And just like that...

Summer is creeping up on us. And I'm ready. Yesterday, I came home to another great summer surprise:


Yep. Our porch swing that we got a year ago is finally up... Normally, I think swings should face the rest of the porch, but in our case, we use the side entrance to the porch a lot and didn't want to block it.

Now we have perfect push-off abilities with the porch ledge. It swings slightly off center, since we had to stagger the hooks up top (hanging it on an incline), but I don't really care. It's perfect.

Adam also wanted to try out the new compressor, so he fixed the front door. Since the DAY we closed on the house and we changed the locks, it has looked like this:

See there on the left? We had to pull that piece of trim off to change part of the lock. Well. As of yesterday? It looks like this:



I can't tell you how much it changes the entire room. Obviously still needs caulking and all the inside trim needs to be painted this spring when I can open the windows and confine the cats in the laundry room for a while. We want to wait until the base shoe is there so I can blend it in a bit more seamlessly. If you recall, we had to buy baseshoe quite a bit larger than regular quarter round because of the way the house has settled combined with that assy job the POs did sheetrocking AROUND the trim, rather than removing the trim, sheetrocking, and THEN reinstalling the trim. Grrrr.... Anyway. All in the past. No need to get worked up over it again.

As for the pup, he tried to dig the floor last night again-- 2nd time now that he's tried to dig when there's no thunderstorm, both times have been since taking the meds. I'm going to try the melatonin this week. Though, honestly, he may just want out-- the weather's been perfect and he's barely wanted to come inside at all...

So yeah. Things are chugging along at the ol' bungalow.

No, really! Housework!

So, full disclosure. A while back I posted pictures of the new gable vent. We had not installed it really. We propped it up there, made sure it fit, then went back to having a gaping hole into the attic. We tried keeping it covered with plastic, but these spring storms have made keeping it covered impossible.

But by the time I got home on Friday, Adam has secretly painted and installed the vent. TaDa!


I think I'd like to trim around it, but I must say I am very pleased with how it turned out. I also think I mentioned before that we recycled even more of the garage door wood to make this and I couldn't be happier.

We also got a new Porter Cable compressor. It's got two valves, so you can have 2 tools hooked up at once. It certainly wasn't the cheapest one, but we looked at Craftsman compressors at Sears, and they seemed so flimsily built compared to the PC. And the PC one is almost identical to my father's, which is what we had been using. Since we liked the older one, we went with the newer version of the same model. At least it was on sale. At any rate, I look forward to installing our base shoe, screening the porch, airing up our tires, and filling in the ghost door, among many other projects, I'm sure.

We had hoped to get the porch swing up this weekend, but had a doggie emergency. The puppy has developed terrible storm anxiety over the last year and it's reached a breaking point. If he's outside he digs up the yard until it starts raining, then he curls up-- not in his dog house-- but under the eaves. However, he has a serious double coat, so no matter how wet and soaked he looks, his skin is dry; I check every time, and am amazed still, every time.

But if he's in the house, he pants, paces, shivers, and tries to dig up the floor boards. I worry for the house and mostly I worry for his blood pressure. So I took him to the vet to see if there was something we could do or give him to quell his anxiety. They gave me some pills to try out and, since there was a storm rolling in that afternoon, I went ahead and tried them out. Unfortunately, the storm took longer getting here than was expected, and puppy wanted to go outside. Mind you, this is 2 or 2 1/2 hours after taking the pills, so I was less concerned about having my eyes on him at all times. He curled up in the flower bed and went to sleep. When I went to check on him, he was twitching like he was running in a dream. But then he couldn't stand up, couldn't really open his eyes, his third lid was up and he was shivering. So we had to rush him to the emergency vet. The vet techs looked at us like we were at least a little stupid when we showed them the pills. One said, "You know these are a sedative...?" The other just let us know that while the third eyelid makes things look a lot scarier than they are, it's pretty normal. All his vitals were good-- temp, heart, breathing. He was just out of it. Apparently, this was a fairly usual reaction to this med, a tranquilizer; however, it was a bit much for him-- or more like a bit much for me and especially the kiddo! We sort of expected drowsy and loopy. The vet did warn me that it was a tranquilizer, so it shouldn't have been a surprise. I think his 2 hours of totally normal were just deceiving.

He's ok now. He managed to get back to normal in time to dig his way to China, via the bedroom floor when the storms did get to Fort Smith, but he was still a little anxious last night. Apparently we can give him 1/2 or 1/4 the dose next time, but I don't know. Being outside where he at least calms down during the storm, if not in its run-up, might be preferable. That whole experience was terrifying. The second vet also suggested we try some storm CDs on sunny nice days to decondition him...

So that was the weekend. A little bit of home improvement, some spring cleaning, and a very sick puppy.

Here's hoping next weekend is better.

Hi-ho, hi-ho...

heehe... We're doing a workshop on using blogs in the classroom as I type. Work work work!!

Spring is here again

You wouldn't necessarily know it considering temps in the 20s last night. But everything is cropping up. Our gold dust plants and liriope and canna lilies and ajuga all have new growth. Everything is lovely. In fact, despite a hot hot hot summer last year and a failure to sufficiently water on my part, the dogwood looks even better this year. Can't wait for the summer heat and cold beer on the porch!

It's been a while

I know. It's mainly because there's not been much to report. The winter doldrums, back ache (and the physical therapy that accompanies it), vacation planning, and a car crash all sort of put housework on the back burner. We are now almost one year out on the insurance claim from last year's hail storm; we have 2 years to complete so this summer will have to be a whirlwind of work. I suppose I'll update and then set some goals...

