Pride in his art

Adam's siblings are all very artistic. Their parents have a wall in their house where they display their children's art. Adam is artistic in his own way...not with pen and paper but with power tools. He creates some wonderful things...just not art. He has always felt bad that he was the only child not represented on the wall. Even his sister-in-law has a painting or two on the wall.

Last year, I had a brilliant idea. I had found some pictures Adam drew while in elementary (5th grade). I picked the one I liked the best and asked his mom if she would be willing to hang it. She thought it was a great idea. His dad made the frame and they hung it and even covered it with a white tea towel. He had no idea what was up and we had an unveiling party. His mom made a speech about how Adam had many talents that they just weren't able to put on the wall, and that finally, they had something they could hang. When the towel was removed, he was beaming like a little kid. It was so cute!! He was so happy to be included on the wall. He still points it out to everyone that comes to dinner at their house. In case you were having trouble guessing which is his, it's the very colorful hand on the top row. I just love that he is so happy about it. :o)



His mom has gone through the attic and gotten rid of all her kid's things...giving them to who they belong to. In that bunch of stuff, there were a couple of pottery pieces he made (in elementary again).

This one sits in our bedroom usually. It's our coin jar.


I haven't found a home for this one yet but it matches the kitchen cabinets almost exactly so it will be hung in the kitchen somewhere. It is a vase for small flowers. But I am thinking it won't hold water so it will hold a small amount of dried or silk flowers.


My pottery never turned out very well...which, I assume, is why I have none of what I've made.

Counters

I have had trouble updating my blog lately...partly because of how busy I've been but also because it seems to me that the things I do really have no meaning. I mean, the things I do need to be done but really are the kinds of things that know no difference in the scheme of things.

Anyway, while I was in Utah, Adam was hard at work with the counter tops. He didn't get as much as he was hoping finished but It is nice to have a stationary counter top...and all the counter top in the kitchen. The living room side is still undone. But the part he got done is so nice!

He matched the front boards very well with the cabinets.

He filled in the nail holes with stainable filler after I got home and sanded it down which took more of the stain than he thought. He re-stained on the boards (in the pic above). It stained unevenly so we're going to have to sand the boards down and restain in one coat. Too bad but you learn as you go sometimes.

Isn't it pretty?

power outage

Adam and I both tend to be doing something most of the time...we don't relax a lot. But yesterday, we both crashed about 6. We woke up just before 7 to a loud bang. A huge lightning storm was on top of us. The power was out. We pulled out a flash light and cooked dinner. After dinner, we pulled out the chess board and played a few games.

The chess set is from Mike and he bought them in the Phillipines while on his mission for us. It is hand carved and very unique. We really love it.

The power came back on at some point but we left the lights off and continued to play in the dim light. We had had enough though and I went and did the chores. I got to vacuum my carpet for the first time in 1 1/2 months! The vacuum's been broken. Adam welded that and my rug beater. I can't tell you how happy the clean carpet made me! I've been sweeping it, but sweeping it only does so much to combat all the dog fur!

It was a very enjoyable evening!

chainsaw Saturday

On Saturday morning, I was working on my garden some more. Adam came out and offered to teach me how to use the chain saw (again). I used it in Wanship to cut some fire wood for our wood stove but I forgot how to use it since I haven't used it since. We had a few trees in the back yard that had fallen and needed taken care of. There were also some trees in our island by the driveway that needed to go. That's where we started. Adam felled the largest tree in the island to show me the technique. Then gave me some pointers and put me to work loping off branches of his fallen tree to get some practive. Then, I felled a few of my own and chopped them up as well. After about 45 minutes, Adam asked if I needed a break. I said yes and went and got some water. I was expecting to use it again but he didn't give it back.

He was cutting down a small tree here.


That's my handiwork.

Adam started in the backyard with a pine tree. When we moved here, it was a scrawny stick that was leaning over badly. It was taller than me by a couple feet but only a few inches around. Adam talked about cutting it out then but it never happened. So he was surprised to see how big it had gotten. When he cut it down, it actually fell on the dog fence and into the dog pen. You can see the mess inside the fenced in area.

Here's the trunk of that same tree behind the dog pen. It really had gotten quite big.

For the grand finale, Adam chopped down a huge tulip poplar. It was also leaning pretty badly and the roots were cracked. If you enlarge the pic, you can see Adam behind the tree cutting out a notch.

