Yard work

Today we spent sometime getting the yard in order. While Kyle mowed I went around and pulled weeds from the sidewalk and gathered up some dead leaves that were in various corners and in flower beds and added all that to my compost. I also turned and watered my compost, so I hope it's cookin'! I could use the soil already!! I need to put it in this pot that keeps tipping over and driving me nuts!

We also got some more concrete busted up. We got the two last posts out! It opens up that space. We have a little bit more we want to do before we lay down sod and call it a season. We'll probably finish up the rest next spring or sometime...

The lady that took that last bunch came again today at 4:00 and we helped her load up quite a bit. All of it isn't gone, so I posted another ad on craigslist. Hopefully someone will want it :0) we figure if they don't want it now, next spring someone will be looking for a project. I don't think we'll actually haul it away ourselves until we are finished with it all. We both don't mind if it sits there a while, it won't really matter because in about 3 months it will be a snow pile anyway, lol.

Our goal is to get sod laid next weekend, we have about 30-an hour left of busting then just need to get the ground ready. Luckily it's all level :0)

Getting some relaxing in

This morning we went to the state fair. That was fun, and also tiring, we both came home and took a nap. Then I got the office a little organized, we got a shelf up in the closet to use as storage (we used to have this in a storage locker at the apartment). It's a little narrow, but there's room to the left to hang some hanging shelves we have, ya know those canvas shelves that you can hang... anyway.

Yesterday we got the box springs, that won't fit upstairs, out to the garage so the guest room is walkable. It just holds the boxes that will go on the bookshelf and the board shelves we took out of the office closet. But it is pretty much all ready for my mom to come visit!! I can't wait, less than two weeks.

Yesterday we also got some more of the concrete busted up. We plan to do a little more tomorrow, a lady is coming at 4:00 to pick up the broken pieces, so we want to make sure there's all that she needs :0)

I think I had mentioned that I got a home composter..??.. anyway I've been working on getting that filled. Today at the fair in the eco-building there was some info on composting and I was also able to talk to someone. I'm painting a little plastic container to keep our food scraps in to put in the composter so we're not always running outside to put them in and we can just wait till the bucket gets full and dump that in. Whenever Kyle mowes, probably tomorrow, I'm going to go around and get all the dead leaves in the yard to add to it.

But as for tonight we just plan to take it easy and grill out. We started a movie last night but both ended up falling asleep, so maybe we can get through it tonight!!

Our couch came!

Last night we got our couch delivered!! We are super happy to have something to rest on and now we can even lay on the couch together... well all fit! One the other couch (loveseat) it was really a squeeze to get Kyle, me and Harpo all on the couch, lol. We don't have the TV pushed back to the wall because the cable guy is coming tomorrow, so once he comes we'll push it back and it won't sit as close to the couch.

I also wanted to share the picture of the garage, it was so nice being able to park both cars in there that first night on Saturday.

And here is a picture of the dining room, we are going to get the bookcases hooked to the wall, once we do that we'll put all the stuff back in them. Also is the picture of the rug runners we got from Ikea.

That's about all that is new with us. I got a composter last night, found on craigslist. I'm excited to get to start using it, although it will probably have to wait til next spring as it might not get hot enough now that the weather is getting cooler. We've just been going through our clothes trying to figure out what we want and what we don't really need. Oh and we've been watching the democratic convention! The Republican convention is here in St. Paul, they are already talking about roads being shut down and Kyle said during the convention anyone going into his building has to have an escort (ie: delivery people, etc). Even though it's in St. Paul (not Minneapolis), from what I hear, it's going to be crazy everywhere. Too bad we don't really CARE about the republican side....

Unpacking

Today was a long day at work for me (10 hours)... it was so nice waking up in our house this morning. Harpo stayed out of his crate all day and supposedly did really well... nothing was found chewed up so that's good. I wonder what he does all day... probably sleeps.

Last night (late) I got the chair and filing cabinet put together that we got at Ikea, tonight we put together my dresser. Here's a picture of the messy office, but you can see our new filing cabinet and new desk. My sewing desk is to the left of the picture. I actually just had an email from someone interested in my old filing cabinet posted on craigslist... I love craigslist!

