Life by bullet points

So much has been going on around here, I've not had really a lot of time to blog like I should so I'll give you the bullet points to get us all caught up.

Pretend like you care.

• Bought Tanner a jeep.  He sold his old Bonneville (aka Bonnie) to help pay for it.  buying a good used car is hard - cash for clunkers made decent used cars more of a commodity.  I have several car shopping stories, few of them are good.  Most of them blew up my blood pressure.  I'll share only one - we walked out on a car salesman before he ever showed us anything because he was being a typical used car douchebag salesman.  I told him that car salesman apparently weren't hungry enough.
  
  Which brings us to story #2.  We were looking at a used private purchase car, and on the way back, Tanner said "go to XXX car dealership and we'll talk to them."  I accidentally pulled into the wrong car lot.  The salesman did something that most don't seem to do anymore. As we were driving through, he came out the door.  I decided since he was making an effort, I would stop and talk to him.  That's when he showed us this:

(Photo by Tanner, it's the only one we've taken time to take)

3 hours later, we drove it home.

• I have the entire month of September with no weddings, so using the month to edit all the things I have in the queue.  It feels kind of nice having some time off.  I think I'm somewhere around 12-14 weddings in this year.  I've lost count.  Next year will probably be crazier.  I already am 1/2 way to goal and 1/3 of the way to my max. 
• The roof on the house is about 87% done.  It got rained on 1/2 done.  Gene wasn't happy, neither was I.  Neither of us really planned ahead all that well.  We r smartz.  I plan on getting decking FINISHED in September. 
• Sometime in September we have to get prepared to pour like 4000 gallons of concrete.  (no idea if it's 4000 gallons).  The studio/garage just keeps getting bigger and bigger.  It's scary.  It's now going to be 30x40 two story barn.   Studio/Loft will have more square footage than my HOUSE.  I still feel sometimes like it's not enough.  *crazy look*  If things go as planned, I might be hiring part-time help next year. 
• Gene and I are starting a new business.  My ultimate goal is to get him out of glass.  Basically, it's a website/blog.  I'll explain more when we get closer, but needless to say, we're excited about the prospects.
• When we were gone to Colorado, Tanner switched the guest bed with his bed.  He has a bad back (poor kid - starting early), so we thought that'd help.  In the process he decided to paint his room because it needed freshened up.  I realized that his old bed was WAY too big for the guest room.  So, we have sold it and we'll be gutting the guest room and just adding a twin bed since we rarely have more than one person here visiting, and most of the time, that's just a little one.
• Gene doesn't know it yet, but I've decided to build a floor to ceiling shoe rack in our closet.  He might just come home and it'll be done.  I haven't decided yet. ;)  I am tired of seeing shoes everywhere is what I know for sure.  I think I'd actually wear them more, if I could see them.  Now, if I can just keep him from hanging hats and shoving crap into it (good luck) then I'll be happy.
• I purposely left Labor Day weekend open so we could so something if we wanted to.  I have zero plans.  I'm not exactly sure what to do with myself.

I think that sums up what's been going on in our world the past couple weeks.  I'm sure there's 732 things I forgot.

Now don't you wish you hadn't said "what have you been up to?"

Who can resist a pretty girl

She's beautiful.  See the rest of her photos here.

Busy as bees

Time for another porch update already?

Yep!

Let's just say a lot of things happened over the weekend.  We hired a small crew (and Tanner) to come out and help us do the hard stuff.  I can NOT go on the roof.  I'm scared of heights, and ladders, and about barf when I'm in the sun too long.

So pretty much, I'd be air lifted off my roof. 

I think that'd break into my budget a bit.

Anyway, you can see the progress below, and see that we made some good headway.  You can really get an idea of how it might look when it's done now!

Plywood makes for great shade!

Shingles heaved up there.  I didn't have to do that.  *happy face*

Doing something uninteresting in pretty sunflare.

Tanner is excited (lie) about roofing.  A skill that will put him through college!

Tired boys!

Look at that!  Porch roof is covered, has tar paper, drip rails and is almost ready for shingles.  Back side is completely shingled.  I did a lot of decking (around 25% of the length.  It's VERY LONG).

Lots left to do, but I'm already thinking about my porch swing and breakfast on the porch.

Hi Ho a decking we will go

Time once again, for a deck update. 

I know you've been sitting there with baited breath wondering how it was going. 

We had a break in there because of the Colorado trip, but we're making some good headway now. Especially since the weather has decided to cut us a little slack.

Above, Gene is putting in the ceiling joists.  It's not very exciting work, but it really makes it start feel like a porch.  Sadly it feels a little like a pergola still, but we're getting there.

A lot of things happened in here that look like exactly nothing (some joist supports that took FOREVER (lucky me cut every single one.  At least 15% of them twice!  sigh).  No point in taking photos of that, because it looked kind of the same.

However, once we started cutting the decking and laying it down, thinks started to change rapidly!

We decided to go with cedar decking.  Let me tell you, it smells great every time I open my windows!  We're also running it diagonally.  Running it parallel to the house meant there'd be seams, and running it perpendicular would have made a huge commitment of the joists in the opposite direction. 

I, being difficult, decided that diagonal would be the best route to go.

BTW, did I mention that means more money? Yeah.

Here you can see how nice it looks all laid out.  Cutting around those posts are a real bugger.  It's not as easy as it looks.

This is boo's new happy place.  He lays out there about every day begging to come in at some point.  I open my front door and he just sits and stares in the storm door.

And here's me, doing something I've not been able to do in 3 years.  Going through my front door!  However, this is also Boo, trying to do something he's wanted to do for 3 months. 

Also go through the front door.

FAIL.

I'm slowly working on Gene though.  Someday, Boo Kitty, you'll be curled up on the glass man's side of the bed.

He might be dead when it happens, but it WILL HAPPEN.

Cool treats - happy memories

I have a lot of happy memories at this little ice cream shop from my childhood.  I can remember making special trips there with my grandma in the summer.  An occasional special treat, sometimes going with friends after school and a few times our bus driver even let us stop on the last day of school (free small cones).

Every special little person in my life gets to make a trip here with me at least once, because I want them to see how awesome it is too.

So when we took Bailey for ice cream a couple weekends ago, I decided that it would be a fun place to paint!  I snapped a few reference photos and set out to create a painting to be proud of....
and I am!

This is the modern day version of the ice cream shop with a 1954 Chevy truck in front.  I picked this because it was first opened in 1954.  Even the license plate is appropriate for the county in that year!

I'm really happy with how it turned out, and this is something I'm going to keep for myself.

Not that I have a singular wall available to hang it on.
LOL