This Old Farmhouse Salt Lake City, UT

Spring Fever...Bathroom Fever...

2012-02-14T13:21:00.000-08:00

Well, it is another beautiful spring day in February and I am really liking this early spring business and so are the pets. Muddy paws is back in full force and he is taking advantage of every missing pot in the backyard to dig a hole.

I have given up on cleaning our floors.

Scooter's favorite digging spot #1.

Scooter teaching Sadie the ropes on how to dig in his favorite spot.

The plants are making an early appearance this year - especially The Star of David! I hope everything doesn't die in a harsh spring frost because the cats will miss out on their first spring!

Brendon and I both have spring fever and so do the pets. I am pretty sure we all have bathroom fever as well... Fox won't stop getting in the bathroom garbage every chance he gets to dig out Qtips! I think Scooter must also be responsible for this new behavior because Scooter loves the garbage more than anything in world. Fox carries the Qtips around the house growling at anyone who comes near him. I am trying to think of a design that allows for a garbage can where the pets can't reach it. Most of my bathroom fever is coming from seeing the awesome bathroom furniture my friend Teja just picked up. She found a beautiful teal hutch on KSL for her bathroom and an amazing pedestal sink to go with it that looks like a work of art! If I put a hutch in my bathroom I wouldn't even have enough room to lift up the toilet seat so I have to come up with other creative options. My dad says our bathroom is "special" meaning there is just enough room for to sit on the pot and puke in the sink all at the same time! So I have been searching online for small bathroom remodel ideas. Here are few fun options I have found.

Our tub drain is about an inch from the actual tub surface.. fix#1

This is not an optical illusion. Our tiles were not cut to fit the tub but slanted...fix #2

Woah!! Likes - high up bathroom shelves.

Likes - A heater right by the tub so your back doesn't freeze to the tub while taking bath. A mirror above the tub makes the illusion that the bathroom is actually bigger.

Likes - creative use of storage.

Likes - Eco Friendly. Maybe I could build a trashcan to hug the toilet like this!

So these are all that have stood out to me thus far and I hope to continue coming up with some ideas for our little bathroom. Until then I will keep finding Qtips all over the house, hoping for a new tub, and installing art in the kitchen! Thank you Fewkes for the new print! We love it!

Until next time! Happy Valentine's Day From the lovebirds - Fox and Scooter.

Goodbye old friend - Hello new friend

2012-01-05T21:46:00.000-08:00

The lack of blogging began in November when my car was broken into and my computer was stolen. I haven't really been motivated to begin blogging again due to #1. No Computer, #2. No Computer and finishing final research papers in graduate school, and #3. Trying to figure out how to use my new computer. So here I am trying to catch up and maybe sum up the top 20 best of the year 2011.

#1. Fox Mulder - in the cat form.
#2. Chinese bikes that you think will rattle apart at any second - we actually got to use them this year and our butts will never be the same again.
#3. Brendon's new job.
#4. Jordan River Parkway bike rides with the sunrise and with cousin Laurie.
#5. Tagen's art studio completed!!!
#6. Canning apples with the Wheatley family
#7. Making the trip to Mona to see the beautiful lavender fields.
#8. Taking African friends to Mackay, ID.
#9. New friends and new family members.
#10. Chocolate chip cookies from Paradise Bakery.
#11. Canning our first tomato sauce from our garden.
#12. Rocky Mountain National Park with the Pulsiphers.
#13. Tennis, tennis, tennis.
#14. Insulation in the attic!!!
#15. Watching Thor in Mexico and drinking mexican cokes with the Huish Family.
#16. Blue Star Taqueria with the Cross Family (glad they introduced us)
#18. The swimming pool near Hooper, Colorado.
#19. Sand Dunes National Park
#20. Good food and a few good movies - The Help and Warrior we both liked!
oh - and one more... Brendon's basketball team broke their 5 year losing streak and finally won a game!!

As we said goodbye to 2011 and also to my old piano "the beast". My grandma gave me her spinet and my old upright grande was given to my cousin Laurie. The beast was found first by my friend Ryan Weston and then bought by me because he couldn't find a way to get it into his apartment. It only took 7 guys to move it into my first house and I enjoyed many fine evenings with friends playing that piano in the Bonneville house. Farewell beast!

The beast in natural dark color.

In the Bonneville house with my friend Ben Leger.

New and improved beast in white!

And now for the new piano. I haven't had a chance to play it much yet but I plan on playing it for the rest of my life so I think I have some time. Thank you Grandma Lubeck. I have wonderful memories of Grandpa Lubeck playing the "Elephant Song" on this piano when I was little.

And finally...with a new year comes a new kitchen! I no longer hate our green barfy looking countertops due to our new paint color and also the metal panels. I think it looks great and even though we aren't quite done yet I will show a few photos of the progress.

Painting the ceiling! What a pain!

Old colors.

New colors!

Brendon installing the sheeting.

I was going to paint it white but now I like the silver.

Next on the list? Curtains, finishing the panelling, and who knows what else! Happy New year from the cats who love to get in the way of every home improvement project possible - Fox Mulder and Saddie.

Batman!!

2011-11-06T19:46:00.000-08:00

Sometimes the thrift store gods are good to us.. sometimes not. I have been a little disappointed lately while going to thrift stores and finding everything is so expensive. When did this happen? I can buy a new item for as much as things are going for at the thrift stores these days. However, this week the thrift store gods showered many fantastic finds! Just in time for Halloween might I add. So here are a few of the items that made my week.

My lighting set finally came!!! The bulbs are huge! Not from the thrift store :)

First photography client. Alfred aka. Scooter. He managed to knock down my entire backdrop with one swoop of the paw. Note to self while taking pet portraits. Tie and coat - old lady thrift store, Pocatello, $3.00

What a handsome fellow!

Take 2 - The joker getting ready for photo shoot aka. Sadie. Stripped shirt baby onesie from the DI in Pocatello, $1.00.

See ya suckers! The joker managed to get loose and look even crazier than anticipated.

Time to can apples.

Yummers!

Found this orange rug at Salvation army for $20. The pets love this new addition to the home and so do I!

Surprise from Brendon....

Tin backsplash for kitchen for free!!! I think we have enough we might actually do part of the walls with it. Love it!

EQ3 chair.

And finally. This EQ3 danish modern chair I found for my mom. These chairs go for around $ 200- 300. This one was $10 at the D.I. Leather, comfy, kind of stinks but my mom can take care of that. Hope you all have a wonderful week!! Until next time! Goodbye from Batman, Alfred, and the Joker!!

UEA - part two

2011-10-24T19:18:00.000-07:00

So last year for UEA I was painting the garage. What was I doing this year for UEA?? Painting the garage! We have been very busy with school, work, more school, cats, Scooter, the yard, the garage, and occasionally watching a t.v. show. Fox gave us a little scare a few weeks ago and he ended up going to the kitty ER. He had to get an IV put in his little arm and he was so dehydrated it took the vet three times to get the catheter in. Poor Fox Mulder. Sadie was very sweet with Fox and was hugging him while he had his little IV in. Everyone at the vet thought they were so cute together and the cuteness continued when we got home with the cats and Scooter. Here is a great photo of them snuggling it up. Poor Fox and his little arm.

Then of course the babying of Fox continued for a few weeks. Here is a photo of Brendon taking a nap with the cats. The dang cats always wake up whenever I try to snatch a photo of them being cute!

It is very difficult to take a good photo of a black cat!

Well, our lives are run by the pets, what more can I say to that. So UEA was awesome this year!! Mainly because I found the best dumpster trash yet!! Here is my find of the week. I should probably change the name of my blog to dumpster diver SLC. I blame this on my friend Lauren and my friend Heather in high school. They were both bad influences on me for dumpster diving and I think I will be addicted to it for the rest of my life.

Best find yet!!

Putting some new rocks around the house in Scooters nesting areas. He is not very happy about it..

That black hole to the right of Scooter is a 3 ft. deep hole he has been working on. He is trying to dig to the center of the Earth.

More rocks and two new rose plants from our neighbor Willy.

Dumpster fence now red!!!

Green dumpster fence!!!

I love how the fences look with my flowers and I think they will make great props for my photography business. Speaking of photography... I got my professional lighting set today!! The only problem is I can't set it up because the garage door is still off. Here are a few photos from the garage painting year 2... I hope this isn't an annual thing!

The color of the floor is Peanut Butter. The only reason I know this is because 85 percent through the paint job I ran out of paint! Good thing Home Depot can match colors.

Another view of the yard. I bought the perennials at Smith's Market place for $2 each!

Oh lovely door that I hope will soon be installed.

Here are a few fall flowers that are growing in my garden. I guess the five plants that came up from the 2,000 seeds I planted made it worth it. No more seeds from the dollar store!!!

Well, that is about all for now. Goodbye. Until next time! Happy Fall.

Glorified shed

2011-10-08T19:30:00.000-07:00

I can't believe how fast time goes by when winter is on the way. Ick! Brendon and I took out the window ac unit today and I commented to him, "Didn't we just put this in the window"? Seriously, summer I miss you already. We have been working our butts off trying to get the house ready for winter and for the appraisal we had done last week. Bank stuff. Really boring. Anyways, the appraisal went really well but the appraiser called my photography studio a glorified shed! I wanted to kick him in the pants for that comment. After all the work I have been doing to my studio I don't want it to look like a shed! So here are a few photos of the progress. I really wanted to have the floor done by the time he came for the appraisal but I was very busy cleaning up the house and yard to make sure everything looked as perfect as a 107 year old house can. Here are a few photos from the progress of the "shed".

Red is my favorite color!

Off white paint courtesy of Nancy!

Oh the joys of painting!

Attempted faux finish....

Me tracing circles for brilliant idea I had that I am not so sure about now that I painted all the circles... will post a photo soon.