Here's what it looked like after it fell.

We had to clean up all evidence of that one since it landed partially on our neighbor's dog cemetary. It didn't cause any damage though, luckily. Only some of the smaller limbs made it out that far. We still have a lot of clean up to do in the back yard but that was definitely a good start.

After Adam finished, we went in to have lunch and I was falling asleep so took a 20 minute nap. I woke up and my left arm hurt pretty badly. It hurt for a few days. I am glad Adam took the chain saw when he did because it would have hurt even worse!

the handyman strikes again

I feel like I'm really behind on posting the stuff we've been up to. Maybe it's not true, maybe we haven't been up to that much, we'll see. I am goingto be posting a lot until I feel I've run out of stuff we've done though.

This Saturday, Adam made a handle for the gate that leads to the area with the clothesline. He picked out a 2x4 in the garage and cut this out on a band saw. I think it's pretty cool that I have a one of a kind handle. :o)



Also, I mentioned in another post that Adam built a composting bin for me and I realized recently that I never actually posted pics of it. I figured this would be a good post to add it to.

It's 4' in all directions. The gate is off for the pic.


The latching system is one that Adam thought up himself. He made the bin with all 4 posts in front (2 top, 2 bottom) hanging over a few inches. He cut a notch out of each post. The gate rests in the notches and it stays securely in place but is still easy to take off.

He's got some good dieas rolling around up there!

Adam loves me, this I know, for the clothesline told me so!

Adam is so good to me! There are so many projects that need his attention. Some are for the house (main living area), some of for the business and some personal. When he was still working for NCR, and didn't have much free time, he still managed to do little things for me that he thought I would appreciate. I am not an outwardly emotional person and I know he's always disappointed when I don't give him an enthusiastic response to something but he still does it anyway and I love seeing the smile on his face when he shows it to me and explains it all to me. Whenever he finishes a project for me, I am always amazed at how selfless he can be with his precious time. I, sad to say, am not so selfless. I am pretty stingy with my time. I try not to be but it just doesn't come so natural to me as it seems to for him. Last weekend, when we were working on the fence, we talked about our future plans for the side yard. I mentioned (as I mentioned in the past to him) that this was the most logical spot in our yard for a clothesline. You can't really see it from the road , the neighbors on one side could only see it if they came out of their house and around to that side of their yard (this is the side of the house we just put the fence up on) and no one borders us on the backside so. When I got home on Tuesday, I think it was, Adam was in the driveway working on building the clothesline poles!The next day, they were set in the ground with cement. I was told I couldn't use them until Saturday and I was very excited to get to use them. Unfortunately, the cement didn't set for some reason so I didn't get to use them yet. This view is from the back woods, looking through the dog pen. (Excuse the blue mess up top, please.) Monday, after work, I was planning on going to a nearby park with hiking trails with Olympia, a friend of mine, to do a test hike with loaded backpacks to see how we will do with a full load for a weekend backpacking trip we'll be doing this upcoming fall. She called me early morning and told me she had gotten a stomach virus and wouldn't be able to make it after all which freed up my evening. Adam told me we could work on resetting the poles when I got home. So I took the evening off of biking and walking the dogs for a good cause. ;o) Here's the upper post. Adam built it with a handy dandy table for folding or for setting the basket on. The table's not level though so that will need some minor tweaking. Tucker spent quite a bit of time supervising us from the deck. He was very concerned that I was home but not within reach of him. Adam drilled the holes with the fence post auger, we leveled off the poles and had to put guy lines on them in all four directions to make sure they set level. We mixed the cement and dumped it into the holes but we only had enough cement for half of each pole. Well, we decided that was a good thing because it would give the cement in the bottom a chance to dry a bit before the rest of the load got dumped in the next evening. By the time we got everything cleaned up and put away, it was 9:30 and we hadn't eaten or cooked so Adam ordered a pizza from Papa John's. Tonight, I was going to ride my bike after work before we got down to business finishing off filling the holes with cement. But Adam decided that while we were going to be getting stuff dirty with cement, he might as well set the posts for the fence we'll be putting in near the clothesline...the one we weren't able to get done the night we put up the one in our neighbor's yard. I strained my neck at work and can't look up when bending over so it turned out that I wouldn't be able to bike today after all anyway so that's precisely the position I have to be in to bike. Good thing because we were working much longer than I planned on. We took quite a bit of time leveling off the the fence line and marking it all out...figuring out the angle for the gate, where to put it. That all took quite some time. Finally, Adam drilled 2 of the fence post holes and it was already dark when we were mixing up the cement. We filled up those two holes as well as topping off the clothesline holes. We still have 3 holes to drill and fill but we already know where they're going at least so, in theory, it shouldn't take more than a couple hours. Our theories on time are usually proven wrong though. Now, this weekend, I will be hanging something and getting great pleasure by watching them blow in the breeze! Working on this project with him has shown me just how much time each project can really take....and it makes me appreciate him even more for all he's willing to do to improve the house and yard. I know that a clothesline was probably on the very bottom of his list of things to do (especially since he doesn't even like having his clothes line dried because of the stiffness factor) but he did it anyway, to make me happy and it took a lot of his time. He didn't complain and I really do appreciate it! Thanks so much Adam, I love you too!

