Curtain call!

My mother-in-law is AWESOME.  She does custom window treatments and pillows, and also all sorts of cool stuff that she sells at her Voncile's Originals storefront on Etsy.

Over Christmas she and I went fabric shopping to finish out our living room.  (Up until today we've had the wrong size curtains hanging on bent spring rods, just so folks couldn't see in at night.)  She offered to make us new curtains for our new house!

And today, TODAY, the philosopher and I received our amazing gift in the mail. 

She managed to make beautiful roman shades out of a sheer fabric, so the room is still nice and bright during the day, but not a fishbowl at night.  And the faux roman shade valance is a perfect fit.

Even the cat approves of the matching new pillows (and trust me, that's saying a lot).

Thanks, mom!  We love you!

Not Much to Say (but I'll say it anyway?)

Wow.  How did it get to to be February already?  And not just February, but *mid* February?  It's a dreary, cloudy day, and both the philosopher and I are fighting bronchitis and a sinus infection.  ::sigh::  At least we have a quiet weekend in front of us to rest and recover.

The big news of course, is Selling Brown: if all goes according to plan, we will close on our house in Alabama next Saturday.  The buyers are doing a final walkthrough this weekend, so we are extremely hopeful that by the end of the month we'll no longer be property owners in Alabama!  (And yea, verily, that is a Good Thing.)

In tasty news, I have discovered a crazy-sounding but absolutely yummy soup recipe involving red lentils, sweet potatoes, and an apple.  Before you turn up your nose, you should try it.  It's reminiscent of butternut squash, but with a savor and spice that is just delightful on a cold winter night!

In gardening news, I have finally transplanted almost all the plants I dug up around Brown.  My grandma's roses, bulbs, irises, canas, hostas, and lily of the valley are all in the ground now.  The only thing left are the sweet shrubs, and since I haven't quite decided where to put them they'll have to wait a little while longer.  It's been so warm that the daffodils have already come up, so now we're hoping there's no deep cold that comes through to kill them off before they bloom.  Crazy weather, indeed!

A Birthday Present

Yesss, my precioussss.....  it's my Biirthday presssent, yess it isss....

OK, enough Gollum channeling.  Today is my birthday.  I've decided to call this my "Douglas Adams" year, since I'm turning (of course) 42.

My dear philosopher cooked me *homemade* french onion soup this weekend, and tonight I will feast on shrimp and grits.  (Nota bene: Ladies out there, if you plan to marry, here's my bit of advice.... marry a man who likes to cook!!!!)

But an EVEN MORE EXCITING present was emailed on Monday afternoon... a signed contract on our house in Alabama!  (And there was Much Rejoicing... yaaaaaayyyyy)  Now we're just waiting on the home inspection. Here's another tip - if you're selling a house, do not watch Holmes Inspection on HGTV.  Even though our house is in decent shape, I'm having nightmares about having to redo plumbing and electrical and dig up the foundation and replace the roof and.....  well... you get the idea.  (sigh)

There is even more news on the horizon, too.  You may know that I've been waiting since June for "my library" to be renovated so I can work at the campus on which I was hired to work.  (I'm currently driving 2 hours a day.)  My school just installed an interim president, and last week he sent an email listing the critical projects that needed to be done even before the permanent president is hired this summer.  Number three on his "git 'er done" list?  MY LIBRARY!!!!!!!  And it may be that it is a bigger space than previously anticipated, and yea verily that too is a Good Thing.

So I have lots to be thankful for in this new year, and I'm hoping that my 42nd year is a good one.  And on that note, I'll leave you with a couple of my favorite Douglas Adams quotes:

“We have normality. I repeat, we have normality. Anything you still can't cope with is therefore your own problem.”

and

“There is a theory which states that if ever for any reason anyone discovers what exactly the Universe is for and why it is here it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another that states that this has already happened.”

May the force be with you, my friends!  ::grin::

Ringing in the new year

Happy New Year to my faithful readers (both of you)!

2011 was a good year, by most accounts.  New job, new house, new city, new church.  The philosopher has work for the spring, and while that isn't ideal, it is sufficient for now as we pray for direction in his career.

So, a few photos to sum up the year....

Good friends.

It's always good to spend time with friends, and a delight to have visitors from afar.  Our favorite biologist came for the weekend, and much fun was had by all.

Interesting wildlife.

