...and now it's June.

I’ve been spending more time outside now that the weather’s nice, although it’s been a little warmer than I prefer. Normal high temp should be 70 degrees, and we’ve been hitting 80-87 in the last week. But all the plants are in the ground for the year. I even planted all my seeds last night after work, some annuals and some perennials. I’m never confident that the seeds will come up, so it’s extra exciting when they do. The purple double coneflowers that I got from Costco this spring had a 20% survival rate. I actually surprised that the one did survive since I’d resigned myself to the complete failure of that planting. I keep thinking I should take pictures of the yard to document it’s progress, but never do. I can say there’s a lot more plants now than there was before and most seem to be doing fine. Remembering to water is important, of course. I’ve buried soaker hoses on both sides of the house and the parking strip, using a sprinkler in the front and hand watering the vegetable patch. I just got a micro irrigation kit from my mom and I’m really excited to set it up in the vegetable garden and the front yard. I’ll still have to attach the hose and set the timer, but I think the quality and coverage will be so much better. Right now I find it hard to water the corners of the yard without completely soaking the sidewalk.

I have a lot of projects I want to work on, and just found a new one today. But I need to prioritize. I started the back yard fence a month (or more) ago and I’m still not done digging all the holes. The hole are the hardest part. I expect installing the posts will only take part of a day and attaching the wood will take a day. Darn posts are taking a lot more time. The most I got done in one day was three holes and I had to quit because I was feeling faint and a little wobbly. It was the heat, not the physical exertion, but I’m still only 50% done. Other planting activities have taken priority because if I didn’t get the food garden started we wouldn’t have gotten anything before the frost comes in the fall with our short growing season. Now that the plants are in though, it’s back to the fence. Except for the projects I still need to complete to get our 50% kitchen remodel done on schedule.

The new cabinets are done and primed, but need to be painted. They’ll be installed the week of the 22nd, so everything has to be ready by then.

• Paint Cabinets (2 coats paint, 2 coats poly)
• Install new 20Amp outlet for microwave (we will be able to use the toaster and the microwave at the same time if we want!)
• Board up doorway to create new broom closet ( I keep forgetting about this task)

Money Spent = Money Saved?

Although it’s still cold and windy outside this week with unseasonably low temperatures, the warm weather is almost here and that means the end of the heating season. Last fall we replaced our 1987 oil burning furnace with a new 92%+ efficient gas burning furnace. Of course at the time I started collecting bids heating oil as nearing $5 a gallon and I was understandably concerned about the cost to run that oil burner al winter. Then the prices dropped. Well, oil prices fluctuate – or, they do now at least. I gave myself a conservative estimate on the return on the investment or 6 years back in September and well, we’re a little behind on that. The price of heating oil dropped back to $2.29 in February and that put a damper on my speedy ROI.

However, just because we’re not “saving” as much as I planned/hoped doesn’t mean that it wasn’t a good investment. We are saving money. In fact, our heating bill for the ‘08-’09 winter is around 50% of the estimated oil cost. And the price for natural gas is actually supposed to go down for next winter so maybe we’ll make up some of that momentum.

Estimated ’08-’09 cost of heating the house with oil: $896.35

Estimated ’08-‘09 final natural gas bill: $470.43

Dollars saved: $425.92!

Save on your taxes! Buy a house!

Everyone told me that my tax burden would be significantly less when I bought a house. I’d be able to deduct everything and pay so much less. It didn’t quite work out that way. Maybe if we already had a bunch of things that were “itemizable” but we are apparently a household with little to deduct and came up a few hundred below the standard deduction. We were still able to deduct a portion of the real estate taxes – that was nice – and since it was all still so simple this year I took advantage of a free online preparation program and free e-file.* Really it’s a good thing that we came up short on the deductions because it means we aren’t paying a lot in interest. I mean it’s a lot, don’t get me wrong, we don’t have one of those swanky 4.8% mortgages that people can get now. But it isn’t the 14% that my parents paid. Maybe the low rates will stick around and we’ll re-finance and get a 15 year, or buy the vacant lot.