So there you have the shed. After getting this far I really want to have it done before it snows and get the door on! Yeesh! The door is a pain because well, last time I installed a door was with my sister and we managed to put it on upside down. Now that is talent right there. And the door still opened and closed by some miracle. I don't want to attempt anything with the nice insulated door my parents gave us. I will stick to painting!

Brendon and I completed our first co-art project for the studio. It is a collage of all the movie ticket stubs he has saved since 1997. Here are a few photos from the project. I love how the collage turned out!

Oops! This was on my camera first. We have been juicing the grapes this week and I forgot I had them boiling and this is what happens when you leave a pot of grapes on the stove un-attended! Brendon cleaned it all up for me and I have no idea why he is so nice to me after making a mess like this!

Seeing if we have enough tickets for the collage.

Sadie the supervisor.

Brendon, "oh yes we have enough"!

And he was right!

Finished product!

And in the frame!

And so this is the end of my blog for today. I can't wait to put this beautiful art in the shed! Until next week!

Trial and Error....

2011-09-23T16:00:00.000-07:00

This seems to be the theme of my week. It all started last Friday when my co-worker Nancy brought me two cups of frozen zucchini wrapped in tinfoil. I was excited about the zucchini because I have had a few bit fat ones growing in my garden for quite sometime. Well I forgot about the zucchini and left it in my backpack until Sunday morning when I remembered I wanted to make zucchini bread. Well, I went out and picked two zucchinis (I already picked the third a while ago and it was on top of the microwave) and then I had Brendon start slicing up the first one. As I was preparing the other ingredients Brendon asked me what he should do with the seeds. I have never thought about it and thought it was an odd question so I went over to check out his cutting skills - or should I say Carving skills...

Yes, these are pumpkins! Oopsie!

I thought they were awfully round.. oh well, afterward we made pumpkin-inni bread and it was delicious. The other two pumpkins are sunning themselves on the front porch and turning orange (surprisingly).

After failing in the kitchen I decided it was time to go outside. We have been working on weatherization at our house and also protecting the foundation from water. I have been hauling gravel around the house and Fox decided it would be awesome to run under the gravel while I was throwing it off the shovel. I think he learned his lesson on this one.

He dusted his face pretty good. And the rest of his body!

Well, I wish that was the end to my post, but unfortunately I made another mistake this week. I painted the ceiling of the studio with two different types of paint - same color, different shine. Yeesh!

To end on a happy note. A small garden center off 500 S. in Bountiful has perennials for $2 Each! What a steal! So I bought some for my newly cleared out garden on the right side of the house. And on another happy note. I harvested the cranberry tomatoes this week and boy were they yummy! Growing them again next year for sure. That is if I can bring myself to grow another garden after hacking up my pumpkins for zucchini bread!

Until next week. Goodbye from Cousin Nick and Baby Braiker. The homework eaters!

Art Studio!!!!

2011-09-14T16:47:00.000-07:00

I think I need to start this blog post with a little song. I was singing the beginning of this song to myself as I was moving my stuff into the art studio.

I still have a few things left to get like a table and my professional lighting system but I have almost saved enough money for the lighting so I hope to have that within the next couple of weeks. All I need now is for the power to magically go back on in that half of the garage!

The rug is a little wrinkled from being rolled up for so long. I bought the rug at thrift town.

The bench was given to me by Anna Anderson.

Art supplies just waiting to be used!!

And in other news. Fall clean-up and canning season have officially begun. We of course started our canning by making and eating salsa. A man who lives across the street from our church let us come by his place and pick a ton of tomatoes. I have never seen so many varieties of tomatoes and peppers in all my life. He had an amazing garden. We have also made a batch of salsa from fresh tomatoes from our garden. So yummy!

Saddie was watching the whole time from her new favorite couch, Scooter! We tasted all the varieties of tomatoes on tortillas and then put the rest in the salsa. And finally - the green grapes are ready. We have sooo many green grapes this year! And sadly- we hardly have any plums. My favorite activity last fall was eating plums underneath the plum tree. I haven't been able to indulge in this activity this year. I am saving the plums for jam and chutney.

Green grapes with a lady bug.

Oh how I want to eat you.

And finally again.. we have borrowed Jana and Ian's truck, well traded for the corvette so I can finish up some of my spring cleaning that is now fall cleaning. So far I am off to a good start! Thanks Jana and Ian!

Gladiolas from the dollar store are amazing!

Sad- you all are going to the compost.

And well, that is about all. Until next week!

Thinking of the Coates Family -

2011-09-02T14:39:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Orrin Coates 24th birthday. Sadly, he did not live to see it and he is missed greatly by everyone who knew him. In his honor, and thinking of his family yesterday, I made the Kim Coate's Salsa. The Coates family has been my second family since I was three years old. Their oldest daughter Kendra is my best friend and we have had many good times together, and many good memories with Orrin. I feel a little bad now that when we were kids we would lock him in the horse trailer!

This is my favorite salsa recipe for canning and everyone who has tasted it says, "this is the best canned salsa I have ever had," and then I give them the recipe so they can make it next year. One reason I love this recipe is because it calls for red and green tomatoes so all of you who are worried about what to do with all the green tomatoes... here is a great solution! You can put anything in this salsa you would like. This time around I used chives, white onions, green pepper, fresh squeezed lemon juice, and three kinds of tomatoes, Roma, Big Boy, and a hybrid tomato my friend Ashley gave me called a cranberry tomato.

8 cups green and red tomatoes
1 cup white vinegar
1 cup chopped onions
1 cup chopped celery
1 cup chopped bell pepper
1/2 cup lemon juice
10 jalp. peppers if you like spicy
1 small can tomato paste 7 oz.

1 tsp. chili powder
1/2 tsp. turmeric powder
2 tsp. cumin
2 tsp. seasoning salt
1/4 cup salt
1/4 or less sugar (optional)

Chop all vegetables- leave skin on tomatoes. Cook on high 15-30 minutes until vegetables are soft not mushy! Then follow with canning or put in the fridge for later. We can go through this stuff pretty fast. Our neighbor went through a quart jar in one night last fall :)

Despite all of the grass growing back into our garden it has really produced nicely and I can't believe the size of the green beans! I also have two kinds of corn growing so I am interested to see how they differ.

Corn with white and purple stalks!

Blackberries round one. I made balsamic blackberry vinegar.

I am going to slice you and boil you!

Fist salsa of the year!

Monster green beans growing in my grassy garden.

Well, that is about it for this week. Goodbye from Saddie, the queen of the garden!

Longest week EVER!!

2011-08-22T21:24:00.000-07:00

It is always when there is a goal to be made that complications seem to come into play. This seems to be the way of the life of Tagen. I am happy to say that even though there were "complications" to this entire week we FINALLY finished the hall closet!!!!!!! I think I need a few more exclamation marks!!!!!! A hall closet with shelves might seem a very silly thing to get excited about.. but to me after the longest week ever I am so very happy. In case you forgot what the hall closet looked like before here is a photo of it in all it's glory!

Impressive I know.

And finally.. here is the very slow progress of a forever long week...........................

Day 1 -

Had to paint the wood a snagged out of the dumpster red so it doesn't look like I snagged it out of the dumpster!

Goodbye last of nasty carpet that smells like butt. So glad to see you go!

Day 2 -

These shutters were impossible to hang. I think we spent at least a hour trying to get this first one on straight.


Then we find out the other shutter is missing the pin and the hinges! So we went to Silver Star Hardware which is one of the coolest places in South Salt Lake. After digging through bins for... another hour we found these...

http://www.silverstarhardware.com/


And Finally!!! Yay!

Day 3 -

Figuring out my laudry bags.. How to sew them, what fabric to use. I opted for the heavier fabric I used from a couch cover I found at thrifttown.

So exciting! Putting towels in a closet where you can reach them from the bathroom if needed. Instead of streaking through the house looking for a towel.

Day 4 -

Time to go spend my birthday money from Blair!! Home Depot is the best! These are various cheap pieces of hardware I picked out to hang my laundry bags from.

Classy

More red paint from previous projects.

Drilling these into the wall wasn't as problematic as I anticipated. After the hassle with the shutters I was o.k. with this!

DAY 5-

Laundry bags that actually turned out perfectly! I stayed up to 2 a.m. sewing them.

DAY 6 -

The finished product!

Overall costs-
Shutters $3.00 each from the D.I.
New/old hinges $2.00 each from Silver Star Hardware
Hardware (the big splurge) $10.00
Wood for shelves: $20.00
Other wood for shelves free from the dumpster.
Fabric and paint already had on hand and white primer given to me from my co-worker Nancy. She is a nice lady.
Grand Total: $35.00

And here is my co-worker Nancy who is so awesome and has saved me a ton of money on paint! She is awesome!!!

And here is my first round of harvested blackberries that have been sitting in my fridge for a week because I have been busy working on the closet.

And finally. Here is Brendon who was so nice to help with me with the shutters when I kept moving them as he was trying to drill the hinges into the wall. He went backpacking and came home to a messy house and a finished closet!!

Until next week. Be safe out there in the woods. Goodbye!

Happy BIrthday to me!!

2011-08-12T16:19:00.000-07:00

Turning 30 is interesting. I think I am supposed to feel old but I just feel like a little kid. Obviously, I got another kitten for my birthday! Let's see. To start off my birthday weekend the right way I came home to find this...

Hello and Happy Birthday! Love Scooter.

If this does not seem strange let's try this!

Yes Scooter is under the house.

Not only was Scooter filthy (and we were on our way out the door to leave for Idaho) Brendon had to dig him out so he could get out of the predicament Scooter managed to get himself into. 12 years old and still doing crazy stuff!

I haven't done much on the house this week, but the closet in the hallway is almost done! I found these shutters at the D.I. for three dollars each and I painted them with the same red paint that is on the floors in the hallway and the front bedroom. By next week I should have a finished product to show off with these shutters as a cover to the shelves in the hall closet!

Brendon has been a huge help this week with house projects. I have such a great husband!
And finally. What you all have been waiting for. My new kitten Saddie.

Some of these are a little blury because I was laughing so hard. Especially at Fox in the picture on the top right.

Until next. Week. One more week to meet my goal to finish the studio... Goodbye. from Tagen, Brendon, Scooter, Fox, and Saddie!

Pink is my favorite color!

2011-08-03T08:31:00.000-07:00

Well, not really. The walls are looking pretty pink in the studio right now though. We have been working hard to try and make our goal of finishing the garage/studio by the time school starts. I think it might be a bit of a stretch but I had some help this week which was fabulous and things are going faster than I thought. Here are a few photos of the progress.

Good bye potty words.

Don't worry Brendon... we are keeping the schroom!

I lied. We painted over the schroom with pink!

The pink walls are soon going to be red thanks to my co-worker Nancy who gave me a bunch of cans of paint she no longer needed. I think I will be able to finish the studio with the paint that she gave me. Nancy is so great!

While I have been slaving away out in the garage Scooter has taken to sleeping in until 10 a.m. next to the toilet in the bathroom. He likes to curl his paws up next to the toilet and it is actually really cute. I am sure the neighbors didn't mind Scooter sleeping in this past week.

The black blur under Scooter's armpit is Fox.

The black blur eating Scooter's elbow is Fox.

And finally. We have been doing a little summer cleaning in the laundry room so we have more space for all the fall canning coming up. I had Brendon go through all of his storage because I have two bins and he has seven. This doesn't make much sense because I am older... to be thirty on Monday to be exact... and I only have two bins :) So we cleaned out his storage bins and found some treasures along the way.

Some workout clothes he wore in high school. This one went to the D.I.

This one went in the garbage... This pink wonder used to be red..

And finally again! After all of the work I did to make a flower garden I have a few flowers that have bloomed! The rest of the seeds were weeds or went back to grass but here are a few of the beautiful flowers.

The wild sweet peas that will not die. They are beautiful though.

Mini sun-flowers.

Well until next week. I think one week of staring at pink walls we cure me of pink for the rest of my life. Hopefully next week they will be red!

Butt Wipe

2011-07-25T15:44:00.000-07:00

I have been a little shocked over the money we have spent on this kitten so far! All the butt wipes, and the milk. He is doing quite well and for his 5 week milestone we decided it would be appropriate to photograph him with a role of toilet paper since we are still wiping his little butt.

Fox's new favorite activity is sucking on Scooter's food. Fox fits perfectly in Scooter's food bowl.

With a mango from Rancho Market. Fox is still having a hard time with his eye.

Fox is now quite playful and he loves to play with Scooter's paws. This morning I found fox attacking Scooter's paws and then jumping back and hissing. Scooter just rolled his eyes at little Foxy.

And finally. Little king of toilet paper.

The studio is coming along. I have the fist room completed and we have started cleaning out the second room. My goal is to have the studio finished by the time I go back to school. Here are few photos of the progress.

All I need now is a rug for the floor! After my studio is finished I hope to start taking some photos there. Here are few favorite photos I have done from shoots this past few weeks! The best photos are of the cute little babies :)

New Baby!!

2011-07-10T21:00:00.000-07:00

Well. We have been a bit distracted by the new baby and I haven't posted in a few weeks. It has been rough. Sleepless nights, constant eating and pooping and butt wiping, but we are surviving. We decided to name him Fox Mulder... And here he is!!!

We found this abandoned baby out in the back yard. He is 2.5 weeks old here.


Brendon is the Mom.

Scooter is afraid of kitties, but I think it is because kitty has had a bit of gender confusion and tried to milk Scooter. Kitty is now 3 weeks and he is starting to move pretty fast. I give Scooter one more week before kitty starts terrorizing him. Kitty loves to play in Scooter's fur when Scooter is not aware :)

These photos are from our fun outing with the Chavez family for the 4th of July. I am still getting the hang of my new telephoto lense and I love it more and more every time I use it!!

I have been working on my art studio and I hope to have it completed by mid August. I have had help working on it every Monday and Tuesday morning and this week my help will be at Scout camp and I will miss him. He is 13 and 6'3 and he is very good at being tall and painting the high parts of the studio I can't reach. Scooter is also helping by laying on the floor and moving junk around in the other room. I think Fox Mulder is about ready to get to work. I will give him another week of babyhood before I have him begin his kitty servitude.

Scooter laying on nails!

The studio is coming along!

And finally. On the 4th I also went to Boise to do a family photo shoot. Here are a few of my favorite shots. I can't wait until I can do indoor studio photos as well!!

The beautiful Elordi Family.

Well. Goodbye from Tagen, Brendon, Scooter, and the new baby... Fox Mulder!

Pillow art Plant art Chalk art

2011-06-23T09:27:00.000-07:00

Summer is finally here! I have been sewing a bit this week trying to cheer up our dark brown room. I have some bright orange fabric that I forgot about with tigers on it and I went to my favorite thrift store, Salvation Army and picked up a few other curtains for 6 dollars. My co-worker Lonnie gave me some batting so I thought I might as well start using it! I call these crazy pillows. And the one that is split in half I call the butt crack pillow and it is actually very comfortable.

Things are coming to life in the yard. Especially because we had tons of rain on Sunday and 89 degree weather this week. Here are few photos of the garden.

Baby Grapes

The sweet pea plants that won't die. We cut all of this grass out and the pea plants with the sod cutter and they all came back to life. I have other flower seeds growing in this mess too.

The apples are coming along. I am spraying them with an organic pesticide consisting of lemon dish soap, olive oil, and a little miracle gro.

The honeysuckle vine is in full bloom. If you don't have any allergies and you want some just come on over. The smell of this thing is intoxicating. I hope we get some hummingbirds again this year.

Here is our trellised climbing rose and the honeysuckle.

The corn is doing great!

The beets haven't done much in the past month.

Sweet peas - edible ones. Yummy.


And beans.

Last weekend I also got to participate in the Chalk Art Festival at the Gateway. My brother in-law Jonathon did the design and I helped. Our group was from the Hive Gallery and it was a lot of fun besides that fact that I was sick the whole time. They say that over 20,000 people attend this every year. I am glad that 20,000 people got to watch me blow my nose every ten minutes. Yeesh. Anyways, here are a few of the images Brendon took from the weekend.

And here we are. The Hive Gallery Crew. It was a great experience. I want to do this again next year. That is if my back and my knees can take it.

The chalk art festival is for a great cause. I hope Jonathon comes up with another fun design for next year!

http://chalkartfestival.org

Art Studio

2011-06-15T15:28:00.000-07:00

We have been here a year now so I have decided it is time to get going on the garage. I have been super intimidated by the garage because it is so disgusting and we have a lot of STUFF in there right now... I have finally moved the stuff all into one room and have started cleaning up the other room. Before we bought the house an entire family lived in the garage. One side of the garage didn't even have a door on it, but it did have a tarp nailed around the frame. I think this garage will be very useful as an art/photography studio and Brendon and I are both interested in stone sculpture so we might set something up for that eventually. Until then... it is another wild cat shelter with our stuff in it.

Brendon wants to keep the shroom. He has become "attached" to it.

The cleaned room getting some new textured walls.

Does this remind anyone else of junior high??

I also purchased two new lenses for my camera last week. Well, new-old lenses. They are old school manual nikon lenses and I love them! Here is a sample of one photo with my new telephoto 300.

It caught the movement of the wings which I think is impressive for an $11.00 lens.

My plants are so happy and I have had many plant additions this past few weeks from my cousin Laurie, and my co-worker Nancy. I think I planted 200 plants this past few weeks. Scooter has also planted and un-planted quite a few plants himself. He loves the new plants.

Plants from Nancy.

More plants in the back of the car from Laurie.

Scooter taking care of the plants.

I wish I could say that these lillies are looking as good as they were here but Scooter has really flattened some of them pretty good. I can't blame him for wanting to participate in the gardening. As you can see here - he really loves plants.

Week 47 - ONE YEAR!!!

2011-06-05T20:47:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it. We have been in our house 1 year. Here are the before and afters of our home. It really has been an adventure! There are some good reasons to buying a house in the heart of the ghetto. Here are a few..
#1. It is o.k. to dumpster dive in broad daylight. Everyone does it here.
#2. We are considered upper class in our 1100 Square ft. home.
#3. If you are having an identity crisis it's alright... Just take the dog on a walk and you will find multiple stolen id and credit cards just laying on the sidewalk.
#4. You may not find a lucky penny but you will find a lucky flask!
#5. Because of all the criminal activity there is always a cop to be found close by.. just in case.

Before

What a beauty.

After!

The star blows away occasionally.

Bedroom #1 Before.

After.

Bedroom #2 Before

After

Living room before. That fake clock on the wall was really hard to remove!

Bedroom #3 before

After

Now complete with a Justin Wheatley original tree painting.

Hallway before..

After!

Cost for the improvements so far around $500.00. We still have a lot more improvements to make and sometimes it all seems a bit overwhelming. When I feel overwhelmed all I have to do is go look at our back door in the laundry room and remember how disgusting our house was when we moved in. I then feel better about myself knowing the houset is at least a bit cleaner than before if anything.

This is how filthy everything was this time last year.

Year #1. Thanks for all the fun lessons like how to un-freeze the pipes in the bathroom in the middle of winter. Thanks to the parents for all the donated furnishings and advice. Thanks to all the cats for keeping our home mice free. And well, that's about it. Year #2 - bring it on!

Week 46 - Cat Lady...

