If you are handed it, you can handle it.

i love squares and worms and

nobody@vox.com(audralynn) — Thu, 29 May 2008 18:16:54 -0400

anything miniature!!! Matty gave these to me Thursday - MINIATURE COLLANDERS!

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this weekend: tag sale and electrical

nobody@vox.com(audralynn) — Thu, 29 May 2008 09:39:54 -0400

we are having a tag sale this weekend... and of course its going to rain - but we are ready with our tag sale stickers

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We are also running the electrical this weekend - and I am going to help! i have been reading my Wiring 1-2-3 book which was a gift from Shaun and Wendy for my 30th birthday 5 years ago! I hung onto it and now I am going to use it to help my dad. I figure I should get a little more hands on now while I still have my dad here to teach me!

First step the book tells me is to draw out the plan - and they use colored pencils so I will use colored pencils - i bought these eraseable ones last night in case I change my mind :)

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latest additions to our garden

nobody@vox.com(audralynn) — Thu, 29 May 2008 09:36:39 -0400

yesterday was the farmers market outside here at work. Matty left me a message about some sunflowers that he wanted. I went out looking for them and I found these - they aren't the exact ones he had seen but sunflowers are sunflowers and they are going to look great against the back wall of the garage. I think Matt hates the plywood that is on the back of the garage right now that is a place holder til I can find a window - this will cover them nicely.

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In other news the cucumbers still can't go in the ground b/c of the cold but they are growing like gangbusters! I have some pickling and some slicing. I will make pickles again this year!

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Garden Update

nobody@vox.com(audralynn) — Tue, 27 May 2008 13:56:02 -0400

The garden was planted this weekend - here is the role call

20 Potato Plants

5 Eggplant Plants

40 Bush Bean Seeds

14 Tomato plants (cheery, yellow, black, and red)

30 Onions

12 Head of Lettuce

3 Summer Squash Plants

4 Watermelon Plants

6 Corn Plants

3 Zucchini Plants

1 Row of Carrots

6 Pepper Plants

Basil

Thyme

Rosemary

Mint

Still left to plan

3 more Watermelon Plants

12 Cucumbers (pickling and slicing)

Pumpkin

We will also succession plant some of those crops so we have food into the fall.

For reference here is my garden post from this time last year:

Once we have all of those crops frozen and canned we should be good for veggies this winter! Here are a few shots out of the garden:

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and on Saturday night there was a fire....

nobody@vox.com(audralynn) — Tue, 27 May 2008 13:50:50 -0400

MemDayWeekend

I told Erin when I left on Friday that I would blog this weekend - that never happened - I never even got to my computer and I am not going to say it was all good this weekend because it wasn't.... and this weekend left me to think about some stuff that I am still thinking about.

But there was fun to be had! On Saturday night the Walls family +1 came over for a fire and pizza and smores. The

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girls and the chaos created by kids stressed Matt out so I am not sure if he had a great time, but we do love a fire and that outdoor fireplace is the best part about that house right now. We had spent the better part of Saturday planting the garden so I was sure to give them all a tour! Here Riley is able to show us how big the garden is:

Hailey brought a friend with her named Meghan and for a while they let me chase them around with a camera taking pictures. I tried to get them to sit on a bale of hay while I shot some but they weren't having it at all.

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After a while and a few beers Brian decided it was time to use the chain saw so he climbed into the tree and pulled down some dead branches

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Then he wanted the chain saw so I got it for him - this is where Matt really started having a bad time. Once he got the chain saw he cut down the rest that was dead

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The girls seemed a bit nervous - mainly because Brian was up in a tree..... here they are huddled by my car

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After Brian was done they all had a group hug:

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It was all fine and now my tree is all better. It has already starting growing new shoots in the area that is newly exposed from when I had that tree cut down a month ago.

I love nature.

The girls even tried some fancy gymnastics move in celebration.

