A case of the bends.

I came home and asked M if he was fiddling with the downspout.

"Um, no."

"Then you probably should come out and see this."

The downspout has filled with water that froze, it bowed the pipe away from the house so far that it actually broke away from the brackets that held it in place.  

We just have a little bit of a sway problem going on here.  

I guess that we'll add that to the repair list whenever the weather breaks.  

All I wanted was to have the bath tub faucet tightened.

The faucet needs replaced, but is attached to the surround, so we needed to pull that to replace the faucet.  That alone was irritating enough.  (We're in repairs.  Forgive the notion of us needing to keep it real and while it is functional in there.  It isn't pretty.)

200 MPH tape (AKA duct tape) rides again!

 "Hey Honey, can you replace the fan with one that isn't quite so loud?"  We knew that we were developing some mold on the wall and ceiling above the shower and figured that the 12 year old fan had seen better days.

 Then we ran into the other side of this.  I will not repeat here what came out of Hubs' mouth.

 Up close and personal.  No fear.  We about had a heart attack.

 Hubs cut out the offending wood.  Yes, that would be the other side of the surround.

The sunlight was shining through the plastic bag that is hanging above the temporarily placed surround.  Keep in mind, we do not have a window in there.  I mean, I wanted a window, but didn't mean this way.  I pitched the idea.  Hubs turned it down.  He may have asked if I was crazy.

 The first layer of board.

The second layer of board, exterior and now waterproofed with a full tube of caulk.  I would be disappointed if Hubs didn't use a full tube of caulk.  He loves caulk.

He asked if I would cut the circle out in the soffit for the new vent cover.  He is going to attach the fan tomorrow, so for right now, it isn't flush to the soffit but it will be soon.  The wood will be painted back to the original gray and all will be well.

Thank God I have a handy husband!

Now onward to the inside!  No more lavender walls.  We'll be going with a nice sea glass greenish blue.  Yes, there will be photos of that later.

Have a home improvement-free night!

"Do you want the bad news or the bad news?"

I asked my husband earlier if he could tighten the faucet in the tub.  It wasn't dripping, but running a continual stream.

Idiot me thought that you could just give it a tweak.

My husband used some stinky spray stuff (PB Blaster, if memory serves) to loosen up something.  He went from the bathroom to then the hallway access panel.

I knew that wasn't good.

In the end, he said that the faucet needs replaced.  To replace the faucet calls for the surround to be pulled out.  To pull the surround out would resolve the issue of the misfit and the fact that no matter how hard I try, water collects and causes mold.  Honestly, I'm kind of good with replacing the surround.

I had plans on painting the bathroom.  I didn't get to do it last year as I wanted.  Hubs said that he's glad that I didn't.  In fact, just a few weeks ago I bought paint and a new bathroom fan.

Hubs asked if I wanted a jacuzzi tub.  I declined.

I asked him if he wanted to install a window in a windowless bathroom.  He declined.

We have to call in our plumber.  Usually, we're (Hubs) is able to handle things.  When it comes to plumbing overhaul (which is what we suspect in this case), we bring Butch to the rescue.  We love Butch.

In the end, it isn't the type of overhaul on the bathroom that we did before.  Right after we bought the house, we did a poor guy, year long redo on the bathroom.  Given my work schedule and Hubs' work schedule, it took us a while but we got it done.  We had to replace the floor including the sub, toilet, install a medicine cabinet, frame the surround and around the mirror, rewire the bathroom, replace the fan, replace the towel bars, repaint the cabinet and replace knobs, replace the sink faucet, replace the swag lights with a wall mount and the install a shower can above the tub since the wall mount cast a shadow across the bathroom and re-tile back behind the sink.  Whew.

This run will call for the border to be removed, repaint the ceiling and walls, replace the surround, replace the fan with a super quiet one, get the plumbing fixed and replace a little bit of woodwork.  Voila.

Still, we sit in the land of, "All I wanted to do was paint." Growing up, that's all my mom ever wanted to do.  In her case, a wall was ripped out, found to contain asbestos, the room was tented, the ceiling raised because of layers of lath and in the end, it took probably 4 months to paint the front room.

We're hoping we don't have the same length of time.  Ugh.

My husband and a handful of tools.

On Saturday, I was very excited when I found blinds for our windows.  We've been looking for blinds for a few years for the living room, but never found any we liked that we were willing to lay out the cash for.  Hubs put woodwork in the bedroom this past fall and we've been without blinds in there since then.  Being that he put new woodwork up, we didn't want to put unnecessary holes into his fine craftsmanship and I certainly knew we wouldn't be replacing the $3.47 cheapie blinds that I bought at the Wal for the same.  Besides, I'm not a big fan of the Wal anyhow. 