2011-05-24T19:56:00.000-07:00

Yep. I am a cat lady and I am married! My old roommates and I used to joke how we would all live in my house in Pocatello together and be cat ladies until we were old and died. Then I got married and moved to Salt Lake City and now I have about 30 ferrel cats living on my property. While on vacation we got this cute little photo from my sister in-law on facebook. When we got home we found an additional 5 kittens plus a few other new cats I had never seen before up until that point. We will soon be applying to be the hosts of a ferrel cat colony and then we will have to trap them and take them in to have their important parts removed as well as get a few rabies shots.

New kittens hiding in the chicken coop!

And then comes the second phase of this finding. The little barn in our backyard is not a cat haven but a chicken house. Well, it is a chicken house in my mind. I decided to tackle the chicken barn and clean it out for two reasons. #1. I am tired of finding dead cat carcasses in the blackberry patch which is right next to the chicken house. #2. The chicken house smells like cat piss and I feel bad for the people who live in the apartments behind us having to smell that everyday. And I guess there is a third reason... I want chickens!! Here are a few photos from the ordeal. I wore a respirator and I have been smelling cat pee everywhere since I cleaned out the little cat barn.


I found another old glass bottle in this mess!!

Now clean but still needs to be bleached and boards coated in lime.

There was about an entire cord of firewood in there.

So much better!! Anyone want to come over and roast some marshmallows on the fire pit? We have plenty of firewood...

And I also had to remove all of the sod Brendon cut out so that is about all I have been doing this past week. Scooter made sure I was getting all of the sod and he also made sure my garden was nice and comfy after I put all my plants in. Scooter likes to garden in the form of digging, eating plants, and laying on plants.

Vegetable garden! And a less junky back patio.

Scooter keeping an eye on things. The far right is my flower garden. Right now it is just a mud hole but in a few months it should be beautiful.

Rocks!! I am on my way to bordering our footpaths with rocks and to not cleaning up as much mud in the house.

Looking better and better.

I love rocks. Yep. In one week we will have lived in this house a year. I can't believe it.

Weeks 45-46 Vacation

2011-05-22T17:31:00.000-07:00

So we went on a vacation and my blogging hasn't been updated even though we have been busier than ever working on the yard and the house! Our vacation was another road trip to Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Mexico. We saw many beautiful places and many small towns. We saw best friends and family and it was delightful! Here are a few photos from our vacation!

I tried to make a normal face but Deidra was making me laugh like usual. When we get together the world just seems like a much sillier place!

Brendon and Taiten!

Spring was just showing up at Rocky Mountain National Park.

Ya, we have cool glasses!

We camped in Alamosa, CO.

Sand Dune National Park and a nudist..

Sand stings your skin when it is blowing! It is best to wear clothing.

There is an oasis out there.

Eating seafood in Mexico with the Huish Family!

Tara and Ryan.

Baby Taiten playing with the neighbor cat.

It turns out Deidra and I have the same camera! This has happened to us more than once now with other items we have purchased un-beknownst to the other person!

We went to the Vernal temple at the beginning of our trip.

I had a marlin taco at the seafood restaurant. I am from Idaho and my seafood eating expertise is VERY limited. I loved the taco! Delish!

Down in Arizona swimming with the niece and nephew! Pen was by far the most daring swimmer...


She had no problem stepping out on a ledge where she couldn'	t touch!

Ryan's graduation. This is why we came on our road trip!!

The family of supporters for the Nursing Grad.

My beautiful sister.

Me playing with my camera.

Playing with camera again...


A new nursing grad!!

And then we went home to our yard and our plants. I was very happy to see that my little seedlings had sprouted, but feeling a bit dumb that I didn't label them and I have no idea what they are....

We came home to a jungle of a yard...

We decided to rent a sod cutter to cut out a very large vegetable garden as seen below, and here Brendon is starting to cut out my flower garden.

The gardening section of this blog is to be continued in post #2. Just a tip for the readers. If you wish to kill your grass do not cover it with plastic. This will only make the lawn area grown 4 times faster and longer than the rest of the yard rather than killing it. Brendon and I learned this the hard way when we came home to a jungle after our vacation...

Week 43-44 Happy Mother's Day Momsy!!

2011-05-06T20:06:00.000-07:00

Because I am not going to see my mom for Mother's Day I am going to send her flowers via my blog. Thanks mom for passing on your flower loving genes. I hope you like the flowers that are starting to bloom in my garden... they always remind me of you.

Mom. Here is your trellis that I rummaged for you for! Hope you like it.

Prairie Fire Crab apple. Love it!

Oh wait! This is not a flower...

Mom I painted my front door pink for you. Hope you like it!

Just kidding!!

Walah!

Star of David finally blooming!

My first blooming poppy.

Love you mom! Hope you have a happy Mother's Day!

Week 42 - Happy Peepster!!!

2011-04-24T20:59:00.000-07:00

This has been a killer week. My first semester of graduate school is officially over and now I feel like I have a lot of time on my hands. This week was a week of art. Yes.. the art of well art, and the art of peep roasting. It has been beautiful and glorious and there isn't much else to say really. I hope you will enjoy the photos.

Our bedroom before the renovations:

Our Bedroom after renovations...

The print on the left under the banana painting is from my cousins Katie and Glenn Fewkes! I have a nice photo of Brendon on my nightstand. Brendon has a picture of President Hinkley and a dinosaur. Brendon informed me that both the dinosaur and Hinkley remind him of me because they are both old...

Finally our homework setup.

This is the one wall that is bare. Waiting for a painting that my artist friend Justin Wheatley is giving me. The painting is of a red tree!!

A print that my best friend Heather MCclellan gave us for our wedding. Next to it is a print by my best friend Deidra! It is so nice to have artist friends :)

I love our bedroom and all of the art. I also printed art for the hallway this week too. The prints are from a few of our crazy road trips since we have been married!

The Redwoods.

Colorado.

Some of my MOm's photos of orange!

And finally. The end of a crazy week and another art form. Peep s'mores!

Before they got torched! So cute!

Wood Brendon and I scavenged for my trellis-s. I'm a hoarder!

The apples are coming soon!

The plums are blooming!

Peep roasting with the my cousin's family. Yay for Easter!

Beautiful!

Scrumptious!

Yep.

It is amazing how long a melted peep can stretch.

Double goodness!!

Well. Hope you all have a wonderful week! Happy Peepster!

Weeks 40 - 41 Tin Foil Goodness

2011-04-17T20:35:00.000-07:00

The fire pit is done!! We were so happy to have decent weather yesterday so we could finish up the fire pit. We had no idea what we were doing but the fire pit is mostly circular and we used it to today and it didn't fall apart so I think we did pretty well. School has been very busy for me this past few weeks so I haven't had much time to work on the house. I did however make a nice project for one of my classes titled, "This Old Farmhouse Magazine." I am going to try and post it here if I can get it to work. We went out to our new rock place again today. I took a few photos of the fascinating junk yard where I want to do a few photo shoots. There are keep out signs everywhere but I think it would be ok to pose around all the junk that is spilling out onto the road! Here are a few photos of the junk yard. I love all the colors!

There are TONS of cars like this everywhere.

All this needs is some people in it.

Can anyone tell me what kind of vehicle this is???

Even a boat!

Here is Brendon starting the very first fire in our fire pit! He used a leftover box that had fabric softener sheets in it so our back yard smelled like incense for a little while.

The plum trees are budding!

Scooter waiting for his little tin foil dinner. Yes I made him one too :) Can you believe I killed all this grass last year.

The biggest dinner is Potatoes of course!

And finally... Here are a few sections of This Old Farmhouse Magazine!!

Week 39 - Church Recycler

2011-04-03T20:35:00.000-07:00

Brendon and I have been on a diet of sorts. Since we have both been in school things have gotten a little lax in the cooking department in our home and the fast food eating started getting a little out of hand so we have sworn off fries and hamburgers plus no cooking treats at home. A few days ago Brendon's dad brought him into his room to show Brendon his secret stash of granola bars in case Brendon is starving... But this has nothing to do with why I am blogging this week, I just wanted to tell you that I haven't had a hamburger in two months, or fries. But, now I am addicted to taco time and the 4 for $5. I LOVE the salsa there!! And we made brownies tonight.. the first time making a treat at home in a few months.

Tara and the kiddies left on Wednesday, and I was certainly sad to see them go. Here are a few last pics of the visit. Little mini-Tara turns out is a girl after my own heart. She helped me pet Scooter on a regular basis and helped me dig the grass out in the yard for the fire pit. Scooter misses her already I can tell. Mainly because she kept sneaking him snacks when we weren't looking...

There was toilet paper everywhere... Goio had a good time!

Both looking suspicious... who was eating snacks here??

King of the couch and of my pillows! I never thought to sit on the couch this way. I might have to try it!

At our photo shoot at the train station. Goio had a little fun playing in a mud puddle.

Shake your pants dry dance.

A kid after my own heart :)

Scooter loved all the attention!

Don't worry Ryan, we wash his Dog pillow every week.

After Tara and the kids left we actually had some decent weather, and I started working on the blackberry patch again. I found this old wicker shelf at the D.I. for $5 so it is now a trellis, and I took my old cheapo trellis I bought at the home depot last year and trellised the other blackberries with it. I will never buy another trellis at the home depot because they are made really cheap. My climbing rose pretty much destroyed the trellis so I hope the blackberry bushes will be kinder to it. Now all I need back there is a ton of rocks!! I am obsessed with landscaping with rocks. I blame it on my father.

It has two shelves that I think I will put potted plants on after it stops snowing!

Maybe this year I will actually be able to get to half my blackberry bushes!

And... speaking of rocks Brendon and I finally found a good spot to get free rocks! We also got a bunch of free bricks from our old church that burned down. We have started making a fire pit out of the bricks. I think it will be cool to have a fire pit made out of our old church :)

Scooter checking out the bricks.

Figuring out how to build a fire pit. We are learning a lot!

Taking the old mortar off the bricks. Brendon loves this part of the work.

Figuring out how we want to arrange the bricks.

