Be wise, ORGANIZE!

I've been thinking fondly of turkey and the Annual Christmas Day Sledding Classic lately. Please leave a comment below stating whether you will be coming to Muskegon for Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, all three, none of these holidays, or a combination. The possibilities are endless! Happy Halloween!

Some cabinets, and a hole in the wall

First of all: Happy Birthday, Rachel!!

Now I know a lot of you have been wondering about my kitchen renovation (Dad!), so here are a few pictures of the cabinets, which now have stained doors. The drawers are close to being done, but I rushed a little on the staining and need to strip them back down (because the color didn't turn out right).

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I also decided to put a window in my dining room, and over the last few evenings I framed out the space for it from the inside. As it turned out, most of this wall was rotten anyway (from old water damage), so I'm glad I was able to remove the damaged wood, which literally crumbled in my hands. I'll feel better about this wall when I replace the siding (hopefully in the spring), and can remove old sheathing and replace with something a little more solid.

But, for now, I'll have a window in this wall, which will really let some nice light in the dining room.


The unblemished wall (at least on the surface).


What lies beneath.


Supporting the ceiling joists so I can cut out the studs I want to remove.


And here, the studs I want to remove.


The wall, mid disassembly.


The header beam that will replace the studs I removed.


The header beam in place and sealed in vapor barrier (plastic).


Putting the drywall back up.


And, lastly, the wall is ready from the inside. Now I just need to cut out the sheathing and siding and install the window. Stay tuned: I might try it this weekend. I should figure out how to liveblog the event. (I think I need an intern.)

I'd like to take this opportunity to open the floor for discussion of rebuilding rotten walls. Has anyone in the audience recently opened and rebuilt a wall that was in needed of major repair? Anyone?

A Very Belated Birthday Thank You!

I truly feel badly to not have acknowledged sooner the very nice camera you all gave me for my birthday. Poor thing sat in the box, nearby, waiting for me to get to know it and give it a try. David came to visit, one evening last week, and gently coaxed me into checking it out. It is very nice, and promises to relieve me of some of the frustration with my old camera. It has many nice features, is very user friendly, and takes the image I'm trying to capture. Yes!!! Though, I honestly haven't tried it out a great deal, but will be putting it to the test more now that David helped "break the ice." I understand there was a lot of effort, and communication, that went into the choice of this gift. "...and you'll be proud to know that hands on testing, many consumer reviews, and many many emails went into the purchase of this gift! (very Mom style)" I can only imagine the thread of e-mails between you kids! Thank you all, very much! I am grateful for the gift, but even more for the loving thought, time, and effort that went into the selection and purchase of it. Took a couple of pictures of a pretty tree nearby, with my new camera, to include with the post. Same tree and same time, just opposite sides.

Ella Celebrates the Big Five

A couple weeks ago Dad and I drove up to Hancock to hand deliver some birthday gifts for Ella. By Rachel's calculations, it had been seven years since I'd last been up to their house. I found that difficult to believe, but I also trust Rachel's memory better than mine.

We drove up from Chicago and hit a pretty bad storm upon entering the Upper Peninsula. We rolled into Hancock (and over a few curbs) sometime after midnight. Between the late arrival and the allergy medicine that I took, I was out pretty hard until morning. I woke up on the couch in the dim morning to see Ella and Elisabeth both standing before me in hardly-subdued anticipation. When I told me "good morning," Ella was quick to answer me with "Yes! And Happy Birthday!"

The day barreled quickly forward, although not without a little angst, impatience and outright warring between Ella and Elisabeth.

Peter also had a difficult time in picking up on the festive spirit. I walked outside just as Steve stepped away with Dad to look at the garden. Peter had not anticipated this departure and has yet to learn that not every goodbye is necessarily sad.


Finally around 4, Ella's friends began to show up. Quite a few visitors turned out to help her celebrate. Steve and Rachel worked on cooking up Ella's dinner request, which was headlined by grilled sausages and home-made macaroni and cheese. The birthday partiers played in the park across the street. Somehow amongst all the swings, the toddler swing developed a coveted reputation, and the kids did an admiral job of eventually learning how to share the lone toddler swing.


Once the cake and ice cream portion of the party rolled around, Peter had an easier time grasping the mechanics of birthday pleasure.


For Ella, of course, the birthday dinner and cake were mere chores to be dutifully tended on route to the true birthday business. Ella received some special deliveries from Grandma Sandy and Aunt Lisa. Ella also learned with some small protest that sometimes a visit from Uncle David is a gift in its own right.

Buoyed by ice cream, Peter's jolly spirits showed no signs of abating. As birthday toys were being given their inaugural spins, Peter made a triumphant entry wearing oversized rain boots, heartily pleased with himself.


In fact a number of times during the visit, we found Peter exploring a few unguided steps by himself. Although still more efficient with the crawl, Peter is well on his way to putting that behind him.


The next day we made a visit out to Steve and Rachel's pastor's house in the country. Ella and Elisabeth jumped on their trampoline while Steve checked over his bee hives near the woods and prepared a few boxes for harvesting. He and Dad also studied the short electric fence around that hives and debated whether recent damage could have been caused by a hungry bear.


That night we went out for pizza and had a delicious end to a birthday weekend. The next morning Dad and I loaded our things back in the car and headed back to Muskegon.