When K- and I went to Lowe's for her building clinic on Saturday, we had some time to kill.  I decided to cruise on over to the department with the blinds.  I couldn't find what I wanted in the size I needed and in the price I could afford and when I did, they were yucky white slat blinds.  (No offense, we've had them in off white in our house for years.  Was just ready to ditch them, but know that they are still in K-'s room.)  I saw a clearance rack.  I saw blinds I liked, but they were 35".  Drat.  I needed 34" ish.  I read the box and on the front it said kind of small like, "Actual measurement 34 1/2"."  HOORAY!  I bought them, went back for 3 more boxes and announced my find to Hubs when he got home. 

"I found blinds."

"Really?"

"They were $30.00 and marked down to $7.60.  I bought 5 and I hope they fit."

And they do.  The man moved about the house with his tools for hours on Sunday and look:

We have blinds we can see out of, but they block much of the light so we don't get blinded. 

Then, he moved to the kitchen and hung my valances that I purchased while we were in Amish country.  Yes, I realize this doesn't actually show you what they look like.  Trust me, they are lovely.

And if all of that manual labor wasn't enough, Hubs took a trip to the hardware, bought up some 2x4s and built me this lovely garden box.  It is 4' x 8' and that is good enough for me.  We'll have collards and mizuna in there for the iguana, onions, potatoes (in the red bucket that are actually sitting on top of bricks for proper drainage) and beans for us.  I'll plunk the ground cherries into tomato cages (they flopped all over last year) in the back flower beds, we'll have two tomato plants (one next to the fence, one next to the house) and a red pepper on each side of the back steps.   Voila!

Smiles in my day:

-  Though K- hacked and coughed most of last night and she woke up with a monster stomach ache this morning, we've been able to straighten her out today and she'll be good to go to school tomorrow.  Allergy drainage is the pits. The tree pollen is high right now and Claritin can only do so much.  Poor kid, but she's feeling better!  Hooray!

-  Laundry washed and hung/dried. 

-  A nice hot meal in the crock pot.

-  I've been in my sweat pants all day long and I'm good with that.  Back to work tomorrow!

Have a great day!

Tales from the Trenches: Hormonal Home Repair

PMS and home repair.  Not a good combo.

Hubs weathered my bit o' ugliness (yes, I've apologized) and we (both tired and feeling a combination of yucks) managed to get the slate tile set on Monday night.  It took both of us nitting and picking (yes, we've both apologized), but it got laid.  The slate needs sealed, then it can be grouted. 

Today?  Hubs Pergo'd the hallway.  Tis gorgeous.  I threatened to buy a little kids bowling set so that we can bowl in the winter.  ;)

The hall from the top to the bottom varies by 1".  He needed to cut most of the wood by jig saw.  Though it took all day, he had 6 doorways to deal with.  (2 bedroom doors, the studio door, a linen closet and the coat/game closet.)  He continued the zipper pattern that he had running in the kitchen.  The lines line up perfectly. 

Such a perfectionist I married.  It doesn't help that I'm the same way.  Between the two of us, it takes a sweet forever to get anything done.  It always looks great when it is finally finished! 

The floor?  I'm thinking it will all be in probably by the end of the week.  Now, that isn't talking about time to re-install all of the moulding, but we want to look magazine picture like by Thanksgiving.  That's reasonable.  I told Hubs that I don't want to have to take holiday pictures where I have to crop funky crap out of.  He agrees.

Smiles in my day:
-  The hallway!
-  I scored winter boots for K- from LL Bean.  We bought the Northwoods boots that were $39.50, had $20.00 in coupons (1 coupon for $10.00 was to expire on Thursday) so I got them for a wonderful price!  Since we walk to school even in the winter, girl needed some fantastic boots.  Oh, and we bought the floral print to avoid the being made fun of this year.  (Her boots last year were plain navy boots.) 
-  A request to fetch dinner from Wendy's was called into work, so while there in line, I saw that they were selling Frosty coupon books for Halloween.  10 frosty coupons come in the book for $1.00 per book.  I bought 5 books and once all coupons are gone, then we'll go trick or treating.  A great thing?  Absolutely!  The money goes to benefit the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption.  Adoption?  A near and dear thing to our hearts! 

Have a great day!

Floor!

The kitchen has a floor!  In the photo, you can see the wall and cabinet color, too.  I will have doors off and drawers out for a few weeks (I still have to paint those anyhow) because I want everything to fully cure.  No use in doing all that work and have it get all yucky.

The neighbors-- 3 strapping men-- came to help move the appliances back in place.  The stove was hand carried and the refrigerator was carefully rolled and gently dropped into place.  I don't know what we would have done without Don, Glenn and Mike!

This weekend, in all our spare time outside of church, soccer and my Festival Choir practice, plan on starting to lay the slate at the living room door entrance.  We're rolling with full sized tiles and not doing anything fancy, so that will be straightforward.  We're going with a 3' x 5' pad so that on the off chance we do use that door when it is wet out, there will be more than enough for soggy shoes to remain off the Pergo.

So for now, we have a functional kitchen.  Last evening, we had a hot meal of falafel with a side of wheat bulgar and toasted orzo.  It was nice to eat hot food from my own kitchen! 