Our new feeder is visible from our living room, and we have lots of pretty birds come for dinner.  This woodpecker is a new arrival, and we're a bit baffled why he prefers the seeds to the tasty bugs in the trees!

Challenges.

The year was full of challenges, indeed.  But none quite so tricky as this puzzle the biologist and I put together on New Years Day!

Unexpected gifts.

For Christmas my father built us this beautiful mission style tv stand.  He knew I wanted a new one, and he surpassed all expectations when he showed up with this on Christmas Day.

Christmas Bling

This past Saturday we went to Coker Tree Farm and found ourselves a happy Christmas tree.  Yay!  We brought it home, and after a bit of struggle with the stand, we finally got it upright.  The new stand we purchased is much deeper and more narrow than our old one, and for a change the cat can't get her head in it to drink all the water!

This is also the first year we've been able to put our tree in the front living room window so you can see it at night!  The problem, we discovered, is that the light coming in through the window put the whole tree in shadow.  You could see the shape of the tree, and the lights on the tree, but because most of our ornaments weren't shiny, you couldn't see anything else.  So I toddled off to Walmart and bought some bling - pretty gold ornaments and garland to add some shine/reflection.

And.... voila!

(The philosopher was playing with different camera settings - can you tell?  These pics were taken not two minutes apart....)

Divide and conquer!

Last week was a busy week.  Our offer on Misty was accepted, so now we're getting all the ducks in a row for all the inspections and such.  We have a home inspection scheduled for this Friday, and we're both planning to go over for it.  (Tip: if you plan to buy a house one of the most valuable - and free! - things you can do is go through the inspection with your inspector.  Ask questions.  Listen to what he has to say about everything.  Take copious notes.  You'll learn tons and have an even better idea of what your new house will need over and above what the inspector includes in his report.)  The philosopher has his grubby clothes all picked out, as well as his boots and a small notebook.  Me?  I have a sketch of Misty's interior, and will go armed with a tape measure.  Then when I get home I can take a piece of poster board, draw a scale drawing of the interior, and start arranging everything! (Yes, I'm a nerd.  Haven't you figured that out yet?)

These measurements and arrangements are critical to the Divide And Conquer Plan of buying a house.  We have some very talented folks in our family, and we will definitely be calling on them for help.  My dad the cabinetmaker will work with us to build some additional storage for the kitchen, and my wonderful mother-in-law is a whiz at custom curtains.  Since we have several very quirky windows, her help and advice will be invaluable.  (For example, when you have a 5' x 5' window - not frosted - situated directly over the bathtub, what kind of curtains make sense?  What kind of crazy exhibitionist designed this house, anyway????)

The yard is a different matter.  If you recall, I transplanted tons of plants from my grandma's yard when she passed away.  I want to take some of these with me, of course.  So I spent most of yesterday afternoon dividing, conquering, and re-potting.  Now I have several good divisions of green hostas, and striped hostas, and red cannas, and japanese ferns, and chocolate mint, and spearmint, and lemon balm, and sage, and rosemary.  I already have my sweetshrubs in two pots, and in order to minimize the shock to the roses I think I'll wait to dig them up until we have a place to put them in the ground at the new house.  My two japanese maples are still in pots, and may actually be large enough to plant this fall, and I've got two cuttings of our corkscrew willow rooting, too.  I'm also going to wait until the daffodils and lily-of-the-valley are done blooming before I do any divisions there.  What's really great about my plan is that I have a nice shady bed in the front yard that all shade plants will absolutely love, and at the far back, lower end of the property there's already a swamp willow, so our corkscrews will be quite at home.  Now I just have to keep them alive until I have a new yard to put them in!

Play Misty for Me?

Well, I don't think there will be any stalkers in this version of "Misty" - it's the nickname we've given our NEW HOUSE!  ::insert cheers and clapping here::

 

We bought a bank-owned property, so we got an amazing deal.  Our payment will be less than a (cheap) car payment, and when we sell our house in 'Bama, we'll have enough money in the bank to pay off Misty.  And that, my friends, makes it all worth it, even though we'll carry two small mortgages for a while.

Misty continues our theme of buying Houses With Stone - we've decided that our liking of that particular architectural detail hearkens back to our Sewanee days, when we saw nothing but stonework buildings for blocks and blocks.  Still, I like the look and layout of Misty much much MUCH more than Brown.  There's a finished downstairs room with windows that will make a great study for the philosopher, a separate dining room, a deck, and a storage shed, all on just over a half-acre.  We're about 20 minutes from Marietta, and about 45 minutes from midtown Atlanta... and 15 minutes from my new job.  Gotta love that!

