Dog 2.0

After just 2 months, I can't imagine not choosing to take Flynn home, but why did we pick a dog who:

• Licks things (like my feet, the sheets, my leg, the couch...)
• Likes to sleep on his back
• Has a super loud bark
• Wants to lay on my lap
• Has giant ears that actually hurt if you're too close when he shakes
• Carries shoes around, and occasionally nibbles on them

I guess we could have done worse.

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Last...

Last Month...We got a new dog. Flynn. Pictures eventually.

Last Week...I finished sewing a pair of shorts with a full fly zip (i am very proud of the zipper, it was the first time ever for that technique) then wore them three times.

Last Night...I watered my yard for the first time this summer.

In the last hour...I ate a popsicle.

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Now running

I completed week three of my running plan and I'm surprised that it's still relatively easy. Not easy really, but not oh my god I'm going to die hard. And I must be improving some because I remember during week one I missed the cue to start walking again after a running interval and kept running for a whole 2.5 minutes! I know it doesn't sound like a lot, but my lungs were starting to burn by the end of that 150 seconds. Surprisingly, I survived the first day of week four without having to stop during a five minute sustained run. I'm not sure why I am so incredulous but perhaps I haven't ever been "athletic".

Although the two weekday morning "runs" are inside on a treadmill, I've been going to the trail downtown and doing two sets of the training podcast. I found two different podcasts that follow the same interval structure so it's the same but different. One has a lot of verbal cueing which can be nice so you know there is just one minute left until the end of the interval or just one more run. The other one is just music and has a series of ascending or descending beeps to indicate and increase/decrease in speed.

I have given myself a goal, or maybe more a challenge to work toward. October 10th is the local marathon. Which I will not be participating in, but I did sign up for the corresponding 10K which sounds so daunting, until you realize it's only 6.3 miles. Six is almost half of ten when you look at it that way. (But drivers in Canada can go 100km/hour which seems so much more fun.) Anyway, we have a matinee show that afternoon too and an evening rehearsal for the In Concert fundraiser so 10/10/10 will be a busy day for me.

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Fitness or Folly?

I decided to start running this month. I didn't really decide as was convinced and persuaded by Paul who has already run a half-marathon this year and is working up to a full marathon in November. I have no desire to run that far, but I would like to be able to run without that horrible burning feeling in my lungs after 3 minutes. I'm starting slow with an interval training program based on the couch to 5K method. I just finished my first week with it and will start week 2 tomorrow. Not all of the beginning programs are the same. I downloaded several different podcast versions all between 8-9 weeks long. The first week 1 program I tried has intervals of 60 sec running followed by 90 sec brisk walk. That was great. It was a little hard, but I didn't feel like I was going to die. Then decided to mix things up and try a different week 1 podcast. Apparently this one has 2 min of running followed by 3 minutes of walking. That makes a big difference. Even though over the 30 minutes I ran the same amount I really wanted to give up and quick most of the time. That feeling is not going to keep me coming back for more so I switched back to the first version for my third session of the week.
I know it should be hard, I should push myself, but if it's too much I know I won't stick with it and will probably hurt myself in the process. Hopefully week two will go as smoothly as week one.

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Autumn

We are starting to harvest the tomatoes and zucchini and even a few peppers from the garden already. Earlier this summer the one raspberry cane that survived transplanting and our heavy snow load produced a surprising number of berries and the new canes are already over 7 ft tall. I definitely need to build something to contain them for next summer and maybe prune the excess cane height to a more manageable 6ft. The thornless black berry, which looked so sad last summer, actually survived also and even has some berries coming to maturity right now. I'm glad the blackberry season is 6 weeks after the raspberry season. It makes it more manageable to harvest, eat and store the berries.

I've done little work in the garden during the summer except water and watch the yellow pear tomato plant grow to monstrous proportions. In fact my experiment of staking and tying the tomatoes(instead of using cages) this year - failed. Once the plants started setting fruit the heavy plant just pulled the ties down. I'm sure they would have pulled the flimsy wire cages down too, so next year some sort of wood tomato trellis is in order. I'd really like to build this pretty one that I found directions for, but I couldn't afford the cost, or space to build one for each tomato plant. Maybe someday I'll have one, as an accent, but build a more communal trellis system that can accommodate 6 plants at a time.