The foamy tiles?  They serve as our dining area for now.  We each get a square and have an extra for condiments and so forth.  It's not a bad thing! 

It's coming along.  Hubs has now gone back to work and reports that he is much less busy there than at home.  He did an awesome job, though.  I'm excited to get the rest finished and out of the way!  I can't wait to get my house back!

I am so tired, but I'm going to do a quick post before my husband comes back from his 12th trip to the hardware.

Home improvement.  Well, in our case, it is home wrecking then improvement. 

My living room consists of an unplugged TV that we had to have the neighbor come help move because I kid you absolutely not, it is 200 pounds. 

I have 28 boxes of Berkshire Cherry Pergo flooring and the multiple other things that you need to go with that like an $18.00 dead blow hammer.  You can't use a rubber mallet, nosiree, you have to use the $18.00 dead blow hammer. 

I have an installation kit that took us three stores to find and funny enough, it doesn't include everything you need to install Pergo.

I have my couch, Poppy's table, the 1897 trunk that my Christmas ornaments live in, a stack of slate tile, a 3' x 5' sheet of cement board to put the slate on.  Oh, and all the goo to go with that.

I have my refrigerator, microwave and oven.  Convenient for TV dinners, yes?

So, in 1/2 of my house, we are down to subfloor.  We wear shoes all the time, which is fine.  Happy news is that I have the cabinets (not the doors or drawers) painted and done.  Sadly, even burnishing the delicate surface blue painters tape removed paint from my wall and it also bled underneath.  I'll do dances with touch-up later. 

If we can just get this Pergo down in the kitchen tonight, we will both be very happy.  Believe me, at this point, our nerves need to see some floor on the floor.

ETA:
We gave up the ship at 10 PM.  My in-law's were kind enough to come scoop up K- and take her for the day.  They returned her at about 6:30 PM bathed, fed and tired.  At that point, we had just started laying the floor.  We hadn't gotten the hang of the flipping, sliding and fitting pieces together.  After they left, we became a little more proficient, but had all kinds of tricky cuts to deal with.  (Door jamb, heat vent, cabinets.)  We got about 1/5 of the floor laid and both of us were so tired that we literally were not seeing straight.  We were also out of light, the table saw was in the driveway (we're classy that way) and we wouldn't use the saw past 10 PM because regardless to how loud the Metallica and Alice in Chains was playing earlier, we do realize that folks and kids have to sleep. 

Speaking of, I need to do a bit of that myself.  Excuse me while I'm non-existent on the blog this week.  If something earth shattering happens, I'll let you know.  In the meantime, we'll be reaching for the milk while sitting on the couch. 

Thanks for the words of encouragement.  A bath also helped my mood a bit.  And that we got some flooring down.  And that my husband was totally kissing my butt because I was the one laying the Pergo and he was my cutting guy.  You know, he's really going to miss me tomorrow. We were working great at that teamwork thing.  :)

Haiku Friday: The kitchen floor

Goodbye yucky floor,

1976 gone,

Off to the tree lawn.

Don't worry, the chocolate brown carpet will be going.  The tile and carpeting are original to the 1976 charm that we're doing our best to ditch here at the ole homestead.

Smiles in my day:
- "Mom, I'm glad that I got my teacher and not another one." :)
- Hubs worked so hard on removing the floor today!
- I'm busy fighting allergies or the beginnings of a cold. It has been on a low hover since Monday. Let's hope that it leaves.
- After 5 times through the laundry, I finally got the soup spot out of K-'s brand new pink polo shirt. I might sound like a crazy laundress, which I'll completely admit to, but the neighbor accidentally got a couple of dots of a tomato based soup on K-'s new shirt and it was the hardest stuff to remove!

Have a wonderful weekend. I'll be taking advantage of the extra length and I'll be back on Tuesday. Be safe!

Tales from the Trenches: The 5-Minute Fan

I bought a Hunter 5-Minute fan for our kitchen.  Now, I wasn't under the impression that it would only be 5 minutes to install it, but I thought that it would be maybe a half hour or so.

It took 2 hours and 15 minutes.   

Hubs worked on it yesterday for about an hour just doing prep work.  He purchased a box to hook it into so that it is held up by more than wires and one drywall screw.  (True.  That's how the homeowner installed our bedroom fan and the kitchen fan.  Quite a craftsman, I tell you.)

In the end, it is up, it is beautiful and we love it.  We had a teeny weenie little fan that the original homeowners had put up.  I think it was something like a 30" fan or something tiny like that.  This one is 44" and much larger than our other one. 

Still, we like it.  Hooray.  One more little kitchen project checked off the list.

