Christmas Lights!!!

Well we finally found what kind of lights we were wanting and we weren't even looking for them. We stopped in at Menards today (a store like Home Depot or Lowes) to get another snow shovel.. one that has the curved handle and can do some scooping. And took a look at the Lights... they had what we were looking for. Since they don't make the white and red alternating we just bought two red boxes and two white boxes and interchanged them ourselves :0)

That's what I'm doing here in the picture. We also bought these clips to attach the lights to the gutter, roof, or where ever last weekend when we thought we were going to get lights... and I had almost put them away for next year since I thought we had given up on the light search, anyway we only had 100 clips and with the four strands there were 280 lights so we put a clip every third light... (which didn't give me my 'perfection look' but we'll work on that next year when we can afford more clips, hee hee)

Okay there is more to this story, we got the four boxes all switched so they alternated red and white (oh btw they are LED so we're saving $ and energy). So we get outside and start getting them up and figured we'd just go along the front and up the sides of the roof. So we do the right side first and get about halfway up the part that is slanted toward the top and it was getting difficult and HIGH to get them hooked on the roof. So we just decided to put up the two strands in front of the house and not deal with going up the sides since two strands covered the front... but it does look a little off sided as you can see in this picture.

Here are the views close up in day & night:

So now knowing what we didn't know before, we have enough clips to do more than every third light... but we'll work on that next year. Also to avoid that jumble right where the light fixture is I say next year we get like a 8" extension thing and move the start/finish of the lines a little to the left... causing the left side to run up a little farther on the roof and it will look more even with the other side.... Hey we're new homeowners... it takes practice :0)

(UPDATED REAL STORY!!! a few days after getting the lights up in the freezing cold, one strand burned out... well it was impossible trying to get it to work. And we weren't really happy with them either since they weren't the alternating red and white that I wanted, so we put the bulbs back to the way they were and took them back to Menards... which happens a lot, we're always returned the cheaply made crap to Menards... anyway I was very discouraged that I wasn't going to find the kind of lights I wanted. But one lunch break I went to Target with my co-worker and there they were... alternating red and white bulbs!!!!!! I was so extactic! I bought them and put them up that night in negative 6 degree weather... brrrrrr.)

painted in kitchen again

I just got finished painting the cabinets that are on the west side of the kitchen. In the pictures I posted earlier it's the wood looking lower cabinets. I painted them white. Now all I need to do is the doors... it already looks much better. I'll post pictures when I'm finished.

Christmas time..... so we searched all day yesterday for some Christmas lights... red and white ones. First we were looking for red and white alternating ones and when we realized that was not going to happen we just started looking for red sets and white sets and I was just going to alternate them myself. the four targets we went to were out of the red! and we tried WalMart and Home Depot as well, no luck there. So I think we're just going to skip decorating this year, we've pretty much ran out of time and for all I care we don't have to get a tree either... there's really no point since we're not really 'celebrating' (buying gifts and all). Maybe after Christmas when things are on sale we can find some good buys. We do have our little charlie brown tree up in the living room and I put all my other decorations out... Just no lights outside :0(

We've also become pros at shoveling, although I think we're going to get another shovel so we can both shovel at the same time. Kyle says we need a scooping one because the one we have is a good path maker but not so much a 'shoveler'... whatever that means. We've shoveled four times this week! We have to have our sidewalk out front shoveled by noon the day after a snow or we get fined.. I'm not sure how strick they are about that, but we don't really want to find out. And it's easier to shovel ASAP instead of waiting til all the tracks are in the snow. So we went ahead and shoveled tonight even though we'll probably have to again in the morning, but by the time we get to it (6:30) there will already be lots of foot & paw prints, so at least most of it's gone tonight.

Oh we also got trim yesterday for the living room, so we just need to stain it and get that up. That's about all the house stuff we've done lately.

Finished painting kitchen

We got the kitchen all painted this past weekend. It feels good to be finished with a room... well partially, we need to do something with the cabinet hardware. We have some we can put on, but a few holes are bigger than the screws for the new hardware. This will be a rainy day project... or added to the list at least. What is it with home owning and 'projects' they will never end! But that's a joy of owning our own home :0) we LOVE it!

Our first raking

It was SUCH a beautiful day out today, which made raking the leaves a little less painful. We had raked once before a few weeks ago, but it was starting to get really bad so we got it all raked up today. I had bought leave bags the other day, one box only came with ten, which I thought might be enough. Well after filling the first two bags we knew we didn't have enough. Then after learning that Kyle's favorite part was putting the leaves in, I took over the role of holding the bag and found out that I am a pro-crusher.... so we were able to get all the leaves bagged up in 9 bags!!! If only we knew what we know now with the first three bags (they weren't crushed/packed as well). We ended up bagging up the front yard, side yard, and what was around the garage; the backyard we were able to get into our composter.

I took before and after photos, but you can tell from the neighbors yard the before so I just posted the after shots. Can you believe all those leaves?? It's not leave free (since they were falling down as we were raking) but it is much better. Oh yeah Kyle also cleaned out the gutters.

Next step tomorrow.... putting plastic on the windows.

Harpo turns 2!!

Update: 10-28-10 I realized all my old blog pictures that aren't hosted by flickr are now missing!!!! I've updated these pictures so you can see them :-)

Sunday (the 26th) we celebrated Harpo's second birthday. Isn't he so cute!?!?! He got a new collar and I made him a bunch of homemade treats, which he LOVES!

New collar: