252 - Wood

We laminated the header today. It is now one big, thick piece of wood... gonna be a hoot getting it up the stairs and installed where it needs to be... I can help a little, but it would be better to get Tom or someone to help. Lifting it into place? No idea how that's going to happen; but I'm almost sure Mike has a plan...

It's like wood lasagna.

Bo and the kittens had a nice little romp around the yard while we worked on it. I get nervous letting Bo out but he mostly stayed within visual range... mostly...

And he did mostly come back when we called... mostly...

Mike fixed our bedroom closet so that now we have two hanging rods with a shelf in between. Looks good. I'll have to use a stool to reach the top rod, but we can put stuff we don't wear as often up top and the rest can go on the lower rod. It's just nice to have extra space instead of everything being all scrunched up like it has been.

The bathroom closet is still a work in progress but it's close, just need shelving cut for the sides. The two shelves he added are already helping immensely. Soon I'll be able to empty some boxes and get everything organized.

And there has FINALLY been a resolution with my camera. Long story short, I am keeping the camera I originally got, they have sent the missing lens and I am getting a $75 credit. They did send the camera I asked for but even though I was told it would be black, it was white and completely hideous... the flip screen is a nice feature but I would be angry every time I looked at the camera, so it's going back. I guess I just need to get an anti-glare screen protector. It's not the resolution I originally wanted but I'm happy with it.

Bo is never more focused than when there is food involved... here he is staring pointedly at Mike's chicken wings

He has also taken to supervising me as I make his meals. Every time he sees the saute pan I use to cook his chicken, he gets excited and now he thinks it's "his" pan... And he goes bonkers over his Bo cookies. They smell really good but don't have much flavor that I can tell... yeah, I sampled one after they came out of the oven... he is very food centric. He's such a sweetie... we couldn't ask for a better puppy.

251 - Meh.

Another rainy day. All week... rain... flurries... rain/snow... showers... flurries... BLAH! I don't care too much except that I get better pics when there's sun out. Mike is hating it because he wants to be outside tinkering, and I don't blame him.

Mike got to work on the bathroom shelves last night. We still need one going lengthwise and then wood to complete the side shelving on both sides. It's going to help immensely... we still have boxes that we haven't unpacked... Storage... this house needs storage...

Monday, we will get dowels to increase the hanging space in our closets. They aren't very large, more like coat closets than anything else, but they are what we have to work with.

Tonight we will, perhaps, laminate the header so we can finally start moving the kitchen wall and get the pantry built. It's a pain in the butt not to have one, and adds to our already cluttered state to have a half finished project. I know we need to borrow tools from a friend, so we'll have to wait on that... I'm just ready to have it done. I'm looking forward to a pantry and I think it will be the biggest one I've ever had.

Also, my almost month long battle with Overstock seems to be nearing its end... I ordered my camera and their site pictured it with a flip screen. With the advent of LCD viewfinders and the the demise of actual viewfinders, the sun can cause a glare which makes it impossible to see what you're shooting at. The ability to move my screen around would resolve that somewhat. So when I received my camera I tried to use that feature but couldn't figure out how to get the screen to move, and in fact it appeared to be fixed in place. When I downloaded the user's guide, I found that this model doesn't have a flip screen after all.

So I contacted customer service. Went from an online chat representative, to another representative, to a supervisor and finally a manager. My solution was simple: swap out the camera bodies so that I get what I thought I ordered. They kept giving me stories about their warehouse and inventory and how they couldn't just swap the camera bodies, they'd have to have the whole camera and the bundle back. Then they tried to entice me with a camera that is two generations old, with 4 fewer megapixels, a slower shutter speed and no touchscreen... but it had a flip screen. They tried to dance around it... always using the word "comparable."

Well finally they are going to replace the camera body with the one I originally asked for, the one that is the same, but with the flip screen. Yes, that's correct. They will swap out the camera body now, which is what I suggested doing three weeks ago. I also realized that in focusing on the screen, I failed to notice that one of the lenses I was supposed to receive was not in the box. So they tried to duck out of that one by first making it seem as if they were doing me a favor by allowing me to keep the lens I have and just return the camera... which means I would still be short a lens. Then by giving me whatever lens is in the box with the new camera... one that goes to 84mm, when the lens I should have gotten goes to 150mm... that's almost double the zoom, so no thank you... I want the 150mm that I should already have.

I THINK they have have already shipped the camera body out. The manager is working on the lens issues, she knows by now that I'm not going to let it slide... It was supposed to have been in the box... since it wasn't, they need to provide it to me. Anyway, I guess we'll see tomorrow. If not I will call the corporate headquarters and take it up with them. I'm done settling for things. My life has been crappy enough and sometimes it is because I didn't fight when I should have. Lesson learned.

Tonight I'm going to make Pad Thai for dinner, but since the grocery store doesn't have rice noodles, I'm going to have to hope egg noodles will suffice. And we'll be watching The Walking Dead later. This season is looking really good. The prison setting was good for a while but started to feel stale, and all the new characters they brought on... eh, they didn't add much to the story. The Governor is finally dead... that's at least some progress; he was a loathesome individual. This season looks exciting... the group has been split up and who knows where some of them ended up since it was chaos. Only 4-1/2 more hours...

P.S. This gorgeous cardinal dropped by

250 - Date Night

BOOM! Knocked it out of the park - my wings AND my fries tasted as good as Wingstop tonight. Made half buffalo style and half a Michael Symon recipe that is hot but so delicious. Followed it up with chocolate milkshakes for dessert. Most of the days run together, but this Friday night was a date night. Country style. Now we're watching a tv series on Netflix and relaxing.

