the kitchen because we have yet to revamp the garage for more central tool-dom space.
So on to the TO DO list it went!!!

Here is the before:

And here is after:

Not a huge difference but the one saving grace was my need to organize things. So I bought 3 matching bins for Travis to sort some tools in to for easy access.
I started one day and realized there are more than 3 categories and I was going to need a mans help for this project.
The solution once found was so logical!
Cutty, Pokey, and Squeezy solved all the worries. Everything else fell in line.

Travis said he thought I was crazy--but in the end I was (*GASP!*) RIGHT!!!!

Other categories include: Safety gear, fasteners, chemicals, larger tools and everything else.
And all painting supplies made it to a shelf in the garage, since we are done painting for the moment.

Organizing the tool shelf probably SHOULDN'T take 2 days, but it is the central hub of all work around here so I guess it makes sense. It is much more pleasing to the eye too!

Also pleasing to the eye--is this creation made by Travis:

Fancy right?

The air conditioner came with a silly plastic insert made of grey plastic that keeps out no sounds and looks terrible. So he cut some plywood to the correct size, painted it to match our trim(we had extra paint from the deck) and used weather stripping around the edges to keep it sealed!

It is still not the prettiest--but it is so much better!

We are slowly getting settled and that means we finally can hang some artwork!!

It's like I just moved in all over again.

After 18 months--we hung the first item on our wall!!!

I also scoured craigslist and found 2 doors for free that fit the pantry--and broke down and bought the matching door for the coat closet.

This is a great relief to me!
Now when I walk past the pantry I do not have a million thoughts running through my head.

Reoccurring thoughts such as:
I really should straighten and organize my small appliances
I don't even drink tea--why do I have so much?
I should pick a new recipe out of one of these books
I need to learn to make pasta salad with all this pasta
Don't forget to buy more breakfast bars
Franks redhot sauce, Mmmmm!
Need to dump those old Sake bottles and make vases.
Don't forget to take that dish out and put in the good will box
I wish I could find a container big enough to store 20lbs of rice
Which blender should we get rid of?
Remember to buy popcorn seeds to make popcorn
Mmmm Soup-I'm cold
I should buy more straws
Let's make cookies.
oh Popcorn! Lets stay in and watch a movie!
and on and on and on....

Okay--so finishing up the to do list we had set out for--it was all in preparation for another BBQ!!

This was for Travis' 4th annual housewarming!

We had the music all set up:

Along with home made salsa, cherry tomatoes and my very own home grown flowers decorating our vases---I made special treats for our guests:

Castle Debauchery will now live forever!

Burnetts Sweet Tea vodka is the house drink

And after the party was over:

After reviewing all the photos I took (close to 100)

I found one that stands out but is not picturesque-

Our to do list included installing the last outlets in the kitchen,

but come party day--the outside temp reached 80

and inside was not a pleasant environment for working any longer.

Here we have our priorities straight:

In other news Travis had a birthday!!!
Here is some of his loot--
Master Fantastic himself in his Lincoln pose wearing his new awesome shirt
and a gag gift in the background that looks oddly a lot like him.

Does Travis approve this? We shall find out?

Thanks for visiting! I miss all your love and comments. I know I have been scarce and spend all my time reading other blogs instead of writing my own! This whole alphabet thing is harder than I thought--I must be over thinking it.
I want to get thru the alphabet before 2012 so hopefully I stick with this!

D-layed

2011-08-30T07:00:00.000-07:00

Our front deck has been much neglected since we moved in.
Living downstairs, with the awesome patio--we rarely ever used the front door.
Now that we live upstairs and the summer weather leaves the back patio in full sun, we take respite on the front deck quite often.
During the inspection waaay back in March 2010, the inspector stuck his knife in to the corner of the deck and explained how lame that was. So we put it on THE LIST and promptly forgot about it.

Eventually we want to expand this deck--to encompass much of our lonely forgotten front yard (picture tumbleweeds) which is actually at the back of our house--and stays in shade most of the day
It will be a few years til we get to that project.
Til then-just to make it safe--we choose to spend the least money possible and repair the rotten wood and make it match the house.
For a total of $200 the boys had quite a lot of fun doing manly things while I looked on and took pictures.
Overall I think we spent $130 on wood, $20 on screws and $50 on paint.
They are so eager to get started I didn't get any real before pictures, but I got a few in before it was destroyed.

We knew it was bad--but this is worse!

No wonder it was bouncy in this corner of the deck!

So it is time to improvise the plan--and reinforce the supporting boards!
I couldn't resist this lovely picture.

Travis approves this break

Our dirt sifter in the background doubles as a light weight work bench for this project!

The upright "toothpicks" that go around the deck used to be 7" apart, which was not to the current code--as children's heads are smaller than 7"--go figure.
Travis re-spaced the new boards to 4" apart!

I would totally prefer a natural look--but these boys are picky and wanted to match paint colors.

I fail at after pictures too! I waited til dark but you get the idea. We ran out of the green paint-so the stairs got painted beige--which I actually prefer!

Anyone who didn't visit during the week this was under construction would never know it was rebuilt!

Not pictured are all the photos I took of the men butts while they were bending over--you didn't want to see that did you?
(I have enough to make a whole blog on the subject!)

Now it is time to celebrate! Good job men!
Now we have a safe deck and can move on to the next project :)

Tweedle D and Tweedle Dork--who is who?

This blog has been long DELAYED due to the follow DOGS.
Actually--it was delayed because I couldn't find the picture of 1 dog-
Sadie--she lives next door has has us trained to give her treats or she will bark at us once every 10 seconds til we do. It started as soon as we moved in--and we keep stock in dog treats for this reason.

This is Lucy--Travis found her running down a busy road last summer and brought her home because the number on her tag was disconnected. Turns out you have to dial a 1 from a cell phone to get the other 425 area code. I found her owner the following day thru craigslist!!
Lucy got up to do her business many times in the 1 night we had her--some she woke us up for and others we found the next morning. But she bought us dinner for our troubles (Go Reward!)

This is Pooper aka Blackberry--She was the first to leave a "house warming" present. While touring a few friends thru the yard--here runs a little doggie---oh how cute--wait? what? No--what is she doing!! HEY!!! Get outta here!
Hence why we called her Pooper--no matter how many times her owners still corrected us.
She moved away recently--which is sad as we had come to enjoy her company. And we had just trainer her with treats to poop in other yards!

This is our beloved Zuzu-
I don't have many pictures of her since my hands were always busy scratching her belly.
She was an old girl--blind and partially deaf-- who loved to come over for attention and belly rubs.
She would get all the loving she needed and then lay down on the stones and just hang out with the pack while we worked in the garden.
Up until the end of her days--her whole family--5 girls(!!!) along with Mom & Dad always knew where to find her when it was time to come in.
She could find her way across the street and smell a treat through a closed door!

Some nights we had to walk her back home several times before she stayed put!
She will forever be in our hearts--Rest in treats Zuzu.

Wait--This was not supposed to be a DEPRESSING entry--just a show of our lovely DOGS who have graced our lives here.

Someday we will have a dog of our own--but until then we will adore the dogs of our neighborhood--even when they leave US treats!
We have discussed a hypothetical dog (along with our hypothetical children!) named George. He/She is a red golden retriever from a rescue. I wonder if we are the only ones with a hypothetical dog?

Next up is E (for EMPTY!)
I haven't come up with a topic for this one yet--but I can get to it now that I've gotten this one off my to do list.

Intermission

2011-08-12T23:56:00.000-07:00

In a perfect world I would be posting a letter or 2 from the alphabet each week--but as perfect as I am things have conspired against me!
For each task to be completed there are 3 others that have to come first and 3 that lead up to each of those and so on and so forth... at least here at Castle Debauchery aka The Twilight Zone.

For instance--the notebook I have all my photos stored on had a fan failure. I get 1 more chance to turn it on and transfer the data but 1st I have to bring home an external drive from work! All so I can write the letter D. I am bursting forth with important D's to Document! Along with e, f, g, and all important K for Kitchen.

So I will take you on a little journey--but lets get a snack first shall we?

My 2nd tomato of the year--first one was sliced and eaten long before I thought to take a picture--It was only a possible an Early Girl. Since all the tags are blank in the garden--they are all mysteries this year. And I am more than okay with that!
I do believe this is a Black Sea Man--since it was my first tomato last year, and it resembled it inside and out. Look what I have learned! In just a years time!

This is Black Beauty--my first and only Zucchini so far.

Here are my first ever carrots and a beet!--I needed to thin my carrots and couldn't resist bringing them inside--they taste great! As for the beet--maybe I'll play with that tomorrow.

Onwards to my story. Like I was saying--every project to be completed needs to be preempted by 3 others.
I have some terribly embarrassing seats in the Jeep at the moment. Smittybilt admitted to having had a manufacturer use less than adequate material in these XRC racing seats--and REPLACED THEM FREE! Smittybilt you rock! I was so surprised to actually receive customer service when I complained, as these seats were only 3 years old. The original Jeep seats were 10yrs old with NO holes what so ever when we replaced them.I should have them installed by J I hope!

Anyway--in order to install the seats--I have to finish the cupboards, tear down my work bench and rearrange the garage in order to pull the jeep in to a flat surface. ( I'm not even concerned about actually parking in there! My kitchen seems to be having a fine time living in the garage.)
So I have been painting every other day as it takes at least 48hrs to not be tacky--touch ups, touch downs and some sanding and then flip another 48hrs later... I moved most of them upstairs finally today:

Either I missed a spot--or that is a reflection on the 2nd from the left!

I am positive these are reflections.

I actually finished 7 of them a month or more ago, but 3 of those went to the next project so I decided to wait to install them all at once. Also I had to rearrange my kitchen cupboards to my liking and figured it would be easier without the doors on. I was right!

This leads us to this section of the living room-previously full of kitchen boxes--I had to unpack those in order to make room for the other boxes from the garage!

Oh boy--I see many a trips to good will and garage sales in my future!

It has been 18 months since we have used any of this stuff!

EIGHTEEN MONTHS!

Time to purge!

See anything you want?

I am NOT putting these back up! No way, no how!

This is sorta like "airing dirty laundry" but only really dusty boxes.

So now the cupboards are 98% painted, hinges are done, kitchen is rearranged, all ready to finish what I started last November.....

