Life lately

It's felt really busy lately! 

We had a big project to take down a tree, and of course I can't find a better "before" picture, but that pine has been growing up into the maple for however many years and it was super bushy at the bottom and bugged me. (this pic is after Doug already cut all the bottom reachable limbs off)

So Doug's buddy and my dad came over and a neighbor we all worked to get it down, and then trim up the maple. Also rehomed my crazy forsythia (the pretty yellow one in the pic there) to my mom's house and cut down a lilac that died who-knows-why last year. 

After getting rid of all the brush and limbs and logs, the next goal was to clean up this "grove" area. So nearly every naptime and after kids in bed, before dark, night has been devoted to this task and it is exhausting. 

Also going on: fun with MagnaTiles

And this boy is doing a 7 week beginners soccer class. 

And planting fruit trees. Here's us pushing 3 trees to the Jeep and then thinking... hmmm... where shall we put these exactly?? 

Luckily we only live 3-ish, very slow, miles away as these babies rode on my lap and on the center console sticking out the sunroof on the way home. We got a lot of looks!

Progress picture of the grove with the brush/other small trees gone and hours and hours of roots and weeds hand cleared from the ground. 

Utilizing my last year's birthday present of my leaf hands!

So just went outside to water the fruit trees and saw a deer print in the ground. 

It went something like this:

oh hey, a deer print!

oh the prints are walking over to my apple tree...

wait a minute a bunch of the leaves and flowers are gone!!!

Doug, emergency! We need to perimeter the trees tonight!!

So Doug has been at our college ministry group and is stopping by Walmart on his way home at 10pm to get stakes and fishing line so he can work by headlamp-light to perimeter the trees. Sigh, such is the life of the "farmer" I guess. 

grief bears

 It has been a very busy month with all the funeral preparations, and our life that goes on. Doug was very busy, he pretty much planned his brother's whole funeral and has been in charge of closing most of his accounts. Doug's parents aren't online and he thought it would be too hard on them emotionally anyway. It has been a lot of work for him.

Brian had 3 children and we knew they would be coming from out of state for the funeral. When one of my close friend's husband died, she said someone had made them grief bears. Something tangible to hold and remember their dad. The bears are made from articles of the deceased's clothes. 

I did some googling and found these very cute ones on Etsy, and with the time crunch, I thought I could probably try to make my own. 

I used 6 of Brian's old shirts and was able to use the shirts' buttons for eyes, I just had to buy bear noses. My sewing machine doesn't do embroidery letters, so I cut out the hearts and then took them to an embroiderist. They did them really fast and did a good job.

The finished bear.

I feel like anytime I make anything with a face, it turns out a little wonky, but overall I liked it.

Each of the 3 kids got one and was able to get it at the funeral. 

I hope they can bring a little comfort. 

The funeral was hard, as one can imagine. His kids were crying a lot, it was really hard to see. 

Doug is ok, I feel like he feels guilty "going on with life". But what else can you do? 

Anytime there is unexpected death, it just seems like it hits so hard. One good thing, it turns out Brian had purchased a supplemental life insurance policy, we were surprised to learn, and Doug is going to be able to open 529 savings accounts for the kids. We pray those will grow and help the kids be able to enable themselves to have a secure future someday and break out of their poverty cycle.

I'm going to make a pillow for both Doug and his parents with another couple shirts. Doug's almost done with the accounts and he's writing thank yous to people who attended the funeral. That was another thing, the impact of people that do/don't come to the funeral, it turns out that can lead to surprising feelings as well. This has been an unwanted learning experience. But what else can you do but trust that God is still in control? I'm missing Brian more than I thought I might, and feeling sad for my hurting husband.

look what I made

 I saw this ad for a art display board from Kirklands, probably some Facebook ad, and liked it to display the kid's art and I thought I'd try to make my own. 

Supplies: a board from Lowe's, craft paint, had some leftover sawtooth hangers, and magnet clips that Doug pulled the magnet part off for me

Cut the board and stained it with some stain borrowed from my dad

Printed out the letters and cut them out trying to DIY stencil. 

It took 4 layers of coat and came out a little lumpy, but overall I like it. 

Doug nailed on the clips for me and put it up on the wall above their little art table.

And there it is with art!

And only now writing this post am I realizing the example board said "look what I did" not "look what I made", but oh well, I like mine better and didn't like all that splotchy color they had on theirs. 

