Back in the swing of things

With a two month gap in blog posts, you can probably guess how busy we've been with house projects...uh, not very busy at all.  But, with the impending fall weather, we're back in gear again at the Seaman house and Chris is tackling projects left and right.  Sadly, I haven't been able to contribute much, but I'm an excellent photographer and cheerleader!

Chris made a promise to me eight months ago when we bought our house:




We will be adding a dishwasher (soon?!) which was why, in my opinion, the stove needed to be moved from next to the sink to next to the fridge.  This involved cutting a large portion out of the ceiling in the basement to get to the electrical components and adding a plug in the new location.

As you can probably tell, I added on the end of that promise.  He has made good on it and the napkin can come down from the bulletin board now, where it has lived since we moved in.  :)  He MUST love me.

Also on the to-do list in the kitchen is finish the wiring and plumbing for the garbage disposal, dishwasher, and to install the microwave we purchased in March which has been sitting on the floor in the basement since then.  Did you know it's possible to live so long without a microwave?!  Neither did I!

The final placement of the stove.

 And in other news...did you know that it's finally fall?!  It's unbelievable how fast it came...earlier this week it was sunny and warm, and now it's blustery and pouring down rain.  I don't mind (much).  We broke out the hot chocolate, branched out and bought some caramel whipped cream (OMG, you need to have this...it's like candy) and I even found a glass pumpkin at Target ($5!) just like the one BOTH of our moms had when we were growing up around Halloween.  I love tradition!

Chris and I did something new together, too!  We've been together for FOUR years and NEVER carved pumpkins together!  We invited some friends over to carve pumpkins with us, but wanted to get a jump start on the gutting step.  We went to a pumpkin patch in Enumclaw to pick out pumpkins (also something I had never done...what a poor deprived childhood I had  ;) and ended up getting ones larger than we, uh, needed.

 We needed this one completed before the party as it would let everyone know they were at the right house.  ;)

And because it's fall, Chris is determined not to turn the heat on in the house until it's ABSOLUTELY necessary, so he figured getting the insert removed from the upstairs fireplace so that we could have a *safe* fire was a good idea.  Little did he know that, even with a large portion of the pieces removed, the insert still weighed a good 300lbs...Drew to the rescue!  They worked very hard (and didn't hurt themselves OR the wood floor) to get the insert out and we enjoyed our first REAL fire last night during the carving party.

Chris and Vicki worked hard last weekend on getting the shower door removed so that we could just have a regular bathtub/shower curtain instead of the bulky glass.  They also removed ALL of the shady insulation in the garage (complete with rat poop!) so that Chris can re-insulate that for the winter (and thus save us some money while trying to heat the house).

Next up, finishing the kitchen and then working on a very special fun room that you'll hear more about very soon!  :)

An Epic Fence!

Well, it's finished!  Chris gets the 'engineer of the year' award for the most amazing fence ever.  We still have to find some post caps that we like...but we're calling it done.   

We had our housewarming party on, what turned out to be, a beautiful July Saturday and had lots of family and friends come help us celebrate home ownership and the completion of our fence project.  I sure love my friends.  Nicole and Stella also spent a busy three days with us and headed back to MN on Sunday.  I sure miss my friend and now I'll miss her daughter, too!

Erin, Nicole, Heather and Emily

On a whim (that's usually how it happens) we picked up a couple of tomato plants at Home Depot and planted them one sunny afternoon, too.  They're growing AND we've got three tomatoes on one plant!  My Dad says that we could 'bake pottery in the backyard it's so hot', so we're hoping that is one advantage we'll have when trying to grow yummy things to eat.