Just as soon as I install a new man in the cupboard....


Oh Wait--did he leave a MARK in my cupboard? Damn it! Not again! (Hi Mark!! Thanks again!)

I mean.... have the men install new wood under the cupboards!

I have just painted this tonight!! (Yes-its Friday! Woooo Party!?)

48hrs and I can put things in here and install hinges and doors too!

Oh Golly--and the handles I bought 18 months ago!

And the complete end result of replacing the wood under the sink, painting it, installing hinges, arranging the dishes, finishing painting the doors, installing doors, moving boxes up, installing jeep seats and cleaning out the garage:

Our tool shelf has runneth over, plus it is still in the kitchen...
Travis gets to build a work bench in the garage!!!
Imagine that! A real garage I can park in and he can build me things in!


Had I zoomed out-you would be blinded by the floor AND see the big pile of tools that no longer fit with out rearranging the whole shelf, again!

How can he relax at a time like this!?!!?!!?! There is so much to do!!

Ok ok--It was Friday night--I will let him relax for now.

And here is how I relax:
Here is a shabby picture of a happy little accident.
I needed a place to put these for now so tucked them in where they may get water.
This corner is now my favorite in the whole garden--even though it is outside the garden.

I did buy that external drive--so D should not be Delayed too much longer..

but time is funny here sometimes at the Castle Debauchery!

The old man and the C

2011-08-03T08:15:00.000-07:00

First I give you the old man!!! Well, not THAT old, but the oldest here.

He is Crafty, Clever,Charming, Cunning and Cute!

Travis does not approve

And now on to the other important stuff!

First up we have CHERRY TOMATOES!!
I ate my first cherry tomato July 25th!! I have a few more on the way..
and when I say a few I mean a few plants!
I have 5 or 6 cherry plants--they were a big hit last year
so of course I wanted more

I'm up to 20 eaten now!

These aren't cherries tomatoes below

but If I stuck with just the letter C you would never get

to C all my plants by the time they are eaten.

All my other tomatoes are mystery plants this year.

Before I wrote down the names the tags washed off--

They were free and they will still be tomatoes with out the names!

These have started turning red in the week since I took this pic!

I planted a few new things this year, but didn't take the time to record

WHEN I planted or WHEN they will be ready.

How do you know when carrots are ready?

This is my first ever CARROT!

As you can C, it's pretty small.

I did manage to make it 2 bites and guess what?

It tasted like a carrot too!

This right here? This is CROWDED!

We have been so busy upstairs getting unpacked and settled..along with Travis' newer projects

and as it turns out--maybe 3 beds of greens was a bit much?

I have neglected them in part to the bitterness of the collards in our last couple BBQs.

Maybe I should make a dish with out the collards?

Since LAZY isn't for 9 more letters!

This right here? CRAZY! Or COURAGEOUS or Chaos? Or maybe I should save this for D (Dumb!)
I had no problem planting this--only took 2-3 hours to get it all in the ground... we planted 3x the garden as last year on purpose. I expected to lose a few plants and eat more veggies and give more away--but finding 2+ hours a week to work in the garden doesn't sound like much, but it is really hard to find the time recently

Here is the breakdown of what is going on out here:

I planted WAY too many peas--possibly of some super sucky variety so they do not taste good off the vine-I have 4 gallons in the fridge already. Should I stir fry them or freeze them? or Shell them?

I planted 20 bean plants--but cannot see them!
My broccoli is all done and I tore it out. What do I put there?

2 of my beds of Greens got Aphids that I can't get rid of. Started tearing some out and soaping the rest.

Lettuce--oh how I love thee! We ate a lot for a month and then? I was sick of salads and quit harvesting it... now they are several feet tall. Lettuce is NOT supposed to be tall right? Think I will tear it out and replant.

Carrots & Radishes--have no idea when to pluck them.

Cabbage is cabbage-less. One less thing to figure out!

Kale, Collard, Chard: What doesn't have aphids needs harvesting, what does needs to be torn out.

Weeds: Plentiful! Must harvest soon!

Tomatoes are doing great! But I better figure out what to do with them all pretty soon!

Flowers--I pluck a few each week and put in a bud vase on my desk

I also need to feed things and reroute my hose to make sure the toms get enough.
I have a list around here... somewhere...

Contrast--love how this flower was randomly planted next to the purple lettuce. I forget the type of this flower--it was the only one with out a tag

Cats prowling for birds. They don't care for veggies.

Cannonball!!!!! As a quick celebration of the sun, I brought a pool to my favorite little girl Ivy.
We had fun in the sun last weekend. The adults(?) sat in chairs with our feet in the pool whist she jumped and played and splashed us.

Well--if I do not post this now--I will continue to add more C's to the list and you won't see it til ~~August~~ September.
I now have Crows, Chester, Cake, Cayenne to add!

B's in my bonnet

2011-07-18T11:34:00.000-07:00

BORING--This BLOG has definitely become this. A few of these items may explain why.

BEHIND-- I am going to attempt to keep some focus here on the blog by using the Alphabet going forward.
Next up C is for _____. If you want to see something covered-give me a shout!

BUSY--We are doing everything and nothing all at once. Also see Boxes
I have no idea how we kept up the momentum in the last year. Suddenly all the shopping, cooking, cleaning, laundry and 40hr a week day jobs have tired me out. I quit making to do lists, but it may keep me on task if I did. Who has time to make one???
Yes, make a to do list is on my mental to do list. Along with write a blog.

BEAMS--They are still gorgeous! We like to sit on the couch and stare at them all the time.

BROCCOLI--Is on its way out--cooked some on the BBQ but lost a lot of it to aphids and some flowered because I have not been diligent in the garden recently.

BUGS--I am NOT happy about this development. I have Aphids. I have been battling them with soap & water (I first typo'd with soup--maybe I should try that!) in a high pressure sprayer and so far--they keep coming back. I have also tried removing the offending plants and cutting off offending bits too. Next stop lady bugs--but I hear they usually prefer the neighbors yard.. so maybe I should release them in the neighbors yard so they come here? They really depress me (the bugs, not the neighbors) in to not wanting to look at the garden.

BEANS-I planted a few-but the peas are really full and in my way, so I should probably plant more soon. Is 20 seedlings enough? Probably not. I will regret it if summer comes and goes with out more beans!!!

BOXES-I have rooms of boxes upstairs. Every room. The kitchen bits we couldn't fit when we lived downstairs & we haven't used a lot of it in over a year, so I could get rid of it, but really we revised our dinner menu to accommodate our space-so I would like to make some of these more complicated recipes again soon.
There are more boxes in the garage--mostly my books, that I plan on thinning, but I refuse to move them up til I clear up most of these boxes upstairs.

BEDTIME--We have been staying up way too late. The rule goes- after midnight just add 1 to every hour to make it seem earlier--but once you get to 13'oclock, it is truly time for bed. I BLAME this on:

BAD COMPANY!

The whole evening was a bit fuzzy

My 2 husbands

BBQ-Of course we still BBQ, all the time. I haven't tried to make any meals on the stove yet in my new kitchen--I have til the letter K to get the kitchen finished right? Recent new menu item includes marinated chicken skewers & Franks Red hot sauce--I am all about putting that Sh#t on everything!

BOOZE-Still required for admission!

BURRITOS-We love to get burritos from JC's Market around the corner. Simone sells some amazing Mexican food in this place--open til 7 but closed Sundays! We seem to crave burritos mostly on Sundays so getting one during the week is pretty high on our to do list.

BROTHERS--2 guys that run JC's Market are Alain and Pierre-great guys from the Ivory Coast--We threaten to bring them veggies all the time, but have yet to actually come thru.

noteBOOK--We got a new one finally! This is one cause for the lack of updates. All the pictures are on the old notebook still so once I finish here, I will go there and upload some. I am a bit challenged with Win 7, but I'm getting there through necessity

BOOKS-I upgraded to the Nook recently, though I still have library books I am reading. I am not impressed. Maybe I will like it better after some more time. One plus is how quietly I can read in bed, in any position I want. But the selection of free and lendable books is a bit lacking.

BLACK EYED SUSANS--How did I not know about this flower til this year? LOVE at first sight!

BEFORE & Afters--I am even behind on this aspect--
Remember the leaky washer back in May? Maybe I should show the after portion:

Like new:

BOYS--Travis and Mark--(see also BAD COMPANY) are currently fixing the dry rot in the front deck. More pics shall come under D

There are possibly a few B's I have missed, but this is all I've got for now.

I sure miss reading all the blogs regularly. I hope to get back to that soon!

A is for Asparagus

2011-06-22T07:19:00.000-07:00

In my pursuits to start asparagus last year I searched online(of course) for pictures of what it looks like growing. I was very disappointed to find very few NW gardeners with asparagus exploits. I found 1 long since updated Seattle blogger, and mostly asparagus farms from warmer regions.

I couldn't understand why--I thought maybe it does not grow well here, but all I read said it should do just fine!

Obviously in the later years I will be eating the asparagus instead of having photo shoots with it.

As it turns out, it is very hard to get closeup shots.

Here is the majority of my asparagus:

Not much to look at really.

We have a neighborhood dog who is blind and to keep her from playing Godzilla-we added twine and stakes was an afterthought.

I had 30 octopii roots to plant and could only fit 22 in this bed.

Either they were going to die or I could put them in some other place with unprepared soil--so I planted some under a tree in the south garden(to be).

Surprisingly enough, 4 of them grew, a bit later than the others, but this guy below is almost 3ft tall!

I look forward to being able to eat some next year!!

This is the best I could do upclose--

This year we are eating a ton of salads.

I harvested this on a Friday night and it completely filled a sink!

Lasted us and a friend a full week of salads every night!

I filled another grocery sack a few days later for another friend and the lettuce was unfazed!

Unfazed!

Here is my first broccoli. His name is tasty. Not a pretty plant to grow, as we have the bed covered with row cover. White sheet stuffs that lets in rain and light, but keeps out cabbage moths.
So far so good, but maybe I should check it again today?

The plants takes up a lot of space for a few bites really.

Maybe I am destined to buy broccoli at the grocery store.

This is a small plate.

