May Day! May Day!

PSHT: Captain - we're taking on water!
PSHT: Nothing we can do.
PSHT: What do you mean?! It's just coming out of that stupid dryer vent hose thing?!
PSHT: It's the rain - it's blowing sideways into the thing.
PSHT: But Captain what if we-
PSHT: Nothing we can do... unless we have a cover or something to deflect the rain.
PSHT: That's it, Captain. That's the last straw... I'm calling the coast guard! They'll know what to do...

Alright, so I over dramatized that whole conversation, but you get the idea. So I guess there's nothing we can do about the second leak at the moment. That's more bad news if you're keeping a list.

Luckily the door fix seemed to be working - no huge puddles... just the damp spot from the early morning pre-door-fix leakage. It felt really good to finally have that taken care of. (Cross that one off the bad news list.)

And if you're as sick of bad news as I am, let me giving something delicious to chew on: Mike called the inspector this morning and we are all set to move on to the next step. Next step - filling our holes with concrete! With another busy weekend coming up, I think we're going to start on this tonight.

Maybe if we're lucky time wise, we can even start building this weekend...

Soda Pressing

Today started last night with some bad news. And it got no better when I woke up this morning. The Jeldwen door guy called and was running late. About an hour and 15 minutes late. Great.

It was raining again and sure enough, water was pouring through the french doors. If that wasn't bad enough, it was also dripping from the dryer vent hose and the floor underneath the washer dryer was soaked. Wonderful.


Things improved a bit when the Jeldwen guy arrived just before nine. (As opposed to 9:15 as he predicted.) He was actually able to install the new glass in about 20 minutes too - so I wasn't going to be that late to work after all. One leaky mudroom problem fixed.

As for the vent hose, I just put a bowl under it and left it. Nothing more I could do.


And to think, I was actually exited for this rain to make my grass seed sprout. Now I'm just wondering what's going to start leaking next.

Our 6 Holes

It's official. We've got holes! Six of 'em! It was quite a feat to dig them too. You don't think it's too hard - 6 holes, an auger - no problem, right? But don't forget, they have to be perfectly level, perfectly centered on their measurements, perfectly straight, perfectly lined up with all the rest of the holes.... or else the entire porch will be messed up. And by messed up I mean crooked, off center, off level, off off off.

So Saturday morning's dig session was pretty stressful. First, we spray painted big x's on each marker post so we could see where the heck we were digging and to keep us on center. Then we fired up the auger and dug down as far as we could with it. This wasn't too hard, except when you get the auger all the way down in the hole as far as it goes and you have to then pull it up - then, it's a little tough. Mike, being stronger than me, of course was able to pull up harder and faster - so our holes tended to be off center because of it.

After the auger had done all it could do, Mike and I dug with the post hole digger and shovel.

Here's me, doing some digging on hole #2.

After the hole seemed close to size, we test fit the sonotube, making sure it was level (with a level), on center with the other holes (using a string), and exactly 7.5' away from the last sonotube (using the 'ol tape measure.) If it didn't match up to any of these exacting specifications, we dug more or in another direction.


Four of the holes we dug pretty much no problem. No trees or plants in the way, sandy soil - relatively easy job. But the last two were nearly right on top of where that tree was - you know, the one we took down a couple weeks ago? And Mike knew that we were going to be running into some roots.

So he came up with an ingenious plan, which I knew would either work brilliantly or get us an stoopid award from country fried home videos....

We attached the auger to the forks of the skid steere.

The plan was simple - Mike would run the skid steere and I would run the auger. The forks would help move the auger up and down as I steadied it and we'd chew through the roots without exhausting ourselves or getting off center.

I have to admit, I was damn nervous. But the idea worked perfectly. We dug the first hole fairly quickly and easily and managed to tear through a couple roots. The second hole wasn't as cooperative. We made it pretty far down, but hit a huge root that we just couldn't dig through.

We took the auger off of the forks and then used the machine's forks to stab and pull at the root until it gave way.