We never thought we'd buy a newer house, but this one makes sense.  The only hard work that needs to be done is replacing a bathroom floor and doing a little outdoor drainage repair, and the handyman philosopher is all over those projects. And of course, some decorating needs to happen. There is actually new carpet in the bedrooms and new paint on the walls, so all we need to do is replace the flooring in the living room and find someone (you know who you are!) who can make us some beautiful new curtains. ::grin::

So next time you want to go to Six Flags, a Braves game or the Fox Theatre, you know where you can stay!

A Garden, a Job, and a Theory

I've figured it out.  If you want to get a new job, and want to sell your house and move to where that new job is, all you need to do is plant a garden!  I planted our garden last week, and this past Thursday I got a job offer from Georgia Highlands College.  I'm really excited about it - I'll be the Reference and Instruction Librarian on the Paulding Campus (in Dallas, GA, about 15 miles to the west of Marietta).  It's basically what I'm doing now, but I'll be in a *librarian* position.  ::Happy Dance::

So that was Thursday.

On Friday, I spent hours re-arranging the house and cleaning and boxing up stuff and organizing... We're pretty organized and neat folks most of the time, but the housing market in our area is like the rest of the country - very squishy.  So I want to give our 40-year-old house the best chance possible of attracting buyers.  I took a bunch of stuff to the thrift store, and that felt GOOD.  Why is it that a pending move is the only thing that really prompts us to get rid of stuff we don't need?  (BTW - anybody want to buy a weight machine???  Heh.)

On Saturday, we met with our local realtor.  She was favorably impressed with the house, so after a couple of hours of poking and prodding and talking and telling stories and signing paperwork, we got the listing together.  It should go up on Monday, and then the wild rumpus will really begin.  (The cat did NOT impress our agent, tho.  She coughed up a hairball just as Laura was taking photos.  Anyone want to house a psychotic cat for the next two months??!?)

On Sunday, we drove to Dallas.  We explored the town, ate lunch, and met with our Dallas agent Michael.  The Atlanta area was hit hard by the bursting of the housing bubble, so we were hopeful that one of the seven houses we picked to look at would be at least "a possibility".  Housing is pretty darn cheap right now, so that is good. Unfortunately, most of the first set of houses were Completely Unacceptable.  One was terrific ("Brown 2") until we discovered standing water in the basement.  One was interesting ("Purple with a Study in Blue") but the lot was terrible.  Why is there a 2' diameter black pipe sticking up out of the ground in the back, with a screwed down lid and electrical outlets running into it???  "New Farmhouse" looks like the previous owners took hammers to the walls and fixtures before they left.  The other four aren't even worth mentioning.

Today I'll be poring over the listings again, looking for houses that meet four basic criteria: location, price, a quiet place for a study, and an "interesting" quotient.  At this point, even if it's not interesting we'll consider it as long as it meets the first three!  We'll head back to Dallas on Wednesday, and go from there to see what we can find.

So thank you all for your prayers - God definitely works in mysterious ways, doesn't he?  We didn't find a job for Greg, but being close to Atlanta will open up lots of avenues that our corner of Alabama could never offer.  We're still only 1 1/2 hours from family, so close enough to be there if we need to be.  And my dad can still come over for Football Saturdays in the fall.  All good!  Now we just have to sell our house (insert another plea for prayer here) and find a place to live in Dallas.  Oh, did I tell my job starts in 8 weeks?  So no rush!  (ACK.)

And about the garden?  Fortunately everything I planted can be harvested in late April or early May.  And the seeds for the summer veggies will keep until next year.

Re - re - do!

Well, occasionally I don't win one.  You may remember, back in 2008, when the philosopher and I renovated the main bathroom?  It went from a horrid brown with pheasants to a slightly less horrid white with blue.


Hm.

Zana was never *really* happy with the white and blue combo, but she was loathe to admit she.... may have made a mistake on color.  OK, Ok, ok.... I CHOSE POORLY.  (Fortunately we're not talking about the grail here.)

So this past summer (yes, it's been a long time but what with this and that it was Labor Day and then Christmas and then February and then we remembered to take a picture) the philosopher went to a week-long conference.  And of course, what do I do when he goes out of town?  I paint something!  I decided to re-do the bathroom, with a little help from my dad the cabinetmaker.  We rebuilt the closet door and the vanity doors, giving them a beadboard look.  I painted the white walls brown, and the vanity and medicine cabinet white.  We already had dark blue towels and other accents, so - voila - bathroom 2.0!