I have my first cherry tomatoes starting! I planned on planting less plants this year, but it may have become just 2 less plants than before... last year we had 17 or something crazy like that(my crazy gardener brings them and I have a hard time saying no) and I didn't have a single one die on me which I was fully planning on!
So this year, instead of 3 rows for spiders to make homes, I only have 2! 6 plants per + 3 cherrys loving it up in a big pot... Oopsie!

First pepper! I planted jalapenos, cayenne, habanero, this one I forget, and some new ones I have never tried. I really wanted Ancho but couldn't find any starts anywhere.

I have NOT been minding my Peas... I forgot to tuck them into the twine early on and they have become a monster! So it is definitely not pretty, and I have lost a few while trying to wrestle these to keep out of the paths, but maybe a few less peas won't hurt us.

I have really been slacking on my garden photos. Why? It is too big to photograph! I cannot get a shot of the full thing from any direction I have tried. Even from upstairs!

So either we will just have photos of specifics, or the left and the right sides.

Here you cannot see the tomatoes on the right, but you get everything else.

I have 14 new types of flowers tucked into the edges of each bed. Each has a tag and I have yet to learn them all. daisies, zinnia, iris, stock, yellow ones, smelly ones, begonias, white ones, black eyed susans, hollyhock. I may have to photograph each one and make one post just to learn them.

So far these are the only 3 photos I have taken.

The Iris is gorgeous, so that is no wonder.

These daisies, I trampled and broke some stems, so now I have a little vase of them at work.

And this is just glorious. It is growing up the poles now quite rapidly. How did I not know about Black Eyed Susans before now? Orange has always been my favorite. You will surely see more pics of this

I am almost afraid of the garden it has grown so large!

So if you don't hear from me in a while--you know where I will be!

Edit:

Last night I found tons of aphids all over my kale and collards! Eeeek. I started cutting off the offending parts, but taking a look around they have got to almost 1 full bed! What do I do?
I stopped my cutting(clear cutting!) and decided to give it a day to research. Will just spraying them with water make them go away? or would they just land in the soil and climb(hop?) back up?

Little gray/lavender buggers are creeping me out!

MIA but above ground!

2011-06-19T11:09:00.000-07:00

I sure miss this place--I am buried under a to do list a mile long! So much so that I skip looking at the list often and just do what is in front of me. No time to write, think or read blogs makes me sad.

This is what our move upstairs looked like:

Art of a 6yr old boy who follows instructions well.

Unplanned and messy!
We did not have any boxes. We didn't even have any plans to move upstairs when the carpets were cleaned at 8am. But 5pm rolls around and our ever trusting friends came over for a BBQ and in order to keep them busy--well... everyone just grabbed something and up we went!
We have the best friends in the world! We finally fed them (BBQ Chicken & Steak with salad from the garden) at 9pm and sent them on there way tired and full.

So, this week has been a bit like moving in. Where is my hairbrush? Where is my coffee cup? Where are my car keys? Travis even lost his belt for a few days-ha!

I STILL have not finished the kitchen cupboard doors! Shhh. I should be working on those instead of writing this! The cotton in the air is NOT helping me get to painting. I have to keep the garage doors closed to keep the area sanitized and I need to keep them closed while they are drying..
Meanwhile--the bases of the cupboards are good to go and the doors are not keeping me from moving in to the kitchen! My current mission is to fill them up in an orderly manner that doesn't have me turning in circles just to make a cup of coffee.

I will however post some random updates about the garden this week!

Twilight Zone

2011-06-11T09:35:00.000-07:00

This song likes to follow us around so I thought it would be fitting to play while reading.. It seems we have been living in a twilight zone episode for the last year. We keep working on the same projects day after day after day after day yet never finish. Our own personal hell of unfinished projects.....

Until now...

Travis finished the Beams!!!!!!!!!!!

Capital B is right!!

Click to make bigger-you won't be sorry!

We stopped counting weeks ago at 120 hours on the ladder.

It only took a year longer than the 2 months planned.

And he won the bet. He finished the beams before I finished the kitchen cupboards.
Though I didn't start til November it had become a competition.
(Secretly I let him win)

Never fear--the kitchen is just a few days from done !!

Here are some lovely pictures of the work

We didn't need to stain after all. The Benite (wood conditioner) worked wonders! From Daly's in Bellevue.
This process caused Travis to YELL for me downstairs.
AAaaaapppril!!!
I thought he spilled the conditioner($50/gal) or fell from the ladder he yelled so loud and urgent.
Turns out he just wanted to me to see the miraculous change in color. It really was important!!
After all the sanding, the wood had really lightened up to a kinda blah, so this color is nice and refreshing.

The stain color we had picked was 2x cherry (meaning 2 coats) and here you can see the test board next to the beam. No need! Suddenly they were Done!

We will never be as intimate as Travis with these beams in the 14 months he romanced them, as he has touched every square inch many times. Every nook, cranie and splinter!

Painting on stripper...

Scraping off stripper

He was not pleased with my request for an action shot here.

June 20, 2010

belt sanding

picking paint out of knots...

and then light sanding again....

cleaning up all the dust and sand

And then the fun part:
painting on conditioner
2nd coat of conditioner.

I'm sure I am missing a step somewhere... but he hasn't chimed in with his first hand experience for me to post..
Anyway--maybe these pictures can help us get to know the beams better...

And this is where we started April 2010

This man never stops--he is 1 day post beam and he is already suited up again...

This time to remove the asbestos laden popcorn ceiling downstairs!
This hallway was the only spot with it down here (yes, I am still writing from the basement)
Upstairs we will tackle one room at a time in the coming year(s)

Only took 2 hours from prep to clean up and now we get to paint!

Meanwhile the carpets are being cleaned upstairs at this very moment

so we will be moving things in the next week!

Yipppeeeee!

The flu made me a liar

2011-05-21T11:53:00.000-07:00

The last post was scheduled already when I found this after the sun came out and dried up all the rain:

But I had the flu and had to just let it all go on because... well... yeah.

I got the flu 48hrs after Travis.

While we had gorgeous weather Tues-Fri, I was in bed worrying about work, our to do list, the lying on the blog and... actually, no I wasn't. I was just in bed.

Now this opening after the storm isn't nearly as pretty as what I remember when it was fresh,

it is still pretty! The petals were fuller and it wasn't open this wide.

Now I have evidence to find the type of Magnolia!

Yes, this is pretty much the same picture over and over, but I am thrilled!

The story of this Magnolia, that requires patience goes like this: I bought some Magnolia tree babies from Arbor day foundation for Mothers day back in 2002 or 2003 for several mothers in my life and gave them out. Then I had plant envy! I hadn't thought to buy one for myself! But since I lived in an apartment, it was probably for the best. But one day I found a lonely vaguely labelled mystery Magnolia at some unreputable store and took it home for $20. It does get green and leafy this time of year after it blooms (or is supposed to) and stays leafy til late fall. So it distracted me from the fact that it is SUPPOSED to flower.

May 2010-it bushes out more but I am lacking pictures.

As it turns out it just wanted a real home of its own, because it bloomed for the first time the week after we bought the house. I admit, I was a bit shocked when I saw that first bloom. I was warming up my car to go to work when I noticed it. I promptly jumped out of my car and did a little happy dance (the neighbors still aren't making eye contact) then ran back in the house for my camera!
And now?
I just have to figure out where to plant this ungrateful mystery Magnolia with its fleeting bloom.

Funny how I never cared much before, but now I'm in the habit of knowing the names and I must find out.

Any suggestions on plant identification websites I can upload some pics to find out what this is?

Post-Crastination

2011-05-18T13:25:00.000-07:00

A year ago today I planted my first ever vegetables!

And believe it or not the sun was shining. I was even in shorts and thongs!

(I wrote this on the 16th)

These have been in the ground for a month now and If I thought last years garden was lush--this is really gonna be something! With the exception of tomatoes--which we will not talk about! (High of 55 today!)

I was almost a full season behind last year and still made something of it!
So whether you are early or late--it will still turn out okay.

With the exception of flowers pictures!
This mysterious Magnolia made me wait 5 years for 1 bloom. ONE!

I find without a bloom it is nearly impossible to find out the type it is...

By the time I noticed it bloom last year a wind storm had knocked it off the retaining wall and all I got was this lousy ~~tshirt~~ picture with a broken petal.

So I waited a full year... and waited... another month and FINALLY. I got one, ONE! bloom again.

I did not put off taking its picture and watching each day for it to open!

I think I have deduced it is of the "little girl" hybrid of Magnolia.

Well, Ann, Betty, Susan, Jane, Randy, Judy or who ever the hell you think you are! I don't think I will be saving many more mystery plants at the local shops. You are all ungrateful not to be more patient with me.

I saw it open Friday night and it was glorious (if only because I waited 5+ years to see the inside!) and by the time I got around to it with my camera Saturday we had a record breaking rain storm and this is what you give me

If you don't like the rain--what are you doing here?

You were so pretty 2 days ago! Well, this is kinda pretty, but I take credit for that!

One bloom, One rainstorm!

Maybe I should send her to an orphanage in Florida?

So you CAN put of your veggie planting, but you really shouldn't.

Unless they are tomatoes!

Then you SHOULD put it off as long as its under 55 every. single. day

But you CAN'T put off the flower photos or you may as well just take pictures of the branches!

Random update-Travis edition

2011-05-15T23:26:00.000-07:00

Along with a little bit of this this weekend:

Travis got the flu and spent most of it on the couch and in bed!

Rare occurrence for him. Not sure other than a cold it has ever happened in 6+ years

Maybe he is allergic to work? Nah!

Before this--He spent the whole week on the water leak, that found here last weekend.

After finding this behind the washing machine.....

We lost a week(or gained a few years of life!) Cleaned out the pipes and he replaced the faucets.

It sure takes alot of tools! Every available surface was covered with tools!

But I mean ----Come on--look at this gunk?! This is why we use a Brita filter for our water consumption!

And it wasn't enough that we turned off the main water, opening all the faucets, changing out the faucets, turning on the main, closing the faucets, that we find this little itty bitty leak... and start back at the beginning.
No such leaking the 2nd go around (and when I saw we, I did the running & he did the real work)

And then comes the adding of drywall. I think this was less than $5 worth of materials?

Luckily we had all the other tools. Yes more tools!

