And the beat goes on...

The kids have all been absolute troopers this week, and their willingness to pitch in on any level has made this project so much more enjoyable. It's been neat, though, to see how they work. They're each getting more and more into their own "thing", and while it does remind me that Dora won't stick around forever, it's also nice to be able to enjoy them where they are, at each turn.

John loves to turn on music and jam out while we work. His taste runs a little to the hard-rock side, and we're not sure how that happened. So, we compromise with an eclectic mix of radio stations and CD's - some of what he loves, with a little other stuff to keep the rest of us from getting to high-strung or twitchy. His favorite is a band called Hand Over Fist, out of Prescott, AZ. Funny, we had that CD for eight years and never played it all the way through, but that's the first one he asks for when we get in the car these days.

James has taken to downloading Mark Levin podcasts to listen to while he works. He gets a lot done this way, since each one is almost 50 minutes long. But I have to have him physically turn the thing off and stuff the ear buds into his pocket when I'm giving him directions or he'll slowly tilt his head to the side, trying to get his ear close enough to hear it while I'm talking. It's actually kind of funny, and I will admit that occasionally, when in need of entertainment, I'll not say anything for a while, just to see how far he twist while still maintaining eye contact with me. When he realizes what's going on, he blushes and stuffs the thing away with a sheepish little grin. Then he's all mine. Such a funny, sweet kid.

Smidge and Em are... Smidge and Em. They bicker like a married couple, but stick together like glue. They're so good to each other in small, constant ways, that the bickering is bearable, though. And Jase? Well, he's teething. Molars. Hyland's and Desitin to the rescue!

Today is a big and busy day, and we're really looking forward to it. And, then, tonight, perhaps, hopefully, I can texture the bathroom walls! (It was SO humid yesterday. Then, finally, it just rained and got it over with. When it stopped raining, the air glistened for the rest of the day. Not droplets on the leaves. The actual air. It wasn't quite like fog - just Very Wet Air. We didn't even try to work with Things That Need To Dry yesterday.)

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

OK, that didn't work.

The joint compound would. not. dry. this weekend. Just wouldn't dry. And so, we still do not have a functioning bathroom. (Took me five minutes to type this. This is why I only blog at night, when everybody is in bed. Obviously, I am not alone at the moment.) However, we did get up more trim, more do-dads, and got a plan for something that we didn't realize needed a plan until we got to it and it wouldn't work.

Anyway, the upshot is that Jason hasn't figured out where we are all day, so at least we have hope that he won't get in there and help with the texturing, when we get to it. I'm also keeping my fingers crossed that we could potentially pee in peace for a week or so before he figures it out!

Everything else is done that can be done, for now. And now, we wait. And pray for an arid few days. And a breeze. That'd be handy, too.

What'd you all do this weekend?

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Project Blogging! Master Bath

We've been camped out in here...
"Somebody" was supposed to send for help, but we suspect they got distracted. Netflix Watch Instantly and a box of Cheez-Its, and hey, who needs parents, right?

We think we'll be done tomorrow. If not, I may just move the computer back there, so we can keep in touch. We have wireless; the kids won't miss a thing on Netflix.

In the meantime, we've also finished up most of the remaining (OK, "neglected") details on the house. Baseboards painted, door trims painted, ugly basement door in hall painted, previously painted doors re-hung (doors are over-rated, really). I even had John take the air return grille out and scrub it off with a brush and the jet blaster on the garden hose! Evidently, it's white. Huh.

And, we've taken out the Ghetto Adobe Pink in the kitchen (we love it, but it's too close to Kraftmaid's "Toffee Maple" finish, so there wasn't the *POP* we wanted) and replaced it with a creamy creamish cream color (which is not "white", okay? and yes, cream can *POP*. Really, it can) and green. Both, on one of the walls! I got a little nuts. Zorak still isn't sure if he's going to leave me unsupervised with the paint cans, again. But I *love* it! I used KathyJo's method of painting -- literally, called her up and begged her to hold my hand and walk me through it -- she is very patient with slow people. And I *LOVE* it.

I'll get pictures later, when the fridge is back in place, and all the other random things are not in the middle of the floor. Things always look worse right before they look better. Or, that's what I tell Zorak, anyway.

Kiss those babies!

Summer Antics

We finished the week strong and took off Friday to enjoy time with our friends.

This group is getting smaller, as some of the families are choosing to send their children to public school for high school. But we still enjoy our time together, even in our smaller ranks. And the high school aged children who were there yesterday, we enjoyed tremendously.

The biggest shock for me was seeing a canoe go by, looking up, and seeing, not Big Kids, but Smidge and two little girls his age maneuvering the thing across the lake. What?!? The BABIES are using the canoe? *sigh* Yes, they don't stay babies very long.

