Happy Hallo-WEINER!

Ta Da! Finally, Some Pictures of Our Kitchen!!

Well, after working on it for a year, here are some pictures of what my kitchen looks like. And we are still not finished! The door in picture # 3 needs to be primed and painted white - same color as the trim. A couple things are actually just primed and not painted. We'd also like to strip paint off the door knob and lock as well as the hinges on the door in picture # 4. There is a door that is on a built in cupboard (last picture) that needs to be repainted and put back, but I want to put chicken wire in place of where they used to have ugly painted plastic. You'll see when I'm done. :-)

By the way - do you see those lovely flowers? They are courtesy of my loving husband. He even picked them himself at his golf course.

Garden & Yard stuff

I picked our first big purple pepper (we had one earlier this summer - I think it was kind of a freak thing...) We've also harvested our garlic (which was volunteer! We didn't even know what it was until earlier this summer. Good thing we didn't hit it with the weed whacker! I'm even inspired to grow more garlic for next year! Yumm. We can't get enough garlic bread. No vampires in this house!I bet Aaren won't be able to recognize this tree! Yes, little bro - this is one that you propogated in college last spring. We brought it over to the big house last summer and it was in a pot (it even lasted over the winter in there) until about June or so and we transplanted it. It apparently is very happy where it is. It doesn't hurt that we water it every so often. We have it staked so it doesn't flop around.We've also seen some unusual bugs. Check out this spider...He's about 2 inches long and was in some weeds I wanted to pull by our garage. Yeah, I just left the weeds there and left him alone. I went back a week after I took this picture and he had a big puffy marshmallow-like thing he was about to dine on for supper...
Also, here is the biggest praying mantis I have ever seen (though I haven't seen too many, and most of them have been babies less than a centimeter long). He was happy in my petunia containers I have by the front door. I hope I didn't blind him with that bright flash and his big buggy eyes. But isn't he cute?? :-)
We also edged all of our sidewalks - a very big task since they hadn't ever been edged and we have a corner lot. We also have one sidewalk running from the house to the garage - I think it doubled in width overnight! It had been covered by so much grass!

Projects and More Projects

That seems to be the theme for the past year, and will probably be for several more! But some of these projects are small, so I haven't showed them to you! Well, here they are:

Clouds in the bathroom - I had to do something to make that popcorn ceiling pretty. Here are a couple views from the toilet...Stripping the drawers in the kitchen - Yummy. By the way, Citristrip works wonderful!!We cleaned the entry way! Yeay! Our Paint Cans have a home in our basement now!

How Many Millers Does it Take to Install A Ceiling Fan?

The answer is Two!

I started taking out the old light fixture in our "What will be the Office/Now Living Room". The previous homeowners left a couple ceiling fans they never installed, so we figured that with all this heat and lack of A/C it would be beneficial to our sanity to install them..Yeah. Right.
First, I found out that they had not only painted the old light fixture to the ceiling, but someone had also plastered in the old fixture box. We had to chip away at it with a razor knife for several hours, but we still managed to have lots of plaster fall down on top of us. Then it was Keith's turn, as he has more experience with electricity...wait. I take that back. HIS nickname isn't "Sparky." That is why he was in charge of the electrical components of this project. :-) (I have a knack for finding live wires...)So, he worked on installing the fan, while I made sure we followed instructions. This was on Day 2 of the project, as we had to get a medallion to cover the big cracks in the ceiling. Notice the sweat on my face - yeah. THAT is why I wanted this think installed, but figured we'd have it in before we hit probably the hottest day of the summer. The heat index was 113 degrees that day.But now if it ever gets hot again, we can just flip the switch and "poof" air is circulating!

The Big One Didn't Get Away!

We finally found a good fishing hole, not too far from Mendon in the middle of a farmer's ground. Cute little lake about 1 acre big and far enough from everything there is hardly any cell phone reception! It kind of reminds me of a Bob Ross painting - lots of happy little trees, and the lake is very clean. The whole gang went fishing one Sunday (a few weeks ago, actually - I'm a little behind!) including the nieces and nephew!

