A Beautiful Day

We had a lovely day today and I expect another tomorrow. LB and I read books and played and cleaned and played and talked and laughed out loud. I worked on some cards, the Molly dog played on the deck and Brennan continued to pretend that any object in front of her (including her old burp cloths she is forever dragging out) is a dog. Tim has gotten to ride his bike to work for the last two days and rode around on his lunch breaks as well. We are definitely digging the nice weather. In case you hadn't heard, today was the official start of the Derby Season in L'ville. There was a gigantic celebration downtown tonight, a yearly event called "Thunder Over Louisville" (referred to simply as "Thunder" by the locals). There have been flybys and practice formations over our house for the last two days in preparation for the air show. I think there were something like 60 aircraft involved in the show. The big capper of the night is a huge fireworks display. It goes on for 30 minutes and is allegedly the largest in North America. One of the bridges is closed, as well as parts of the interstate. Apparently, there is a shower of fireworks off of the bridge. So, anyway, we had a late dinner on the deck and watched the show. Although we aren't downtown, we have a perfect view of the fireworks from our house. I made a blackberry cobbler (I'll post pics and a link to the recipe tomorrow) before dinner and, after LB was in bed, Tim and I enjoyed a little cobbler with soy milk outside. A lovely end to a lovely day....

I wanted to share a few pics with you from our day:

Works in Progress-

This is some of the laser cut paper that I was using today. I typically don't cut sections out, as it is a big pain, but I wanted some individual butterflies and didn't have any others.


This is part of a small set of "thank you" notes that I am making. I think I need to do more sets. They seem to fly off of the virtual shelves.





These are some recently quilled items. I used one on a birthday card today. I hope to get it photographed and in the shop tomorrow. I have yet to decide what to do with those remaining. I was going to add a new heading for the pics of Tim, LB and I, but then I got all deep and philosophical and realized that we are works in progress as well. Mmmhmm...go ahead, bask in the glory of my evolved state.LB was loving the braids today, for some reason. She usually tries to take them out, preferring instead to have her usual comb-over style that she is constantly brushing out of her face. I can't believe how grown up she looks in these pictures!The second pic is of her Pippy impersonation. Perhaps this would be a good idea for a Halloween costume. We could paint some freckles on her and gel out her braids. She already dresses like Pippy half the time. The child would like nothing better than to wear mismatched pajamas every day.I need to photograph all of the silly faces she makes on cue. She added a new one yesterday, "pouty." She has been doing "cheesy smile," "angry look," "thinking face," and "surprised" for some time now. It's adorable, even if you're not related to her.

The first outdoor photo is dinner on the deck in the aforementioned mismatched pajamas. As you can see, she likes to wear a little dinner as an accessory to her ensemble.She's watching the fireworks quite seriously. It took her a while to decide that she was enjoying them. I thought Molly might freak out, but she handled it like a champ.

















I tried to get some pics of the fireworks, but you see how well that turned out. You can see our bat box in the first one.The second one is as good as it gets. I guess it does a nice job of representing our view, but the fireworks were amazing and I was hoping to capture some of it for you.

Home Improvement and a Dirty Little Secret

Are you curious? Good. I have you right where I want you. Now you have to suffer through the home improvement diatribe to get to the secret. What? You could just scroll down and read the end first? Well, I know that would make you feel terribly guilty, to undermine me that way. Then again, what if there is no dirty little secret? What if it is a boring secret that you aren't at all interested in? If either of these are true, you will just be disappointed much sooner than if you actually read through all of the home improvement stuff.

Last night I mentioned that Tim and I were working on some projects around the house this weekend. I thought I would share a bit of our progress. When we purchased our home there was a small, yucky enclosed porch on the back of it. We didn't realize it was yucky at the time. I mean, we knew it was small and not particularly attractive, but not actually yucky. Here are some pics of the porch that we took when we were looking at the house in August of 2007:

The first two pictures are of the inside of the porch. They had this set up as a little sitting room. Be sure to note the floral rug. There was also the very strong scent of a Glade Plug-In. The last picture shows the back entrance. These steps were treacherous, but we planned to replace them in the future.Okay, so flash forward about one month and we're taking possession of the house. We go out to the back porch and it doesn't look so good. The floor feels a little soft. There was an unusual amount of rain for this time of year during the month and the next. We put it out of our minds because we have plenty of other things to be concerned about/do. A couple of months later, our attention returns to the porch. It has begun to smell. Apparently, this was the reason for the Glade Plug-In. It was hiding the smell of mold and mildew. The floral rug had another jute rug underneath it. These rugs were masking a floor that was rotting. The ceramic tile was "floating," moving around and the floor was increasingly unstable. Apparently, home inspectors are not permitted to move anything during the inspection. This means that they cannot even move a rug to check out the floor underneath. This is a good thing to know if you are ever planning to buy your first or another house. (Funny story: my mother was once looking at a house in Ohio and the owners had potted plants in a couple of places right in the middle of the living room. My mom moved one and found a hole in the rug underneath!) Anyway, it was clear that the porch was going to have to go. Enter the Bush stimulus. Remember those rebate checks? At the time, I wasn't sure if it was a good idea, but it did come in handy for us! We decided to use this money to replace the porch with a deck. My stepfather is quite handy, so we asked him to help us. He and my mother are renovating a neat old farmhouse, so we traded labor. He also hooked us up with some cheap wood from an Amish mill near his farm. Score! I've included a couple of pics of the progress. We tore off the old porch, but kept the roof in place. For a couple of months it was held in place by two braces. Tim and John did most of the work, but my mom, my nephew Clay, myself and even LB helped out. (Aside: Brennan just brought me a drawing that she made of a "memory card.") By the end of the summer we were mostly finished. I think that the steps might be my favorite part. When the trees have their leaves, it is like walking through a secret forest, sorta. Anyway, the summer came to a close and we still had a few things to do. We are always juggling multiple projects at once, so we didn't finish the deck as we had hoped. Now we get to the point of this long, rambling story. We are back on it this spring. We have a wild cherry tree in the back yard that hangs over a portion of the deck. Last year the cherries, as well as the walnuts that the squirrels drug onto the deck and peeled, stained the deck. Now we have black and reddish stains all over the brand new deck. So, this weekend, we began preparing to bleach and then seal the deck. I don't like to use bleach, but it seems it is the only way to remove the stains. Tim had to remove a broken branch from a river birch because it was "weeping" on the stairs and we had to remove everything from the deck (and under it) and cover it with tarps to protect it. Fun, fun! What will be fun though is seeing the deck restored to its former glory. We also cleaned up more sticks, small branches and leaves that have been littering the yard since the ice storm. We hope to begin the bleaching process tomorrow evening and apply the sealer Wednesday.

Okay, this has been ridiculously long. I can't help myself. When I discuss our house I get overly excited and over share. Brennan has just poured her water into her leftover yogurt and attempted to drink it, spilling yogurt water on the coffee table and floor and is currently tearing up pieces of a tissue. Obviously, I must go. I haven't even touched on the work in the "Brennan Nook" or that dirty little secret. Sorry. I guess you'll just have to check back for more updates. :)