What-What?! Week of June 25th

Well, the weather is finally nice!  It is lovely and warm... and should hit 93 degrees today.  So time to bust out the squirt guns and sprinkler, I guess.

Friday night, the husband and I cleaned out the dryer ducting, because the dryer wasn't doing anything.  That was fun -- the ducting makes a total of four 90 degree turns, so it was difficult to get anything out.  We bought a brush on a pole thingy, which is advertised to bend around corners, but we couldn't get it through the ones at the far end... so then the husband crawled under the house, disconnected the ducting before the third turn, and I operated the brush thingy while he gathered up the refuse in a sack.  We got a fair amount of lint out, so I'm hoping that it will be massively improved.  But we haven't found out yet -- that is for later.

Last week, I went to Target and bought myself a Lego set with my birthday money:

Rosalyn's Healing Hideout, which features a dragon, a goblin guy with trap and cart, the elves Rosalyn and Naida, and Rosalyn's house.  I have one other Lego Elves set that also has a dragon -- I like that there's a lot of articulation, which allows a lot of expression.  Lego always includes a lot of nice details -- the cookpot and fireplace are great, as is the lookout on the second story of the house.  There is a hidden place to store treasure, and the branches on the tree swing inwards to 'hide' the second story lookout.

Osric and Corwin helped me build the first part:

Helpers.  Corwin would not make a normal face in any of the pictures I took, so here he is with big eyes.

And I built the rest in the evening while enjoying some drinks.

Overall, 10/10 would do again.

I plan on putting it up on the shelf that we put up in the living room that's our 'not-mantle'... after I make space for it.  >.>

What-What?! Week of May 21st

Yesterday, the husband and I swapped out the backdoor of our house.  We finally had enough sun on a weekend that having a big whole open all day would be a good idea.

I tried to take some pictures of the old door, but they all just suck:

 Osric and Corwin went outside and played while we worked.  We got out the lawn chairs and trucks.

 Taking the door out -- notice the big holes on the left.  No wonder this doorway was drafty before!

BIIIIG HOOOOLE.  After we got the door off, you would not believe the number of bugs we found.  There was the biggest Black House Spider, a number of smaller spiders, some ants, pill bugs, and some beetles.

Hammering.  We got these nifty composite shims that were easy to break off later.  All the holes you see around the door were filled with expanding foam.

Taa-DA!  New door versus old door.

The difference in the temperature of the kitchen is already noticeable -- normally by morning, the kitchen is pretty chilly, but this morning it was actually still warm.

We still need to add trim on the inside, then paint the door and trim.  Dunno what color we're going to do -- probably just white until we make other color decisions.

This was a surprisingly easy project -- it did help that the doorway was both level and square to start out with, so not a lot of fiddling there.  Probably a not-square doorway would be harder (I'm looking at you, bedroom doors), but I'd be willing to give it a try sometime.

What-What?! Week of September 13th

This week, I set out to do three things.

I'm not done with one of them yet, and haven't even started the other two.

One of my favorite of Murphy's Laws of Combat is "No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy".  Probably one of the most applicable to everyday life, as well.

Anyway, what adventures have we had this week?

I found out that the odd little plant with red berries that's coming over the back fence (tagging along with the blackberry bushes) is a bittersweet nightshade.  It is poisonous.  This is bad.  So I (carefully) dispatched it.

There's another berry bush around on the side of the house that is a common snowberry.  It is also poisonous.  This is bad.  I am dispatching it today.

I suddenly feel the need to look up every other plant in our backyard now.

I also made a pizza.

 

The big kids decided to joust.  Surprisingly, no one was hurt.

Movie Review: Song of the Sea

This is a recent addition to Amazon Prime, and made by the same studio and director that did the Secret of Kells.  The story follows two somewhat-disagreeable siblings who free the fairy people and ultimately save the spirit world.  It is classic hand animation, and quite beautiful to look at -- like watching a children's book come alive.  I liked the story of this film much more than the Secret of Kells, simply because it felt way less depressing.  There's a lot of great mythology to it, and it felt like the story took place in a complete world; it wasn't just a little make-believe corner or something.  It all fit together believably.  The innocence of the main characters and how they get swept up into the adventure reminded me strongly of My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, and other Miyazaki films.