I've learned some lessons from our guerrilla garden experiment this year.
1) The hand-me-down tomato trellis has some engineering flaws that will help me build a more successful one next year. The first rung was only an inch or two off the ground so the second rung was too high to tie the plant to until it had already started creeping across the ground horizontally. Even now the tomatoes aren't tall enough to reach the third rung but have already started producing and getting heavy and our of control.
2) If we use the space again next year, I definitely have to use some sort of weed barrier/mulch because even after removing all the weeds when the plants were young, new weeds appeared and the vegetables are all much to large to effectively weed around. Some sort of climbing weed is strangling my eggplants.
3) The sun is great in the vacant lot, but it is hard to water evenly (especially without also watering the weeds). A soaker hose is a definite must next year. I just wasn't prepared this year with the proper materials - because I procrastinated - and the poor watermelon and pumpkin plants are paying for it.

My sister was visiting this week and I got to spend some time with her on Saturday (my only day off from work & the theatre). She gave me two of her handmade glass cloches for the garden because they weren't so effective in her patio garden setup. I have to figure out what I'm going to try them out on next spring. Maybe direct seeded basil? I tried to start basil inside this year, but right after our last frost date we had a week of scorching temperatures and the immature basil seedlings just fried in a day. So if I can get them started a little earlier outside, maybe they'll be stronger when the rouge weather hits.

Katie also asked about growing garlic, specifically how you get the garlic scapes. This year was the first time I've tried both onions and garlic - and both failed. I didn't water consistently, some of the onion starts got mouldy before I got around to planting them, and guess what, you are supposed to plant garlic in the fall! Well I know better this year. I did a little reading about growing garlic and found two great resources for our area (one in Hood River, and the other in Canada). First, I found that only the hardneck varieties of garlic produce garlic scapes. Softneck garlic is the kind you normally find in the grocery store. So if you want garlic scapes, plant the hardneck varieties, plus it allows you access to garlic that is harder to find. I don't know about you, but that is one of the main reasons I grow food. oh, and harvest the scapes when they've made 1-2 complete loops (but before the flower opens).

I pledge to be on top of things this fall and next spring so the new raised beds are built, cover crops are planted and garlic sown.

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Fence Plan

So my big plan for this weekend - besides cleaning up the house - was to get the brackets installed on the posts at the proper heights so that next weekend I could measure and cut all the 2x4s. I went to the store and picked up the brackets that I chose to use then on Sunday went outside to put them up. After measuring and running a string line I realized that the brackets all had to slide over the top of the metal pole AND the brackets were all supposed to go 4 inches below the string. I ran into a problem when I couldn't tighten the bolt in the bracket to secure it to the pole. I tried both a screw driver and pliers (just now I realized I should breakout the socket set and try that) but really that thing wouldn't budge. I could get it to un-screw, but there was no advancing the sucker. I'll go back with the wd-40 and the socket set, but it's just frustrating that something as "simple" as tightening a bolt can seem like an impossible task.

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Things that happened…and didn’t

Car: I was pulled over and received my first ticket (ever) for driving with overdue (very overdue) license tabs. Apparently I never updated our address on the car registration when we moved and so never got a reminder, and apparently never look at the license plate on the back of the car to notice the little MAR sticker. I got the ticket in MAY. They guy who pulled me over was rather nice, I felt stupid and maybe mentioned that I would have remembered if they sent out e-mail reminders.

I was also rear-ended on the freeway in a construction zone. I have seen more than the usual rear-end collisions in this area while the section was resurfaced. It was the usual kind of rear-end accident. Traffic was really slow, stop and go and go faster, go slower, STOP…but the girl behind me didn’t stop fast enough. She was more shaken up than me, but then her car was more of a mess than mine. I called my insurance company, just in case and I talked to her insurance company. I took the car to their recommended appraiser, although there really wasn’t serious damage, and got a quote for the repairs. Approx $745 because they can’t repair bumpers anymore, only replace them and I say “yes, go ahead and order the new bumper” to the place that did the appraisal because it isn’t like I have my own personal body shop. But then two days later I talk to the man from the other insurance company and he says, “we got the estimate, do you want to have the work done there or do you want me to send the check to you?” Oh! I didn’t know that I could just take the money and run. Like I said, the damage to the bumper was cosmetic, and what the hell, the front bumper looks worse from my 2005 winter run in with a trailer hitch in an icy intersection. I took the check, canceled the repair, and continue to drive the car with the damaged front AND rear bumper, with a ever growing crack in the windshield. Classy.

