Night Owl, Honey.

Rumpole got out yesterday. He thinks he's a lion and loves to strut his stuff around the yard. Because of this tomboyishness (and other reasons), we don't like him being outside.
Usually, he regrets his decision to return to the wild within about 30 minutes, reappearing on the doorstep looking aloof but clearly wanting in. If it's super hot or super cold, this timeframe shortens dramatically.

But, yesterday, he did not return right away. It got dark. We went to bed. This morning, there's Rumpole, waiting to come inside.

Well, he must have been awake all night long, because this cat is useless today. Useless. Passed out, and I have not seen him awake for longer than 5 minutes. That'll teach him.

Shifting focus.

Bob's grandmother did not have a good day today. And, as a result, the rest of the family did not have a good day. We might be a small bunch, but we're a mighty bunch, this family, and when we worry, we worry mightily. And today, we shifted focus away from whatever it was we had planned to focus on, and we thought of and worried about family in Ohio.


Bob and I love both of our sets of parents massively... and so, today's problems serve as a reminder how very special our families are to us. We also want to transport ourselves the 2300 miles to Ohio. I know Bob really wants to be with his dad (and everyone else too).

So, for now, we're connected by phone and internet (well, and those heartstrings that are being tugged on by folks in the Buckeye State).

Hang in there, Kaiser folks to the east: We're thinking of you and love you.

Marital sacrifice.

Being married means you love someone deeply.

And sometimes, that love means you have to make a sacrifice.

Like tonight.

When I purchased cookie dough ice cream instead of cheesecake (what I felt like) because my husband likes cookie dough better. It made him happy, and he's not feeling so well. So yes, definitely the cookie dough.

True marital sacrifice.

Front Porch

I love this front porch (seen over at Young House Love this morning). Love it!
I haven't seen a partial front porch in a while. I keep telling Bob that we could have a front porch... but we can't have a full one since it would block the view from the windows. Bob loves front porches. This is stunning, AND, it's something our house could pull off.

Oh, it gets the mind a-thinking.

Dogs at the Ballpark!

Tonight's our city's triple-A team's Dog Days at the Ballpark night! We went last year with Maddie and had a blast.

Now we have two Ems hats. Two certain puppies are ready to go.

Maddie doing her obligatory "see, I'm standing still even though I have this stupid thing on my head." Bailey hasn't quite figured out that there's something on his head.

Kisses.


Fine, we'll pose.

Laundry room "oh, um"s

This laundry room project has been full of analyzing. And a lot of planning followed by "oh, um..." reconsideration.

Such as: Oh, um right. Our plan to wall in the laundry room? Great, but problematic if we want a glass door... We'd need a wide enough door to move the machines through (for someday replacement), and a glass door has issues since we'd have to somehow cut off part of the top diagonally because of the sloped ceilings. Oh right. That. The sloped ceiling and the fact that our laundry machines cannot be guaranteed to never break.


And then there's my idea to possibly move the machines 90 degrees. Turns out that extensions might not be a good idea and other ideas might be far better. Yes, the "oh um, I really don't want a flood on my third story" bit of the picture.


And then there's the oh, um, yea... access. We had planned on possibly making the wall on the left-hand side of the stairwell a floor-to-ceiling wall. That's all fine and dandy, but it has issues since we'd block off the access to a really cool possibly future storage area.

So, the more I think about it, the more I'm thinking, yes, we'll enclose the stairwell... but it won't be with floor-to-ceiling walls. I also think that my original plan (taut fabric panels as "walls") might be the best bet, especially since they'd be movable. Plus, I could always add walls later on. Yes, a bit more difficult (since we'd have to cut up the flooring to add a wall, but definitely doable.

Upstairs Update!

We've continued to plug away at our upstairs project. It's going pretty well.

Since we're now working on the second half of the room, everything needed to be moved. So, while the floors and ceilings are pretty much finished here, you can't see them as much anymore since everything is up here.

Yesterday, I removed the subfloor particle board and carpeting from this side of the stairwell. Yes, that is as fun as it sounds.

The only area remaining for the flooring to be removed is under the washer/dryer. It's more challenging than it sounds, since we need to rebuild the subwall around the stairwell. I'd like to only move the machines once, when we put in the new flooring. So, that means I need to somehow remove at least 8" of the subfloor by the subwall, that way I can build up the new wall and then only move the washer/dryer when we remove the old flooring and put in the new. SIGH. It's a challenge. Everything is a challenge.

