Notice the wood paneling (isn't it so not lovely?):
Paneling off, carpet out -- down to the studs!
Studs are out, now to rebuild...
Ka-pow! Built it!
Wowza! Food stuffed it!
Showing posts with label Home Remodeling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Home Remodeling. Show all posts
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Sunday, July 7, 2013
Home Improvements in the Yard
My daughter is down for her nap and the kitchen is clean. I can't continue working on my ciabatta rolls for another 30 minutes. It's too early to start dinner. It's Sunday so I can't (shouldn't) work on my novel, hang drywall or go outside and shovel stuff. I've written my ROW-80 post for the week. I'm caught up on The Bachelorette. I'm not interested in the novel I started reading yesterday. There's no laundry to fold. I'm not in the midst of any sewing projects. Darling's toys are put away....
So I guess I will just have to write a blog post. :o)
I'm not sure what has gotten into me lately. I've been driving full-steam ahead on various house projects. I think it's just because I am fed up with being halfway through so many different things, and having so many goals and dreams that just aren't going anywhere. I've said, "Screw it. I am going to get some things done!" It probably helps a lot that Nate is off work for the summer and the weather is finally good.
Outside in the backyard, we (Nate) got the tree stump from that old, massive pine tree out of the ground. That was a huge task all by itself. Then came the trouble of how to chop it up and haul it away. The thing probably weighed 300 pounds! The short version of the story is that it's gone now. (Of course, before we were finally rid of it, the !^@%ing stump broke the back window in our truck. The window is fixed now. In retrospect, it would have cost less to hire a tree removal company to take out the stump than it cost us to put in the new window. Ugh!!!)
The stump went away a couple of weeks ago. Since then, we've been working on clearing and leveling the ground that use to be at the base of the tree. Part of it is going to be planted with new grass in the fall. Another part of it will be a play area for our daughter.... I just need to find her a playet or a yard. (I really want this one from Costco... but something like this would be great too.)
Here's a series of picture of the backyard, from when we moved in until today (sorry, these are not the best photos; I didn't do a good job getting the "before" shots):
It's a huge difference. There's still quite a bit that we need to do, but I am very happy with the progress we've made, especially this last year
In the front yard there have been a few improvements so far this year, with several more planned this summer. We re-did the planters that lead to our front door. I have a "before" picture from when we first moved into the house, but unfortunately I don't have any "between" pictures. Then again, the current look of the planter is still not final -- it's just a nice-looking improvement until we can afford to make a rather drastic set of changes. Oh well. Here's the original planter, and the current version (noting that we did not make all of these changes this year, but have been working on it for the last four years):
On the north side of the front yard, projects include rebuilding the planter with new stonework, pouring a "BBQ" patio just off the kitchen, and pouring/building a new shed for our garbage cans.
...
And with that, I'm out of time. I need to go work on cranberry ciabatta rolls and start thinking about dinner. I guess I will need to find time for an inside-the-house post later this week!
(P.S. I'm also posting updates to my writing blog: brookerow80.blogspot.com)
So I guess I will just have to write a blog post. :o)
I'm not sure what has gotten into me lately. I've been driving full-steam ahead on various house projects. I think it's just because I am fed up with being halfway through so many different things, and having so many goals and dreams that just aren't going anywhere. I've said, "Screw it. I am going to get some things done!" It probably helps a lot that Nate is off work for the summer and the weather is finally good.
Outside in the backyard, we (Nate) got the tree stump from that old, massive pine tree out of the ground. That was a huge task all by itself. Then came the trouble of how to chop it up and haul it away. The thing probably weighed 300 pounds! The short version of the story is that it's gone now. (Of course, before we were finally rid of it, the !^@%ing stump broke the back window in our truck. The window is fixed now. In retrospect, it would have cost less to hire a tree removal company to take out the stump than it cost us to put in the new window. Ugh!!!)
The stump went away a couple of weeks ago. Since then, we've been working on clearing and leveling the ground that use to be at the base of the tree. Part of it is going to be planted with new grass in the fall. Another part of it will be a play area for our daughter.... I just need to find her a playet or a yard. (I really want this one from Costco... but something like this would be great too.)
Here's a series of picture of the backyard, from when we moved in until today (sorry, these are not the best photos; I didn't do a good job getting the "before" shots):
It's a huge difference. There's still quite a bit that we need to do, but I am very happy with the progress we've made, especially this last year
In the front yard there have been a few improvements so far this year, with several more planned this summer. We re-did the planters that lead to our front door. I have a "before" picture from when we first moved into the house, but unfortunately I don't have any "between" pictures. Then again, the current look of the planter is still not final -- it's just a nice-looking improvement until we can afford to make a rather drastic set of changes. Oh well. Here's the original planter, and the current version (noting that we did not make all of these changes this year, but have been working on it for the last four years):
On the north side of the front yard, projects include rebuilding the planter with new stonework, pouring a "BBQ" patio just off the kitchen, and pouring/building a new shed for our garbage cans.
...
And with that, I'm out of time. I need to go work on cranberry ciabatta rolls and start thinking about dinner. I guess I will need to find time for an inside-the-house post later this week!
(P.S. I'm also posting updates to my writing blog: brookerow80.blogspot.com)
Sunday, June 2, 2013
This week: Recovering, rebuilding, and re-attempting
My work sent me to Nashville last week. As I mentioned in my last post, my mom came with me so that I could bring my daughter, too. My mom wrote two blog posts about our trip -- one that highlighted all of the negative experiences (mostly caused by our hotel), and another about the good/fun stuff. You can check out her blog for the details; I don't have anything to add.
Darling girl has had a rough time this week, transitioning back to being home. She missed her dad but at the same time is being a total mama's girl and wants nothing to do with him. (Paradoxical much?) I think it's just really confusing for her that he's here-and-gone so much.
Because, speaking of the hubs, he had this awfully busy week that made for stress all around. It was the last week of school. So he spent many long hours getting files in order and helping his staff get the sites cleaned and ready to close for the summer. Thankfully the next couple of weeks should be much easier for him, and then he will be off for the summer.
Unfortunately, he's probably going back to work full time in September. I can't remember what, if anything, I've shared about the changes going on at his work. We don't know exactly what's going to happen yet so I won't speculate. When there's solid news to share, I'll share it.
To keep myself from going crazy while Nate was gone this week, I fell back on a very dirty habit: I worked on the electrical wiring in our basement. I spent my evenings standing on a four-foot ladder, shoving wires through tiny holes in the ceiling. I'm not kidding about it being dirty -- I came away from these adventures with sticky black dust up to my elbows, and chunks of I-don't-even-know-what in my hair. Nasty. But I can proudly report that, at long last, all of the lighting on the west side of the basement is rewired and it all works. There's one part that needs a fix (the wiring is backwards), and there's a bunch of old wiring that I still need to strip out. So maybe there's an evening or two of cleanup before I will be done.
This also means we can work on putting our basement back together! We can hang drywall, close up the ceiling, and do some finishing work. Neat.
As if that wasn't enough, I also made three batches of macarons this week. I finally had a taste of some real macarons when I was in Nashville and they were amazing; totally worth all of the fuss. I also had a duh moment, as I realized that I don't have to make a massive batch of macarons every time I want to try cooking them. I can half or even quarter the recipe. (Like I said, it was a duh moment.) So each little batch this week was just a quarter-sized batch. It only makes half a cookie sheet worth of macarons.