After he had done all he could with the machine, Mike used the sawzall to break through more of the roots and then we just kept digging. Finally we were able to get in that last sonotube and fill in everything.
Despite the hard work, we really made good time. We were pretty much done by 2, after getting a late start around 10:30am. After that we took a lunch break then cleaned up the excess dirt and put down some grass seed.

And that was it for the day. The footings need to be inspected before we can do anything else. I left a message for the inspector later that afternoon. Hopefully they'll be able to come out in the next few days. Then we'll fill these tubes with concrete and begin construction.

Plus, with rain predicted all this week - it was a great time to overseed the lawn!

Putting Your Footing in Your Mouth

That would be a task actually. You try fitting a 10" by 4' sonotube fulla concrete into your mouth. Ha ha. I'm feeling silly cause it's FRIDAY peepholes! I'm so excited. Can't you tell?

Last night was highly productive. TJ came over and the boys marked the footing holes. Mike and I will dig them probably tomorrow, since we have a bday party to attend tonight. And then what? Well, then we have to wait until the building inspector can do his thang and approve them, so I'm not sure what else is going to get done this weekend.

Mike assures me that there's other stuff we can do - like start re-siding the front of the house. That's going to involve taking down the old and gross siding and the old and gross shingles underneath the old and gross siding and putting up plywood. Joy.

Not that it doesn't need to get done, I just really want to start on the actual porch. I can't help it! It's beautiful out and I'm dying to stand/sit/lay on the porch.

We can't work any more on the mudroom, because I have no money for it right now. All available funds to porch! I realize that all I need to buy for the mudroom is a little bit of tile, since we already have the hardwood, but I'm putting my foot down. No spending!

See how gross the old siding is? And how stupid is that thing over the door?!

Here you can see the clearly marked footings - accurate at last.

And here's the side with the door. From this pic you can tell just how big the porch will be outside those mudroom french doors. We could never have a deck on back - so this will be absolutely awesome k possum.

Sunny And Bummed

It's been a tough few days after a long holiday weekend. With this beautiful weather, I can't understand why everything around the office has just gone absolutely haywire. Spring fever, perhaps? Who knows. But after just two days of it, I'm about ready to take an ice pick to the head.

Last night was really frustrating. I was really excited to get home and get to work. I planned to do my sponging and Mike and a friend of his were going to dig the porch footings with a borrowed auger.

At first the sponging went really well. It looked good! But part way thru the second wall, a mysterious dark spot appeared and I couldn't fix it. It was frustrating, but I left it to dry and continued on. The rest of the room came out pretty good - at least until it came time to cut in. And damned if I could not remember how we did it last time to save the life of me!

I tried at first cutting a kitchen sponge and tried sponging with it near the ceiling and in the corners. It just wasn't doing it. I then tried that in combination with a moist kitchen sponge - you know, to kind of sponge on with the first sponge and blend with the second. That was working... but not very well. It was very time consuming too. Mike tried his hand at it and could do no better. I was getting super frustrated at this point, and I was out of Coronas. Not a good combo, people.

Then, I tried the first sponge with a moist paper towel - but had similarly "eh" results. Then I grabbed a brush and just started pouncing with it along the ceiling and corners. Though this wasn't matching up exactly with the sponging, it was a hell of a lot better than all the other options I had tried, so I continued with it throughout the room. It made a mess on the ceiling everywhere because I really tried to pounce with it. (By pouncing I mean just hitting the wall with the brush, straight on.) But all that will be covered with moulding - or, as a last result, I could always repaint those portions of the ceiling.

By the time I was done, that other dark spot had dried and I was able to sponge over to hide it. Phew! I think overall, it came out really well, although not as good as the first time.

Here's the main wall of it. The pattern is so subtle, you can't really tell from this pic. But in the room there's just a hint of a texture - which I really love.

(*Also, Mike bent and installed the track light for me. (This was a bday gift from my friend Becci and I just love it!) Only one problem - it didn't switch on with the other lights. So we're going to have to get back up in the crawl space and see where the wires go. That was another frustrating aspect of last night!)