House: We have some new cabinets & a lot more counter top space in the kitchen now. The cabinets are installed, the counter is installed. There is nothing in the cabinets yet (it’s only been 3 weeks and counting) but soon. I still have some puttying and touch up painting to do on the cabinets. I also need to strip and wax the floor in the kitchen to hopefully repair the lovely scratches left from the cabinet installation. That will happen after I finish wiring the new outlet for the microwave and maybe after I run new wiring for a hood fan and countertop appliances so that someday I could install a backsplash. You know, if I wanted it all done in 2 months, I would have paid someone else to do it. But I didn’t and won’t because that shit is easy, it just takes time. Time that sometimes is otherwise occupied by watching a marathon of Burn Notice or Law and Order or something embarrassing on the Family Channel because it is 85 degrees inside my house and 100 outside the house and if I move I will be miserable. I wish it was Fall already.

Yard: The fence (posts) are in. Ok, really, that’s the hardest part (have I said that already) and the rest of the fence should be super easy to finish – 1, 2 days tops. If I could finalize the design, decide which fasteners to use to attach the supports and find a day when another person is there to help me attach 7.5’ 2x4s to the posts. Really, though, it’s almost done. The rest of the yard is doing okay, the front is filling out. I need to get a picture so we can do a before and after since last year in July it was just dirt. The sunflowers are almost blooming outside the bedroom window and the grass in the backyard is so yellow and dry that is disintegrates when I walk on it. Just the way it should. We have been watering the food gardens and the front plantings, but not the grass because then it would need to be mowed and most of it is getting ripped out anyway and I’m lazy and stingy with water. I really do want to have a nice back yard but there’s still no patio (because the fence isn’t done yet) and what was grass (not very nice grass in the first place anyway) is now dusty and crunchy and the summer is now officially over.

Theatre: I say the summer is over because auditions for the Fall season opener are today. And for me, that means the end of the summer. There will still be time to finish the fence (don’t worry) but I no longer think the patio will happen this year. Maybe I could get my gravel path in the front finished though, that would be satisfying. Both Paul and I participated in the endowment fund fundraiser, which showcased all the musicals in the coming season, last month and I sang There’s No Business Like Show Business in a floor length body-hugging sequined evening dress. Somewhere there are pictures. Tonight I will be singing When a Merry Maiden Marries (The Gondoliers) by Gilbert and Sullivan for auditions for the Pirates of Penzance. It seems like the snow will be here anyday (oh, except it's still 92 degrees outside).

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...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)

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Bonanza*

You know how some days you're all, "What! it's 4 o'clock" and realize that the work day is almost over, and then there are other days where it's, "OMG, it is only 1:32." Today is the latter. Some days there are those projects that you don't want to do, so they take even longer to do than they should, and the day feels longer than it should, so now you've wasted almost three whole days doing something you didn't want to do. Yeah. I feel all unproductive since it's taking forever on this thing at work (that I don't even care about) and haven't cleaned the house up yeat, and all those weeds sprouting in the front yard...they're still there and still growing. I did do all the laundry this weekend (even the linens) so I guess I got something done. Last weekend I installed a new doorbell but haven't taken pictures yet so I won't say too much about that since you can't see what I'm talking about.

Paul is coming home tomorrow at 5, which is why I wanted to clean the house. And by clean the house I really mean that I just want to pick up all the shoes and clean off the dining table and maybe do the dishes - nothing hard. But last night after I ate my frozen burrito and chips with salsa I just didn't want to. So, I watched Army Wives and then Mad Men on the PVR and went to bed. I keep reading advice on "how to keep your house from getting so trashed you want to burn it all" and they all say to spend 5-15 minutes everyday just picking up the clutter, throwing away the junk mail and maybe doing a few dishes. And when I do these things I'm still amazed at how big of a difference I can make in such a short time but usually I just can't make myself do it. I look at that plate and glass on the table, or that pile of junk mail, or the two pairs of shoes under the table and something inside me just goes, "Uhg, I can't." And I don't. I walk away, and then I'm embarrassed that someone might see that I live in clutterdom and can't manage to take my laundry detergent to the basement...you know, since I'm going down there anyway?