Batch One: Every single shell was cracked and none of the cookies had feet, but the insides were perfect. That's some serious progress after so many hollow batches.
Batch Two: Every shell was perfectly round and pretty with beautiful feet, but I baked them too long and they were very hard. (Grr!!!)
Batch Three: I had a toddler yanking on my pants when I was piping the cookies, so they came out in a variety of sizes and kinda oddly shaped, although most of them had feet. The insides are excellent, although perhaps a tad undercooked. I think two more minutes would have been just right.
I'll make another batch again soon (tomorrow???) and I anticipate that my cumulative knowledge is going to yield some perfect cookies here very soon. Stay tuned!
Darling girl has had a rough time this week, transitioning back to being home. She missed her dad but at the same time is being a total mama's girl and wants nothing to do with him. (Paradoxical much?) I think it's just really confusing for her that he's here-and-gone so much.
Because, speaking of the hubs, he had this awfully busy week that made for stress all around. It was the last week of school. So he spent many long hours getting files in order and helping his staff get the sites cleaned and ready to close for the summer. Thankfully the next couple of weeks should be much easier for him, and then he will be off for the summer.
Unfortunately, he's probably going back to work full time in September. I can't remember what, if anything, I've shared about the changes going on at his work. We don't know exactly what's going to happen yet so I won't speculate. When there's solid news to share, I'll share it.
To keep myself from going crazy while Nate was gone this week, I fell back on a very dirty habit: I worked on the electrical wiring in our basement. I spent my evenings standing on a four-foot ladder, shoving wires through tiny holes in the ceiling. I'm not kidding about it being dirty -- I came away from these adventures with sticky black dust up to my elbows, and chunks of I-don't-even-know-what in my hair. Nasty. But I can proudly report that, at long last, all of the lighting on the west side of the basement is rewired and it all works. There's one part that needs a fix (the wiring is backwards), and there's a bunch of old wiring that I still need to strip out. So maybe there's an evening or two of cleanup before I will be done.
This also means we can work on putting our basement back together! We can hang drywall, close up the ceiling, and do some finishing work. Neat.
As if that wasn't enough, I also made three batches of macarons this week. I finally had a taste of some real macarons when I was in Nashville and they were amazing; totally worth all of the fuss. I also had a duh moment, as I realized that I don't have to make a massive batch of macarons every time I want to try cooking them. I can half or even quarter the recipe. (Like I said, it was a duh moment.) So each little batch this week was just a quarter-sized batch. It only makes half a cookie sheet worth of macarons.
Batch One: Every single shell was cracked and none of the cookies had feet, but the insides were perfect. That's some serious progress after so many hollow batches.
Batch Two: Every shell was perfectly round and pretty with beautiful feet, but I baked them too long and they were very hard. (Grr!!!)
Batch Three: I had a toddler yanking on my pants when I was piping the cookies, so they came out in a variety of sizes and kinda oddly shaped, although most of them had feet. The insides are excellent, although perhaps a tad undercooked. I think two more minutes would have been just right.
I'll make another batch again soon (tomorrow???) and I anticipate that my cumulative knowledge is going to yield some perfect cookies here very soon. Stay tuned!
Sunday, March 31, 2013
The last couple of weeks: Gardening and visiting family
Sorry I missed last week's post. We've still been getting back to normal around here after the rounds of illness and Nate's busyness with school. And, honestly... things have been pretty normal, so I don't feel like there's been much to say. Here goes the hum-drum post...
Our garden is growing. The pea plants popped up and look happy. Most of my boxed seeds are fully sprouted (kale, spinach, lettuce, swiss chard, bok choy and carrots). The carrots were the last to come up, but now they have sprouted in abundance. I have a ton of them -- they will need a lot of thinning. My onions did not come up. I mean, like, nothing at all. I think the seed packet was a dud. Last year I got three seed packets of Walla Walla sweet onions, planted two of them, and got nothing. I assumed it was because I planted the seeds too late (aka it was too hot) and they didn't want to come up. Now that I've used the third packet but at the right time (in the cold weather) I feel more confident that I can declare the whole package of seeds to be the cause of the failure, and not something on my end. Whew.
On the downside, this means I have to replant my onion seeds, and just pray that they will be mature before the summer heat comes. (Onions don't like it hot.)
In the greenhouse, cilantro and basil have sprouted. The cabbage starts did nothing. I'm a little disappointed, but since Nate got the garden mostly ready this week, I can now just direct-sow a little row of cabbage. Here's a picture of Nate taking a break from tilling the garden to chat with grandma and Darling:
Tilling was his big project last Monday, on his first day of spring break. He did great -- the garden is pretty much ready to go! Now to figure out how we can keep the weeds down until it's time to actually plant most of the garden (which is not until early June). It would have been nice to wait and till the ground a little closer to the actual planting season, but this was the time Nate had available and so we used it.
Nate also spent some time this week working on building a new "pantry shelf" for the kitchen. We have a little shelf in the corner of our kitchen for foodstuffs...
The design is odd. The original shelf doesn't really fill the space. We happened to have a cheap little homemade bookshelf thing that sorta fit underneath, so we stuck it in the corner. But really, the whole system doesn't make the best use of the space. So we came up with a new design that uses up the whole corner, giving us deeper shelves that are sufficiently tall/short for our needs. (This corner is essentially our pantry space, and it's a bunch of shelves, so we call it the "pantry shelf.") I hoped he would get most of it done this week, but it just didn't work out. We'll keep plugging away in our free time.
Yesterday we went to go see my parents and run some errands. I loaned Nate to my parents for slave labor in the morning (he cut down three trees) while I ran to the church cannery, then in the afternoon after we put the Toddler down for a nap, we went to the temple. My mom made us a pot roast for dinner when we got back. (Yum.) I enjoyed the arrangement; hopefully we can do it again at the end of April and this time go to Ikea in the afternoon. I've been yearning for an Ikea trip. And it's nice to feel like we are helping my parents, who do so much for us!
Today was Easter. Darling wore a lovely white dress with blue flowers. (Yikes, I just realized that I forgot to take a picture and one of my co-workers specifically requested an Easter dress photo -- will have to dress her up and take it tomorrow.) My mom joined us for church, which was really great. She addressed the fun-but-exhausting task of playing with the toddler during the hour of worship service (aka sacrament meeting). My kid was a lot nicer to grandma than she is to me during that hour, even though she was still no picnic today!
After church and Darling's naptime, Nana came to see us. She had an Easter present for our girl: some hand puppets! She made four sets of hand puppets -- four different animals/creatures, with one mommy-sized puppet and one toddler-sized puppet of each. I wish I could take a picture but they are with Darling's toys in her room (and she is asleep). Will have to do that tomorrow, too.
I need to write a post about my goal progress in March, so that will cover some some other recent updates, whenever I get time to write it. I also have several pictures and recipes to share, should I find some time to writing a cooking blog post! I hope everyone had a nice Easter and that all of my local friends were able to enjoy this lovely stretch of spring weather!