Smiles in my day:
-  Though my in-law's flight from Milwaukee was canceled by Air Tran due to mechanical problems, the airline put them up on a very comfortable bus with snacks and drinks and they are having a nice time.  Sure, they are going to get in a lot later than they anticipated, but they'll be home soon.  They took it in stride and all will be well soon enough.
-  Because of the above situation, K- will be going to my sister's house tomorrow to be cared for while I go to work.  This week's barter for child care is a school supply trade.  I need child care, my sister's kids needed some more school supplies that I managed to find for them (she lives in the middle of nowhere, so stores aren't really around) and I'll pay her with that.  She didn't want me to pay her at all, but I insisted, as it is only right considering that she'll be watching K- all day long.
-  Visiting Staples again today for another dose of cheap school supplies. 

Have a great day!

Tales from the Trenches: FrogTape ain't so great.

This is the product that I bought.  On the commercials, people have these beautifully crisp lines and can leave the tape on for 3 weeks.  Me?  Uh, no.

The tape was left on for a few hours.  It did not lock out the white paint, despite the claim.  The tape was rubbed down .  A bonus?  It removed a chunk of paint off my wall.  (Part of that is apparently a white schloof where the roller got past me.  Didn't know 'til later.) 

Nonetheless, it did not do as promised.  I paid $5.00 for a roll of tape that didn't work.  On a different note, I do love the color of the walls!  Now I'll enjoy that color even more when I go back over the spots. 

For the record, FrogTape has some extensive tape instructions.  Crazy, since it is only tape and they make it look all easy-peasy on the commercial.  Wanna know what I'm talking about?  Here's the link. 

Argh.

Smiles in my day:

-  K- had a great time at Science Camp!  They started out with breakfast, which she flipped over.  Why?  They were little disposable bowls of Lucky Charms!  Lucky Charms are illegal in our house, as we only have boring cereal like Grape Nuts (her favorite) or Rice Krispies.  She learned a lot of things other than she's getting the sugar cereal shaft at our home.

-  I picked the kitchen table light up this evening.  I wasn't able to find it online, so I was concerned that they were discontinuing.  (I was able to find it online a few weeks ago.)  Turns out it was $12.00 cheaper at the Lowe's that I went to than the one that we were shopping at.  Now, I think that the ceiling fan is actually cheaper at our usual Lowe's. 

-  Hubs worked on the light above the sink all day long.  Bless his heart!

Have a great day!

There was a weekend. I'm sure of it.

A short post to say that I'm tuckered. This past weekend gave me a hormonal run for my money that kind of mucked up plans to paint. There were a few days that I traded my paint brush in for 2 Advil every 4 waking hours. Thankfully, the intense pain left after a few days and Sunday I was good to paint.

Y'all, I'm happy to announce that my walls are finally now La Fonda Terra Cotta. I'm also happy to say that it only took one coat, since we had two coats of primer.

I can also say that I bumped into the ceiling a few times and a couple of times, the wheel runners on my trimmer got paint on them (unknown to me), so I will be hitting them with Kilz a few times before I paint the ceiling.

Yes, I'm painting the ceiling after the walls. Trust me, I knew that I would whack the ceiling and the terra cotta is a darker paint. It's all good. I'm going to Frog tape newspaper to the border of the ceiling and go to town probably next Sunday. (Too much going on beforehand.)

We had two parties on Saturday.

We even managed to have a little fire on Sunday night.

If you'll excuse me, my pillow is calling me.

Zzzzzz.

Smiles in my weekend:
- Much!

Have a great day!

Tales from the Trenches: The thirsty walls.

This weekend, I began the kitchen repaint. We're not calling it remodeling, as we aren't replacing anything major. I'll be painting the ceiling, walls and cabinets.

I should have probably started on the ceiling first, but I was dying to see color on the walls, so I started with priming them.

In the photos they look pink.

I am not painting the kitchen pink.

What I was painting the kitchen was called La Fonda Deep Clay Red. On Friday, I started having a heart attack. That dark of a terra cotta with Chocolate Cherry cabinets will be too much dark in my 12 x 16 kitchen. I decided to go back and buy La Fonda Terra Cotta. It is a couple shades darker than our living room, but a couple of shades lighter than the Clay Red. I still used the primer that I bought for the darker color because I figured it didn't matter.

Thank God I primed the walls, though. Geeze! The walls have never been properly painted, thus they are drinking the paint in like a sponge. I had to go back to Lowe's today to get another can. The paint guy recognized me from Saturday. We're becoming like old friends! ;S

So, I sit here now very tired. I washed the walls on Friday and started to prime the walls. Hubs had some drywall finishing to do (spackling), he sanded the walls and I re-washed the walls before getting back to priming them.

I know. I should have waited, but I just couldn't wait anymore. That's why I started painting on Friday evening at about 6:30 PM. Hubs thought I was nuts.

Below I have before and during photos for you. Just for your enjoyment, I thought I would include the wall wash recipe that I've been using, too.

Wall Wash
1 cup baking soda
1 cup vinegar
1/2 cup ammonia (I used sudsy lemon)
1 gallon water

Start at the bottom and work to the top with a damp-- not wet-- sponge.