Here's the side by the windows - which, by the way, I opened for the first time this morning. Exciting huh?

Here's the side by the washer drier. You can catch a little hint of a pattern in this one. Tonight I get the pleasure of putting all the switch plates back on - plus re-hanging my pictures on the wall 'n stuff.

At this point you may be asking, "Didn't you say something about an auger for the porch footings?"

Well yes I did. Another frustrating aspect. Mike's friend did get the auger. But the two of them had to rescue another friend of ours who blew his transmission near to our house. By the time they got back, they really just wanted to relax for a few. Mike told me that he and I could run the auger... now, me being Ms Tiny Arms, I wasn't too sure about that.

So we went out and dug a test hole near the mudroom door, which the porch will later cover. And I have to admit, it wasn't that hard. The auger looks big and scary, but it's really not too difficult to operate. The trick is just to pull up every 6" or so to clear the dirt out of the hole. Pretty cool how it works actually.

That's not the frustrating part.

Mike was trying to measure where exactly the holes were supposed to go. And he was getting mad confused because our house is not square and he didn't know exactly where to measure from! We both knew that this first step is soooo crucial. So we stopped everything we were doing and just decided to call The Man - TJ.

(If you're new to this blog - he's our good friend and even better carpenter.)

Mike asked him if he could come over tonight for them to measure and mark the footing locations together, and he agreed. Then, Mike and I can dig the holes ourselves.

Speaking of which, I've got to get my butt home!

I Got Pics!

I've got a long battery charger story, but I'll save it for another time. I don't think I'm quite ready to re-live the whole stoopid experience again anyways.

Anyway, due to circumstances related to Wednesday's long battery charger story and Thursday's all day shoot/dinner out - nothing has been done around the house since my last post.

But at least I can offer pics as a cop-out.

Blue Base Coat

Opp Angle

Coupfusion

We received in the mail on Monday a Home Depot coupon. 10% off when you put something on your Home Depot card. Yay - since we're always needing stuff - it's great to be able to save something, ya know?

So last night - due to my exhaustion from a long walk with my mummy bread and the fact that our neighbor Rich was over doing drywall with Mike - I just could not bring myself to sponge. But we had the coupon.... and Mike really wanted to get the sonotubes and concrete for our porch footings. Great! Perfect timing.

Before heading out we called our carpenter, who knew how many 80lb bags of concrete were needed to fill at 4' by 10" sonotube - turns out it's 3-4 bags, times the 6 sonotubes we need - equals 18-24 bags. We decided to get 20 bags.

With this info in hand, we grab the coupon and jet over to the DeepHo. As we're pulling into a parking space, I get a weird feeling, and pull out the coupon.

"Coupon good 4/17/08-4/20/08"

It's the 15th. THE 15th.

I nearly died as I read the dates to Mike. He just gave me that look of "Why didn't you look at that before we left the house." and "I don't care what that coupon says, we're getting this stuff NOW."

The real kicker is that we have plans from Thursday - Monday and there's no time between the 17th and the 20th to hit the DeepHo.

We went back and forth for a couple minutes on what to do - and finally decided to purchase just the sonotubes today and Mike would go on Friday right after work and use the coupon to get all the concrete.

What a pain! Coupfusion to the n'th degree. But I hate not using a coupon because we need to buy stuff anyway!!!

It's Blue Da boo dee dah boo dah....

A new world... er... house record has been set! Last night I painted an entire room with 1/4 of a gallon of paint! Well, maybe it was closer to 1/3 - but it was definitely less than 1/2!

When I started painting, I had this feeling deep in my gut that I was probably going to run out of paint on the last wall. So I really tried to stretch what I had right from the start by just applying an ungodly amount of pressure to the roller. I cut-in using the gunky paint at the very bottom of the can and whatever I could scrape off the sides.

But despite my best efforts, on the 3rd wall, I really started getting low. At this point Mike got home and said, "I wish I had known! I would have told you to thin out the paint with a little water from the start!"