*Apparently I wasn’t paying enough attention while completing my tax preparation online because I got an email this morning with the subject “Your Federal Tax Return Hasn’t Been Filed”. What! I finished it I swear, I remember entering in my account number and routing number and “signing” the return with my new PIN, what do you mean to tell me (the day after taxes are due) that I haven’t filed? I logged back onto the web site and figured out there were three more “next” buttons to click to finish filing. Don’t you think they could have sent me an email yesterday? “Make sure and file your taxes since you obviously forgot to click Finish?” Or maybe when I closed the tab a warning popup could have asked “are you sure? You haven’t actually sent the IRS anything yet.” I know it was my fault, but it still sucks. And I’ll have to pay a fine of something between $1-$28 and if I don’t pay in a timely manner the IRS will demand 20% interest. Yay.

Cook & Clean

Not so much cleaning as yard work (gardening?). I made a simple lamb stew, with very little effort this week. Before we went on the weekend hardware store trip (1pm) I threw 2 small packages of lamb stew meat (neck bones) into the crock pot with a bay leaf and covered 2/3 with water. I turned it to low and we left. This weekend was the first nice weather we've had so far this year so I felt both obligated and determined to get stuff done outside. If a fit of laziness I got nothing done on Saturday, so Sunday was my last chance. The lumber yard is closed Sundays, so we went to Lowes to peruse the fencing materials (super disappointing). I did however get one potted plant marked 1/2 off (a pink heather plant) new garden clippers that promise to stay sharp 5x's longer, a spading fork (i broke both pitch forks on the rocks in the yard already) 1 cu ft bag of compost, and some bright colored string for marking out fence levels and such. We made a trip to the new Winco (grocery store like Costco and Walmart in one) and stopped at the Tacos Tumbras to grab some tacos (real tacos, not american tacos). The last stop was the NW seed & pet for the annual seed purchases, a mix of flowers and food stuffs. I also noticed the price for bagged compost was much better here (of course it was) so I'll come back for a bunch more when we plant the vegetable plot. We still have to wait 5 weeks to plant seeds outside so maybe I can get some started inside this year.

After we returned home I was determined to get some stuff done outside because it was so nice and still so light (~4:30pm). I cut down a 10 section of our pointless wire fencing (it doesn't keep anything in or out of the yard) and made a 3' diameter compost bin. I moved the fritillary to the front yard and divided it in 2 sections in front of the clematis to hide the ugly parts and shade the roots. We also planted the heather, some purple coneflower plants I got as Costco a while back, and moved the current bushes from the back to the front.

Of course after all this, it was 7pm when I got back inside to finish dinner. I chopped up onions, carrots, potatoes and celery and sauteed the onions and celery before adding the rest of the vegetables to a big pot on the stove. After skimming the fat off the top of the crock pot and removing the bay leaf, I added the broth contents to the stove pot along with 1 can of minced tomatoes. I let this simmer for 20ish minutes to cook the carrots and potatoes. While the vegetables were cooking I scraped off the meat from the neck bones. Uh, don't do this. It's a pain in the but and the meat is mostly fatty and not worth it. IN the future I'll probably pick up some shoulder chops at the same time and chop and throw those in with the veggies to cook (and just toss the neck bones meat and all when you're done with them). After adding some salt and pepper, it was done! Because the bones simmered so long all the good collagen stuff came out and thickened the stew and gave it that buttery mouth feel.

It really was easy and I even got some more work done in the yard at the same time.

Spring Cometh...almost

I did yard work 2 weekends in a row. Both times it rained. This Sunday it started snowing again. Just little bits, but after spending several hours in the rain digging dirt, moving rocks and transplanting bulbs, I wasn't going back out in the snow. So I didn't get the compost cage built yet but I have a big plastic bag full of yard waste just waiting to be composted. Last weekend I decided the grape arbors had to go. They were both falling down and really the vines were just out of control. Using only a small pair of clippers and a 2.5 lb sledge hammer (I found it faster than the hammer, which would have sufficed) I reduced everything to a pile of decrepit lattice and a separate pile of grape vine branches. I left the stumps in the ground because I don't want to completely remove the grapes, just redirect them. Hopefully the root system will use its energy to send up new suckers that I can train and control.