John made an alcohol stove at Scouts this week, and he's been dying to show it off. So, last night, we hunkered down on the front porch and he set it up.But just boiling water isn't that interesting. So he chopped vegetables, added spices, and made us a pot of soup. It was fantastic!

No, they sure don't stay babies for long. Even if they'll always be "my babies", I can't help but enjoy the growing up process, as well.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Pictures!

And they're stuck on the camera!

Got the software, and now we've lost the upload cord. Again. That settles it. I'm asking for an Executive Assistant for my birthday. Other than that I can't keep track of my own eyeballs, it's been SUCH a great week!

The mower, which I will refer to from now on as The Sea Bear (from Spongebob - "maybe he just doesn't like you"), is running. It will even start for me, as long as Zorak is on the premises. We mowed and mowed and mowed. I even mowed things that haven't been mowed before, just because I was afraid if I stopped, I'd never mow again.

We sucked it up and cleared the upstream side of the culvert. If it should now rain on a Sunday morning, we won't have to miss church out of fear that we'll be flooded off the property. Go us. (It only took two years! We're getting better!) It was pretty gross, and I loathe people who fling their trash out their car windows as they whiz along the street. Where do they think the trash ends up? Is there some roadside vortex that they think will suck it up and transport it to the dump? No. No, there's not. There's a little wind, maybe, and some momentum to overcome. But eventually it just lands, right there, on the side of the road, on somebody's property. Gah.

I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but I can't get over how much the kids are loving the tire swing. Unfortunately, they're also sick to their stomachs at least three times a day. Zorak and I can hardly stand to watch them spinning, spinning, spinning. Knowing that two of the four on the swing have a propensity for volatile reactions, there's no way we'd get on there with them. But siblings are trusting. Or forgetful. Either way, they all have fun together, then stumble back to the house to lie down for a bit before nabbing a bite to eat and heading right back out to do it again. (Yeah, I know. It's like they're *trying* to make it happen.)

We finally put new seed down in the front yard. Me-Wa had mentioned that lime will do magical things to clay soil. So, when we tilled in the leaves, we sprinkled a thin layer of lime, and whaddya know, Magical Things Happened! We have *dirt* in the front yard now! It stays soft, and dirt-like. There is hope that this year, we may grow something other than child-killing clover and dandelions around the perimeter of the clay moat. (Though the dandelions are welcome, the clover is not. And I'd love a break from the trekking in of the clay on the feet.)

Winter garden stuff is going in. Company is coming next week. (Wonderful Neighbors from Maryland are bringing our Wonderful Future Daughters-in-Law for a visit!) And...

WE GOT A NEW CAR!!! Well, new-to-us, new. It's an '03 Suburban, and it's wonderful. It starts on the first try, every time. And the a/c is cold all the way to the back. And the road noise is so significantly reduced that Zorak has started speaking to us on drives, again, now that he can hear. There's not a can of starter fluid anywhere near that thing. Ah, it feels So. Incredibly. Good. to know that the next time somebody hacks off something, or inflames something, or just rips something wide open, we can get to the ER before they loose all their blood. Yes, indeedy. I am blessed beyond measure.

Like I said, it's been a great week.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Firefly and Foliage

First, Firefly. That's pretty much how I've spent my free time in the wee hours of the night this week. How did I ignore that gem up to this point? How fun!

And then, Foliage. After a few weeks of relatively blissful, personally comfortable (yet botanically terrifying) dry weather, the rain finally came, rejuvenating both the Cambodian-style jungle, as well as the humidity. Well, *and* the meadows. Pretty much everything. We can't breathe in the humidity, and I swear you can actually *see* things growing, which is a little creepy for born and raised Desert dwellers. But then again, the oak trees above the balcony don't look like they're about to burst into flame, taking the house down in the conflagration. Eh. It's sort of a toss-up. In all, we're thankful for the rain, even with the accompanying humidity. Four years ago, I'm not sure we'd have said that!

Zorak's still battling the mower. He took it in to the mower shop last week. This was big, as he's not one for taking things in when he could do it, himself. However, he was stumped. The thing's getting spark, fuel, and air. It's got power. But it just. won't. start. He explained it to them. They looked at him with that semi-patronizing look professionals reserve for non-professionals, but he understood. It doesn't make any sense, at all. A week and $65 later, they called. They're stumped, too.

He kept at it, though, and has come further down the road of diagnosis. Today, he picked up another part for the mower. (At some point, we'll have a new mower, altogether! Kind of exciting.) Right now, though, we're just hoping for one that works, before the rest of the land gets reclaimed by the lush jungle foliage and we start losing children in there. The new part looks promising! Let it rain!