Now he tells me. So Mike took the littlest bit of paint I had left and added some water. I was amazed at how it brought it right back to life! And the coverage was nearly identical! Of course, even then, we ran out at the very last part of the very last wall. So Mike added more water. This second addition of water I would not recommend unless you're in a similarly desperate situation. Though it worked and we managed to cover the last part of the last wall - the paint was drippy and hard to handle.

But any mistakes made in this first base coat will be covered by my second sponged-on coat - so I wasn't really concerned with drip marks or other imperfections.

*IMPORTANT: If you're going to try this at home, make sure you have water based paint. You cannot add water to oil based paint... you know, that whole oil and water not mixing thing? If you have oil based paint, use mineral spirits.

By 9pm the room was blue!! And let me tell you (because I can't take pics cause I haven't found my camera battery charger yet) it looks awesome against the white door and window frames. I could not be happier.

Tonight's challenge is sponge paint! The trick to sponge painting... or so I would imagine because it worked so well the first time... is the paint to glaze ratio. Adding glaze to the paint adds to the time you have before the paint dries, so you can work with it for longer. Plus it thins the paint and helps blend it against the base coat.

The last time I sponged this room my friend Kie was with me and we got the mix dead on! Within just a few minutes, we became sponge pro's and the room came out... well, as good as wallpaper apparently.

I've got a lot to live up to this time around!

Here's a pic of how the room looked back on Sept 20th, 2005.

Goodbye to Yet Another Eyesore

As promised, Mike and our neighbor Dana finished the drywall on Saturday and got it all primed.
Of course I was supposed to paint on Sunday... but unfortunately there were a couple cracks that Mike had filled in on Saturday that weren't completely cured yet. I am, however, planning on painting tonight - no ifs ands or butts. I'm hoping I have enough of the base blue leftover from the last time I painted this room to cover it. I really should just go down and get another gallon - but I honestly don't feel like spending the cash, so I'm going to try and stretch what I've got. At least I have plenty of glaze and light blue for the sponging.

If you look in the above pic out the french doors, you'll see a locust tree - I think that's what it is. Half of it is already down in this pic. Anyway - the tree is basically located on where the edge of the porch will be... so it had to come down.

I spent most of the day carrying logs back to the woodpile... in between the rain showers that is. Mike, after finishing the drywall, came out to take down the second tree.

So he tied one end of the rope to the tree and another to a telephone pole on the other side of the yard.

What you can't see in this pic is the electrical wires just over Mike's head. But he was confident that the tree wasn't tall enough to hit the wires. Me? I'm never entirely confident about these things - being a bad judge of distance and all. So Mike cut into the tree while I pulled on the rope. And sure enough, it just barely missed the wires.

I thought it was wicked close but Mike just replied, "It's only close if the wires are swinging." Oh my god.

So here's a cool pic of the tree down. Mike cut up the whole thing while I continued to bring logs to the wood pile. At the end of the day we loaded all the brush into his truck for a Sunday dump run and raked the yard. (Cause I had when you take a tree down and then there's stupid sticks all over the place.... Stupid Sticks - great band name. First album: "All Over the Place")

Good Snews and Bad Snews

The good snews is - THE PERMIT IS IN!

wait for it

wait for it

NOW:

"Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee"

I just had a feeling when I got home on Friday that it would be in the mailbox. Especially when Mike said he hadn't checked the mail. And when I looked in there and saw my self addressed envelope - I was just psyched. What a great start to the weekend!

So I guess in fact this project is small enough to slip under the conservation radar. Phew! I take back 90% of the smut I wrote about them. The town hath been redeemed. Behind the permit was a document from the Historical people that stated "Yes, a meeting was held." and "The addition of the porch will not be detrimental to the historic preservation of Bourne."

Yay!

What's the bad snews? I can't find my camera battery charger - hens no new pics until I find it or buy a new one. Lucky for all you guys I did manage to take some pics on Saturday and uploaded them using my printer. See next post!!

Get Ready for Rain

Every time I have a major list of places to go, people to see, things to do - it rains. And this weekend looks as though it will be no different.