I caught the first, but Keith probably caught the most and definitely the biggest! Last fish of the day was a 5 or 6 pound catfish. He was trying to get some crappie on his smallest pole with 4 pound test, so it was quite a surprise for him! It took him about 15-20 minutes to real it in, and even then he had to jump in the water to make sure it got on land!
Sarah has learned how to cast. We went fishing a gain last weekend (though not the succes the other day was) and she has even graduated to a big grown up pole!We brought lots of fishies home that weekend and cleaned them. We ate them up last night. Yum.

My New Ride

Since Frenchie has been getting awfully ill in the past few months, we decided against paying his hospital bills yet again and sprang for a new vehicle. You know, it's a good think Keith hasn't decided that he's had enough of paying for my hospital bills... And yes, mom & dad, I am feeling much better after getting out last week. :-) Though I wasn't feeling so good about the mess I came home to after getting out, however I will say that this time it wasn't as bad as other times I have come out of the hospital. Someday Keith just may be trained well enough to survive on his own!

Anyway, I purchased a new car...err...vehicle. For those of you unhip to know what it is, it's a '06 Scion xB. Basically it's what you get when you mate a Toyota Camry with a Toaster. It's a 5 speed and is very zippy around town (though it was some work to get through the drive through at McDonalds this morning...) has a CD Player (that plays mp3s!), fold down seats so you can probably fit in a 9 foot kayak (no kidding...) and Keith's favorite part - the SUNROOF/MOONROOF! I never realized why people request them, but after driving to work with it open the past few days (jamming to the CDs...) I can now understand. It's like a pre work party all by myself. I've found that I am much more productive this week. :-) And don't worry about me leaving it open during the day - the thing is so smart it knows to shut the sunroof when I take the keys out of the ignition.

I don't think I mentioned the best part, either! It's supposed to get 35 mpg highway/31 mpg city. Yeay!

Yes, I know some people will think it's just the stupidest looking thing I could drive, but we think they're kind of cute. Our sales lady said they refer to them as "Toasters." I think some day I'm going to have to get some personalized plates for it, becuase it it just screaming out for one!

4th of July

(Yes, this is a little late, but Shhh!)

For the Fourth of July, we didn't do too much - we drove to a nearby town and I accompanied some vocalists from Quincy Community Theatre. A little dissapointed I only had 24 hours to learn a dozen songs. Didn't do that great of a job. Oh well! Afterwards, we went to Reed & Amberley's and we lit of some fireworks. It was lots of fun. Ruthie did not come with us, because we discovered (thanks to our neighbors) she does not like miscellaneous loud bangs! We had many kinds - I think the green bamboo was my favorite. The girls Also had Sparklers! Their family all looked so cute in their matching outfits. Very patriotic!!

Lots of pictures for you!

I've got some more pictures for everyone! Here's some pictures of Quincy. These were taken a week ago - can you believe the water has gone up several feet since then? Tomorrow I'll see if we can get some good pictures as the river is going to crest tomorrow.

Last night we drove the motorcycle down to a drive-in movie theatre! Neither of us had been to one, so Keith thought it would be fun to go! He actually surprised me - I knew we were going somewhere, but I didn't figure out what it was until Thursday afternoon. We watched the new Indiana Jones movie. Here's pictures of me and the Ural last night:

Ack! Someone stole my pony tail!! And replaced it with Helmet Head!!

One last thing - today we planted a tree my brother Aaren gave me last summer - he had propogated the corkscrew willow in a college horticulture class. It lived through the winter in it's pot and now we have found a good place to put it. Also, this afternoon I picked my first Radish! It was quite hot. But good!

Flood

Just wanted to let everyone know, that even with the flooding on the Mississippi, we should be OK, as we live on the highest point in the county. :-) Keith's golf course is high enough, it won't be affected, though I've heard that if the levee breaks down below them, you can watch it from the shop and watch the trees just disappear...

