Look What's Happening Here!

Oops, I'm here.

Whoa!  Where did the month go?  I'll tell you where I've been....in the yard.  Every. Single. Day.  Until past dark.  But I'll tell you what...we've made some good progress.  I'll get pics up soon.  And I'll tell you what else....working your you-know-what off in the yard, is good for your you-know-what.  Those last few pesky pounds have melted off the past couple of weeks.

The May Challenge has been going really well, despite not having any time to blog about it.  I have a pile of receipts next to me that I am going to tally up in a minute and add to my sidebar.  I'm thinking I'm under $400 spent on food for the month, and we only have a little over a week left.  Shouldn't be a problem.

As of today we are officially on summer break.  Emma worked so hard and finished her last second-grade book yesterday.  Biniam will be done with 11th grade on Friday, and then we will all celebrate the official start of our summer.

Noah is going through a phase where he is destructive and slow to obey.  The phase has been going on for three years, so it's due to end any day now.  I write this so that years from now, when Noah is a little angel, I will look back and remember that it wasn't always like that.  Speaking victory.

My sweet hubby just emailed me and asked me out on a date.  Date?  What's that?  Do I have to shower?

Yesterday I played in poop.  Horse poop, to be exact.  I guess if you think about it, I have my hands in poop every day.  Moving on....we got a load of poop from our neighbor's pasture.  Have I mentioned how much I love living out here?  I had a smile on my face the whole time I was working our neighbor's horse poop into our garden.

I guess some of you probably call it manure.  Whatever, snobs.

Off to tally up those receipts now.

In The Trenches

This week's project (and last week's) has been focused on installing the sprinkler system.  Last week we had a skid steer with a trencher attached come dig all the trench lines.  That was a comedy of errors in itself, given crazy weather that included 75 MPH wind gusts, hail the size of quarters, and flash floods. At one point the poor tractor guy gave up on the day as he had been sitting in his truck, waiting for the lightening to pass.  Apparently Big Open Field + Metal Tractor + Lightning = Bad Idea.

The trenches were finally finished, but the flash floods that came the next day washed dirt/mud back into a lot of the trenches.  Plus there were some areas that were too tight to get the trencher where it needed to go.  Enter hand-trenching.  Lots and lots of it.  Actually, I worked so hard that I sprained my wrist - not from any one impact, but from digging over and over and over.  I've been on the injured list for the past three days, which just means even more digging for Brian and Biniam.

Good news is, the trenching is now about 96% done, and a lot of the pipe is already in the trenches.  Next is (and don't quote me on this) installing the sprinkler heads and a valve box or something.  Brian's goal is to have the water turned on by Saturday.  We will see!

This shows about one sixth of the yard, and the trenches only get closer together in the front yard.

Also, you can get a little sneak peek of some of our trees here.  The one closest to Brian is a Linden, then there is a Sycamore way in the distance near the playground, and even further out along the fence are seven Hackberries, which will provide wind-protection and privacy - bye bye blue trailer!

Looking straight out the back door, you can see that the blue house behind us is disappearing as all the foliage comes in.  And if you look really, really close, you can see our ten fruit trees planted along that fence.

Such a handsome, hard-worker!

May Challenge

It's no secret that we're spending every extra minute on projects in the yard right now.  We're also spending every extra dollar out there as well.  Sprinkler system, trees, shrubs, boulders, weed barrier, landscape rock, curbing, grass seed....the list is seemingly endless.  Unfortunately, our bank account is not.

So this morning, with exactly zero days notice, Brian emailed me and implemented the May Challenge.  Here it is:

• Spend 30% less on groceries this month ($500 instead of $700)
• No eating out
• Entertainment to a minimum (we already have movie passes, enjoy picnics in the park - and frankly we have no time for entertainment, anyway)
• Use as little gas as possible 

I am totally on board, and even excited.  I have already come up with a few ways to save money. 

1.  I will hold-off on my already-overdue hair cut.

2.  I will trim Emma's hair myself.

3.  I saved a coupon from the mail today for a free men's haircut, and will give it to Biniam.

4.  I will make all our sandwich bread this month.

5.  I have already browsed grocery store ads for food sales, and have clipped a few coupons.

6.  I read up on tips as to why Braxton's cloth diapers might not be working as well, and will give those another try.  (Disposable diapers are currently coming out of our grocery budget.)