That would be the backside of Hubs. He was sanding the remaining part of the wall before taking off to go fishing with K- today.

I'm scrubbing the walls all with the power of my 1 Diet Coke a day.

I'm sure that the back door is filthy. I wash it a few times a week. My mom tells me to be glad that I have the hand prints. Believe me, I am.

My garden window had become the kitchen tool keeping station. Well, that and the kitchen table in the middle of the floor.

My in-process priming. My disgustingly ugly kitchen floor. It has always been rather gross looking and when we bought the house, Hubs made me promise not to strip it. (Our bathroom took me 4 hours to strip the years of Mop N' Glo off the floor.) Turns out, Hubs will be installing a new floor in our kitchen, living room and down our hall in September. Happy Vacation, Hubs! (Berkshire Cherry 30 year Pergo.)

Fully primed walls. Now I'm going to roll backwards and paint the ceiling. I swear, I couldn't take a day longer of no color!

Smiles in my weekend:
- Many!

Have a great day!

My furnace had a sinus infection.

I woke up this morning to the racket of Hubs banging on the air ducts in the basement. I had no idea what was going on, but after about 10 minutes, it stopped. He came upstairs to tell me that the air conditioning tube needed to be cleaned since it had deposited water on the basement floor. He said that he'd deal with it when he got home. Since it was to be 90+, we debated the idea of leaving the windows cracked open at the top or just keeping them shut altogether. I checked the forecast, they were predicting Armageddon again, so I opted to keep them closed.

Good thing. 80 mile per hour wind gusts came through and knocked the plant clean off the front steps. That's getting away from the subject at hand, though.

Since Hubs went into work a little early, he got out earlier and came home first to see if he could unclog the tube. He called me on his way to pick K- up to let me know he was done, the air was on and plugging along nicely.

When he got home, the basement floor was wet again. He pulled the cover off to the furnace and it was all wet, too.

Fantastic.

He called my dad to confirm that there was another tube that needed cleaned. My dad was the one to install the furnace and A/C about 5 years ago, and he used sealer on the PVC piping he used. There was no way to get the pipe apart. My dad and Hubs discussed his using the air compressor to blow the snot sludge out of the additional tube.

I'm glad to say that our furnace is no longer experiencing an impaction of yellow snot.

Go now. Check your tubies and pipe things. Make sure that they are free of snot.

This public service announcement brought to you by the Bailey's Leaf Family of Fine Experiences to Learn From.

Smiles in my day:
- That Hubs is handy and my dad is his back-up.
- The migraine measures are helping. I'm not 100%, but I see improvement each day.

Have a great day!

Happily, it didn't fall off the truck.

Backing it in.

Oops. He completely forgot about the low hanging wires. Thankfully, he was going slow and Hubs was able to stop him before he ripped the phone line clean off the house. Even if he had, our neighbor is an SBC guy, so he could have fixed it lickety split.

Coming through.

Backing up to the beautiful, very level pad that Hubs created specifically for the shed.

Getting ready to lower it into place.

Oh look! There it is, along with Hubs planting grass around the perimeter.

The patio area before. (When the weather was better, the grass was just cut and the flowers were flourishing a bit more than they did this year.)

Voila! After. We'll be having my in-law's over on Saturday night to celebrate my father-in-law's birthday. We'll be cooking hot dogs over the fire pit and making s'mores as a birthday treat.

But don't worry. I promise that I helped with the patio. Just look at the overly flattering photo that my daughter dearest took of my backside. I must teach her about angles, but her photography style for a 5 year old isn't bad. Her fingers aren't in the way, she is pretty good at centering and isn't real wobbly when taking photos.

Argh:
K- has officially shot 1 pair of shoes. I swear that they would have been $30.00, but I paid $5.00 or so for them on the Toys R Us clearance rack. They were "Not Me" Skecheresque shoes in black. She wore them only for school for one week and blew out a strap. I'm going to see if my seamstress friend, Laurie, can put her cobbler hat on and give them a tweak. Funny thing is that K- is not hard on shoes. Thankfully, I do have a pair of light up $40.00 Skechers that I bought at Toys R Us on the clearance for $7.00. Though they are sized 1/2 size larger than the ones that just blew out, they appear to be the same size. Here's to hoping that they last longer. Poor K-. She ended up walking home barefoot! (No, she didn't mind at all.)

Smiles in my day:
- K- making a "book" for her teacher and writing "sentences." The sentences are a bunch of squiggles, but she's got the idea.
- Hubs working so blasted hard today. Actually, he has been all week, but today he worked non-stop from 7 AM until well after sunset (he came in around 9 PM or so.) He reset the driveway RR ties (which is why the gravel was all out of sorts in the shed pictures), reinstalled the cemented post and put the sections of fence back up, planted grass around the shed and a variety of places throughout the yard, mowed the yard and probably more but I'm too tired to remember them. So Hubs, thank you!
- K- being excited about the Garden Fair.
- I got some lovely deals at the grocery today.
- Tacos, Spanish Rice, chips and queso for dinner. Yum. K- was happy, too.
- K- telling me that I was the "best mommy" because I bought her Shrek soup for lunch. Is that the secret to parenting? Shrek soup? Hey, if it works!

