Jammin'

How is it that my recipe for raspberry jam says, "yield - 7 x 250 or 236ml jars" and I count 8 x 250ml and 1 500ml jar? Even though I followed the recipe exactly.

Frost warning

We've been having temperatures below freezing at night, so we are needing to make some concessions to autumn. First, we had to relight the pilot light on the furnace so we don't wake up cold. Especially that little kid who likes to kick the blankets off her bed.

We also had to go pick all the tomatoes a few days ago so they wouldn't go to waste. Good thing I have a helper, it was a big job.

That's the little bowl for the ripe ones. We ended up with 10 gallons of green tomatoes and about 3 gallons of potatoes (we've eaten lots of new potatoes this summer). The beans got left out, and I'm afraid they may have succumbed to the frost last night.

My helper knows her colors well enough now that she can pick off the red tomatoes.
She also knows "tiny" means that's one she can throw. Because a 1/4" tomato isn't really worth trying to save.

Brandywine tomatoes.

Romas

Someone else wants to be a helper, but she hasn't grown thumbs yet. So she just laid around waiting for her kid to get done. She ended up sleeping right up against the gate because we were taking too long.

Yesterday, we (well, I did) decided to do something with those green tomatoes instead of just waiting for them to turn red. I imagine we'll leave a few of them to ripen, but 10 gallons is a lot of tomatoes to be laying around. So I found some recipes for canning green tomatoes and we set off.
Katie helped by picking the stems off some of them.

And we came up with 3 pints of green tomato relish from the first recipe.
I'm really happy with it, so we'll probably make a bunch more. It used up not only tomatoes (but only 14) but also some of the apples from our apple tree, and we've got plenty of those as well, so anything that'll help us make them useful is welcome.

I imagine we'll be canning a lot this week, we have tomatoes, raspberries, crabapples and some other variety of apples to use up, and I am getting comfortable enough with the canning process that it doesn't take all day anymore.

Catching up.

Katie's first pillow fight.
She wasn't really sure if she was really supposed to hit Daddy, but she caught on quick and she had so much fun.

Yesterday she wasn't feeling very well. Today too, both of us are sick, feels like a milder case of whatever we caught on the plane to France in the Spring.

But she wasn't too sick to come watch me work. I cleaned the floor really well, so it's safe for us to go in barefoot again, but she is still unconvinced. And since I wouldn't get her shoes, she stole mine.

Not too sick to be a helper either.

I tempted fate to get this window trim put up. Hammering away while Katie napped. Didn't seem to bother her too much, but I was scared.

Now I almost think I should paint the slider part of the window too. But then begs the question, where do I stop? I can't very well paint the track, that is the same color wood as the slider. Hoping to have the rest of the window trim up and at least half the crown moulding this evening.

real quick.

Look what Charlie planted for me!
I cut them from the pasture, the seeds come from his feed.
Renos.
Andrew came home a day early to primer on the walls. He is amazed that we managed to get so much done. It really is like having a brand new room in our house.
Look, I even put on a door!

Paint up. A soft grey. I picked it out when we moved in and I was a bit concerned that I wouldn't like it now, but I do very much. It's perfect for this space.

More pictures to come when we're done with the trim, then probably a video panorama in a few weeks after the carpet comes.

PSA:

When doing work around the house, it is important to remember that proper safety equipment must be worn at all times.
Especially when you are sweeping the floor with Mommy's new paintbrush.

Poor skittish little Mooch doesn't know what's going on. She won't come in for any longer than it takes her to bolt her food and scramble out again. I guess sleeping on the deck railing is safer than being indoors right now.

More progress

First things first. Saturday evening, I went horseback riding, and Katie went to the fair with Grandma & Jeremy to watch the chuckwagon races. I sent along my camera, but no video this time.

RUN HORSEY!

No, I don't think it is time to go home, thank you.

And now what we've been up to today.

Last night, I got about half the mudding done. Then I ran out of mud.
Guess I should've bought a bigger bucket.

Hey, people do use geometry!

And since we got about 40 times more drywall screws than we needed, I've been fixing the horrible squeaks in the floor. There are a lot of them. But hey, I can walk across the room now without waking Katie up!

This morning, I got some primer on the walls. Still need to do the corners and in the grooves in the paneling.
Supervisin'.

I have to admit, I was a little sad to have to paint over this. Guess who used to sleep in this room.

Clarification.

It's not spackle, it's drywall mud. But spackle is much more fun to say.
And it's calling my name.
Perhaps we'll have more pictures tomorrow, they are on my camera right now, but I don't have time to resize them, I have to go finish my ceiling!

