The Deck

When we bought the house our deck was under feet of snow. But you could tell that it was big enough that we could really have some fun with it. That and the view from there, well, we love it. :D

We came to find out that it was painted with about a rust color of paint. I don't like how it looks with the brick, the paint was peeling all funny, and I just didn't like it. My grand plan was to strip off the paint and stain it. I for some reason had it in my head that stain will protect better than paint. That and I can't imagine stain peeling like the paint has. (Lets hope I am right :D )

So we have talked to people over the past two years, just small talk, about our plan. As people do we got suggestions on how to go about achieving my goal. Notice how I say my goal, apparently Mike was against this, too much work.

Starting about three weeks ago we got plastic putty knives to start scraping off the paint. I was thinking somehow that we could scrape it all off, just so you know it really only works with the already lose paint. The plastic knives were only sort of working. In looking for our painting supplies I came across an old metal one and decided to try it. SO MUCH BETTER! So we promptly went out and got more.

We kept working. My dad came over at one point to help. His statement about all of it? It went something like this, "This is the worst job ever, it is pointless." I do have to admit that he was working in probably the worst area. He was working where the sun hits the deck the least. So it really had the least amount of paint coming up. Sorry dad!

We finally split the deck in close to half. We figured that maybe making the job smaller might make it less daunting. I would come home after work and scrape and scrape. I felt like I was getting a lot of paint up, then I would stand back and take a look at my progress. I don't think I was really doing anything. I was getting frustrated.

That first Saturday Mike and I were going to work on it together. I distracted him with wanting to go yard sale shopping! HAHA! It turned out to be a great idea since we found an electric sander for $7! We promptly went and bought sandpaper and got to work. Why oh why did we try to scrape when sanders exist?!?



I had to stop working on the deck for a week, it rained a lot. So I finally got caught up on my house work. When I could get back to the deck this week I went and bought some more sandpaper. I got a different kind than Mike originally got and decided to try and re-sand some of what he had done. I was able to pull up a lot more paint that he did. It turns out he was basically just buffing the paint instead of stripping it :D So I re-sanded what he had done on Monday. Tuesday morning I painted all of that. So at this point it was about half way done.


Tuesday night Mike started sanding the second half and Wednesday morning and afternoon I got a huge portion of that sanding done.
Mike finished up the sanding as I got home from my cake wrecks party. I really wanted to be done with the project so I talked Mike into staying up and getting the rest of it painted/stained. We started at about 10 pm and finished shortly after midnight.



It only took the two of us two hours. I kind of liked doing it at night. The sun wasn't beating down on it and drying it so fast that it gave it funny lines. That and we weren't having to play whack-a-mole with the kids.


While we were staining last night a ladybug decided to join our party.

But we are very happy to now say that the biggest portion of the deck is finished!!!

It looks slightly odd with some of the paint not having come up but it will look better as we repeat this process for the next couple years.

After all of that I am proud to say that I am no longer hesitant to use a power tool. The only war wounds are:

• a couple paper cut like cuts from the putty knife
• Sun burned the back of my legs
• and slightly stained hands

For me using an electric sander for so long I am really surprised that we didn't damage anything. I am somewhat accident prone.

Next, build a fence. Our neighbor is going to help us and seems amused that I want to help do that. I will show him! (I hope :| )

Cake Wrecks

I was inspired by a friend to be brave and go on an adventure by myself. I wanted to go, but was very hesitant since I would probably have to go by myself. I finally bit the bullet and told myself that if Amy did it, then I should at least try it.

I decided to go to the "Cake Wrecks World Tour." They had a stop here in Salt Lake City tonight. My friend had mentioned when she went to a book signing there that she had trouble with parking so I mapped it and had the address on my phone so that I could find it easily. I also made sure that I would get there early to find parking and to hopefully get a seat. From all the other stops it looks like it is often standing room only. I got there about 15 minutes early and got a seat! Though the screen was so low that it was hard to see the bottom of it. Maybe standing would have been better. :(

At the events they have a cupcake contest. I entered but I knew mine was lame enough that it wouldn't win anything, but I had fun trying to compile a bunch of wrecks. Can you spot them all?