Sweet silence...and other outdoor stuff

Finally, something other than food to blog about!

Today's post was made possible by our neighbor's dogs. They spend all day barking at us, our house, our dogs, or us if we ever have the audacity to step outside. Georgia, the large German Shepherd, is the biggest offender. She's been teaching the others the fine art of barking. Other neighbors have been complaining as well. So, Adam devised a plan to hopefully shut them up. One problem is that most people know we have a lot of dogs since they see ours out with me. But not everyone realizes she also has a lot of dogs and people think that the barking dogs are ours...we don't want animal control fining us for their dogs.


We started at around 2. We tore down the old fence so we had no choice but to finish it that night which meant working into the dark hours. Mike even stuck around the whole time to help make sure we weren't having to work too late. It was a great help having a third person there.


Adam did most of the nailing while Mike and I were more in charge of getting the boards to Adam where he needed them, supplying him with more nails and various other little jobs.

I was screwing in a horizontal board that the slats would later get nailed to when I broke the bit. It was the only one that size that Adam had so he made a quick trip to the auto parts store down the street to get a new one. While he was gone, I ran inside and made a margharita pizza with an extra pizza dough I had baked earlier in the week. I slipped it in the oven just as he pulled into the driveway. We took a quick break to grab a bite to eat.




We finished around 9. It was a long day and when we sat down, I started to feel VERY sleepy! I worked harder than I thought I had. So what we actually did was extend the wooden fence we put in 5-6 years ago and then wrapped it around the front of our neighbor's yard. Adam got permission, of course. There were two reasons to pay for their part of the fence... 1 is that now there are no holes for the yorkies to slip in and out of and then come into our yard to torment our dogs. There's actually a line of solid cinder blocks lining the inside of the fence so Georgia can't dig holes for them to get out of. The other reason is so that they can't see the street and hopefully won't spend as much time barking. So far, it's very promising. I have hardly heard her at all since we put the fence up!!!! The little dogs are quiet since she's quiet. I'm hoping it lasts but only time will tell. When I put the curtains up in the dining room (the room she can see from the yard) she was quiet for a couple of weeks before she got bored enough to just bark at nothing all day.


We're also going to be fencing in the front of the dog's pen on our side as well but it got to be too late that night. We also have to go ahead and line the whole inside of our fence with the same solid cinder blocks because Georgia has been digging under the fence on her side all voer the place and then gnawing on the slats and making big holes in them. The stupid little yorkies stick their heads through the holes...I'm not sure how they haven't been bitten yet. But like I said, that's a project for another day.

Something else I've been working on is my garden plot. This is the area that Adam had pulled the bushes out of so I could have it for a garden. I started in the fall with a shovel. It was very slow work. But this time around, I am using the pick ax. It's going so much faster! I still have to pick the dirt up with a shovel and haul it out but it will be much easier now that the ground is lossened. I had these giant plants that were as tall as the house in the corner. Adam hated them. They did look pretty bad right there, I will admit. Anyway, I've been getting as many roots of that plant out as possible as I go. They are huge and really stuck in there! I'm thinking I will be having some of this plant poking out for the life of the yard.

10th anniversary

We celebrated our 10th anniversary. We are planning a weekend trip to the Smokies in a few weeks so we didn't do much on our anniversary. We went out to eat after work at a nice Italian restaurant and brought dessert back to the house to eat with the dogs since they hadn't seen us all day. Adam brought these flowers home for me. They're so colorful ad full of different textures.

