Taking it Easy

As you have probably noticed, we've been taking a break from the whole 'house work'. My mom came to visit last Thurs through Tuesday. It was great to see her and have our very FIRST visitor in our new home. We think she really liked it, and I know she liked the fact that the house that is getting put up across the street is bigger and better, therefor our neighborhood is getting built up (woo hoo for our property value!) Also during her visit (well the last day) she got us some patio furniture. We did have a couple of fold up camping chairs out there, which was suiting us just fine except for the fact that the whole weekend my mom was here it was raining and she kept saying "I wish you just had some plastic chairs I could wipe down and sit down to have a smoke"... well her wish came true (the last day).

They're noting fancy, but will make due for now. Our deck is so big, it helps to have something out there. And besides we got the whole set for $15 at the thrift store!!!

Today we did get back to a few house chores. Kyle lowered the blade on our reel lawn mower and mowed the yard (the front, not the sod yet). We could actually tell it got mowed. All the other times you couldn't really tell we even went over it... it helped to lower the blade. That took a total of about 10 minutes (we have a small yard, lol).

I got the kitchen walls washed, which was a PITA! I was using hot/boiling water, which worked, just scolded my hands. I was wearing gloves, but it wasn't like they were insulated. Hopefully it got all the goo off and we can putty, sand and prime in the next few days. We've picked out the paint we want for it, but haven't purchased it yet, not sure when we really want to get it done. We mainly want to get the coat of prime on to fix where the wallpaper pulled some of the drywall off.

I also did laundry today and hung the sheets out to dry! I was amazed how fast it was before they were dry, it took no time at all AND we saved electricity by not using the dryer!! YIPEE

Speaking of being green, our compost is going very well, the bottom is already turning into dirt! It's great to be able to have a place to throw weeds, random twigs from all the trees in our yard (btw we don't have a tree in our yard, but we get sticks, funny eh?), and any kitchen scraps we have (egg shells, veggies that went bad before we had a chance to eat them, coffee & tea grinds, banana peels and apple cores).

Well that's about it, off to registry land :0) Oh the joys of wedding planning! (which I've been able to start doing more of since the house work is winding down...)

The little culprit!

Alright I should probably start from the beginning of the story...

Our neighbor Cille (Francille) has a little tomato plant on her back porch on the side that is next to our house. We one day she was so excited about her one red tomato! She came back the next day and it was GONE all that was left was a little leaf that was on the top. Later in the week she noticed one of her green tomatoes gone.

Well a few days after we layed the sod I noticed something had been digging at the edge of my composter. I didn't think it was harpo because for one he's not really a digger and for two his paws have never been that dirty. So I brushed the dirt back into the hole and put the little piece of sod back in it's place. Well a few hours later it was MOVED!! This little culprit has made it's way into our yard as well!

Kyle and i put a stone there blocking the little hole this creature chewed in my composter and since then we haven't seen any activity. Until a day or so ago I noticed a little circular hole in our sod! That little sh!t is at it again!

The other day when I got home from work after parking in the garage I was walking up to the house and heard the fence rattle between Cille's house and ours... so I ran over to see if I could catch this little devil. No luck, I think he ran under Cille's deck.

Well tonight I looked out the window to check on our sprinkler to see if it was done watering or not and THERE HE WAS!!!!! He wasn't on the sod but over to the side with a HUGE acorn looking thing in his mouth, and he was digging at the ground (not on the sod or I would have shot him) (with what I dunno). Anyway this damn little squirrel has caused a heep of trouble in our backyards... who knows what he's doing to our other neighbors. And all my life I thought squirrels were so cute and I'd love to watch them eat at my grandfathers.... but low and behold squirrels are just like children... cute and adorable but little stinkers deep down!

Grey to GREEN!!

We have GRASS!!

I picked up the sod today!!! I was going to get 21 rolls but my jeep couldn't handle anymore than 18, it was getting pretty low to my tires... but it looks like 18 did just fine for now. We only had to bust up a little more to get it all in. I think we are done busting for the season...now hopefully someone will come pick up the rest of the concrete :0)

Here are the pictures I took today: [I'm going to make a little collage of the progress we have made in the next post :0)

Comments

I've been trying to figure out how people can leave comments... I guess it hasn't been working for a few people.

I think this way should work:

On the bottom of a post you can click where it says comments (there is a number in front that shows how many there are usually 0 )

Then you can choose the bubble:

• Name/URL
  
  or
  
• Anonymous

If you choose the Name one you can just put in your name and leave the URL blank. If you pick anonymous you can just leave your name in the comment (unless you want to remain anonymous).

Hopefully that way it will work. Oh then just clinic submit comment.

Blinds!!

I FOUND THEM!!

Alright so from the beginning... the other day we were at target and took a look at their blinds (as I mentioned before we are only getting blinds for the living room right now because all the other rooms can wait, but the is a glare and light that comes in in the living room.) Okay so we found these brown ones we liked at target... GUESS WHAT... yeah they were being discontinued so they were on clearance which is good, the bad part was we couldn't find the color we wanted (brown) in the size we needed (27")... we that day (Monday) we went to another target... nothing there.