Our garden is growing. The pea plants popped up and look happy. Most of my boxed seeds are fully sprouted (kale, spinach, lettuce, swiss chard, bok choy and carrots). The carrots were the last to come up, but now they have sprouted in abundance. I have a ton of them -- they will need a lot of thinning. My onions did not come up. I mean, like, nothing at all. I think the seed packet was a dud. Last year I got three seed packets of Walla Walla sweet onions, planted two of them, and got nothing. I assumed it was because I planted the seeds too late (aka it was too hot) and they didn't want to come up. Now that I've used the third packet but at the right time (in the cold weather) I feel more confident that I can declare the whole package of seeds to be the cause of the failure, and not something on my end. Whew.
On the downside, this means I have to replant my onion seeds, and just pray that they will be mature before the summer heat comes. (Onions don't like it hot.)
In the greenhouse, cilantro and basil have sprouted. The cabbage starts did nothing. I'm a little disappointed, but since Nate got the garden mostly ready this week, I can now just direct-sow a little row of cabbage. Here's a picture of Nate taking a break from tilling the garden to chat with grandma and Darling:
Tilling was his big project last Monday, on his first day of spring break. He did great -- the garden is pretty much ready to go! Now to figure out how we can keep the weeds down until it's time to actually plant most of the garden (which is not until early June). It would have been nice to wait and till the ground a little closer to the actual planting season, but this was the time Nate had available and so we used it.
Nate also spent some time this week working on building a new "pantry shelf" for the kitchen. We have a little shelf in the corner of our kitchen for foodstuffs...
The design is odd. The original shelf doesn't really fill the space. We happened to have a cheap little homemade bookshelf thing that sorta fit underneath, so we stuck it in the corner. But really, the whole system doesn't make the best use of the space. So we came up with a new design that uses up the whole corner, giving us deeper shelves that are sufficiently tall/short for our needs. (This corner is essentially our pantry space, and it's a bunch of shelves, so we call it the "pantry shelf.") I hoped he would get most of it done this week, but it just didn't work out. We'll keep plugging away in our free time.
Yesterday we went to go see my parents and run some errands. I loaned Nate to my parents for slave labor in the morning (he cut down three trees) while I ran to the church cannery, then in the afternoon after we put the Toddler down for a nap, we went to the temple. My mom made us a pot roast for dinner when we got back. (Yum.) I enjoyed the arrangement; hopefully we can do it again at the end of April and this time go to Ikea in the afternoon. I've been yearning for an Ikea trip. And it's nice to feel like we are helping my parents, who do so much for us!
Today was Easter. Darling wore a lovely white dress with blue flowers. (Yikes, I just realized that I forgot to take a picture and one of my co-workers specifically requested an Easter dress photo -- will have to dress her up and take it tomorrow.) My mom joined us for church, which was really great. She addressed the fun-but-exhausting task of playing with the toddler during the hour of worship service (aka sacrament meeting). My kid was a lot nicer to grandma than she is to me during that hour, even though she was still no picnic today!
After church and Darling's naptime, Nana came to see us. She had an Easter present for our girl: some hand puppets! She made four sets of hand puppets -- four different animals/creatures, with one mommy-sized puppet and one toddler-sized puppet of each. I wish I could take a picture but they are with Darling's toys in her room (and she is asleep). Will have to do that tomorrow, too.
I need to write a post about my goal progress in March, so that will cover some some other recent updates, whenever I get time to write it. I also have several pictures and recipes to share, should I find some time to writing a cooking blog post! I hope everyone had a nice Easter and that all of my local friends were able to enjoy this lovely stretch of spring weather!
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Let's fix the house, buy some vodka and get to writing!
In the haste that was all of last week, I forgot to mention that we finally got our roof fixed. We knew when we bought our house (four years ago) that there was a gap in the roof around the chimney, but it hadn't been an issue until last fall/winter. Rather suddenly, we discovered that rainwater was leaking through this gap. It went down, down, down the chimney, supporting a growth of mold in the attic, damaging the wood framing the fireplace in the living room, ruining some magazines and books, and finally puddling in the basement next to the furnace. Sound like fun, right?
Don't ask me why it took so long to get it fixed -- I delegated the assignment last year when we discovered the leak! Actually, in all fairness, my handsome partner did try to plug the leak earlier this fall, before the rainy season started. And for a couple of weeks we thought it was successful, until one afternoon when my mother heard a drip-drip and saw puddle of water in the living room. (That happened to be the same day the storm drain backed up in the driveway and we ended up with a half-flooded basement. I cursed the heavens that night, loathing their heavy clouds and buckets of rain.)
So finally, finally we got a couple of roofers to come bid on repairing the gappy flashing around chimney. One of them gave us an amazing price and a guarantee on his work, so we scheduled the repair. It's been raining for a week now but... not inside my house! Not anymore! (If you live in the same town as us and need a recommendation for a roofer, please ask.)
I'm very excited to share our other big home improvement project from this week: We put new carpet in the craft room! I wish I had a "before" picture to show you. Just try to imagine, if you can, white and yellow shag carpet. It was in decent condition but man-oh-man was it ugly! There was also something off about the texture. I don't know exactly how to describe it, except to say that it was very coarse. It just didn't feel right when you walked on it.
I've been keeping an eye on a local carpet store to see if they had any remnants in an appropriate size and type for the craft room. There was one remnant, one both perfectly sized and colored for the craft room, hanging around the store but it had a SOLD tag on it. The sale date was last June. A couple of weeks ago, I finally asked one of the salesman about the remnant. "Do people ever forget to come back for these remnants? Do you think the buyer might have changed his mind?" The salesman said he could probably cut me a new piece from the roll for nearly the same price as the remnant. I skeptically allowed him to run the numbers for a piece of carpet and installation; I couldn't believe the price. "That's it? That's all it would cost? And it would be installed?!"
"Yeah, that carpet is on sale. We've had a hard time selling it."
Of course no one else wanted the carpet. It is a flat, ugly brown color designed for a commercial space. But our craft room has rustic orange cabinets and it would match perfectly. The "ugly brown" actually compliments the room beautifully. So I went home to check with Nate, got two thumbs up, and scheduled the installation. Three days later, viola! New carpet! And it was ridiculously inexpensive. I know it's not exactly pretty but doesn't this look, well, kinda nice?...
Apparently the break I took last week from doing electrical work was enough time off because I got back at it this week with vigor. I am very pleased to report that all of the light and switch boxes are in place, and there is new wire running to them! Now I need to add a wire from the power source to these fixtures and get everything installed. Maybe I'll be done this coming week? I originally though I would try to connect all four sets of lights (utility, closet, hallway, bathroom) by going from light to light to light, but after a couple of hours of investigation and testing yesterday, I have determined that each switch just needs to have a line straight from the main power source. If you don't speak electrical-ese and that didn't make sense, just know that I have to buy and run a little bit more wire to finish it up.
My daughter got her first little haircut this week. It wasn't really a full cut, just a little trim. Her hair is long in the back (specifically on the crown of her head) and relatively short everywhere else, so it had grown mullet-ish. Not a big deal since she's a toddler, and you maybe wouldn't notice since her hair has a little bit of curl. But after it gets washed, ugh! It's like a little rat-tail going down her back. So on Thursday night at the end of bathtime, after a particularly difficult day and an evening of nothing but fussing toddler, when Nate was gone to youth group, I got out the scissors and whacked off the rat tail.