Tonight I have rehearsal again, so when I get home tonight at 9 or later I'll have to make that final decision, "do I pick everything up, or let Paul come home after 4 months to a messy house." I guess if it was clean it might give off the impression that I've kept it that way all summer, which would be a lie. But I do feel a juvenile sense of accomplishment when the house is tidy, almost how I feel when something grows in the yard like, "oh, look, I made a flower!" Ridiculous-I know. However, right now I have made lots of flowers and if I just cleaned up the shoes, vacuumed the floor and cleared off the table I could put a bunch in a vase and feel like I live like a normal person - or at least like the kind of person who cleans their house and has cut flowers.

*or, How In the Amount of Time it Took For Me to Write This I Could Have Finished Everything I'm Dreading.

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Thank You, a Lot (and things I learned)

Thank you so much to everyone that helped with the roofing project this last week. My parents, Ken, Jenny, Peter, Tim, Steve, Larry, Kent, Ron, Katie, Chris for lending the roofing nail gun, the guy who delivered the shingles, and lastly my neighbor Ed. I need to make sure I send out personal thank you cards soon to everyone. I'm finally back to the real world this week, but there's still a little bit left to be done on the roof. Once the Hips and Ridge are done and the soffit vents installed, and then final inspection, we'll have a brand new roof.

It took longer than I thought, just like my dad said it would. He has worked tirelessly for the last 11 days and is finally taking the day off (but this afternoon will help me with getting the hips covered). We started ripping off the roof on the 4th (of July) and worked every day for 10+ hours for the next 10 days. Yesterday I came back to work but my dad and Ken spent one more day getting the majority of the remaining shingles up and the new vents for bathroom and kitchen fans.

Things I learned in the last week:

1. Looking back, I don't think we should have done it ourselves. Yes, a roof is expensive but it is also hard dirty work and no matter how much you try to learn about roofing before you start, the people who do it every day know those little tricks, and they're a lot faster.

2. My roof is complicated. I just didn't know how much more work that was going to take. A lot of houses have complicated roofs but if you're thinking of replacing your own roof you better hope you live in a rancher or any house with a simple gable roof.

3. I need a tool belt. Once you're up on a roof, it gets kind of hard to hold on to all the tools you might need up there and a pocket full of nails. The last few days I wore a pair of old cargo pants and stuffed the pockets with staples, nails, my chalk line and tried to carry a hammer but that didn't work too well. And later, a tool belt could come in handy for other household jobs like when I climb in the attic to install the bathroom fan.

4. There are people out there willing to help without expecting anything in return. My family was the biggest help during this project and obviously I couldn't have done it without their help. But it was people like my neighbor who loaned us ladders and tools and the last weekend helped unload the shingles and put them up. The guy who delivered the shingles who came before we had any felt on the top of the roof, so he helped roll out the top two rows, move the roof jacks and helped unload the 22 squares of shingles on the roof. He could have just said, "tough luck" and unloaded the shingles on their pallets in the front yard, but he didn't.

My mom took a lot of pictures this week and once I get some loaded online, I'll go into more exciting roofing detail. Right now I'm just happy we're done (almost).

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It Goes (Comes?) Down Tomorrow

So tomorrow we start ripping off the old roof. With a 30% chance of thunderstorms. At least the temperature should cool down to 85 instead of the 90+ hotness it's been all this week. This is when you start wondering, "why don't I have an air conditioner." Then you remember that there will only be two weeks this whole summer with these temps and I think air conditioners are really more trouble than their worth. Especially since I'd have to build a custom window, take off the aluminum storm/screen, and some how locate an electrical outlet within six feet. Since I don't think any of that is going to happen I sweat it out, and ponder sleeping outside someday. So the roof. It's scary, big, and I definitely hope it isn't more than we can handle. By we I'm referencing the fact that this entire project will be completed primarily by myself and my parents with some ground support by other family.

I'm trying to keep my eye on the prize. The pretty, leak-free roof at the end of this task. The roof that will take the house one step closer to charming cottage and one step farther from run-down fixer-upper. I'm not sure if I'll necessarily feel a greater sense of accomplishment as apposed to paying someone to do it, but the $5000 we'll save will go a long way toward getting some other things done. What should be next? The clothes washer plumbing (and a washer/dryer), or the cabinets for the kitchen, or the electrical, or the back yard fence.



Speaking of the back yard, the tree that I labeled as an apple tree in my drawing is actually a cherry tree. Bing maybe, but since the crows have eaten all the fruit off the tree I can't be sure.

