Building a garage

Over the last two weeks, we have drawn up plans, obtained a permit, bought and received a semi truck's worth of building materials, and hired roofers.

Last Friday, our garage looked like this:

Over the last weekend, a crew of family and friends helped with our "barn raising." Today the garage looks like this:

You can see in the before/after photo that our photinia got pared down considerably. It is the big tree/bush on the left side of the garage. It was so large that it was in the way of the garage roof. We would have cut it down completely, but there were several birds' nests in it. After some inspection of the nests, we determined that only one was in use, and it was fortunately toward the front of the photinia--so we spared the front part with the nest. The birds are doves.

After the birds move out, we will remove the photinia and replace it with something a bit more appropriate for the space.

Star, as it turns out, is terrified of all the construction. The circular saw, the nail guns, and the air compressor do make a lot of noise, as do the guys when they shout back and forth. To her, I'm sure it seems like a war zone. The few times I lured her outside, she would only sit with her chest pressed against the back door like a weird little gargoyle, practically falling into the house when the door opened.

"Lady, I'm counting on you to defend our home. I will inspect the carpet. With my eyes closed."

We'll have to work on desensitizing her.

Dozer, who grew up around chaotic construction, isn't concerned about the noise. But he was extremely annoyed that no one bothered to throw his frisbee or his tennis ball all weekend.

"How can they reach my toy if I am on the wrong side of the fence??"

For the first time ever, I bathed Dozer on the back porch with the garden hose last weekend. I found it preferable to bathing him in the shower, actually. The sun was hot, the water was cold and refreshing, and I could lather him up and let the soap sit on him while he ambled around in the yard. Dozer's special soap is an antiseptic that sits on him for a minimum of five minutes. Trapped in the shower, Dozer quickly gets anxious and I get bored, so I usually rinse him off after two or three minutes. Doing this on the back porch, I could put the soap on him and let him run around while I did other things. I just had to keep on eye on him to make sure he didn't lick his soapy self. Dozer seemed much happier about the whole process, so I'll probably administer his weekly baths outside during the summer.

Next weekend will be more of the same. Our construction schedule is helped by the terrible drought that Central Texas is currently experiencing. Every day is hot and parched. We had our first real "rain" in months just last night, and the downpour only lasted about 15 minutes. Other nearby areas have seen a bit more rain, but our house seems to be under a dry bubble. The dramatic weather--flooding and tornadoes--across the country has been quite astonishing to see on the news. I hope you are all safe and well.

Mission accomplished: exterior paint!



Before

After

Before

After

Eleven years since we moved in and began this monstrous remodel project, the house is finally painted.

You've come a long way, house. Such fond memories...

2004

2005

2006

2011

Next major project: a garage! Here's hoping it won't take another eleven years to get there.

Professional accounting

The University of Texas has accepted my application to the Master of Professional Accounting program.

Looks like I'm going back to school for yet another degree that hopefully won't be turned into yet another means to do more volunteer work whispers my husband. Aw, how did he guess my plan?!?

I mean, my Technical Communication degree got me a great freelance position as a copyeditor... and... helped me webmaster for a local animal shelter and create my own websites that I spend ungodly amounts of time working on...

I promise, sweetie, I'll get a job as a tax accountant and help corporations with their taxes and by corporations I mean nonprofits and by job I mean volunteer position.

I mean, we didn't really need that $30K tuition for anything else, right? :)



Don't look at me, all I get are hand-me-down toys.

 Buns of Steel

At the time, I thought punching my husband in the buttocks was a very righteous thing to do, especially after he mocked me about something-or-other (my haircut? my ridiculously low Sleep Number? I can't recall anymore).

So I snuck up behind him while he was brushing his teeth, and gave him a solid whack in the behind.

Now, I'm not a total idiot. I knew, for example, that 300 lbs > 100 lbs. And also that I punch like a... girl who can't punch. That was why I fully intended to run for my life after committing the act.

My fist struck what felt like a slab of marble: solid, unyielding, unbreakable. Rather than flee, I doubled over clutching my sprained wrist.

Byrd looked up from the sink, toothbrush jutting from his lips, and appeared to notice me for the first time. "Hmm? Why are you crouched on the floor?"