Is it cute now? Not really. Still kinda funny looking. But at least it's not hideous anymore. :o)
While we're on the subject of firsts, I had a very strange first this week: I bought vodka for the first time. I've been in a handful of liquor stores and even purchased hard liquor a time or two, but this was my first time buying something for myself. (The other purchases were of apple brandy for my MIL to make her amazing apple jam.) I got the vodka thanks to Jennifer Reese's very annoying book, Make the Bread, Buy the Butter. She suggests you buy vanilla beans in bulk from Amazon, a cheap bottle of vodka, and try making your own vanilla extract. Gee, doesn't that sound like fun? Apparently I'm game because I ordered one ingredient and went to the liquor store for the other.
Actually, what really swayed me is that you can make several different kinds (maybe every kind?) of extracts with vodka and the right ingredients. I purchased hazelnut extract last month and found it to be... well.. wanting is the kindest descriptor I can use. (Disgusting and disappointing are more accurate adjectives.) So I figured if I get the vodka to make vanilla extract, I could try my hand at hazelnut, too. And maybe some orange extract. Doesn't that sound yummy? Too bad it takes a couple of months to distill! You'll have to check back later for a report on my home-made extracts. I have high, high hopes.
I got some good (?) news at work this week: The management team asked me to take over the responsibility for a big, important data analysis project that we do once a year. The person who currently does this project is retiring in March and we are not going to fill his position (due to budget cuts). So they are distributing his workload. This is actually really good news to me. One of the reasons I wanted a promotion (the one I was vying for at the end of 2012) is that I am a little bit tired of my current workload. It has become routine and generally fails to challenge me anymore. I'm sure this big project will seem easy and routine in a couple of years, but for right now, I am really excited to do something new and big and important.
Last but not at all least: You might recall that one of my 2013 goals (#12) is to do some creative writing. I've had a few opportunities in the last couple of weeks to sit down and write; many thanks to my husband for running errands with the kiddo and providing the necessary free time. I drafted an outline for a brand new novel and even started writing the opening scene. I have about 6,400 words under my belt. I am amazed and pleased at how well the project is going! I hope Nate will continue to support me as I work toward my goal. Maybe this time next year I really could be ready to publish? Wouldn't that be a dream come true.
Don't ask me why it took so long to get it fixed -- I delegated the assignment last year when we discovered the leak! Actually, in all fairness, my handsome partner did try to plug the leak earlier this fall, before the rainy season started. And for a couple of weeks we thought it was successful, until one afternoon when my mother heard a drip-drip and saw puddle of water in the living room. (That happened to be the same day the storm drain backed up in the driveway and we ended up with a half-flooded basement. I cursed the heavens that night, loathing their heavy clouds and buckets of rain.)
So finally, finally we got a couple of roofers to come bid on repairing the gappy flashing around chimney. One of them gave us an amazing price and a guarantee on his work, so we scheduled the repair. It's been raining for a week now but... not inside my house! Not anymore! (If you live in the same town as us and need a recommendation for a roofer, please ask.)
I'm very excited to share our other big home improvement project from this week: We put new carpet in the craft room! I wish I had a "before" picture to show you. Just try to imagine, if you can, white and yellow shag carpet. It was in decent condition but man-oh-man was it ugly! There was also something off about the texture. I don't know exactly how to describe it, except to say that it was very coarse. It just didn't feel right when you walked on it.
I've been keeping an eye on a local carpet store to see if they had any remnants in an appropriate size and type for the craft room. There was one remnant, one both perfectly sized and colored for the craft room, hanging around the store but it had a SOLD tag on it. The sale date was last June. A couple of weeks ago, I finally asked one of the salesman about the remnant. "Do people ever forget to come back for these remnants? Do you think the buyer might have changed his mind?" The salesman said he could probably cut me a new piece from the roll for nearly the same price as the remnant. I skeptically allowed him to run the numbers for a piece of carpet and installation; I couldn't believe the price. "That's it? That's all it would cost? And it would be installed?!"
"Yeah, that carpet is on sale. We've had a hard time selling it."
Of course no one else wanted the carpet. It is a flat, ugly brown color designed for a commercial space. But our craft room has rustic orange cabinets and it would match perfectly. The "ugly brown" actually compliments the room beautifully. So I went home to check with Nate, got two thumbs up, and scheduled the installation. Three days later, viola! New carpet! And it was ridiculously inexpensive. I know it's not exactly pretty but doesn't this look, well, kinda nice?...
Apparently the break I took last week from doing electrical work was enough time off because I got back at it this week with vigor. I am very pleased to report that all of the light and switch boxes are in place, and there is new wire running to them! Now I need to add a wire from the power source to these fixtures and get everything installed. Maybe I'll be done this coming week? I originally though I would try to connect all four sets of lights (utility, closet, hallway, bathroom) by going from light to light to light, but after a couple of hours of investigation and testing yesterday, I have determined that each switch just needs to have a line straight from the main power source. If you don't speak electrical-ese and that didn't make sense, just know that I have to buy and run a little bit more wire to finish it up.
My daughter got her first little haircut this week. It wasn't really a full cut, just a little trim. Her hair is long in the back (specifically on the crown of her head) and relatively short everywhere else, so it had grown mullet-ish. Not a big deal since she's a toddler, and you maybe wouldn't notice since her hair has a little bit of curl. But after it gets washed, ugh! It's like a little rat-tail going down her back. So on Thursday night at the end of bathtime, after a particularly difficult day and an evening of nothing but fussing toddler, when Nate was gone to youth group, I got out the scissors and whacked off the rat tail.
Is it cute now? Not really. Still kinda funny looking. But at least it's not hideous anymore. :o)
While we're on the subject of firsts, I had a very strange first this week: I bought vodka for the first time. I've been in a handful of liquor stores and even purchased hard liquor a time or two, but this was my first time buying something for myself. (The other purchases were of apple brandy for my MIL to make her amazing apple jam.) I got the vodka thanks to Jennifer Reese's very annoying book, Make the Bread, Buy the Butter. She suggests you buy vanilla beans in bulk from Amazon, a cheap bottle of vodka, and try making your own vanilla extract. Gee, doesn't that sound like fun? Apparently I'm game because I ordered one ingredient and went to the liquor store for the other.
Actually, what really swayed me is that you can make several different kinds (maybe every kind?) of extracts with vodka and the right ingredients. I purchased hazelnut extract last month and found it to be... well.. wanting is the kindest descriptor I can use. (Disgusting and disappointing are more accurate adjectives.) So I figured if I get the vodka to make vanilla extract, I could try my hand at hazelnut, too. And maybe some orange extract. Doesn't that sound yummy? Too bad it takes a couple of months to distill! You'll have to check back later for a report on my home-made extracts. I have high, high hopes.
I got some good (?) news at work this week: The management team asked me to take over the responsibility for a big, important data analysis project that we do once a year. The person who currently does this project is retiring in March and we are not going to fill his position (due to budget cuts). So they are distributing his workload. This is actually really good news to me. One of the reasons I wanted a promotion (the one I was vying for at the end of 2012) is that I am a little bit tired of my current workload. It has become routine and generally fails to challenge me anymore. I'm sure this big project will seem easy and routine in a couple of years, but for right now, I am really excited to do something new and big and important.
Last but not at all least: You might recall that one of my 2013 goals (#12) is to do some creative writing. I've had a few opportunities in the last couple of weeks to sit down and write; many thanks to my husband for running errands with the kiddo and providing the necessary free time. I drafted an outline for a brand new novel and even started writing the opening scene. I have about 6,400 words under my belt. I am amazed and pleased at how well the project is going! I hope Nate will continue to support me as I work toward my goal. Maybe this time next year I really could be ready to publish? Wouldn't that be a dream come true.
