What in the world. I'm updating the blog.

Basically, I've overwhelmed myself. I have allowed so much time to pass, I don't even know where to begin. I guess I start by saying part of the reason I haven't updated the blog is because we haven't had any major changes around here...coughcoughkitchencough. Another reason is (was?) a personal reason. In May (of this year...not 2010 when the blog was last updated HAA), I CHANGED JOBS LIKE A BIG GIRL. I did. I put on my big girl pants and I got a new job. I'm now doing graphic design and I live a much happier existence. This ties in because at my last job I would answer very in depth emails...upwards of 25 a day. "You do not qualify under that classification because a.) your experience blah, blah, blah, b.) you are not a U.S. citizen and I just want to go to sleep and forget that you ever called, blah, blah blah.....and answer innumerable (always annoying) phone calls. Therefore, I became afraid of, and mostly avoided, any unnecessary form of communication. I still have a fear of voicemails, emails and phone calls. If I don't return your phone call, it's not you. It's me. I may not even listen to your voicemail for three days....or until Caleb says, "you've had a voicemail from ________ for three days", and then plays it on speaker phone. And then, it's over! I've listened to the voicemail! And how hard was that?

....anyways.

So with that said, I can't promise I'll keep updating the blog, but I was feelin' the itch tonight, so I figured I'd take a stab at it.

But first, -HEY DON'T SKIP THIS PARAGRAPH---I SEE YOU TRYING TO SKIM MY BLOG POST---something that has been taking up more of my free time (happily!) is more photo gigs. Go "like" my Facebook page (CK Photo). I'm not kidding. Now. (this paragraph is actually an edit to the post 1.5 hours after starting this stupid thing...see my disclaimer* below), so I'm feeling more cranky...but OH SO HAPPY that you'll "like" my Facebook page. I need Facebook affirmation to feel like I'm somebody, OK??? Unrelated, I can see that my blog post has different font colors within it, but after 1.5 hours, I DON'T CARE.

Aaaaand, back to 1.5 hours ago when I started writing this thing (does any of this make sense?)...oh wait, update that to 1.75 hours ago:

Ok, so the church pew. Let's just get that out of the way, shall we?

THERE. Posted. Not hard. When the Dirks' come to "visit" i.e. "work", they get things DONE. This bench was a wee wobbly and Dwight fixed the wobble and we all worked on sanding and painting it. Then, Caleb made a short film (that makes it sound like it happened overnight. It didn't. More like 2 years.) During production week (early August 2010), we had a recliner as a prop on our porch.

And oh, look. There it is in winter. Probably has snow on it.

I was really patient. Really, really patient. Yes, snide remarks every so often, but pretty patient. I was patient until one day our "discussion" about the recliner made me realize that Caleb did not actually see it as white trash to have a hunter green recliner on our porch year round. It was "comfortable". (oh, side note, we also had Andy Adrian living with us for about 10 months....all that time passed and I didn't update the blog once...hm...anyways, Andy also enjoyed the recliner, but I think he enjoyed Caleb and I's "discussions" more.) Once I realized the recliner was not going anywhere if I didn't do something, I took action. I think it may have been March??? I called Salvation Army and they came to our house and picked it up. And they tried to thank me like I was doing a good deed by donating my belongings. No. I wasn't. Caleb didn't know I was doing that, so when he came home from work one day, the recliner was gone. Bye, bye.

Then we found two of these in an alley and I made Andy and Caleb pick them up and bring them to the house. Only one fit in the trunk, so Andy had to hoof it back home a few blocks.

They're pretty rusty, so when the Dirks' visited this year, Carol took the initiative to try to get most of the paint off. They have green and yellow paint underneath the white, so that's how they look now on our porch. Maybe NEXT summer we'll paint them! That's not a joke.

Inside the house, we put THINGS on our walls. Like real people. And curtains. (these are just iphone pictures, so I'll have to take better ones...plus we rearranged our furniture since these were taken).

