Easter Weekend

 The chicks will be three weeks old tomorrow and are getting big. They will stay in the house until they are at least four weeks old and it will depend a lot on the weather if they stay longer. I just remember the dust becoming a problem after four weeks. The kids seem to enjoy them, always talking to them. I even found Sean talking to them the other evening. They were all lined up at the window intently listening. He's the chick whisperer. 

 We had new Hardie Board siding put on the house last spring and we decided to paint it ourselves (after nearly falling over from the $10K house painting quote). Well the spring rains arrived, then the crazy heat rolled in and then we were off to Tuscon for Sean's kidney donation and now here we are a year later and still an unpainted house. So our goal this spring before the rain and heat is to get the house painted.....one giant side at a time. We got the front painted last weekend and we put up the scaffolding on the west side yesterday so it's ready next weekend. Whew, we are already tired.

 We got the fire pit going over this beautiful Easter weekend. We found this nifty pre-drilled log for sale and thought we'd give it a try as our fire building skills seem to last for about 15 minutes before the fire goes out. The log has one large hole drilled down the length and then three smaller holes drilled in one side. The fire comes out the three smaller holes. It worked great and we think we'll get a few more burns out of it, not bad for $8.

 I've been trying to find ways to relax and de stress and I find painting helps. No not house painting or painting sculptures but rather painting on a canvas. I found a giant painting for sale on marketplace last fall for not much money and I knew the canvas alone would be worth it so I bought it and planned to paint over it. It's like three foot square so I needed a huge easel. Sean was nice enough to build me a seven foot tall easel that works great! This is my work in progress of the Oregon coast.

New Wheels!

Well it's finally happened. Wesley is old enough to need a car. I kind of dreaded this ever since he was tiny. How can he be old enough? We started looking a couple of months ago and have kept our eyes open for good deals on cars. There are good deals but they go super fast! We're talking hours and they are gone. The car market is kind of nuts right now. We found an online government auction that auctions off older cars once new ones are purchased. We've purchased two other vehicles from this site and they've been good cars. 

Several white Ford Escapes were being auctioned off online and we did our research and decided to bid on the only inoperable one. It's a hybrid and often the large battery pack goes dead after not being used often enough. It's usually as simple as getting a new 12 volt battery and charging the hybrid battery pack. In this case that's all Sean did and it started right up. We got a great deal and it should be a good car for Wesley. We knew it would need a deep cleaning as all of those government cars get auctioned off absolutely filthy! We spent the day scrubbing, washing and waxing the car. It's beautiful now. 

 

Spring Happenings

 I sure love spring! So much to do though. We ended the month of March with a box of chicks that came in the mail. With the soaring price of eggs everyone decided to buy chicks and raise them for their eggs. All of the feed stores would sell out of chicks the day they came in. I've been wanting to focus on Cochin chickens so this was a great reason to go order Cochin chicks online. I was a little worried about mailing newly hatched chicks in March as the weather can change drastically but luckily the weather was great. They even included an extra chick so now there are seven little fluff balls in the brooder in the living room. 

The very first day of January I replanted the Tower Garden that was recently moved to the basement. It takes a couple of months for the greens to get big enough to start harvesting but we've been eating off of it for a month now. Just cut the greens and watch them grow more. I planted four cucumber plants along the bottom and have been busy pollinating the flowers as they open. There are a few cukes growing, which I'm hoping will be tasty and not bitter.

I also started several trays of hosta seeds since I've never tried growing those before. Last year was a fun year for planting and I really got obsessed with hostas. Pretty sure I planted nearly a hundred varieties. They are just starting to show signs of popping out of the ground and I'm excited to watch them grow. The baby seedlings take quite some time to grow from seed and I read to start them around Christmas so that's what I did. I set up a little grow cabinet in the basement and have been up-potting them every few weeks. 

I Love....

 I love......going thrifting with Max on the weekends.......peppermint mocha coffee in the morning.......sunny winter days......finding rare cuttings of houseplants online.....discovering an awesome local vegan Pho restaurant.....hugs from my teenagers......little Boston Terriers curled up on me in the evenings.....watching old X-Files reruns with Sean.....de cluttering and selling stuff online.....growing tiny hostas from seed under grow lights in the dining room......65 degree February days.....an ice tea run into town to break up the day......reconnecting with old friends from church (and finally getting back to church)......happy, laughing kids.....zooming around in the little electric car......lunch dates with the hubby.......dreaming of spring and the growing season.....watching Wesley learn to drive......finding the (oh so valuable) chicken egg in the coop.....

Happy Valentine's Day!

Family Pictures

 While Betsy and her family were down for the Holidays we went to our graffiti spot downtown with a tripod and took some quick pictures. It was cold and SO windy but I think they turned out pretty good. I love the bold colors!

 

Christmas 2022

 We had a nice, but chilly, Christmas. The weather slowed my sister and her family from getting down here before Christmas morning but they made it later in the day. It was nice having a big Christmas with my parents and sister and family. They brought their big little dog Moose (there is a lot of Moose in a not big dog body). Moose is a very sweet dog but not a dog that was loved my our dogs. It was a lot of work keeping everyone happy and not fighting. I'm still not sure why our dogs didn't like Moose. 

That didn't stop us from having a good time. Lots of good food and sweets!  Merry Christmas!

This & That

We noticed that when we turned on the hot water it was SO very hot, much hotter than normal. Sean went down to the utility room to find a sauna. Hot water dripping off of every surface in the room from the steam coming from the water heater. The temperature switch failed and locked on full blast.  We found a date scrawled on it of 9/28/01.....it had a good run! Sean got a new one installed and we're back to having normal hot water. Thanks Sean!

 

Sean celebrated a birthday a few weeks ago and we pampered him with a heated throw blanket and heated eye massager. The poor guy works in the basement and is cold all of the time so we're trying to get him warmed up. The problem with being warm and cozy is that it makes him tired. Ah the glories of working from home!

Max got to star in a small play that one of his classes puts on every year. This year's play was about toys that come to life. Each child was a toy and had to memorize many lines. They all did a fantastic job!

If a warm body is sitting on the couch then there's a good chance all three dogs will be piled on top of that person. This is Sean's normal spot and of course all three dogs are happy as can be.

I was wandering around a thrift store the other day and found an elf suit for a dog. It was a whopping $1.99 so it had to come home with me, I figure it would fit at least one of the dogs. Well Kevin was the unlucky pup that it fit. I laughed and laughed, Kevin was not amused. A few minutes later the outfit was found on the ground, he somehow got himself out of it.

Sean and I were in Tucson for Halloween so my folks took Max trick-or-treating while Wesley handed out candy at Jessica's house. Before we left we found this epic Halloween house in town that was decked out with every decoration you could imagine.

The kids carved pumpkins like they do each year. This year was Garfield (Max is obsessed with vintage Garfield stuff) and Peter Griffin (Wesley does a spot on Family Guy Peter Griffin impersonation).