Saturday, January 12, 2013
Party hats out, now put them away
Get out your party hat, a small celebration is due: I finished rewiring the outlets in the downstairs hallway! I've been doing electrical work in the basement off-and-on for a few months now; the eventual outcome is that we'll have new wiring to the outlets in the main hallway and also the wiring and lights on the west side of the basement. In the course of the project, I've been sidetracked by the chicken coop, getting sick, the holidays, and more. It has been very slow, and it's not all done.
BUT the outlets in the main hallway are done! I re-wired and replaced three existing outlets, removed one outlet, and added three new outlets. <<Score!>> It was an incredibly tricky operation because I had to run wiring alongside a lot of current wiring, and work around the air ducts in the ceiling, and even go through a pair of studs on a blind corner. Nate was very helpful and drilled a half dozen holes for me.
Now I've moved on to the lighting, which is significantly trickier because of the switches. I am putting three new "can" (sometimes also called "bucket") lights in the utility room, a track light in one part of the hallway, and a pair of wall scones (lights) in the other part of the hallway. Independently, I think I could figure out how to wire each of these lights, but I'm not sure how to wire them all onto the same circuit, each to its own dedicated switch or pair of switches. It's going to be a learning experience! I expect to have one set of lights done next week, and if I keep up my current pace all of the lights should be done in a couple of weeks. Yay!
Now that we've celebrated the electrical accomplishments, put away your party hat. There's bad news, too: I didn't get a promotion.
Remember all that time I spent preparing and interviewing and agonizing? It's all over, and was all for naught. At least, that's how it feels right now. They offered the position to someone else. I'm disappointed, of course, but I'm also a little bit relieved. The new job would have been a mixed bag, with some blessings and some challenges. One of the advantages of my current position is that it is very low-key and flexible, so I can pretty much drop what I'm doing at any time if an emergency comes up.
When I shared the unfortunate news with Nate, he expressed some frustrations with his work situation, too. We both feel it's time to start doing something else with our lives. I don't really know exactly what that means or what it will look like, but we both feel a little bit stuck, like we're in a rut. For me, part of the change is going to be doing more creative writing and publishing some of my work. Nate supports my dream and will help me work towards it.
In fact, to that end, you could actually get out your party hat again! This morning, after showers and breakfast, Nate and the toddler went out to visit my PILs and I got to spend a couple of hours doing some creative writing. At first it was slow; I spent some time just laying on the floor and trying to get my brain in the right place. (The creative parts of the brain become more active when you lay down. I'm not kidding, that's totally a real thing and you can look it up!) When the mental juices were finally flowing, I sat down at my computer and started typing. And typing and typing.
By the time my family came home, I had seven pages and whopping 2,500 words written on the outline of a new story. It was every scene I'd developed during the last month, when I've been silently plotting and scheming during my showers, bike rides, and other rare moments alone. In fact, I hadn't even finished all of my thoughts when the family got back. I had to ask for five more minutes so I could put down the final two paragraphs.
Oh man, I can't even begin to describe how good it felt to do all of that writing. It gave me a high for most of the day. All I've wanted to do is just sit down and write more. More, more, more. Add details to the scenes, add the little snippets of dialog floating in my head, add background details. I haven't been this excited about a writing project in a long time. Let's hope I can continue to find time for it and keep up my momentum!
While your party hat is still on, let's celebrate a couple of Nate's accomplishments from the last couple of weeks. Last weekend, he finished building a little folding table a chair for our daughter to use in the kitchen. The table folds down from one of the cabinets; we came up with the table design ourselves, customizing it to fit the space. I got the chair "bluepring" plans from an awesome DIY furniture maker, Ana White.
I'm going to tangent for a moment and gush about Ana: If you haven't heard of her, you should check out her website. She has hundreds of free furniture plans on her site for chairs, bed frames, dressers, shelves, garden boxes, stools, benches, desks, tables, doll houses... anything and everything. It's amazing. And her plans are all very simple, very clear, with lots of step-by-step pictures. From what I've seen, they are really do-able even with very minimal tools. (Amy, if you're reading this post, I'm thinking specifically about you -- you'd love her site!) I want to make so, so many of the things on Ana's site. Hopefully someday, after some of these other major house projects are done, I will have a little more time for some fun furniture building.
Anyway, back to Nate... We made one augmentation to the chair design, which is that we shortened the legs by three inches. The chair is a "kid" chair and our daughter is just barely a toddler, so it would have been too tall for her. The amazing and totally unplanned thing about the chair and the table is that the fold up snugly together. Do you see the picture, how neatly the chair fits between the table legs when the table is folded? WE DID NOT PLAN THAT! We didn't even measure, didn't think about how the chair would be stored when the table was folded; we did not plan it, and yet the chair is exactly, I mean exactly, the same width as the gap between the table legs. Truly amazing.
Obviously the chair isn't "finished" yet. I'm actually not sure how to finish it. At first I thought I would just paint it. But then Nate bought some decent wood to make the chair, so I could actually stain it. Either way I think I will sew a little pad for the seat, just to do something cute and colorful and soft for my kids' tushy. Do you have any thoughts on the chair -- paint or stain? What color? I'm terrible at figuring out these kinds of things.
Nate's other big accomplishment from this week is that he took the GRE on Friday. That's the Graduate Requirements Exam, the test you have to take if you want to go to graduate school. Nate has been saying for probably six years now that he'd like to go back to school and get a Master's degree. I don't know if it's actually ever going to happen, but I'm very proud of him for the months of intense studying and having the courage to take the test. It was very hard for him, but he did it. Yay Nate!
I feel like there's something I'm forgetting to blog about, but since I can't think of what it might be, I'm just going to share some cute pictures of the kiddo...
BUT the outlets in the main hallway are done! I re-wired and replaced three existing outlets, removed one outlet, and added three new outlets. <<Score!>> It was an incredibly tricky operation because I had to run wiring alongside a lot of current wiring, and work around the air ducts in the ceiling, and even go through a pair of studs on a blind corner. Nate was very helpful and drilled a half dozen holes for me.
Now I've moved on to the lighting, which is significantly trickier because of the switches. I am putting three new "can" (sometimes also called "bucket") lights in the utility room, a track light in one part of the hallway, and a pair of wall scones (lights) in the other part of the hallway. Independently, I think I could figure out how to wire each of these lights, but I'm not sure how to wire them all onto the same circuit, each to its own dedicated switch or pair of switches. It's going to be a learning experience! I expect to have one set of lights done next week, and if I keep up my current pace all of the lights should be done in a couple of weeks. Yay!
Now that we've celebrated the electrical accomplishments, put away your party hat. There's bad news, too: I didn't get a promotion.
Remember all that time I spent preparing and interviewing and agonizing? It's all over, and was all for naught. At least, that's how it feels right now. They offered the position to someone else. I'm disappointed, of course, but I'm also a little bit relieved. The new job would have been a mixed bag, with some blessings and some challenges. One of the advantages of my current position is that it is very low-key and flexible, so I can pretty much drop what I'm doing at any time if an emergency comes up.