  July turned out to be quite the month for running for us.  I was originally training for the Warrior Dash on the 22nd because I didn't want to be embarrassed again by not being able to run, but I was still worried (not sure why...I trained for 9 weeks!) I wouldn't be able to do it.  Chris and I signed up for the Firecracker 5K midnight run the night before the Fourth of July.  It was really fun and next year I'm going to have to plan an outfit, I felt completely under-pizzazzed.  The run was challenging for a couple of reasons.  I think the time of day was tough as I hadn't ever run at midnight before (!).  Also, a week and a half before the race I took myself out in the grocery store (literally), spraining my ankle and couldn't walk on it for 3 days.  This put training out for the week and a half before the race.  Oops.  Chris says no more high heels in the grocery store (they were kitten heels, really!).

The best self-portrait while running EVER.

At the finish!

And, of course, then there was the Warrior Dash, which was really fun!  I was glad that Chris and Drew could run ahead at their own pace this year and didn't have me slowing them down.  Jessica, my Dad and I ran together and did great!  I'm especially proud of Jessica for completing every single obstacle, even though there were a few that were daunting at first.  My Dad was a great coach, as always, and my favorite picture is the one of the two of us together at the end.  Enjoy the pictures!  More August projects to come in the next post.

Jessica and Emily at the end!

What a stud.

Warriors!

I still look like a goon, but I was having so much fun!

 

Have a seat, we have a table for six for you.

Our table came!  We LOVE it and it doesn't wobble when you set anything on it.  :)  We needed a booth, for sure, to fit into the tiny corner in our kitchen and use the space the best.  I was skeptical about the size of the table, but it works just fine.  I've come to the conclusion that, we just have a small kitchen, and who cares?  It works.  We have a plain bench that goes with the set, too, but it'll live in the living room most of the time.

Fiona shows off the new table.

The view from the kitchen.

Joe seems to like the booth, too!

Chris was such a champ last week after working during the day, then going and picking up the table at the Cannery, coming home and putting it together (thanks for your help, Vicki!), and THEN going to do some surveying for work again until 2 in the morning.  But, it's in and now you may come over for dinner any time.

Guest ready!

I finished the curtains in the guest room after remeasuring MANY times.  So, now the neighbors can be happy and so can any guests we have.

We were going to be working on the fence today, the morning sunshine tricked us into thinking it was going to be nice out.  It started raining while I was at the grocery store and Chris was mowing the lawn, so the fence will have to wait until tomorrow.  It did allow Chris to work on installing the sink in the downstairs bathroom.  We traded Vicki and Chris the entertainment center/fireplace we bought just after our wedding because that piece of furniture just doesn't have a spot in our house.  The sink will be a great addition to the downstairs bathroom as the one that was here from the previous owner was, er, gross.  The sink now is a little out of place with the rest of the bathroom, but once we tear down some walls, rebuild and paint them, and swap out the toilet it'll be good to go.  That might be a 'next year' project!

Gross sink before.

Gross sink gone!

What Fiona and I did during the sink project.

The sink installed.
Fiona seems to want to be in every picture...

Running to Red Robin

That's what we're doing tonight.  After Chris cuts some more fence boards and I stain a few more.  :)  I finished my Couch-5K running program last week, thanks to LOTS of encouragement from Jenny and Chris.  Chris was the perfect husband, never pressuring me to run, but ALWAYS telling me I did a great job and asking me how it went when I got back to the house, sweaty and gross.  And Jenny's texts were enough to keep me going most days.  She kept me safe when Chris wasn't home, "If I don't text you within the hour, I've been abducted, call 911", told me I kicked ass, and helped me feel better when it was just as tough for her as it was for me (sometimes you just need someone to commiserate with, you know?).  Now, it's up to me to KEEP running before the Warrior Dash so that all of my hard work doesn't go to waste.  So, tonight I'm going to do my first run with someone else, and we're going to run to Red Robin and have a milkshake.  Good plan.

The fence from the front, outside.

As far as the house goes, the fence is coming together little piece by little piece.  It actually LOOKS like a fence, and a damn good one at that!  Even our pile of wood is diminishing (thank goodness!).  Once we get the cedar boards up, we'll be able to work on the top boards to add a finished look to the fence.  We've got to have it done by our housewarming party (July 21st...you're invited!)