The children and I all thoroughly enjoyed watching Song of the Sea, and would highly recommend it.

What-What?! Week of July 26th

My parents finished their visit this past week.  It was very nice to have them over; I've missed them a lot since we left.  The weather was nice the whole time they were here, and now it's rainy again. 'Cuz Washington.  Before they left, we got some nice pictures of me with my parents, and also our family:

A good picture of our family still involves at least one person not looking at the camera. :P

Also, I finally got photos off of the husband's phone, including this one of the "Connect Four: Lettuce Edition":

I think it's a pretty nifty setup.  Our backyard is pretty big, but even still, something like this would not go amiss.  I would really like to start a garden, but I think that winter's going be here before anything happens.  We're actually heading to the hardware store later to pick up various supplies for household projects.  Like, 5 different household projects, because we've been saving up. xP

Saffron dressed like she was from the 80s on Tuesday:

Saffron actually dressed herself in another similar color-coordinated outfit later in the week, also with the 80s-style side ponytail.

I will post something more substantial next week, since the projects on my weekly docket shouldn't be too time intensive.  Maybe I'll even cook something new.

What-What?! Week of June 7th

Today is Sunday... and it's actually Sunday, unlike Thursday, when it was actually Wednesday.  I don't know how I lost track of days so badly last week, but I did. :P

Yesterday, the husband and I took the kids to a community event -- "Healthy Communities Challenge Day".  There were a bunch of local (generally -- Wells Fargo was there...?) health-related organizations and businesses, with games to play and things like that.  One of the local pediatric dentists was there, and I'll probably take the kids there soon; I hadn't taken them anywhere in Everett because I couldn't find anyone that had reviews I was satisfied with.  The local librarians were there with info on their summer reading program, so we picked up papers to do that.  It's a ten hour program, and I'm confident that Saffron will blow through it (that kid reads).  Ozzy got a new rubber ducky, Saffron got a Frisbee, and Corey got a piggy bank.  Also, new balloons and a mini beach ball.  Our house is loud.

There was also some firemen, with their truck:

Last Monday was my birthday, and I got books, mostly; the original Dragonlance Trilogy, The Warlock in Spite of Himself, and The Turnip Princess and Other Newly Discovered Fairy Tales.  The last one is probably the most interesting, but I haven't had the time to sit down with it yet.  Saffron has read quite a few of the stories, though.  My parents got me the Guardians of the Galaxy movie, which we still haven't seen (gonna watch it today, when we can all sit down to see it).
I had a giant chocolate cake.  It was very sweet.

Today, the husband is going to put in a new range hood, which will be exciting, since it involves electrical work.  He also mowed more of the backyard yesterday, and it continues to look even more massive, now that 1/3 isn't covered in tall weeds.  I'm going to set Saffron to work on raking it all up; she likes doing it, and who am I to argue with that?

It's been hot here.  By hot, I mean 80 degrees, so not that hot, really.

What-What?! Week of May 17th

With all the moving and other things going on, life has recently been more running around putting out fires than anything else.  The husband and I put pictures on the walls a few days ago, so now the place is officially home; we never took our family photos out of the box at the Everett apartment.  That place was never really home (or homey) at all.  We did have my horseshoe out and over the front door this whole time, for good luck.  We need all of that we can get. :P

Yesterday, we hit up the hardware store and picked up more things; a new faucet for the bathroom (my middle child can't operate the current one), patching compound to fix some divots in the wall, and a lawnmower.  I had been looking for a used lawnmower on Craigslist, but had no luck; I did find goats pretty inexpensively, but we really don't need those.  Suppose to pick up a new range hood, but they didn't have what we wanted in store.

At Saffron's Girl Scout meeting this week, she was awarded the Snack Badge, for learning about nutrition, making a snack for herself, and making a snack for her family.  She was also awarded the Discovery Key, which focuses on the scout herself, what makes her special, and how she can help her troop and family.  When I get them ironed on, I'll post a picture of her with them. :)

Later today, we'll be checking out the local library, which I'm excited about.  Going to pick up some books to read, because I need to do something that's not working or being mommy.  I've started watching more episodes of Alton Brown's Good Eats on Netflix, which is good entertainment, and not a bad jumping off point for cooking.  I'm also debating signing up for some classes over at EdX, but those don't start until June.