My back stayed bad for long enough that I've done a round of physical therapy. I have home exercises and little tricks that seem to be making things slowly better. Unfortunately, I didn't really stay on top of the home portion of the routine last week while we were in...

London!


It was a great trip, the kiddo's first, Adam's second, and my too many to count. I lived there for about a year and a half, so it's always a bit of a homecoming for me. I just love it. We went to the Darwin and Picasso exhibits, Hampton Court, Windsor, Shakespeare's Globe, the Tower and lots of pubs and great restaurants. We managed to find a Holiday Inn Express for $49 a night through Hotwire; normally I love staying at local B&B type places. But they are a crapshoot, and we couldn't afford one that was fully en suite. So Holiday Inn did the trick. We had a great set of 2 for 1 coupons to most of the big stuff (Tower, Hampton, Globe, etc.). And a lot of restaurants have great kids menus or lunch deals.

We also did a couple of London Walks-- which I poopooed for years until I finally broke down and took the Jack the Ripper Walk they're so famous for. It was great; they're not hokey or boring. The guides are really knowledgeable. And at £7 per adult (kids free), it's the best deal in town.

We have a tradition of buying things from Portobello Road market; my in-laws brought home candlesticks, Adam and I got a sexton, I got a compass thingy, and now, on this trip, we got an antique walnut British mantle clock. I've been reading about them and how to make all the adjustments so that it keeps good time and chimes approximately correctly. It has the Westminster chimes and it is lovely. Pictures to come.

Best of all, it was 60º and sunny. All. Week.


However, I did catch a nasty cold on the plane and spent one afternoon under the covers watching television (which frankly, was fine with me; I love TV there.) and I was nursing a sprained neck, to boot.

Yeah, that's whiplash. Whiplash sounds silly, though. Sprained neck sounds more correct. It's better now, but my shoulders still ache. See, a few days before we left for London, I was driving to work in the rain. Apparently, the temperature was a little lower between my house and work than I had anticipated. When I tried to change lanes on the interstate to avoid a wreck on one of the bridges, I hit ice and lost control of the car. I was the third accident there on that bridge.



Goodbye Beetle. I will admit that I was not crazy about that car. I got roped into buying it brand new full price off the lot not even knowing how to drive it (it was a standard; I was young). So we started out a bit poorly as these were highly overpriced cars. Being German, they require a certain amount of higher-cost maintenance (special coolant, for example), and the inside was plasticky... Poor gas mileage considering hte size of the car. But I did learn to drive a stick on my own in that car, so we bonded a little. And I can say that it performed when it came to safety. It seriously performed. That was a highway speed crash into a concrete guard rail and that's it. The cabin remained mostly untouched. Way to position those crumple zones, German engineers. And thanks for the airbags. A bruised nose is a small price to pay.

So now I'm buying a new car. A Hyundai Elantra, I think. Lots of airbags. Lots of crumple zones. Great gas mileage. I want a stick shift, but I won't be picky. If the price is right, the car comes home with me.

Anyway, you can see that we've been a bit swamped since the new year. But we have to refocus on the house.

• Wrap up that kitchen trim and the ghost door and get the inspection
• Repair the hole in the living room ceiling
• Screen the porch
  
• Insulate
• Paint exterior
  
• Base shoe
• Paint interior trim

Those are the main things that need doing so we can wrap up the insurance and the inspections.

Time to focus.

A perfect Storm

Literally and figuratively. We've also been getting a minor amount of work done on the house. And I'll get to that in a second. First I'll explain the storms...

Literally speaking, the weather's been really crazy; I didn't get any sleep two nights ago while the dog panted, paced and shivered through the same series of storms that caused those terrible tornadoes in Oklahoma. The storm system had stretched out by the time it reached us, so it wasn't quite as nasty, but Simon still shivered and panicked every time it thundered. Poor pup.

Figuratively speaking, the time became right to plan a trip to London later this year. I won't get into too many details except to say that we've been saving for this for years, the exchange rate is at a decade low, and airfare plummeted. We'll be tightening our belts big time when we get back. I used to live there and like to go periodically. The kiddo's never been. So a lot of time has been dedicated to planning for that. One little nice bit of info I will share, though, is that some airlines will continue to "rebook" your flight at lower fares if you ask without charge. We booked our tickets thinking they couldn't possibly go lower; then they did go lower on the same flights, same airline. So I looked into it a bit and found that they allow changes up to the first day of the trip. You are charged the difference if there is one, or credited with the overage if there is one. Pretty sweet.

So, on to house issues. Notice anything different?


Besides being a messy counter, it is now a counter with trim! But it's a pretty thick trim. We had to cover up the area over the dishwasher, due to accidents removing the cabinets when we gutted. I think I like it, but I'm not sure. For that reason, we only installed that piece and haven't sunk the nails or caulked. I'd also still like to sand the doors and bottom cabinet bases to make them a bit more natural and a little less yellow. It's a pretty piece of wood-- we decided on a chamfered profile:


I think I'm happy...

Just a lazy afternoon

This is pretty much how we spent the entirety of last week:


Fayetteville, where I work, got the brunt of that mega ice storm-- so much so that the university closed for 4 straight days, and the day before saw a lot of people heading home early to avoid getting caught in the ice. Fort Smith on the other hand, got 4 inches of rain in 24 hours. Which then turned to ice. So we stayed at home inside all week. The puppy decided that maybe this inside thing isn't so bad after all...