The Saga

This week has been very busy, culminating in a very ironic situation.  Monday was back to school...not that it necessarily affected us that much, but my SUU class did start.  I never know with my classes how they are going to pan out.  Sometimes the professor is very relaxed and just wants everything turned in by the end of the semester, and sometimes the professor has strict deadlines every week.  I got the latter.  Not that I mind, it's a very interesting class, but it's about 2-3 hours of reading each week and a 5 page paper each week, not to mention the online discussions where we are graded on our participation.  Anyway, so I started off getting pretty stressed out about it all.

Then I got an amazing opportunity to audition for 24 Hour Fitness group exercise this weekend that made me very excited, but also very stressed!  I haven't taught classes (especially Step aerobics) for over 2 years, so I knew I would want a lot of practice at home.

Add on the fact that our car's temporary registration was going to expire this week, but we were waiting on some corrected paperwork from the dealer before we could go back to the DMV and take care of it.  Plus Matt is working a LOT of hours this week (I guess making up for the week of vacation we took at the beginning of August...) and needless to say, we had a lot going on this week.

Then our new car's engine light turned on and started shifting weird when we would drive it.  After checking the code at Autozone, we decided we needed to take care of this ASAP and took it into the shop.  PHEW!  They couldn't find a thing wrong with it!  They are assuming the oil we added near the beginning of this car problem was finally taking effect and here's hoping no more problems.  Best part about it?  They didn't charge us for looking at it!!!!!  That is nearly unheard of in car repairs!  Normally it's like a $30 charge just to look...

So here we were, so grateful that we weren't going to be out of a lot of money and that we didn't buy a lemon!  While the car was in the shop, we took advantage of the garage space to finally clear out all my woodworking tools and supplies so that Matt could FINALLY park in the garage.  It's been over a month since he has had his spot usurped for all my projects. :)  I figured with this demanding SUU class, I wouldn't have the free time to dedicate to anymore projects for awhile. :)  Finally, finally, he had his parking spot back!!! 

Our garage was clean, both cars were in, and Matt woke up nice and early to get to the hospital by 6 am.  Around 5:50 am I heard some loud noise in the garage that woke me up, but Matt didn't come get me, so I figured it was some noise from the street.  Well, Matt came and got me at 6 am...the garage door was stuck and he couldn't leave!  We both worked on it for the next hour before finally calling a repair service.  The thing would NOT budge.  It wasn't the garage door opener, it was the door itself...it was stuck fast.

Matt decided to take the bus to work, thinking maybe this would end up being the start of a whole new habit.  He could be green, he could take the bus to work, we could save on gas money!  Hooray!

Meanwhile I waited for the repairman to come.  Turns out we broke both springs (that help lift the door so the opener can actually make the solid wood move...), the cables were frayed, the rollers were probably original to the house (21 years old) and almost coming out.  Plus a bunch of nuts and bolts were missing, and the opener had bent while straining to open the stuck door.  $750 later we have a moving door, but the opener is still broken...we just couldn't stomach the thought of another $330 to replace it, so we'll tinker with it and bide our time, opening the door manually for now.  I just figure we're getting in touch with our ancestors, you know, back before they HAD automatic garage door openers. :)

Back to Matt's bus experience.  His commute time is normally 20 minutes to and from work.  On the bus it was an hour there...and 2 hours home!  Poor guy was stuck on the bus, in traffic, missing connections, etc. for 2 hours...in 97 degree heat.  Blah!  So much for going green!  His time with us is so much more valuable than saving a few $ here and there on the bus.  :)

Moral of the story...don't count your chickens before they hatch!  Our excitement and celebration at avoiding a $500 car repair came a little too early. Next time we'll remember to keep our faces solemn and put on the sackcloth and ashes so that we don't tempt fate again. :)

Garden of the Gods (and some finished projects)

 The kissing camels.  So we went to the Garden of the Gods today, just outside Colorado Springs.  It was so fun...very much like hiking around Snow Canyon in Southern Utah. 

 I took a LOT of pictures...so feel free to scroll quickly past them!

 Anyway, Garden of the Gods is this beautiful National Monument filled with natural red rock formations.

 The kiddos loved it!  They just loved going on our little hike and climbing up and around the few structures we were allowed to do so on.

 At first we were caught off guard since Matt's great-grandpa's name is Charles Elliot Rowan, and that's where we got the name Elliot from.  But this Charles Elliot Perkins was the owner of the Chicago & Quincy railroad and was convinced by his friend, a General who founded Colorado Springs, to buy this land.  He loved it and enjoyed letting people explore this land, so after he died his children fulfilled his wishes of giving the land to the city with the stipulations that nobody could build on it and it would be free to the public forever.  It was made a national monument in 1972.

 Did we fool you?  Matt isn't REALLY climbing here, but we did see a lot of climbers going up some steep, high rocksides. 

 I like this picture just showing the cathedral tops peeking out all around in the background. 

 If you look REALLY closely, you can see Matt and the kids back in that crevice...

 Ta-da!  Here they are!

 Super boy!

 The highest Elliot would venture to climb for himself...

 Ah, those eyes! :)

 The visitor's center was quite a disappointment.  It claimed to have a lot of family activities, but it was mostly just 2 gift shops and a restaurant.  Oh well, I guess they have to earn money somehow! :)

 We went to IKEA to get the boxes to fill in my knock-off IKEA cubbies.  I really wanted to get these projects done this week simply because we are having people over tomorrow and I wanted our entryway cleaned up.  Plus my classes start on Mon. and I wanted to be done with the more pressing projects so that I wasn't too distracted. :)  I was very proud of this project simply because I had to design it all myself.  I had to figure out the dimensions, the cut list, and how to put it all together.  And it turned out great!  I don't like the black boxes, but they were SOOOOO much cheaper and so I might try to reupholster them with some cute fabric whenever I find some I like.  But for now, I am loving having all our shoes, hats, sunglasses, etc. all stored away in our own boxes in the entryway.