Have a wonderful weekend! We'll be enjoying the extra time off together. See you on Tuesday.

A little post removal and plowing over the garden plot . . .

The horse that needs a haircut. K- needs one too, but not quite this bad!

The weekend was packed, as usual. Thursday and Friday were the "going through Grandma's belongings" days. We had to skip the Wegman exhibit on Friday, due to K-'s poor behavior the night before. Don't worry, we've rescheduled that for this Thursday. Saturday, though, took us to Amish Country.

I have to admit that Amish Country on a Saturday is not my favorite. I like Amish Country during the week when everyone else has to work and we only have to share the joint with the bus tours that don't typically go where we do anyhow. I had a plan, though. MIL got here at 9 AM sharp, so we headed out. Thanks to my heavier foot, we got to where we needed to be at about 10:10 AM. We did the bulk food store first, because we found that if you wait to do it later on, on Saturday, you miss out on lots. We spent over an hour there where I once again shocked my MIL by spending $67.00 (it was my grocery shopping for the week), then we went on to the restaurant for lunch. Again, we've found that hitting them before 11:30 AM promises that we won't have to stand in the line that can wrap around the building. After eating, we shot out to our vegetable stand. It's off the beaten path, so it wasn't overly crowded. I did, however, miss getting the very last box of cherry tomatoes for K-. So sad. I did get a lot for my money, though. For 1 pound of green beans, 2 patty pan squash (for mom), 4 giant candy sweet onions, 1 crookneck squash and 2 green peppers, it was only $5.00. Can we yell a big ole YUM?! We flew by the bakery and the pack of cookies that I bought with the 50% off coupon from the Entertainment book (thanks, Laurie) are all gone. After that, we went back-tracking to the places we flew past on the way to the vegetable stand. This took us past the shed place. That is a story all by itself. My vegetable basket. I was so excited about my onions that K- took a picture of me holding one.

Making an extremely long story short, we have been gifted a storage shed. The local places were checked out, then as a shot in the dark, we decided to cruise by an Amish shed place. Turns out that shed is better built, of better materials, includes the floor, roofing shingles, paint of your choosing, door hardware, delivery and on-site installation for less than the one at Lowe's would have been. The shed is completely built ahead of time, then hauled in pre-assembled. Even the painting is done before it gets here. There's a trick, though. We need a 10' clearance to get the shed into the backyard. Our gate opens 8'. Hubs needs to remove one of the posts that was firmly cemented into the ground 6 years ago and take out several sections of fence to get it in. He does need to make a level pad of limestone for the shed to sit on, which isn't a problem. The funny thing is that to get the shed where it needs to go, we need to completely pull my garden out, fence and all. That isn't going to be that big of a deal. Sadly, the weather has been so chilly this summer that the beans (which were planted late May) are just now flowering. I did want to plant peas, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Oh, in the spring or late next summer. We do need to completely move the garden plot up one full plot, so maybe that'll give me more sunshine anyhow!

So, we're thankful. I'm going today to the doctor to have the cholesterol checked and to discuss the pesky tendon issue that I'm having in my left underarm. Either hauling K-'s bike up and down the basement steps is causing a bit of a tweaky tendon, or the Lipitor is goofing with muscles and tendons. Let's hope it is just the bike that will soon be stowed away in the shed. That's my thought, but I'd still like to have him take a look at the inflammation just to confirm. If it is the Lipitor, we'll just switch to something else and all will be well.

Smiles in my day:
- Going to see Grandma at the rehab place and finding her making her way to the dining hall. She was in a wheel chair, sca-doodling herself down the hall. I told her that I wasn't being unfeeling or mean, but she was there for rehab and I was going to make her get herself there. I walked along and talked to her, though.
- We finished reading the Horton Hears a Who Pop-Up (a side note for libraries, pop-up books are not good loaners) tonight. K- was asleep by 9 PM. No fits. No crying. No hard time. No rolling across the floor. It also helps that the more distressed she gets, the lower my voice goes. This week, I've been practicing the "more you make me mad, the lower my whisper will be" and it is working.
- The fresh caramel candy that I had. Coblentz Chocolate Factory is just divine. I do admit that we skipped chocolate covered coffee beans this time. We've decided to reserve those for the anniversary trip. Too many give a very giant belly ache and are generally a bit digestively unsettling.
- Leland stopped crying when my sister handed him off to me. It's good to know that I didn't lose my touch. (Though K- was not a particularly fussy baby. Now the eye teeth were a completely different year and a half cutting story, but a very good baby otherwise.)
- Hubs had a good day for the butterfly count. We've been having rather torrential rains, and it had rained overnight. When he left this morning, he was quite concerned that this wouldn't be a good count day. It all worked out, though.