Kiss those babies,
~Dy

Accomplishments, Big and Small

Big:

The pickets are up on the balcony. Changed the *whole* look and feel of it. Will try to get pictures. Someone's going to have to remind me to post before and after pics, though, because my brain isn't working properly. (I'm also working on obtaining grant money to prove my hypothesis that humidity clogs the synapses.)

Dad's old desk - circa 1940's, awesome, Ed Harris as a gov't agent, heavy, wood desk - has now been cleaned, refinished, runners sanded and waxed, and reassembled. Due to The Way I Do Things, it is already covered in stuff.

Basement progress is picking up speed. Zorak headed to the recycling bins with an entire pickup bed (long bed, at that) full of flattened cardboard boxes. The erstwhile contents are now shredded compost material, loaded up for a trip to the donation store, or filed away neatly.

AND, I vacuumed the basement.

Yeah, no kidding.

FOUND the disk for the camera upload software. Thankfully, as that model has been discontinued and Fuji no longer has any disks in stock. Big old vampire-killing silver bullet dodged, my friends. *whew*

Uploaded the 422 pictures we've taken since switching computers.

Most of them are blurry nostril shots, courtesy of the SmidgeCam.

Little:

Um, still can't figure out how to use Photoshop Elements. Not for a lack of trying. Must push harder on that grant money.

And, on a rather obscure note, we (the kids and I) cleaned out "the pen boxes". Picture, if you will, 70 years of writing implements shoved into desk drawers, all collected and bound in cardboard during various moves, just waiting for us to one day be so desperate not to have to go outside that we scrounged up scrap paper and plunked ourselves down on the floor to doodle our way through the pile. A surprising number of pens still worked. The totally, irrationally exciting part, though, is that we found two fountain pens!! You may not know this, but I have a teeny tiny obsession with stationery products. So, when I discovered they still have ink in them, and they work, and learned the histories behind them, and fondled them, and figured out that you can buy ink pots, and, and, and...

well, you just can't end a day of cleaning on a better note than that.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

And then a week later...

Good heavens, where has the week gone?

Granny, brother-in-law, and his friend left tonight for a straight 20-hour drive home. It was hard to see them go, but the friend is anxious to be home. In the week he's been gone, his family has been under evacuation for wild fires, he had a ton of work come into his shop, and then one of his littles fell ill with a mystery illness. If you would, please say a prayer that they'll arrive home, safe and sound, with good tailwinds to urge them on.

I can't believe how quickly the week flew! The kids had a wonderful time, wallowing in Granny's affections. Granny had a wonderful time soaking up the children and all their joyful love. Zorak and I accomplished an unbelievable amount of work, since Granny was able to make sure the children were not starving, or killing one another, or dismantling the foundations of the house while we worked.

Granny said next time she comes, she's coming in April. Or January. Or the middle of the night. Whenever it's not hot'n'sticky. Poor Granny.

We got the first half of the stain on the balcony (seven hours of squatting, kneeling, and stooping -- my thighs feel like I've been chased cross country by Susan Powter), and we put up the first 80-thousand or so pickets. It's very nearly Jason-proof, if he stays in the corner that's finished, anyway, and looks spectacular. If you look in the corner that's finished.

We cleared enough limbs and vines and brambles from the creek bank that we unearthed a little sandy, beach-like area. It's full of dragonflies and spring frogs and birds. It's shady and quiet. We sat down with the kids, and it was so idyllic that it took an act of God to get us up and moving again. (Mosquitoes, to be precise.)

We hung a tire swing down by the barn. The kids have played more on that this week than they have on the swing set in the back yard in the last two years.

We found a bridge! There's a bridge across the creek! Four years here, and I'm pretty sure I never knew that. Zorak knew, and he swears I knew, but it didn't ring a bell with me, at all.

So, we're making more progress on the property. And I seem to be delving into early senility. Good to know.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

So late! Not sleepy!

It is a sick bit of humor, this whole technically not being nocturnal thing. Gah. And it only gets worse as summer approaches. (Although today, I had to give kudos to Zorak and I. It is the end of May, and there we sat, side-by-side, out in the yard, not complaining. Four years ago, by the end of May, we'd stopped venturing outside at all, let alone for leisure.)

Thank you for the great food ideas! I'm excited about trying some, and y'all got me lookin' for fun and feeling groovy. (I'm also trying desperately to get another song out of my head, so please forgive any further random lyric placement. It's all I've got, unless I want to go wake up one of the kids and make them talk to me of other things until it goes away.)

Zorak is the KING, folks. He rocks, and somehow, some way, managed to get the mower running. (And, as an added bonus, it now seems to be impervious to my diabolical efforts.) I mowed for two and a half hours. My butt is still numb, seven hours later, but the lower meadow looks almost great! Best. News. All. Week.