I'm trying to relax right now - because for at least the next 48hrs, as you all know, I'm going to be on the move. But by end of Sunday the mudroom will be painted - hell or high water. (A little rain joke there people.)

Speaking of rain - did I ever fill you in on the french doors? Pft, I can't even remember - there's been too much going on lately, I'm having trouble keeping up with myself. Anyway, our new french doors leak water through the trim every time it rains in the right direction.

They have a warranty, so I contacted Jeldwen through the Lowe's that I bought the doors from - and I have to say, I was quite pleased with the ease and speed of the whole process. All I had to do was answer a few simple questions for my Lowe's door representative and he filled out the form and sent it in for me.

Just a few business days later I recieved a call from Jeldwen, who knew exactly what my problem was and told me they'd send the part out and have the installer people contact me.

Just a few business days after that I got a call from the independent installers. They expect the part to be in no later than April 21st and they'll call me when it's in to set up an appointment.

AOK. That's what I say.

So - that was a tangent. Tune in on Monday for paint pics!

The Man Plan

No permit in the mail when I arrived home yesterday. I didn't really expect it. The building inspector isn't going to stuff the envelope himself and rush it over to my house on his way home or anything. If I get it by Friday or Saturday - I'll consider myself very lucky. Not to mention there's the whole conservation thing to be concerned about - but at this point, we're thinking the project may be small enough to slip through without muss or fuss. Cross your fingers.

Meanwhile, our neighbor Dana came by last night and he and Mike worked for a little while on the mudroom drywall. Then they made big plans for Saturday.

So - Dana and Mike will meet in the morning and pea coat and finish up the room. Then, while all that's drying, Mike will help Dana pickup some.... stuff (I forget what stuff - some heavy garden or home stuff) with his truck and bring it back to Dana's house. Once they finish unloading that, they'll come back to the mudroom and prime the drywall and paint the ceiling.

By Sunday - it'll be ready for me to paint! So I'll be getting my butt up early with my blue paint and my lighter blue paint and my glaze and my sponge roller to re-sponge the room.

OH - speaking of which, Dana said to Mike, "I don't know what we're going to do about this wallpaper."

Mike replied, "Wallpaper?! That's paint! Jess sponge painted this room!"

My painting was so good, he thought it was wallpaper! Too cool, huh? Hopefully I'll be able to replicate my results the second time.... the first time around I had my friend and artist, Kie to help me out... This time I'll be all by my lonesome.

If I can finish all my painting on Sunday - you know what that means.

FLOORING!

And maybe if I play my cards right, I can get Mike to help me with it next week. Shhhhh - it's my evil plan! Well, not that evil. He's been more motivated than me lately!

We just have to put down tile at the french door entry area and in the laundry closet, then hardwood over the rest of the room. I'll have to get some tile and rent the hardwood stapler again - but hopefully I'll have the money for it next Tuesday. And if all that goes well, we could be trimming by by the week of the 21st!

Of course the permit will hopefully be definitely in by then. Hopefully Definitely.

FPP Breaking News!

Dateline - Wednesday - Hump Day:

Signed Historical Commission approval in hand, I called the Town to see if I needed to personally bring them this document.

Nope, they said, it had been delivered by the commission this morning and the permit was now on the building inspector's desk.

I think I'm going to risk a preemptive celebratory squeal: "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

Coincidence? More Like Fate

Remember this lovely pic?

As you recall, I found it while scouring the internet one day. This is a house in Bourne, by the library, the photographer told me. And I saved it because it looks just like my house.... or, what my house hopefully will look like.

Well, Mike was due at the Historical Commission this morning... (remember I told you I omit certain details in this blog for personal safety - haha, that was one of them)

Anyway, just for the heck of it, I printed out the pic and gave it with him to take. Low and behold, turns out this very house BELONGS to one of the commission members!! So when they asked about what color we were doing the house and all that, Mike showed them the picture and boy were they happy about that!