Was browsing Reddit, and someone mentioned Code.org's One Hour of Code.  Turns out, this is mostly aimed at children, so Friday I sat down with Corwin and did the first 20 exercises of the Disney's Frozen set.  He did need some help with the number of degrees (90 vs 45, etc.) for his character to turn, but otherwise did it by himself.  He got this certificate out of it:

The next day, Saffron sat down and got her own:

They had such a good time that I'm planning on working through some of the other tutorials there.  Even if they aren't interested in programming in the future, the logic and planning skills are really valuable.

What-What?! Week of May 3rd

No, I have not died.

But I have moved house.  Nearly all of it, anyway.  Last weekend, the husband and I spent Friday moving boxes and Saturday moving everything else (with the help of the husband's friend, too).  Sunday, we unpacked a bunch of the kitchen and living room.

The window of the car, all over the ground.  The rest of it was all over the interior of the car.

Monday, our car was broken into while the husband was at work.  The back passenger window was totally broken to pieces, and the car was a big mess.  Luckily, the only things stolen were two small coin pouches, which contained a minimal amount of cash.  Getting the car fixed and dealing with a rental and all that jazz took up almost three entire days.

Whacking things.  Ozzy being grumpy it's not his turn.

Happily, we've had the time to enjoy our new home this weekend.  We have a bigger dining room now, which means that we can have family meals again.  It's been about 11 months since we last all ate at the same table at home.  We've gone out to play in the backyard anytime the weather has been good, and it has been a lot of fun.

Made a cornhole game out of a Costco box.  This was a big hit.

I wanted to talk a little bit about the house we've bought; it was built in the late 60's, and has been renovated at least once in the past.  Unfortunately, the renovations were terrible.  This stuff is the cheapest option, and more so, done poorly.  The poor painting in the bathroom reveals that it was previously an avocado green (it is currently very blue); I know that the medicine cabinet was painted some time before this, because it has green paint drips on the frame.  The shower/tub liner is a multi-part adhesive one (like this), and the adhesive gave up the ghost long ago.  It is now held together with mountains of caulking.  The kitchen has laminate countertops, which sport a giant ugly seam right down the center of the sink.  I stare at that seam while I do the dishes (so ugly).  There's a little 18 inch counter top on the other side of the kitchen, also laminate, but the pattern on that counter doesn't match the others.  Poor little counter, so lonely.  I'm convinced that it was a scrap piece from some other project, reused here for the cost savings.

None of this renders these rooms unusable, or even unpleasant.  But you better believe that I'm changing them... eventually.  Gotta finish unpacking first. :P

Thursday is Ozzy's third birthday, and this year he's old enough to really understand what's going on.  So he's is super excited, and constantly asking for new toys (oh my goodness, the "I wants"!).  Been so busy with everything else that I'm just now starting to plan his cake out, though.  I'm sure he'll have a good day no matter what, though. :)

What-What?! Week of April 19th

Howdy, howdy, howdy. :P

I have basically nothing to post about this week.  The husband and I spent all of yesterday at the house, putting in flooring.  We were there until 9pm, and we're still not done (ARGH).  We are down to the tiniest section, but after we realized what time it was last night, we decided that everyone was too tired to stay there any later.  I have no pictures of any of this process; was too busy trying to get flooring down.  I'll post some finished pictures later, for sure.  Today, we'll finish that up, clean up all the copious amounts of carpet bits floating around, and work on baseboards.

Earlier this week, we battled water getting into the house through the backdoor.  That's fixed well enough for right now.  I can't seem to get our garbage pick up figured out.  We are required to pay for it, but dang if I can't get them to do what they say they will.  They told me we could keep the previous tenant's bins, but then they were picked up and taken away.  They told me that they'd schedule us to get new bins, but then they didn't drop them off.  I have called them at least once a week since we took possession of the house.  Good grief. D:

My kids did this Friday night.  Pretended to be knights and robots.  Won't be long before cereal boxes won't fit on their heads anymore.  Then what'll they do?

Saffron, walking like an Egyptian:

Okay, enough children.

Current plan is to move next weekend.  I hope it actually happens.  Even if we don't get quite everything moved, we'll still have ownership of the apartment for a bit, so it's not an emergency if stuff is left.