7.  I will be making meals as frugal as possible, using ingredients that are in season and on sale.  I will NOT be sacrificing my family's health during this time.

8.  I will be updating and re-consulting my food spreadsheet to make sure I am getting the best deals. 

I always LOVE a good tip on how to save money, so if you have any ideas I might not have thought of, please send them my way!  And if you'd like to join in on our challenge, please do and let me know!

I will be posting my grocery spending throughout the month on my sidebar...so help keep me accountable.  Oh, and it doesn't help that I've already been trying to stretch our food, so our reserves and staples are pretty lean right now.

Ready, set....GO!

Where I've Been

 It was my birthday a little over a week ago.  As a present to myself (well, and from Brian) I went on a road trip to Seattle to see an old friend of mine.

You may have heard of her.

And you might recognize her.

Yep, it was just me, Ree, and about 500 other people who think they are her BFF's.

Ree put on a little presentation for us, filling us in on some of the little details of her life.

Then, as a special treat, Ree sang.  "Endless Love"... to a picture of her dog, Charlie (or "Charles", as the emcee infamously flubbed that night).

My friend, Sara, joined me on the road trip, and my SIL's joined us for the evening.  When we arrived at the event, in what we thought was plenty of time to get a good seat, we were surprised to see all the chairs full.  It ended up being a blessing because we found a table on the side, right up front, where we could eat, feed our babies, and watch Ree all at once.

After the presentation when Ree exited the stage she walked right past us and made eye contact with us.  We had a moment.

Ree has a thing for babies, and Braxton didn't disappoint.  She asked if she could keep him.  I said no.  Although if she had extended the offer to me to be his wet nurse, I might have considered it.

As we were chatting it up, Ree said "didn't I walk past your table with all the babies earlier?"  Yes, yes you did, Ree.

See?  We had a moment.

She signed my book "Love to Shana, (heart) Ree".  I'm sure I'm the only one she wrote that for.

Speaking of my birthday, we had a lovely dinner out, followed by frozen yogurt treats.  I got some great self-portraits with my kids (Biniam had to work).


The wrinkles evidenced in this photo are making it harder for me to pull off "29".

Isaiah was a stinker.  This is the best shot we got.

Here's to another year!

Holes!

Has anyone else seen the movie Holes?  I'm pretty sure it has Sigourney Weaver in it, and that's all I remember, other than some kids digging some random holes out in the desert.

We had our own version of that painful movie last weekend.  On Saturday, Brian and I went to a local tree auction.  It's a wholesale nursery that sells larger-than-average trees, and twice a year they get rid of a bunch of trees at once by hosting an auction.  It was crazy fun, and we ended up purchasing 12 trees!  There was a catch though.  All trees had to be picked up by Sunday afternoon.  And the trees are so big, you can't exactly transport and move them yourself.  Believe me.  We tried.

We borrowed a friend's pickup truck, and another friend's utility trailer.  When the guys at the nursery went to load our trees into the trailer with a skid steer, they quickly realized only two of the trees would fit in the trailer at a time.  Brian drove the trees onto our property right next to where we wanted to plant them.  Brian, Biniam and I then attempted to unload the trees.  They. Wouldn't. Budge.  Like not even an inch.  We were screwed.  We had ten more trees to pick up, two that were stuck on the trailer, not to mention twelve giant holes to dig.

Our backup plan was to call the guy who we were buying our boulders from, have him deliver the boulders on Sunday, then pick up the trees for us, and come place the trees in our pre-dug holes.  At 5:00 PM on Saturday we connected with "our guy" and made arrangements for him to come deliver our trees at 8:00 Sunday morning.  At this point we were starting on our third hole, and had also just found out our first two holes were too small.

Did I mention we were screwed?

We sent out the SOS, and by about 7:00 PM we had two friends-with-shovels helping us out.  By dark, I think we had 8 1/2 holes dug.  It's a bit blurry to me now, but late Saturday night or early Sunday morning, we got grace as Our Guy called and said it would be closer to noon.  Good thing, because we also realized that not only did we have to be ready for our trees, but since he was first dropping off our boulders, we would need to be ready for them, too.  Which meant creating a raised berm for some of the boulders to sit on.

Oh...my...word.  We were digging and hacking and scooping and wheelbarrow-ing so fast.  One neighbor saw what we were doing with the dirt-moving, and came over and dropped off his 4-wheeler with a trailer.  That helped a LOT.