Solid as a rock + feels nothing = ROBOT HUSBAND.

More Remodeling

This happened over the Christmas break:

Buns-of-Steel Man putting up new siding

You're probably like, "So what?"

Here is what the house looked like pre-holidays, from the back yard.


We have been re-siding the house in phases. The first phase was around 2004 ("lower" house, left side in the photo), and the second phase was in 2007 (two-story section, center). But the back addition (right side) was still undone.

The siding on the back addition was barely hanging in there. This was the original wood siding from, I dunno, 1970. A good portion of the siding had fallen off, or was hanging by a nail. And then there were the ancient single-pane windows with black trim. For years, the addition has looked like a trashy little shack, a nagging reminder of what the whole house used to look like.


 Ironically, the re-siding has taken such a long time, the lumber store doesn't carry the white Hardi-Plank anymore. So we had to reside the back addition in a yellow color. I lamented that our addition still doesn't match the rest of the house. Byrd says the yellow kind is "primed" for paint and it will all match and look fine after we paint it.

And they're gone

All the foster puppies went to their new homes yesterday.

I cried a little bit.

Typical day in the nursery

When the two girls conspire, you know there's gonna be trouble.



Big boy Bowser and little Yoshi were play buddies.



Yoshi won every puppy battle. Bowser preferred to roll around.



Princess Peach was the rowdiest of the bunch.



Princess Daisy loved to sneak behind me and bite me on the butt while I wasn't looking, then clamber into my lap with a blinding halo over her furry little head.

For a while, I thought Mario would never get adopted. When prospective owners came to visit, he would fall asleep behind the toilet.

King Louie was the biggest goofball. Here I caught him passed out with his head in the crook of the toilet base. It made him snore incredibly loudly.

After a struggle, I regained my senses and ultimately decided not to adopt Luigi. But I admit, I kept hoping his adoptive family would back out so I could keep him.

So long, little guys. Good luck in your new homes...

I realized as I went through all the puppy photos that I didn't get any pictures of the puppies with Dozer or Star. Not that they really hung out at all.

Dozer thought of the puppies the way a person might think of a pillbug--strange little pests, not worth even a sliver of interest. He usually acted as if they weren't even there, though he did a good job of not stepping on them.

Star was... Star. Weird and silly. She developed a habit of strolling over to the nursery and making gutteral grunts and grumbles through the baby gate, as if holding some sort of conversation with the swarm of puppies. You know those YouTube videos of dogs that say "wow wuff wroo" and people in the background say "Awww! I love you too!!"? Star's conversation was a bit like that, a very human-sounding babble.

And so, life resumes its "normal" pace. I'm about to go back to work full-time, on top of the freelance job I'm working. And I'm still taking economics and statistics classes too.

Don't even get me started on the massive list of extracurricular items I want to tackle by year end.

In other news... new mailbox, completed front wall, and functional wall lights! Yeah! One more project crossed off the list.



The folks across the street had their mailbox stoned in at the same time, so we match.



I survived last week... but...

Okay, I'm still alive and my nerves are (mostly) intact. The last week was... um... what is the word I'm looking for? "Insane" doesn't seem strong enough.

Unfortunately, it didn't end with last week.

This week heralds the dawn of a new age in our house. It is the age... of STAGE 3!

We have been remodeling our house since the moment we moved in (nine years ago). The house was nearly unlivable when we acquired it. It had no A/C or heat, the strangest floorplan imaginable, two additions that didn't quite attach to the original house (we discovered old asbestos siding buried within two walls), and a mosaic of flooring that appeared to have been chosen based on what was on sale at the hardware store--pink, white, and aqua tile, black linoleum, pink and tan carpet.

Stage 1 involved demolishing and rebuilding the original house while we lived in the two additions. This took years. We ate and breathed sheetrock for longer than is probably healthy.

Stage 2, which we started last summer and are just now winding up, was the exterior remodel. This included the front yard (sprinkler system, gardens, landscape), siding, fence repair, and so forth.

