How to...

How to see your normally very mellow husband hit the roof....send your less-than-three-year-old TV to the repair shop (trying to support local businesses and fix the TV rather than just buy a new one like they told us at Best Buy), wait almost 3 (yes, 3!!) months to get it back, then turn it on only to see that the "bowing out" of the screen is now "bowing in" and after 1.5 hrs of watching it, it shut itself off again. So, in essence, NOTHING got fixed!!! $144 and 3 months and that's what we got?!??!! I though Snugs was going to blow a gasket.

A Visit

I was at work today and my all-time favorite little patient came to visit me. Well, not so little anymore, as he'll be 5 next month. He and his twin sister are up to my waist now and are chatty as can be. Cole first showed me all of his scars from the surgeries that were performed on him while he was just a wee tyke and informed me that "sometime it would be fun to live in here", pointing to the unit where I work. He obviously has no concept that he did live there for the first 4 months of his life. Thankfully, babies don't remember the weeks and months that they spend living in ICC, usually separated from their parents. Cole's mom is in awe of how perfect and healthy he is- the only remainders of his time in the hospital are those scars. Well, those and my fond memories of taking care of him from the time he was a jaundiced little 3 day old until he was 4 months old, rocking him to sleep, teaching his mom and grandma how to take care of him with all of his medical "accessories", admiring his crazy blond hair that stuck up straight and those huge blue eyes. Sigh.

Why I Love Fall

The photos say it all...

The lone tree in our little backyard

Apple picking yesterday in Waconia at Deardorff Orchards, a great little family-owned orchard on a quiet dirt road

How 'bout them apples for cooking? Made applesauce today with the Haralson "seconds"- a large bag of barely bruised or barely pecked apples for only $5. Yum.

My parents and I picked raspberries at their friends' place last week. And people wonder why I would love a place that has land and space to grow things like this!

Not Ready to be Done

It's a fine evening to do some projects. I am home alone, it's quiet, comfortable, I have a hundred things I could be working on and I don't want to do a single one. The living room, which was painted last week and is undergoing redecoration, is screaming to be finished. Every time I walk by it, I rearrange the mess on the couch, stare at the the array of curtains we're considering, and walk away without really doing anything. I attempted to put up a curtain rod tonight, but that mostly involved drilling a hole in the wrong place, couldn't drill a deep enough hole to get the anchor in all of the way, and then the part of the rod that you're supposed to screw to the wall is getting in the way of the screwdriver, making it impossible to finish tightening the piece and now it's hanging there all askew. So, we'll leave that for my better half to finish. 40 minutes wasted on something that turned out wrong anyway. I could bake or cook- I have enough veggies sitting around, just waiting to be made into something tasty. But I am so sick of washing dishes that it makes me want to avoid the kitchen completely. I could have worked more out in the yard while it was still light, mulching, moving some more plants around, digging out the little rocks that are out front, planting some fall grass seed. But I didn't feel like it- it's more fun to do that when someone else is around to help me out. I'm sitting in the basement, with a pile of paperwork to go through that is at least 12 inches high, but that's less than appealing right now. Excuses.
I am starting to wonder if I just need a night off, to rejuvenate and get some energy to finish these projects. Or perhaps I am incapable of finishing things, for fear that once they're done, I won't have anything else to do or to think about. Sometimes the mere idea of spending so much time arranging and rearranging the things we own seems so bizarre and almost a waste of time. I wish I didn't care how things looked or that I could look past them and not see the pile of things on the couch that are waiting to be put away.

Makeover

The internet is back on. Praises be.

I was hanging out in the basement this morning and realized that it's Sept 15, which means that a year ago, we started the major remodel on the basement. Prior to the remodel, you wouldn't have caught me "hanging out" in the basement. I have photos of the before, the process of, and the finished product (though the finished photos are somewhat old and don't show that we've actually decorated a little and added doorknobs, etc). The before photos don't really do justice to how icky it was downstairs. The photos make it look light and bright, not gloomy and damp and cold, which is the truth of what it was. 2 dirty lights in the dingy ceiling, 2 tiny windows that were dirty as can be, freezing cold and damp year round, a big room with no definition to it, one awkward closet that had no light and was triangular shaped (making it impossible to put anything large in it, as things got stuck in the tight angles of the shelves), ugly tile floor, loud creaky stairs, ugly things along the staircase, bugs everywhere. All in all, it was screaming for a makeover. My father-in-law is an architect and drew up fantastic plans for the basement, though I did have moments when I wondered how we were going to fit a family room, office, and bathroom all in this one space. Our friend Kevin was our unofficial contractor and did a huge amt of the work, as did our friend Justin.