Scooter working hard as usual.

Yay! More rocks for the yard!

And more rocks... Can you guess which rock Brendon picked out?

My little trees are getting ready to bloom!

Well, that is about it for this week. I am glad we had such a nice day on Saturday to get some work done and listen to conference. Nothing like listening to the prophets while building a fire pit out of our old church! A wonderful weekend! Until next week! Maybe the apple blossoms will be in bloom!

Weeks 37-38: Spring Break Part 2!!

2011-03-22T16:01:00.000-07:00

This was the best part of my spring break by far.. Enjoy!

A little free time around the house after a bath!

Pocatello D.I. Feels like home!

This gun got annoying super fast! Thankfully we traded it out for a little plastic bike.

At the new house on Whitman. Beautiful light in the sun room. I want a sun room some day.

And who doesn't love the petting zoo!

Spring Break Part 1: Bueno Fresco Secco Fresco

2011-03-16T15:49:00.000-07:00

I am sad to say I have been a bit behind on my blogging and I have been bragging all over the place about my blog or lack thereof. Ok, not really. I have been sick for two weeks and today I finally feel pretty darn good. It is spring break and we have actually had some pretty decent weather in my opinion. I have started poking around out in the yard a bit and I am still working on the dang hallway! This hallway is taking forever, but there is not much I can do about it. To start out I want to show a few pictures I took from last week and the huge snow storm we had.

My poor Prairie Fire Crab-apple tree was practically bent over to the ground!

The mailbox makes a good model.

A week later...

Much better!! This stuff is taking over my yard. My co-worker told me it is called Jerusalem, so I started telling everyone Jerusalem is taking over my yard! But it is not called Jerusalem... but Star of David!

Phew! The crab-apple tree survived!

So day one of spring break I decided to get back to work on the hallway and apparently Brendon made an appointment with Jones glass to get an estimate on some of our broken windows. My biggest question for Jones was why do all the windows need to be propped up a stick or a book to stay open. I got the answer to my question, a whole lot of painted footprint marks on my floors, and a 500 dollar bid for a few panes of glass. So.. our windows were all put in upside-down. Yep. All of our windows are meant to be turned to the side and they were put in backwards. Oh well. We will stick with our books and our sticks for now! I was leading the estimate guy around the house and I told him "look out for the white..." as he stepped right into my painted floor and took two steps leaving a stencil of a white boot on my red floors! Next he took off his shoes and went onward with only his socks. I thought this was ok until later when I found this!!!

His socks took a dip in the white paint too!

Yeesh.

Monday just wasn't my day because I also painted a huge section of the floor the wrong color red. I thought it seemed a bit bright and ya, it was the wrong color red. I guess I better calm down and not buy five different shades of red for the house... but I love red so much! This is the plaster section of the floor which is just plain old iffy. I hope that I have bueno fresco which is the kind of painting on plaster that lasts rather than the secco...

Can you tell where I goofed up?

Day two I called in sick to work because I was just feeling awful in the morning. As the day progressed, and the more drugs I took I was feeling pretty good so I fished the red on the floor. I previously had painted the center of the floor and stenciled it as seen here:

The last part of the hallway has been a problem for us because it is so rough. Brendon used thurough-crete to patch it and then it turned into thurough-sand! The concrete really just kept wearing down. I painted over the crete-sand and it is actually sticking to the floor now just fine thank goodness! Here is how it looks. The flooring isn't perfect, but for our budget of $10 this is what we have to work with!

Just imagine this painted red now. It looks ok. Now we only have the varathane left!! Varathane is a wonder miracle of wonders. I washed all the painted footprints off the varathaned areas and it worked like a charm.

And after I was done in the house I went and poked around in the blackberry patch. Last year our blackberries produced a big crop, but I could get to half of them without getting ripped to shreds by the thorns and all the other junk laying around. Last year I pulled an entire old fence out of my blackberry bushes. I thought I had it all, and all the dead cats, but I was wrong...

I found a 100 year old lysol bottle! I don't collect anything, but I could get into collecting old bottles!

I know this is boring, but I need this photo for my before and after shoot.

Poor baby cat. I hope you are the last one I find. Look at those teeth!


I am currently illustrating a family history/book for a lady and she gave me this 50 lb photo frame this week! Pretty sweet, but seriously, all the unknown faces staring at me creeps me out!

And finally. I know you are all bored by this point. Scooter has half a haircut. He has a shaved rear. Brendon says he looks like a hipster dog in skinny jeans and a baggy sweater. We have to finish the grooming this week so he doesn't look like a fool at the dog park!

Goodbye from hipster Scooter, and the other secondary Scooter... butt fur.

Week 36 - Abominable Snow Dog

2011-02-27T19:50:00.000-08:00

I am getting sick of winter more and more everyday, but we had heavenly snow late Friday night into Saturday morning. I have been waiting for this wet fluffy snow for quite some time so I could do a photo shoot with my friend Bridgit. Well, we got lucky. Scooter was also very lucky and decided he wanted to stay out in the snow for about four hours! He was in Pyrenees Heaven. Here are a few photos from the successful morning.

Bridget Steadman. I like taking pictures of Bridget because she is an artist when it comes to makeup and her color choices. I loved that her coat matched the trees!


Here is Scooter enjoying his snowy bed. Scooter was getting ready to bark in this photo... His favorite thing to do is lie down in the snow and bark his face off.

In other news.. I worked on the hallway this weekend!!! Painting the floor in a hallway is a little more tricky than painting the floor in the bedrooms mainly because at the end of the hallway is the bathroom. So basically if we had to pee we had to hold it! Here are a few photos from the progress!

I am re-doing the paintings in the living room from teal decorative paintings to orange circular ones. I never liked those teal paintings.

Walah! I painted and varathaned one corner of the hallway so I could see how good it will all look once it is finished! The mirror I picked up at the D.I. a long time ago for the Bonneville house. It is actually has a plastic frame on it painted gold :) The green vase I got this weekend at Savers for a dollar. The dollar vase will be our new change jar!

Half the hallway painted.

My new circle paintings. Inspired by...


Emily' s orange circle paintings which was what made me decide on the color choices for the second bedroom. I am still trying to figure out what wall to hang these paintings on. Emily is the owner of the Hive Gallery where I have shown some of my work this past couple of years. She is an amazing artist and runs an amazing gallery!! Check out The Hive Website here. http://hivegalleryslc.com/index.html

Found this leafy wonder at Salvation Army for $3.00. My new favorite thrift store in Salt Lake is the Salvation Army!

And that is about all for this week. Goodbye from Scootikiss.. the abominable snow dog!!

Week 35 - Just Chillen

2011-02-21T17:39:00.000-08:00

Yep. That's about it. We have had an interesting week. Not to go into huge detail but my car was out of commission for a few days, I got to go to the doctor, and hmmm oh.. Scooter got pulled over by the cops and one more thing... oh yes. Our furnace broke down. Let's skip the boring stuff and talk about the crazy stuff.

When Brendon takes Scooter for late night walks I stay home because I don't like to freeze. When they get home from the walk I always ask, "how did Scooter do?" That night Brendon informed me that Scooter got pulled over by the cops. I thought Brendon was joking, but he wasn't. A cop pulled them over just around the corner and said to Brendon "Did you know you have to have a permit to own a polar bear?" Phew.. I thought maybe Scooter took a big dump in the middle of the road or something.

This weekend I decided to give the sewing a break and get back with my painting. I knew I had the holiday weekend so I thought for sure I could get the hallway done. Well, that was a nice thought, but we didn't get that far seeing as we haven't had heat since Saturday evening. I was feeling a bit colder than the usual cold that night so I asked Brendon if it felt like the heat was on 70 because I had it up high so the paint would dry in the hallway. We grabbed a blanket and didn't think much of it. I wore the usual snowboarding attire to bed and slept nice and warm. Here are a few pics of the hallway so far.

I painted a small section of white today where the little heater is.

Sunday morning we woke up and I made note that the furnace was still not on. It actually hasn't been that bad with no furnace. Brendon's dad came by just in time for us to tell him it went out and hopefully today or tomorrow we can figure out what is wrong. If we need a new furnace thankfully we have a warranty!

Brendon playing video games in his coat, hat, and blanket!

It was quite the cold holiday for me to be in the house, but I kept busy cleaning out our hall closet. I wasn't really planning on cleaning out the hall closet, but last night when we were watching t.v. we heard a small crash. I though oh Scooter getting in the garbage. About 20 minutes later we heard a huge crash... including breaking glass... hmmm... the sports closet finally gave way! After shoving crap in that closet for months now it couldn't hold anymore. Here is a new cleaned up closet! If you forgot the old closet check back a few blog posts.

Much better!

I didn't want to throw away anything important of Brendon's so I just left him about five boxes of stuff to go through after work. I think we did pretty well to get all of our stuff into one storage bin each!

But, funny items are appearing in other places around the house, which I guess is o.k. depending on what it is. This one cracks me up!

Video games and the latest addition: A picture of Brendon with his best man friends. How quaint.

One last thing. I found a few items that weren't mine while we were unpacking boxes. Jillian, I have your crash dvd. Bridget, I have your Heroes Season 2, Alias, and a painting of yours, Mom! I have your green gloves.

Three things I am glad about this week. One: Brendon's dad and Vickie bought us each a small electric heater on Sunday. Two: I am not a pioneer so I don't have to sleep in a night time version of a dress! Three: I am glad the huge crash was not my inherited vintage goblet collection. Phew! Wish I had a place to display all the goblets. Until next week. Stay toasty warm y'all.