 Elliot made this little set-up all by himself.  And what is he doing???

 What?  You want to know?

 Say "cheese"!!!!!!!

 And here's the decorative sewing table.  This table was an exercise in frustration!  Since I was trying to move quickly and get both projects done this week I moved too fast and had some problems with this table.  I was using these plans as a guide, but of course had to modify it and figure out the best dimensions for this space, so that took awhile to do.  Then I was using much cheaper boards (called furring strips, but about 1/3 the price of regular boards...how could I resist?) and that resulted in a LOT of split boards from the nails.  Argh!  And then the bottom board's nails kept coming out and I had to keep re-gluing, clamping, and trying to nail them back in again.  And once again the cheap boards created more work because they needed 3X the sanding as the higher quality boards and so that took me FOREVER!  Good thing my electric sander is back up and working (turns out it was the electrical outlet that was on the fritz before...)  Of course I'm going to keep using the furring strips, BUT at least now I know that they will cause a little extra work and so I can plan for that!

So, I decided to keep the distressed blue table top for now.  Mostly because I am running out of time and I also wanted to give it a chance to see if I like the blue in the space.  If I really like the blue, I might end up painting it more carefully and not doing the distressed look on it.  Or I might just sand it off and keep it simple.   Who knows?  I've got plenty of time to give them all a chance. :)  But check out the retro sewing machine and accessories from my grandma.  Even though everything is functional, I'm more comfortable using my good old modern Pfaff for my sewing projects and keeping this retro Pfaff on display for now. :)

Improvement, or big mistake?

 The original.  Not too hard to get back to since I didn't prime the top and it had an oil-based topcoat which means the water-based paint doesn't stick nearly as well, so it would be pretty easy to strip the paint off and get back to this...if I so desire...

 The improvement?  I like it, but I'm not sure I love it.  Let's just say I like it as much as the original stain.

Is it too "distressed"?  Just right?  Should I paint a thicker coat and just own the blue without distressing it at all?  (P.S. the 2 lines down it are meant to be there.  The top piece was cut into 3 pieces for artistic sake.)

Opinions wanted

 Okay, I want some opinions.  Here's my console table for the sewing machine (see below).  I was lucky that the previous homeowner left this stain in the garage because I love it and it saved me $10!  However, the stain took differently to the plywood used on the top of the table.  Not a huge deal because it still looks good, but I'm debating painting it the same blue as the coffee table (see below) but trying to do a really thin coat of it so that you can almost see the dark brown stain through it.  Make sense? I would leave the top trim and the legs all brown, only the plywood would be blue. I think it would look cool with the black sewing machine and accessories I have for it.  Or it could completely ruin the table.  What do you think?????  Opinions and comments wanted, please!!!!

 On a side note, I've been eying the Expedit 4-cube bookcase at IKEA for 2 months now...and even though it was really cheap at $40, I figured I could make it for less (and I could).  So, I did (around $40 for BOTH the table and bookcase and I still have enough plywood leftover to make something like a side table...although accepting suggestions for what I could use a 34"x16" sheet of plywood for, plus various lengths and widths of other posts...)  Anyway, so now we need to decide what kind of baskets to go in there.  Ah, the fun!

Lastly, what's a post without some pictures of these cuties and the crowns Isabel made for them. :)

Cabin wrap-up

 Remember when I said I didn't have any pictures from our last couple of days at the cabin? 

 Fortunately, my dad was on top of things and sent these cute pics to us!

 What did I tell you?  Great cousins!!!!!

Good friends, good times

 Our fabulous friends the McAllisters were flying through to Las Vegas and so we decided to make the most of their 2 hour layover.  We underestimated how far it was from her gate to the terminal, but that's okay.  We enjoyed a quick lunch together and catching up.  Both our husbands were unavailable to join us, so it was just women and kids...but we're used to that around here!

 As they were leaving, we captured a few not-so-candid hugging shots. 

Cheese balls!  Thanks for making the trek over to visit us Karisa!  Next time we need to try and get you guys to stay a night!  But we'll take whatever we can get. :)

Home again, home again, jiggity jig

 We finally had a good excuse to get a zoo pass.  Some friends from Milwaukee who have since moved to Nebraska were coming to town.  Amazingly, Denver is the closest temple to them, so they made a little vacation out of it and invited us to the zoo with them.

 I didn't take any pictures of the animals, but here's the little manmade stream they played in for awhile.

 Inside the aquarium.  I also invited a new Denver friend to come with us since she had a zoo pass AND had work off that day.  So there were 3 little blond boys all within a couple months of each other (in fact Elliot and Finn are 1 week apart). 

And I finished repainting my little coffee table.  I didn't like how light and bright the paint was to begin with, so I just lightly rubbed on some stain and quickly wiped it off to dull it down a bit...and I like the results.  I was afraid to really sand the edges and get down to the actual "wood" portion to stain because I'm not sure if it IS real wood, and didn't want to suddenly have some mdf chips rubbing off and ruining the furniture.  Next on my project list (and now that I have my 10% off coupon to Lowe's I'll be getting supplies) is for a 4-cube bookcase for shoes and then a console table for this amazingly cool antique sewing machine I inherited from my Grandma Porter.  Can't wait to get working on them!