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In other house news I got a new mailbox - so my family can quit nagging me to get one. My old one had a dent in it and was held up by bungie cords - but it worked so who cares!

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i am pretty sure my house has been moved...

nobody@vox.com(audralynn) — Fri, 23 May 2008 08:16:04 -0400

as you know I am not quite convinced about the story I have been fed about my house. Oh I think it was a gas station in the 30's but I am not sure it was on this location. This building permit has been in the house for a while.

Permit

Its old so I don't want to destroy it so it just gets moved from spot to spot until the proper way to take care of it came to me. It came out of the garage and then was in my makeshift office before the renovation and until this morning it has been kicking around the kitchen collecting dust. I got up early this morning and was cleaning the kitchen when I realized I should take a hard look at this.

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If you look close you will see it says "moving building" as the reason for the permit. Clearly this house has been moved, now I just have to figure out when and how. This permit is dated 1940 but I thought this house wasn't a house until later??? Maybe it was moved so it could become a house??? The people who live behind me grew up in this house, I need to knock on her door.

I still don't know how to take care of this. I am afraid if I put it in a ziploc bag then the lack of oxygen will cause it to disinegrate? I was thinking of putting it into a frame, but where to hang it. I could fill my not yet hung walls with memorabelia from this house and then were would I put a giant 48x60 picture of Matty and I!

Mattyand1

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funny how a haircut changes everything

nobody@vox.com(audralynn) — Wed, 21 May 2008 19:33:25 -0400

Riley got her haircut today, Kim was v. upset b/c our idiotic hairdresser cut the curls when she knew we loved them. But still she looks super cute - and now she looks so much like a kid and so much less like a baby! Overnight Kim has 2 kids instead of one kid and one baby!

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RileyHaircut

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farmer matty

nobody@vox.com(audralynn) — Mon, 19 May 2008 11:13:24 -0400

matty came home last night from a weekend at his grandparents and went to work planting the pear trees. For those of you still waiting to see what I got him for our 4 month anniversary he is wearing them in this picture! I kinda blew this anniversary. I had ideas on what I wanted to get him and then never got it executed and then he got me these really great pear trees!

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So I got him something he has always wanted - a pair of overalls to work in the garden! The way I see it he is using them to plan fruits and flowers!

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I think that is sweat rolling down his cheek....

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ext month the traditional gift is wood.... I am going to be a bit more prepared for that!

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at one point Brian's finger was holding up the house

nobody@vox.com(audralynn) — Mon, 19 May 2008 11:02:43 -0400

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"oh boy we are in real trouble"

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"this weekend I used a chainsaw"

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all good and appropriate titles for today’s blog post. Over the course of this weekend a few other titles came to mind, but they are out of my head now, and I didn't get a chance to write them down because I was busy wielding the chain saw, or the camera - which ever one I could get my hands on.

This weekend we replaced the main beam in my house. For those of you who feel like this was just another weekend reno project IT. WAS. NOT. It’s akin to replacing your spinal cord. You pretty much remove the largest structure in the house, the structure that is HOLDING UP your house and replace it with a new one - all the while your house is held up by "temporary walls". Tension was running high Saturday morning and at least twice during the day I was so nervous that I thought the entire house might collapse.

We started off here on Saturday morning - with the temporary walls up, the old main bean still in place and my stairway still as it is (keep an eye on the stairway - that goes through some big changes)

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As you can see we were in a bad spot with the old construction - this is what was in place for the header by the door that was holding up the old main beam.

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The first order of business was to remove the old main beam. Easiest way to cut down wood is with a chainsaw so that is what we did. I took my turn and made two cuts with the chainsaw but then I had to get down and just watch. I am not sure why but I think it had to do with the fact that 1. I was leaning on the chainsaw because I wasn't strong enough and 2. They had some plan they were working on that I didn't know.