Here is a picture of my new dresser and the rest of the bedroom upstairs. The black drawers are going to be done soon once we get the clothes all situation where they need to go:

So for what we did today:

• During my shower I realized that our shower head might have moved one too many place (missouri, georgia, mn apt and now here) because a small leak has formed on the side of the shower head... we'll deal with that later, lol
• Put up a toilet paper rack in the bathroom, I wanted it on the left side... but it turns out that the laundry shoot poses a problem for the screws to get all the way in... this was found out AFTER I had one side in the wall already, so now there are four lovely holes in the wall because I had to move the toilet paper rack to the right side hooked onto the vanity... URG... maybe we can put a magazine rack there to cover up the holes or something :0)
• Kyle got the basement somewhat organized... still a work in progress
• I straightened up the office a little also a work in progress, but got a huge stack of papers filed...
• We fixed the light switches upstairs with the help of my dad via phone and emailed pictures, now we can control the light above the stairs from the bottom of the stairs instead of having to climb all the way up them and into the bedroom to turn on the light over the stairs, WOO HOO!
• Kyle fixed dinner on the GRILL! The first time we've grilled out since we living in GEORGIA! (ha ha we live ON Georgia now)
• Oh yeah and we got the cable going in the living room.... we just have a long cord running from the office to the living room TV until the cable guy comes again on Thursday... it'll do, we watched about 10 minutes of the democratic convention while eating dinner, then off to house stuff.

I might start writing less since we have a lot of the major house stuff done. Tomorrow night I plan to stop by the apartment and pick up the few items that are still there, Wednesday we're gonna try and get the apartment all cleaned and rid ourselves of those keys. This weekend we plan to go to the State Fair, it's a really big deal here and the talk of the summer. Everything is fried (yuk) and on a stick (hmmm....) but I will def. be getting the cheese curds... mmmmm they are SOOOO good here!

We're HERE!!

Last night we stayed our FIRST night in our new home! I woke up at 3:00 or so FREEZING! It's amazing how a room can get cooler as the temp drops outside, unlike in our apartment when it was firey hot ALL night long!

Let me recap yesterday since I wasn't able to last night. We woke up and had a relaxing morning, boxed up all the little odds and ends that were still around the apartment. Then we went and got the truck at 3:30, Kyle's two friends: Tomar and Jeff came over and helped us load up the Truck and Kyle's Jeep, we brought that to the house and Jeff had to leave and go to work, but my friend Jill was able to come help us. It was awesome having help, it really made the moving not go so bad. We would have been two very tired people if Kyle and I had to do it all ourselves. We were able to get the trouble pieces in: couch downstairs, bed frame upstairs.... the only problem was the queen box spring that was suppose to go upstairs! We needed about 2 more inches, although that was just to get started we would probably need a little more room, it got stuck hitting the stairs and the top of the door frame. We are still working on what we are going to do about that. For now the mattress is just on the bed frame which is working out fine for now. Then last night we got a few things put here and there, got the bookcases where we think we want them, and the drawers back into the coffee table and chest of drawers upstairs.

Today we woke up and I headed to church to teach Sunday school, made a trip to home depot then we came home and did a lot of little things until the cable guy came home, lets see here is all the little things we got done (kyle did a lot of it while I was at church):

• put our shower head up
• knife rack up
• put the face plates back on the outlets and light switches that we had taken off to paint
• changed out two light switches; they were a little old and wobbily and I just didn't feel comfortable with them in there
• put the last piece on the bottom of the dishwasher
• got our bedside lamps up
• did a little paint touch ups in the living room, a little more is needed
• moved the office around so the sewing desk and computer desk are where we want them now... the rest of the room is full of boxes scattered everywhere
• put the smoke detector back on the wall where we painted
• cleaned the paint out of the tub (from washing our brushes in there)
• moved the grill to the backyard
• unloaded MY jeep that we loaded after we took the truck back last night, it had the weight bench in it and just a couple last minute boxes

I think that's about it for all the little stuff today: then the cable guy showed up. He got the cable somewhat hooked up today, it turned out the house is completely wired from where the people had the dish hooked up to, and the actually cable came into a different corner of the house... so we have cable in the guest bedroom (which has NO TV) and he also wired up the office so at least we have Internet! There wasn't enough time today for him to get the living room hooked up so we have to call back and schedule someone to come do that since he didn't know before he got there that all this other stuff needed to be done.

After he left we went to Ikea to get some things, I got an office chair since ours had broke at the apartment a few weeks back. We also got some cheapo rug runners to protect the hardwoods for now... we'll get nicer ones later on when we have $$ for them. We also got a new filing cabinet because we are out growing ours... so if anyone needs one we will be listing our old one on craigslist soon :0) I actually sold a little bookshelf yesterday, and I have my old desk listed, but no hits yet... and for the big ticket item I got a new dresser!!! Kyle and I were sharing his (the one he made) and it was getting too crowded, so in order for us to not have our clothes spread all over the house in various closets we decided for me to get my own dresser for my clothes that way kyle can keep all his in his dresser and that will be that... I can't wait to put it together. We couldn't really find anything to match his bedroom suite so we decided to get something that would at least look good in the upstairs room, it matches the trim :0)

Well it's late and I have a full, busy day at work tomorrow so I better get the coffee set up to start tomorrow and head to bed.

I'll post more pictures soon, our couch is coming Tuesday!!! WOO HOO we are so ready for the couch so we can relax and have a life back!