The office I work at is only 1.3 miles from the River, but our Levee is at 37' and did not break in '93. The river is expected to crest at 32' (or that's what I last heard) - the same height it did in '93. The levee on the Missouri side is, I think they said 35', so if anything , it will break on the Missouri side. The road I drive to work on every day is closed at the moment, probably from flooding. I'll try to take a camera tomorrow and maybe be dorky enough to take pictures.

Lots of people are sandbagging - the parking lot for the Oakley Lindsey Center (where Keith's play was at...) looks like a beach. Lots of dump trucks of sand going every where around town.

We have two bridges going from Quincy, IL to West Quincy, MO. They shut down the one bridge, so they now have the one bridge - one lane of traffic going both directions. I have one coworker who lives in Missouri. Apparently after the big levee broke in 1993, the waters came within 7-8 feet of their house. Let's hope that some idiot doesn't break it again this time... Apparently some guy broke the levee in hopes of making sure his wife wouldn't come home that night. Yeah. He's supposedly in jail right now.

Obama was in town yesterday to do some wonderful PR work... I guess he filled a couple sandbags, but not much else.

Prince has a plant in Marion, IA - which is pretty much connected to Cedar Rapids. They are on higher ground and were OK, and most employees were safe as well. However, there was only one route for trucks to get in on Friday, but it was definitely better than none!!!

If you want to keep tabs on everything in Quincy, the NBC station here is http://www.wgem.com/

Catching up!

I just realized I haven't written anything here for over a month. Oops.

Anyway, we've been busy finishing up the kitchen. I've got one good day of touching up paint, and some cleaning and I'll post some pictures. It looks absolutely beautiful! We've also just got some finishing touches on the bathroom ceiling. Perhaps I should finish that this afternoon and clean it, so you can at least see that! It's cute!

We've also been working on the outside of the house. I have some flowers in baskets on the porch, so it doesn't loook so bare and sad. And at least when you look at the porch, your eye goes to the flowers before the peeling paint... I'm quite disappointed, though, that I don't have any hummingbirds yet.

We have had several birds at our regular feeder. We've found that if we feed Safflower seeds, we keep the starlings away and the Cardinals love them. So do the house finches.

I think the birds are staying away from my garden! I've got a couple tomatoes (one of which is blooming), a couple pepper plants - one orange and I've already got a pepper started on the purple plant! My onions seem to be very happy, as well as my radishes! I am very surprised at my success so far, as Reed seems to be having problems getting stuff in his garden (it was a really wet spring) and it's my first year for the garden, and I dind't amend the soil at all. I have a compost bin started for this fall, though!

Our yard is looking better all the time! We sprayed the dandelions and Keith brought home a roller to flatten out the bumps. It looks much better now.

Here are some pictures of Katie, Sarah & J.T. They were taking on Memorial Day. I think they get cuter every day! J.T. has gotten so big! He is starting to say things, but we can't quite get him to say "Aunt Karen", let alone "Uncle Knucklehead." This past week, they have been busy picking Strawberries! Amberley has got quite a patch! I took a couple buckets full and made some freezer jam. YUMMY!

Quakes and Dogs and Tulips, Oh My!!

First things first. No, we did not feel the first earthquake that hit Southern Illinois (we slept through our first earthquake!), but I felt what was the 2nd earthquake or an aftershock last Friday morning (Keith was on a mower, so he didn't feel a thing). The only way I felt that one was because I was staring at my monitor and it started shaking back and forth - woo, did it make me dizzy!

Since last Wednesday, we have been dogsitting Meg & April, Amberley & Reed's two dogs. Oh what fun they are... We have had a few issues with poop & urine from someone - well, I think all of the critters in the house. Just not enough toilets for all of us, I guess.

Our anniversary was last Wednesday. We played minigolf, and ate out and then got some custard ice cream - yummy! Look at these beautiful flowers from my mom & dad. They are tulips - they remembered what flowers we had at our wedding!



