Pergola Time!

I guess we got burned out on working on the house, so we've enjoyed an extended vacation from working on it. And we really haven't been doing anything interesting to blog about, so my blog was sadly neglected. But our friend Eric, who built the side fence with Jeff's help, needs some work this winter and so we're going to turn our attention to the backyard pergola.

Here is the plan we shared in July 2012:

We're going to go buy the wood as soon as we figure out what we need, and Eric and Jeff will start putting it in. We'll post pictures once they do.

And, on another topic related to the backyard, Jeff and I found new homes for our backyard babies. We had actually planned to kill the last two chickens because they had stopped laying, but we found a friend who was happy to have non-laying chickens in her yard to eat insects. We also "returned" Quiana (the rabbit we got in April 2012) to the same friend who raises rabbits. Quiana is going to be used as a breeder. She actually turned out to be the most unfriendly rabbit I've ever met and neither Jeff or I could pick her up without being scratched.

So now that we're not tied to taking care of all these pets, we've been free to do stuff like visit family in California. This will be the year we do some traveling, and then hopefully we'll get a chicken coop built later in the year and we'll get chickens again in 2015. We really like having chickens and I actually miss seeing them wandering around our backyard, but this is for the best for now.

My Winter Vacation

By Shasta
On my winter vacation I went to go visit my family in California. I had a lot of fun because we stayed with Grandpa who lived only a block from a great big grassy field where my alphas could take me to play. I got to see my cousins and they are much bigger now. They were puppies the last time I visited, but this time they were almost alphas.

I had a lot of fun going to the grassy field to play chuck-it everyday. One day we even went twice. The weather was very hot and I could not run for so long as I do at home in Oregon. But it was nice when we got to go.

My Grandma gave me lots of turkey scraps and my food was real yummy. I wish my alphas would give me more turkey scraps at home.

Uncle James liked it when I came over and chased stray cats out of his backyard. It was my best visit ever to see Uncle James! And Grandpa had a bunch of squirrels who got into his backyard and it was fun to chase them too.

I wish my alphas would spend less time on their funny grey boxes. They got new grey boxes for xmas and now they like them even more. They look at them for hours and hours and I don’t understand why they would rather look at them than play with me. Alphas are silly.

My Daddy went off a bunch of times to play D&D (whatever that is) with his friends. I am sure there must have been some other dogs involved.

One time I met a dog named Molly. She was sort of old and wasn’t too sure about having me around. I also met a cat and I liked her; she did not like me.

The drive was very long. I decided to take a nap because I was bored. I only got to get out of the car a couple of times, but then we got home again. I like it at home too (but I miss my turkey scraps).

Emptying Sewing Room

I have goofed off for long enough—time to get moving again. This week I started emptying out my sewing room with the intention of finally finishing stripping the paint in this last bedroom. But since the sewing room has been a bit of a dumping ground for the past many months, I'm having to spend many hours cleaning and sifting it before I actually start packing.

It's actually getting easier to imagine a day when we've finished stripping paint and I hope it will come before next spring.

Late last week Jeff also managed to finally re-hang the doors in the guest bedroom! Woo hoo! It only took us an extra year. 8-)  Pictures will follow soon. I actually stained the doors in September for Jeff's mother's visit, but the doors didn't make it up. Nor did they get hung for another friends visit earlier this month. Oh well, they're up now and once I finish touching up the stain and shellacking them, I'll post photos.

Period Book: Home Handicraft (1908)

As we start settling in for the winter, I figured now was a good time to take a look at a book that shows some good indoor activities. This week's book (okay, this month's book): The Good housekeeping manual of home handicraft, published in 1908 by the Good Housekeeping magazine.

This book extensively covers stenciling: how to make them, how to apply them, what paints to use, how to decorate with them, and more. If you're a fan of stencils like I am, go download this book and check it out.

They also have chapters on making handmade toys, applique, printing with wood blocks, making lamp shades, and decorating clocks. Some really interesting stuff.

But, of course, I'm most interested in the parts about stenciling. They had a chapter on curtains with some interesting designs.

Non-House Update

OK, I've now heard from three folks asking what we're up to, so I guess I'll throw in an update. I did finish shellacking the closets and we moved in the next day. We also went out to storage and brought back what clothing boxes we could find so we could unpack and sift stuff. Our closets are not photogenic enough yet for photos.

Over the last couple of weeks, Jeff and I also preserved four 26-pound boxes of peaches. We ended up with at least 21 jars of sliced peaches, six pie fillings plus a number of containers of frozen peaches for making smoothies.

Jeff has been spending a lot of time with his friend Eric (who helped us build the fence and closets), helping him out on big projects. He helped repair a deck and demo a bathroom. This weekend, Jeff went off with Eric to a World War 2 reenactment. It sounds like he took a bunch of pictures so perhaps he'll do an update when he gets home.

I (in a moment of ?insanity) volunteered to be the newsletter editor for the Laurelhurst Neighborhood Association. My first issue is due in early-September, so I've been working on it. I decided I didn't want to use the software that came with the job, so I've been retyping it all into Publisher which takes time.

I've also been poking around my downloaded Oregonian pdf files looking for "clip art" that I could use in the Laurelhurst newsletter and I've been cleaning up the images using CorelDraw. I haven't really learned CorelDraw yet, so the project goes pretty slowly as I struggle with the learning curve.

I am deeply annoyed with our 2009 Toyota Highlander. We've had to call out the tow truck about four times since moving here and we've had to replace the starter battery twice. It is sitting in front of our house right now unwilling to move, giving all kinds of warnings, waiting for the damn tow truck again. I think it is time to figure out a reliable replacement. This stupid vehicle cost twice as much as any of our earlier vehicles and has been more than twice the trouble.

Stupid vehicle off to the repair shop