smart kids

Do you know that I have some super smart kids?
Like seriously.

I buy ground beef from Costco, take the round chunks of meat and shove them in a ziploc bag.
Toss that round hunk into the freezer (unless I brown them first which often happens) and can never get them thawed fast enough for a quick dinner because they're in a hunk. Which would be the reason I brown them first. Which also means that I never have raw meat to make into a hamburger patty.

Insert smart daughter.
She does this.
She doesn't freeze hunks of it.
She uses the ziploc and presses her ground beef into a flat thing that fills the bag.

Smart girl.
Fits in the freezer better for one.

Excuse my sink ... it needs a dose of bleach or comet or something.

And best of all ... drop it into a tub of water to thaw .. and dinner is almost cooked. 

Seriously. So fast.

We had absolutely scrumptious burgers on the grill last week. 

Twice.

Just call me a life long learner over here.

gym time

If you know me at all ... you know the word G.Y.M. scares me to death.
With good reason.

I prefer my gym time to be done around the yard outside.
Kind of like people of yesteryear did before gyms were in vogue and we were a society that needed to go to exercise because our daily living has become what it is today.

I should probably go the gym so I can fit in that black dress but, in reality, I'm not going.
Probably never.

Instead, I got up bright and early Saturday morning to find rain falling from the sky.
Hello?!!
I had plans!!

Then it stopped.
The wind came and blew all that tall grass to dry in a few minutes.
I took the weed wacker out and worked until my arms were needing a break.

Break they took and then we went for round 2.

The belt sander came out and I sanded until I ran out of sand paper.
I'm out of crafting commission for the next 12 days, but I have a plan for these lovelies.

It's going to require some more outdoorsy gym time.
Stay tuned!

starvation

It has been raining.

Perhaps they will live a little longer.

18 days early

For the past nearly 5 years, my cars have been parked in the sun.

Not a bad thing in the Phoenix winter weather, but summer?!

There is nothing like getting scorched by the seat and the steering wheel.

Sometimes and some places there just isn't an option.

It is scorch season.

My goal was August 1st. I wanted to be parked in the garage by then. Every time I tried to even walk in the garage to find one item, I nearly tripped and got trapped. It was looking sort of doubtful. 

Add husband to the equation ….

and I'm parked in there 18 days early. 

I can walk around the car!!

I think I can find things. At least I shouldn't break a leg doing it. Neither should I end up underneath a mountain of falling totes and boxes. Hopefully. The piece that makes me smile almost as big as a cool car is that I can now find the crafting stuff. The projects that need to be started or completed might just be within reach and findable. To be honest, I was having a bit of anxiety creeping into my life as my treasures were hidden.

The only way I was able to finally park inside was that the photo below had to happen first.

Behind the garage of this house is a carport that was rather full of stuff that needed to be moved out. It left on the 4th of this month, after which Jari moved out the rest that was left behind. He started replacing walls and putting in light switches and outlets where he wanted them. He took down a shop light that was hanging in there and added LED can lights instead that are incredibly easy to install, are flush with the ceiling and ….were on sale on Amazon! A hanging light wouldn't have worked well with his parking in this space with a ladder rack and ladders. Then came the paint. He used up some white paint and installed mounted shelves on one side. The shelves, incidentally, had been previously used as sleeping quarters in the trailer he used for dunes riding. I had been sorely tempted to take them apart and use the 2x4's for some benches but resisted. Good thing!

We have a few things here that we are storing for someone else as well. Have garage? We will fill! Eventually, we will get things more organized and it will all make some sense. No hurry for that one. Perhaps we will wait until it cools off a bit.

In the meantime, hubby has worked his tail off to get this done. Probably sweated out pounds he could ill afford to sweat out. When he is on a mission to get something done … look out! It is getting done!

I do have to tell you something else. Hubby and I share many of the same tools. Don't give me the vehicle fixing stuff. I don't want that. But the other stuff? Oh yeah! I now have a giant air compressor that is easily reachable. I don't need to unlock doors and run air lines across the yard in order to hook up a brad nailer.

I don't need to worry if the wind is blowing dust hither and yon anymore. I can paint and poly to my hearts content inside a closed garage. Except for  Mr. Kitty. I did closed my windows enough that he can't get in there and get cozy. I guess it remains to be seen if he tromps and leaves paw prints across freshly refinished surfaces. That could become a serious problem but I'm sure one that will have an easy to find resolution.

Cool happy dances over here!

paradise found

Seriously.
These are ours.
Somedays I can hardly believe it.

coco and the boys

Coco is loving his new home.

The house that he doesn't occupy anymore will get paint once it cools off.

Promise.

At the other house, he lived in the cage. He uses the privacy box for doing his business.

Last week we let him free.

We put him back in the cage the first night and after that he has done his own thing.

Saturday evening he wouldn't come when called. He usually hops on over to Jari for the romaine lettuce offerings. Not this time. I'd heard of chicken vultures and figured maybe one had been in the neighborhood. Seriously sad moments, especially when I googled to see what the nasty vulture looked like.

Sunday morning there he was. Wandering around and exploring a completely different part of the yard with the wild little rabbit that lives here watching him. I think he spent the night in the garage. I sure hope he isn't leaving droppings everywhere.

The boys love him. He runs and hides from them when he has had enough but overall tolerates the rambunctious loving of two little boys.

Chickens coming to the farm in a few months.
That ought to keep the boys busy!

moving stuff

The weekend we planned to start moving in the forecast called for rain and cool weather.