In his spare time, he has also been building me a pantry shelf for the basement, to replace the plywood and plumbing tape one we scabbed together two years ago. That one served us well, but it's a little ugly. And, being comprised mostly of scrap, it's a little saggy at this point. This new one's purty. And strong! It has a metal screen back, and doors up top, and will fit everything from coffee cans to five gallon buckets to coffee bags to canned goods and even those little sacks of coffee beans. To celebrate, I think I'll do groceries tomorrow!

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Love Those Extra Days!

We got SO much done!

The living room and dining room are "nicely appointed" now. The wooden thingies above the doors are no longer wooden thingies, but have sheetrock and mud (now if we can figure out where we put the texture brush...)

The kitchen door (leading out onto the balcony) has a new threshold. And new to-code exterior electrical boxes. And wiring. And I think there's a light fixture out there, but it's just holding down the balcony right now.

The foyer looks like something other than a transfer station for recycling, donations, and childless shoes looking for their owners.

2 of Five and 3 of Five are registered for baseball. 4 of Five is torqued that we would not register her for T-ball on the argument that she's "three AND four" and, therefore, officially qualified to play T-ball in the 4-yo league. She'll get over it. I hope. Or, she won't, and it'll be a Really Long Season.

Jase is Officially Ours. He has a sense of humor, and we have opted to keep him. We had to light a fire this evening, and he was fascinated by the flames. Naturally, he'd crawl to it to check it out. So I gave him the "unh-unh-uhhh" warning. He stopped. Sat down. Turned to me and said, "unh-unh-uhhh," laughed, and resumed his trek to the flames. So, he gets it. He just thinks it's funny. Or optional. The boys think he's the funniest baby we've had yet. (If only they knew...)

The schoolroom is re-arranged and semi-functional. Though mostly as a reading nook and hang-out spot. But that's okay. We do a lot of reading and hanging out in our school. So that works out nicely.

It's going to be a beautiful, joyful week. I don't care if it kills me, it's going to be. Tons to get done, but I've got support coming, and am hopeful.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Weekend Warrior - Project Blogging

This weekend, we have several projects to complete. *Edited to add a detailed shot of the tie-backs. They set off the denim on the couch, and pull in the cranberry from the futon chair. I am happy with them, and they were SO easy. Yay. Didn't get pics of much else this weekend, though, so this is it./edit*

The first: tie-backs for the living room curtains. Because nothing says, "I have completely given up trying" quite like using your couch to hold back the curtains. But have we given up? Well, not yet. So, I bring you the first completed project of the Warriors' Weekend Work:

The second: cull through the art in the basement and decide what gets hung. Then hang it. It is fortunate for me that Zorak forgot that was *this* weekend, or he may have had an emergency something-or-other to do up at Me-Wa's today. And tomorrow. Oh, and it might have taken 'til Monday. We're about 2/3 of the way through this one. I have six empty boxes and a pile of ready-to-hang framed things. But no pictures. Will do that tomorrow, when this project is complete.

The third: these stoopid little spots over the doors, one over the back kitchen door, and one over the hallway opening. We'd planned to do something interesting with wood there. Please don't ask, though. We don't remember what we were thinking. Which is probably why, three years later, they still aren't finished. However, we've decided we'll probably never remember what we were going to do, and so, the sheetrock is up and the mud is drying. Yay. (I took a picture, but Zorak pulled an Executive Order out of thin air and asked that I not post it.)

So, I will leave you with a photo from one of last week's project that didn't get blogged: balcony top rails. Wide enough for coffee cups, yes indeed.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Weekend Warrior - Project Blogging - Updated!

Amy inspired me. OK, she shamed me. She's putting in toe kicks this weekend, and her kitchen hasn't been together long enough to get the stove top dirty. Mine's been in so long I've had to take a putty knife to it (twice) and I still haven't put the toe kicks on. Gah.

So. Fine. I have a semi-legitimate reason for the lack of finishing touches in the kitchen, and they are not all based on our Functional Trumps Finished approach to home decor. However, they aren't going in this weekend, either. So, I had to come up with something else...

Anybody remember the Futon Chair project? Yes, over a year ago, I commented that we'd need another cushion... obviously, that wasn't a driving Need, like unfrozen pipes, or armadillo food a salsa garden in the upper meadow. Whatever. But it was U-G-L-Y. And the more the kids crawled around on it, the worse it got. Oy.

We'd taken to storing papers and notebooks on it, just to try and disguise it a bit. (As you can tell, that didn't work.)

So that was my project for this weekend.

I started by dragging up old foam mattresses that had come with the boys' bunk beds. They've been living in the basement, awaiting some kind of new life or Viking Burial, whichever came first. (The boys were hoping for the fire, to be honest.) Sized it up, measured it... ok, no, I didn't measure it. You knew that. Eyeballed it.