Yep, the Boundary Waters are still there

Last week I returned from my annual voyage into the Boundary Waters. The purpose of this expedition, and previous trips, was to confirm their existence and document their location in space and time. Readers of this blog will be pleased to know that the Boundary Waters existed along the most remote northern border of Minnesota from 3:30 pm on Wednesday, September 8th through 2:0o pm on Monday, September 13th. Whether or not it continues to exist (and/or where) is anyone's guess. Here's photographic proof of my claims.


Sunset at the end of our first day. The clouds finally broke up as the sun was setting.

Clouds turned out to be a theme on this trip.

Wet sleeping bags were also a theme on this trip. This photo was taken a few minutes after I found my bag lying on the top of the lake (at least it wasn't on the bottom). I'd slept out on the rock down near the water, and left my sleeping bag there while we made breakfast. At some point a breeze came along and blew it into the lake. I guess I should be glad the breeze didn't blow it into the fire.

Tarps setup to ward off the rain. Funny thing about these tarps—the water doesn't really roll off them like water rolls off a roof. Instead, the water seems to collect in the center and form a deep bowl of water that slowly sinks closer to the ground under the weight of all the water. I slept (well, tried to sleep) under this tarp during a rainstorm, and woke up when I felt something pressing on my foot. Turns out it was the water ball in the middle of the tarp that had sunk low enough to touch my feet. That's when I decided to move into the tent.

Prevailing mist.

Ooh, a flower!

I took this picture from the top of an island that was near our campsite. This is on Long Island Lake, and I think I might have been standing on Long Island. Well, at least it was a long island.

Sunrise on our fourth day. We were glad to see the sun, but even better was the fact that the wind had shifted overnight. The fourth day of the trip was when we had to move several miles east, and on this day we had the wind at our backs. Just before we set out we saw a group that wasn't quite so lucky. They were heading straight into the wind, and they didn't look too happy about it.

Our final evening in the Boundary Waters.

And the sunrise on the last day.

This year was much cooler and cloudier than previous years, and we became experts at starting fires with wet/damp wood. I only swam once on this trip, and didn't catch any fish. I did, though, spend five glorious days outdoors and feel very lucky to have been in the Boundary Waters again. I'll look forward to going again next year (if it's still there).

The face that all babies are....afraid of?

I recently came across this video clip on my computer. It bears resemblance to THE FACE THAT ALL BABIES LOVE, although I fear for any child that must experience this form of "entertainment"

First post of the year?

I believe this is my first contribution of the year. I have been blogging prolifically on our Dollar-A-Day blog, so I feel somewhat vindicated. Here are some photos of what I did while Janell was lolly-gagging in Michigan over Labor Day weekend.

This was Janell's surprise. I put sheen stripes on our family room wall. It's pretty subtle, but I think it looks nice. It classes up the joint.
Here you can see the new closet doors that only took about 6 months to install. They're a huge upgrade though. :)

Here is all the taping I did for the accent wall. I used a Ryobi Self Leveling Laser Level. It worked awesome, and really cut down on the time it took to do this. The taping took about 45 minutes. I used Frog Tape for Delicate Surfaces which worked pretty well to stop any bleeding. I should have run a wet rag along the edges to activate the chemical to block the paint bleed.


Here is the finished product. It's 5x5, but I couldn't get the whole wall in the photo. The plan is to cut out birds from plywood, cover them with batting and fabric, and mount them in a few squares (or on the other walls).

In honor of...

I can't believe Daniel is a senior this year! It seems like only yesterday that he was eating whole packages of baloney and telling everyone he had an announcement to make. Oh wait, I think he did do that yesterday...

David, Janell, and I were home for Labor Day weekend, so in honor of Daniel, we all posed for senior pictures. David, Janell, and Daniel, if you like your pictures, I have a few package orders that you can choose from :)






And for those of you who are curious, I just moved to Caro yesterday, and took some pictures of my new bedroom

Ozzie still finding ways to make himself comfy

I'm guessing he will like the baby better in my belly than out. For right now they seem to be pretty compatible.

No more Facebook

After a few days of havine a Facebook accont while staying in Ft Wayne for training, I have decided to not have the account any more. It was too hard to get to now that I am home and don't have Internet access much and I didn't really like it anyway. I would have posted a picture of the deleted account, but I don't have one. I notice the cool people always have pictures with their blogs. I don't think this means too much to anybody, but just posted this to let you know in case someone in the family was looking for me on Facebook.

Ben goes to Thrift and Dollar

This past Friday, Ben embarked on a weeklong journey of Barnhart/McCann visiting. His first stop was in Aurora, IL, where he was welcomed by Andy, Janell, and especially Ozzie. (two extra hands and a lap means even more attention!) While they spent much of Saturday lolling about the house after a large breakfast of biscuits and gravy with a side of American Tea Cake (if you don't know what that is, my sincere apologies), they did finally venture out of the house to introduce Ben to the greatness that is Thrift and Dollar.

Some of their finds:

Poor little bunnies.

A head bopper?

Finally, a chair worthy of Ben's prowess and prestige.

This cat wants you to drink lots of milk.

Mom and Dad could have used this pan about 15 years ago. Think how much Rice a Roni you could fit in there. Or dog poop sauce.