After spending some time in the back yard dismantling the grape arbor I realized that the roaming neighborhood dogs spend plenty of quality time in our yard over the winter. I don't remember it being as bad last year, but there was a lot of decomposing dog poo left when the snow melted. I realized that in order to keep our vegetable garden safe and "clean" the fence needs to go up now.

I've been putting off the fence project. 'Cause fences are big, and hard (well digging the holes in our rocky soil is hard) and procrastination is easy. But the fence is important and will allow us to use the back yard and grow things other than dead grass. I have plans. Plans that involve a lot of digging. Step 1: Build fence. Step 2: Plant Vegetable Garden.

We Have Laundry

It took a while – over a year – but we can now do laundry in the house. I wanted everything to be in place before I bought a washer and dryer. Electrical, plumbing and venting all needed to be altered to install a working and safe laundry area. Hiring a plumber to re-do the drains was the biggest expense. It actually cost more than the washer and dryer, but after two days we have a new stand pipe with a p-trap to replace the old drum trap and a new drain extension off an existing 4” vertical drain for the upstairs bathroom. It was all the little expenses that added up to be not so little that surprised me though. $30 of stuff to vent the dryer, $50 to wire the dryer outlet, another $30 to wire the washer outlet plus new water shutoffs, and no-burst washer hoses and it was about $200 just to connect everything.

I decided to vent the dryer through a window – temporarily. The pane was already broken and it’s right above the dryer. Eventually I want to vent through the foundation wall and maybe replace the windows above the dryer since only one has hinges and can open. ( I could add hinges to the other one maybe, but 30” in-swinging casement windows in the basement seem like a hazard since they are all open at about face level – 5’.)

To install the new outlets – one for the washer and one for the dryer – I decided to run the wires through the ceiling instead of running 30’ of conduit and competing with the water supply lines for space. This meant that I had to drill a hole through each joist and pull the 12 and 10 gauge wire across the room 1 foot above my head. It took a little effort and a little help and with the additional help of the reciprocating saw we got the wires down the wall and to the new outlet locations. The lathe and plaster were already pretty damaged on that wall anyway so I’m okay with the mess I made of it. Someday I’ll take out that section and put up some nice smooth drywall. Someday…after the electrical in the rest of the house is replaced, after the water supply lines are replaced…you know, someday.

But for now I can wash the sheets, and blankets, and jeans, and t-shirts and delicates without trudging down the street and procrastinating for 6+ weeks. I’ll probably still procrastinate but at least when I get desperate I can do a load of socks and underwear.

No, No, Nanette opens tomorrow and we’ll run for 5 weekends but after that I’m taking a break - I think. I want to , but I want to do a lot of things. If I decide to stay at home for a while, I want to start getting seeds for the side of the house and the vegetable garden, pick out a rose and scrape/repaint a trellis to grow it on. I want to start work on a patio for the back yard and start the fence. Before you know it the snow will be gone and it will be spring and we can start taking real walks with Yoshi and spending time outside. Yup, I’m done with winter.

Last one down...

Why is it that when I find a magazine I like it closes. First Budget Living, then Blueprint, and now Domino. So what happens now. When Budget Living closed we all just forfeited our subscriptions since it was an independent magazine. Martha gave us issues of Martha Stewart Living for the remainder of Blueprint subscriptions (and I'm getting Southern Accents? in lieu of Cottage Living). Conde Nast is a big publisher and no doubt we'll get something, but Domino was its only shelter mag (unless you count Architectural Digest which is in a totally different class).

At least there's still Sunset.

Katie, I'm sorry I keep getting you gift subscriptions to magazines mere issues before they close. I should have know this was happening when the rumors started flying.