It's nice to finally be doing something on the house again. Since all the rain put everything on hold during the winter. We'll have to plan better next time or maybe just pray we don't have another major catastrophe at the beginning of the season that saps all our dinero!

Anyway, we've gotten all of the paneling down and that stupid carpeting on the walls. There was that same pressboard/fibreboard/drywall-ish kind of stuff up there that was in the living room but painted NEON LIME GREEN!!!! Holy jesus that's some eye-bleeding color in there! Other than the color, they seriously did this room on the cheap. The paneling was put over the drywall, except for 4 inches between where the wall goes from vertical to a slant because of the design of the house. The molding all around the room was plastic except for around the door which was just painted 1x4's. Plus, apparently they ran out of the pressboard/fibreboard/drywall-ish kind of stuff and for 6" around the entire doorway, they put acoustic ceiling tiles instead?!? It makes me wonder if the doorway was originally bigger all the way around. I really don't know. At this point, we don't have time to investigate or experiment because we're on a tight deadline.

So, we went and got sheet rock, mud, tools, tape, etc. We'll be putting up filler strips in the areas that apparently it wasn't necessary to have walls behind the paneling. We had to get some solvent specifically to remove the adhesive from the 2 slanty walls from the carpeting that was up there. Plus we have to patch 8,748,237,408,423,497 dings and holes in the walls and actually put up corner beading which was apparently also optional when whomever it was redid this room. It's going to be fun since Mike's never done this before and it's been years since I have. Let's put it this way, there was no such thing as self-adhesive seam tape when I was doing it last. I'm really looking forward to using that stuff. Plus, I made sure to pick up some seriously large trowels so that we don't have to do much sanding on the final coat.

Mike did get all the boxes of books out of the room on Friday and they are all in the living room right now along with the futon, all the rest of the stuff we had down here and the drywall. We no longer have a living room. That's ok, because we no longer have a hallway upstairs either because of the armoire, shop vac, ladder, heater and couch parts up there. Good thing we only need to cut strips off the drywall and bring it up there instead of whole sheets. It's difficult enough getting stuff up these damn narrow twisty stairs let alone the obstacle course of stuff.

We (meaning me) were apparently gluttons for punishment yesterday because we decided that the flower bed next to the driveway completely sucked and we hated all the plants in there except for the one calla lily. So everything had to go. I spent the rest of the daylight hours digging everything out of there including this massive ugly bush that didn't want to leave the ground, a holly bush that stabbed the crap out of me as I was digging it out, a smelly tree that stank like poo and about 20 gajillion square feet of live and dead ivy. Today, I'm going to get the rest of the mulch out of there, even it all out and hit it with a garden weasel thingy to aerate it. Plus I also de-weeded the other 2 plant beds this woman had out there. I'm going to get rid of the farking dandelions in this yard one bucket at a time. The anal retentive in me is delighted. Almost our entire 70 gallon yard trash can is full of nothing but dandelions and I haven't even hit the worst places in the yard yet. Ugh. Also because of all of this digging and such, it looks like we're going to need to do another bonfire next weekend because we now have this huge pile of stuff.

All this week though it's going to be working on that room each night until we have it all sanded and ready to prime. Katie has no idea what color she wants the room so we don't know if we need to use tinted primer or not. One thing we will be able to get done is caulking and painting the floor so it's ready for carpet or whatever she wants in there. Even once she gets here, it's not going to be fully ready because of all the painting and carpeting and molding that will need to be done.

Oh and to add insult to injury, while we were working outside, the little black kitty Ash decided the curtain on the center window in the living room bump out would look much better on the floor...rod, hangers and all. Yes, I know it's him, he's the only one with claws. Little asshat.
Well, I was looking forward to losing weight this summer, this is definitely a good start.

So, as I mentioned before, we have the guys coming in to work on the yard. They started today and have gotten tons done. They filled in the one path that was low with the gravel from the one we got rid of. They moved the gravel from 2 other paths into the driveway to meet up with the large pile of grave. They got rid of the cinderblocks and stacked them for us to use later. They started to grade off that section of the driveway as well. It looks like they should have it done tomorrow with how fast they work. This means that we'll be able to plant grass or clover seed this weekend.

We'll probably be getting a dumpster very soon so that we can rip down the paneling in the kids rooms and get drywall up instead so they have fun comfy rooms instead of 1970's dreary den.

The pond still isn't dry because the weather hasn't been cooperating. I know it will over the summer then it'll get all filled in. If you couldn't tell by this, yes, the damn frogs are still here. Grrrrrrr!

New video camera coming in the next couple days!