Now we are at Stage 3: demolishing the crappiest addition (pier and beam with known rotten walls and floors) and entirely redoing it. The good thing about this project is that the addition has a single access point, a hallway that can be closed off with a door. So the debris should be contained.

Also with Stage 3 comes the total revamp of the A/C system. We are getting a new A/C unit, installing the interior unit in the attic rather than under the stairs, and redoing the vents. The reasons for this are two: one, the A/C unit we installed way back when we moved in was small and cheap, and was only supposed to be a temporary fix to keep us from dying in Texas summers. Nine years later, that temporary fix really, really needs to be swapped for something more efficient. And two, the upstairs loft portion of the house relies on a window unit for A/C at the moment. It's time to get some vents cut so we don't need the window unit anymore.

Stage 4, I believe, will involve the backyard, the back porch, and possibly the garage. We do not have a back porch or garage, but we plan to build one of each. The backyard needs to be leveled, fenced, and landscaped as well.

Right. So as of this week, I will be dealing with construction, once again, inside our house. Starting Thursday, we will have guys in here redoing the A/C.

Also this week I have three doctor's appointments; I am getting another book to copyedit; Star has obedience class; and I have standard household chores to deal with, complicated by the construction because the laundry room is... well... it's in the addition that's being torn apart.

Oh yeah, and on Saturday, my family is getting together for Moussefest, an annual event wherein everyone tries to make mousse that's better than my dad's. (So far he has retained the title and the trophy.) Byrd insisted on entering the contest even though neither of us have ever made mousse before!

A Really Great Day for No Particular Reason

I think it's bizarre that some days seem to go really, really well - even when it's not a holiday, no one's having a party, and I didn't win the lottery. No, nothing particularly fantastic happened today, but it was still a really nice day.

Today Byrd came home from work early (OMG), we put front porch lights up (OMG), the weather was gorgeous, and I got to see our resident bat swoop around in the evening twilight as we finished up the lights. You're thinking, eh, so what? Consider the following: Byrd worked 100 hours last week. I teased him that the dogs barely recognize him anymore, but truthfully, when he's working that much I feel like I've married a ghost. And we haven't had front porch lights since we built the front porch - almost two years ago. And bats are really really cute and they eat lots of mosquitos, which makes me a HUGE fan of bats, and especially excited that a bat has decided to live in a little decoration on the front of our house. I hope he brings a few friends!

The icing on the cake, though, was that Byrd and I spent almost 8 hours together, made several very important decisions involving money, the house, and his computer, worked on a household project... and despite the fact that home projects and monetary decisions are two things we tend to get into fierce debates ("fights") about, we did not even bicker the tiniest bit today. Not even a raised voice or an irritated tone.

Byrd bought me a plant to kill (because there's no garden to plant it in yet, but I really wanted it anyway) while we were at Lowe's looking at porch lights, and he smiled cheerfully while I pretended to hammer invisible nails into the porch siding (I need the practice). My nickname for Byrd is Mr. No Man, because sometimes it seems like everything out of his mouth is a variation on the word "NO." Tonight was a total change, however. Tonight he was Mr. Yes Man.

In exchange, I gave Byrd the encouragement and justification to order a brand-new computer from Dell. I do admit this was at least partly for selfish reasons... I'm sick and tired of troubleshooting the homemade computer he currently uses. Byrd was thoroughly pleased, though, because his nickname for me is The Tightwad - I hate spending lots of money on things that I don't think are necessary... and Byrd likes to buy some really unnecessary things. But tonight I even let him upgrade his new computer with the more expensive video card and extra memory. At first I was struck by intense fear that Byrd would go bananas when he realized I wasn't going to try to "reason" with him (control him), but he actually exercised extensive self-control during the customization part of the purchase, passed on several upgrades, and even downgraded a few things to reduce the total cost.

After much thought, I've come to the realization that I'm probably too controlling when it comes to spending money. I read somewhere that money matters are the #1 thing that married couples fight about, and we're no exception. I've got to loosen up a little. Byrd and I will probably always have different spending priorities and we just need to learn how to compromise with less fuss and more trust. I know, easier said than done... but at least today we took a solid step forward toward a more harmonious marriage. Maybe that's why today was such a good day!