What-What?! Week of April 12th

I cooked in my new kitchen!  It was just hotdogs, but hey, you have to start somewhere.

More house stories!  All the house stories.

Plumbing!

The husband went over to the house to change the wax seal on the toilet, as recommended by our house inspector.  From reading about it online, this seems like a pretty straightforward operation.  It wasn't.  As he was turning the toilet cut off valve closed, the handle sheared off into his hand (!!!).  After some consultation, we decided that this also wouldn't be that hard to fix, so the husband goes to the hardware store and retrieves the needed bits.  The next step was to shut off the main house valve... which doesn't entirely work.  It slowed the flow, but did not stop it.  I had to call the city to get the water shut off, and by the next day, the husband had it all fixed.  In the near future, we're going to get a plumber to come and fix the main valve, because that's not a good thing to have nonfunctional.

It's really just a classic case of "Oh, this will be easy... what has gone wrong now?!"  I recall many, many instances of this while growing up in an old house, so I'm sure that there will be more.

 

New Blinds

I tried to take a picture of our blinds, but instead got pictures of a dark room.  So here's a manufacturers picture.

Yesterday, We put up new blinds in the bedrooms, so that way they'd actually be dark when we want to sleep.

The style of blinds we chose are cellular blinds, which are pretty nifty.  They have a honeycomb shaped cross section that is insulating, so they do a good job of blocking out cold/heat as well as light.  I would have loved to get double/triple layer ones, but we settled for the single-layer due to the cost and that we'd have to special order them (lots of waiting).  The photo above shows a cord, but we chose a "cordless" variety (it is corded, just internally).

And finally...

Our Backyard

I forgot to post any pictures of our new backyard. :P  We have a tree, a little fire pit thing, a shed, and a bench that's badly in need of new paint.


From just outside the back door towards the far corner.  Those are Easter eggs drawn on the patio.

From the far corner towards the back of the house.  Yes, the fence needs help.

(image from vegasflooringoutlet.com.)

What-What?! Week of April 4th

Happy Easter!  We had a pretty good Easter, though not a very fancy one this year.  We haven't decorated any eggs or done any other festivities that we normally do.  My kids were still excited, and you better believe that we read Max Counts His Chickens many, many times this week.  Our house is in boxes right now, and so there were lots of places for the 'Easter Bunny' to leave eggs.  It's great listening to the kids questions:

• "Will the Easter Bunny leave an egg in the oven?" (Why would he leave an egg where you're not allowed to go?)
• "What about under my pillow?" (Probably not)
• "What if a monster comes up through the floor and tries to get Dad and he fights it with a sword?!?" (Um...)

(Eventually I'll make a collected works of Corwin's questions).

In other news...

Adventures in Homeownership

Okay, this picture could be better.  Sorry. D:

We bought a house!  Yeah!  We just got possession of it on Monday, and have been crazy working on it and getting things done.  The house is kind of a fixer-upper, and there are things that are wrong.  But we'll fix them.  By the end of the second year, we'll probably have enough fixed/changed that I'll be happy.

That said, Thursday, we went to the house and pulled out the carpeting in the living room.  That was horrific.  It went from "well, this is gross"...

Not shown:  Exactly how awful this carpet is.  The color disguises it somewhat.

Still not that awful.

To "who knows what evil lurks in the heart of carpeting":

The Shadow knows.

Seriously.  This experience has made me question every single carpet that I've ever trod upon.  How many pounds of dirt were underneath them?  We hadn't originally been planning on replacing the carpeting in the rest of the house, but now... now we're not so sure.

The underlayment was bright horrible IBM blue.  Still better than the linoleum underneath.

Friday and Saturday, we worked on putting down laminate flooring.  After we got the underlayment down (which took well over an hour), the living room only took us about 3.5 hours to do, while the kitchen took 2.5 hours.  It looks positively lovely now.  We paid extra for a noise absorbing underlayment, and I'm really glad we did.  The rooms still need baseboards, divider thingies, and to be a trimmed a bit here and there.  We'll take care of those soon enough.

Finished living room, complete with child and toy.

Finished dining room/kitchen, complete with lovely wife. :D

After we finished, we did go outside and enjoyed our new patio and quiet backyard.

I'm really excited for our future here. :D