Mike was out of there and calling me just 10minutes after 10am, which is when the meeting began. No problems - no Andersons - no big deal. Phew!

So, what next? That's the big question now. Mike said that the commission gave him a signed sheet of paper, but he hasn't looked at it closely yet. He was back on his way to work when I talked to him. I'm wondering if conservation is next... the battle rages on! We shall see what happens.

A Late Start to a Long Day

Saturday - the final frontier.

And Mike and I totally slept in after holding a little going away party for one of our friends on the previous night. We didn't even get moving until around noon, believe it or not. And even then we were still moving around pretty sluggishly.

Nevertheless, it was with a heavy heart that we took the old side door and mudroom windows to the dump... NAH, just kidding. That was awesome. Goodbye seashell door knocker. Goodbye energy deficient windows. Goodbye to that stupid awning thing over the old door. And good riddance to all.

We got home, feeling a little more motivated, and measured and cut the exterior trim for the new windows. Then we gave them a coat of paint.



While waiting for the paint to dry, we quickly installed the doorbell and exterior light that we had moved the wiring for when we moved the door. (Read that sentence at least three times to fully understand.) That didn't take too long, so, while all the electrical tools were handy, we installed a new light in the basement stairway and wired it to the switch.

We had at first wanted the stair light and the basement lights to come on at the same time with the same switchs. But, finding the wiring very very very confusing, (two switches, two sets of lights, two feeds, and a partridge in a pear tree) we just decided to make one switch turn on the stair light and one turn on the rest of the lights. It seemed to make more sense for future anyway. So we did that.


But once the light was on in that basement stairway, it illuminated a big problem. The drywall looked like crap. Having previously been a closet, the now stairway had not received very much care and attention from the drywallers. And now lit up for all the world to see - it was rather pathetic looking.

Plus - remember that big 'ol hole in the hallway where the under-stair closet used to be?
(Here's a pic from last summer - notice, that space under the stairs is still a closet.)

Well - that was now a giant hole, as you can see from this more recent pic.

I pondered a lot of your suggestions while thinking of what to do with such a hole and finally decided to make shelves on the inside - ie, the basement stairs side. Thus providing a secret space for secret nick nacks or tools or whatever. It just made more sense than shelves on the other side, which would be at your feet. That just seemed silly to have to bend down to look at whatever was on them. Plus, we'd have to create a cat door in the same hole so our two cats could get downstairs.

Wow, tangent. Anyhoo - those were the problems at hand. Also, at this point it was late in the day - maybe around 5pm. But nevertheless (can you believed I've used the word 'nevertheless" twice in here? Unbelievable.) NEVERTHELESS (3, had to do it.) Mike wanted to go down to the DeepHo for drywall.

Again, I was not one to stop the motivation train. Plus, I had about $9 on a gift card leftover from a return. So I figured, what the heck. We went down, picked up some stuffx, and started working as soon as we got home. Mike started in on the drywall while I gave those window trim pieces another coat of pain... I mean, paint. Hahaha.



Mike was still working when I finished the painting.

"You know what," he said, "We should really paint that bathroom ceiling."

Hmmm, I thought. He was right. It was brown in spots and disgusting. So I took the exterior paint I had been working with, grabbed a roller, and started painting the bathroom ceiling. But once I had most of the ceiling done, I was frustrated. Now the stark white bathroom walls looked mismatched against the cream colored ceiling. So I took everything out of the bathroom and started painting everything - the walls, the trim, the door - everything that looked dirty or gross or white, I painted.


Then I unscrewed and took down the old metal shower curtain rod that we didn't use. (It was too short for Mike, so we had a spring loaded one up.) And while I was painting the window trim I noticed a piece of tape under the window. Of course I thought, I'm going to take this tape off. Little did I know it was holding a couple of tiles on... which came off with it. I showed Mike and he laughed and came in to the bathroom and ripped off one of the stupid towel bars that I hated.



After that, Mike continued on the drywall - hanging all of the oddly shaped pieces. He also made my shelves and the cat door hole.



