Veggie Seedlings

I actually have enough room this year to plant a big garden and I will be doing just that! I'm so excited! But if you buy all those plants already started by someone else at the store or greenhouse, the cost can add up quickly. I need at least 30 tomato plants to make salsa and multiple plants of multiple types of peppers. Because of this, I have started tomatoes, peppers and broccoli from seed.

I got some pods to help start the seeds. They look like this:

and then you put water on them and they expand


I started the broccoli on Wed. and by Saturday they had sprouted. By day 4 this is what they look like.


Day 5:


I started them upstairs where it is warmer and once they were about 1/2 inch tall I moved them downstairs where there isn't natural light for them to try to grow toward and put a florescent light above them.


This isn't the ideal situation just yet because as you can see the plants on the sides of the tray are already trying to grow toward the light.


I have three treys full of seeds.


I planted broccoli, better boy tomatoes, roma tomatoes, banana peppers, jalapeno peppers and bell peppers. Just an fyi in case you didn't know like I didn't - roma tomatoes and the peppers have a ton of seeds in each packet. I had enough pods so I went ahead and planted as many seeds as I could otherwise they would have just gone to waste. I can give the extras to friends and family.

I'll keep you updated as they grow!

Basement Stairwell and Closet

One of the remaining major projects on the house was our basement stairwell and office closet. There had been a leak from the roof that had been left unattended so it caused a lot of mold and rotted wood. When we first moved in, we tore out the drywall in the closet to see how bad the situation really was and this is what it looked like:



It was even worse at the bottom because the water could pool there.

The stairwell had lots of mold on the ceiling and on the back wall.



It also had a 80's hunting paneling on the right side.

A week or so ago Adam decided to tackle this project. He tore out all the drywall in the stairwell and the rotted wood. In the process he also saw that the supports in the crawlspace (there is only a basement under 1/2 of the house) had rotted out a little and were barely hanging on so he reinforced these.

Here's the project during demo:


Here is where we stand now!


It doesn't necessarily look a ton different but it was something that definitely needed to be done.

The closet is fixed, drywalled and primed. I'll bring you more on that later once we get the shelving in and can call it finished.

To brighten your day

THIS is FUNNY

Click me

Newest Creation

Adam's newest creation is a nightstand. Our room in this house is much smaller than the one in our last house so the nightstands we used before do not fit. New project for Adam!

Tada!


It's oak with inlays of walnut on the top.

Pretty fancy!

Wall Vinyl

My cricut cuts vinyl which means that I can make just about anything that Uppercase Living could make as long as I have the cartridge that has the images. I ordered the vinyl a while ago and my sister in law did some cute sports wall images for her sons room but I finally decided it was time for me to make one for my house.



I don't totally love it, but I don't dislike it either.

When cutting vinyl with the cricut I used 5 Pressure, 6 blade depth, 4 speed, a new blade and a new mat. Everything worked perfectly!

New Stairs

While digging the trench around the basement, Adam had to break out a couple of stairs. Here's a pic of the old stairs w/ some risers torn out.



Here's the new stairs. Nice and pretty.



Adam also made them a little more steep so there is a little more room at the landing. I think he did a pretty good job :)

Fixin up the basement

First off I have to say that it snowed today. A lot. Probably not a lot to those who are in North Dakota right now but for here it's quite a bit in one shot. Here is a pic I took this afternoon before it even stopped. Almost 8 inches. Sorry for the blurry but I think you can see it and I think you can see which #'s are which. (if you click on it and zoom in)



Yesterday Adam and one of his friends started working on fixing our basement. I mentioned the process here but instead of having it professionally done Adam and his friend went ahead and did it. It isn't finished yet. It still needs the tubing put in but at least the trench is cut. Adam said it was super hard work and it looks like it would have been.




We also need to get some new stairs made because they had to cut part of the old ones out and we are going to finish the front part of the basement and want them to be enclosed stairs anyway.


So now we have a mess but I'm excited that the process is started.

Antenna

Adam's latest project has been one that is more fun for him than stuff that needs to be done. He decided that since people are going to be having tvs with antenna's on them more he wanted to make one that was nicer aesthetically. He did some research online and came up with a plan. This is what he made.



We'll get it hung up on the wall soon to make it look more like a piece of art and it will look better than rabbit ears!

Weekend progress

This weekend we went to tear down the remainder of my parents house. When we got there they were breaking up the concrete with a jackhammer.