A smaller pile of wood than we originally had...

And, in other news...we're not only having a housewarming party in July, we're also having some real house guests!  OK, Drew has stayed over, and Angela was here for one night when she was in town...so they won't be our first, but I'm so excited!  :)  So that means I need to get some curtains up in our guest room (I'm sure our neighbors to the north have seen my naked butt in the window a time or two as my clothes are in the closet, but oh well) and hopefully in the kitchen as well.

The guest room!

I will also be working on curtains (still) for our kitchen window.  I have the fabric already (I can't wait to work on it, it's so pretty!), but I'm waiting for next month's budget to come into play to be able to go buy some curtain rods.

Oh, did you notice we still don't have our kitchen table?  That's because it's on a "container".  Grrr...it's supposed to be here at the end of this month.  We will see.  We've had several dinners and a couple of breakfasts with guests sitting at that rickety card table (thanks Mom and Dad for loaning it to us!), but every time Joe jumps up there I'm afraid he's going to take down the entire table.  Hopefully our new bench and table won't be much longer.

You may have also noticed the beautiful flowers we have outside of the kitchen window in a flower planter box my Dad bought for us and planted.  The plants are BEAUTIFUL and apparently doing better than his in his own yard.  :)

And, to wrap up another project, I finally got the third panel completed on our closet panel system from Ikea.  I still have one panel to re-do because in my excitement to start a new project, I forgot to sew a hem in the first panel.  Oops.  I'll fix that someday when I'm REALLY bored.  

And, coming to the end of the pictures is Chris' mole board.  He caught another one!  (merely 12 hours after he put the traps in...another unbelievable feat that irritates my dad.)

 We also spent a lovely Father's day with both of our Dads at the LeMay car museum down in T-town.  It was fun!  Followed by hot dogs at Red Hot and milkshakes at Frisco Freeze.  Yum!

Happy Summer!

Playing the Of[fen{c}e] game

This month's project has been the fence to keep the monster in, because, really, we'd rather play offense than defense.  Chris is such a good planner, I think we'll have the best fence in the entire neighborhood!  In fact, when Chris was standing in the backyard talking across the existing chain link fence, our neighbor, Larry, said, "you're doing all that for a fence?".  So, I think that our standards are much higher than the typical standard for the 'hood.  We had all of the wood delivered at the beginning of May, so it was about time to get started.

I had a birthday celebration.  Yay for being 30 surrounded by some of my favorite people
 We celebrated Mother's day...





And this weekend we fenced.

Chris had had all of the holes and posts in for a while now (thanks to lots of helpers) and we took the opportunity to spend our beautiful, sunny Saturday to work all day.  I stained, Chris screwed, sawed, and placed boards.  We have a lot more to do.  We think it's a great idea to have a housewarming party where you get to paint your own board to put up on the fence (you know, like a baby shower where you decorate a onesy?), and then when you're done we'll put it right up and you'll forever know which board you placed at the Seaman household.  No?  OK, we'll just get it done before we have an actual housewarming party and you won't be able to claim any of that fence.  FINE.

The posts before the stringers were up.

My staining station.  Ugh.

At the end of the day the gate got hung and 12 cedar boards are in place.

Though, I still have some staining to do.  :(

Going on a Mole Hunt

It really has been a quiet month, though we've still accomplished quite a bit.  Chris and I slinked back to Weight Watchers and have been really proud of ourselves with our (back to) progress.  It's so nice to have each other's support and we feel good!  That's what it's all about, right?  On that note, Chris got back to running and I decided to give it a try.  I figured that with the Warrior Dash coming up in July that I'm going to embarrass myself if I don't start doing some kind of training.  With the encouragement of Jenny who recently started a similar program, and the knowledge that lots of my other friends have done similar things in the past couple of months, I downloaded a Couch to 5K app onto my phone and am on week three of the plan.  Chris encouraged (forced) me to go and get some running shoes and after two hours at the running store, I had myself an extremely comfortable, well fitting pair of fitted shoes (that are NOT purple and yellow).