Then I cut the mattresses to size, removed the outer fabric (not that I didn't dig the space theme, but it would have clashed with the Prometheus theme we already have going in the living room), and used spray adhesive to stick the two mattresses together. (Had to do that part, because they are thin, cheap foam mattresses. One would not be comfortable. That would be why they live in the basement.)

I covered the foam in muslin. This makes a nice, firm, smooth cushion. Keeps everything together. And when you take the cover off, you don't have exposed foam for the children to peck at and decimate during the dry cycle. Total sanity saver.

Dry fit one. last. time. (Probably not a necessary step if you measure, to be honest.)

And... then make everybody wait for tomorrow to see the Finished Project, because the light was too bad in that room to get a decent photo by that point. Sorry.

But what about you? The weekend isn't over! Pop on over to Amy's place and join in the Weekend Warrior fun!

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

And here is the mostly-finished project:

It still needs velcro closures along the top back, but I ran out of good light and so, that's where I had to stop. The kids don't seem to mind at all, though...

Misc. Things - Stove Questions

Hey, all. I thought I'd blogged the details of the stove. But I think I only emailed KathyJo about it, and I have such a fear of turning into that woman who tells the Same. Three. Stories over and over that if I can actually recall having given info once, I tend to shy away from doing so again. Even if it means I forget to tell people important things, like we're pregnant (we aren't, but I did neglect to tell a few people this last time around), or we've moved (again, not a recent occasion), or, more recently, details about our stove.

So.

Sorry 'bout that.

The stove is the Magnolia 2015 from US Stove Co. But it's only available through dealers, which turns out to be a good thing, in this case, as the listed MSRP on their page would make a grown woman cry. (Ask me how I know.) We bought ours at Tractor Supply, which is like our own personal playground. *happy sigh* Love that store.

So, here's what brought us to this stove (copied and pasted from my emails - and people laugh at me for not clearing out my inbox! Oh, and with grammatical corrections to reflect that this was in the past, 'cuz it wasn't when I wrote the email. That's it. I think):

It was down to that one and two others, that are at Lowe's, (b/c we were really feeling the crunch betwen dental work, home repairs, and the damned food costs) - the ones at Lowe's pretty much heebed us out. This one was worth the additional $50.

Pros, in no particular order - (ok, I went back and made the primary concerns bold)
* Top is 3/8" (Charles says it looks like 5/16" - we're both too lazy/tired to go measure - still too lazy, three months later, in fact) steel plate, as opposed to 1/4" on others. Regardless of the actual measurement, it was obviously thicker.
* Vents out the top, as opposed to out the back, which saves us floor space.
* The vent pipe is toward the back of the stove top, and since this stove is a bit deeper and narrower than other designs, it leaves a nice flat surface for a kettle or a stew pot.
* Rear clearance is 7" - if you put the "fire board" thingies against the wall, you could pretty much just snug it up to the wall.
* It has a cool swoosh thing on the top, which seems to us like it would help trap smoke up top there and allow less to escape into the house when you open the door. (That one is total out-of-our-butts speculation on our part.)
* Log length is 19-1/2" - if you end up buying pre-cut wood, the standard is 18" - nothing sucks more than having to shave half an inch off every single log before you can use it. If, like us, you will end up using salvage woods and scrap, it's nice to know that longer pieces can be put in to bank the fire for the night.
* You can put the logs in lengthwise (perpendicular to the door), reducing the likelihood that one will roll out onto your poor son's foot the first time you finally agree to let him add another log to the fire.
* The legs are cast, Queen Anne style legs, not bent, flat sheet metal. They had another one (the Frontiersman, or something like that) that looked okay - for a DIY project. We could have cut the parts for that, ourselves, with a torch. I like these legs better.
* It doesn't have that chintzy fake silver trim crap that you just know is going to look like shit by the end of the first winter.
* (And this one probably only applies to me, but I'm really slow about this.) The flue control is easy to remember - pull it out to open, push it in to close. Yay.
* The door is cast iron, with an arched top profile - which gives it a bit more architectural interest, compared to the pre-fab rectangle style door. Purely visual thing, but it made a difference to us.
* It comes standard with a blower - that's about $135 extra at Lowe's, so that, alone puts this one way ahead of the pack on overall price-per-feature. (We haven't tried it, but will let you know how it works, and whether it sounds like an El Camino barreling down the hall.)
* And hey, it's Trailer House Approved! (And not just because it can take the random "someone was running around the trailer with a loaded shotgun" shot. We suspect it's also a ventilation issue.)

Cons -
* Not tickled w/ the ash pan, but I wasn't tickled w/ any of the ash pans. (We have yet to actually use the ash pan - just scoop it out and into a bucket.)
* Firebricks are thinner than on the behemoth we had before - this may actually be due to an improved design, I don't know. But none of the literature we found indicated some huge industry-wide breakthrough in firebricks... so *shrug* Dunno. Going to buy a box of spares, though, and just stick it in the yucky room w/ a note.
* We reserve the right to add more as we use it, though.