And then he mudded the area(joint compound I think)

And the gap behind the left faucet...

And this takes us to the bedroom...

We have slept in the same room as this gaping hole since we moved in.

Shocking I know! That I never mentioned it before....

It has been quite the sore spot since I realized some time ago WHY it was there at all. We asked the sellers to replace the breaker box, they did... and that was all. Not even bothering to replace the drywall once the job is done! Sigh... other patch in the garage is missing too due to this project.

Looking more closely we notice daylight thru the wall :( No wonder I have battled spiders all this time!!!
And I have to wear socks to bed (or maybe that is because I am a woman?)

Now a few spiders are a small price to pay for the new electrical panel we requested during the inspection. The old one had been recalled back in the 80's but no one ever noticed... And the place did not burn down so all was well...

We got instead of new flooring, a new breaker box! Weeeeee!

Hardly something you brag to your peers about,

but OUR house is not going to burn down around this box!

And everything is labelled which is a dream come true.

(Except for those 4 way switches/front lights and turning off the plugged in lights with a switch upstairs causes the outside front light/plugs to work... Hmmmm...)

So Travis worked all week, here is an action shot of vacuuming the hole (those nasty spiders!)

Installing drywall....

After taping...

Adding mud....

And the after shot! Now it is time to sand and paint and make it look half way decent. I actually think just not having wiring showing is a huge improvement and we could move on to other tasks!

Do you think a white patch here will detract from the baby blue and pink bedroom?

Here is a sneak peak at what I did this weekend!

They are definitely not NEW...

but clean and fresh and NOT greasy is all I am after.

I would take nicks, dings and knife scrapes over what I had in there before anyway!

Even a mediocre paint job!

I was going to go for a smaller shot like this to just give you a tease:

But I couldn't make the sweet molasses(brown) come out quite right in color so it wouldn't be fair.

I still have to paint the final coat on the accent wall. It is not quite as orange as the pics make it out to be since it is just primer. Not that I mind the color it is now, it is just not in the plan.

Once we paint this--it will NEVER be painted again.

Too many tall corners and straight lines--that I cannot do well.

As for cupboard, I have some touch ups to do, send off the hinges to a friend, and get those doors & drawers painted!

Thank you Travis for working so hard all week that being sick this weekend didn't even phase us!

Xoxoxox!

Mothers Day Massacre

2011-05-10T08:35:00.000-07:00

This weekend started off great! We were quite proud of ourselves for making so much progress upstairs on Saturday. We started early and worked til 4 before calling it a night. We had a small BBQ planned with 1 guest but that amazingly turned in to 5. Not sure how that happens around here, but "surprise" parties have happened more than once! I am not showing any detailed pics of the kitchen til it's finished, but here is Travis steadily working away on the east beam. This beam is proving much harder than the west, but Ill go in to that in more detail in another post.

We were so proud of our efforts we decided to take it easy a bit Sunday morning. The sun was trying to come out and yard work is very tempting escape from our work upstairs.

We could go bike riding, or run some errands or just a nice walk in the sun(= cloudy not raining)

Laundry was started, we werefed & dressed...

But Sunday had other plans for us...

While brushing teeth I hear a drip drip dripping sound....

Clusiana tulips reaching for the sun

Down in the basement, the washer/dryer are in the 1/2 bath.

And this is where we followed the sound of dripping water....

The sink is just to the right of this mess where I was minding my own business day dreaming about doing fun things...
Don't look too closely--Ew! This was one area that we hadn't cleaned out after moving in. I had lost something off the counter a month back and when I looked to see if I could reach it I noticed the previous owners too had lost things back here. Laundry items, kids toys & socks. I added "Cleaning behind washer" to our to do list.. once we finish upstairs...

Peeking.

Well, we didn't get to wait on that. It also contained mold and wet drywall! How long has it been dripping? We don't know but a trip to Home Depot ensued. Travis has some mad skills (skilz?) and with some quick thinking and bleach he cleaned it all up set the fan on it. With a few new tools he removed the wet drywall and has all supplies on hand to make it new again!

During this debacle, we hired a man who was in need of some work. We figured if we were behind we could save some time in the yard and help someone else along with fixing the water issue.
After talking with him a bit we decided he sober and just down on his luck (meaning wouldn't kill us in our sleep or stalk our house in the following weeks) so we handed him the weed whacker and lawn mower and off he went.

He did a 110% job! Even mowed the lower moat, which we would just weed whack because of the slope and moistness of it. All these weeds and ground covers almost look like lawn now!!!

The extra 10% comes from the fact that he MOWED DOWN my Autumn Joy Sedum. Which was conveniently surrounded by daffodils minus the yellow heads!!! It looks like a murder scene:

After

Good thing I take lots of pictures. I will always have the memories of it.

Picture this, plus 3 weeks of growth, but with the yellow flowers removed.

Looks like NOT GRASS TO ME.

Now had we been supervising, we wouldn't have needed his help in the first place. But had we been supervising we would have noticed he possibly never used a weed whacker, mower or rake in his life.
But no problem right? I had never done alot of yard work before this house. It is pretty easy to figure out.
Here he got all the weeds, left the rock and tree standing. He did help the neighbor remove the pesky Snap dragons that were separating our yards. They were only oh--18 inches tall and NOT A WEED. Another 110% for this section!

Here, all the Bugle weed is looking GREAT! This is a section he got perfect. We asked he attempt to rid it of dandelions but leave as much of these as he could.

We do have plans for this garden, but this is filling the space for the meantime

Upon 2nd thought--wait--Didn't I have something growing in the south garden?

Oh yes. Yes I did. I planted a lily from the NW Flower & Garden show!

It was about 5 inches tall last I saw it this weekend. No pictures to remember it by.

*Sniff*

After

So it seems that no good deed goes unpunished. This guy was blind! Like actually legally blind!
Next time we will let our weeds grow for another day.

I keep telling myself, both those plants were free. Both those plants were free. Both those plants were free. Both those plants were free...
And now I can go buy more!! It isn't so much the plants as it is fun to watch things grow. I had grown attached to those 2 already and never would have willingly given them up. So maybe this is for the best?

Back in the house, Travis replaced the hoses that were dripping, unclogged the drain tube which alerted me to the dripping in the first place. Cut out the drywall, doused everything in more bleach and put the fan on it.
Turns out it could be the washing machine pump or a tub seal on top of the hoses, drain hole and now some drywall repair.
After Travis took it apart: Inside the washer is where the drain hose connects, it had been rubbing on sheet metal and leaking from the bottom. Along with the hoses and faucets were dripping(replaced now) and the drain was clogged.
Im super suprised that we managed to catch this NOW(a few weeks ago would have been good too) compared to the Huge mess that these 3 leaking items could have caused.

Here is how the night ended with a bucket to catch the drips from the faucets that need replacing (on top of the hoses)

Nope--Didn't clean the inside of the bucket, just the outside

All so we could finish up the laundry before turning off the water to it.

It could have been so much worse but it seems to always be two steps forward and one step back (minus a few plants)
Im glad we caught this now before it turned in to a job to big for us to handle.
Travis rocks.

To end this on a happy note--I saw my first bird on the feeder!!!
Many more followed during the day.

Random update: Garden Edition

2011-05-07T11:09:00.000-07:00

(This is going to be a really long post. Feel free to skip the words and browse the pictures or maybe just read half and come back and read the rest another day)

April was a plant filled month. I was off work for a week for my birthday and what better excuse to buy all the plants you desire?

So this random update will include tons of PLANTS. Along with some yard updates.

This has nothing to do with plants--but my Littler and I shared this flaming volcano of booze at my birthday dinner at Tokyo Japanese Steakhouse. Fantastic food, drinks & friends all for me!

Travis and I also went to Bellevue Botanical Gardens and maybe that is why it was a plant craze of a month?

That will have to be a post of its own. Lots of wonderful plants.

My crazy gardener delivered these during my vacation.

Snap peas, kale, collard, chard, broccoli, cabbage, lettuces oh my!

This was a gift from the lovely Emily.
I'm not usually one for names, but I had to know and with my trusty google skills (purple succulents) I got this:
Echeveria 'Perle von Nurnberg'.

This little succulent tree I fell in love with at Molbaks and went back and bought it days later. I looked up the name for this one too, but have forgotten it

Here are some African daisies from Jen. Not a very good picture, but love them anyway!

And a Early Sensation Clematis from Sabina. Actually it was a gift card so I got to pick it out. This one is in the pruning group that makes me happy. AND! I know what type it is! My rescue Clematis of Unknown names/pruning groups have just about outlived there welcome. So many little white flowers on these at once, they have outbloomed the refugees total blooms in 5 years!

Here is my new Fuchsia 'Gartenmeister Bonstedt....TAKE 3. Will I never learn?
I suppose I should treat it as an annual and just plan on buying one each year. The hummingbirds love it.
(This too is from Jen, but since I will end up killing it, I didn't want to say)

Perfect timing for you to take a break

(Technically post 2)

Oh and here is what I did with all those veggies! Plenty(I just typo'd planty, which still works) of space left for tomatoes squash and peppers! Oh and flowers!

Twine has so many uses! Plotting the garden was super easy.

(Technically post 3)
Creating work where there was none before? Yes, that is us!
What should have been a 2 hour project took 3 weeks. These brackets were out of stock and the other brand had the wrong measurements... but eventually I got smart and went to a different Home Depot and scored.

This whole project was Travis' idea. He even picked the color to paint them to blend in--and they sure do!

This year we will have straight twine for the peas. Forever more!

(Technically post 4)

In the fall I planted 12 horse chestnuts I found around town, so Chester could have a mate (needed for pollination some day) and I thought it was a bust, nothing came up. As I was dumping the pots to throw them out, I found 3 that HAD germinated, and 1 was actually out of the soil. So I kept it, and was surprised to see it was standing up the next day! Ya for baby trees! This guy is 2 inches tall.

For comparison, this is Chester today. He is around 7ft now, but began life in a Starbucks cup in 2005ish. The baby is at his base for comparison. Last year he was only as tall as the bamboo polls next to him.

Also see the really straight twine in the background? Now you get it.

(Technically post 5)

Here is the garden this morning. Noticeable growth in just 2 weeks.