Other than that we've been slogging forward with the remodeling project. And bird watching.

Gorgeous female bird, who despite her muted coloring is still quite the knockout.

Her male counterparts is absolutely stunning. They are so incredibly blue.

And after I refilled the bird feeder this little guy showed up. Almost didn't see him hiding in the grass until his head twitched.

249 - Oh Deer

Ah the things you see when you go to to the bathroom...

First I saw just one... and then three... then five... then a sixth one popped up. So beautiful.

248 - Progress

We've been talking about how to solve our kitchen issue... the lack of a pantry, how closed off it is. Initially I wanted to put shelves in what is currently the mancave, but then I had an epiphany. The wall is offset where the chimney comes up from the basement, if we moved the kitchen wall out and made it flush, I could have a pantry in the kitchen where it makes a whole hell of a lot more sense, and we can use our dining room table as a countertop until we are ready to install something more permanent. It's not as open as we'd like, but it's a start, it gets us a pantry and a casual eating space/counter space and opens up the kitchen a bit.

We also need to add some shelves to the bathroom closet, rearrange the closets in the bedrooms, and add shelves to the basement so we can better organize our things. But one step at a time, the kitchen frustrates me the most and is a cheap fix. We've already scored some free pallets that I can use to make a decorative wall. Trust me, it'll be cool.

Anyway, we got started tonight. For about $100 we bought some lumber. The framing within the walls is also in very good shape, so if we can reuse them, we're even further ahead since that leaves the other lumber for the basement.

It may surprise you to learn that I didn't participate much in the demo. Mike was having too much fun and I'm still recovering from my cold. I helped clean up a bit, we'll finish that up tomorrow.

And, the job thing seems to be working itself out. That's all I know right now, but things look good and the happy feelings about the future that I experienced the other day seem to be bearing fruit. The fruit is always bittersweet, but at least there is fruit right?

Yesterday I made boudain. It wasn't the *best* boudain, but the fact that I made it was somewhat impressive and it looks like boudain. It's a start. I don't know how other people do it, but it took both Mike and I working together to stuff it into the casings.

I forgot to take a before picture, but this is about mid-demo on the living room side of the wall.

Kitchen side before... the wall heater has already been removed.

Mike working out some aggression.

Ta-da. Now we have to install headers where the pantry wall will go and remove the studs where the counter will go.

A mess.

So our plans are coming together. We have two versions, one where we have the money to do an addition, one where we make the most of what we have now with an eye to the future. They're both pretty exciting. Honestly, once we get our stuff out of storage we'll have two bedrooms so it won't seem as urgent to build a master suite... nice yes... eventually we want to... but for the moment we think maybe a half bath where the coat closet is, better storage options, get rid of some stuff, replace the windows, and we'll be on our way to living more comfortably. Mostly we just need to find a place for our things, to reduce the clutter, which will make the house feel bigger.

Being back on track feels nice regardless.

247 - Good Day

I didn't sleep much last night, my throat was bothering me and the air in the house is pretty dry, which I think makes it worse. So I'm a little foggy...

Because we need two vehicles, and the fate of the truck we have is uncertain, we got up hellishly early this morning to go look at a truck we could pay cash for. Truck number three for me; Mike went and looked at a couple without me. They've all been about two hours away and that gets tiring, though we have seen some interesting stuff and the drives are pleasant in and of themselves. Anyway, we liked this one, but we had a small budget, so after the test drive, the negotiations began. In the end, the guy came off the price enough that we felt it was worth it and truck number three (for me) became our lucky number. Mike was outside picking it apart all afternoon, hahaha - he has a project, which is cool. It runs fine but it's 23 years old and needs to be cleaned up, and Mike is something of a perfectionist.

As we drove home, the sun was shining and I felt... good. Not physically, but mentally. I realized it's been awhile since I've felt this way. I actually came home and did some chores. They hadn't been done partly because I wasn't feeling well, but also because I just didn't feel like doing anything. The house feels so much better without the clutter of laundry and full trashcans.

I have started promoting my business, left some business cards at a local restaurant. Just need customers. I have faith that they will come. And I am in negotiations with a film producer to edit some of his proposals. It's not much, 2-3 pages a month, but it's my foot in the door to maybe sidelining as a professional editor. I have a couple of other things in the works, my goal this year is "multiple revenue streams."

Mike also has a couple of irons in the fire, one which looks promising. We should know soon, and if it comes to fruition he would be starting soon. I don't want to go into detail because that always seems to jinx things.

In the meantime we have come up with some low-cost projects around the house. A way for me to have a pantry and something of a start on the kitchen remodel. We only need a little lumber, and we're going to temporarily use the dining room table as a countertop/table. It'll make more sense when it's done. And I want to put chain link around the patio so that we can let the cats out and give Bo another place to stay besides the basement. It'll be less expensive than fencing part of the yard but it's something that we need. Storage and organization is the basic goal... maximizing the usefulness of the space we have since we won't have any more for a while.

Anyway, pictures. Mostly Bo. Go figure.

Bo picking up the leash to let me know that I should follow.

The side of the house.

More leading, but impatient.

The truck. Another Dodge, but old school, with parts Mike can doodle with.

One of my new favorite pictures of Bo. This is his alert face.

Relaxing...