What you can't see is the roman shade and valance, which is white with a dark blue and a mottled khaki stripe, and the lovely shower curtain from my mother-in-law, which is white with a dark blue stripe.  And the hallway is no longer dark brown, but white.  Bonus!

Art Project

Well, it's sort-of an art project.  When we were in New Orleans this past December, we were browsing the antique stores (read that "junk shops") which have all manner of random ephemera for sale.  From voodoo dolls to Victorian cabinets to cobalt and jadite glassware, there's something for everyone.  We were visiting a place called "Greg's Antiques" (I kid you not.)  What caught my eye were these... interesting... sculptures of birds made out of brightly painted bits of metal.  My father collects flamingo statuary (again, I kid you not) and I thought one of these would make a GREAT Christmas gift.  Alas, plenty of pelicans, no flamingos.  (Sorry, dad!)

But they did have an astonishing array of architectural salvage... doors, windows, archways, all kinds of stuff.  We saw some small stained glass windows that were obviously from the craftsman era - very simple and geometric.  Some were in decent shape, some were cracked or broken, some had busted frames.  They were selling them at a price we could afford (read that "cheap" - he's not kidding on his website when he says he has "the lowest antiques prices in New Orleans".)  Later I looked up similar windows online, and they were selling for hundreds of dollars.  So for about 50 bucks, we got a DEAL.

Anyway, we bought one.  It was one of the few that didn't have a geometrical design, but rather an abstract flower.  The window was loose in the frame, but the frame was reasonably solid and all the panes were tight to the lead.  So we purchased it, wrapped it up and brought it home.  The philosopher reset the glass in the frame and reglazed it, and we roughly sanded the remaining paint and gave it a topcoat.  We tossed around a bunch of ideas on where to put it, and finally decided to hang it over the railing between the kitchen and the study.   Voila!

This is looking down from the kitchen to the study (yes, our house has a crazy layout!)  The window is about head-high.

This is a view from the study looking up, with the new track lighting beautifully illuminating the glass.

Yay, art project!

The Great Snow of 2011

Well, it actually wasn't all that great. We were trapped at home for several days, and school was closed for a week. Fortunately, we had power and water and plenty of food, so the only negative was very cold temps and a deep desire to get out and Do Something.  Unfortunately, the entire northern half of Alabama came to a screeching halt as everyone surveyed the snow-covered scene in stunned disbelief.

A day later, and the 4-lane highway at the end of our little street was still a mess.  We would've walked down to get some barbeque (there's a place just before that curve in the road) but since THEY couldn't get to work, we were out of luck!

 

Thanks to the foresight and long suffering labors of the philosopher, he embarked on a major project: shoveling our Entire Driveway. It was a smart move, as our neighbor's driveway remained a solid sheet of ice for an entire week!

 

After he came back in for a steaming cup of hot tea, we toyed with the idea of shoveling our little street too.  There are only three houses on it, and it's a dead end, so we knew the snow plows would never make an appearance.  We decided not to, but later that day we did what we could to drive the truck up and down, hoping to melt away some of the snow while it was soft so it could evaporate before the deep cold settled in that evening. 

Well, it kinda worked.  Three days later we were able to escape!

Fighting for the bed!

Heh. And now I bet you're wondering what in the *world* I'm talking about, right? Did the philosopher make me sleep on the couch? Have we been overtaken by cimex lectularious? Or has the cat gone rabid and taken refuge in the master suite? Nope! None of the above!

You've read about our War Against The Pool. You've seen the results of the battle. Now we have created a blank slate, and are working to install a beautiful new shrub bed and cobblestone patio in its place. So why is it a fight? Well, do recall that we live in Alabama. And you do know that Alabama is notorious for its red clay. And, if you glance at the pictures I linked to above, the new shrub bed is backed by a row of 40-year-old holly bushes. So... red clay plus holly roots plus no rain for three weeks make for... concrete-like dirt.

