Hunkering down

We had an absolutely glorious fall here. mid-70's, sunny, bright blue skies, very little wind; perfect bike riding weather. My tomatoes were prolific in September and early October. I pulled my sweet peas out of the ground while they were still growing, only because I wanted to plant garlic before November. My spring bulbs even started to pop up.

Any idea what I do with those daffodils now?

Anyway, I use past tense because winter started yesterday. Low cloud cover blanketing the surrounding moutain ranges. The full expectation that we'll wake up to snow in the morning. The dread of driving on snowy roads. The turning on of the furnace for the first time (we made it to October 25!).

In many ways I've been waiting for the crummy days of fall/ winter to start. I have all of these little projects around the house to finish up. Some small, some major. Nothing pressing. I'm looking forward to reading a lot this winter, in preparation for a trip to Europe we have sketched out for September 2011.

But.... but. That means it's going to be cold weather for the next six months. Maybe seven.

I've said efore that fall and early winter in Montana can be a haunting time. And I don't just mean that because of the whole Halloween thing. I'm haunted by the hikes we didn't get in. Haunted by the way the light is lower. The way the sun comes up late, and goes down early. Mourning the tub of summer clothes and flip flops in my closet.

So what do I/ we do in the winter? Ski, occassionally. We're going to try out cross-country skiing this winter as a new thing to do. Read. Sew. Plan my 2011 garden. Write wedding thank yous. Plan travel. Bake (and then give it away so I don't gain weight). Finish decorating/ organizing/ setting up the house. I look around and see all of these things we "need": a new bed. Bedroom furniature. the last of the insulated blings for the guest bedroom and office. To insulate, sheetrock and organize the garage. Maybe new living room furniature. A beaurau to put linnens in.

So much to do, yet with so many nights of crummy weather ahead of me, I'm in no hurry.

Crafting spree: hair flowers

I'll be taking my veil off for the reception in exchange for flowers in my hair. Of course, that required a little bit of crafting. A clear comb, some clear thread (so difficult to sew with!) and some silk hydrangea blooms, and this is what I came up with:

What do you say? Yea or Nay? Too big?

Lights

One of the areas we're trying to skimp on for the wedding is decorations. With an outdoor cocktail hour, ceremony location and who the f knows what for a reception venue already decorated reception venue it would be impossible to compete with nature. And we don't have the budget for crazy uplighting and draping and chandeliers and extensive centerpieces.

The reality is, I don't really care about any of it. No one ever divorced because they didn't have uplighting at the ceremony.

Decorations for the cocktail hour are the flowers we planted over Memorial Day. My mom and grandma have pots of flowers going for ceremony site decoration. We're doing super minimal centerpieces... which is a big step from my previous declaration that we wouldn't be doing centerpieces.

I did want to do something though. I initially wanted to hang paper lanterns around the house, although unlit, as we'll be at the house during the daylight hours:

And I found some reasonable places to purchase them... but... I didn't want to spend over $100 on paper lanterns (that wouldn't be lit!). So... off in another direction I went.

DJ and I already have a lot of Christmas lights, so using them would be free. So do my parents. I use Christmas lights to decorate around Christmas, but also in the summer for nice mood lighting on the deck. And Michaels was having a 50% off sale on their spring silk flowers.

So last night, I watched Peggy Sue Got Married* while pulling silk flowers off of plastic stems, and sticking them onto Christmas light strands. I finished two strands, and still have over 70% of the silk flowers left to use on the other strands that I and my parents have.

For free Christmas lights and $26 in silk flowers, I can creat 6-7 100 foot long strands of these:

Since the silk flowers have some color, you'd be able to see them as a garland in the daylight. Then at night they'll be colorful and festive. We'll wrap the railing of the deck at the reception venue (restaurant? marina?) so that they'll be visible at night. We'll also wrap the railing of the shack, and maybe the posts under the deck. Simple, and cheap.

*WTF with Nicolas Cage in that movie? He's so weird...

Puppy Prep

So I’ve mentioned before that I can be crafty when I want to be. And cheap. Have I mentioned that I can be cheap?

I like to bake and sew, but baking too much means eating too many baked goods. And that ain’t good. For my cheap ass. It gets bigger.

This ties into our dog, I swear.

Golden Retrievers are a long-haired dog breed. Let’s face it; I’ll probably never wear black again without Harlow-hair being a unique accessory. Something about the dogs long hair, and the oils that make their coat shiny, can stain carpet if the dog lays in the same spot over a long period of time. So a dog bed was in order.

I’ve mentioned the idea for the dog bed. Molly’s Mutts dog bed duvets. The stuff sacks were $15, and the duvets $50. Yesh! I can spring for a $15 stuff sack, but 50 bucks for two yards of fabric? Hmm… I mentioned I can (kinda) sew.

Sew (ha!) I ordered a stuff sack, and bought two yards of fabric in a “terrarium” print (yeah I have no idea what that is), and went to work. And voila! A doggy duvet, that is lined (I had extra liner fabric from the curtains project, and totally washable!