I also want to take those machines and turn them 90 degrees, so they are both under the window. That would make it SO much easier to load/unload/organize laundry. We'll see what happens.

So, that's our update. A lot of work done, but a lot of work to go.

A nap.

Scrapbooking or booking?

I'm about halfway through making our wedding album on Blurb.com. I bought a Groupon a while back for it, so I figured I'd give it a shot.

I must say: I'm impressed with the results so far.

I think what Blurb offers is offered by a lot of companies, so I'm not specifically saying I'd stick with Blurb. But, what I do love is the ease of uploading photos, adding them to a page, and then adding captions.

Easy peasy. And so beautiful!

And so, this begs the question: Do I stop actively scrapbooking and instead use an online bookmaking site?

There are many arguments for this switch: Space scrapbooks take, massive workload of scrapbooking, the delay in scrapbooking. Plus, stopping scrapbooking would mean I would be able to do other craft projects. And, online booking would make me upload my photos more rapidly, thus not risking losing everything should a computer crash.

The costs are about the same... even cheaper for ebooks, I'd argue, once you get past all the small costs of scrapbooking. Especially so if you consider the time investment.

There are so many other craft things I want to do. I'm on Pinterest, and oh(!) the ideas. But, to continue scrapbooking? Difficult to fit those things in. Plus, if you consider that my life is relatively unhectic right now (no kids!)... would I be able to continue scrapbooking when my life someday gets more hectic?

You can probably see what way I'm leaning.

Hm.

We have garlic.

This is our front yard bench.
This is our front yard bench on garlic.
Any questions?


(Well over 200 heads of garlic. Say good-bye to those pesky vampires.)

Dog talkin'.

Our corgi talks. Or garbles.

This video should be entitled:

Part I: Oh no you DIDN'T just touch my whiskers!

followed by...

Part II: I can fit your entire face in my mouth!

It's just ridiculous, this video. Ridic... wait for it... ulous.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPM__198Jlc

Fluffy doorstops.

We have three chickens. They are increasingly fat... or at least ever moreso feathered. They are fluffy giants.

This morning, the fluffy giants really wanted in the house. They camped out by the back door.
You'd think by this photo that Maddie REALLY wants to go after those chickens. Really though, she couldn't care less. What you don't see is the squirrel on the second tier of the backyard that was apparently mocking the corgi.

Co-sleeping.

Yes, this is a real picture. Both are asleep... I had to tiptoe. No one is being forced.
The golden boy is happiest when he is a) with his humans, b) surrounded by blankets, and c) comfortable- preferably on the bed. He hit the trifecta.

Housewarming party!

Our housewarming party was Saturday evening. It rained during the day, so everyone was in the house...

And by everyone, I mean LOTS of everyones. It was a great party... so great that I didn't take photos! ACK! But there were lots of wonderful friends.

We made North Carolina pulled pork, my veggie dip "cowboy caviar" recipe, watermelon, raspberries stuffed with chocolate and vanilla chips, and strawberries with piped cheesecake amaretto. Bob made a crazy strong batch of mojitos, we opened a few white wines, and I made a fruit punch of blackberry lemonade with chopped basil (which went quickly). Friends brought more food, more wine, flowers, and other things. Fabulous!

I even threw together a new wreath for our front door (which encircles our new bird door knocker!). Yes, we put a bird on it.


Bob was a bit cynical when he saw it, but I went around the house before the party and put up little explanations of our current, past, and future projects. Our friends loved the notes, since they could read about our plans without us having to always be at their sides (there were a lot of visitors!). Plus, it was a housewarming and encouraged folks to walk around the house.

Such as....

The woodstove:


Painting the house next summer:


Replacing the front door and garage door, eventually....


Redo the wine rack in a few years:



Redo the storage areas, like the one under the stairs:


Putting up a wall of photos:


My (likely never to occur) dream of putting french doors to a deck off of the kitchen:


The "may occur when we decide to someday also replace the tile and linoleum and backsplash and hardware" kitchen sink:


The plans for the lower tier next summer:


The china cabinet replacement project:


We locked two cats upstairs, and with the narrow, railingless staircase and other construction things, we decided not to have people go upstairs. So, we plastered the door with photos of the upstairs.






The other closet also got a note discussing our plans to reorganize it:


And we talked about painting the bedroom gray:


And our plans to soon paint the bathroom (seriously. Matte paint?):


And another closet organization system:


And the purple desk description:


It was such a fun party, and we have so many lovely friends. We ended Saturday feeling very happy, lucky, and wonderful.