At that point we thought okay we'll just find something else we like just as much, that same day we went to Linen 'N' Things (nothing we liked and they were too expensive anyway), Bed, Bath, & Beyond (nothing there either we liked and too expensive), JCPenny's they didn't have anything you could just buy, it was all custom order crap. I checked another Target on Tuesday but no luck there. Then yesterday we checked out Home Depot, found some that might be able to work... brought it home and YUK! it did not look 'natural' at all [which is what it said the color was] in the store it had a tan tint to it, but once we got it home in the room it looked yellow or almost goldish. So that is going back and we refuse to get the custom ordered ones because the size we need is so common! The search was still on! Until today I thought I would try the target by my work, this would be the fourth target. I finally grabbed someone and said "I want this color in this size, you have the size but not the color, you have the color but not the size" He looked on his little hand held thingy and said "looks like we have 0, but Rogers has 7" I was like SWEET! I need 6!!! My next question was "where's rogers?" Turns out I've been there before to do a car seat check event, just forgot but it was the next exit north of maple grove. He called to confirm they had 6 and they did so I hurried up there and GOT THEM! Now I just hope they work out when I put them in the room. But if not I can always return them. SO I found what we wanted and on clearance! WOO HOO! Here's the stock photo of them, I'll get another one up when they are actually up in the living room.

Here are the blinds all up. They are longer than we need, but that is alright because i was able to move the little knob stoppers so they don't expand all the way. But if you can see in the picture with one open and one shut (we did it this way because the window's open horizontally and this way we are able to have one blind open for a breeze but not have to have the whole thing up) anyway the one down and one up you can tell it hangs a little farther down below the window because that is where the next crease in the roman shade is... if we did the one above that then it would be too short. If that doesn't make sense then you will just have to come visit to figure out what I'm trying to say :0)

Founder of HOAW

Today we did a lot in regards to the house!! Wednesdays are just my half day so when I got home I finished up the laundry and worked on getting all the wallpaper out of the kitchen area. Like I had mentioned before there were layers upon layers of wallpaper/borders it was such a pain in the arse! It didn't really come off difficult it was just that there were so many layers. I am starting an organization: Home Owners Against Wallpaper! If you are thinking of putting up wallpaper DON'T DO IT!!!! Because it will be a nightmare for whoever else is going to have to take it down (it could be YOU!)

We also patched that spot on the roof, made a Home Depot trip and got a board for under our mattress since our box spring did not fit upstairs. We also got some weed killer as we are going to get our sod down this weekend (hopefully). We got a trial shade for the living room window, we both hated it, so that is going back and the search continues.

I guess that's all we did, I felt like we got a lot accomplished.... but just a few things.

Long Day

Today seemed so long since it felt like Monday all day and since I've been running around since I got off work. The other day when we got the cables off from all over that were hooked up to the satellite, we also took the satellite dish down and this created a little spot on the room that needs to be patched up. We filled the holes already with some sealant we had, but we also wanted to put a shingle up there (it's in a spot that no one will see but the airplanes flying over). We checked out Home Depot and we'd have to buy a whole bundle just to get one. So I've been watching craigslist and found a guy looking to get rid of a few for free. So after work I tried to workout for a bit (too much to do, my mind couldn't focus) then Kyle got home and we drove over to this place where my mom is wanting to ride a trolley when she comes here. For some reason they aren't selling tickets online and you have to go see some station attendant. Anyway we drove around for a little while, no luck! Then we stopped by this guys house and picked up the 14 shingles. Then I dropped Kyle off and headed to my weight watcher meeting (2 more weeks of maintenance then I'm a lifetime member!!)

After leaving my meeting I headed to Eden Prairie (about 20 min away) to pick up a baby gate for $15!!! I'd been looking for a swinging baby gate to put at the top of the stair so Harpo wouldn't venture down there, although he doesn't really go down there. He'll come down if I've been down there for 30 minutes or so, other wise he just waits at the top. I think they are too steep and too slick for him. Anyway we got a gate at the top just to be safe.


Last night after I blogged we got the rail put back up to the upstairs. we took this down to paint and then I wanted to clean it real good before we put it back up. So I washed it last night and we got it back up.

That's about all for the house work. During the weeks it's nice to take it slow and just do a little here and there. :)

Misc.

Today we went shopping. Our first goal was to go to the thrift store that was having 50% off and get some clothes (since we can't afford the real deal) although it's nice getting name brand items for a fraction of what they are worth. Kyle got a chair for the basement and our workout area. Yesterday I finally got to run for the first time in a month and Kyle lifted weights... and also found out that the set up we had was not going to work, so we spent some time rearranging the basement trying to get it so things could actually be done and realized we needed a chair so he could do military press without hitting a wall or ceiling.

We also got some blinds to finish up the two rooms we had only one set in: the upstairs bedroom and the guest bedroom. The only crappy thing was, well besides them being a pain in the arse to put up, the bedroom now has one white blind and one creamish colored blind OH WELL! I think the upstairs ended up both being white.

We also looked everywhere for some shades for the living room, the sun makes a horrible glare on the TV and it also gets pretty warm in there without something blocking the sun. We tried: Target, Bed Bath & Beyond, Linens and Things, and JCPenny's; I think we are going to resort to the internet! All the other rooms can wait. We figure that would be a good item for our wedding registry :0)

We also got the little hanging shelves thingy I talked about before for the office closet to maximize our storage space. So far I just have my yarn in there, but we'll find something else to put in there.

I did have one email today about someone wanting our concrete! WOO HOO hopefully that holds up, he asked how much we would charge for him to get it ALL. I replied NOTHING! Just if he hauls it away he can have all he wants. Kyle said "Heck if he wants more we can just bust the WHOLE thing up and be done with it!" We'll see, pray he wants it all :0)

We just had dinner, yum yum. We cooked out crab stuffed salmon on the grill! I love those little double packs from Target, they are so quick and easy and YUMMY! And after our stomachs settle we'll have some ice cream cake. I couldn't resist the other day when Kyle was wanting a blizzard from Dairy Queen (I swear he's addicted to those things) I gave in and just bought an ice cream cake... I figured HEY it was my birthday not to long ago and we didn't get a cake so this will be it. Nice thing is I cut it up in lots of slices and it lasts a while!