So when we got there they had already removed the porches and it looked like this (one the back of the house)


and by the end of the second day this is how far they had gotten.


It took a lot longer than anticipated because it's hard to get close enough and pick things up. Plus we weren't only knocking the walls down, we were hauling it all away and tearing up foundation, etc.
Here is the link to the photo album of all that I took this weekend. There are a lot there and it's kind of fun to flip through them because you can see the action going on. Here are a few quick sequences. (click on to view larger and then in the picasa album you can click on the top right magnifying glass to see even bigger)






Saturday was gorgeous but Sunday was COLD. They didn't get to finish this weekend because close to dusk on Sun. my BIL finally hit a nail with the tractor (it was inevitable) and the tire was leaking.

Here is kind of a fun pic to look at. Their house was over 100 years old. Two owners before my parents brought in another 100 year old house and attached it to the back of the other house. Over time porches were built on also. Here is what the original structure on the farm would have looked like.

Anyone still out there? :)

The only thing creative I've done lately is thank you cards.
Here's some pictures:









This past weekend was a fun weekend filled with a basketball game, a testicle festival and the Super Bowl. What a crazy Super Bowl too huh? I think that my favorite commercials were the Mr. Potato head one the "Coke heist.

Potato Head Ad

Coke Heist Ad

Here's a link to all of them in case you missed any!
All Ads

Happy hump day!

Jackpot!

My co-worker was wandering around Walmart last night and came upon Cricut cartridges in the clearance isle for.........$20! I got 3! $60! Which may seem like a lot of money but at regular price these three items I would have been $239.97!!!!

For those of you that know what I'm talking about:
I got the basketball solutions cart. (reg. $49.99), the Doodletype cart. (reg. $89.99) and the Disney Dreams come true cart (Reg. $99.99)

I promise, I'm going to be better at posting from now on :)

Christmas!

I seem to have skipped over Christmas stuff :) I finally uploaded pictures last night though which included Christmas pictures so here is my rundown of our busy holiday.

Christmas eve night Adam and I opened presents to each other before we went to church and his moms family gathering. Here he is pretending to be surprised with his sawzall (he found it about a month before Christmas):


Abby sure was excited to get big brother Chris' Rockstar setup





I think she might be kissing the box here.

Here's some more quilt racks that Adam made for my mom and sister for Christmas.

(Last picture from inside my parents house - quilt rack made it out of the fire)

And what Christmas would be complete without tuckered out kids?

What day is it?

I'm so off. Tuesday my computer tells me :)

Well this weekend we kind of got my parents settled into their new temporary living arrangement. Their neighbor had an open hired mans house so they have moved into there for now. They have some trash cans and soap and hangers and a recliner and a small tv and can kind of function now.

We were able to wash a few of the things we got out. Soaking clothing that isn't horrible in dishwasher soap and pure vanilla seems to do a decent job. Washing dishes in dawn and then sticking them in the dishwasher with lemon dishwasher soap seems to work.

Sunday the town churches had a benefit for my parents and there was a huge turn out. It was amazing really! Thank you to anyone who came!

We continued to sort through things this weekend and Sunday afternoon Adam and I hauled a trailer full of stuff to my aunt and uncles Steamatic shop for them to work on cleaning the rest of it. Hopefully they can save some stuff!

I'm freezing at work today! Is it 5 yet?

I'm back

I'm sorry that it's been 8 days since I posted but if you don't already know where I've been I'll tell you: my parents had a catastrophic house fire on Monday. They lost almost everything. The fire was electrical and started in the attic. My dad was home and the fire crews got there soon enough but it was too windy to stop it.

The whole top floor is completely gone. The bottom floor didn't get burnt except for one room but the roof caved in on the rest of it. The only room untouched was the kitchen. Thank goodness.

We've spent some time digging through everything and were able to pull quite a bit out. Now we just have to see if we can get it cleaned and smelling ok. It really was quite amazing the breakable things we were able to pull out. I'd go to find something because I knew where it should be and I would pull it out and it'd be ok! Another weird thing was when you'd be digging through a pile of ashes and come across something that was perfectly fine.

For now we are just trying to figure out what to do and trying to get my parents a couple of things here and there. They are going to stay in a neighbors hired mans house for now.

Instead of making my blog a sad place with the pictures, here is a link to them if you want to see them.

Please pray for my parents and forgive me if I'm not updating everyday. I have a feeling I won't be doing anything fun and crafty to show you for the next couple of weeks.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year!!!