That's also the wall that got about 6 inches added to it since we've been busy with our half bath addition so I was rearranging pictures and stuff anyway to re-center everything. I like how it turned out. 

treadmill room

This is the spot in our mudroom where the treadmill used to be right along that back wall. Since home prices are so outrageous we are thinking we are going to be in our home another year at least, so Doug plans to add a half bath to our house. In order to do that we needed to have somewhere to put it! So the treadmill went to the garage (we have no basement) and the half bath is going to go along that wall now. I did not want to exercise in a spidery cold garage so Doug built me a treadmill room.

We had this space in the deeper corner of our garage where we had a freezer, shelving and a table saw. So that all got moved to make space for the treadmill room.

 

moved over

Right away Doug started building the walls.

He spent several evenings and late nights putting up the frame, insulation, and drywall. The plan is in the summer that window can be open/ or have a fan, and in winter we could have our space heater in the room to heat it up a little before we come in.

We have a pretty nice incline Nordic Trak hiker treadmill, it had been making a rickety noise so we had the repair guy come check it out before it got walled into it's new home! Good thing, because it needed the motor and tread part repaired. Good as new. 

The wall got enclosed and has a little window Doug that had. That brings some of the outdoor light into the garage and it's nice to peek in from the stairs and talk to/or see the person on the treadmill. Doug put up a handrail (which has since been replaced with a 2 foot longer one) as that one was way too short and Doug said he sadly watched Jeanie slow-mo falling as her little arm attempted to reach it but it was too high :(

Decor on the side wall.

Doug got these bifold doors off Marketplace. He was asking me first if I thought I could fit through a 12" door. Um no! The thought of it makes me laugh so hard. He was like, "just turn from the side", and it was like "Doug I'm pregnant- from the side it's worse!" lol.

And the view from inside! It is working out pretty well so far :)

So we bought our vanity, toilet, mirror, towel bars. We have our permit before the city and waiting for them to approve it. A plumber is coming tomorrow for a quote and we have an electrician we plan to use for lighting and hooking up a ceiling fan. Maybe by the end of summer?? It doesn't buy us a bigger kitchen/dining room, or basement, which are the things I'm really hoping for in a bigger home, but it's still working for now. 

Mini living room update

One of my new year's goals was to have a little update to our living room in the form of a new rug and lamp. This was the previous rug, it had a deep pile which was soft, but difficult to vacuum and often crumbs of stuff were found deep in the depths. Ew.

We bought a rug off Wayfair that was 100% wool and had a really pretty pattern.

So apparently these are the only pictures I took of it! One with August playing on it, and one with me doing my exercise last month! Anyway, I loved that it was natural fibers, and I loved the pattern. What I did not love was within 30 minutes of rolling it out, September came and scratched it and instantly there were long loose threads in the pattern >:( and also since it was wool it constantly shed little cream hairs that got all over the floor and just made it look dirty and dust-bunnyish, and they'd cling to our blue couch. Eventually it had to go!

This time we just opted for a cheapie from Walmart.

It clashed with the couch pillows, so just swapped them out for the cream ones from the playroom futon couch:

And we're done. A couple months ago I searched high and low for new lamps (I like this blue one, but the shade has a rip in it). Probably 5 or 6 lamps were bought home and then returned in an effort to find one that looked good. No such luck. And no luck either with just a replacement shade. So we decided that this one will have to still have to do, and just face the rip towards the wall. Haha.

play area mini update

So for August's 2nd birthday my mother-in-law got him 2 little kid sized plastic chairs. No table, just the chairs. I had wanted to eventually get a little kid sized craft table, but was holding off because I didn't want my house more cluttered. Anyway, the chairs arrived.

And he loved them. He would drag them around, and up to my coffee table, 'mama, sit down!' 'dadda, sit down!' Very cute.

However, my dad made me this coffee table and I've already been so depressed about how easily it has become covered in scratches so quickly. (What the heck- I thought walnut was supposed to be one of the strongest woods?!?) So I did not want it to become any more scratched. And also I hate gaudy bright colored plastic furniture, so I sold those couple chairs on facebook and bought a nice wood kids table with 2 matching chairs.

Helping daddy put it together.

I don't really have a "before" picture, but that little shelf that has junk baskets (tape and batteries, etc) was where the table is now and there was just that blanket crate and lamp where it is now. So it actually fits in pretty well.