Weeks 33-34 Pillow Pooper

2011-02-13T19:53:00.000-08:00

I haven't had time to do much on the house this past two weeks due to my car and well, basically grad school! I am still keeping up on my little pillow sewing experiments and I have a few more crazy pillows to show here today. We took the giant bean bag away from Scooter and bought him a nice and fancy dog bed from Big Lots. He has finally started sleeping on his new dog bed, but he has started a new bad habit of pooping on it! Scooter pooped once on the bean bag a few weeks ago and that is when we decided he was done using that as his bed. I am an expert bean bag maker so I know how to make the proper stuffing to take out of the bean bag easily...for washing..

I was also cleaning out my closet the same day...

Since we have taken the old bean bag away from Scooter he still likes to sneak in and try and lay on it..

Scooter enjoying the bean bag with me. Yes I am wearing a scarf and my robe! I was cold!

We have pillows and stuffing everywhere from my weekend pillow sewing messes so you will just have to ignore that. Here are a few of my crazy pillows I have been sewing.

My mom came to visit me this weekend and she hasn't been to the house in six months! She was shocked by all the work we have done even though she has been reading the blog and she was also surprised by a few random pieces of furniture I have bought at the D.I. In my opinion the D.I. on 700 south has the best furniture. I found both of these there and they are both custom made!

This is my door table that I love. This table even has wheels on it. D.I. $10.00.

This is our entertainment center that I painted to look like a calico cat.

The last of the curtains!! Hurray!! I made one huge pillow to match these curtains and now I am done sewing curtains for a while anyways...

And finally. I have been doing a bit of homework for my classes here and there and one of the assignments I have I am making a mini-magazine. Here are a few pictures that I have taken to go in the magazine. The premise of the project is my house and my kitchen.

These images go along with a haiku and tanka poems I wrote for one of my assignments for my poetry class. The poem is titled Doing Dishes With the Bugs.
Well, Goodbye from Scooter. I hope you all have a wonderful nights sleep on a non-poopy pillow. I know I will!

Week 32- The Suspicious Oreo Eater

2011-01-30T20:51:00.000-08:00

We don't have kids, but we do have a dog. I am sure there are some huge differences between dog ownership and parenting because we don't really say we own our kids, but really I think our pets own us. Last Sunday after a long weekend of hard work Brendon made us some homemade oreos. The oreo recipe was one he got from the internet and we both thought the oreos turned out a bit dry, but they were still very good. Well... we also bathed Scooter last Sunday night because he was so muddy from playing out in the yard. I enticed him into the bathtub with a tincey tiny bit of oreo cookie fresh from the oven. The cookie bribe totally worked and we got him in the tub. I guess the enticement was just so unbearable for Scooter because the next day we came home and Scooter had managed to eat 14 oreos, keep the plate on the table with exactly four oreos left (two for me two for Brendon), and nothing really looked out of place. It was really nice of Scooter to leave Brendon and I two oreos each with no drool or anything on them, but what the heck? Brendon made sure the oreos were not within Scooter's reach, but nothing gets past that dog. In the end Scooter did not get sick at all! And we won't be leaving any sort of cookies on the table from now on.

After doing a lot of the hard work on the house it is nice to take a break for a few weeks and be a bit decorative! I have been having a great time finding thrifty fabrics for various projects and this week I found a desk!! I have been looking for desk for quite a while now and this desk is perfect! I found it at the Sugarhouse D.I. for $20.00. Here are a few photos of my furniture painting weekend. Sorry to all of you that think that painting furniture is a sin!

The desk needed a little work, but not much!

Sorry Brendon. More red for the house!

These two little cans or red paint have gone a long way.

Our kitchen has turned into everything but a place to cook!

Scooter already getting fur on the goods. I had to use sandpaper to polish the brass so it wasn't black. I tried a recipe of vinegar, salt, and flour that the internet suggested, but it didn't do anything to polish the brass. Sandpaper works wonders!

More lime green curtain and part of the cloth bag our bedskirt came in. I am leaning on this pillow as I write this! I really need a pillow sewing lesson from my cousin Laurie. She is the master of sewing pillows!

Found this fabric at Thriftown. It is actually a couch cover that is brand new and still has the stickers on it. I really like this fabric and it reminds me of my mom... Scandanoovian she would say.

Perfect fit! The pillow next to the desk is Scooter's new dog bed that he won't sleep on. He is so particular about his dog beds.. he is so silly.

My mom bought me this knob for Christmas. The brass hardware was missing on the top drawer so Brendon and I used this one on the drawer and I love it so much! Thanks mom!

I thought the brass handles looked familiar. They are on another piece of furniture my mom gave me. This is what brass looks like tarnished.

I am looking forward to more thrifty finds and getting our room finalized, but we still need our red tree painting (Justin Wheatley original).

Until next week! Goodbye from the clean cookie snatcher! Scootikiss!

Week 31 - Analogous Curtains

2011-01-23T19:23:00.000-08:00

It is always such a nice surprise to run into friends that you haven't seen in a while. This happened to us on Saturday when Brendon and I were going to the D.I. at Welfare Square. I had heard from my friend Camille W. that the Welfare Square D.I. was amazing so we had to go check it out. And who did we see walking out of the D.I. when we were walking in??? Camille, Justin, and Sophie! This made our day and we were very happy to catch up with our friends even if it was just for a few minutes. This weekend I also got an unexpected email from my best friend Heatherly who is living in Saudi Arabia right now. Hearing from Heather was so wonderful and I thought it was a bit ironic seeing as the first time I used a sewing machine I was with Heather!

Here is a picture of Heather and I in high school. Heather made this skirt out of a crazy dress we found at a thrift store. As you can see we were quite the pair!

I was sewing like crazy this weekend! I am horrible at sewing, but I think with the guidance of friends and family maybe someday I will sew something that might actually turn out! I have been trying to "weatherize" our house a bit more because our heating costs have been so expensive. I thought maybe if we actually get some curtains up we might have a warmer and more energy efficient house. I have looked everywhere for those special weatherization curtains and they are so dang ugly! I could make some, but buying the fabric for curtains can get pretty pricey even when you have half off coupons. So here are the products of my curtain adventures. I am proud to say I have finally finished the shades that my cousin Laurie and I started last summer! Phew! I also sewed six other shades this weekend, for my other rooms out of recycled curtains I found at thrift stores. Total for all my rooms I spent about $33.00. Here is the curtain magic :) Don't look very close...

Cutting the boards for the shades with the miter saw. Cutting a 16th of an inch with a miter saw is a pain in the butt! Check out the scenery out our kitchen window. I have to write a few poems this week about what I see out my kitchen window. This could be an interesting poem seeing as we do live next door to a group home :)

Brendon hanging up the lime green shades!

Brendon doing more work on the curtains. What a nice husband I have!

Woah. Twilight zone!


Beautiful!! Lime green and grey are analogous colors. I have always loved the combo! Here is a painting done with the same color scheme..

This is called radioactive cats or something like that. Pretty sweet!

The room is almost ready for us to move back in!! Finally!!

The green shades were two curtains that I cut up into four and recycled into new curtains. They are pretty interesting looking, but I figure curtains don't have to be perfect to look still look nice. Total I spent six dollars at the Salvation Army on the white and green curtains. I am very happy with them!

More curtains...

So Brendon and I are both iffy about the curtain rods. If there are any opinions on this we would like to hear them! I finally found this pretty brown weatherization curtain at family dollar for about 9 bucks. This is actually one curtain that I cut in half and sewing into two curtains. The white behind it is the shade I made with cousin Laurie this summer.

Key holder and photos finally!

I love this wall, but it is a bit narcissistic seeing as all the pictures are all of ourselves! I will call this our wedding wall. And the little red key holder I found at Michaels for $3 this week. I had a really good week of thrifty finds for the house and I am very happy to keep my keys in one place instead of freaking out every morning because I can't find my keys!

Well. Another week is upon us. More reading, more writing, and I think a bath for Scooter is in the works.... Photos to follow!

Weeks 29-30 Whirring Fur Whirring Chaos

2011-01-16T11:16:00.000-08:00

I wrote a poem this week for my poetry class about Scooter and one of the words I had to use was whir. I thought my poem was very silly and not the type of poem I normally write, but when I read it everyone in class reacted with a blank stare except my professor who thought it was really funny. I guess to understand the concept of fur in everything you have to have owned some sort of pet throughout the course of your life. Scooter's fur will live on for many years after he is gone in my varathaned floors, in our clothes, bedding, and of course other peoples houses that have had the pleasure of having Scooter stay with them! This morning I did a bit of sweeping around the house and took a photo of whirring fur in case people don't know what that is!

Our house is a disaster. We have been working on our bedroom still, and also painting furniture, and storing stuff we don't know what do do with ect. Brendon and I are both in school now and this week Brendon asked me if I needed this book that somehow ended up under a chair. I was heading out the door at 6:15 a.m. and wouldn't be back home until 10 that night. It turns out that I did indeed need that book for my poetry class! My new plan is to have all of my books for school in a stack on our coffee table in the living room. If I don't leave my books in a place where I can see them they will get caught up in the whirring chaos of our home.

Don't be deceived. I have about 20 more of these laying around the house that I need to collect for the stack!

Even though I am in school and very busy working on the house is like therapy for my brain. Something about working with my hands helps my brain to calm down and think straight! I put three coats of paint on the bedroom floor this week, and painted some furniture. We still need to varathane the floor and do a few other touch ups before we can move back into our bedroom. I will show you the state of our house as of late! I am a neat freak and I like things organized, but sometimes I just have to give into the mess!

We bought this blue gray paint at Wal Mart in the miss-tint section. This was the first layer that wasn't looking very promising...

Floor art!

After two layers of gray and one layer of teal. I decided with another teal floor after talking with my mom. Teal and gray I think will make for a nice calm bedroom.

I haven't played my piano since before Christmas. We have this chair my mom gave us that I just getting passed around from room to room. We thought they were going to pick it up so we put it there in the front room and now it has been there for over a month! The screen is a new addition. About a week.

Ladder for curtain rods and such.

Painting and varathaning furniture in the kitchen!

