Brothers

Last week I had the privilege of spending the week with my brother and sister-in-law after the birth of their second child.   Are there many things cuter than a baby holding a baby?  I doubt it.

 

Baby Bib and Hat

Last week I worked on making a few gifts for my new nephew.  I followed this tutorial for the crochet hat and this tutorial for the patchwork bib.  The patchwork bib was especially fun to make.    

 

Crochet Blanket

Remember a year ago when I said I was learning to crochet and then never mentioned it again?  Bet you thought I had given up.  Not the case.  I've been working on a project in my free time for over a year.

I started by using the single crochet stitch to make individual crochet squares.  I learned that using the single crochet stitch probably wasn't the wisest choice since it is the most compact stitch and thus took a much longer amount of time to make the same sized square than if I would have used the double or triple stitch.

Once I had 12 squares made, I joined them together using the mattress stitch.  It didn't matter which color of yarn I used since it would be invisible once pulled tight.

 

Here's what it looked like on the front and back as I worked on joining them.  Once all the squares were joined, I weaved in all of my loose ends.

 

 



 



 The blanket didn't look quite finished once I had done all that, so I added a simple border. 

 

 

Then I washed it and wet blocked it so it maintain its form a little better.

 

 

 Now it's all done.  Doesn't it look nice?

Yard Tool Organization

A few weekends ago, Jason and I worked on removing the old insulation out of our garage.  Why someone would add so much insulation to a non-climate controlled space is beyond me.  After two days of hard labor though, it was all gone.  We even rented a truck from Home Depot to haul it to the dump.

Once we had the space cleaned up, we worked on reorganizing everything into a slightly better configuration.  We also added pegboard along one wall to help us organize our yard tools. 

I've been obsessed with pegboard since Jason bought me a sewing machine and desk for Christmas.  I would love to add pegboard to my craft area to help me organize all of my craft tools.  Whether or not that ever gets done, I don't know, but I'm happy that we now have it in our garage.

I'm a sucker for organization.

 

 

P.S. Trey, please remind me to bring you your little propane grill when I see you guys later this month.  And Mom, please remind me to bring you your little turquoise and cream ice chest next time we head south.  Both our still in our garage.

Kitchen Rehab Finale

The work in our kitchen is finally done.  We still need to do the final walk through and make the final payment, but I'm glad the renovation part is finished.  We hadn't planned on updating this kitchen, but a water leak under the sink changed that plan.  As big of a pain as it was, I'm glad it's done.  I'm happy with how it turned out overall, and I think it's a definite improvement over our '70s white laminate.

So, I guess you'd like to see some before and after pics?  Well, okay...

In case you're wondering, the floors haven't changed other than a good grout cleaning.  I think the lighting and my camera's white balance setting were just a bit off today.

 

Another before...

 

And after...

 

Here are a few closeup pictures...

 

 

I like our new spice shelf and it's fun to be able to display the cute Anthropologie dishes I got for Christmas.

 

 

I love, love, love my new sink area.  I love the under mounted deep single sink and the awesome pull down Delta faucet.  It makes doing dishes (one of my least favorite chores) bearable.

 

We originally were going to use silver pulls, but I'm glad we went with the oil rubbed bronze on everything (including the outlet covers).  It pulls together the black on the appliances and the dark countertops. 

 

We lost some functional storage by keeping the corner cabinet open, but we decided to add storage above the refrigerator for a more built-in look.  And while we tried to work with most of our existing cabinets (other than building new doors), the top cabinet beside the refrigerator was rebuilt to extend to the ceiling.

 

So, what do you think?  I think we did a good job incorporating the ideas from my Pinterest board.  Now we can just never move since this kitchen was built to our exact tastes. :)

Honey, I Think We Have a 'Coon in the Attic

Over a week ago I told Jason that I thought we had a critter in the attic.  It started when I heard what sounded like a cat stomping around on the roof.  I didn't think too much of it the first time I heard it.  The next day, however, I heard the stomping again, followed by the sound of rustling papers.  We took a look outside and sure enough, our soffit had been pulled back and you could see that our insulation had been pulled up.

 

We immediately feared the worse: opossums.  Because what's worse than a opossum, right?  Horrible little creatures. 

 

So, we did what any uninformed homeowner would do in this situation and turned to Google.  After a few searches, we were nearly convinced we had a raccoon.  Apparently, opossums are too lazy to create the type of damage done to our soffit. 

 

Hoping to save a bit of money, we sent a request to our neighborhood message board asking if anyone had any suggestions of how to solve the problem.  A few neighbors offered us their traps.  We spent two unsuccessful nights trying to lure the raccoon into a trap using marshmallows.

 

Meanwhile, I had actually heard the raccoon a few times.  Another quick Google search confirmed what I was hearing.  (Click here and listen to the "Coo" sound.)  However, on about day four of the adventure, we started hearing a different sound.  (Click the "Sad Baby Raccoon" soundbite.)  Yep, our raccoon friend had babies in our attic.

 

With babies in the mix, we decided to call in the professionals.  Another neighbor had suggested calling a wildlife control expert to help us.  When I heard he was an Aggie, I was sold.  So, our raccoon expert met me one afternoon to access the situation.  Since we had already been unsuccessful trying to catch the raccoon, we decided on another route.  We put a couple of towels soaked in male raccoon scent in the attic.  The male scent should have put the momma raccoon in protective mode and made her move her and her babies to a different location. 

 

Our wildlife guy taped the hole in our soffit with painter's tape so we could make sure she had left the next night.  (She could have easily ripped through the tape to get out.)  However, the tape was never torn.  We figured either 1) something had happened to the momma the last time she went out to hunt or 2) she was staying in and nursing her babies, not taking a break to eat.  After a few nights of no evidence that she was going in or out (and several nights of screaming raccoon babies keeping us up), our wildlife expert came back to fetch the babies.

 

 

Luckily, the babies were still alive.  Pretty weak and very hungry, but alive.  There were only two of them - a brother and a sister.  He's going to take them to a rehabilitation center so they can regain strength and live long and happy lives.  (I really hope this wasn't a "I'm taking them to the happy farm" type of story, and there really is a rehabilitation center.)

 

 

Aren't they cute in that ugly/ cute type of way?

 

So, you might be asking yourself why Jason or I didn't just crawl up in the attic ourselves.  Well, we both have an illogical fear of wild creatures in the attic.  Sure, we can camp in the Alaskan wild for over a week, but crawl up in the attic, heck no!  Makes tons of sense, huh?

 

Oh well, problem solved.  Life in this house never fails to be interesting.

Love. Run. Marathon.

Today Jason and I ran the Love. Run. Marathon trail race up in Huntsville State Park.  Jason ran the 10k and I ran the Half Marathon.  Wait, wait... that's not right.  Jason ran the Half Marathon and I ran the 10k.  Ok, back on track.

Since the race started at 8 am, we camped at the park last night.  I didn't get a picture of our campsite set up, but it was right by the lake.  Pretty nice.

Anyway, Jason did freaking awesome in the Half Marathon.  Third overall and 1st in his age group.

I, on the other hand, did about average.  And hooray for that, right? 

I think I'm retiring from trail running for awhile.  My knees need a break.  Back to running on the track at the Y for awhile.