As a side note, I couldn’t figure out how to use my sewing machine to properly attach buttons. I even dragged out the manual (which I’ve never read through, after 5+ years of machine ownership). I only had two buttons, and they didn’t come out terribly, so I’ll take it, but I should figure that out.

See the little brown dot of excess string in the middle? That's the back of the button. How do I make it less... stringy?

In reading the manual, I did find out how to sew a buttonhole with my machine. Imagine that, learning from the manual… what what?

The buttons were sewn on to button to the inside, so that little Harlow has less of a temptation to chew on them. When the whole thing is closed up, you don’t see the buttons at all. Sleek, trim, and puppy proof (?)

The buttons can be un-done, and the stuff sack slides out. Everything in the dog-bed is washable, so when she inevitably pees on it, into the wash it goes!

We’ve been rounding up other puppy supplies too. DJ opened a checking account, and apparently qualified for the free “gift” of a stuffed pony. Creepier yet is that it came in a vacuum-sealed plastic bag! DJ also purchased squeaky toys and balls, as well as a KONG chew toy that you hide a treat in for the puppy to get out.

And, the crate came. DJ’s immediate reaction? “Court, she better not outgrow this thing!”

It has a divider in the middle; to make sure she doesn’t feel overwhelmed in it, and to aid in crate-training/ housebreaking (pups don’t like to soil their living spaces). I also bought some fabric to make a cover for it, as some dogs don’t like to sleep with their back “exposed.” The crate won’t stay in this location forever; but it’s a good place for now since it’s close to the front door, yet in an area we’re in much of the time so she can see us.

What’s left to procure for puppy? Probably more stuffed animals, more toys, food and water bowls, actual food and treats… and that’s all I can think of right now! Any other suggestions?

PS: We'll be taking the area rugs up this weekend. No need to tempt her to pee on them when we can store them in the garage for a while :)

Edited to add my dog bed cost break down

$15 for the stuff sack
$5 shipping
$13.98 for the fabric
$2.49 for the thread
$1.60 for the buttons
$0 for the liner since I already had it

Total: $38.07; not bad since it would have cost me $65+ shipping to order the whole setup online!

Harlow- 4 weeks

Hi, my name is Courtney and I’m annoying everyone with my incessant chatter about the puppy we’re getting in 12 days.

But I have photos to show too!

Harlow, are you shy? Do you not like having your picture taken (because that could be a bone of contention)?

 

OMG look at those ears!

 

Furry!

 

I started working on the dog bed duvet last night. I perused JoAnne Fabric looking for a material that wasn’t terribly ugly, would look good in our house, wasn’t too girly (sorry Gretch, no pink glitter), was washable and preferably on sale.

 

It took a bit to steer away from the dry clean only, $24.99/ yard, or flammable (WTF? I didn’t know they still made flammable!), but I found some material, and started sewing away. I’ll post more about it when I’m done. But man, this dog bed will be HUGE for her for a while!

 

Channeling my inner Martha Stewart.

Tile prep and muddy boots

October 1 huh?

Our run of good weather came to an end yesterday, when the warmest the day got was 41 degrees at 8am. Temperatures fell steadily after that. And I had to dig out my scraper in order to wipe snow off of my car after flakes drifted around all day. Then, oh then the worst of all was when I had to put my poor feet INTO SHOES. No more flip flops?

You can imagine the combination of an un-landscaped yard that hasn't seem moisture in a month and wet heavy snow. Soup. Like tailgating at MSU before they put gravel down. Muddy and boggy and generally not cool. So I took my galoshes over with me last night when I went to "help" DJ cut backer board for the house.

Hehehehe... yeah, I'd love to be a home improvement guru... but instead I think I'm more of a painter. I don't have the money for the trial and error that it'd take me to be a guru.

Nonetheless! Photos! Of our house! In the rain/ snow!

This photo is actually from Sunday. While I was at bridal showers, DJ spent his afternoon mocking out tile to get an idea of how it would go. Not bad, huh?

Down the hallway towards the powder room (left) and the stairs (ahead).

This was Wednesday night. Grey skies + early sunset meant DJ had to be done cutting up backer board to put down by about 7:15pm.

Here he is cutting it down. The splotches on the wall are the texturing. Also note the little cups of soup on the wall where the island will be built? Our first meal in our new house... cups of soup from the Roseaurs deli!

Outside, looking at the back of the house towards the east. The siding is mostly up, and they'll paint it the right color yellow once the weather dries out. See earlier posts for the "jonquil" color we're going for.

The pre-stained the shingles for the upper third of the house in a big pile on the backside of he house. Not a bad grey(gray? Spelling?), huh?

The pile of grey shingles.

Siding up the west wall of the house. The middle yellow color is ours. Not that the belly band and windo trim have all been painted white.

Um, yeah. I had to trek across the backyard mudpit to take those last photos. I got a little muddy in my galoshes.

The garage has become quite the staging ground!