Doug's been getting weekly books from the library near his work and was just having them everywhere in the house, so I got a little $6 bin from TJ Maxx and made a stencil.

And now here's his little nook.

Maybe eventually I'll put up a couple little floating corner shelves, but no rush now.

Doug's parents have been on vacation so I'm sure they'll notice their chairs are gone. I feel kinda bad, but I also feel like I should be allowed to have things I like in my house and not things I don't. And this just works better. I like that this living room area is kind of a 'play area' and the other living room can stay more toy-free/grown up space. When you have a small house these things are important!

A new table

August has this bad habit of if he doesn't like something he declares "no like it" as he dumps/pushes/throws/flings/etc said item onto the table. He won't allow it on the edge of his plate, or on his highchair tray, oh no, it has to be all the way out of his area on the table. This has resulted in a nearly constantly dirty tablecloth. And since our table has been a "temporary" (which has turned into 4 years) folding plastic table we used at our wedding, it always has to be covered with a tablecloth or it is revealed to be an ugly utility table.

It doesn't look so bad with a tablecloth.

But I was sick of the stains and weekly washings.

So that spurred a looking online during black Friday. Looked at World Market, Overstock, Ikea, and CraigsList. We still have a pretty narrow spot so it could be the same length but only a bit wider. And there wasn't much out there. Or if there was, it was like $400 for something I didn't 'love' and was cheap construction. So I drew up a plan and asked Dad if he had any free time. And luckily he made some time for the older of his 2 craft loving daughters :)

Picking up the supplies. Already turned table legs for the win!

I think I made 3 (2-4 hour) trips up to Dad's shop and we glued the 3 main boards together for the top, figured out where the legs would go, sanded and routed the top edge, made the table skirt support thing (which also meant a trip to Home Depot to get a better top board and wider boards for the support since I wasn't following a plan and just had bought a 3" where a 4" would've been better). The things you learn when your dad is a woodworker and you are not.

We joined the legs to the support sides with wood glue and dowels, and Dad did a couple things himself like drill the holes for counterscrewing the top to the support skirt and the final attaching of the two.

Then he delivered it to me for staining.

No matter my test samples, whenever I stain it seems to always end up a totally different color! My pick was in the bottom top corner.

It was way to cold to stain in the garage, and we have no basement, so our house smelled like a chemical factory for a couple days as I had to stain in the entryway.

The legs got super dark because they have all that rough edge from the lathe.

Fan on and windows cracked in wintertime.

I used wood conditioner first because the wood is pine and to prevent splotching.

And wouldn't you know, it splotched anyway and did this weird ugly thing on the edges. So I sanded them down again, wood conditionered again, and stained those areas again. And had a bit of a panic because as I was wiping the stain off the edges it looked so obvious that it was a patch job, so I had to re-stain the entire top part again quickly so it would all be wet at the same time and luckily, that worked! It did make the table darker than I had planned, but I was much happier with the splotching issue.

Splotches were a lot better.

Next came 2 coats of polyurethane to the bottom, and 3 thin coats to the top. Another stressful job making sure there weren't drips or brush marks.

And finally I could set it back up, it helped that I was hosting bookclub the next day, so I was motivated to get done!

I love the coloring!

But a new problem was revealed, our (from mom & dad's church) chairs looked ridiculously short next to the new table!

So the morning of book club, Doug my hero looked on CraigsList for new chairs for me. Then on his lunch break drove over to pick them up, crammed 6 chairs in his Jeep, brought them in, and then helped prep dinner for my girlfriends while I scrubbed away like a mad woman cleaning them. They had come from a Sign of the Beefcarver restaurant that was closing and are really solid wood chairs (Amish made according to the ad) for only $15 each, but have some dings, a few had a couple gouges, and had crusted food and BBQ sauce and who knows what on them.

Yay! It looks so nice. And after trying and returning a whole slew of table runner and other centerpiece options I think I finally settled on this simple one:

So the cost breakdown: wood, stain, wood conditioner, poly, and brushes for table: $175; 6 new wood chairs: $90; jute placemat, white plate, and candlesticks: $25; hours of Dad's time: priceless. Total was less than $300 for the whole things and I love it. It's just 3 inches wider, but it seemed to make a difference and felt a little more spacious around the table.

It's still pine, which is a softer wood, so it probably won't be scratch free forever. On August's side he has a new plastic place mat to help prevent marks when he bangs his fork, cup, etc, but I am hopeful it will last at least another 4 years :)