See the pretty twine? Most of the peas seedlings planted are almost up to the first row. And the peas planted as seeds(pea seeds are just that.. peas) have popped out of the soil! Grow baby grow!

We have peas against the fence, then the entine 3 rows on the left are kale, collard and chard. Yes, we really really like our greens!
Empty space at the top is for the hot weather stuff. In the center is Broccoli and now carrots are planted.
And bottom right is spinach and 6 kinds of lettuce.
My paths are quite wide but that just means I can tuck in random plants I come across :)

Lets not talk about those puddles, shall we?

(Technically post 6)

I adore these tulips. There insides glow like sunshine! They open as soon as you aren't looking....

And close again with out notice! The name escapes me and I don't feel like looking it up atm. I am pretty sure we will have more pictures of these.. Ok ok. Clusiana something or other is the type.

We all know daffodils can do no wrong right?

(I have spared you at least 100 photos of these)

(Technically post 7)

Found a great deal on the ground cover we needed! Little star creeper. I have already bought and spread last year but since the snails ate it all in February, I couldn't fathom paying $3.99 on each little pot. Fred Meyers had 2/$5 so I bought a flat. I will need more too...

Here we go again!

(Technically post 8)

Love this tree in bloom, love this man, and he loves his new lawn mower.

Here is the maiden voyage. 20 minutes start to finish and cleaned!

And last, my bribe for the lawn mower purchase! I finally got a bird feeder! Now come home all you birdies! Come eat at my house! It has been a week and I see little evidence of visitation...

If you made it here--I congratulate you! Hooray!

So much happens in 3 weeks around here--I really need to update more often.

I promise I won't do this again!

(fingers are crossed a bit though)

The house is silent

2011-04-28T08:20:00.000-07:00

I have not experienced a quiet house for more than 8yrs.
Always a rattle of the cage, a flap of the wing, a greeting or a pitter patter of little feet across the floor.

Our beloved parrot Fred passed away early Thursday morning, 2 weeks ago on the 14th of April.
He was a male Eclectus who was such a huge part of our flock. In fact, he made us a flock.

Before I met Travis it was Fred & I.

After,

it was Fred & Travis and I cooked and cleaned...

...While the boys took a nap

Travis ACTUALLY does approve this photo

He followed us everywhere. What ever we were doing. He wanted to be doing that too.

Eating at the dinner table....

Actually a rarity-we served him at his cage

Sitting on the mirror watching us get ready for the day.

Taking showers with us was a big love of his and the blow drying that came after.

Travis made this perch so he could grip better.

He would even bare the cold dirty garage for papas sake.

He enjoyed a bit of our every meal and snack.

I would say his favorite was cheese, but really his favorite was FOOD

Tortilla chip, triscuit or wheat thin?

He enjoyed our company just as much as we did.

Especially women. He could hear higher tones better and respond to them.

Our friends were excited when he finally warmed up to them (without biting)

I always had band aids available!

We thought he looked a bit like the Instant Martians from Marvin the martian cartoons.

I was always trying for a family portrait and this one is my favorite:

Laying on the carpet we were in his domain.

He was the perfect subject for taking photos,

but he always wanted to bite the lens and move before I could shoot.

Fred Fridays will return once I collect all the photos from various computers around here.

"She was not quite what you would call refined.
She was not quite what you would call unrefined.
She was the kind of person that keeps a parrot."
Mark Twain

Fred Franklin Finger-Biter Beak, you will be missed more than I ever knew possible.

Thought we would never finish.

2011-04-11T10:55:00.000-07:00

A whole lot of progress happened Saturday in the garden:

These boots are made for gardening

We finished filling in the hole!!! 12 yards of fresh new dirt.

Cedar Grove Veggie Mix & Booster Blend is amazing stuff.

If you live locally and need good soil this is the place to go.

I also found a new favorite view from upstairs!

10 yards on the new side filled in the hole and we amended the original garden side with another 2 yards to improve drainage and raise the level. With a punch card we got 1 yard free with purchase of 5 yards. Cedar Grove also has a happy hour(!) during late afternoon on Saturdays where you save 15%.

We had help from some (awesome) friends Saturday, so the last 4 yards went much quicker.
I mentioned how much faster it went with 2 people shovelling in the wheel barrow,

as I was on the rake duty spreading it out and could barely keep up--

and the wise ass in the picture below(right) chimed in with

"What like 2x faster?"

I promised to put this pic on the Internet for it.

I was down to primitive brain with all the labor

What a dirty job we had! I am so grateful for the help to get it finished.

I wanted to rake it all out nice and pretty but I was out of energy

Here we were a month ago... a big muddy hole that I could hardly imagine the finished project.

Now we can get on to the planting!! I have peas, lettuce and spinach waiting. Along with kale, collards and chard coming on Wednesday!! Luckily I have a seed starting fiend of a friend that will be supplying all these babies. I'm not ready to be starting seeds with my current set up. Now I just have to plan the layout and pick out a few new things. We are on for broccoli, carrots, potatos, zucchini, cucumber, yellow squash, tomatoes, & peppers. Also outside the fence we have asparagus and pumpkins. I just may run out of room!
Any suggestions? Requests? Horror stories?

April is a fool

2011-04-08T08:46:00.000-07:00

I really think Aprils Fools day is more about the weather in April than any prank playing.
The hour I worked shovelling dirt on Wednesday had to be the worst hour of weather all month.

I
am
the
Fool.

Yesterday I was glad to see the sun again... and when I got home? It looked like this:

So I took a tour around the yard with the camera. I didn't even get my feet wet!

Love the daffodils! They make me feel like a real person with a real house!

Daffodils surround Autumn Joy

Spring is here! Spring is here!

Travis' grass seed is sprouting!

Look what I found!!
A lily was forced upon me at the NW Flower & Garden show and it needed to be planted asap!
And it is still alive!

This is what we do for fun!
Cut circles around our trees while we avoid the heavy work in the veggie garden.

Bloom already!!!

A great sunset while relaxing makes up for the foolish weather.

Rain with a chance of rain

2011-04-07T08:30:00.000-07:00

So far this month has been full of failed plans in all sorts of unexpected ways. Too many changes of plans for me to be able to think clearly. So this lead me to scramble to get the garden filled before May 16th so I am ahead of last year. After trying to get a load of dirt each day last week and only finding 2 sunny days, I thought Saturday we could try for 10! Ha! Then I had a planned and forgotten breakfast and my high hopes diminished to 4 yards... and then it was raining and I was happy for 2.
This lead me to think it was a good idea to get a truck load of soil Wednesday. At lunch it was glorious and sunny, birds chirping and bees singing(?)
Travis wanted to work on the beam(almost done!!) So I said to just fill the truck on his way home and I would unload it.
I got home and the sky looked like this:

And then it hailed so I waited that out til it turned to a medium rain. Once you are wet, it really doesn't matter too much.
And then the lightening
....and thunder!
As I stood shaking my fist at the sky & cursing under my breath I looked toward the windows where Travis was working inside, hoping he would feel pity and come save me. I was in a position in the truck bed, that is exactly in line with him standing on a ladder thru that window and he saw me.
He smiled and gives me a thumbs up!!
I gave him a finger up too, but he had already gone back to work.

And then the hail started again. And more rain.
I did eventually finish and luckily Travis didn't take any pictures because I was one dirty mess.

Here is a little evolution of the garden in the last few weeks.

Below we have finished the hole we were digging and then the rain started to fill it. I am seeing a trend here...
Travis got a new pitch fork to help the clay drain. Along with adding drainage, he was plucking out rocks.

Like 3 more buckets of rocks.

Here we are after 1 yard is dumped. Oh boy, that's gonna need alot of filling in.

And after 4 yards and some rain I did not see the mud coming...
who knew dirt + rain = boot gobbling mud 6 inches deep. It looks so innocent in this photo.

Piles I made after unloading the dirt last night. I surely was not going to level it out after unloading in the rain. This is the 5th yard in the hole we dug. Only 5 more to go!

Here is the muddy path between the truck and the hole. This WAS the garden last year. It will be this year too as soon as we get there.

I had to interrupt Travis' work to help me clean up and put the fence back together. I was so done.

He wasn't happy coming out in the rain to hose out the truck

in his pj bottoms so he sprayed me whilst I made comments from inside the house.

And this is what is happening outside the fence:

~~Dead bodies~~ Dirt we did not sift in piles under tarps in the background,

and rocks getting washed on the sifter.

It is as much fun as you can imagine!

This is the pile we have left. We actually have several uses for the rocks once they are cleaned and sorted in different sizes.
Hey--Don't laugh! At least I'm not trying to sort in to colors!

I will report back once I have something exciting to say!

365 days later

2011-03-27T13:38:00.000-07:00

This is what we are working on this week:
Making sure there are no bodies buried in the garden in a shallow grave,
Picking old paint from nooks and crannies in the beam,
Sanding primed cupboards
& bathing some rocks

I will not bore you with these gruesome pictures.

Instead I will share with you some of my favorite pictures & memories from the last year.
In almost no particular order.

Moving day: have plants will travel

365 sunsets a year


Before: A blank page in a coloring book

After!

A dog for a day

After a hard days work, we rest and ponder.

Sunset kisses

Dinner every night on the BBQ

Fred loves his greens

A glimpse thru the garden gate

More than I ever dreamed of.

The perfect subjects for learning to use my camera

Flowers make good models, so much patience

Quince next door

Sunflower detail

Poppy love

A few of my favorite things

Travis does not approve holding my flowers, but I do!

Patio hijinx

Snow greens

And back to spring rains

Houseplant homicide

2011-03-23T07:37:00.000-07:00

What happened to my plant?

Did it die from a broken heart?

It was doing just fine after I replanted it last month. It had outgrown the little pot on the right, so much so it had climbed right out of the dirt. Bad dirt at that. It was in random potting soil and I got some cactus mix to replant it in.

Repotting extravaganza!

After replanting, it was stretching out and even looked like it may flower soon!
I watered it very lightly at this point.

I got to buy a new plant for the pot it outgrew too!

And even without much water it seems to be melting. The soil is dry and Travis swears he did not water it.

Although I am curious what happened to it, I have already replaced it in my heart with a new plant. I bought this colorful little Haworthia at the NW Flower and Garden show. Since I am not ready to plant outdoors yet, I eased my plant buying soul with a new succulent.