So, the "before" photos...

You can faintly see in this photo that there are blue tape marks back by the triangle closet...that's where the bathroom and office were laid out. At the time, I couldn't imagine that those were ever going to be large enough to accommodate people.


The stairs. Yikes.

Kevin dug the hole for the egress window a year ago today. That was the official start of the remodel.

Within 2 hrs, GCNP and Kevin had this hole ready to go.

Here are some "during" photos...this process took from Sept to March...mostly because of money and time constraints for us.

Digging out the floor for the plumbing...if we'd had cats, they would have been the happiest felines ever, given that there was a giant sandbox in our basement.

And finally, the nearly finished project as it was in April, when we scrambled to get things done in time for a surprise party for GCNP's 30th birthday...

The family room

Bathroom
Shower

More of the family room...aren't the stairs a HUGE improvement??
GCNP's office, which we call the Hubby Cubby, as it's 7x7.

We'll be paying this all off for a long time, but it was worth it.

Technology Dependent

I am without internet right now and it is KILLING me. I am off work for a chunk of days right now, so I have no access to emails, banking, paying bills, etc unless I go to a coffee shop. Not very convenient when I'm at home painting and doing a bunch of projects (photos will eventually follow, when I have internet at home again). I had to call up my sister and announce to her that I'm coming over to use their internet. So I am sitting here in their office while she and her husband sit on the couch and get caught up on their day. Weird. I really didn't know how dependent I was on the internet until I realized that I can't check the weather online, I can't check email to find out where my family is in the plans for birthday get-togethers next week, I can't finish making plans with friends for coffee dates, I can't update my facebook status, I can't blog about the things that are running through my head as I paint all day. My next thought after realizing that I can't check the weather online was that I could just turn on the TV. Nice idea, until I remembered that our TV is in the repair shop (note: they don't make 'em like they used to- that TV is less than 3 yrs old!!!!!). I had no idea how much I used modern technology in my everyday life. And I am struggling to make it...so I'll be on the phone with the wireless company and Xcel tomorrow (they cut the power lines to the wireless node, in the process of removing GIANT elm trees in our neighborhood- another sad story to blog about). I am afraid that they're going to start labeling me a "problem customer", as it will be my 4th or 5th phone call to them this week.

I can feel it!

I am obsessed with summer, can't get enough of it, never want it to end...until I get a whiff of fall and then the anticipation of a new season comes around and summer is cast off like last year's shirt.
Fall is in the air...
Technically, it's still summer and what a glorious summer it's been! But at the cabin this past weekend in WI, the mornings were crisp and cool and there was a distinct smell in the air that can only be fall. The past two mornings, we've woken up in our upstairs bedroom with the window wide open and cool air coming in. This is, I'm sure, only exciting to us, as we are sick of the a/c on every night. This is one of the few beefs I have with our house. Our bedroom is the 1/2 story upstairs...cute, charming, and hotter than hell. It's like living in a tent- nothing between the us and the great outdoors but a little tarp. Freezing in the winter, hot in the summer. The central air doesn't even cool down that room, so we have this ancient hog of an air conditioner that came with the house and blasts us with cool air every night of the summer. We are thankful for that beast, but even more thankful when it can be silenced.
So, back to my original point, which is that fall is in the air. Even if you can't smell it, you can sense it in the crazed children at the store, intent on driving their moms to a breaking point of "I can't wait till you kids go back to school!" You can see fall's approach in the mums for sale at the garden centers, in the back-to-school ads, in the piles of pencils for sale at Target. Secretly, I miss that anticipation of school, of soccer practices, cross-country meets, new fall wardrobes, shopping for those new pens and notebooks, wondering what exciting things this new school year will hold.
I have to go water plants now. A subtle hint that it is, in fact, still summer.