breakdowns

last weekend we managed to get a lot done on the house. and i realized that there is something i hate more than skip troweling... sanding! it was my job to sand + repaint the stairwell banister. it had close to 3 layers of paint (badly done) with drips and globs everywhere. had to sand all that off. my hand was cramped so badly, i had to take a few days off knitting :( then painting it was horrible, trying to reach between all the spindles. had it not been painted originally, i would have loved to have stained it, but it wasn't possible. i have one coat done, one to go. its a little dreary out today, so i can't see well enough to do the 2nd coat.

ian worked on sanding the stairs and painting those. we've used extra laminate to replace the risers and it looks great! we have another coat or 2 of poly to put on the stairs; thats always interesting with a curious cat and dog in the house. baby gate time for a few hours.

here are some before + after pics of the stairs:







we also finished up the spare room and hallway/landing/trimming. we still have to move the furniture around before taking some "after" shots. debating on picking up a sleeper sofa/futon/something for any guests that may visit. or as a super-sized cat bed.

we also did some outdoor work until the lawnmower broke. sigh. we've been so busy, we haven't had a chance to get it out to sears this week, but the yard is badly in need of a mowing. [is that even grammatically correct??] its still under warranty, so hopefully we can get that fixed, pronto!

then, lets see... the tivo breaks. (also still under warranty, thank you). we turn it on and the screen says something crazy like "serious problems found. will take 3 hours to self-repair. blah blah blah". it keeps rebooting itself or freezing, so we'll need to take that in too.

and then, of course, my new-ish sewing machine breaks. wtf! this is somewhat still under warranty. its an electronic one and the lcd screen turned dark. so i have no idea what stitches/settings im using. i have to pay to send it to the manufacturer, and let them fix it for 4-6 weeks. so aggravating.

but, i did manage to make a quilt with it on the fritz. i pieced together the top and bottom before the "break". i came up with a random squares design. i was gifting it to the walters, for their baby girl, due in october. they were doing a gender-neutral colored nursery, with butter yellow and espresso colors. i wanted to make something hip and modern, and i hope that i did! i quilted and did the binding after the machine breakdown, so the binding is a little uneven. sorry! i really need to practice on that. here's some pics:







ian managed to get the rainbarrel hooked up, just in time for all this rainy weather. need to switch the hoses around and see how much water we'll be able to use. and yea, we also have a compost barrel :) we'll see how well that works out. (on a side note, our garbage amount has gone down considerably since using that this year, in addition to recycling everything we can. our goal is 1 bag of garbage a week, with the exception of any building materials that can't be reused.)

on that note, i guess i should go paint something. or not sew something. ooh, or make lunch.

wally world

this past weekend, ian and i went up to erie. after visiting my mom when we got in saturday morning, we had a day to ourselves, which is a rarity. so on a sunny summer saturday in erie, what else is there to do but go to waldameer and eat funnel cakes? it was a crazy busy day there, but it was entertaining. we rode a handful of rides, and didn't mind the wait. it was fun to just relax and enjoy ourselves for once. we *did* eat a delicious funnel cake, but limited it to that after a few spinny rides.

spider futab:


i hate this ride with a passion. the last time i rode i thought i was going to fall out and it wouldn't stop spinning. i didn't learn my lesson!

whee!





later in the day we took a leisurely drive around presque isle. it was really relaxing and beautiful. we met penny and cj and walked on the beach and watched the beginning of the sunset. (we were starving by that point and had to leave. man can not live on funnel cakes alone. i wish.)



my rockstar husband basking in the glow of the sunset:



i also manga'd us last week. does it look like us?



now that we're back in town, we need to get back to work on the house. we've got a list of things to finish up in the next few weeks. i've also managed to do some more knitting on that little cabled cardigan; the body is done, and i'm on to the sleeves. maybe photos in the next post.

ok, thats it for now. time for real work :(

ketchup vandalism

not much to update on, but i figured my last post wasn't much of a "post" was it? last weekend we took saturday off. we've been dealing with some personal stuff and needed a day off to just relax and enjoy ourselves. we had a lazy morning then headed out to robinson to do some shopping. we don't make it out there very often, but wanted to see what new stuff was at ikea and do a little shopping.

ikea has been reorganized, and i didn't like it. maybe because of the thousands of people there who were "back to school" shopping, but i found it irritating, and not enjoyable like i had hoped. so we worked our way over to the mall, and decided to relax in the sun at houlihans. not my favorite place, but their outdoor dining was pretty empty around 3, so we grabbed an appetizer and a drink and started to relax. after that, we mosied thru the mall feeling old. on a whim, i thought i would check out aeropostale. yes, i'm 35 and about 20 years too old to be shopping there. i already know that. surprisingly, the jeans were very well fitting and i found this adorable sweater vest. seriously, how cute is this?!



now i'm actually looking forward to the weather getting cooler so i can wear it :) after that it was uneventful window shopping. we headed over to bahama breeze for dinner and sat outside on their patio. a relaxing way to start the evening with a slight reminder of our honeymoon. and a strong reminder of our need for a vacation. we really need to get away, but it's not practical at the moment. i know vacations aren't supposed to be "practical", however..... we'll start planning to plan one soon. we've been debating going back to montreal (it would be my 4th/ian's 2nd trip there) and it is beautiful in the fall/winter. a lazy tropical beach vacation would be nice, but those do get boring after awhile. we've still got awhile to figure something out.

we did a lot of work on sunday. we painted the doors, installed the hardware and trimmed out the room/hallway. we finished installing the flooring in the hallway. ian installed the 2nd window in the spare room. we did a little more landscaping and picked up 2 barrels to convert into rainbarrels. hopefully we'll get to that in the next few days. we've been doing a little work in the evenings and hope to get the spare room finished soon. pictures will come after that. then... its on to the stairwell...

sigh. today started off badly. ian was up early so he offered to move my car around back to the parking pad before street cleaning. he came back in to tell me that our cars had been vandalized. i guess thats the right word. someone had squirted ketchup on his truck and something liquid-y had been thrown all over the drivers side of my car. looked to be something like milk/milkshake-y. who carries around a bottle of ketchup??? and then whats even more ridiculous... who on earth would waste a perfectly good milkshake?!? crazy kids.

s'mores

the past week has been a busy one, and i just haven't felt like writing.

we did some landscaping.

before:


after:


we installed a continuous new floor in the upstairs/hallway/spare room:


i knit:


we roasted marshmallows and made smores:


thats it for now :)