This itty bitty plant and pot is only 3 inches tall.

So--what did I do wrong? Will I lose another this way? I do not think it is redeemable in its current state.

In other news

2011-03-20T12:13:00.000-07:00

This is what we have been up to the last week...
I took this.....

And made this!

It was actually the easiest part ofcleaning/sanding/priming all the cupboards.

With a little help from a friend, we got this accomplished on a Saturday night!

I am great company eh?

I know it is just primer, but it is my 2nd can!

And I am done with this phase and have just bought the actual paint!!!

(please kindly forget that I started this project in November)

A tree left our skyline.

I preferred the threesome but after a walk thru the neighborhood we determined it was 2 different property owners, so we are unlikely to lose the other 2. The trunk is now completely gone.

The lovely Crocus' graced our presence all day this Saturday,

opening wider and wider, making our dirty chores somehow funner....

I had to make this pic bigger because all the other pictures hurt to look at.

Our mud puddles of the week dried up!
While we went from this....

to this...

Once the sun starts going down the pictures are really hard to get decent pictures.

We measured it and it is exactly 1ft deep. We amaze me sometimes.

I hope you can all see the progress that left us groaning and limping today! We are some tired units ready for bed at 9pm on a Saturday night. Grueling work! I did time our slowest load. 15 minutes to fill a wheel barrow! Travis cuts the dirt from the earth, and loads up my sifter with 5ish shovels of dirt(clay!!)I sift rocks and clear rocks to bucket and REPEAT. For 4 HOURS!
We have 1 more section of fence to do this to before we get to the pretilled garden of last year which will be a relief.

The point of all this is to bring in good dirt for veggie growing. Meanwhile using the bad soil instead of creating a huge pile of it. I tried giving up this project over and over and Travis won't let me. I have suggested NOT having such a huge garden, building raised beds, selling the house and having children and waiting 10 years for them to do it.
I'm pretty sure there are easier ways to do this--but this is the cheapest most efficient method.

This is what we created :

I always miss the before pictures so you get a during picture..

We were about a foot short all the way around this South Garden along with every other part of the retaining wall we inherited....

This is the South Garden after.

It is a bit dirty after all that work, but I could not push a broom any longer. Just too much like the raking action I had been doing all day. I get to plant every plant I ever dreamed of in this lovely full sun garden! Lilacs, roses, peonies, Oh my!

We also finished off Travis' garden, the grass strip. It is all so much nicer to the eye, even just dirt! Travis says mowing will be so much easier... I am not sure if it is because it is NOW less grass, or the eventual grass will be even....

My first daffodil snuck in to this pic at the top right

And with all that work and creating we have a whole lotta rocks.

Rocks mixed with CLAY!

I have lost count of how many buckets worth now.

But on Saturday we were averaging 1 bucket full of rocks per wheel barrow full of dirt.

That is 1 bucket of rocks per 15 minutes and I only have 3 buckets!

Now we must wash off the rocks for some future use,

which I have no doubt we will find with the rainfall and drainage of the clay

The best part of the rocks!! This one we picked up at the cement dump of Pacific Topsoils. Paid to get rid of cement, and brought home a huge rock as a trophy!

This one is a close 2nd in size--and we found it in our yard.

I am not sure what I want with these gigantic rocks, but want them I do.

In other news, I caught Fred sleeping this week! He is an early riser and is usually up before me. In 8 years I have never seen him sleeping! By the time I found the camera he was waking up.

Dirt, rocks, dirt, rocks... soon we will be back to having garden and moving upstairs!!!

1st Blogaversary!!

2011-03-16T08:00:00.000-07:00

A whole year has passed and it turns out waiting is NOT the hardest part.
Waiting seems relatively easy these days. Writing a blog is much preferable then finishing the work. The never ending work. Just like a true 1 yr old keeping us up at nights and puking on all our plans.
Back in March 2010, I really thought we would move upstairs much sooner. I also didn't plan on redoing the kitchen and just thought they were really really dirty and could be cleaned.
Travis thought the beam would just take a couple of weeks.
Ha! Noobs.

We have learned a lot though. Home repair, cost + time=2x what you planned, gardening, plants & patience.
Last date planned to move upstairs was March 1... it is now March 16th and well.... I stopped planning.
We actually moved in March 28th... but it seems unlikely we will be moving by then.
I turn 31 on April 12th.... and I kinda half hoping and not planning (if I plan it, it will go wrong) to be moving before that week.
The fun of that is spring cleaning, unpacking, getting resorted out... in to our ACTUAL first house. Not our actual first basement. I am looking forward to it.

The whole reason I started this blog, well 2 parts...
1. Our friends would get plenty sick of us if all we ever talked about was the house--so I started a blog to talk about what we do, and if they ARE interested they can come here to see what is what. Otherwise we try not to talk about the house (too much) during our dates with them.
Funny story recently: Superbowl 2011 party at a friends, same people as 2010 but we had not seen some of them since that time...
One lady asks, 'So you bought a house like you were talking about last year?"
"Yes we did", I say.
"So started any little house projects?"
And the entire room bursts out laughing! I could not bear to go in to it, instead I gave her the blog link.
Even when we try to get away from it, it follows us.
2. To remember. Like the cake says. Remember everything. In 10yrs time, all the stupid little things we will have forgotten the extraneous details that make it all worth it.
Even in 1 years time, looking thru the 1000's of pictures, we will run across some that we had forgotten. One day we will take our hard work for granted and life will move on but we can always come back here.

Here are a few of my favorite search terms that have found this blog:

"can living in a basement make you depressed"

"Bacon taking over Virginia"

The stats are much fun to watch. I kinda felt like a star the first time I saw these. I google imaged them myself and found my pictures!
I have had over 2000 visits on this blog which astounds me. I mean I have to say words or I will explode, but that doesn't mean other people have to listen or read!
I have 18 followers and at least 10 of those are complete strangers!! I love that.
And I want to know why my friends do not comment?
I don't know anyone on the other side of the world, but Korea & Poland have beat Canada for page views recently. Of course the US has the lead.

Spring is coming and it is energizing us to get a move on. Well it is probably my nagging that is energizing Travis... but energized we are! I hope to get more content filled blog posts up soon instead of this whining I have been doing for the past couple months.

Til then--

Thanks to you all for joining us on this rollercoaster ride called home ownership!!

Rain rain go away...

2011-03-13T13:50:00.000-07:00

It has only been since we moved here that I learned that Travis can build things.
Not just build them well, but enjoys it! Obviously renting does not merit this type of thing.
Somehow I said Yes before learning this information.

We had some 2x4s that were the wrong kind of wood for testing stain on our beams just laying around and I had a new project idea!

This is not the project--this is just fun! Here are the 2x4s used for stain testing. Got a favorite?

We believe fully in the motto is "A project worth doing deserves a new tool" so we gained an awesome staple gun for this job. The proper kind where you press against the end the staple comes out.

A couple 2x4s and a metal screen about $15 in material is all we needed...

So now if the sun ever comes out enough for the puddles to go away I can be found in the below picture!

A dirt sifter! or rock harvester as it turns out.

It is almost meditative to shovel 5 loads of dirt on the the screen, set shovel to the right, grab rake from the left and sift the dirt thru the screen, harvesting the rocks, and repeat. Especially in the sun!

The first yard I sifted by myself. Took an hour or so. I only got 1/2 bucket full of rocks. I guess that area had been pre dug last year and we hand picked a lot of rocks out. I almost stopped using the screen at this point and felt really bad for making Travis build it.

But the 2nd day I had help and we filled all 3 buckets with rocks.

Moving another yard of soil. (2 down, 8ish to go!)

This dirt is no joke. Full of rocks and roots AND clay based and WET. Really a great workout.

It was perfect timing with one person shovelling dirt on screen, 2nd person sifting and removing rocks and as soon as wheel barrow was full, Travis dumped it here.

And proceeded to use it to level out the slope in our grass!

Below is where I randomly planted my Autumn Joy and some daffodils, not realizing at the time that they will have to be raised up. So they get to stay low until after the daffodils bloom.

The reason we are getting this done now is to get rid of as much anti veggie type soil as we can, and bring in some good dirt for planting! Reusing our bad soil for grass growing and using the rocks to place around the base of the fence posts to keep the dirt off them,

Mowing will be alot easier when we are done

This area took more than a yard to make the slope as little as possible.

A yard is equal to 5-6 wheel barrows full.

The sifted clay soil reminds me of ground beef. Hope grass likes to grow in ground beef!

The saddest part of sifting process are the worms. Some of them I picked out and thru in the compost filled Pea bed and others found there way thru the screen. But without stopping every 2 seconds to pick out a worm, they kinda parted ways with being whole. Here is one below rejoicing at making it to greener pastures. It is over a foot long!

It has been raining for 2 days now. We should host some mud wrestling! This is the hole we created so far and we still have this much more to do at least before we start bringing in the dirt. As you can see, clay does not offer much in the way of drainage. Good riddance!

While it is raining the old man will NOT be snoring.

(I'm sure Travis approves that I haven't added yet another caught sleeping picture again so soon)
I will finish up priming the cupboards and Travis will be working on phase 3.5 of the beams!

Patio Completion

2011-03-09T20:00:00.000-08:00

Finally! A project completed!

It all started with a badly timed leaking water line

+ 1 plumber

- loads of cinderblocks

+ inspiration

+ 96 stones

x 100lbs each

+ a new truck

+ several loads of sand & gravel

+ Travis' skills =

Warning: These pictures may make you dizzy with all my turning and clicking.

We loved the look of the little charcoal stones, but when they are dry they look terrible. Good thing we get alot of precipitation. You can see in this picture a dry stripe from the gate being opened when it started raining. Pretty shiny black turns in to BLAH gray once dry.

North side looking east

We changed our plans for the pattern of little black stones several times due to space available and spacing between them. I wanted a pattern, but in the end it didn't happen like that.

Facing north

It was slightly snowing the day after completion. That is one of the reasons it took so long to finish.
It was only about 20 stones short all thru the winter.

facing south

I like things to be even and centered but unfortunately we weren't this far ahead in our plan when Travis installed the underground hose. I am more than happy to fore go my need for even since I won't have a hose stretched across the patio every spring/summer/fall to water the garden.