School work and painting materials all in the same corner.

Paint, taxes, switch plates, cleaning supplies, and two dancing dogs.

Our temporary living room/bedroom/scooters room. Scooter is using the bean bag for his bed because he kept waking us up every night by jumping on our bed and taking up all the covers.

Don't worry. I sewed this bean bag so I could wash every part of it! Another example of whirring fur...

Hallway. Shoes, vacuum, lights, dirt!

More paint stuffed in a corner. Brendon said "I didn't know we had a swimming pool!" I wish!

More stuff shoved in a corner until we can get things organized.

Dishes and paint in the sink..

Paint in the bathroom sink.

Paintbrushes in the bathroom!

Showing the before and after of a finished room is so delightful and complete kind of like a work or art, or a poem.. but the chaos in the middle is just as important to the process as the finished project, whirring fur in all!

Now that I have shown our mess there has been a few beauties here and there too. It has been an awful grey month in Salt Lake. Last Sunday I woke up and the sky was clear and the sun shining so Scooter and I went outside and enjoyed the fresh snow and the blue skies. Here are a few shots of winter beauty in the yard.

My beautiful apple tree asleep for winter.

Sweet peas in the snow.

Scooter paws in the snow.

Morning bark fest!

Well, that is about all for the past two weeks. I hope to show some completeness in the next few weeks. Goodbye from fur central - Scooter Pie

Week 28 -New Year! NO CARPET!!!!!

2011-01-02T17:40:00.000-08:00

Wahoo! In case you can't tell... I am super happy to announce that my friend Janae and I hauled out the last of the nasty carpet this week. I had the week off due to working for the Salt Lake School District (which I love) and so I had big plans for the house. I didn't accomplish everything I wanted to do, but realistically I really did get a lot done. Here is the progress!

Day 1 - Goodbye hallway carpet (I hauled this piece out by myself!)

I never tire of being grossed out by what is underneath carpet!

Day 2 - Hello new hallway wall texture!! Goodbye bedroom carpet nastiness...

Janae and I working hard.

Finished textured hallway.

I thought the front room had the grossest carpet, but I was totally wrong! Our bedroom won the prize!

In case you forgot how bad this room is.

After ripping up the carpet in our bedroom I found black mold, about half a bag of kitty litter, and Janae found a live wire sticking out of the floor. Luckily Janae wasn't shocked and she didn't die, but we sure saw a flash when she tried to pull the wire with pliers. Janae was pulling staples and thought the wire was a staple! Because of the flash one of our breakers is shot so we will be getting a new one pretty soon. Here is a picture of the infamous wire!

Day 3 - Hello new wall color in the bedroom!! Yay!

Two full coats later Brendon notices a slight color change between the first gallon of gray and the second. Oh well! Thanks to Jillian, Travis, and Janae for their hard work and painting skills.

There is also a day four which is the picture just above this where Brendon and I went to two different Wal - Marts to get this paint and then it is not quite the right color of the first coat. You can't even really tell the difference between the paint colors. We still have a lot to do on the floor, but I am hoping this next week or so we can wrap things up and get back into our bedroom.

Goodbye nasty walls! This is the backpack vac I think I have used since I was old enough to walk. Yep, this handy vacuum is probably as old as me and still works great!

In the end we found out why we were freezing in our room. There were quite a few holes in the floor and that was bringing in a ton of cold air! Hopefully we will be at least a little bit warmer in the new year.

And in final news.... we got rid of our dishwasher. I put it on KSL for $30.00 and a lady with eight kids called and was so very excited about it. We are glad we got to give the dishwasher to someone who could actually use it. Here is the lovely floor under the dishwasher.. All I can say is that the people who lived here before must have really loved pistachios and beer. Happy new year!

Weeks 26 -27 The Great Stencilller

2010-12-27T07:38:00.000-08:00

It has taken me a while to find time to sit down and blog about what we have been working on the past few weeks. We have gotten some real work done, but with the holidays and traveling ect. it has been hard to find time to update on the home improvements.

I have been enjoying the year in review in This Old House Magazine with all the fun home renovations that have taken place, but I think they could use a column about how a really poor person can still renovate a home and make it beautiful :) Here is a link to the home renovation winners of 2010!

http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/photos/0,,20394980,00.html?xid=hinewsletter-101221-best-hed

As for our own home renovation that is currently in the works here is the latest, plus cost of the work.

Room #2:

White primer - $0 (left over from other rooms)
Green Paints - $0 (left over from garage and another art project)
Gold paint - $4.00 Wal Mart
Stencils - $3.94 Michaels
Varathane - $0 (left over from other floor projects)
Brown Paint - $18.00 Wal Mart

Grand Total: $25.94

This Old House boasts a cheap remodel at $15,000 for one room. I am pretty sure I can re-do our whole house for less than $5,000. I do admire the creativity of the articles and the desire to recycle and reuse what is original to the homes though...

Here are a few pics from experimental floor number two! I used a flat green base paint for the floor semi watered down and then applied a teal wash over the top also with some water to see the green and a few flecks of white primer here and there showing through.

Trying to decide what type of stencil to use and where.

This is a green base with a teal wash over the top. It really looks like a painting!

The green floor without varathane or the stencils. I love the teal and the brown!

I stenciled some in each corner and then...

Center stencil. The floor isn't really this blue, it is more greenish.

Center stencil with varathane applied.

Walah! The floor is so shiny it is hard to see the stenciling from the door :)

My new Kithenaid!!

Well this is my new used Kitchenaid that has nothing to do with home improvement, but I am really excited about it!! My co - worker Nancy gave this to me and it is matches our home perfectly. While all this floor work was going on we were also making Christmas goodies for the neighbors. I loved using the Kitchenaid for mixing the cookie dough! Thank you Nancy!

Very huge molasses cookies!

My fudge attempt was an epic fail so we put cereal in it and made rocky road fudge muddy buddies minus the peanut butter and boy were they good! This is about what the house is like these days... cooking and cans of paint all in the same room.


I painted this little decorative paintings a while ago. They are just decorative, not really what I would call "fine art". I decided to stencil them for the room...

Well this is about all of our progress for the last two weeks. I am really excited about my new room and I promise to post before and after photos soon when all the furniture is in place. Until next time! Happy New Year!

Er Montana!

2010-12-14T16:36:00.000-08:00

Another week with nothing accomplished on the house. I spent the week with my parents up in Mackay, ID and then off to a wedding shoot in Helena, Montana. This week is back to work.. (I type this as a mop sits in a bucket from my half finished mopping while I blog:) Here are a few photos from the wedding and the drive to Montana, plus Butte where we stayed two nights. We had a wonderful time in Montana and it was great to also see friends along the way.

This is why the call Montana big sky country I am pretty sure.

This was the room we stayed in the Copper King Mansion. The bed looks level, but it wasn't once you sat in it. Once of the most fascinating places I have stayed, but also the worst bed!

Another room...

Loved the stained glass windows.

This is what we saw when we first walked in.

One of the caretakers.


This house was built by Mr. Clark. Fascinating man with a big part in the history of our country. Check out this info on him.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_A._Clark

The original water building

Butte from a silver mine.

Pillows anyone?


Syrup anyone??

And here are a few from the wedding!

Loved the carousel idea, but the colored lights were hard to work with.

And I have about 400 more of these to go through so consider this a sneak peak :) Until next week when the work will actually get done I hope.. Happy Holidays from the Bakers!

Oh - I forgot. The house we stayed in also had original plumbing so here is a shot from the bathroom! Brendon will have to tell you about the shower... he said he couldn't even open his eyes because there were little holes spraying water at him from every pipe seen in this photo!

Week 25 - Holiday Cheer

2010-12-05T20:30:00.000-08:00

A whole lot of nothing happened at the house this week due to a big illustration project I have in the works. However, Brendon had an interesting find this weekend while walking Scooter. Actually.. we have had lots of interesting finds while walking Scooter. Here is a small list of just a few items.

1. A full purse and or wallet of I.D. cards including credit cards, social security ect.. (2 times calling the South Salt Lake Police Department)
2. A bunch of slate tiles that I ended up throwing out because they sat out in the yard all summer and I felt like I was becoming a hoarder.
and #3...... Most memorable thus far.... I now turn this blog post over to Brendon!


A Flask. Full of Alcohol.

Hey, Brendon Baker here, ready to tell you all about my new flask.

I always knew I would find a flask walking scooter, It just wasn't in the location I expected. Darn psychic abilities failed me again. I'm still waiting until I find that briefcase of money I've been expecting. I don't think it will be anytime soon though. Or even while living in this house, but some day I will, and when I do, I can write a book about it and entitle it Old Men Don't Belong In This Part of the Country. Which brings me to my next subject

Christmas Music

Christmas Music is so UGHHH! Lets face the facts, If you heard a Christmas song, but it wasn't actually about Christmas, you would think, "Man, this song really sucks." but because it's about Christmas, everybody loves it. Think Rocking Around the Christmas Tree actually being Rocking around the tree at a party. What a terrible song. Am I right? Now if that song only came on at a certain time of the year, you still wouldn't listen to it. because it is not a well written song.

Now to finish my tirade, I'm calling to arms all the good song writers to write good Christmas Music so we can do away with All the old blah ones. First Noel is good though, keep that. Also Silent Night can stay because Christ is good. Jingle bells, you gotta go.

TTFN

Week 24 - The Christmas tree that keeps on growing

2010-11-28T19:00:00.000-08:00

We had thought about going and cutting our own Christmas tree this year, but on Thanksgiving day we got lucky and just went over to my cousin Laurie's house and cut our tree down in her front yard. Because we have such high ceilings in our home we thought this tree would be perfect for us. Well... we underestimated about four feet. Still, we now have a very very large juniper Christmas tree in our living room with a few haphazard lights. We drove the beast home on top of my station wagon and had to do a little trimming before we got it in the door and after we got it in the door.