We were just working on the last tree hole when Our Guy pulled up with our rocks.  He unloaded the rocks, placed them were they needed to go, then took off with Brian to get our trees, while Biniam and I finished up the last hole.

Have I mentioned that these holes were about six feet across and three feet deep?

Everything went smoothly with delivering the trees and placing each one in each hole with the tractor.  And our holes were just the right size!

Next up, pictures of our trees.  Although they aren't very photogenic right now without their leaves.

Gym Make-Over

I've been mostly focusing on what's been happening outside at our house lately.  But, we've had some stuff going on inside, too.

Remember our gym, from the house tour I gave back in February?

It's a perfect room, off the far end of the basement, for a home gym.  It's far from other bedrooms, and stays nice and cool.  In my mind, the only thing that would make it better was adding a ceiling fan, and ripping out the carpet and replacing with some sort of hard-surface flooring.

Well, in January, we had a handyman here working on some wiring and small maintenance projects.  One of those projects was moving the ceiling fan from the master bedroom (since we were replacing it with the chandelier during our room make-over) to the gym (which also required installing a support box in the ceiling for the fan).  Check the fan off the list!

Then, one afternoon, right after our big snowfall and rapid melt-away, I walked barefoot into the gym and found myself standing on soggy carpet.  A little investigation revealed that there was some sort of leak coming from the wall by the window, which had left some of the drywall soggy, as well as a section of the carpet.  Further inspection revealed mold inside the wall, which indicated this was not a new problem.

So the good news?  I got to have the carpet ripped out of the gym, like I had wanted.  The not-so-good news?  Our pocket book is lighter and the gym was quarantined for about six weeks until the work was all completed (by mold-certified professionals). 

The room has been completed for a couple of weeks now, and I am finally back into using it on a regular basis.  Yay!

For the flooring, we went with stained concrete.  Since the room is in our basement, we already had concrete slab under the carpet.  So we just had the existing concrete stained and sealed.

The color is hard to see from the pictures.  It was a three-color process, starting with a steel grey, then a charcoal, then finished off with a milk chocolate.  It's the perfect blend of cool and warm tones, and I love it.

We still have some plans for this room, like installing large mirrors on the walls, mounting a TV on the wall, and maybe adding some more equipment like a pull-up bar and some weights.  But first, back to yard work....

Easter 2012

We were so blessed to have family in town with us for Easter this year.  We just love having visitors!  Especially when we put them to work.  Ha!

Here is Aunt Lisa giving us a hand on digging our trampoline hole.

And here is Uncle Evan being helpful.  I think.

Putting the final touches on the new (used) play set.

Uncle Evan hard at work, while the rest of us play.

The kids enjoying the inaugural swing.

A quick break to color Easter eggs.  On that note, does anyone have any idea what eggs have to do with Easter?

We even went roller skating!  I hadn't been to a rink since I was in my teens.  I am happy to say that this girl's still got it!  Unfortunately, my camera battery died before I got any more pictures.  Also unfortunately, Blogger prefers this photo sideways.

We took our cousins back to our favorite park.  Uncle Evan is scouring the face, and pondering life's deepest moments.

Look!  We made it!  Or, look!  Blogger still prefers sideways pictures!  (WTH, Blogger?)

We also took a trip to the local old-fashioned candy shop.

That place is such a blast!

Also, because I cannot tell a lie...I brushed out my wrinkles in this photo.  I guess I wouldn't have really been lying if I just hadn't said anything.  But I needed to get that off my chest.

The cousins all looked so cute at church.  The girls had similar dresses, then I made matching bow ties for the boys.

The "hunt" after church.  Boy, I hope the kids can find all those hiding eggs!  Maybe we should just call it what it really is...an Egg Grab.

My handsome nephews.

As we were preparing for Easter brunch, we started cracking into the kids' dyed eggs to make deviled eggs (yum!).  When Noah saw what was happening, he lost it.  I finally convinced him that we could take a picture to remember his eggs by, which worked, for a moment, until he decided again that we could not use his eggs.

Brunch was yummy and bittersweet, as our guests had to leave right after.  Poor Emma cried for quite some time.

Our annual backyard egg hunt lifted the kids' spirits, although Noah started coming down with an ear infection.  What is it with us getting sick right as company leaves?

Happy (belated) Easter, everyone!  We hope you remembered the True Reason for the day, and enjoyed time with family.