We got the first half of it out and it was starting to look like we were in good shape for the day! Heck at this point it was only 10AM or so. After we had all the chainsaw cuts made we went about cutting the notches out of the existing floor joists, thereby restoring them to their original 2x6 structure and that makes them stronger!

We did that and then it was time to get the bean into place - again I thought we were going to be done by 2PM, I would be at Kim's in time for dinner, we were moving right along.

My dad had hurt his back, and the bean wasn't too heavy, so Brian and I carried it up into place. We brought it into the house, tilted it so one side was on the new header and then we lifted it up into place. On the end by the doorway the bean was touching the 2nd floor floorboards but on the end by the kitchen there was a 2 1/2" gap. My dad was standing next to me and I turned to look at him while Brian was saying that and his face changed to a look of terror and then he uttered the words "We are in real trouble". My father is in charge of these things and is pretty level headed and never undertakes a project without knowing he can do it. So when he said those words I felt my stomach drop to the floor!

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The next hour or so involved some heavy conversations about jacks and lifts and how we were going to do this. I made sandwiches for everyone because I thought we could all think better on a full stomach. Turns out that my Dad original plan involved having the new beam level with the floor upstairs - but that wasn't possible. The old beam was level with the floor upstairs but the old beam was also twisted - which is how it had gotten level with the floor upstairs. The 2nd floor was also sagging in the middle and hand come down to rest on the old beam, which had made it all touching. Taking the old beam down the 2nd floor sagged down a bit more. Putting the new beam in place - which was perfectly level - just highlighted the floors sagging.

So after much thinking and planning and lunch Dad realized that the 2nd floor does not have to be touching the new beam on all points, that the floor joists, that would now be supported by joist hangers

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would carry the weight of the floor and distribute it down to the beam.

So we set about getting it into place - which honestly took the rest of the afternoon. I got very nervous during the periods where we were jacking up part of the floor - you could hear the entire house creak - and then Kim needed someone to go watch the girls for a bit so I went b/c honestly Brian is more useful than I am and when I came back around 5PM it was all done! Well, not all done - but some joist hangers were in. The temporary walls were left in place and on Sunday we set about getting the rest of the joist hangers in.

I picked Dad up at 7AM on Sunday and by 7:30AM we were working. He installed the rest of the joist hangers and I started taking down the doorframe that was around the stairway. This work involved a chainsaw and a skill saw so I got my fill of power tools this weekend.

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When he reached a point where I could start taking the temporary walls down I started on that and within an hour or so I had all of those down and all that lumber hauled over to the chicken coop(which Matt is repairing and working on over the next couple of weeks)

Then I spent an hour or so getting things cleaned up while Dad finished taking down the doorway by the stairs. This is what the living room looked like once I had it cleaned up!

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Pay special attention to the stairway - this is what it looked like before

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and this is what it looks like now

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Dad and I just stood and marveled at how much that one change opened that whole area up! Now that doesn't seem like a small and scary stairway but a nice open area that takes you to the 2nd floor!

We are going to replace the oak treads on the stairs and put in a larger one at the bottom that swoops around the wall. Its going to be glorious but it has made me go back and think about how I want that room laid out.

So this is where we are at for now, piddly work on electrical and construction this week and then next week we will finish electrical and get into the sheetrock - mercifully this will be over before I know it :)

The house is definitely re-settling and last night walking around upstairs you could hear it. I get nervous but then I just walk myself through how the house is supported and I feel fine.

Let me leave you with one more before and after

LivingRoomBefore (5)

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i have mail

nobody@vox.com(audralynn) — Wed, 14 May 2008 14:23:08 -0400

I got home last night and there was quite a bit of mail in my mailbox! one of them was a postcard with Prince's symbol on the front and all it said was "you're cute!"

the other was a die cut of the chicago skyline and it say "you're perfect!"

seriously could anyone ask for a better boyfriend?

in funnier notes Jocelyn couldn't get over how all the post card said was "you're perfect" and that made me laugh even harder!

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