The last 10 years haven't gone the way either of us ever imagined they would. We've had some good times, some hard times and some disappointments but we have been blessed with happiness and the ability to move on with our lives despite not having things the way we would like them. I'm so glad that Adam is my husband and that we are able to support each other and keep each other happy. I love you, Adam...here's to a few more of these 10 year milestones.

Fixing my car

About 3 weeks ago, Adam did some work on my car. He was changing the anti-lock brake sensor and mechanism since it kept locking up. Poor guy sliced his thumb right through the nail doing it. It really hurt him but he wiped it up and I put a bandaid on it and he got right back to work. My dad may have nicknamed me Tuffy Tiffy but I'm not that tough. He went over to his dad's house to get a tool he needed and his dad came over to help.

I thought that pic was kind of cool. He was tightening something that took a lot of strength.

This tool was used for breaking something free. It reminded me of the tool the aliens used to keep the guy's eye open while they put a needle through it. Kind of creeped me out!

I love that Adam and his dad have a good relationship. They work together really well and they laugh a lot together. Adam has learned alot from him about fixing cars and how to do house repairs. If we can't live near my family, I'm glad we're able to be near his at least.

My stump puller

I came home from work one day to find this. Adam had chainsawed all the branches off our bushes. He had pulled one of the 8 stumps out with his Yukon. He had also done the same to two of our crape myrtles. The ayrd has to be regraded so it doesn't flood the basement every time it rains and these were all in the way. There's still one more tree that has to go but we hae to pay someone to do that since it's the tall pine tree in front of the house and next to the power lines.


Branches from 3 of the 8 bushes. That white wood was there from when Barry redid the bay window. The branches had grown in around them and we couldn't get them out so we had to look at them in the living room.


Sadly, this is my mulberry tree. It even had ripening berries on it. It was hanging over the dog pen and dogs and mulberries are not a good mixture. Plus, it was hanging over the area where I want my clothes line to go.


The branches from the other bushes.

Adam with his favorite new toy. It's a stump puller that you attach to the back of the Yukon. The more pressure that's put on it, the tighter it gets. He had great fun using it.

The first stump he pulled out with it. It was the largest of all of them. He was quite proud of his truck!

Barry and Mike came the next day and helped get the rest of the stumps out as well as chip the branches.

Unhooking the last stump.

Turns out our house was really dirty behind the bushes and will have to be pressure washed but not until the hole that was causing the flooding is closed up.

Adam wasn't planning on doing this all already but he gave me a portion of the front yard for my garden and it's a long process of getting it ready to plant in so he got started right away and figured that if he had the tools out, he needed to just do it all.

So now I have my hole garden area to work with. But it also means that we have no bushes as our natural curtains anymore. We've never been able to see out the front window before since the bushes were so tall so we never worried about curtains. But now that the windows are wide open I have to figure out something for curtains. One of my many projects to work on now.

Kitchen in the works

The kitchen is definitely starting to feel like a kitchen again. :o) Still, nothing is useable yet but its getting closer. Adam and Barry put in the new sink and faucet. The sink is a cast iron, enamled one. I love those. And the faucet color matches the drawer/cabinet pulls we have picked out (but haven't bought yet). It's bronze with copper highlights. The whole island section has a temporary wood countertop. That is really exciting because I was working with a 1.5"x1.5" piece of wood for a countertop. We have the wood for the other sections of counter too but it just hasn't been installed yet. The open floor of the kitchen is not real big but it's big enough to move around in. With all the cabinets and counters it will be MUCH more useable than it was before. I'm excited to see it all finished. We finally decided on what we're doing for the floor. We've had these Italian marble tiles we got for free from some surplus after my company finished putting in a new floor at the corporate office. We were never sure what we would do with them, if we'd do anything at all. There are 3 colors, off white with brownish and black specks in it, black with whitish specks and a splotchy grey color. The grey doesn't really match but the black and white ones go together really well. We're going to do a groutless checkerboard pattern with the black and off white tiles. We'll probably have anoff white border around the whole thing depending on if we have enough black or not. Adam's always wanted a checkerboard floor and now he'll have one for a bit.


New sink and faucet


View from dining room

view from stairs/hallway

building the base for the corner pieces that were originally made to be wall mounted, not floor mounted

leveling all the cabinets and screwing them into place (that was ALOT of work since our floor is not level in any fashion)