We've amended the soil with manure, hummus, and potting mix (bought in bulk from our favorite local landscaping supply store (and no, by that we do not mean "Lowes" or "Home Depot"). Two weekends ago I edged the new materials with plastic edging so it wouldn't wash away. We hauled in the dirt via truck and trailer, so after we got the dirt in place we could actually sow our initial grass seed. We opted for a cheap rye grass, again just to hold the soil in place until we can reseed with something better in the spring. I also re-planted all the perennial herbs... I had to dig them up when we removed the pool and they've been languishing in pots. Now they're in the ground again with a beautiful new layer of mulch to keep them safe over the winter. And they're right by the patio, so there's easy access from the kitchen!



The reason the herb bed's not finished is because there where you see the clay at the bottom of the picture is where the edge of cobblestone patio will run. Once that part of the project is done I can add the other border stone and finish out the mulch.

This past weekend I spent a large portion of Friday and half of Saturday building the stone border for the large bed by the hollies. It's about 40 feet long, and averages to seven feet wide. The stones came from the mountain behind the house, and are the same field stone that our house facade is made of. I really like the way it looks, and it ties the back yard into to look of the house.



I really, really had fun doing this. It's like combining Tetris and Lego and aesthetics all at once! You have to make sure the stones fit together, and find smaller stones to fill in the gap, and make sure it has a pleasing curve. Of course, after two days of hauling rocks around, I am ... sore. But it's all worth it! This weekend we're heading down to Wayside Nursery (a wholesale shrub and tree company) and we'll pick up our 15-gallon Dynamite crape myrtle, our Henry's Garnet sweetspire, our August Beauty gardenias and Doc Sargent camilla, our Gold flame nandinas and our crimson pygmy barberrys. And since we're watering the grass (it's still scraggly right now, but at least it's growing!) we can set the sprinkler to make sure it gets the new shrubs too. Then they can grow their roots all winter and be fresh and happy in the spring. Yay, plants!! ::happy dance:: Ahem. Sorry. I got excited there for a minute!

Yeah, this whole project is a lot of work - shrub bed and grass and patio and such - because we're doing it all ourselves. But considering if we had hired it done it would be well over 10k - and that doesn't include the pool removal - I'm quite happy getting this done for less than a thousand dollars. And having a beautiful back yard instead of a non-functioning pool will make our house more sellable... and that's looking more and more like something we'll be needing to do next summer. (!!!)

The Death of a Pool

Yes, it is gone. Done. An ex-pool, if you will!

(In honor of that, here is my favorite Monty Python skit - and I quote: "'E's not pinin'! 'E's passed on! This parrot is no more! He has ceased to be! 'E's expired and gone to meet 'is maker! 'E's a stiff! Bereft of life, 'e rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed 'im to the perch 'e'd be pushing up the daisies! 'Is metabolic processes are now 'istory! 'E's off the twig! 'E's kicked the bucket, 'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible!! THIS IS AN EX-PARROT!!")

::snort:: ::giggle:: ::wahahahahahahaha:: ::snort::

Sorry. Where was I?

Ah, yes, the demise of the pool. We called a local guy - so local, in fact, that he *drove* his backhoe to our house rather than haul it behind a truck. He arrived about 9am, and by 1pm, he was driving off into the sunset.

So here's the before:



And then we did a little work with a sump pump. (The pool vinyl was so crunchy it was disintergrating as we cut it out!)



And then Snake showed up. (Yes, we live in Alabama. Yes, the backhoe operator's name was "Snake". Stop laughing!)



He did all that work in three hours. And we did not have to have any fill dirt brought in - he regraded the existing hill and smoothed it out and all that went into the hole. And I gotta say, he was a master of that machine. He was able to use the claw and pluck the fenceposts out of the ground without breaking them - and without breaking the holly bushes they were right up against. He broke the concrete skirt away from the patio slab perfectly, not even cracking the concrete we wanted to keep. And he did amazing grading work with the front scoop - you'd think we used one of those big grading 'dozers! I suppose there's something to be said for learning a trade early and keeping at it for three decades, huh?

(And in case you were worried, the bottom of the pool is not concrete, but a sand slurry mix that will disintegrate - and did actually start breaking up as soon as the concrete bits started getting tossed in. So we should have no drainage problems at all.)

Now, you are probably asking, how much did that cost? Well, one estimate we got from a professional landscaping company was upwards of three thousand dollars. ::shudder:: We wrote Snake a check for one-sixth of that. And for another couple hundred he's going to bring in a few tons of topsoil and his bobcat to spread it around. But that will be a couple of weeks, because we need to let the ground settle first.