Taking the tree home Towsley style.

The tree has taken over Scooter's favorite spot... and the living room!

The beautiful Christmas glow.

Besides tree trimming we also worked on the floor in the second bedroom. I have a vision for the floor, but we will see if it actually works out. Here are a few images of the progress even though it is slow going.

The huge pile of dirt that was under the carpet.

Brendon helping me pull up staples while I was ripping out tack strip.

After we filled in the cracks with wood putty, sanded it, and then we did the first coat of white primer. The floor looks so good, but I know better than to have a white floor with a huge white dirty dog!

The first wash of color!

We also filled in the cracks around the baseboards with foam insulation and we were amazed how well it insulated the cracks.

I am pretty sure my time this week will be just working on the floor. There isn't much to do outside when there is a ton of snow!

Brendon and Scooter on their nightly walk.

Walking in the snow and wind out on State street a man stopped his car and rolled down his window to ask us about Scooter.

I also did my first photo shoot in Lehi this week. I have never taken photos there, so I wasn't sure where to go. My sister in law suggested the old train station and so that is where we went! There were quite a few photo shoots going on there with various photographers. Here are a few of the shots from the shoot that I like the best.

Week 23 - Thanksgiving Barf - fest

2010-11-21T19:20:00.000-08:00

My best friend Deidra and her family came to visit us this weekend so we decided to have our own Thanksgiving with them. We cooked our first turkey at the house and made homemade pumpkin pies. The food was delicious and we made our own sparkling grape juice with the juice we canned from our concord and green grapes. After all the hard work of canning it is very satisfying to use the fruits from your our own garden as part of a celebration of thanks.

The Thanksgiving table decor including grape jelly from the garden and apple butter.

A dogs view of Thanksgiving dinner.

Our turkey seasoned with rosemary from our garden.

I am very grateful for our home and for the beautiful garden we were able to enjoy this year. Those things are easy to be grateful for... our carpet and thanksgiving barf on the other hand I am a little less grateful for...

After painting our second bedroom I have been very hesitant to rip out the carpet because the flooring just feels so uneven and I was scared of what was underneath. I haven't had the motivation to move all of our junk into another room once again, but Deidra helped me move it all and get ready for ripping out the carpet. What solidified ripping out the carpet was Scooter throwing up turkey all over our bedroom carpet Friday night. I guess giving Scooter the turkey skin wasn't such a good idea. The worst part about it though is no matter how much I scrubbed the carpet it still smells and a never-ending amount of dirt kept coming up when I was scrubbing it. The whole process of cleaning up the barf grossed me out so much that as soon as the company left and I went in the second bedroom and ripped out the carpet! And... the floor is fine! The wood underneath is actually in really good shape so that was a relief. I can't believe how much dirt comes out after pulling up carpet. I am amazed we haven't gotten some kind of disease or lung infection from this stuff.

Goodbye nasty carpet.

Look at the dirt. Gross!

Brendon and I have scoped out remnants, ksl, and other costs for installation and new carpet is not even remotely in our near future so I will get to paint the floors for now! I am excited to get creative with this room and see what I can do to make the floor look beautiful. The more I uncover things like this old floor I can see that a long time ago someone really did care about this house and wanted it to be beautiful.

While our company was here we decided to go do Gardner Village and take a few photos! I love the colors of that place and I think it is an excellent spot to take photos. Here are a few of my favorites.

My favorite shots are always the candid ones.

The have very pretty and feisty ducks at Gardner Village.

The night that the Pulsipher family left we got major snow. Scooter has recovered from his sick stomach and went out first thing this morning to play! So until next week... Good bye from Scooter - the Pyranees snow dog.

Week 22 - Catography

2010-11-14T18:10:00.000-08:00

Well... after the puppy photo shoot I decided a kitty shoot (photos not guns) was in store! My Auntie Kathleen recently brought home two new kitties and they are very adorable and energetic! Here are a few photos from the shoot..

Brink. Named after a security truck seen on the way to pick him up in Boise, ID.

Brownie! Named after the Lubeck families love of fine chocolates and sweets. O.k.... I made that up.

Another photo of cute little Brownie.

The cats did not care for the photo shoot very much, but Brownie really liked my tripod and we had tons of fun playing with the kitties and cuddling them.

Brown is a nice color for cats as well as bedroom walls. We now have a brown bedroom! The next step is moving all of our junk and I am procrastinating!

Cinnamon Brown plus lots of junk!

In other news... we finished canning the last of the apple sauce and apple butter with our friends the Wheatley's and I canned 8 quarts of spiced apricots and peaches. I would like to say that we are done canning, but Brendon and I average a general eating of a jar of salsa a week and we are on the last one! So.... salsa is on the list for this week.

Brendon also put up the shutters and they look cool, but a little ehh small.. I think they will be fine once I make the flower boxes to go under the windows. I hope.. The more I look at them the more I don't mind the interesting size with the window frame, but I am open to second opinions!

Well.. until next week. Goodbye from Brownie and Brink.

Cat ya later!

Week 21 - Fall Cat Napper and shutters

2010-11-07T17:26:00.000-08:00

We have enjoyed our little cat farm in the backyard this past seven months or so and this week the cats have vanished along with our dear little Katie the Scientologist. Our neighbor Willy thinks that the animal control might have came by and did their routine cat pickup seeing as we have so many wild cats in our neighborhood. Still, we were fine with our wild little friends and fed them quite frequently.

Scooter has been lingering out in the back yard late into the dusk this weekend in what I have decided is his last hurrah before winter really comes. I have also been outside all weekend working on my latest scheme.... shutters! I have been throwing this shutter idea around for quite sometime, but the idea was solidified when my dear friend Judy Andreason gave me the leftover slats from her old fence. I took quite a few slats I thought, but now I am wishing I would have taken all of them!

A lovely example of my forever scavenging habits I picked up from my father.

This weekend I also bought a miter saw. A miter saw has been on my wish list for quite a while because they are cheap and perfect for small artsy jobs like this.

My litter miter saw! Ten dollars at Home Depot.

On the way to becoming my shutters!

I need my dad to come down and make me some saw horses. Until then I will be using the garbage cans.

The finished product! I was going to paint over the little white nails, but now I kind of like them.. Can't wait to see what they look like on the front of the house! Total cost... $3 for a can of red spray paint to touch up the other red paint I had already purchased for the garage!

In further crafty news. I finally finished the curtains in our bedroom. They aren't anything fancy, but I ordered this curtain book that my cousin Laurie suggested and I am looking forward to working on some of my curtain sewing skills rather than just making up crazy curtains like this!

Taffeta from Joanne's. I need to stay out of that store!

And finally. This week I did a few photo shoots in the backyard. I never knew when I bought this house that my back yard would be like a photographers dream! Here are some pics! These kids were the easiest kids to take photos of that I have ever done. They were a lot of fun. I also took some photos for my beautiful friend Jillian who has lost 31 lbs! She is so inspiring, and it was my pleasure to take her photos.

And my last kid of the day wanted his pics by my shutters! What a smart and handsome boy he is :)

Check out Jillian's blog. She is amazing!

http://jilliansbiggestlosershow.blogspot.com/

I hope this isn't the end of fall just yet because I am still so in love with the fall colors. Until next week!

Week 20- Happy Halloween... sort of..

2010-11-01T20:50:00.000-07:00

It is hard to remember what has happened this week. Saturday our church was burned by an arsonist and that really got things going into a state of emergency! There has been a lot of speculation about what happened and why, but I think the important part of this whole experience has been how the people who lost their church reacted. From what I have seen everyone is just happy no one was in the church when it burned, and everyone in our congregation has been concerned about friends, neighbors, and the person who started the fire. It will be difficult for some people to attend our ward now that our church is a few miles away, rather than a few blocks. We live in an area where there is a lot of poverty and most people don't have cars. It has made everyone in our ward grow closer together and I am sure not many can say they have had their church burn down! Here is an article from the news with some quotes from a few members of our ward.

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=13032572

On a lighter note! The house progress has been coming along. This week I started on the second bedroom with the help of my mission companion DD. We textured the walls and I started priming them for the paint that Brendon picked out. Apparently Brendon no longer cares that he gets to pick the paint colors for the rooms, but he wants one room in the house that does not have red and gold in it :) I told him that I won't allow any red and gold in our bedroom, but he thinks that I might die if this actually happens.

As you can see from the white ring where the light switch panel was the current walls are quite dirty!

I have also been trying to finish up the curtains for our bedroom and I am on the last one! On Saturday I had the curtains spread out on the kitchen floor and Scooter came bolting through the back door with muddy paws and ran across my curtains. I was about ready to tan his hide, but instead I went and bought a troll doll at the D.I. and saddled it to his back for Halloween. In the picture Scooter looks like he has been crying because he is so humiliated, but that is what you get for walking on my curtains!

Scooter adding his creative flair to my curtains.

Punishment! Bwahaha!

Before we had the church burning fiasco we enjoyed a beautiful Saturday morning picking our apples! The contrast of the red fruit on the fallen golden leaves was so beautiful. I couldn't stop looking at the beauty of the fall and thinking of Robert Frost's poem After Apple Picking. If you have never read the poem I suggest you read it. Brendon was very daring and got to the very top of the tree buy leaning the ladder inside the branches and climbing up on the high limbs. I stayed down on the ground and picked up the fallen apples.

We were like little kids trying to find the biggest apple on the tree! As you can see there were many huge apples.


Brendon took this photo of one solitary apple that was hanging about eight inches from the ground.

Good thing I have a daring husband!

The Moor family came over for dinner on Sunday and they let me take a few family pics out under the apple tree.

I am pretty sure this is the same wheelbarrow my dad used to push me around in when I was little!

First wheelbarrow ride? Little M is such a cute kid!

Well... on to another week and hopefully another beautiful fall day.... Goodbye..