Things are really starting to come together now. I figured I’d show some progress pictures. When we first moved in this is what the front of the house looked like:

When the builder wrapped up on Friday this is how things were looking:

When Roomie and I wrapped things up for today this is how things looked:

We’re thinking we’ll do another layer of paint on the wall depending on how things look when it dries properly. We still have to paint the shed, and put the shingles on but we got all the tar paper trimmed down and the drip edge. I put the first coat of semi-gloss purple on the door yesterday and today also, and we caulked the door yesterday so that it would dry before we painted it today. We also need to clean and prime the rest of the house but given how high the walls are on the side of the loft we really need to get a longer ladder and we’ll need a lot more paint before we do that. We only have one gallon of the red because that was essential to do the new construction before we get rained on and potentially get mildew and mold.

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2.8

I’m tired right now. Roomie and I have been working most of the weekend to trim the shed and paint the front of the converted room. I took this right as we were wrapping up for the day.

We’re painting the main portion of the house a dark red color and the trim and doors a purple color. It’s starting to come together. We still need to paint the shed and put the shingles on the roof but I think that will go on during the week. We didn’t want to do the shingles until the builder got back so that he could show us how things should start.

Well, I’m off to check out what others have been doing this week at Cass’s blog, hopefully I won’t forget to participate in Self Portrait Sunday again next week, like I did last week.

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2.8

That’s what’s going on in our house at the moment. Last night was the first night. It was extremely rough on me I think more than the munchkin although I wasn’t the one crying on and off for forty minutes.

It’s not entirely a choice at this point. Between him discarding the pacifiers outside in the woods and them having to be thrown out because they were just too cruddy he has no more left. The last one disappeared yesterday, and given yesterday we were staying close to home and we’ve been trying for the past month or more to explain to him that because he’s getting to be such a big boy and learning to potty and everything else that he doesn’t need the pacifier I figured this was a good a time as any to stop replacing them.

For the most part during the day I was proved right. Usually the appearance of the “pars” as he calls it only happens when he’s getting tired, ready for a nap or bed but doesn’t really want to go. He’ll be sitting there playing snuggling puppy and blankie and with the pacifier in his mouth and even though you ask him if he’s wanting to get to bed he will, of course, say no.

Well, last night he started this while the guys were over playing D&D and so Roomie volunteered to put him to bed because it wasn’t her turn in the game. She brought him to his room, read him a little bit of Spot and I heard him asking for “pars”. “I’ll go look for one,” Roomie told him, “You be a good boy and wait a little bit, ok?”

So, she came out and asked if she was right in thinking there were no pacifiers left, and I said I hadn’t seen one all day, so we sat with bated breath and not a peep was heard, for about two and a half hours, then all of a sudden, “MOMMY! MUMMY! MUMMY! MUMMIN!”

I got up and went in there, “Pars, Mummin?”

“No, sweetie, there are no more.”

So, then the waterworks started. I got him calmed down a bit and tried to sneak out of the room. Then the tantrums started, and he was getting really freaked out. Roomie tried to go in and calm him down, she got him back to bed, but then he freaked out again. I went in and calmed him down, rubbed his back, sang to him, hubbie came in to check and see how both of us were doing because he realized that my baby being apparently inconsolable had to be getting to me, and it was, I was about ready to drive 90 mph down to the nearest store and demand pacifiers.

In the end we put the radio on for him and hubbie sat with him for a little while. Apparently quite the contest of wills stare down went on, but in the end hubbie emerged saying that he’d left the main light on as well as the night light but that he felt they had “come to an understanding,” and not a peep was heard from the munchkin until almost 8 a.m.

I’m kinda fearful how tonight’s going to be…

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2.8

I remembered! I like participating in Val’s Four Foods on Friday meme but I keep forgetting and it’s very irritating to me that I do so. I love reading everyone else’s recipes and tips and tricks for getting by in the kitchen. This cooking thing is still pretty new to me. Anyway, on to the questions for this week.

#1. Artichokes. Love em or leave em?
#2. What’s your favorite kind of bean?
#3. Share a recipe for any kind of cake.
#4. What’s your favorite dairy product?

1. I sickened myself a bit on artichokes. I do like them, but when I worked at a pizza restaurant one of the dishes I used to have to prepare was the tortellini salad which was full of artichokes and, of course, when you make a dish you have to test it out. I haven’t had artichokes since, and it’s been almost six years since I worked there.

2. Now beans I’ve also been missing out on since I’ve been married because 90% of beans my husband won’t eat, except for green beans and edamame, so edamame are my current favorite, although I am fond of kidney beans and baked beans. Nothing like beans on toast!

3. Cake I cheat on. I figure why spend all this time making one from scratch when I can open a box from Pillsbury or Betty Crocker and make a yummy scrumptious cake in half the time. I love making marble cake:

That’s one I made for my Mum’s birthday this past March, which is not a great example of the marbling…but nonetheless you can see the nifty colors in the chocolate mix. I’ll get a chocolate cake (usually Devil’s Food) and a white cake mix and mix food coloring in with the white cake. I’ll usually do at least two different marble colors blue and purple, red and orange, something like that. One time I went “all out” and did each half of the cake different so we had a blue, purple, green bottom and a red, orange, yellow top. That was a bit much though.