Have a great day!

So many things

It's a long post folks! Pace yourself!

I've made a decision! Our kitchen will be this by the end of the summer:

The yellow paint chip represents my countertop. Something kicked in at paint chip heaven that said, "Um, don't forget the countertop!" It's easier to select according to that. (I did the same in the bathroom with the baby blue countertop.) The walls will be the Deep Clay Red. The woodwork (cabinets, doors, chair rail, bead board, baseboards and window molding) will be the Chocolate Cherry. I will remove the cabinet hardware, give it a good spray in a nice chocolate brown and reinstall them. I'll also take our light down, spray it and reinstall it. The fan may get the same treatment. I'll also get some tile for the backsplash that doesn't exist at all. (No, there isn't a built in backsplash with the countertop, either.) I also plan on re-lining the cabinets and touching up the shelf fronts with some Chocolate Cherry. The table legs, and chairs (other than the seats) will be painted with either Chocolate Brown Spray or Chocolate Cherry paint. I'll also carry the Chocolate Cherry over to the back door, plumbing access panel and with the woodwork around both the outside and kitchen doorways. The Deep Clay Red is a few shades darker than the color that we have in the livingroom (Papaya Smoothie), so it will all carry through with harmony instead of each room rudely changing colors. (Our bedrooms and bathroom are all different, but the common areas that bleed into each other were important to me to be in the same family of color.) By the way, Hubs likes the colors that I chose. I bought the paint yesterday, so I get my rebate from Lowe's. Guess what? There wasn't even a line at the paint counter! HOORAY!

I have purged the microwave cart. I saved only the cookbooks that I will/would use. I was able to have enough space to stow one of my three crockpots underneath. (I was gifted a few and there are occasions that I have used all three.) The Kitchenaid, as heavy and large as our little Tercel, didn't fit under there. That's okay. I forgot to take a picture. Sorry.

I purged the game closet, stood all the games upright on their sides. Okay, it is space saving but might bite me in the butt if we don't hold onto the box as we pull it out.I freed the livingroom of all of the toys that have quietly walked in and decided to live in there. I liberated the livingroom of the many toys a few years ago. K- has her doll house and some other little toys in her bedroom. She has 90% of her toys downstairs in her play area. I've explained that they need to stay in one place or the other, not migrate to the middle of mommy's livingroom and stay there. I've washed the windows, moved the couch to sweep the clumps of cat hair from the little ditch between it and the wall. I swept the cat hair off the couch, crumbs out from underneath the cushions and flipped the cushions while I was there.I deep cleaned the bathroom. I looked up, realized that the fan cover was dusty and on my way to stand on the counter, I realized that the silk ivy (I wouldn't normally go silk, but we have no light and we needed something plant like in our bathroom) was covered in dust. IT WAS GRAY! Ick!!! So, I took the fan cover down, scrubbed it with a brush and as it was drying, I swept the actual fan out. I then took the ivy basket down, washed each leaf by hand, dried over all of the leaves, dusted the basket, washed the top of the medicine cabinet, then put everything back. I did a good Lysol/bleach scrubbing of the floor and wiped the doors all down.

The bedroom purging has been completed. (My lollygagging lopped over to Friday a little, but I figured out why I was a lolly. Mother Nature had a little something to do with it and that's all I'm going to say, 'kay? Too bad it took me two days to figure out why I was so flippin' drained!) I'm awaiting the shelf pegs from IKEA, so Hubs' side of the bookcase isn't complete. I wiped baseboards, washed the windows, pitched & cleared items and even re-purposed the bookcase from our livingroom into a lovely clothes organizer for Hubs. Our bedroom isn't big enough to house a separate dresser for Hubs, so the new closet organizer is just going to have to be okay. The new bookcase is in the corner where our computer used to be. Hey look! There is our new chair! Oh! There's laundry to be put away, too! Feel free to help yourself! :)

The closet. I shuffled things around. I put a lot on the upper shelf, like our winter snuggly blankets for the livingroom. We have our sleeping bags off to the right. We also have our air mattress in there, and it is on the top shelf. (It's like a shrine to LL Bean in there.) Not a perfect closet, but it's way more tidy. Look!

Hubs' new clothes sorter. For years, he has told me to skip folding his clothes and to just toss them into themed baskets. I told him that not only would I not do that, but that his mother would kill me. Instead, I decided that the little bookcase organizer I had would work.

And yes, the top of the bookcase is half his to "decorate." We have the Darth Vader figure holder thingy, the ball with the arms and legs that K- tells me to use caution because "Shhh, Mommy? The arms and legs fall off." Oh, and the winged thing that I bought Hubs for Father's Day. It's what he had on his wish list. See? I am a good wife. I did let him have his Star Wars stuff up. It's far better than that year that he decided to put a Grim Reaper up next to the bed at Halloween.