After getting all ready to go and doing nothing but think about this all day I am off!



Here is a picture of John taking pictures of the crowd. He sometimes writes for the blog and is the hubby of Jen.



They started off with a slide show of their favorites. I was proud of myself for recognizing most of them from the blog. Then they moved on to a Q&A. Nothing great to report there. While waiting to be able to go get my books signed I went and had some cake that was donated to the cause. Here is a picture of I think the cutest one.



While waiting in line I think John got lost, but he was willing to pose for a picture for me!



If you can't read his shirt it says:
Haiku's are easy
Sometimes they don't make sense
Refrigerator

I am happy to report that Jen decided to go with the boots.



Me with Jen and John!


I had so much fun and am very glad I went, even though I was very nervous, especially as I was getting off of the freeway and approaching the book store, though I didn't say ANY of the things I thought about all day. Oh well! :D

P.S. I also remembered to get an epbot pin! I was so glad that she hadn't run out. I feel like a giddy teenager. sigh

Mikes good news! (don't get your hopes up ;/ )

June 13, 2010 A day to live in Infamy. Mike beet Richard fare and square at chess for the first time in about a year. (Since this is as close as we get to a journal or a scrapbook, please forgive me!)

Cake experiments

So my friends showed me a really cool cake to make. I wanted to do one for Sidney's first birthday so I decided to do a trial run first. I am now thinking that I will do a pink and purple one for the actually birthday cake but we will see!






OH! It was also yummy. Though I only had chocolate frosting and I would have preferred something like a cream cheese but on Sunday's you use what you have on hand! It was a fun surprise treat to share.

Yard Work

I went crazy working on our front yard flower garden this last weekend. We have also started working on stripping and staining the deck. I will have pics later of the deck below is the start of the garden. It will look better when the plants start growing and filling it all in. The first picture is of just one section and it has all the plants in though it is hard to see from this angle.

The second picture is of the whole yard but it is before it is all in, so sort of hard to see the whole picture.

Working on the deck now, but that will be a couple weeks before that is finished. More to come

Reading Reading Reading

For Mother's Day the kids each gave me 2 books. I read all four books in a week. Sunday to Sunday. It was a happy week. Now I am sad that I don't exactly have anything to read. Though I do need to step up my Harry Potter reading challenge. I think that one will be better tackled once school is out, *crossing fingers*.

So the books I read this week were:

1. Band of Sisters by Annette Lyon. I really liked this book. I enjoyed reading about other people who were "new" to a group and all of them felt like they didn't belong, but they all ended up being a vital member of the group. I laughed, I cried, I enjoyed! Highly recommended.

2. Imprints by Rachel Ann Nunes. I had a hard time with the book since the main character can "read" memories off of objects. I don't really believe that those kinds of things can happen. It was an enjoyable story once I just took it as complete fiction. It got me wanting to be more natural and more of a "locavore." Somewhat recommended.

3. Courting Miss Lancaster by Sarah M. Eden. I was afraid I wouldn't like this story very much as I don't seem to be as big of a fan of Jane Austin as most people I know and the Author is a HUGE fan. I did get into the language and was able to enjoy it thoroughly, though it could have been longer. Maybe a sequel? Recommended.

4. Dangerous Connections by Julie Coulter Bellon. Another one that I wished was longer, again hoping for a sequel. It did seem a little predictable but I still enjoyed finding out how much I was able to figure out on my own. I love a mystery/love story. Recommended.

My Funeral

The past couple days at school we have been watching October Sky. In one period at the end it mentions that the teacher died at age 31 of Hodgkins Disease. I asked one class if they would be sad if I died.

"YES!"

"We would cry!"

"We would all come to your funeral."

"I would play the Pi Song at your funeral."
"You realize I don't really like the pi song, right?"
"yes, :D"