By the time we both realized we were hungry, it was around 10:30pm. Luckily, I had some leftovers, which we heated up. After that, the paint in the bathroom was pretty much dry and I was able to put everything back. Mike was done hanging and ready to sand, but didn't want to fire up his loud palm sander at 11:00 at night. So we went to bed.

And that was Saturday.

Frustrations

You know of course that no weekend could be as productive as last weekend.... which has got me wondering, "Why am I so tired right now?"

I vaguely remember waking up from a bad dream last night - and although I can't remember the dream, I have a feeling it may have been Historical Commission related, or at least Historical Commission induced.

All weekend I felt stressed - for no particular reason I could figure out. Just a little of that dreaded free floating anxiety.... And I really believe it's all due to this upcoming meeting.

I'll catch you up if you've fallen behind - a new Demolition/Alteration bylaw requires us to appear before the Historical Commission before we can get our farmer's porch permit approved. That's the short of it. The stress of it is - Andersons. They're our neighbors and they don't like us. And they like to share their dislike of my husband and I (and our house) at public forums. Like this upcoming Historical meeting.

There's this little worried voice in my head that even worries about this blog. I mean, you can pretty much figure out who we are, what our address is, etc etc if you just put a few pieces together. And the pics don't lie either. Those Andersons could be reading this very sentence right now... as unlikely as that is. They're older and don't seem like the tech-savy type. But you never know.

And I realize that's probably silly. What could they say anyway? A farmer's porch is unhistorical? It's ruining the neighborhood? I can't even imagine...

I've got a girl friend (not a girlfriend, mind you) who's already got her farmer's porch half done. Sans permit. I'm so jealous I can't see straight. My carpenter and good friend TJ assures me that we'll get started ASAP once our permit goes through. And why am I in such a hurry - it's not even warm enough to go out and sit on it yet!

This is just all the mental madness I'm going through right now and it's exhausting.

That's why Mike is going to the meeting without me - I get waaay too mental if and when sh*t hits the historical fan.

Walls, Windows, Trees, and Motivation

The madness continues on!

I've barely had time to breath this week - and let me tell you, it feels good.

Lets rewind the this week's tape back to last saturday morning...

8:30am - We're up and at 'em and out of the house, headed on cape.
9:30am - We arrive at Mike's parent's house, and the guys start taking down trees. I head over to the vet's to drop off cat poo.
11:30am - Five trees are down and cut. Poo is off to the lab. The truck is loaded up with logs. And we're out again, this time to mike's friend's house.
12:30pm - Another tree is down in Yarmouth and we're on our way to Hyannis.
1:30pm - We've filled the gas tank and our bellies and are now on our way to the dump.
2:15pm - Dump is done and we're home and start ripping down the old side door.
4:30pm - Side door is out and the new window is in! We take a break for a light snack.
6:00pm - We randomly decide to get drywall. So, off to the DeepHo we go, and purchase drywall, screws, and some other supplies.
10:00pm - Most of the drywall is hung. We finally eat dinner and go to bed.

Here are some pics from Sunday morning:


Now for Sunday.

9:00am - Once again were up and out of the house, this time with an old dresser loaded in the truck.
9:30am - We arrive at my friend Amanda's place and give her the dresser.
10:00am - We arrive at Mike's parent's house to help them move their new 700lb gun safe into the house.
11:30am - We're back on the road, this time to try and figure out bike week accommodations at our friends' house.
1:30pm - No luck on the accommodations, so we leave for home. Upon arriving home, we start again on the mudroom. First drilling holes for the new exterior light location and doorbell. Then, back to drywall.
5:30pm - All the drywall is hung and we're ready for mud when our drywaller neighbor comes down and chews us out for doing drywall without him. He tells us not to do anymore and offers to come on Monday to do the first mud coat. We grudgingly agree and clean up our tools.
6:00pm - We're headed up the hill to the same neighbor's house for some stuffers and clams casino with drinks.
8:30pm - At home at last, we chill out for about an hour or so and then hit the hay.

So how do you like that for motivation, eh?