So now that we saved all that money, I'm dreaming of landscaping and hardscaping and trees and shrubs and flower beds and arbors and pergolas. But the philosopher has us on a budget, so we'll see how far we can get in our Master Plan. I'm hoping at least for a crape myrtle and a camilla or two!

Nothing a grenade can't fix??

We have a problem. It's not a terribly important problem in the grand scheme of things. (You know, those BIG problems like "Will the philosopher find a permanent teaching position next year?" and "What kind of ice cream should I have for dessert?") But it's something we'd rather not deal with right now regardless.

When we moved to the southeast, we bought a house that has an in-ground pool. (Nota bene: we didn't buy the house because it had a pool - we bought the house despite the fact that it had a pool.) This pool is about 30 years old, and has now degenerated to the point where we must either replace the liner and repair the liner track, or remove the whole dadgum thing completely. The repair job will cost upwards of $6000 according to the bids we've received. ::shudder::

We're still waiting on estimates from a few landscapers to find out how much it will cost to remove it altogether - busting up the concrete skirt, ripping out the vinyl, filling in the hole, and regrading the back yard. (Now, before you start making suggestions - a grenade would actually be too small, and a small nuclear device might just be overkill. And the philosopher driving a bobcat with a jackhammer attachment scares the living daylights out of me!) So that leaves us with finding a contractor who does reliable bobcat work. We've called a couple of "official" landscapers, one of which came out to our place last week and one who's coming out tomorrow. I figure they're going to be on the high end of the bids because they're landscapers - they'll do the pool work, of course, and THEN they'll want to make some shrub beds and plant some trees and lay a fancy cobblestone patio (called an "outdoor living space" these days) and screen in the porch because that's really how they make their money. I don't mind someone doing the hardscape work - pouring and leveling a bunch of concrete is Not Fun. But I think I'd like to do the beds and pick the shrubs and choose the perennials and dig in the dirt.

Anyway, we're also making some calls to excavation and grading contractors. My dad knows a guy named "Snake" who does bobcat work, and someone at work recommended a company nearby called "Dirt Cheap". (You do recall that we live in Alabama, right?) I'm thinking if I can get an estimate from either Snake or the Dirt Cheap folks, they'll be the best in terms of cost. I'm just not sure I want someone named Snake working in my back yard! ::heh::

So if you couldn't tell, my vote is for removal even if it costs nearly the same as repair. (I don't think it will cost as much, but that might be just wishful thinking!) Why, you ask? I don't like the pool. Well, it's pretty to look at, but I don't swim in it, and I don't think it's worth the upkeep. And really, I don't think it adds that much value to the house as a selling point, either. I think a really nice area with a path and trees and shrubs and such would add just as much value, and cost a lot less for a homeowner to maintain.

Now if I can just convince the philosopher!

The Holiday Project

Over the 4th of July weekend, the philosopher and I endeavored to improve a festering eyesore on the back quarter of our property. We have a workshop - a goodly sized one - that we use for all sorts of nefarious undertakings (like weed whacker maintenance, and woodworking projects, and dining room table refinishing, and lots of sundry storage).

The shop, though quite useful and watertight, looked pretty rough. Actually, that's an understatement. It looked like a heap. The small door was an interior door, slowly decaying from being exposed to the elements. The big double doors (the ones we drive the tractor through - yes, close your mouth - we have a tractor) are OSB. Waferboard. Pleh. We don't think it had been painted in at least 20 years, and some of the siding had actually turned to dust. We had a goodly amount of paint left over from when we painted the house exterior, so we undertook a Herculean labor. Replace the damaged siding slats. Kill as many of the mud daubers, spiders, paper wasps, daddy longlegs, and other creatures who un-naturally thought the shop walls were their homes. Sand the mildew off the trim, and then prime and paint the whole mess.

Here's the "Before" (but after we replaced the small door with a steel exterior door):


Then, after three days of hard labor and less than $150 outlaid, here's the after!


Now when you pull into our driveway, you don't see this looming hulk in the field and wonder whether or not it is part of this property. You see a nice workshop that, given the opportunity, would be fun to spend some time in routing a picture frame for a favored work of art. And the completed project also appeases my sense of orderliness and tidiness - it matches the house!

An Introduction!

As you probably know, our 2000 Focus became an organ donor back in the spring, when the philosopher was run off the road driving down the interstate. (No one was hurt!)