There are lots of tulips and flowers blooming around here, including the dogwood trees. They are so pretty! We mowed our lawn for the first time today, and I will say that even as crappy as it looks, I think it looks better than when we moved in!! Today it was so nice we drove the motorcycle to Hannibal to wander down their down town. I forgot how much reaction we get from people! It is kind of fun to see their smile get even bigger when Keith honks his A-UUU-ga horn!

We're getting closer!

So, we are getting closer to possibly kinda finishing the kitchen. We're starting to work on the smaller details, like putting the plates on the electrical outlets, cleaning up some trim, cutting some quarter round for around the trim, etc. Today I primed the built-in cabinet in the kitchen. I won't let you have any peeks at it until I'm done. It will be a beautiful surprise!! :-) But we do have a couple things to show you! We finally found some stools for our island. Perhaps now we can eat there instead of our couch... (our "dining table" is currently holding Keith's computer - and if it was in the kitchen, it would just be in the way for painting, etc... Aren't the stools cute? What's even better was the price - they were Clearanced @ Shopko for $18 a piece. Yeay!! They're pretty comfy too - lots of room for a big butt.

Also, we got this light up in the corner of the room. We're not quite sure why there was a light there to begin with, but we found one to put here instead of just covering it up.

Work's starting to speed up for Keith, though the past couple days have not been good for growing grass - it snowed both yesterday and today, but not enough to stick. It's supposed to be in the 70s by the end of this week, though! Prince sponsored Karaoke at another Country Club (yes, there are three in town...) and we went to that. Had a fun time, and Keith sang a couple songs. He managed to not embarass himself too bad so I can still face my coworkers on Monday morning. It was also nice to hang out with my coworkers, my boss & the spouses - especially since my boss was out all week. He had a heart attack last weekend - he is only 48, & plays raquetball three times a week, so it was quite a surprise!!

Anyway, I need to take a shower. I got a lot of paint in my hair so it looks like I'm an old lady. :-)

We've got internet!

Keith & I finally got internet this weekend. It's still very slow, but it is better than nothing. We've spent the past day or so updating our computers because we were so behind on everything!!

Well, I said I would have pictures up by Monday - hee hee. I didn't say WHICH Monday! I just haven't had time while I was at work, and a couple days I forgot the USB cable to hook my camera up to the computer. But here are pictures of the bathroom. We've still got to paint the ceiling and put up the molding around the top. We'll get that done after we're done with the kitchen. By the way - check out my caulking job! I have found a new talent!

We're still working on the kitchen. We got sick of painting (after 4 coats + 2 coats of primer) and finally went to another brand of paint. We are finishing that up this afternoon. Jesse, I think you've got us converted to Benjamin Moore paint. It's quite spendy (though I flirted with the guy at the paint store enough to give us a 10% discount on paint since we've got a lot of rooms left) but it's SOOOO worth it. Hopefully soon we'll get the trim done and I will have finished pictures!!!

Here's some pictures from JT's first birthday. What a cutie (though slightly messy in these pictures!)

Weather has been quite rainy down here, but no flooding, but this weekend was nice. Everybody's yard seems to be perking up - ours is, well, quite weedy and bumpy. We'll have to work on that some year, but I imagine it will be a couple before the yard looks halfway decent. We decided to start taking down the apple trees in our yard. They are in a weird spot and were never trimmed properly so they are diseased. They didn't give us any apples last year, so we don't know what kind they are. But after one cut, our chainsaw decided to poop out. Oops. I guess we've got a project for next weekend. :-)

Critters are doing OK. Ruthie is excited the weather is nice so she can play out side more. We've been watching the birds at our bird feeder. Just today we saw robins, pigeons, blackbirds, grackels, red-headed finches, chickadees and who knows what else. I need to get a bird book so I can figure out what they are... Hopefully the goldfinches will be here soon. Randy is also watching them out our windows. And speaking of Randy, someone feels bad that the doll house I used as a kid isn't being used any more. Or maybe he likes the color pink. ??