God knows that Jari can't handle the heat and He sent the most beautiful gift ever.

Cool and cloudy with only a few drops of rain.

The trailer we were borrowing wasn't available until Saturday evening so we ran loads with our vehicles first. One after another. 

There are some folks who love moving.

I don't understand you and won't even pretend to.

I get the part of cleaning out junk.

That I get.

The two of us have all too many hobbies and interests.

While I have purged and passed on many treasures, we still have many others.

Like ... 2 sets of china that I use.

I dare not count how many cans of craft paint I moved.

I have to tell you that not once did I hear my hubby complain about any of it.

He is the absolute best.

I chuckled the day I saw a crib wordlessly loaded into the truck and moved.

I don't need a crib.

It is suppose to be made into a bench for market or something.

Same with the load in the photo below. 

Crib springs. An ancient falling apart door that needs a space to live.

He is an absolute gem.

Somehow the joy of moving becomes a serious job when this is your world.

Crafting anyone?

We lived in about 1200 square feet of space and managed to yet host visitors and have a place for them to sleep. I don't really know how, but we managed to fill every nook and cranny with stuff.

It is going to take me a minute to find all the new nooks and crannies.

Every empty shelf is a celebration.

I would seriously like to be a minimalist.

I pine for spaces that almost look barren, yet know that it will drive me nuts within a short time.

Maybe that's why I can't even manage to hang a picture on my present walls.

I'm enjoying the quiet of blank ones right now.

I was really hoping not to move sleeping spaces until my work week was done.

I'm having a hard time physically moving lately and after a long Tuesday at work, 

I really hadn't wanted to add this business to the list.

Jari and Tia wanted to sleep at the new house. They were done. Over it already.

Tuesday morning at about 5:15 a.m., as I was leaving for work, I said something like

"if you want to move beds tonight ..."

I texted him as I was leaving work.

He had a load ready to roll.

I don't know how he got this stuff on the trailer.

I'm guessing he really, really, really wanted to sleep in our new home.

This headboard is downright heavy!!

I might be strange. Might?

I am a serious creature of habit. I do the same thing, in the same order, every morning before work. Once or twice I messed with the routine and left for work without my teeth it. Not. Good.

Seriously, I wasn't sure I was going to be able to handle a morning before work in a new house!

That's probably really silly.

I managed!

I also am not certain if moving across town or across country is easier.

Our last cross country move was done with very little in tow.

We got rid of a lot of stuff and pretty much took the treasured favorites and things that were too expensive to replace in our last big move.

This moving across town business allows you to keep stuff.

We piled yard sale stuff as we packed, but we moved a lot of stuff.

Stuff.

On the other hand, I now have the time to look at it all as I'm finding new homes for it and make decisions. There is a corner of the dining room that has a growing donation pile. Stuff that just doesn't need to stay with us for another minute, hour or day. Most certainly, not another 32 years.

All of our stuff was moved last weekend and we are done.

I am hoping that the next time we need to do this ... 

it won't be us doing it.

Sorry kids.

moving food

With the exception of 5 gallon water coolers, this is the largest cooler we own at the moment.

There is a wee bit larger one in the boat, but that one isn't accessible and really not worth anything.

This little bugger is how I moved our food.

Every trip over with a car load of boxes or clothes on hangers included a loaded cooler of food.

One at a time.

Actually, it worked pretty good!

painting without color

We were very fortunate to be able to start painting and working before we officially closed on the house. Seriously, we are feeling our age lately. Work full time jobs and try to do all this monkey business on top of that? We have a long way to elderly, but somedays .....

The home we purchased is an older home. Many of the windows are small and don't really contribute a whole lot of light. First order of business ... remove all the blinds. I may regret this but I have an aversion to cleaning those things and this property is incredibly private. Unless someone wants to scale a wall ... they're not seeing in. I'm covering them with washable curtains instead.

Paint. The helpers came to pitch in a bit! Their Papa has a lot of patience with these little guys. They were able to help him until he started rolling walls.

Nearly the entire house was the tan of this room (better seen in one of the following photos) and I am done with tan. Done. Done. Done. The carpet and tile are tan. The dirt outside is tan. The dust on my car is tan. Everything but my legs are tan. Mind you, I'm just realizing how much of my furniture is brown after putting it into different colored spaces. No tan on the walls. Period.

I wanted white and gray, both paints without color. Two sample colors yielded something I didn't like at all. I've used the second one from the left on furniture, but much too blue looking when it hit the wall. To Pinterest I went and learned something about picking paint colors. I'll share that in another post. We went with the far right to complement our white.

The window in the living room is 4 feet wide. That's all the light that's in here. For now. The plan is for the window to take up most of the wall. Light should be streaming in at some point ... just not yet. Hence my desire for white and bright.

The fireplace? Finally!! I keep looking at houses with fireplaces and Jari doesn't like them. Take them out is his feeling. I want a mantle. I want a hearth. It is staying without a fuss. And... I want it white. What I would really like to do is strip off all the plaster stuff and have white washed brick but that sounds like a project for some other time.

Dining room ... let the sun shine in!

Arches that will someday go away ...

Jari spent many evenings painting after work .. one piece at a time. It was so fun to watch the change happen each day.

An hour before we sat at this table and signed paperwork making this our new home ... it was done. The trim hasn't been painted yet because we aren't exactly sure what we are doing about all that yet. The walls were ready to move into! And I was in love with the change!

Time to get packing in earnest!