Honestly, if space constraints were not an issue, we'd probably go w/ a more efficient (and less previously abused) version of the behemoth one we used our first winter here. They are space-eaters, to put it mildly, but it's really nice not to have to worry about one of the kids getting burned b/c they have a heat shield all the way around. As it is, though, space is a serious issue here, so that nixed it for us. (Edited to add: we have no buyer's remorse on this one. Quite happy with it. It does get hot to the touch, which the other one mentioned in this paragraph doesn't, but that's not as big an issue as we feared.)

Don't be sucked in by the absolutely ADORABLE "boxwood" stoves, which sell for anywhere from $125-$300. Gah, they are cute, but they are inefficient as all hell, and you'll spend the vast majority of your day feeding the little turd. Not worth it, imho.

Ha!

It is 17 degrees outside right now.

It is 74 degrees in the house.

We still have not turned on the HVAC this winter.

Just in case you were wondering how the stove is working out.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Sandwiched Between the Days

Well, folks, as we are motivated by urgency, I can finally say we have re-insulated the water line where it crosses the creek. This sounds great, doesn't it? Except for that bit about urgency. Yeah.

Thursday night, the low was 8 degrees. The first thing I heard that morning (around six) was Zorak announcing from the bathroom, "Bad news, sports fans." Ugh. I guessed (correctly) that didn't mean we were out of coffee. Turns out, eight degrees is cold enough that even leaving two faucets going doesn't help. Gah.

Since the weather wasn't looking to go above freezing anytime in the next two days (it had warmed up to a sultry nine degrees by seven-thirty), he stayed home that morning, we relegated the children to the wolves that raise all children-who-live-in-renovations, and we went about fixing the pipe.

We couldn't use flame to thaw the pipe because it's PVC. So we took the stockpot down to the creek and filled it with water. (Yay for the creek!) Then we boiled the water (yay for the camp stove!), cut an old towel into strips (yay for the rag bin!), and proceeded to strip the old insulation away from the pipe (boo-hiss for whoever insulated it that way to begin with).

Then it was just a matter of dipping and wrapping the towels around the pipe, refreshing each towel as it cooled. That took quite a while, but it worked beautifully as we went up and then over the creek. It was at that joint leading downward that we ran into a little glitch.

The pipe popped right out of the joint! It fell into the creek, and immediately cleared itself of residual ice, along with a few gallons of water, until we could find the key and turn off the water at the meter. Ah. Lovely. Turns out, it was never glued in. Well, not only was the pipe not cut at right angles, nor did it run at right angles, but it was jammed into 90-degree fittings and just sort of held there by a mixture of God and gravity.

It's not like whoever did this didn't know you should glue the pipe joints in a pressurized line together, as the various bits of wildly different lengths that were all stubbed together at random points were glued (though not w/ PVC glue - not sure what that was all about). It reminded both of us of Cinderhenge, in the Scary Room (the cinderblock pillars stretching up to nothingness, spread out through that room).

By then, it had warmed up to a balmy 19 degrees, and we figured we might as well put it back together properly. OK, Zorak figured we should put it back properly. I was all for just slapping it back in for now and thawing ourselves a bit before the frostbite set in. But for all my bellyaching, he was the one standing in the creek (the makeshift bridge kept giving way, and he finally just quit trying), and he wasn't wearing gloves (once they got wet, they were useless, anyway)... and HE wasn't complaining. So. Fine. We fixed it.

One trip to the basement for pipe and a hacksaw; one trip to the feed store for fittings and fresh glue; a whole lot of self-deprecation on my part for being such a total weenie when he's so stinkin' tough... and it's back together, with everything that goes into a 90-degree fitting actually running at a 90-degree angle, better insulated, and - most importantly - no longer frozen. Yay.

That set us back considerably on our weekend plans, but it was worth it. We have water. Yay.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Project Overview and Fun Winter Days

Zorak took pity on the children after watching them play with the wagon remnants for a few months. They just couldn't accept that it had died. (Is there anything more pathetic than seeing a child stand in the bed of a wagon with no wheels, waiting for a sibling to come pull the wagon?) A few metal straps, some new bolts, and a can of Rust-Oleum later...

...and another generation of children will know the joy of riding Calvinesquely down the hill.

We've also finished the linen cabinet door, Smidge's bed, another coat rack/bookshelf, and some other project I know I'm forgetting. But my camera has cried Uncle! and needs some TLC. Unfortunately, TLC for a digital camera runs almost enough-to-make-you-want-a-new-camera-instead. But not quite, as it turns out, once you start pricing replacement cameras. So. Pictures lately haven't turned out well enough for Project Blogging.

