Deer Update

Spoiled. That's me. That's us.

A and I definitely have more than we could ask for. We are happy just being with each other. These days we look around and think "wow"' we are two lucky people. We have good jobs, our health, each other's love, and a more than comfortable lifestyle.

My friend Sam likes to pick a word for each year. I'm not one to commit to one word for the whole year, but have been thinking about the word "spoiled".

We've worked hard, set priorities, and have a long term plan, so I guess we are deserving, but it still feels like we are extra lucky. The other day, in the spirit of Christmas and thinking about the things I am thankful for, I told A that I'm still enjoying last year's present of a new house. For that matter, I'm still exploring the benefits of the Kindle Santa brought me last year.

This year, we bought a new car. Our first ever brand-new-right-off-the-lot-super-shiny car. A house and a new car and a kindle. What more could a girl ask for? Well, Santa kicked it up a notch and put an iPad under the tree for me. This is my first blog post from the iPad. I'm sure I will find a million uses for this right sized handy machine. I'm looking forward to my first Skype session, and to being one of those corporate folks taking notes in a meeting on a iPad. Can I Skype into the meeting and take notes while looking at the folks on the other end? The opportunities are endless.

I want to point out that an iPad was not on my wish list. I didn't think I needed one. However, I'm super excited about it and have been glued to it since Christmas night. What it helped me realize is that technology is improving fast and even though some of us may like the way things are with old fashioned email and phone calls (as opposed to texting), technology is bound to find us at some time. Can you remember what life was like before cell phones? Before email? Before texting? Before google maps? I'm sure I won't know what to do without my iPad soon.

Back to the word "spoiled"... A and I are looking forward to a great year of continuing home improvement projects. Santa also brought a few Home Depot gift cards that will help the year start off well. A new bathtub for the master bathroom has been ordered, and next Christmas I hope to be enjoying long hot baths in it. Are there water proof covers for iPads so I can blog and bathe?

Happy post-Christmas! Remember, Christmas calories don't count, so finish all those goodies before New Year's Eve when the exercising and eating healthy resolution kicks in.

Reflections

Fall is in the air. It rained for the first time since spring and the yard feels fresh. I’m inspired to reflect on this past summer’s scrumptious explorations.

 

Thanks to M&D’s generous time share gift, we kicked off summer with a weeklong trip to Whistler, British Columbia in May. The snow was still ski-able, but that wasn’t our purpose. We went to relax. Whistler and the surrounding mountains are absolutely breathtaking. We saw 13 confirmed black bears (and several unconfirmed). We visited some of the Olympic facilities, hiked The Stawamus Chief, toured the mining museum, successfully made it through the Lost Woods without getting lost, and did some great relaxing.

 

If you’re a fan of the trail up to Yosemite’s Half Dome, you will love The Stawamus Chief. There are three peaks so you can “choose your own adventure”. Each of them (I’m told) involve chains, ladders, and other climbing features. It’s not nearly the time commitment of Half Dome, but arguably more vigorous. We were very pleased to have stumbled onto this adventure and earned the post-hike Oreos.

 

We spent a day in Vancouver, what a beautiful city, and stopped in Seattle to experience the home of the Mariners. When we got home, the months of June and July were busy with house projects. We did have some graduation, bachelorette, and birthday fun during those months too. After our relaxing vacation, we were excited to get back to work on the house. Our motivation was the July 30th BBQ we hosted. It was our first shindig in the house and are looking forward to many more.

 

After the BBQ we entered “project appreciation mode” and dived back into the house projects a couple weeks later. This leads me to the house status report.

 

Inside Status:

• The Living Room is no longer being used for storage. We purchased a giant comfy couch from our favorite store (Costco) and have a REAL living room. Suitable for hosting guests! (Clearing out the storage involved putting the bookshelves together and actually unpacking the boxes. What an idea!)
• “The Construction Zone” is still in full effect, but much progress has been made. The exterior walls in the office are insulated, sheetrocked, mudded, and primed. Ready for paint! The radiant heating leak is fixed with shiny new pipes and ready for the concrete pour. Then we can re-build the wall we took down and actually put the office together!
• We got a new tankless water heater / radiant heating boiler installed and are looking forward to all of our floors being warm this winter.

Outside Status:

• We let ourselves be distracted by outside projects during the warm summer weather.
• The oak tree stump is cut down to the ground. All of the wood rounds that were strewn across the patio are neatly cut and stacked into a custom (hand crafted) bin.
• The overgrown vines are slashed and gone which means, our yard has been less appealing to the deer, but they still come through.
• We’ve got patio tables, chairs, and a BBQ. It was great fun entertaining in the back yard this summer.
• A worked hard to re-build the outside of the family room. He had a minor trip up with some wire mesh resulting in six stitches, but that area of the house is now stucco instead of mismatched rotting plywood and looks great!

It’s been nine months of home ownership and we are still in love with our house. We are also still Giants fans and had a great time watching their games this season. Although they are not in the playoffs, and I’ve been working too hard the past few weeks to watch baseball, I’m looking forward to some quality October baseball. The Giants had a great season and will come back stronger next year.

 

Other summer highlights include:

• Visiting the Jelly Belly Factory
• Touring the Budweiser Factory (right around the corner from Jelly Belly, so why not?)
• Wedding fun in San Luis Obispo
• Betting on the good looking horses at Golden Gate Fields while eating food truck yumminess.

I welcome Autumn with open arms and look forward to our first holiday season in our house.

 

An Ode to Home Ownership: Part 2

We have been proud home owners for 4 months. The projects continue to grow and the fun never ends! We've slowed down on the inside work since we're living comfortably and the weather lends itself to outdoor projects.

Inside Status:

fully operational and stocked kitchen;

home office/ guest bed set up in the family room;

complete and furnished bedroom in which we sleep (future guest bedroom);

complete dining room;

living room being used for TV watching, bicycle repair, and storage;

Two bedrooms are cordoned off as "The Construction Zone". Amazingly, the dust never escapes from there into the rest of the house (ha!). (These are the Master Bedroom and future home office)

The bathrooms are funky but after the replacement of one toilet and a full bottle of draino down the bathtub in great working condition.

Outside Status:

A has been hard at work organizing our outside storage capacity in the car port, the side storage shed, and the garage
I've been hacking at the vines invading from our neighbors' yards.

A is in the midst of patching tar and painting the roof before we add more gravel
Upcoming: pressure wash and paint the house!

A continues to cut and stack fire wood from the oak tree. We've still got the stump.

Here is our first Before and After picture:

Behind the slatted louvers was a screen covered by plywood. No insulation. Now, we've got matching siding, and an insulated wall!

Other highlights from our home:

• We washed the car in the driveway (that's a true benefit of being a home owner!)
  



• I walked into a web of baby spiders trying to clean up the bushes in the front of the house.




• We found the nearest Papa Murphy's and confirmed that a pizza fits in our funky, old, wall oven!




• We're procuring patio furniture and looking forward to some back yard summer BBQ fun.




• The deer continue to visit our back yard. They are adorable.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  

I am convinced it was the cupcake, not the claritin, that cured my allergies.

Who said the world does not revolve around cupcakes?

Celebratory Bin Laden cupcakes...and a news article discussing the phenomenon

 

 

 

 

a spider crawled on me today and I did not die