     We celebrated Fiona's 2nd birthday on the 22nd and got her the best toy in the entire world, a Dart from thinkgeek.com.  Watch the video and you'll feel the need to buy one for your cat, dog, or husband.  There is a timer on the Dart so we can walk away and leave Fiona to play (which she's perfectly happy to do), but both Chris and I find ourselves just sitting there and watching her because she's having so much fun.  Joe even jumps in every once and a while.

Crooked curtain rod.  Er, house.

     I started working on the curtain panels we're putting in front of our closet in the bedroom.  We took the doors out because they were huge, took up too much space, and caught on the carpet.  Chris hung the curtain rod and, believe it or not, it IS level...it's our house that is not.  Sooooo, Chris rehung the curtain rod.  Now I'm working on the panels...I'll post a picture when they're done!

The massive mole hills

     Possibly the biggest accomplishment of the month is the big magnificent mole mustering Chris has done.  He and my dad set the traps a couple of weekends ago (Dad has a thing for getting moles from many, many years of mole hunting, himself).  Right after the traps were set, there were LITERALLY 10 more mole hills all over the yard, so Chris moved the traps and faithfully checked them every day.  Finally, finally, one afternoon he checked the traps and SUCCESS!  It was a great celebration and now, no new mole hills for several days.  Yippee!

Got one!

   

We have materials arriving on Friday for our fence, so that'll be the big May project now that the supplies are purchased.  We'll just have to wait for a good sunny weekend or two and perhaps a few helping hands!  Then, the monster (Fiona) will have a safe place to run and have a good time.

Home ownership is...

 ...expensive.  And there's such a long to-do list.  Our first priority (we thought) was getting up a fence around the back yard so that the monster (Fiona) couldn't run out into the street and in front of any more cars.  She did it once and I think I had a heart attack.  After some research, we realized that with the budget we set for home repairs and projects, we wouldn't be able to swing the fence this month...we'd have to save up for three months to get it done.  So, we set that thought aside and finished taxes.  Guess which project Uncle Sam will be funding with our refund?  That's right, a fence.  :)  So, Chris is going to do some more research and planning while I'm away in NM this week visiting Angela.

In the meantime, we know we need to get the gutter situation under control (it's still not draining properly) and also get our grass (what little of it there is) growing properly and weed (read: dandelion) free.  It seems like the dandelions popped up overnight and if you need any dandelion tea, we're sure we could probably get you a year's worth of it just from our backyard.  I also want to work on some curtains for windows (As Chris mentioned today when I walked into the kitchen after my shower, sans clothes: "You know, these are going to be our neighbors for a while...") so we can have some privacy and don't embarrass ourselves.  :)

AFTER

BEFORE

We spent four hours flitting around Southcenter this afternoon while Fiona got a haircut.  The trip included two hours in IKEA.  If you've seen the 30 Rock episode about how IKEA is like a death trap for relationships and it's important to go in hydrated, fed, well rested, etc, we were prepared for the worst.  We both love IKEA, though, and do quite well in there together.  I really only wanted to go in to get curtain rods for the kitchen window (didn't find the ones I wanted, will have to get them online) but we came out with a rod to hang our pots and pans on under the counter and an amazing butcher block top cart that I SWEAR doubled our counter space in the kitchen.

So, while Chris slaved away outside today, I stayed inside and put the cart together.  It's the first piece of IKEA furniture that I haven't used the allen wrench that comes with the furniture for (it didn't have one!) and instead used a drill. No lie.  It's a real piece of furniture.  :)  The dogs helped me, too, of course.

And, my new favorite thing about our house is the beautiful Camellia outside our living room window that's now in bloom.  Pretty!