Outdoor shots seem to be least affected. Which is why I bring you Charge of the Light Brigade, recast starring Smidge... (I missed the charge up the hill with his sword drawn - too funny, that one is.)

And, true to our Apathetically Organic label (or, it would be a label, if KathyJo would quit gasping in horror at the thought of being Organic out of sheer laziness and make me one)... *edited to add - we're lazy. She's not. She works hard. We just don't, really.*

ANYway, we've been working on the land a bit, too.

What? That doesn't look like farming to you? It's, um, it's a tension resistance test. Very important for those... I don't know what that is. Maybe it's a Dogwood? I'll tell you in May, when it blooms. OK, actually, we were flying gliders and one got caught in the tree. So James retrieved it. And what's more fun than shaking the tree your brother is in? I don't know. Looks mighty fun from John's perspective, though. (And yes, I know he's barefooted. I figured if he fell from the scrawniest tree on the entire property and actually broke something, shoes would be the least of our concerns.)

Oh! Oh, now I remember the other project. But we didn't finish it. We began it today. We're clearing rubbish from the Scary Room so that we can build a storage pantry back there. That'll free up the actual basement-y area to be completed. Then we'll have a family room. Or a room I can escape to, where I can hide snacks. And books. And perhaps a coffee pot and a mini-fridge...

Busy season!
Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Oh, my.

Well, we are home. Three of the five were sick, starting Thursday morning and continuing into Saturday evening. We had a lovely time, illnesses aside. Still, it felt good to pull into the drive. No matter how much you love someone, it's just never comfortable to throw up at their house, is it?

Today, Zorak got hit with something nasty. We'll call it the Productivity Bug. Urngh. He'd been coming down with it earlier, but I didn't realize just how bad it would be. When we hinted to the boys that we had some work to do when we got home, I jokingly told them we were switching to a 12-hour school day. Ha. That would've been a breeze, in retrospect. But really, I've nothing to complain about. We accomplished quite a bit, and are back on high-octane fuel around the Forever Home.

The boys helped Zorak work in the basement. That seemed to movitate everybody on some level. (James said he's just so thankful we aren't doing the 12-hour school day, he'll work as much as we need him to!) The basement is once again functional. The Mistress has been evicted. (She's living in the carport now. Yay!) Tools are back in their proper homes. Trash is in the trash bin. Recycling is... well, it only made it to the carport. But that's out of the basement, so I am a happy camper. The boys split and stacked wood, ran errands, and in general really pitched in beautifully. I cleaned, culled, and sorted. Swept, swept, and culled some more.

Zorak helped me get the door to the linen closet built. This is one of those projects where he isn't convinced it's going to work, but he goes along with it because he loves me. (That, and because he knows that without his input, I'll do it anyway, and someone may end up impaled by the fallout of a failed joint.) He made do with my not-so-precise directions, though, and went along with the crazy scheme. I guess I could have done it, but he doesn't take pictures and I wanted to document the process, in case it worked. I'll get it painted tomorrow and he'll pick up some dodads and then I'll post the pics when we've got it hung. Or when we decide to scrap it and start over.

I culled and re-organized Em's room. Then Zorak moved the crib in there. It is, once again, "The Nursery" - and now EmBaby gets to learn how to s-h-a-r-e a room with somebody. She's lucky it's just Jase. He's the most easygoing of her brothers. But we do think the new arrangements will work well for a while.

And THAT (*trumpets blare from offscreen*) frees up the guest room/nursery/library for the pending transformation into a playroom, complete with toy bins, books, puzzles and a puzzle table, comfy chairs, music, and whatever else they decide to put into the room. We'll work this week to clean it out, empty the closet, and get things lined up so that this weekend we can lay carpet and baseboard and then furnish it with the kids' things.

Hopefully at some point, we'll break out the Christmas decorations. Maybe we'll even get around to hanging pictures on the wall this month!! (What? It's only been three years. Like y'all haven't ever taken that long to get around to unpacking... *grin*)

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

75 Degrees - Houston, we have Heat

Seventy-Five Degrees Farenheit!

That's the temperature in the house today, most of the day. For "all-around fantastic experiences", this rates up there with the day we got running water, the day we got the dryer, and the day we started up the HVAC. Excluding our wedding day, and the birth days of each of our children, this day rates WAY up there on the awesome-days list. (It's been a good life, really - the list is pretty long.)

Do you know how long it's been since the temperature inside our home has been above 60 in the winter time? Not since we last had a wood stove (and walls, simultaneously). About ten years ago. Makes me feel like this:

Zorak cut the trim today. I was too busy finishing up the remaining fruit and re-canning the unset jelly (yes, finally, I know, I know) to paint the trim, but we'll get around to that. Right now, I'm so happy, I'm even willing to post an unfinished project picture, if you promise to ignore the lack of trim, and the rub marks where the tea cart knocked against the wall, and anything else I may not have noticed amidst my euphoria.

