Got Stash?

My goal to deep clean stalled out at the master closet. It's not that I stopped working. It's that I got...distracted...which come to think of it, may be why I am not the best housekeeper.

My master closet is where I keep my stash. Which means I had yarn hidden everywhere it could possibly fit. In an effort to organize the closet I pulled out aaaaalllll that yarn (mmmm yarn) and made a "stash chart", listing amount, weight, color and the fiber it is made of. MAN! I have a lot of really GREAT yarn! I also have A LOT of acrylic (acrylic, a-CRY-lic, acryl-ICK)

So there I sat in the middle of all that yarnie goodness. And I thought, "Well, deep cleaning often includes de-cluttering. I'll start the purge by using up all this yarn!" And I've been crocheting ever since. It's been hard to stay so focused, but I am sacrificing my time for the good of my family. We will all benefit from a cleaner, more organized home...really, I'm doing it all for them...

"The Deep Clean" has moved forward however! Shane spent last Saturday cleaning out the office closet. (Something I secretly never intended to do.)

So the effort continues. "The Deep Clean" moves forward and all my Cub Scouts have new beanies. Everyone's happy...

A house of order

I am not a good house keeper. It's a fact. I'm just not good at keeping up on housework. I am however, a really really good procrastinator. I love to read...and crochet...and knit...and facebook...get my point? I also live with 3 very, um untidy, boys.

Well, now I have this new house. A new house that Shane and I built. Actually built, with our hands and sweat and blood. This house took (and is still taking) a lot of work to build. And I would love for it to stay as nice as it was the day we moved in.

Since we moved in, I have been a lot better at keeping up with all the everyday stuff. That's not to say things don't get messy around here. But it usually gets cleaned up in a reasonable amount of time. What is bugging me right now are the storage spaces. All the drawers, cupboards and cabinets that get filled up with random stuff. I feel cluttered and disorganized and I am no where near using my space to the best of it's ability.

So this is the beginning of the end of clutter in my home. (stop laughing, I know I'll have to do this again in the future) My goal is to clean out all our nooks and crannies before 2011 starts.

I started with the Media Room. We don't spend much time in there, so it was pretty easy to tidy up and vacuum all the dust that, for some reason, clings to electronics. My brother once told me, the most important rooms to keep clean are your bedroom and bathroom, because you relax in those rooms. I think he's right so I moved on to my bathroom next.

I NOW HAVE TWO COMPLETELY CLEAN AND CLUTTER FREE ROOMS! YAH ME!

I got my bedroom all clean, but the master closet is scaring me so I decided to skip that and move on to the kitchen. Before I deep clean the kitchen I had to make apple juice.



Now I can put all the canning supplies away for the season and get to work!

Wish me luck!
I'm gonna need it!

Billy Joel - You're My Home - 1976

ONE MORE BRICK IN THE WALL

Building our 1st retaining wall was fun, and dare I say easy. Sure it was hard work, and the blocks where pretty heavy. But it only took us about 3 hours to build the whole wall. And we spent the whole time joking around and feeling proud of ourselves for this great accomplishment. I’ve decided to call that wall

“The Great Wall of Deceit”

I've dubbed the 2nd retaining wall

“The GREAT wall of SHANE”

It has gone up only because of Shane’s force of will. 1st of all the wall required A LOT more blocks. Like 6 truck loads. These blocks had to be loaded into the truck and trailer and later had to be unloaded. These blocks are VERY heavy, so heavy that the boys and I can not lift them. Now we did have a lot of help, from the guy who we bought the blocks from and some neighbors. But for the most part all block transferring was done by Shane.

Then there was the digging. We hired a guy with a tractor to do the lion’s share of this work. But we (by we I mean Shane and sometimes Perrin and more sporadically me) still spent hours digging down the last few inches and making the ground smooth and level.

Then we (again Shane) placed the rocks. Perrin was able to help more with this step and our neighbors helped A LOT! It took one full day and several nights after Shane got off work to place all the blocks.

We (Shane) did it! The wall is up! It won’t be complete until we can pour the cement pad in the spring, but the hard part is over!

Spent yesterday building our first retaining wall.

Our new wall!

The Parlotones opened

Ryan Delahoussaye of Blue October playing with The Parlotones

Seeing Blue October live was AMAZING!

I guess I forgot

When we began the count down to the 1st day of school, I began to mourn the lost of Summer. Then I started work again AND it was harvest time at the garden. Top that all off with Shane's busy schedule and gathering wood for our winter fire. I've been so busy with all our Fall activities, I forgot to notice the weather has been AMAZING!

Well! I finally stopped looking down at my feet long enough to notice the blue sky, sunshine and warm, but not too hot, temps. WAHOO! Bring on a day at the lake!

When you start planning a 4 day backpacking trip you begin by choosing a destination and calculating mileage. Then you start to make careful lists of all the things you could possibly need to take. You must keep in mind the at times you’ll be a 2 day hike away from any source of Advil or Oreos.

The amount of stuff you’ll need is staggering, considering you have to carry it all on your back. And all that stuff takes up a lot of space, not to mention it’s all just plain heavy! You start to make justifications for leaving things behind: “Do I really need that extra pair of jeans?” “Is it really necessary to carry all that rain gear in the middle of July?” (and my favorite) “I could totally go four days without a toothbrush!”

Some things are negotiable. Some things, like a camera, are as important as your sleeping bag and clean water. Personally, I’d consider giving up all my extra socks to cram in a good book, and have been know to take a knitting project on a hike.

You have to be concerned about every ounce that goes into your pack. And perhaps more important, every ounce that goes into your 9 year old’s pack. Because if you get this wrong, at some point, your going to be carrying his pack and maybe even him!

So here we go. Today we start our hike into the Uinta back country. Along the way, we’ll get to see the Timothy Lakes, Bluebell Pass and 25 miles of high mountain wilderness. No knitting this time, but I do have the camera and did manage to fit my book in.

We had SO much fun spending the weekend up Paris Canyon with Shane's co-workers! I spent the first morning hanging on to the back of a dirt bike. What a blast! It made me feel like a teenager again, although not many teens worry that their childern are lighting fires back at camp.

We had a day at Bear Lake's North Beach and a day for hiking to and hanging out at Bloomington Lake.

Mantua

We took the boat out to Mantua yesterday and had a great time. It's so nice to have the boys back!

BIG Fish!

Connor and Shane had a great time at scout camp. Then they had a great time fishing! Check out the pictures on the bottom of the page.

The great room floor

Shane is amazing! Nough said...

My new best friend

I used to have this imaginary best friend named Rachael. Rachael and I would hang out in the kitchen all the time, where she taught me all kinds of recipes for quick easy dinners. She also taught me that if I added enough garlic, onions and cheese to any recipe, people would say "yum-o" when the ate my food.

When I went back to work, I lost all interest in cooking. I haven't seen a whole lot of Rach, since I started making salads and hamburgers for 8 hours a day.

My new imaginary best friend is named Brett Bara. Brett hosts the PBS show "Knit and Crochet Today" And thanks to Brett I know all kinds of new stitches. Just the other day she taught me how to crochet babbles! I don't know if you can see this way cute babble pattern. But I'm super excited that I can do it! (It's okay if your laughing at me, I'm laughing too)

The project I'm trying to get the nerve to start is a knit and felted flower pot. It involves 2 knitting techniques I've never tried: short rowing and felting. Someday soon, I'll get the guts to try something really challenging. And believe me, when I succeed you'll hear about it!!!

Pictures At Last!

I haven't posted any pictures of our new house because my camera disappeared half way thru our build. But I FINALLY figured out how to get the pics off my camera...enjoy!

Chunky Water

I am quite certain Thatcher/Penrose water compares to Magna water! The Water Master (sweet old guy) said there are "dissolved solids" in the water. Which I've discovered is a nice way to say the water is chunky.

Just spent the morning scrubbing hard water off our fancy-dancy oil rubbed bronze bath fixtures. Lime-a-Way is my new best friend.

Oh, and for those of you who have jetted tubs, here's a little trick I learned. Fill your tub about half way and while your half in half out scrubbing down your ginormous tub, turn on the jets...go ahead, do it...it's awesome!

If 2009 taught me anything, it taught me the meaning of the phrase "blood, sweat, & tears." Building our home was the most crazy, exhausting, fun, emotional, scary, amazing thing I have ever done. I honestly had a blast, and I honestly can't understand why I didn't have a nervous break down :o)

I can't write about the whole build in one post. I don't have the time or emotional fortitude to go thru it all. So I'll have to give it to you in chunks.

We spent a lot of time researching the materials that went into our home. What we wanted was an affordable way to build a super efficient house. In the end we chose to build our home out of Insulated Concrete Form Basically they build the walls out of hollow forms that are made of anything from concrete to foam to recycled newspapers. Then they fill in the forms with cement.

Choosing to build with ICF had a lot of consequences that we didn't recognise when we started. The most surprising was our general contractors reaction. When we told him we wanted to build with ICF he pretty much broke up with us. He said it would be impossible. And if we could pull it off it would be outrageously expensive. We really wanted to "general" our home ourselves, but it was a challenge finding funding for a construction project that "couldn't be done"

The ICF added a lot of stress to our build, as most of our contractors had never heard of the stuff. We were surprised to see how many people were nervous to work with a new product. The ICF added a lot of time to the build and really annoyed our framers. The funniest consequence was the way our neighbors reacted. Most thought we were flat out crazy.

After we bought the land and pored the foundation, we waited and waited and waited. The EZ Block people, who where in charge of building the exterior walls, didn't show for almost 2 months! Their web site claims their product is "Easier, Cheaper, Faster." This is clearly not the case.

We are fairly happy with the end result. EZ Block did in fact offer a product that is "extremely strong, virtually fireproof, super-insulated, and nearly sound-proof. The block is also impervious to vermin and rot.

ICF is supposed to be super green, which is probably true in the long run. But having a green home is about being efficient and choosing a responsible way to leave the home's footprint. I'm not sure I'm buying all the green claims the ICF sales guys are pushing...oh well, we got what we wanted in the end. Our house is really easy to heat and will be even easier to cool. It is pretty much sound proof and the exterior walls are really thick (a full foot) which makes for awesome window sills.

OH HAPPY DAY!

WE CLOSED ON OUR HOUSE TONIGHT!