Funny item of the day: Apparently I drink a lot of coffee. Katie has decided that she needs to have some, and horsies drink coffee when they are very thirsty. I never knew. Charlie has been deprived!

So far, so good.

Everybody showed up to help this morning, and things went even better than I'd expected. We just used the extra help to get the 3 big boards up, then Jeremy and I did the rest. I do have one small piece by the furnace chimney that I should re-cut, but that won't take long, and it's something I can manage alone.

Cut this hole for the light. In the right place. On the first try.
And we didn't break any boards. Hooray! Of course, that means we have an extra. A big one. 4' x 12'. Not sure what that'll become. Not even sure where I'm going to put it. Maybe I'll give it to Ruth, they're not finished with their basement yet.

All done, and looking rather good, if I do say so myself. Tomorrow brings spackle and primer, Paint on Monday, I hope. Then I can get everything moved back in and have a hallway and a bedroom again!

Again with the wrong orientation.

Poor little Bug is so tired from her late night yesterday and an early morning today, and she crawled into bed and I haven't heard from her since! I'm going to have to wake her so we can go to town and get more supplies.

Carnage

I have no pictures of carnage. We were too busy working and I didn't want to get fiberglass on my camera.

First things first, I've got some thank yous to make public. HUGE thanks to Jeremy, without whom I would still be tearing up linoleum. Huge thanks to Ruth for keeping Katie for me while we're working. And big thanks to my parents for making me sit through hours and hours of mind numbing home renovation shows every weekend for the first 20 years of my life. You'd almost think I know what I'm doing here.

Today, we worked for 8 hours, not including the time that Katie and I spent at the dump and picking up new materials. Temperature outside today topped out at about 31C/87F according to the weather page, and while I don't think it ever got quite as hot indoors, it was plenty warm enough. Especially when we were wearing long sleeved shirts, long pants, closed up shoes, face masks and safety glasses. Because we did insulation today. Jeremy tore down the old stuff while I made lunch for Katie, and then she went to bed and I got to work too. We got the new stuff cut and put up and new plastic covering it and it looks fantastic. We also discovered some more work that needs done this summer, but it's easier accessed from outside and it was in the plans already.

And look! My wall is finished! Really, it is. You just can't see it behind those ginormous pieces of sheet rock. 4' x 12'. Means less spackle for me. Also means that I have 4 people coming tomorrow for an hour to help put it up. Desperately hoping it doesn't take any longer than that. Desperately hoping. There are 6 pieces, 3 will go on without being cut (except a light hole needs to come out of one), and I'm not sure we'll use more than 2 for the rest of it, but we'll see. I may have to get out another drill. If anyone feels sorry for me, you're welcome to come help too. We start at 8.

No kid pictures today, we're both too tired. We did stop at the fair for a little while and saw the chuck wagon races. Tomorrow we'll have to go back and get some video. She was so excited about the "horsie running!" In further kid news, we are getting lots of full sentences these days. Very fun.

Day 3

Why is Hugs smiling so big?Because there are 2 little kids loving on him!

Is it only day 3? I guess day 4 if you count the whirlwind trip to IKEA. We took the morning off. Trey came to play for a few hours while his Mom & Dad were in the city, and we all had a great time.

Katie loves having her friends over to play.

Made good progress on the addition after Trey went home and Katie went to nap at Grandma's house. Jeremy got the ceiling torn down (2 layers of it!), and we discovered that it's worse than we'd thought so we're going to have to replace the insulation. So that'll set us back a day or two and it'll leave me painting solo, as Jeremy leaves for camp in a couple days. Hopefully we can get the insulation & ceiling board up by then, but I don't see why not. We also got the old linoleum torn up off the floor.
Here's what I did. Besides phoning people about insulation and sheetrock and carpet and linoleum. We'll use the leftover bits of insulation from the ceiling in there to help with the soundproofing.

I think Andrew's excited at the prospect of all this work being done before he gets home, but it's not as though I can be tearing the ceiling apart while he's working in there. And I certainly couldn't have been hammering the closet apart when he's on the phone. Which is all the time. I'm excited to have it done too, even with the little bit that we've accomplished so far, the room has a much different feel to it. It's fantastic.

Stay tuned. Tomorrow morning I have to go to the dump to empty the old ceiling and flooring out of my truck so that I can put the sheetrock and insulation in. Katie's going to Costco with Grandma (I am going to owe her big time by the time we're done!) and Jeremy and I are going to tear out the old insulation and hopefully get the new stuff in. Should be tons of fun! Then I'm taking off a few hours in the evening and going riding at the Squair S (that's where Charlie is.).