East Side

The edges aren't pretty yet--that is my job.
Along with filling the spaces with soil and ground cover...again

From the slider-facing ---oh who cares!

I gained an extra 60 sqft of garden space! Here it still looks unfinished to me since the sand/gravel is still down. I'm not sure how I'm going to handle all that extra space once we get started on the garden.
Last year we had less than 1/2 the ground tilled before planting time, this year we plan on finishing the space. From 150 sq ft to close to 600!

Garden side

I get to buy a new plant to put in front of the hose hidey!

Must be evergreen, full sun and drought tolerant since it is under the eaves a bit.

I was soo proud of my groundcover last October. Little star creeper is a pest to some gardens but not mine. It is a steppable, its green and has little flowers... will even survive down to 0 degrees..

Found a couple little snails during the week but didn't know the damage they could do.

One day I noticed a small patch was missing... and within a week it was gone.

Pic on left was October, right was Feb.

Now I get to go buy it all again and try again.

Along with learn snail control methods.

I even wrote a blog on how to save money and spread it yourself!

This is an unknown shrub that came with the house. Anyone know what it is?
It needs to be shaped badly and possibly moved.
It would probably be a death sentence If I tried that with out details...but then again--look at the ground cover I killed.

Rewinding
Here is the start and finish of 2010

And here is where he left it in September. Back when my ground cover was still thriving.

Quite the weight lifted from his shoulders. This was the day he finished the patio:

Since Travis was "resting" I decided to snap some pics of my daffodils

More blogs to come! I (almost) promise!

My cup runneth over

2011-02-27T11:24:00.000-08:00

Every plant has a story don't you think?

My father gave me some pieces of sedum years ago from a pot in his back yard and I stuck it in this pot I got probably 5 yrs ago that I adored. I had tried fern and it died, I tried flowers and they died.
So finally the sedum went in.
I put it outside on my covered patio and it prospered. Until winter came....
All the rest my plants were off the patio getting rained on and I had some idea about it being winter and not needing to water anything. Come spring clean up of the patio, this poor little guy was all brown and down to one tiny piece of green about the size of my thumb nail! The horror! I was supposed to water it since it wasn't in the rain!
Oopsie!!
So I cleared out the dead and stuck in the little survivor and watered it. After a while it was as long as my pinky! So I tore it in half and stuck both ends back in the dirt.
Then I had 2 fingers worth! And I proceeded to tear those in half and stick then in the dirt and THOSE grew too! I am always a sucker for saving plants.

So here is the sedum in 2010:

Prospering wildly that now all the pieces that escape get planted in a new container. Always trying to escape!
This little fern sprouted here all on its own but it looked good so I left it.

It has started to turn magenta this year, not sure if it is the full sun location it currently lives in or just old age.
It looks great with frost on it too!

These pictures don't really do it justice to the color it has turned. It is so much bolder than my skills allow.

Here it sits all pretty and innocent....until you zoom out

And what do we have here zoomed out?

Father winter had his way with this pot in the freezing weather.

At first I thought it was just this one in green full of weeds.

And over the course of the week...

Little pieces were falling off all around it. First one side and then the other and finally the handle broke free

But was it really the cold weather or did this plant plan this jailbreak? This tea cup along with other planters has been outside for years and none have ever fallen apart. As much as I would have liked them too!!

Or did I plan this? I always like to buy new pots!

And it shall be! I bought a new pot at Molbaks yesterday. A larger terra cotta bowl with feets. So hopefully it will survive and I can plant a few different succulents in it and try something new! Also I need to go back to Michael's and search out a new giant tea cup--this time to plant something inside.

Now I am off to the garage to get some replanting done while trying not to cut myself on these shards or freeze outside.

Does this plant have a name other than just sedum?

2010-The UGLY truth

2011-02-16T21:53:00.000-08:00

OK Friends--I am doing this one with a blindfold on! Or maybe just goggles fogged up. I don't want to write any more negative things. I don't even want to think about them! Nor do I want them to continue being a spot of disgrace--I just want to finish them.
It has been a long long slow process.
Part of it is I have NEVER done this sort of work. I work in an office! I'm good with the keyboard & I'm great at researching! We don't get this kind of practice. Now learning from the internets... I know what to do... but won't know if I did anything wrong until I finish and that is the point of no return. I will never look back or FIX it. Ok ok--I might try and fix it but I don't want to do it wrong in the first place.

Here it is!!!

#1
THE UGLY KITCHEN!

This is what I look at on my way to the shower... one quick glance is all I allow myself. Start my day out with disgust and angst. No wonder I want to block it out.

It has seen some progress since this picture

When we moved in I bought new handles! And made a vow to replace the handles before the week was out.
I was so excited! I picked 6 styles and put them up and let my friends vote during the painting party. They all liked this one:

Awesome! Pretty clean and new handles! I can do this! I was ready to put them on... right after I get the cupboards clean.

But they didn't listen. Or maybe they didn't like the new handles?

I make this extra large so you ~~gag too~~ get my point

And this stuck to my arm while painting the wall behind it. *shudder at the memory*
Seriously. Press board, grease, dust, steam + 32 years?

Please go clean the tops of your cupboards now!

So here I am:

Priming with disposable brushes using an oil based Kilz tinted Lavender which is supposed to be a shade of light brown.

This one is for Darth Karen

And my littler(with no head) below likes helping which makes it go faster.

I am supremely grateful for help at this stage, because..... it sucks.

She is just the right height to get the underside of the cupboards.

Wonder what she is doing this weekend?

Meanwhile in the garage (on my awesome work bench made out of a broken ladder) we test paint colors.
The one on the right was my favorite 2 months ago, but someone(Hmmhph Travis?) thought it might be too dark. So I tried some lighter colors... and NOPE. It was perfect all along
(Edit: this picture is missing and I cannot find it. Sorry!)

And if it wasn't enough work already, we decided to get fancy!

Middle is the winner. Sweet Molasses w/ Sweet Georgia brown pin stripes

And back to the garage, Travis fixed the drawers that were falling apart so now I can go back to the cleaning, sanding(by hand this time) and priming of the 7 drawers.

I don't have alot of time or motivation during the week to suit up and waste a paint brush a day so I have been putting it off til the weekends. But some how those fill up with unplanned plans and I get only a few hours in. I did start this in November...In the background are the cupboard doors waiting for the fronts to be primed.

And now we are back where I started. Picking a new handle.

I will post pics later if I have trouble deciding.

So I can have the hinges cleaned and painted to match!

And here I am today:

All one color at least! Now I have to do it all again =/

I thought the pantry was a debacle! I just did not know the meaning of debacle yet.

It just goes on and on my friends... hence my delay in writing this blog. I can look back and laugh once I finish, but since I am still in the middle? It's quite the sore spot for me.

Truly the beams should be on this Ugly list since Travis has worked so long and hard on them...
But you know what? I am writing this blog :)
And besides, his beams have already become pretty, where I am not quite there yet in the kitchen.

2. Carpet cleaner who needs anger management

I never followed up on the story with the carpet cleaner. He cleaned all our carpets back in March 2010.

Seemed to do a pretty good job on the living room. The pic on the right was a beloved spot by the previous owners little dog. Once they dried some spots are still there, but it feels more sanitary at least.

Here I explain what happened to our stairs.
The man who cleaned our carpets was incompetent. (Travis approves this word.) He put down "extra water" because the stairs were "extra dirty" but neglected to get up all the extra water. When we found the damage we called him to come see/fix/help/etc but he did not show up.. so we called him back again and he yelled and hung up. Next we wrote him a very nice email and he responded back with a rant, all in lower case, no spaces or punctuation, besides !!!! every other sentence.
Here we realized how unstable this guy was.
We could go after him with small claims court. But he also knows where we live... So we went back and forth on the decision for a while and ultimately decided to NOT go after him in court, but to hit him where it counts. Reviews. ONLINE.
Now yes, I did originally find him thru Craigslistwebpage and somehow I ran across one (old or false ad) that mentioned he was licensed bonded and insured which made me feel confident hiring him.. Now when you do this, you should probably check to make sure they STILL are at the time you hire them. I knew nothing about this at the time. I had a budget and $200 for all my carpets was a fantastic price.
So I made a weekly goal to check his advertisements on several sites and make sure there was a review(nicely written) that mentioned he was NOT licensed, bonded or insured without going in to much detail. Remember, he probably still knows who I am and where I live.
He removed his ads from those sites. The nerve!
Upon googling him for this blog--it seems he has changed his number too. I was going to post his link and name and number just for hits when ever someone searches for him... but with the statistic programs recently--I think he would know... and... you guessed it! He still knows where we live.

I know this sounds paranoid but I really am not. Just this guy seemed angry and unstable and did not seem worth the effort to get our money back.

Moral to this story?
1. Do not hire anyone named Rob to clean your carpets. I don't care if it is an amazing deal. Pick the next guy.
2. Carpet on shallow stairs is dumb anyway.
3. The lowest price is NOT always the best price.

I should have sent him packing after reading this from his website:
High Powered Truck-Mounted "Quality" Steam Cleaning!
And then he showed up in this old van and advertised in my driveway

I have nothing against advertising in my driveway and I full intended on posting my own review on this blog...
until the stairs mildewed and he yelled at us.

#3 And the things we thought were important before moving in and have yet to get to and then realized how dumb we really are thinking they were the "important things"
(Also see original to do list at bottom of this link)

*Mismatched lighting all thru out

*Mismatched 1978 flooring

Master Bath

Kitchen

Main Bath

This is the best of them--but I still hate it.

Old carpet vs Older Carpet

*Replacing the ugly window

This was Enemy #1 on our list---ha!

So if that is not enough for you to cry along with me, I NOW can get back to updating regularly. I have lots to catch you all up on!

PS: I have had a lot of trouble during the editing of this blog and uploading of pictures--probably due to the extraordinary amount of time it took me, so blogger is telling me "post was not saved due to form errors, etc etc" So if it seems something is missing---It probably IS! I doubt I will fix it in less than 24hrs. Sorry!