We *love* the stove! The fan is so quiet on low that you can't tell it's on. (Keep in mind, our home is N-O-I-S-Y. If it's just you and your mute cat, you may notice it more than we do. But even when the kids went to bed, the fan didn't make enough noise to notice.)

We've only burned small fires in it, to cure it, yet the bedrooms were comfortable last night - and stayed that way ALL NIGHT. Zorak got up this morning around eight, and the stove was still hot to the touch, still emanating luxurious warmth, and still had enough embers to fire right back up with very little prodding and no actual prayers. We're almost afraid to try a bigger fire.

But we did bake cookies on it. :-) And put the kettle on for cocoa.

I think this is going to be a mighty fine winter holed up in the Forever House. How the toys will fare, though, is still questionable...

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

A Romantic Evening for Seven

Ew. OK, that sounded cute and funny in my head. Then I wrote it out, and it sounds creepy and possibly illegal. So, nevermind.

We split the herd into more manageable groups today. Can I just say, here, how incredibly wonderful it is to be able to take one of the older kids and just *go* somewhere? I wouldn't trade Jase and his scrunchy-nose happy face for anything in the world, but man-oh-man, is it fun to run errands with someone who can be his own pack mule!

John, Jase and I toodled on down to the midwife's office for a checkup. S'posed to have been a *check*up*, but she didn't have her stuff, and we ran out of time. That's fine. I forgot, anyway, and didn't switch to water the past few days to rehydrate all the pertinent cells. (Why, yes, I do take my medical tests the same way I used to take algebra tests -- cram the week before, pass by the skin of my teeth, and then move along without retaining anything vital from the experience. THIS, is yet another reason we homeschool.)

Wow, this is just the night for poor visuals. Sorry 'bout that.

And if you look toward the foyer, you'll see the stove is nearly complete. Zorak decided mid-sentence that he'd rather use double wall pipe from the stove to the ceiling and skip the stove board on the wall... and so, we'll be enjoying this lovely rainstorm sans fire, tonight. Perhaps we'll get another one tomorrow we can enjoy. It's all good.

The boys helped with the stove and chimney installation. I cleaned the kitchen twice today, and peering around the corner right now, it looks like I'm lying. But I swear I'm not. Who you gonna believe, me, or my lying eyes? Something like that. I think I need to tackle the kitchen and then see if Zorak's up for a movie night. 'Cuz I'm sweet like that. :-) (And he's really tired. So I wasn't planning to push my luck and ask for a foot rub.)

*Whew* This is why I seldom do the stream-of-consciousness blogging. I had an idea, and then... *poof*, it was gone. So, you get "disjointed". Think of it as a humorous puzzle at the Thrift Store. Some of the pieces are missing, some probably went to another puzzle, entirely... but it was free, so what the heck, right?

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

On Working Together

Zorak helped me write last night's post. I needed him to make sure I didn't inadertently gloss over anything important, like dimensions or the fact that your semi-decorative stuff needs to be fireproof. Let's be honest: my goal isn't so much to instruct as it is to try to make you smile, or show you that normal people are capable of things they wouldn't ever dream possible.

You see, we share the same basic philosophy: people are capable of doing much more than they generally do. The difference is how we think that happens. I tend to be a "if you convince yourself you can do it, you can find a way to make it work" person. Zorak tends to be a "if you have enough information at your disposal, you can figure it out" person.

It's not that he think people don't need motivation and encouragement -- he works on the assumption that they've already got it. And it's not that I think the details and knowledge are unimportant -- I work from the assumption that if people are focused and ready to try, they'll find the information. And this, my friends, would be why it took both of us, working together, to rehab the Forever Home.

Here's where I could veer off into philosophical diatribes on the character of human nature. But I won't. I'll just share with you a snippet of how it plays out, here, when we're working together.

At one point, he got a little zealous with the wordsmithing on a technical point, thus frustrating my efforts to say something witty (it takes effort, at least for me). We had the following exchange:

Me: Dude. You're not helping with the humor.

Z: Well, that's your job, not mine. I'm the tech guy.

Me: Yeah, but you're... you're blocking my flow. You're not doing a very good job of supporting me.

*awkward pause*

Me: Or, enabling me, whichever.

Z: *raises eyebrow at me* Well, you're not exactly feeding my darker side, you know.

And that's how it goes around here. I'm pretty much comic relief and parts hag. I do get to pinch hit for the Idea Guy. Zorak's the brains behind the operation. And if I ever write and sound a little... too detailed... for your taste, please keep in mind that it doesn't *have* to be that technical. But that it was probably worse than what I wrote, because sometimes I do have to feed his darker side.

And sometimes, he even laughs at my jokes.

It's all about working together.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy