It's an Addition!

We finally did it. We committed. Off comes the porch. We've decided to do a full basement, mudroom, plus additional room to give us more room. In the end, we're taking up the same footprint as the gazebo porch and the deck to make all three rooms. I would LOVE to do a sauna in the basement but we'll see if we get there. We're trying to take everything one step at a time.

In the photo above, they've just pulled the porch and deck from the house.

Next, they smashed it all down so it could fit into the dump trumps to take it away.

I've missed a step - but only because it's a video. Here you can see they've already dug the hole and put up the concrete blocks to frame out the basement. I'm still just amazed at the massive amount of dirt that they took to make the hole for the new basement. In total, they had to take 3 dump truck loads and this is still what's left. They left a lot to backfill the basement after it was completely water proofed.

This is just after it's been waterproofed. They legit tar the walls, and then toss the insulation at it and then put plastic over it all. It's nuts. And the total time spent on the waterproofing was MAYBE 45 minutes. They drove two trucks and had one truck just for supplies. 

And here we are after it's been backfilled - but it's still a HUGE hole so Phil the dog can't go back there quite yet. He gets too jumpy and I'm really nervous that he'll fall into the hole. So he's stuck doing his bathroom business in the front yard for now. 

It's coming together just enough that I can SEE the end in sight and I'm really excited for it. I can't wait to be able to use our new rooms and have the actual usable space. Woohoo!!!

 

Wordless Wednesday

 

Surprise Jack O'Lanterns in the Garden

In the spring, I swear that I gave Baby Chewy watermelon seeds to plant. Like, I have the empty packet of seeds saved in my garden notebook (that I sometimes add to and sometimes do not add to, I suppose I should take more pictures and just post them here for a record). 

And one day before we went to Colorado over the summer I noticed a small (what I thought was a watermelon) fruit on a vine and was super excited to come back home to show the kids the watermelon we had grown all summer. 

Turns out... not a watermelon.

We grew Jack O'Lanterns. I think what happened was that the plants are volunteers from the pumpkins that we carved last year and the vines sprouted after I spread my compost this spring to replenish all the nutrients lost to tomato plants last year. 

Overall, I have found 4 pumpkins. I think one might not make it because a chipmunk has chewed it already. I put some diatomaceous earth on all the pumpkins to keep them from smelling delicious to critters so I'm hoping I can keep the pumpkins from being eaten until at least the first few weeks in October, after that I can harvest the pumpkins and keep them inside to keep them from squirrels and chipmunks. What a fun surprise this year!

 

wordless wednesday

 

Hello, from the other side

One school year is almost done with both kids. I've filled out a school volunteer application to volunteer in the school district. I volunteered to help with the school garden. I have become THAT parent. But you know what, I'm really excited to get to know the kids better because we couldn't volunteer during this ongoing pandemic and I'm hoping that since I'm vaccinated and boosted, I'll be able to volunteer.

I've been getting rid of so much STUFF. Over 1,000 items GONE since January 1. I've been keeping a tally - albeit not the best now because I've just been getting rid of things one at a time and then I forget to tally it off. My goal is 2,022 items for the year. I can feel a difference but I'm not sure if anyone else can. There's several things that I've kept where it's been a "maybe I'll get around to this" but since I've saved them, I haven't gotten around to them and I'd rather volunteer at school, walk the dog, read, and go biking with the kids. I don't need to keep things around that are aspirational that I know I won't get around to. Bimmer Man keeps bikes that he's never going to ride and I can see that they've rusted and are not in great shape anymore - and he doesn't take care of them because he doesn't have time. I don't want to do that with my things anymore. I want to spend time doing what I want to do. And making this house easier to live in. So that's that. Take this as inspiration and get rid of your shit. 

Because I've gotten rid of so much so far - we've had time to do 30 Days of Biking this year and we've completed all 30 days! It was so cold and so gross and so wet and so snowy. We're all ready for warmer weather and a nice, hot summer!

Wordless Wednesday

 

Wordless Wednesday

 

New Orleans

Doing a photo dump of our recent trip to New Orleans. I didn't call it a vacation because technically it wasn't. Bimmer Man was racing and neither of us had been there before. I wanted to go too! Race weekend is not a bunch of excursions to wherever city we're in - it's literally just hanging out at the racetrack, watching the race monitors, helping with pit stops, watching other teams, and gathering food for the team. It's really not a vacation - but it is really fun work! 

We decided to stay for an extra day and a half to explore the city and eat all the food. It was...somewhat disappointing - in part because there was a huge parade during the weekend and it was so busy that the amount of people buying things had emptied our restaurants and most were closed because they had no more food and needed to restock. We tried Verti Mart for muffalettas and no bread. We tried several restaurants and no stock in beer or food. So yeah...that's New Orleans on the day after a huge Mardi Gras parade for ya. The best food we had was tacos from Val's (not in the French Quarter by the way). That was AMAZING and I would go back for those tacos in an instant. French Truck Coffee had really good coffee and tea. I went there twice because it was so good. 

The architecture was really interesting! I enjoyed looking at all the balconies and the windows and all the flower boxes that people had put together. The streets are all narrow and small - the French Quarter was extremely easy to navigate.

Lots of buildings had the old gas light lanterns and most of them still used gas! I thought they were so pretty at night and what a fantastic way to see the past in action.

We didn't do any tours - but we did see many people taking walking tours. This is the LaLaurie house and is supposedly haunted. Madam LaLaurie tortured her servants (well, slaves, really, let's not beat around the bush with this). She was an awful human being to these poor people. Nicolas Cage apparently owned this house for a bit and only spent one night in it because of the haunting. This story is also the setting for a season of American Horror Story. The house itself is kitty corner from Verti Mart and it's a beautiful home. If there were tours, I would definitely have taken one of the inside to see the architecture and how the families would have decorated these home in the past. 

We're still in the middle of a pandemic and one person that we were with is very germ-conscious so we decided to find a restaurant/bar with a courtyard instead of sitting inside. As it turns out, we liked this one so much that we came here twice. The cocktails were delicious and the courtyard was so cute. 

New Orleans' streets are not so well marked and that's because the old street signs are on the ground! There are new ones but I became used to checking out the corners signs on the sidewalk instead. The tiles are absolutely gorgeous - I noticed many of them in disrepair and I really hope that the City of New Orleans will take the time to have them replicated as closely as possible and do a restoration of what they can. 

Small sidewalks, skinny streets. 

One of the oldest cemetaries in NOLA - they were supposed to be open to the public but they were closed. I read they closed the cemetaries off to the public because of the desecration and graffiti and whatnot to the graves and tombs. They were so interesting to see because in NOLA you can't actually bury a body in the ground. 

On the way to the airport we did see a more modern cemetery - those were above ground also and much larger than the small original cemeteries in the French Quarter. 

Still, they have "weeds" growing in the cracks just like any other city. I saw this and thought it was really pretty. 

Riverboats and cargo ships. Downtown is off to the right and so is the French Quarter - in reference - Cafe du Monde is behind me. 

Overall it was a pretty good trip! I think I wouldn't go so close to Mardi Gras and I for sure would go when it's warmer - like later in Spring or mid-Fall. The flowers and plants and trees were still in their winter hibernation so it wasn't as pretty and colorful as you might think but the sunshine still felt really good! I think next time I would stay in a different neighborhood and take the trolley to see more parks. And definitely go to restaurants when they have food in stock!

-Patty

 

Do People Blog Anymore?

 Is this still a thing? 

Have people moved over to Instagram and Twitter and TikTok for good?? 

Because I tried looking for an app that links to Blogger to update my blog from my phone (because wouldn't that be SOOOO EASY??). Apparently it's not a thing that Google made. No app for mobile blogging for Blogger so I guess blogging is not a thing for the young people? Eh, whatever. This Xenial is just fine doing what I'm used to. HA!

In any case - I update Insta and Twitter more often. If you want to see more of me, head over there. But I'll still come 'round here as often as I can remember to pull out the old computer and update. At least until Google comes out with an app to update blogger from mobile. 

It's January

 Still here. Still plugging away at life. Both kids are in school. Phil is.... Phil. 

I'm super happy to finally have some time to myself but before I can even do that.. I've been clearing out and decluttering the house. I've donated so many things, I made more than 5 trips to Goodwill. I've given away so much on Buy Nothing. I feel lighter? For a very long time I really thought I should SELL everything that I don't want anymore and I've come to the realization that our house should not be a holding area for "stuff" that I need to sell. My house is not a store. I've let go of the amount of money spent on items and just said "eff it." Get it out of my house so I don't have to spend the mental energy on it anymore. When you constantly are thinking about your stuff, it's robbing you of the awesome things that you could be DOING instead. 

I unloaded over 7 bags of clothes from my closets. It was stuff that was too small. Fancy work clothes that I'm not going to wear again. Old t-shirts. Old ill fitting clothes. Clothes that I thought I would wear. Clothes that I kept that I just LIKED but didn't wear. I started trying stuff on and wore it around for awhile and then put it in a pile if it made me itchy. If I have to dry clean it, I decided to donate it. I don't want to spend the time, energy, or money on dry cleaning unless I absolutely need to. 

I have only tackled a small portion of toys. Unfortunately Baby Chewie doesn't play favorites with toys and so he has his interests in many things - cars, trucks, rocket ships, books, action figures, LEGO, trains, PJ Masks, and everything in between. And he has way too many cars. At least 5 bins. It's time for 3 of those bins to go. 

I gave away all the wooden toys that I liked but got tosses aside. I gave away Barbies and babies and books. I can now go through all the Christmas and winter books - instead of putting those away I will post them on Buy Nothing and put the rest in the Free Little Libraries in the neighborhood.

And I decided not to buy books AT ALL this year until my library requests and my to read pile are down to nothing. I know. That's a HUGE challenge for me - there's two cookbooks sitting in my Barnes & Noble cart right now. So.... we'll see what happens...