4. Hrm…dairy…I love dairy. If you were asking my son this question he would say “cheese pwease,” he is a cheese fiend. Me, while I like cheese. I have to say whipped cream, LOL. It’s in so many scrumptious desserts, and I’ve just recently discovered the joy of making home-made chocolate truffles and they are so yummy when made with heavy whipping cream instead of whole milk.

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2.8

A friend on livejournal pointed out this amazing animated spider to me. It’s highly realistic, so if you have any tendencies towards arachnophobia you might want to stay away, but wow, it’s so well done. I just spent ten minutes having it chase bugs all over the screen and am now putting the spider away so that I don’t waste any more of my day I have many, many other things that I need to do.

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2.8

I think it’s funny how televisions are often a sign of status. I know when we lived in England we were considered wealthy because we had three TVs. Never mind one of them was ten years old and the others were tiny little portables, one of which was my mothers. When we moved out that tiny little portable was our only television.

In our house right now we have four televisions, if we were running by the English standards I grew up with that would be filthy richness, except we didn’t pay for most of them. One came with the house, one is my parents old television that they gifted us with. The one I actually paid for is a TV/VCR combo that I got while I was in college, through layaway. It was $225 from Walmart. The fourth is our room mates.

One of our friends was making jokes about bringing it downstairs and hooking it into the cable so that while one of us was playing video games on the main TV someone else could be watching television, still really the four televisions, I can’t say that they’d be considered a status symbol right now because they’re not HDTV, they’re just regular old boring basic televisions. We’re ready for the HD switch because we have digital cable, but it’s not high definition.

Yet somehow we’ll survive I expect. I survived the prehistoric period of no remotes. I can survive without HD.

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3.0

Today’s the day our renovations start. Our front yard is full of building supplies, and part of our garage is too, we have everything from 2×4s to windows and doors, insulation and drywall. About the only thing we don’t have is Grohe faucets because we’re not putting a bathroom into the new room, two of those is enough.

I need to go out and get a ladder before we start on things, but I’ve been slow going this morning. I just and so had breakfast, and I have to rearrange the cars and things too, so it’s tricky. I’m probably just going to go up to our local hardware store for the ladder. I don’t want to go too far afield today, plus I have to drop some jewelry in the mail this morning as I actually sold some things from my Etsy store, which was a big confidence boost. I made a few new pieces yesterday and I may put them up later today. I’ve been having to borrow a camera because the munchkin broke mine yesterday.

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3.0

Roomie and I have been messing with each others hair again. Although as I’ve been examining my hair I realize I could do with some of the best acne treatment on my face, but my hair is in need of color, and the acne re-occurs.

I would have pictures of my bleached wonder…but well, the camera is broken. I have one from the other day when it was partially bleached. Last night we did a second round of bleach on each other because I had missed some of Roomie’s roots and we wanted another go at the bottom of my hair which had bleached from faded purple to neon pink.

I’m not sure what color I’m going to go once we’re done. If Roomie can find her camera which is somewhere in her vast myriad of boxes there’ll be pictures later on…but as of right now…nothing I’m afraid.

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3.0

I’ve been excited this morning. I sold two pieces out of my Etsy shop. I was going to talk about how I’m going to be making more pieces and posting them over the next few days, but then that won’t be happening.

Why?

Munchkin just busted my camera.
In theory Radio Shack should be able to repair/replace it, that’s the whole point of getting it from them, but it’s still frustrating. Just start getting things going and then this happens.

I was uploading pictures of a reading I just did and he picked it up and turned it on. I said, “Oh, that’s great aren’t you a mechanical genius. Now give it back to Mummy.” so he moved so he was leaning as far away from me as possible and dropped it on the floor. Right on the lens.

So now the lens won’t go in and out. It will turn on but it can’t focus there’s no zoom capability. In short it’s useless.

Great.

I sure hope Radio Shack can actually fix it, because we can’t afford to replace it right now. No way. No how.

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3.0

I’m so happy!
This was one of the major things about becoming a citizen, the main reason that I wanted to get my citizenship was so that I could vote and have a say in things which affect my son’s future, and today I got to exercise that right for the first time. I’m all a-buzz!

It was a bit of a fiasco, but not a horrible one. Roomie, Munchkin and I met Hubbie for lunch and the lunch place is right across from the voting precinct (or so I thought) so Hubbie went back to work and Roomie and I put Munchkin in the stroller and bolted across the street passed the people with the “Vote X for Sheriff” signs and went inside, but the lady couldn’t find my name! And I’m going o.O what? I know I registered! I got sent a sample ballot and everything.
Then she asked me what precinct I’m registered at, and of course I don’t know. I didn’t think to bring my voter’s registration card with me because I remember being told by the lady on the phone that you only need to bring your driver’s license with you when you vote, but it turns out because we live in county not city our precinct is actually further down, and while I was correct in reading that I could vote at city hall, that was only early voting, not actual Voting Day.

But they were very nice about it. It turns out one of the lady’s that was working at that precinct lives the next street over from us so she knew right where the polling place I could actually go to was, and we dodged across the street back to the car and were there in a few minutes and got the “job” done.

Munchkin behaved very well for Roomie and impressed all the people at the registration area because he’s only two and was spelling out all the letters on the various signs they had up. Roomie took a picture of me waving my “secrecy folder” like a mad woman and flashing a victory sign. I’ll have to see if I can get a copy of it from her, it was taken on her cell phone, and properly mark the occasion.

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3.0