When I shared the unfortunate news with Nate, he expressed some frustrations with his work situation, too. We both feel it's time to start doing something else with our lives. I don't really know exactly what that means or what it will look like, but we both feel a little bit stuck, like we're in a rut. For me, part of the change is going to be doing more creative writing and publishing some of my work. Nate supports my dream and will help me work towards it.
In fact, to that end, you could actually get out your party hat again! This morning, after showers and breakfast, Nate and the toddler went out to visit my PILs and I got to spend a couple of hours doing some creative writing. At first it was slow; I spent some time just laying on the floor and trying to get my brain in the right place. (The creative parts of the brain become more active when you lay down. I'm not kidding, that's totally a real thing and you can look it up!) When the mental juices were finally flowing, I sat down at my computer and started typing. And typing and typing.
By the time my family came home, I had seven pages and whopping 2,500 words written on the outline of a new story. It was every scene I'd developed during the last month, when I've been silently plotting and scheming during my showers, bike rides, and other rare moments alone. In fact, I hadn't even finished all of my thoughts when the family got back. I had to ask for five more minutes so I could put down the final two paragraphs.
Oh man, I can't even begin to describe how good it felt to do all of that writing. It gave me a high for most of the day. All I've wanted to do is just sit down and write more. More, more, more. Add details to the scenes, add the little snippets of dialog floating in my head, add background details. I haven't been this excited about a writing project in a long time. Let's hope I can continue to find time for it and keep up my momentum!
While your party hat is still on, let's celebrate a couple of Nate's accomplishments from the last couple of weeks. Last weekend, he finished building a little folding table a chair for our daughter to use in the kitchen. The table folds down from one of the cabinets; we came up with the table design ourselves, customizing it to fit the space. I got the chair "bluepring" plans from an awesome DIY furniture maker, Ana White.
I'm going to tangent for a moment and gush about Ana: If you haven't heard of her, you should check out her website. She has hundreds of free furniture plans on her site for chairs, bed frames, dressers, shelves, garden boxes, stools, benches, desks, tables, doll houses... anything and everything. It's amazing. And her plans are all very simple, very clear, with lots of step-by-step pictures. From what I've seen, they are really do-able even with very minimal tools. (Amy, if you're reading this post, I'm thinking specifically about you -- you'd love her site!) I want to make so, so many of the things on Ana's site. Hopefully someday, after some of these other major house projects are done, I will have a little more time for some fun furniture building.
Anyway, back to Nate... We made one augmentation to the chair design, which is that we shortened the legs by three inches. The chair is a "kid" chair and our daughter is just barely a toddler, so it would have been too tall for her. The amazing and totally unplanned thing about the chair and the table is that the fold up snugly together. Do you see the picture, how neatly the chair fits between the table legs when the table is folded? WE DID NOT PLAN THAT! We didn't even measure, didn't think about how the chair would be stored when the table was folded; we did not plan it, and yet the chair is exactly, I mean exactly, the same width as the gap between the table legs. Truly amazing.
Obviously the chair isn't "finished" yet. I'm actually not sure how to finish it. At first I thought I would just paint it. But then Nate bought some decent wood to make the chair, so I could actually stain it. Either way I think I will sew a little pad for the seat, just to do something cute and colorful and soft for my kids' tushy. Do you have any thoughts on the chair -- paint or stain? What color? I'm terrible at figuring out these kinds of things.
Nate's other big accomplishment from this week is that he took the GRE on Friday. That's the Graduate Requirements Exam, the test you have to take if you want to go to graduate school. Nate has been saying for probably six years now that he'd like to go back to school and get a Master's degree. I don't know if it's actually ever going to happen, but I'm very proud of him for the months of intense studying and having the courage to take the test. It was very hard for him, but he did it. Yay Nate!
I feel like there's something I'm forgetting to blog about, but since I can't think of what it might be, I'm just going to share some cute pictures of the kiddo...
A very color-coordinated breakfast:
One of many accidentally captured, totally random and hilarious facial expressions:
Jaunty little hat:
On New Year's Day, on a swing for the first time:
Her true feelings about this experience (it was icy cold and dad was pushing waaaaay too fast):
Diaper head, teehee (I swear she did this on her own):
Random breakfast shot (she loves honey yogurt):
She folds her arms and has been for a little while now; you have to say "Please fold your arms" or "We're going to say a prayer now" and she will do it; she's especially good about it at mealtimes:
Possibly she was saying "uh-oh" or just "Ohhhhhoooooo" but either way, cute (and also, I LOVE these boots):
Saturday, November 24, 2012
Thanksgiving and the Chicken Coop
Thanksgiving was this week. That makes me feel obligated to talk about all the good food we made and how much we loved seeing our families, or maybe gripe about the insanity of early-morning Black Friday...
But the thing is, we got our chickens today! I'm on an emotional high from having sorta finished the coop, so I feel more like talking about chickens than about turkey.
I will try to reign in my enthusiasm long enough to talk about things that happened, gasp, two whole days ago! Thanksgiving! It's funny that I could be so excited about it for weeks but completely over it the next day. Life is so short and so fast sometimes...
Here's our beautifully set table for Turkey Day:
I was happy that I had an excuse to use the fine china and silverware, and the pretty glasses. Nate was kind enough to do some decorating last weekend (clearly I just wasn't going to make time for it) so we actually had some leaves, pumpkins, and my "Pioneer People" set up. I think I'm going to leave them up through this week, just so I can enjoy them a little longer. Besides, it feels too early to start doing Christmas things. There's still a whole week of November left! A whole week for pumpkins and pioneers!
I didn't have time to photograph the food spread before we dug in. It was standard fare (mashed potatoes, carrots and green beans, cinnamon-pineapple yams, rolls, stuffing, turkey, gravy; salad, ham, and apple pie from the PILs; pumpkin cheesecake). The baby loved eating carrots, green beans, and turkey. We've been chowing on leftovers the last couple of days.
After a full morning of cooking, we enjoyed our feast at about noon. Then the baby went down for a nap, the grownups had dessert, we cleaned up, and the PILs went home. Nate and I alternately worked on the chicken coop. When Baby Girl woke up, we hopped in the car and went to see my family for the latter part of their festivities. We got to spend a couple of hours with my side of the family, so it was a wonderfully well-rounded day!
The next day, a bit of early morning Black Friday. (Why do I do this to myself?) We tried the craft store, it was crazy busy and a bit disappointing, so we just got a couple of things and then went on to Freddy's. Sock sale! I think Fred Meyer's has to be the nicest place to go Black Fridaying; the other shoppers are relatively nice, the staff is friendly; there's free coffee and donuts; and the socks! They are all half price. It's really the only reason my mom goes out, I think. I also got a few extra things for Darling, since the prices were decent.
The rest of Friday was spent finishing up the chicken coop. Actually, that's been the focus of any and all free time during the last week. Evenings, afternoons -- any time we had a few minutes, it went to the coop.
Now I know I said we brought home chickens today, but I want to make it very clear that the shed is not completely done. As I mentioned in my October Recap post, I can't finish painting it until it the weather is sufficiently dry and warm (i.e. not until this spring), so there's a lot of painting yet to be done. We also need to add the rain gutter and hook it up to the rain barrel. Nate is less concerned about this task, but it's still high on my list! I didn't paint that rain barrel and schleck around in the mud to build it level foundation just for looks! Also, on the inside of the coop, we (Nate) would like to build a bit of shelving and storage space.