And, while I don't have a picture of the final product, Andy and Caleb painted our ceilings!!!! Ahhh...it is so NICE to have white ceilings. I never knew I'd appreciate them so much. This room wasn't that bad, because actually, the shapes in the ceiling were kind of fun. But the living room was just depressing, especially at night. It looked sad.

I believe this was Mustache May:

This blog post is all sorts of out of order. Who cares. Must keep going. We got a shed! Caleb and Andy put up the walls, dealing with bad directions and doing some of the building at night using head lamps (......) and Caleb and I did the roof of the shed. I don't know how. I was balancing on uneven rocks and cement blocks to hold the roof over my head, wearing a head lamp because it was NIGHTTIME and sprinkling. Then, when my parents came to visit for Thanksgiving, my dad and Caleb put the floor in.

While my mom, sister and I made dinner (we took this picture with intentions of laughing at it by the next Thanksgiving...we'll see). The scooter no longer resides in our kitchen; it stays in the shed, but it sure was a nice towel rack!

So since the shed was finished, we could move all our "garage" stuff to the shed.

Those shelves were so gross. GROSS. GROSS! Indescribable things. That is why Caleb's face looks like this...because he has to touch them.

So, while it's not the most beautiful sight, the nasty shelves are gone.

Caleb and I started to clean the remaining plaster off the fireplace in the living room/dining room. It was a messy process that involved a powerdrill, a shop vac, safety goggles, dust masks...etc. I wish there was a picture of us doing this. Caleb ran the powerdrill while I kept the shop vac nozzle up to the fireplace. We put plastic down and hung a bed sheet from the ceiling to keep the dust and plaster chips from flying into the other rooms, but there was still so much mess. Even with safety goggles on, we had to take several breaks so I could cry like a baby....ahem....pick pieces of plaster out of my eyes. We've only finished one side because it took the better part of a day to do this side and was so messy. Did I say that yet? Once we finish the other sides we plan on sealing the bricks since they're a bit crumbly from age. The section at the top right of the fireplace was the part we hadn't finished yet.

OH MY GOSH, WE'RE ALMOST FINISHED WITH THIS BLOG POST.

The last time the Dirks' visited (the same time Carol sanded our metal chairs), Dwight and Caleb began taking out the chimney that we need to remove for our kitchen renovation. They took it down from the outside to the ceiling of the first floor. That way, we're ready to knock it out once we start the kitchen demo. I'm SO glad Dwight was here to do this part since it involved patching the roof. There's now a hole in the wall upstairs which makes it extra tempting to rip out the rest of the walls. Right. Now.

I definitely did not take this picture. I made Caleb climb up there and do it.

I didn't do anything helpful. I just came home from work and got my pitcher made...as they would say in the South.

What else? Here's a pretty picture of some plants I haven't killed yet.

And our crepe myrtle in June:

And lastly, I've been busy with another project of mine. I'm making a blanket for our bed and I was SO EXCITED because I counted and found I only need 5 more of these squares to cover the top of the bed. They take about an hour a piece. But then I counted how many I will need (in a different pattern) to go around the sides of the bed...and I need to make MORE than I needed to cover the top of the bed. This has taken me over a year to get to this point because I'll get motivated for a few weeks then stop. So maybe I'll put the top together and then add a square as I finish and then we'll just get warmer as I go!

Ok not really.

Ok, see that nice ball of yarn? I made that:

From this.

Two hours I will never get back. I am so proud of that ball of yarn, but where did it get me? Back to where I started when I bought the untangled yarn. Also, I started wrapping the ball on my bus ride home and then DROPPED the ball while riding the bus and watched it unroll towards the front of the bus and then look like a crazy person trying to catch my ball of yarn, dropping that big tangled mess on the floor in the process. Yes...today I was someone else's "bus story of the day".

*Forgive me. It's now taken me 1.5 hours to write this blog post and I'm going a little crazy. I started at 8:30 and it is now 10:00. BE APPRECIATIVE!. just kidding.