So since then, we've been searching for a new vehicle. We have a really beat up Dodge Dakota, so it was decided that we should sell the Dodge and replace both vehicles with a single small truck. After much research (do remember ... I am a librarian!) we decided on a Ford Ranger, or perhaps a Toyota Tacoma if we could find one cheap enough. (Not likely, as Toyotas hold their value amazingly well.)

This weekend, we purchased Strider!


As you can surmise from the name, we were thinking that a Ford Ranger would be our only option. But to our happiness, we scored an AMAZING deal on this 1999 Tacoma. Still, the name had already stuck. Since "Strider" was merely a guise for Aragorn, then why should it not work for our Toyota?

Yes, we are nerds. Did you just now realize that?? ::grin::

Snow and Legos

We had some snow last week.

Not much, but enough to close schools and freeze roads and basically force everyone to stay home and entertain themselves. So I pulled out my jumbo box of Legos and decided to create the Smiths' dream house, a 1 1/2 story craftsman bungalow! (Well, ok. We might opt for a different color scheme!)
It may not be a masterpiece like this or this, or even as good as my rendition of Notre Dame Cathedral some years ago (and yes, I even made flying buttresses), but I'm proud of it. And it even has a grill for the philosopher!

Martha Stewart, maybe not so much

So this weekend I pulled out my trusty nippers and headed for the big juniper bush on our property. I obtained a number of fragrant branches, and then I snipped a few from our holly tree. I took these prized possessions and carefully affixed them to a styrofoam ring. Voila! Instant Christmas wreath! I even had enough to spruce up our Advent wreath too.


OK, so I don't have Martha Stewart's talent (or budget for supplies). But I think they look pretty darn good! Plus - they're 100% recyclable. Well, I got the styrofoam ring three years ago, and I'll continue to use it. So that counts too, doesn't it?

Laborious Labor Day

(Unfortunately, without pictures)

The Philosopher and I had a very successful Labor Day weekend, replete with many labors! He re-wired our front porch light and added a second light on the front edge of the house. Now if you visit us after dark you can see the porch from the driveway! It was a 2-Lowes effort, so not too bad at all. He's getting very good at figuring out knotty electrical wiring solutions without either electrocuting himself or setting something on fire. Yay!

I had a different project: a new flower bed. Rather, an herb bed. Inside the pool fence. About 18 inches wide and spanning about half the length of the fence. I plan to fill it with rosemary and lavender (and maybe some chocolate mint) which will make that area smell fantabulous! Our pool area is covered with about three inches of pea gravel, so first I had to rake all that aside and redistribute it to low-lying areas. (Pea gravel is heavy, even with a wheelbarrow!) Then I had to peel the weed barrier back (slimy!) Finally I had to bring all the large stones from the front so I could line the edge of the bed with them. (And if you didn't know, large stones are even heavier than pea gravel!)

It took me about 6 hours, but the work is done. Well, we still have to get 1/2 a cubic yard of soil/leaf grow to fill the bed. (Drat this Alabama red clay!) And some mulch. But...I've got the rosemary cuttings in pots, so they'll establish a good root system in a month or so. And the lavender is layered in the front bed, so theoretically the shoots will set their roots before it gets too cold to transplant. But I have some guilt here... what on earth do you do with the extra plants you propagate? I only need about 4 of each, but you want to root more in case any don't take. I hate to just toss them in the compost...hmmm. If you need some lavender or rosemary, I may have some extras. ::grin::

Anyway, by early summer next year, we should have a fragrant bed filling the evenings with sweet and savory smells. Ahhhhhhh.

Table Project, Completed

I've never been reticent to admit that the philosopher and I are pretty handy around the house. We've hung sheetrock, rewired boxes, fiddled with plumbing (successfully), repaired walls and floors, installed insulation, and dozens of other things. When we took on our most recent project, though, I was afraid we'd bitten off more than we could chew.

Some of my errant thoughts over the last two weekends:

"This table is 100 years old... what if we damage it?"

"We just bought these chairs, yeah, they're unfinished but what if we muck up the stain and ruin them?"

"We've matched the stain as close as we could, but what if the chairs and the table don't look right together?

"Can you get polyurethane out of leg hairs, or will we need to shave his leg?"

At the end, though, it was worth every bit of the 100 degree days in the shop, the layers of stain and poly coating fingers and clothes (and yes, legs), the sanding masks and the ventilator masks as we applied the stripping compound.


And here it is, set and ready for Father's Day dinner with my dad. Yay!!