Finishing up the electrical work was a lot of fun. When you get to the home stretch and everything is coming together, it really is great. Very rewarding. When I got to turn on the breaker, flip the light switch, and go out to see the light shining brightly (and not electrocute myself, start a fire, or destroy anything in the process), I let out a whoop of joy. It gives me a bit of encouragement and motivation to work on the basement.
With that, here are some pictures...
But the thing is, we got our chickens today! I'm on an emotional high from having sorta finished the coop, so I feel more like talking about chickens than about turkey.
I will try to reign in my enthusiasm long enough to talk about things that happened, gasp, two whole days ago! Thanksgiving! It's funny that I could be so excited about it for weeks but completely over it the next day. Life is so short and so fast sometimes...
Here's our beautifully set table for Turkey Day:
I was happy that I had an excuse to use the fine china and silverware, and the pretty glasses. Nate was kind enough to do some decorating last weekend (clearly I just wasn't going to make time for it) so we actually had some leaves, pumpkins, and my "Pioneer People" set up. I think I'm going to leave them up through this week, just so I can enjoy them a little longer. Besides, it feels too early to start doing Christmas things. There's still a whole week of November left! A whole week for pumpkins and pioneers!
I didn't have time to photograph the food spread before we dug in. It was standard fare (mashed potatoes, carrots and green beans, cinnamon-pineapple yams, rolls, stuffing, turkey, gravy; salad, ham, and apple pie from the PILs; pumpkin cheesecake). The baby loved eating carrots, green beans, and turkey. We've been chowing on leftovers the last couple of days.
After a full morning of cooking, we enjoyed our feast at about noon. Then the baby went down for a nap, the grownups had dessert, we cleaned up, and the PILs went home. Nate and I alternately worked on the chicken coop. When Baby Girl woke up, we hopped in the car and went to see my family for the latter part of their festivities. We got to spend a couple of hours with my side of the family, so it was a wonderfully well-rounded day!
The next day, a bit of early morning Black Friday. (Why do I do this to myself?) We tried the craft store, it was crazy busy and a bit disappointing, so we just got a couple of things and then went on to Freddy's. Sock sale! I think Fred Meyer's has to be the nicest place to go Black Fridaying; the other shoppers are relatively nice, the staff is friendly; there's free coffee and donuts; and the socks! They are all half price. It's really the only reason my mom goes out, I think. I also got a few extra things for Darling, since the prices were decent.
The rest of Friday was spent finishing up the chicken coop. Actually, that's been the focus of any and all free time during the last week. Evenings, afternoons -- any time we had a few minutes, it went to the coop.
Now I know I said we brought home chickens today, but I want to make it very clear that the shed is not completely done. As I mentioned in my October Recap post, I can't finish painting it until it the weather is sufficiently dry and warm (i.e. not until this spring), so there's a lot of painting yet to be done. We also need to add the rain gutter and hook it up to the rain barrel. Nate is less concerned about this task, but it's still high on my list! I didn't paint that rain barrel and schleck around in the mud to build it level foundation just for looks! Also, on the inside of the coop, we (Nate) would like to build a bit of shelving and storage space.
Finishing up the electrical work was a lot of fun. When you get to the home stretch and everything is coming together, it really is great. Very rewarding. When I got to turn on the breaker, flip the light switch, and go out to see the light shining brightly (and not electrocute myself, start a fire, or destroy anything in the process), I let out a whoop of joy. It gives me a bit of encouragement and motivation to work on the basement.
With that, here are some pictures...
The outside of the coop (needs more painting!)
The inside (you can see the light I wired and installed, upper right corner of this pic):
These are our chickens (Bitsy Crowing and Doreen LeWing):
The side/back of the coop, with a view of the chicken run:
Before-and-After Pictures of the back of the shed:
I'll share the before-and-after of the other side when it's actually all done... in the spring.
Saturday, November 17, 2012
And then she walked! (Plus other updates and a bunch of pictures)
Years from now when my daughter asks me, "When did I start walking?"
I will tell her, "November 10, 2012."
We went to visit my parents last week at their new house (it was Nate's first time up there). As soon as we stepped in the door and I set Baby Girl down so that I could take off my shoes... and she toddled away from me, across the room.
Up to that point in time, my daughter's walking was pretty limited. She'd use furniture and other objects to help herself stand and walk, and she would sometimes take two or three steps on her own. One time I even saw her take about six unassisted steps. But mostly, she wasn't interested.
Not until the magic of Grandma's House intervened. A magic spell was cast when we walked in the door, and now my daughter is walking. She still crawls a bit, especially if she falls down while walking, but for the most part she is just toddling around as though it were the most normal thing ever.
I LOVE IT.
A lot of people tried to tell me that walking wasn't going to be much fun. They said she would get into everything and run away all the time, and that she would be too fast. I think these people must not have waited for seventeen months to see their children walk. To date, of all the things my daughter has learned to do, this is my very most favorite. It is amazing and adorable! I don't miss crawling. She's too big and too old to crawl, and created plenty of its own worries and nuisances. Bring on the walking! Heck, bring on the running!!! I love new adventures and challenges.
The next day, on Sunday, our very good friends who live an hour south (in our college town) came to visit. You might remember them from previous blog posts -- Nathan and Kimmy, whose son "Little" is nearly the same age as our daughter. We made them dinner and Kimmy took some pictures of me making my beloved new treat, pumpkin cremes! Kimmy has a food blog and wanted me to write a guest post. I was/am totally flattered! But since I'm not a great photographer, I convinced her to come and take the pictures. You can check out the post, pictures, and recipe on the Bake Shop's blog, www.kimmysbakeshop.com (here's the direct link).
Monday was a day off work (Vet's Day, belated) so we were all home and having fun. We went to see Nate's dad and then worked a bit on the chicken coop. (More on the coop in a minute.) I finally finished my edits to Queen Witch, J.R. Pearse Nelson's latest work. I sent them along and final revisions are underway. I am grateful and pleased to have participated in the writing process for such an inspiring, self-published author! The new book should be out by the end of the month. Do you want a copy? I'm going to order some extra prints to give away; just let me know.
There's a job opening at work that has me very excited. It's for the Senior Analyst position, which is one step up in pay and about five steps up in awesome from my current job. The position came open two years ago and I very much wanted to apply, but after many long deliberations, I decided the timing wasn't right. For one thing, I was four months pregnant with daughter so I knew I would be out of the office (parental leave) during a critical workload period. In the end I applied for a promotion to my current position, and I am very happy about the route I took. I've gained great experience in my job, and developed leadership skills that will be invaluable if I'm promoted again. It also gave me time to better understand and appreciate the workload of the Senior Analyst.
Now, I don't know whether I will be the top candidate. I'm a strong contender, but several smart, capable people are applying. I do know now that I am very seriously interested in the job, and I feel ready to tackle it, should things go well. The whole process will take a couple of months, so for now... stay tuned!
Today was a pretty normal Saturday. We ran a few errands and got a few things done around the house. I finally got most of the wiring set up for the chicken coop, so that we can have a light out there to keep them warm this winter. There's a covered patio out back with several lights and outlets -- too many, in fact. So I axed the last two routes on the line, hijacking them instead for the coop. I installed a light switch, and then ran wires through conduit out to the coop. (In the rain. And mud. And cold. The conditions were ugly and shoving the wire through long plastic tubing required more muscle than you would think, but when I was done and got to head inside to take a nap with the baby... total satisfaction.)
