“Group hug!” - Helmet Head

As you may know from all the hype, “Star Wars” recently had its 30-year anniversary. I was seven when that film came out and I remember going to see it in the theater. When my Aunt Barb, with whom my sister and I were deposited as usual that summer, told us what movie we were going to see, I remember thinking, “‘Star Wars?’ How do stars go to war?”

Flash forward thirty years to Kevin digging around under the house and unearthing an old Star Wars action figure, complete with sweet-embraceable-you arms and two black eyes. He’s a groovy retro addition to my otherwise modern collection. (Hey, Jesus on rollerskates is modern.)

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I am at two with Nature. - Woody Allen

I went to buy flowers for Kevin for his birthday and what should I find but a two-headed daisy - perfect for a Gemini.

This was intended to be yesterday’s Rib Eye photo, but I underestimated how long a little painting project would take. (Ain’t that always the way?)

I decided I wanted to have a magnetic chalk board painted on the wall over my art table in the stampatarium (a Kevinism for what normal people call an office). I hate bulletin boards but want some where to tack up aesthetic inspirations and scribble my brilliant notions.

The area of wall is only 5′ by 3′, but to make it smooth enough to write on we had to sand it, which meant we had to remove all electronics from the room. (We learned this the hard way when we left a printer uncovered on a closet shelf when the wood floors got refinished… anyone handy with refurbishing electronics?)

Then we had to sand…and sand…and sand. Sanding has to be in the top five most boring activities on the planet, right after watching paint dry. Not that I actually did any of the sanding; the respirator only fits Kevin. But its not like I got away with anything - while he sanded, I got to clean the bathroom which is still in the top ten.

Anyway. After sanding, then we got to paint…and watch it dry…and paint…and watch it dry…and paint. The chalk board paint didn’t go on until this morning and I really hope one coat is all it needs because any more painting and I’ll be in a coma.

We finally got all the electronics set up again around 11:00 am. I was only without the internet for about 24 hours, but I was as nervous as a junkie left on a deserted island.

I’ll post today’s photo later- right now I have to go check on Kevin. The stomping and swearing has stopped, which means he’s either finished assembling the bedstead or is building a large bonfire in our bedroom.

Photo: Mutant Gerbera happy birthday daisy, 05/27/07 11:30 am

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Got wood?

Sorry for the radio silence this weekend, but I was in Kevinsylvania playing with his power tools. Actually, just one particular tool.

Now after a couple days of playing around, I’m sore, Kevin’s wood is soft, and we’re both very satisfied.

What?

We sanded and stained the bedstead Kevin built, my arm is sore from holding the sander for hours, and we like how the bed turned out.  Obvi!

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Dr. Thompson’s Eye Water

Apparently when we bought our house, the inspector we hired missed the fact that there is a drainage problem in our crawl space, and that our sump pump doesn’t pump rain water out so much as recycle it.

Fixing this mess has required the following exciting weekend activities for the past two months: removing our entire back deck (sawing through pressure-treated wood, fun!), excavating the crawl space from the outside, digging a trench the length of our yard, and laying pipe (ha ha, she said laying pipe) in it and then pouring gravel over that. Now we get to poke around in the bowels of the crawlspace to direct said laid pipe (shut up, you!), as well as pour a concrete wall.

Whaddaya mean “we,” woman?

Did I say we? I meant he. Kevin gets every iota of credit for all of this husbandry. He’s doing everything himself; all I’ve done to assist is 2 short back-breakiing hours of shoveling gravel. (Not to interject too much buff bloggery, but shoveling heavy loads is great for the shoulders and lats, but hell on the lower back until you get the hang of it…)

Cool silver-lining of otherwise tedious unfunness: We now have a steadily growing collection of rust-covered wrenches, pipes, wires, and unidentifiable metal parts, most of them probably circa 1942, the year our house was built. One man’s junk is an anthropologist’s treasure… Eye Water, anyone?

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That’s what I get for thinking!

What I Did This Weekend
Spent most of Saturday sitting on my ass, uploading images to my flckr account and blog, and generally reveling in my newfound geekitude. Took a brief respite from the ‘puter to go see the new Pixar film Cars - more time spent indoors in darkness, but hey, I was already in Gollum mode so I hardly noticed. However, Sunday saw another side of me entirely.

In the morning, Kevin and I went for a 22-mile bike ride along the Cedar River Trail. Gorgeous weather, great scenery, good workout, followed by a hearty brunch of breakfast sausage and french toast. Magnifique!

Then Kevin and I took a stroll through the back yard, and everything changed. It started out as a simple idea (mine) to slightly ensmallen the herb garden and embiggen the patio for a small outdoor grill. This way while one of us (him) makes dinner on the grill, the other (me) can lounge in the hot tub without getting smoke in her eyes. Genius, yes?

Yes, genius - except that because himself is an engineer, if we are going to change one thing, we thus must change a whole shitload of other things, because that is The Most Efficient Way. So my innocent little idea for a two-foot square grill nook turned into putting in not only said patio, but also pipe from the herb garden and around the garage for irrigation to the vegetable garden, as well as extending our hot tub porch ten feet.

Uh. OK. Sooooooooo….

… Grab the garden shoes, What Would Joan Jett Do? T-shirt, and workin’ gloves - time to bust a move on some shit in the backyard. Four hours of the lovely Sunday afternoon were spent on the first stages of the new Grill-Patio-Gone-Apeshit-Project, ripping out pavers, digging out dirt, and taking down a decrepit, rotting gate behind our garage.

(Aside: to this day, I am still puzzled why anyone would build a ten-foot gate between the backside of a garage and a fence, where nobody but possums and racoons ever go. I mean, I know the previous owner of our house had a dog, but it was, like, a 10-inch tall poodle-mix thing that couldn’t jump a cinderblock. Baffling.)

In any case, we hope to have most of the project done before we go to Europe. For a smattering of pictures of the weekend’s accomplishments, check out my photos on Flickr. More to come!

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