The Bad 2010

2011-02-01T08:27:00.000-08:00

The Bad

#1 Water vs plumber

The leaking water line in month 2 of living here. It is no joke to open a mailbox on a Friday night and find a $300 water bill. The former owners HAD to have known about this, as they had 1 or 2 high bills before they moved. But it was not caught on the inspection nor is there any proof so we didn't get to blame it on anyone. $1500 later with only a $56 credit from the water company (50% of 50% of 1, 2 month bill, minus $75 admin fee) Decembers water was free!

It would be listed under ugly, but it brought to us the lovely patio plan which elevates it up one level. (And because I promised to be more optimistic)

Here is where it started:

When we moved in this faucet on the patio was drip drip dripping away. In fact, the moving party was still here and Travis was determined to fix this. RIGHT NOW. So he did for about 30 cents in 2 minutes.

Now it WAS leaking almost 10 gallons a day, just by the innocent drip drip dripping. So when we pulled up this one broken cinder block, we shouldn't have been surprised to find a swimming pool.

And since we thought it was all from the drip drip dripping, we thought we could bail it out.

But by the time we got one hole empty, all the other holes had filled back in. But we kept it up and kept it up til they were ALL empty at the same time... I mean, how long had 10 gallons/day been leaking on to the patio?

Slowly the sun went down, and they all filled back up again. At this point we started wondering about a leak and I believe the very next day the bill came.

So we called 3 plumbers, hired 1 and waited for a sunny weekend for a surprise destruction of the patio

Now this is less than 2 months after moving in--all we really wanted to do was plant a garden, clean the house and sand those beams. We also had company coming in July for a week and this was the state of the patio in the middle of June:

We couldn't bear to put these back in. All the work to level out the dirt to hate these cinder blocks some more? No thanks! And this is where the dream was born.

And this is how far we got for our company. A big gravel yard!!! I spent A LOT of time vacuuming.

#2 The Beams from hell

Back when everything was white. *shudder*

The beams. The @#$% beams.
Travis couldn't wait to get started on these beams once we moved in. Underestimating the amount of time and work it would take. Grossly underestimating the annoyance.
Also--did I mention he doesn't like heights? (I won't say afraid, because he probably would not approve)
We recently called in some contractors for advice about what type of wood they were and how to stain them and every single one mentioned how Travis had done all the hard work all ready. They oohed and aahed at the fact if we hired them the rest would be a cake walk. (Bastards)
I wonder if the truth was known before we bought the house, if Travis would have still wanted THIS house.

Travis finished PHASE 1! YIPPEEE!

Full shot of Phase 1 complete--time for phase 2, detailing

Some of these divots are super deep

My all time favorite picture. Travis in deep thought about Beams

If it wasn't for this project, we should have moved upstairs. Or so we think. But another item actually is keeping us in the dungeon as well--coming up in Ugly

The truth is Travis climbed off the ladder in the middle of June to let the plumber in, and did not get back up there to work til the patio was done, actually almost done, but the weather was done with being cooperative.
Also climbing to the tallest area in our house in the middle of summer would have been pretty unbearable.

He has clocked more than 80 hours ON THE LADDER.

Phase 1, Sanding: standing on 10ft ladder holding belt sander up and using appropriate pressure to get a good even result. (I was not interested in trying it myself). Also wearing coveralls, goggles and nose mask.
Phase 2, Detailing: same as above, minus sander, but using metal pics and other smaller tools. we will find out after he begins.
Phase 3, Staining: more of the same using conditioner, stain and possibly brushes or rags.

I have forgotten about the first 2 pre-phases the applying of stripper and the scrapping off that happened back in early April. I am sure he has not.
By the end of this--Travis will know these beams quite well. Having worked on each inch more than 5x.

(I do believe I am sounding pessimistic now. I have thought about this series for far too long and have stretched them out to the point that it is now FEBRUARY. I am going to stop being so wordy and try and still make my point.)

#3 Timber

The Tree threatening to fall on our house.

Another item the inspector COULD have mentioned. Being noobs at home ownership--who would think something OUTSIDE the house and yard would pose a risk. This isn't in any manual for people. Actually maybe there is and I didn't get the memo?

The broken fence and leaning tree should have been our first clue

First shot out NE window. Very rustic

I absolutely LOVE the look of this tree

Ominous light-this is how far it leans OVER our yard

Blowing in the breeze

It is on a slope, eroding away with some drainage issue somewhere, leaning leaning leaning. During the wettest season of the wettest year...

I really really do love this tree and all the birds that grace it. If ONLY it was not leaning towards our house, but away, towards someone elses house or not leaning at all!
Only time will tell...

Stay tuned for part 3 of 'The Good, the Bad & the Ugly'

2010 in review- THE GOOD

2011-01-29T10:59:00.000-08:00

Obviously I did not include "Stop procrastinating" in my resolutions or else this may have been posted a month ago. In reality I have even procrastinated making any resolutions!

So going with the December flow and taking the month off of working on the house, this unfortunately counted blogging. So here I am--failing my first year end blog... posting it sometime in ~~early~~ January.

In keeping notes on our first year in our first house a review of sorts is needed. Not a lot has been happening around Castle Debauchery recently due to a variety of ~~excuses~~ reasons.

It is winter.

It is wet.

We are tired.

Work is busy.

We have been slightly ~~depressed~~ hibernating.

But!!!No more!!! Back to work!

I have tried to write this blog for a month now, editing it 32 times and I am still having a hard time ending it on a positive note.
So I will start with The Good!

#1 The Bills.

What you say? How are bills good? What is a GOOD kind of bill?

The PAID kind.
The Paid on time with no fussing kind.
The kind that is $0

I try not to talk about money here.. but as you know-dirt costs money.
Good weed free dirt anyway!
And so do home repairs, upgrades and just getting our house to a level of cleanliness we can live with.

We have successfully lived within our means even with all the disasters and unforeseen repairs that we didn't notice, and the 'I must do this NOW before I tear my hair out' projects. (Travis does not approve this sentence.)

And the best part:
We even got to entertain our friends many times. Many many times. Maybe a few too many. (I will totally blame my lack of progress recently on our awesome friends)

For this we have made some sacrifices. Some went easily, others are still taunting my dreams.
Some of the things we gave up: sushi together, pedicures, buying books, Christmas 2010, birthday gifts all year, treating friends to dinners out and any dates that don't include $5 hot dog deals at Home Depot.
But those hot dogs ARE fantastic and we are even saving time by multitasking at HD.

#2 The Garden

The one thing we could call finished. No matter how much or how little you plant and harvest- THAT is a garden. It produced quite well. It was as big as we could make in the time allotted and it did it quite successfully.

We harvested from it all summer and fall. It was just about our only true success of the year. I was so thankful to have SOMETHING to take our mind off our other projects. Every time we stepped outside, it gave us something new to think about and look at. Now that the gardener seed has been planted in our heads, we will double the garden in size this year and hope it is as successful as last year.

I had never really planted anything in the earth before we moved here and now I cannot get enough of the garden blogs. In fact I have started following too many to keep up with! I have learned so many things I have never even previously thought about during these last 9 months. I look at landscapes and other yards in the neighborhood in a completely new way. Look at that--I'm growing, like my garden!

Even though it now looks like this:

It once was a source of comfort and joy like this:

#3 The Patio

And let us not forget the garden viewing platform.

Even unfinished and wintery it gives us joy with ice crystal like rorschachs.

Do you see what I see?

A valentine

A partridge in a pear tree

You choose!

It has truly undergone an amazing transformation all the while keeping Travis out of trouble. At 100lbs a stone, Travis got to continue working out and put his truck to work as well!

Back when we moved in:

Cinder blocks past.

First snow in March/April 2010

First snow on new patio Dec 2010

It has made us value our money even more than before. Even though we made some money selling used cinder blocks(there is seriously a huge market for this--who would have thought?) we still forked out over the course of its creation at least $700. It made us count our money in stones!

While debating cooking dinner it becomes a battles of stones...

4 stones to eat out vs dinner in with food from garden only costs a 1/3 of a stone.

A tank of gas costs me 5 stones, and Travis 7 stones.

A trip to Starbucks? One. Whole. Stone.

You see where this is going? It is so true.

This patio was one of those surprise projects which stemmed from a terrible problem that cost even more money. But I will save that one for the next post.

Stay tuned for part 2 of 'The Good, the Bad & the Ugly'

2010 FAIL

2011-01-14T10:25:00.000-08:00

So not only did I fail to get my year end post up by year end--- or even the first week of 2011...
I also accidentally published it last night with out knowing it til this morning... and it was a rough rough draft.
Coming soon (now I am committed) the actual posts with pictures and typos and spelling corrected!

My apologies come in way of silly picture of myself for all the internets to see.

I have a thing for trying on hats...

and onion goggles

Travis started the sleep picture war...

Princess April all the way

True story

I really wish I had bought this one.

Do you see a trend?

I made this one myself

Travis approves this post (I think)
And I plan on removing it once I get my 2010 review done :)

Doormats and toilet brushes

2010-12-28T08:25:00.000-08:00

It is now officially
~~April 12~~
~~May 1~~
~~July 1~~
~~Sept 1~~
~~Dec 1~~
~~Dec 10~~
December 28th
And we have not moved upstairs.
With a lot of teeth gritting, hair pulling and acceptance I finally threw in the towel and made a new due date of March 1.
That is still less than a year since we moved in, and we ONLY get this one chance to willingly (HA!) live in the basement.
In hindsight, we decided on December 26th, that we are taking the month of December off of working on the house.
At first it was just distractions and impromptu plans that only happen in December. Work trips, dinners with friends, endless errands... and then Christmas came and went, and we STILL didn't get to work.
So it is no longer procrastination, but part of the plan.

Now year end is fast approaching and I still have more to do that has NOTHING to do with progress.
Update my books read list, take donations to good will and craft a year end blog.

Meanwhile I will give you my Christmas wish!
Doormats and toilet brushes!
Finally getting rid of the doormats left by the previous owners and all their dirtiness is a great joy.

But I will save you from the picture of toilet brushes and just show you this DOUCHE who had road rage at Christmas time in front of the mall.

And on a much lighter note, we spent our xmas eve, engagement anniversary(does that count?) upstairs with our first fire! Quite romantic.

And did you know? Spring is coming!!

I found these hungry little mouths after cutting back the Autumn Joy earlier this month.

That is all I have time for today. Maybe I can post a long list of pictures that need remembering before the year runs out.