The thing is, I'm going to have to redo a bunch of work. The switch box is too small to comfortably hold all the wires, and the box doesn't mount securely. So I got a different box after nap time, and I will have to spend another hour out there sometime soon so I can swap out the switch and boxes. It's okay, it will be worthwhile in the end.
As if that wasn't enough stuff, I also tried a new bread recipe today. The goal was a bread with lots of seeds. It has five kinds... but... it's hard to explain. The bread didn't have a big rise, so it's dense (not bad, just not great); the flavor is a bit... bitter? Some of the seeds have a great flavor, but others are kinda sour/bitter. So maybe more sugar/honey/agave next time? We'll see. I'm not going to make bread for a couple of weeks; too much is going on.
This week is Thanksgiving! Nate's parents are coming over for "dinner" at noon on the big day. We are making most of the goodies. I'm actually excited. I didn't think I would be -- who wants to go through all of that effort? -- but then we went grocery shopping today, and I got yams and potatoes and green beans and pumpkin puree and a turkey... and now, I'm feeling festive! I love Thanksgiving. If only it didn't have to be followed by the madness and annoyance of the Christmas season. (Bah humbug, I despise the holiday commercialism, masses of people everywhere, and stress. Can't I please just skip Christmas this year?)
Since I don't want to end on that Scrooge-like note, here are a ton of cute pictures from the last three months:
Set A) Climbing, crawling, exploring: She'll get into everything. It use to be "Where did we put the baby?" but now it's, "Where did the baby put herself?"
And now here are a bunch of cute pictures of various things, many of them with food...
I will tell her, "November 10, 2012."
We went to visit my parents last week at their new house (it was Nate's first time up there). As soon as we stepped in the door and I set Baby Girl down so that I could take off my shoes... and she toddled away from me, across the room.
Up to that point in time, my daughter's walking was pretty limited. She'd use furniture and other objects to help herself stand and walk, and she would sometimes take two or three steps on her own. One time I even saw her take about six unassisted steps. But mostly, she wasn't interested.
Not until the magic of Grandma's House intervened. A magic spell was cast when we walked in the door, and now my daughter is walking. She still crawls a bit, especially if she falls down while walking, but for the most part she is just toddling around as though it were the most normal thing ever.
I LOVE IT.
A lot of people tried to tell me that walking wasn't going to be much fun. They said she would get into everything and run away all the time, and that she would be too fast. I think these people must not have waited for seventeen months to see their children walk. To date, of all the things my daughter has learned to do, this is my very most favorite. It is amazing and adorable! I don't miss crawling. She's too big and too old to crawl, and created plenty of its own worries and nuisances. Bring on the walking! Heck, bring on the running!!! I love new adventures and challenges.
The next day, on Sunday, our very good friends who live an hour south (in our college town) came to visit. You might remember them from previous blog posts -- Nathan and Kimmy, whose son "Little" is nearly the same age as our daughter. We made them dinner and Kimmy took some pictures of me making my beloved new treat, pumpkin cremes! Kimmy has a food blog and wanted me to write a guest post. I was/am totally flattered! But since I'm not a great photographer, I convinced her to come and take the pictures. You can check out the post, pictures, and recipe on the Bake Shop's blog, www.kimmysbakeshop.com (here's the direct link).
Monday was a day off work (Vet's Day, belated) so we were all home and having fun. We went to see Nate's dad and then worked a bit on the chicken coop. (More on the coop in a minute.) I finally finished my edits to Queen Witch, J.R. Pearse Nelson's latest work. I sent them along and final revisions are underway. I am grateful and pleased to have participated in the writing process for such an inspiring, self-published author! The new book should be out by the end of the month. Do you want a copy? I'm going to order some extra prints to give away; just let me know.
There's a job opening at work that has me very excited. It's for the Senior Analyst position, which is one step up in pay and about five steps up in awesome from my current job. The position came open two years ago and I very much wanted to apply, but after many long deliberations, I decided the timing wasn't right. For one thing, I was four months pregnant with daughter so I knew I would be out of the office (parental leave) during a critical workload period. In the end I applied for a promotion to my current position, and I am very happy about the route I took. I've gained great experience in my job, and developed leadership skills that will be invaluable if I'm promoted again. It also gave me time to better understand and appreciate the workload of the Senior Analyst.
Now, I don't know whether I will be the top candidate. I'm a strong contender, but several smart, capable people are applying. I do know now that I am very seriously interested in the job, and I feel ready to tackle it, should things go well. The whole process will take a couple of months, so for now... stay tuned!
Today was a pretty normal Saturday. We ran a few errands and got a few things done around the house. I finally got most of the wiring set up for the chicken coop, so that we can have a light out there to keep them warm this winter. There's a covered patio out back with several lights and outlets -- too many, in fact. So I axed the last two routes on the line, hijacking them instead for the coop. I installed a light switch, and then ran wires through conduit out to the coop. (In the rain. And mud. And cold. The conditions were ugly and shoving the wire through long plastic tubing required more muscle than you would think, but when I was done and got to head inside to take a nap with the baby... total satisfaction.)
The thing is, I'm going to have to redo a bunch of work. The switch box is too small to comfortably hold all the wires, and the box doesn't mount securely. So I got a different box after nap time, and I will have to spend another hour out there sometime soon so I can swap out the switch and boxes. It's okay, it will be worthwhile in the end.
As if that wasn't enough stuff, I also tried a new bread recipe today. The goal was a bread with lots of seeds. It has five kinds... but... it's hard to explain. The bread didn't have a big rise, so it's dense (not bad, just not great); the flavor is a bit... bitter? Some of the seeds have a great flavor, but others are kinda sour/bitter. So maybe more sugar/honey/agave next time? We'll see. I'm not going to make bread for a couple of weeks; too much is going on.
This week is Thanksgiving! Nate's parents are coming over for "dinner" at noon on the big day. We are making most of the goodies. I'm actually excited. I didn't think I would be -- who wants to go through all of that effort? -- but then we went grocery shopping today, and I got yams and potatoes and green beans and pumpkin puree and a turkey... and now, I'm feeling festive! I love Thanksgiving. If only it didn't have to be followed by the madness and annoyance of the Christmas season. (Bah humbug, I despise the holiday commercialism, masses of people everywhere, and stress. Can't I please just skip Christmas this year?)
Since I don't want to end on that Scrooge-like note, here are a ton of cute pictures from the last three months:
Set A) Climbing, crawling, exploring: She'll get into everything. It use to be "Where did we put the baby?" but now it's, "Where did the baby put herself?"
Sitting in a crock pot -- I swear she did all of this on her own:
Climbing on the step ladder -- she loves this:
In her room, she climbs onto her chair, then onto her desk, and perches up there:
And now here are a bunch of cute pictures of various things, many of them with food...
Pretty much one of the worst things I've ever seen:
Halloween Costume: Monkey
(Her) Feelings about Costume: Hatred
Time spent wearing it: Minimal
Playing with Buckle Bear! She doesn't hate him after all:
Diaper Hat -- She can thank her dad for this idea:
The back of her hair is getting long. Sadly, the font is not. Insert nickname: Mullet Girl
(Sleeping. This is what she's doing right now. I love it when she sleeps -- so peaceful.)
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