It's really not normal for people around here (us included) to mow their lawns on a Friday night but considering it's been almost 3 weeks since we've been able to mow because it was either too cold or raining or stopped raining but the grass was soaked, and it's supposed to rain tomorrow again, we've got to do it now. The grass is about a foot high right now. I went around and did a metric ton of weed wacking and Mike is mowing the lawn as we speak along with a ton of other people in the neighborhood. It's like a symphony of lawn mowers. The grass is so high that the mower keeps sounding like it's going to die any second because it keeps getting clogged up. It looks like this time we'll actually have to rake up all the grass....ugh.

Perhaps if we get dryness here and there, we can move some gravel tomorrow, but I'm not counting on it. I also found out that the guys who are going to move/take all the gravel are not going to be able to grade out the side yard because they are doing it all by hand!!! So, they get rid of the gravel in the driveway that's sitting there and grade out the one small part by the driveway and get to keep the gravel. Basically they are going to trade 15 hours of work for the gravel so if they don't use it all on the driveway, we'll have time to have them help with other things around the house scott free!

Oh and I'm hoping to have better videos in the future because I got a nice bonus at work from all the extra I've been doing that should be in my next check so that's going to go to 3 things: A utilikilt for Mike, 4 tickets to Body Worlds and a video camera. So, more and better vids to come soon!

So, we have this pond thing in the yard that we drained out last year because it was basically a sludge-fest. We didn't disassemble it though, that just wasn't really a priority considering we'd be left with a big freaking hole in the ground until we got in some fill. Well, it gathered leaves of course and a nice sized puddle of sludgy water over the rainy season because the rubber lining was still there. Still, no big deal...until they moved in. Yes...we have frogs. "So what?!", you say. "What's a few measly little frogs?" I tell you what's a few little frogs! They do nothing but scream at each other ALL NIGHT LONG! Jesus Christ! They are so loud I hate even sitting out on the deck which is something we couldn't wait for the weather to change so we could.

Tonight, we evicted them. I cute the rubber lining all around the top of the pond (there are too many cemented in rocks to remove them and pull out the lining right now) and Mike yanked it out to the trash pile. However, underneath was the softest wettest mud you've ever seen with, of course, a huge puddle. Ugh. It's not supposed to rain for the next 3-4 days so I'm hoping it dries out some because right now it's just a big hole of gross.

I also discovered tonight that with the little weed hog thingy, I can talk on the phone with my son and de-weed the entire side yard at the same time. Tomorrow, we're going to start moving some of the gravel to the front path because it's definitely very low compared to the sidewalk. I'm hoping that if we do a little every day that it's nice, we'll get the yard prepped and happy in no time. Plus, if reapportion all the gravel that we need, when we have the guy come in to grade, he'll do it for trade in the rest of the gravel. Awesome!

Soreness. This is a way of life during the spring and the summer for us now. I accept it, I don't regret being it, but right now, I just want my mommy dammit!

*whine*owwie*sniffle*whine*

I got another good head start today while Mike was still sleeping with the laundry. Then after I woke him, I went to start back on the yard again. I can honestly say this is the most dramatic difference I've seen since we've started on this place last year.

I got the path in the front of the house re-routed so it goes around the house and makes sense. I got rid of all the large rocks that not only defined the path, but also made an island in the middle of the front yard. I moved around a lot of gravel, raked up all of the remaining leaves in the front yard and had a lot of fun with the weeder thingy that we got getting rid of all the dandelions in the island.

I can see how it's going to look once we get grass in there and I'll be pleased. We found another rose plant growing in the front and it looks like it's a creeper so Mike put up some trellising while I ripped out everything around it. I forgot to mention that Mike threw down a ton of clover seed yesterday to start filling in all the muddy spots we have throughout the yard. We're going to get grass seed for the front however, not clover. We didn't get a chance to mow because it started raining and cut the day short, but I can definitely say it was productive.


The dogs are laying next to us on the couch completely conked out. They play 4 times as hard when we are out there, not to mention Bacchus is obsessed with any tool that we hold that you move along the ground, such as a hoe or a rake, and was going batshit crazy while I was using the hoe to move the gravel. Granted, it cracked us both up so I had Mike run in and get the video camera, I'll post it probably tomorrow for everyone's amusement.

Finally, a list of current things that hurt...my left middle finger, all of my nail beds, my left leg (why not both I have no idea), my lower back and my stomach. I think from all the kvetching, it's safe to say that Mike hurts "everywhere" and leave it at that.

Yeah, I know, it's not technically summer yet but my muscles think it is. You see, today is the one day a year that they do the "we'll pick up any trash except for tires" day. So, we took the day off yesterday and decided to start some work outside.

In no specific order, here's what we accomplished: