Someone should really start this business...

Tonight, I'm at home alone while Craig is at the Twins game with his judge and a few other guys. Sounds like they've got good seats close behind the plate. Twins tickets from work would be great, but all I'm hoping for right now is that the fan pumping cold air into my office would shut down. I should not be shivering in an angora sweater on a bright sunny April day.

I finally ate The Salmon that Would Not Go Away for dinner tonight. I had planned to make Lemon-Soy Grilled Salmon last Saturday. So I bought a big salmon plank and cut it into filets and froze them. Then on Saturday I thawed out four and started to marinate them. Then I decided I wanted pizza instead. So I froze them again in the marinade. Today I thawed them out again. I came very close to not eating them again, but decided that another freezing cycle would be one too many. It may have been one too many as it is. So if I'm violently ill tomorrow, you'll know why.

I made one of my rare ventures into the land of sewing this weekend and overhauled some plain tab top curtains from Target into cafe curtains for the kitchen. After pondering some patterns at the fabric store for a while, I decided that I'd be much better off altering something that someone else put together for me. I bought one valance and one package of "tier" curtains. I cut the valance in half - each half covers one of the windows in the kitchen. Each "tier" curtain got cut in half and hemmed to make the bottom curtains that can be drawn back if I want to open the window. I also shortened the tabs so that they didn't overwhelm everything.

Here's the finished product:



And here's the assembly. (I even look kind of surprised that I'm sewing in the picture.) With all the stuff spread out, I can only imagine what a disaster it would have been if I had been cutting out fabric as well.



My sewing machine used to belong to my Grandma Black - it's a Singer Slant-O-Matic Special, model year 1958. The instruction booklet has beautiful drawings of wasp-waisted women in heels with manicured nails exclaiming over their sewing machines. It does what I need it to, though.



We also added picture ledges that hold old family wedding photos to the living room. You can also see a bit of one of the red pillows I added to the couch. I contemplated sewing those, too, but the trajectory was the same - I thought about it, then just got them from Target. The women in the sewing machine manual disapprove, I'm sure.





We also received our television armoire. I'm kind of perturbed that I had to take vacation time to sit and wait at home for this to be delivered. Someone should really start a business that contracts with furniture stores to deliver big items after normal business hours. So if you know anything about shipping logistics, there's an idea for you. I'm very happy to have this, though. It allows me to shut the doors on the tv, dvd player, and all that other electronic stuff while I pretend that I'm not just going to open them back up again to watch American Idol later tonight.



The opening does dwarf our television set. It's probably a conspiracy between the television manufacturers and entertainment center manufacturers to make everyone feel inadequate until they have a large television that fits in perfectly. But I'll remain strong - 19 inches is quite adequate for watching American Idol. In fact, it may be a little too much.



I also bought a curtain to cover our coat closet area. It's dark red corduroy and reminds me of a red curtain in a high school theater. There will be drama when you put your coat away!



I also did some shopping to get towels that matched the bathroom. I went to Linens 'N Things and bought a washcloth in every color of green that looked like it might possibly match. I took them home and looked at them with the paint, picked out one, and returned the rest to the store. The cashier was absolutely thrilled, I can assure you. I ended up with fluffy white "spa" bath towels and hand towels in a mossy green color. I am just crazy enough to try white bath towels - no more. I also got a couple of white enamel/chrome accessories that look nice with everything else.







And, yay! I figured out how to resize my photos on photobucket. No laughing, please. That is all.

A Public Service Announcement...

It's been an interesting week for us. Craig discovered the hard way that he is allergic to sulfa drugs. He'd been on some sort of sulfa-based antibiotic for a sinus infection, then came down with a raging fever that wouldn't go away and a allergic rash on his back. Sigh. At least we know now what it is.

I have re-learned a valuable lesson - it is best not to think of your alarm clock as a friendly suggestion. When it goes off, you really should get up.

End of public service announcement....

April 3-4: Yard Work

We've had a week of nice temperatures, so we decided to start our yard work in earnest this weekend. We raked the yard to get thatched dead grass out of the way, trimmed back bushes, swapped the storm windows for the screens, washed windows, and laid down grass seed. And Craig discovered and moved a (very) dead squirrel that had been covered under a snowbank all winter. That all is enough for one weekend, even on a small lot.

I've heard it before, but I truly understand now how every project for a new homeowner necessitates a trip to Home Depot (and a call to your parents to find out just what the heck you're supposed to be looking for in a hose). The Home Depot list for this weekend (from two separate trips):

• two rakes


• shovel


• hedge trimmers


• garden gloves


• grill ignitor


• grill cleaner


• 75' garden hose


• hose sprayer attachment


• big watering can


• spading fork


• 2 small bags "sun and shade" grass seed


• 1 small bag "shady" grass seed


• 1 large bag lawn fertilizer


• handheld spreader for fertilizer and grass seed

Craig used the spading fork to loosen the dirt in a big bare patch in the front yard before spreading grass seed and fertilizer. He is also modeling the hose and sprayer as he wets it down.



I cut back the bushes by the carport. I didn't take anything out, just trimmed everything back to a more manageable size. They appear to be some sort of berry bush - there were dried berries at the top of the stalks. The big pile of brush is just sitting there until I figure out St. Paul's procedures for getting rid of yard waste.



I washed the windows and put the screens up. The screens were surpisingly easy to put up - they have two hooks at the top and one at the bottom that are hooked shut from the inside. We can hear the birds much better without the storm windows on.



Perhaps most importantly, Craig put our big grill back together with a new burner and ignitor. We really enjoyed having burgers on Saturday night. The first grilled meal of the spring tastes soooo good.

Living Room

As you can see here, we found the living room painted a brownish color, which didn't do a whole lot for us. The walls are now "Honeysuckle," a nice light yellow-gold color. We're waiting on delivery of an oak armoire to hold our tv and stereo. I'll like being able to shut the doors on all the electronics. That will go in the same corner that the tv is in now.



We're taking it slowly as we put things on the wall, since we don't want to be stuck with something we regret later. So far, we've got the mirror and this wrought iron decoration up.





On the north wall (opposite the wall with the single window), we're indulging ourselves with huge bookcases that hold our books, knicknacks, and CD's (in the black cases with temporary Post-It labels). I ordered these online from the Home Decorator's Collection, and was reasonably pleased. Assembling them almost put us in marriage counseling, but they look very nice against the wall. The lights on top add a lot at night. Sooner or later I'll get the rest of the stuff off the tops.



The top of the bookcases seemed like a logical place to display our fencing sabres. And if we get really mad, we can drop everything and duel.



I found these pillows at Home Goods. They're nice and silky, and have sage-y stripes and little red accents that didn't come through in the picture. I'm planning on making some bigger red or burgandy pillows to go with them.



Here's a close-up of our Persian rug, which was a wedding gift from Richard and Judy Black.



The entryway has a nice shape to it, and the front door is really beautiful, and will be moreso after I clean it up a little more. I'm planning on putting up some sort of curtain - probably red or burgandy - to hide the coats.

Master Bedroom

I'm really at a loss about what to do to this room to make it look any nicer. I feel like all the furniture is pushed to the far end of the room, but haven't figured out a way to arrange it in a good way. I thought I liked the wall color when we were looking at the house, but once we moved our things in, it revealed its true nature - olive-y. It's quite dark. This is probably the next room to be painted, but it may take us a while to get there as we recover from painting the living room.

Kitchen

The kitchen is much, much bigger than what's been in any of our apartments. It's bright and sunny, which is also much different than any of our apartments. We have room for a little table:



The back door opens right into the kitchen, and leads to the basement stairs.



The appraiser identified these cabinets as pine, and I am in no position to argue. Eventually I might like to refinish/stain them, so they're not quite so brassy. That's eventually. More in the short term, I'm planning on adding cafe curtains with a valance to this window and the one over the table.



Here's our itty-bitty portable dishwasher. At 18 inches, it fits perfectly in this space. We roll it out to hook it up to the sink or access the cabinets to the left.



One of my favorite things about this kitchen is this built-in cabinet. It holds one layer of cans or bottles or spices, so I can see exactly what I have. Since I've been known to find four-year-old cans of artichoke hearts in my cabinets, seeing what I have is a definite plus.



Here's what they look like closed:



We're generally fairly clean, but Haley apparently found something good under the stove.

Dining Room / Bedroom

We're using the second bedroom on the main floor as a dining room. In the rare occasion that more people than just us are eating a sit-down dinner, we can gather in here. Since that hasn't happened yet, this is a room-in-progress, and has become the repository of Stuff That I Don't Know What To Do With. I'm kind of embarrassed to show it, but here's where I'm starting out.

You can just barely see my "Cafe Terrace At Night" Van Gogh print behind the chair. That will go on the wall you can see.



The "Latte" sign that's sitting in the basket will go on the wall above the shelving units.

Upstairs

Upstairs is our office and a home for all of Craig's baseball cards. It looks like a mess, but it's quite cozy. This could become a bedroom if we ever need more space. We'd probably get rid of the wood paneling if we ever want to do that.

Basement

I'm very happy to have a basement where I can put things that the rest of the house doesn't have space for, but it really isn't very exciting. Ladies and gentlemen, it looks like a basement.

Here are two views of the main semi-finished area, which will probably be a nice family room somewhere down the line. Right now, it's just a place to store stuff.





The other half is your typical basement laundry and utility room, where the furnace and hot water heater are. We did, however, find this old map of Minnesota inside one of the cabinet doors. It is old enough that it doesn't show Craig's hometown suburb of Woodbury. Instead, it shows Oakbury, which we think must be a combination of the current towns of Oakdale and Woodbury.



The other room in the basement is our robin's egg blue 3/4 bath. It's technically 3/4 because it has just a shower, not a tub. In our case, though, it could also be 3/4 because it only has three solid walls. The space where the fourth should be is open to the underside of the basement stairs.

Carport Area

We're lucky to have a two-car garage, plus a carport. There's a little shed on the right hand side of the carport, as shown in this picture.



Between the shed and the alley in the back of the house, there's a garden area with a bunch of bushes. I'm not sure what they are, but they look like some sort of berry bush.



More bushes. I'm not sure what they are, but I think they could probably benefit from some pruning.

House Exterior

Not much has budded or started growing here in Minnesota, so everything on the outside of the house looks.....brown. Repainting the exterior to a more interesting color is in the long-term plans, but I think we'll probably concentrate on doing some landscaping and getting new plants in this summer.

House front - left. The neighbors on this side have several large dogs. The only time we've really seen the people who live there, they were in their backyard practicing using numchucks. (!)



House front - right. There have been very few signs of human life from this side of us - just some lights on at night and occasionally a black dog in the backyard. Oh well....quiet is good.



Entryway. For lack of a better place to relate this, we have met the neighbors across the street. They're a nice couple about our age with a four-month-old daughter. They brought us some good cookies to welcome us to the neighborhood and do not appear to have any hobbies involving deadly weapons.



Planting area on the right side of the house. There are a few shrubs in the upper part of this planter. The MLS listing picture of the house indicates that there were some other plants in the lower part, but I don't know if they were perennials or annuals. That's the window to our bedroom. I took these pictures as we were trading out the storm windows for screens, so the screen is just sitting there.




Planting area on the left side of the house. This is just below the picture window in the living room. There's a solitary shrub and an empty container in the planter.



Side entry. This leads into the kitchen, and is the door we use the most. This is taken from the back of the house.



Another shot of the side entry, from a little further back in the yard.



Here's the rear of the house, air conditioner, screens, ladder, and all. The location of the air conditioner and the electric boxes above it really limits what we can do in terms of planting and landscaping.



We have a small sunny space here where there's a gap in the neighbors' privacy fence. The previous owners had some plastic containers here - I may want to do something more permanent.



The main flower bed in back is up against the garage wall. It's hard to see here, but it's just two railroad ties with some bare earth in between. I have no idea what might be in here.



The previous owners left a strange little garden figure and a plastic sunflower pinwheel. Gives the yard character, right?



Here's the last corner of the yard - not much here but the chain link fence.