Painting at the Lake

For some reason, DJ and I sometimes find it hard to actually relax at the lake. You look around the house and there is so much to do. When we got to Harrison over Memorial Day, DJ mentioned that, you know, it wouldn’t really be too difficult to paint the decks. They really needed it, and it’d mean we could walk around out there without getting slivers. Maybe our foolishness had something to do with living in a condo where we rarely do exterior yardwork. Either way, my mom isn’t a fool, she knows when to jump at free labor!

The lower deck near the front door.
The second floor deck.

It was in really rough shape.

So over Memorial Day weekend, DJ, my mom and I washed and stained the decks on our house at the lake.

DJ sprayed down the decks to lift all of the dirt and old paint off.
I washed the upper deck in my swimsuit. See the reflection of the lake in my sunglasses? It was one of the nicest Memorial Day weekends in a while!

We started painting the next day after the newly washed decks dried. I knew the dry wood would soak up the paint.

Right now he's wondering why I love to come to this place so much. Everytime I drag him out here he's put to work.

Painting the decking was fun. I did it with a big roller brush that I just dipped into the can of paint, then spread it around like sailors swabbing the deck. The paint makes a huge difference, huh?

We finished painting the decks in time to actually enjoy some Memorial Day weekend fun. But as you can imagine, a nicely painted deck really brings out how shitty the house looks. By the end of Memorial Day weekend, I told my mom that I’d come back out for a week in July to help her paint the house.

I should preface these next photos by saying that the existing siding is in pretty crummy condition. My parents know this, but still aren’t sure what the long-term plan is for the lake place, so they don’t want to reside it at this time. We didn’t do an incredibly good job repainting it this summer. We didn’t prime the boards; some of them are so warped and cracked it wouldn’t have mattered. We didn’t really even pre-wash it too much. Mom also bought paint that was like glue, in hopes of holding some of the siding together!

We started painting on Sunday, and finished above the upper deck and the front (to where I was brave enough to go on a lader at least) of the house by Monday at noon.

Mom and I got into a good rhythm of being up by 7am and painting by 7:30am. It’s usually hot in Coeur d’Alene the last few weeks of July, and the lake-facing sides of the house were the south and west elevations. There was no way I wanted to be up on a ladder painting in 90 degree heat. Nu-uh. Nope. No Way. I’d rather get up early.

Why yes, yes I did paint in a swimsuit top and skirt. With my hot pink swimsuit bottoms. It was hot out, I wanted a tan, and didn't have any gym shorts I was ready to throw away yet.

Since I’d mysteriously lost a contact lens between Friday night and Saturday morning, I had to wear my contacts until DJ could ship me contacts. Yeah, that was awesome. Let’s just imagine how I looked in my spandex biking gear, a hat and red glasses. Like a major band nerd. The glasses also occasionally got in the way painting, and now have some paint on them as a souvenir. Who wants Lasik surgery? >>>this girl!<<<

Sandi, hanging out a window. She's also quite photogenic!

Painting the lake-side of the house was tedious. There are a lot of windows, and its two stories in most places. This meant that we had to position the ladder just so with my mom reminding me to “be careful” and “watch the window” and “oh don’t break the window” every time we moved the ladder. Thankfully, we successfully got through the whole week without breaking a window or me falling off of a ladder.

My mom is a champion painter. She’s meticulous, but quick about it. And she spent a lot of time this week leaning out of windows and stretching and bending in funny ways.

Batrick, hanging out.

By Tuesday afternoon we’d moved around to the side of the house, and were making progress. Holy heck, we might actually finish this soon! We pushed on through, and painted all day on Tuesday. About 2pm, we were working on the area right above the kitchen door when a bat came out of the peak. AAHHHAHAHAH holy freaking moly! A BAT. During the DAY. I named him Batrick, and Batrick was a total buzzkill for the day. We decided to give Batrick some space while I sprayed the house for insects and mom went to St. Marie’s for more paint.

The kitchen deck, where the BBQ and "beverage" fridge are. Batrick's nest is just above the door.

I'm going to use this photo to point out the fantastic legs my 50's something mother has. Seriously. Cellulite? Not on her!

Mom fought road construction to and from St. Maries and I jumped into the lake to cool down. Another advantage of wearing your swimsuit while painting at the lake! Once she got back, we went to work painting away. Since we didn’t really want to get too close to Batrick’s nest, and we couldn’t reach it too well anyway, we divulged a paintbrush on a stick to finish the job.

Moving the ladder back and forth made me appreciate the power pump class I've been going to! It was a shoulder workout.

Mom also picked up some cream paint to do the window trim with, as a way of shaking it up a bit. And she’d of had to go into Spokane for the trim paint, which would have been a hassle. First we primed them with a white primer, which was really, really white. Then we went over them with a more cream color.
Why yes, yes I'm still painting in a skirt and swimsuit. See that lovely lake behind me?

Remember this deck from Memorial Day?

Overall, we finished up the whole house by Friday morning, with exception of some back gable painting that my dad did to finish things up. It was a big project, but I’m glad to say that the house looks so good now. Mom hired someone to finish the high part of the front gable and fix where the rock wall had moved out.

The problem? The good looking house brings out how bad the yard looks…