MONEY PIT

This is our "money pit" - in the 12 years that we have lived here we have done plenty of stuff in and around the house and sometimes it seems like we are not making much progress.

Painting - is a long term project, yet to be completed. It took several years, but we have managed to paint 3 of the walls in the living room AND the dining room. One wall in the kitchen is a lovely shade of Fiesta Lilac and the (new) bathroom is a BRIGHT limey green.

Bathroom - a project that was started in 2003 and was completed in December 2009. Tom did all the work himself and didn't really realize just how much would have to be done especially with tile involved. The length of the project does not mean that we went without a bathroom that long...we just didn't have a finished bathroom. There were different stages over the course of the project.

There have been other upgrades here and there...taking things out that were pretty much worthless and now we (Tom) are moving into making the really ugly things look not so ugly. The previous owners used part of the kitchen as a laundry room so we have the old electrical outlet for the washer/dryer and the dryer vent and the old plumbing for the washer still visible and quite an eyesore. 

This morning I was getting ready to have some breakfast and Tom pulled up a chair and sat next to the rolling cart that conceals the uglies in the kitchen. I got another chair and we started discussing how nice it was sitting in the kitchen and eating our breakfast while looking out the window. Very nice indeed.

At first this project wasn't a project until we went to Ikea and bought a cool little drop down table that will be mounted underneath the old original window in the kitchen. A perfect size for two...

After getting the table out of the box and looking at the wall, Tom determined that the wall was more ugly than ever and now our simple want of a small table has turned into a project! Here is a before picture -

So, we (Tom) will be working on this before the table is installed. It usually works out that if we think of something that will make our home a little more appealing, it will take much more work to get it done.

Hopefully this project won't take a lot of time...we need to take a break and have some coffee on our new table!

Updates to come...

Country Western...

What the heck? Yeah, so Tom and I made a stop at East Fork Cellars this past Tuesday evening for the Tim Dawdy Variety Show...well, not so much variety, but a little Country Western music with some drop-in musicians from around greater Clark County and a couple from Portland. This weekly show started out as a Blue Grass deal and I had rather hoped to have heard that instead, but I didn't read my email too closely, oh well.

Here is the "Hardest Working Fire Chief in Show Business" the very talented Tim Dawdy...

It was fun to hang with the older folks in the crowd...which was pretty much everyone else in the room!

 

This guy was playing a SAW! When we spied him getting that out, we both perked right up...it was so cool!

Here is the winery/cellar owner, Jeff Waddell sitting in and playing a little bass guitar.

In the last year we have visited East Fork on Friday evenings to hear Les Cellar Rats play some old classic Rock 'n Roll, some 80s tunes and everything in between, before or after those genres. The crowds are always big and the room bursting at the seams. Get there early and you get a seat...get there a little late, and Jeff always makes room somewhere and pulls out more chairs. He is so great...never wanting to turn people away from a little bit of evening fun.

This summer should be a blast - when the weather finally warms up the Friday night entertainment will most likely move outdoors.


Good music and good wine...a winning combo!

Special Needs...

This is Marvin (as in Starvin' Marvin) and he is our special needs squirrel. I suppose he could be a she, but it's hard to tell. So, he is a he in our minds :)  If you look close enough you can see on the back of his neck where his fur is uneven...about a month ago he didn't have much hair in that spot. It's growing back!

Anyway, Marvin has been hanging around our place quite a bit, in fact it has been months - a lot of months! He sticks around because we are a sure thing for meals. Since we put out cracked corn and bird food for the birds, he seems to enjoy it too and maybe more than the birds. I think he understands that he has a good thing going here and doesn't feel the need to move on, that's a smart squirrel.

What makes him special needs is that he appears to be mostly unsteady. When he hops it's usually off-center in a tipsy sort of way. Also, when he is observing us as he is supposedly sitting still he is actually swaying a little bit. He's pretty klutzy too, Tom witnessed him tripping over the hose that was laying across the yard. He's pretty special alright.

He's a little goofy, but he's our little buddy and we would miss watching him if he weren't around anymore.

One of the possibilities...

Don't know why I thought of this, random things go thru my mind while I'm on the treadmill...a Friends montage of Phoebe and Ross and evolution...enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXr2kF0zEgI&feature=related

The Calendar Says it's May....

The weather hasn't caught on yet...

(from weather.com)

... SIGNIFICANT WEATHER ADVISORY FOR EXTREME SOUTHWESTERN SKAMANIA AND SOUTHERN CLARK COUNTIES UNTIL 500 PM PDT... 

AT 423 PM PDT... NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR WAS TRACKING A STRONG STORM NEAR HOCKINSON... OR NEAR BATTLE GROUND... MOVING EAST AT 30 MPH. 

HAIL UP TO ONE HALF INCH IN DIAMETER AND WIND GUSTS UP TO 40 MPH ARE POSSIBLE WITH THIS STORM. ADDITIONALLY... THIS STORM HAS THE POTENTIAL TO PRODUCE DANGEROUS LIGHTNING. 

* LOCATIONS IMPACTED INCLUDE... CAMP BONNEVILLE... HOCKINSON AND SALMON FALLS... ELKHORN MOUNTAIN... LARCH MOUNTAIN...

IF THREATENING WEATHER APPROACHES YOUR AREA... TAKE SHELTER IN A STURDY BUILDING.