The bookcase came from here. The tray tables are there now. (Mom? Aren't you impressed?) That bookcase has been the collector of crap, dust and books that needed a better home.

Look at what I found last night as I was watering. It is a monarch caterpillar on the milkweed! Hooray! It is our third year with milkweed, it truly is doing the best this year than it ever has and we are so excited!

In other news, we did have to resort to the Bag a Bug for the beetles. I've made beetle juice and Hubs is going to start spraying that. I've left it out in the sun to cook like sun tea. I'm sure that it will smell just grand! (Before you ask, the slinky prevents squirrels from climbing the hook. But, a squirrel can jump 5 feet high, so the slinky doesn't matter so much most of the time.)

Beetle Juice (as in, to rid your plants organically of beetles)
Red pepper seeds
Cut onion
Minced garlic

Place in a gallon jug. Fill jug to the top with water and allow to brew. Place in sprayer and spray affected plants.

During all this, I even managed to make a run to the grocery for some provisions. We took a fruit tray to one 4th of July party (blueberries, strawberries, cherries, pears, apples and grapes). We were going to be there in the early part of the party where they are on appetizers. Later, we went to my parents house for my family reunion. I left the food prior to the first party, though as we were going to be late to my family reunion. Hubs' family thing was about 50 minutes away and we just party hopped. My parents were the recipients of my coleslaw (the Ramen noodle cole slaw) and some chips and salsa. Look! I didn't have to heat the stove! :)

Sadly, I forgot my camera on July 4th, so we'll just have to go with the pictures that others are kind enough to share. Ugh! At Hubs' family party, Iguana Bob was there and did a critter program for everyone. With him, he brought an African Hedgehog, a blue tongued Skink from Australia, an Alligator, a Tarantula, a house rabbit, and a Boa. K- did get to pet both the alligator and the boa. I have pictures with my phone, but I don't have a way to pull them off.

The second party, my dad's family reunion, was the latter half so most of the elders had gone. (Sad.) Nonetheless, we were there to hang out with my aunt and uncles. The boys (my dad and his brothers) set fireworks off for over an hour. The neighbor did his in between, so it was a nice show. Dad bought the big fireworks, so they were city like, just country like in locale. K- didn't want me to put mosquito repellent on her face, so she was bit above the eyebrow and near her mouth, where a dimple would be. She also has one under her arm where I missed putting repellent. Since she was so itchy before bed, I did give her a dose of Benadryl.

Smiles in my weekend:
- K's firsts. My aunt sent her a bag with a pack of Pop Tarts. (K- called them toaster strudel.) I was talking with her and asked if it had been her first. "Yes, Mommy. You wouldn't let me have them before." What can I say, we're sugar free for breakfast, folks!
- She also used a sparkler for the very first time. She was very worried and initially didn't want to do it at all. We explained that it was okay, as we were with her and keeping her safe. After that, she thought that they were great!
- Swinging on the swings at the park today.
- Hubs getting on the swings and swinging with K-.
- Hubs taking K- and me for homemade ice cream. Yum!
- Getting all of the grass stains out of K-'s brand new dress she wore for the 4th of July. Hubs' mom bought it for her and it is really cute. Either the Shout, Spray and Wash with Resolve, Spray and Wash Dual or Spray and Wash Bright and White with our regular laundry detergent added (after having soaked for 10 hours) worked. Whew!
- We accidentally hit the motherload of samples at Sam's today! Incidentally, the cinnamon rolls were my favorite.
- Sam's took the carton of Huggies back so that we could trade them in for Pampers. Seems that baby Leland's skin is so sensitive that Pampers is all he can go with.
- IKEA has called three different times with three different folks keeping us up to date with the locating, mailing and approximate arrival of the shelf pins that are missing. They get an A+++ for follow-up. Absolutely unheard of for a major company. Hooray for them!
- Having Mommy School with K- out in the driveway. We were drawing on Mike's driveway with sidewalk chalk. We were sitting toward the end of his driveway so that we could be in the shade. We did Mommy School for about an hour and K- didn't even realize the length of time that had passed.
- We went on our annual July 4th sale trip to the thrift store. Hey! They have an extra 20% off, so why not? I was on a mission for uniform pieces for K- to start school in. I was able to score 3 LL Bean uniform shirts (2 long sleeve, 1 short), 1 LL Bean turtleneck, a Talbot's long sleeved uniform shirt, a TKS (JCPenney) uniform short sleeved shirt, another school legal turtleneck, 2 pairs khaki pants, 1 pair black pants, a brand new Reese's Cup sweatshirt for myself, 2 pottery bowls that match my current dishes, 1 handcrafted pottery bowl for 25 cents!, a wall phone (a project that Hubs has taken on), and a couple pieces of street clothes for K-, all for the bargain price of $19.50. Hoorah!
- I made a consignment appointment with Children's Orchard for Thursday. Perhaps I can fetch some more uniform pieces in trade.

I hope that all of you were able to enjoy your holiday weekend. Have a great week!