I also recently identified one of the fruit trees on the other side of the property line as a pear tree. The tree is in sad shape, having been improperly pruned for many years, but I saw two tiny green pears on the leafy branches. I hope they last long enough to come to maturity before the birds get them.

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Introducing Ryan Jr.

Surprise! I thought Saturday was going to be a lazy rainy day, until my dad showed up at the house with a gas-powered sod cutter.



A week or so ago my mom and I attacked the parking strip in front of the house with spades and removed 8-10 linear feet of sod. It was hot, and the dogs were antsy and I stopped every 8-10 minutes to rest or pull the dogs apart and to top it off I got sunburned in the one spot I forgot to put sunscreen - the front of my neck. I knew a gas-powered sod cutter would make short work of the lawn, but they're big, super heavy and noisy and I wasn't sure I could deal with all that. Not to mention the logistical transportation nightmare. My dad just wanted the project (at least the sod removal part) done with and after an hour of the two of us pushing and pulling the monster around the front (and the back of the back) yard we were. The next few hours my mom, dad and I carried all that sod to the side of the house and placed it dirt side up over the grass/weeds in the adjoining vacant lot. It rained the entire time and it was dirty work but look at the results. A beautiful yard of dirt!

So far that's all it is, dirt, and bad dirt at that. It just crumbled in my hands as I lifted the sod. Even though it was raining, and had been raining on and off all week, the dirt 2 inches down was bone dry. Just shows how important a long soak can be for your plants/grass. My birthday present from my parents last year was a truck full of dirt for the new yard so after that is delivered and tilled into the existing soil we should be able to fill the yard with the perennials and groundcover. Maybe I haven't mentioned how much I hate front yard lawns yet. I hate mowing something that I never use, isn't decorative, and something that requires that I water it with a sprinkler that has to be moved every few hours. I admit that I let large sections of our previous lawn turn yellow last summer because

1. Grass that isn't watered grows slower, so I mow it less.
2. I couldn't stomach leaving that water running like that.
3. I'm kind of lazy.

Lawn-alternative front yards are definitely still the minority but there are a few in my neighborhood. One in particular I have admired since before we moved in. It turned green before anyone's lawn did, it has year-round color/texture, and it doesn't have to be mowed. A number of the plants have to be cut back after their blooming season is over, or at the end of winter, but for me 10 minutes cutting tulip leaves to the ground is still better than 30 minutes pushing a mower.

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I want to be dead before I have to do it again

Number eight on the list of summer goals (in no particular order) is to replace the roof. The existing roof is obviously failing with missing shingles, granule loss, and signs of slipping/sagging shingles. I tried to get someone to come do a quote on doing a temporary winter fix to stop the leak (where the shingles are missing) but I couldn't get anyone to actually get out to the house and do the quote before the snow started. After that I kind of gave up and figured I'd just try and fix whatever additional damage resulted. You'd think that 3+ layers of shingles would offer superior protection from the elements - not so.

Like I mentioned, it appears that the roof has more that three existing layers of roofing material; I'm pretty positive that the original roof is still up there. In addition to the poor weather protection the current roof provides, I think the combined weight of all the shingles has got to be a bad thing for the continued structural integrity of the house. Since we got an estimate on replacing the roof on the house we didn't buy, and saw a thrice faxed copy of an estimate done for this roof, I know that the cost to rip off, re-sheet, and re-shingle can run from $8000 to over $10,000. Yikes!

Since I come from a family with a "I could do that myself better and cheaper" aesthetic, my dad has convinced me that we could replace the roof ourselves. So now that summer has come, rather quickly I might add, I am rushing to organize everything. I mailed off my permit and check to the city so we're legal and all, I found the shingles I want, and hopefully everything will fall into place for the 4th of July weekend. After a little internet research I found that laminated shingles (also known as architectural shingles) can now come with a 50 warranty. Now that's my kind of a shingle. I never want to put on another roof and if I'm 80+ when this one fails, well we'll deal with it when the time comes. I'm looking at the TAMKO Heritage Vintage shingles in green. I still have to go to the lumber yard tomorrow morning to order them, and all those other things like underlayment, iceshield (required by the city), drip edge, and a ridge vent. I'll also need to get new decking, new flashing, and vent pipes but I'll get those when we're ready to get started. I know this won't be an inexpensive project but I hope to fall short of the $10,000 mark.

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