Baby steps.

First, the requisite toddler picture.

She wants to share an onion ring with you.
But she only wants to share because she stole it from me to begin with. Little thief.

This little beauty is growing up through a crack in my sidewalk near where I had petunias in a planter box last year.

And now, on with the renos.

Here we are partway through the shelf building. Not terribly difficult, but millions of pieces, so it took a long time.

Finished!
Except, as you can see if you look closely, it's missing 3 shelves. Yes, that's right. When you try to add up what boxes you need in your head instead of on paper, you come up short. 12 shelf boxes does not equal 12 shelves. It equals 15 shelves. But we have to go get new coat racks anyway, since I'm building a wall right through the middle of the old one.

And the missing shelves thing works out, because I have lost one of these doo-dads. It's a little silicone plug that fits in so the shelves don't crack, I guess. Anyway, I'm short by one. At least I managed to keep the other 89. (15 x 6 - 1)

I have some spare parts. Not sure why the orientation came out this way, weird. If anyone has any need for 13 (and counting) IKEA wrenches, let me know. We have to keep one for the time being, because Katie likes to pack the "fing" around and be a "hupper". Also have 7 straps to fasten furniture to the wall. Sorry, don't think I need nine of the silly things to fasten down a set of shelves in a room where small children never go unattended. I did put 2 on. Just in case.

Now the important part:

Andrew's office space as of this morning. Poor guy. Immediately to the left of that shelf is a closet that we don't use except for to store junk we don't need to keep. So I ripped it out. Or, more accurately, I hired the teenager who mows our grass to rip it out.
He says "it doesn't feel right taking apart someone's house." See the gap where you can see through to the kitchen? That's where I'm building the wall. Until now, it's had a curtain across it with a board behind so Bailey couldn't get through. That's where she sleeps at night. Since I took the photo, I have managed to get the ceiling and floor there down to bare wood and nailed in 2 pieces of 2x4 (header & footer, right?) to start the new wall. I think the ceiling must be made from petrified wood though, because I spent 10 minutes pounding on the last nail and it's still sticking out 1/4 inch. Maybe screws and a power drill are in order. Air nailer? Is that a bit over-kill for a 36.5 inch wall?

This corner is where Andrew's office space will be after I'm done. Under the window, where he can have good natural light and not feel like he's in a cave all the time. And where he won't have to stretch his cell phone booster across the room anymore.

Minus shelving and closet. That shelf that's still there is going into Katie's room, I think. Or it'll be for Andrew since the desk I bought doesn't have any drawers. (Have to save room for his legs.)

So far, so good. A little behind the schedule I wanted to keep, but I'm pleased with the progress so far. The ceiling is coming down as well, but I have discovered that it is solid underneath the sagging cardboard tiles, so it shouldn't be difficult to spruce up with some sheet rock. Hoping to get this all done (at least Andrew's corner!) before he gets home again and needs that space to work in.

An ongoing project.

The last big project left in our house is the addition. We need to redo the ceiling (and re-seal some of the roof), paint the walls, build a little bit of wall, redo the flooring and maybe get a door for it. Lots of things to do, and that's my project for the week because I'm tired of looking at it. The whole room is in a constant state of "when we get to it" and it's draining.

So I'm doing something about it. First, I had to clean out the basement so that we will have a place to put all the stuff that we're just storing in the addition. See that giganto TV box in the back of my truck? The one for the TV we don't have anymore? It's full of other boxes and jars that we can't use and various other things we don't need. There's also a smaller box in the truck that you can't really see. The basement looks great comparatively, but you won't see any pictures because it's still the basement, and it's still not pretty.

Then I needed new shelves. We do have a lot of wood shelves, but since the basement takes on water in the spring and occasionally after a heavy rain, we don't really want to put wood down there. The shelves aren't going to be sitting in water, but they'll probably get a bit damp on the bottom. So a trip to IKEA was in order. I knew that I wouldn't be able to fit everything in my car with Katie in there too, so she got to stay and play with Trey while I went to the city.

You can't see it very well in this picture, but my poor car was riding quite low in the back end.

And this is why.

I figured if I was going to go without a carseat, then I may as well take advantage of the situation.

The four big boxes. A desk, an office chair, a dresser, and some flooring from the as-is pile to put under the dryer instead of the carpet we're going to put in the other room. This pile doesn't look all that impressive until you realize that the flooring is 4.5 feet long.

Plus 24 little boxes for the shelves.
And various other small things I picked up as well.

Who needs a truck?