Kite

Noah insisted on buying Brian a kite for his birthday.  As if a 36 year old is just dying to have a fun little kite to fly, but at only $2.50, I indulged my little shopping helper.  Since we were on vacation the whole week before Brian's birthday, we did our shopping before we left town, allowing 8 days for Noah to ruin the surprise.  It only took about 10 minutes for that to happen...  "Daddy, daddy, we get to fly the kite on Noah and daddy day!  It has Spiderman on it because boys like Spiderman and you're a boy and I'm a boy, so we can fly it together on Noah and daddy day!"  Somehow Noah still seemed to think that there would be a surprise because the kite was in wrapping paper and hidden in the closet.
With the intense wind we get in Rochester, it seems logical that a kite would be fun.  We took it out this weekend when we had to be gone for a house showing.  The package indicated that it was intended for 5-15 mph wind.  What??!  Our wind is never lower than 5 mph!  I thought kites were built for windy days!  It was much closer to 25 mph when we were out, so the kite was quite strained as it was flown.  I kept expecting it to pop off the string or have some other catastrophic failure, but it didn't.  Overall, it was fun, but our attention span was only about 10 minutes for kite flying (maybe due to the stress of expecting a catastrophic failure?).  Maybe on a calm day, we could last longer!
The baseball field seemed to be a good choice for flying our Spiderman since there weren't any power lines or trees or anything else to cause issues.  I can't believe it's still winter and we got sunburned while flying kites and playing outside all day!
There has been mention of a princess kite for my upcoming birthday - girls like princesses!  I hope the adult shopper helps steer the enthusiastic young one... one kite is enough for this family!  We'll wait for a calmer day and try again.

Barnacle Bill's

Last weekend when we had to be out of the house for a showing, we took Noah down to a secret little place that we haven't visited in awhile.  I'm pretty sure we hiked there in the spring when Noah was a baby and he screamed in our ears the whole time we hiked around the area.  I was "almost there" last year when we had a bike team ride that did the gravel road and hills that leads down to this area - tough ride!  In the picture, Noah is actually throwing rocks into the "road".  There is a Jeep road that goes through the creek (do you call it that??) and up the hill on the opposite side.  Noah seemed to enjoy the outing.  I think throwing rocks into water is one of his favorite activities!  We found a patch of ice up on the north slope of the big hill, so we didn't get too far.  We didn't have to be gone too long and were driving by a few properties of interest (in the event we sell our house), so the visit was short.  When you have the attention span of a preschooler, and it's getting close to lunch time, that doesn't really matter too much.  I'm starting to really like having house showings on the weekends, they force us to go out and do something fun away from our house for about an hour each.  More trips to the Bill Barnacle Forest Unit helps with our opinion of living in Rochester...

Stripping Part 2

We found out that the temperature wasn't the cause of the chemical stripper not working optimally as described here.  Brian pulled in the power tools and with proper safety equipment took the door out onto the driveway and made a big mess shaveing/sanding all the paint off the frame and panels, leaving only the recesses surrounding the panels as problem areas.

You see that lovely wood grain?!

 We found that exact-o knives and the aptly-named "razor scraper" to be most effective.  Should have purchased one of these, or similar for the job!  My hand got worked from the effort.  Of course, the amount of control on a long handled scraper might be much less, and I was working in tight areas for the last bit.

Working in the panel recesses is the only hard part remaining.

 This is how I spent most of Saturday...

My camera-man was being clever with the ineffective chemical can as a "label"!

 The door is within sight of done with the stripping stage.  When Brian finished his attempt with the chemical, he came in and immediately looked to see what the cost of a new door would be.  They don't sell "fancy" doors like ours without the frame, and it took quite a bit of work to make the door we have fit the frame that's in there.  If we had done this much earlier in the process (before trim, for example), we might have just bought and installed a completely new door.  Design build isn't always what it's cracked up to be.  We have a dozen steps left... Brian has decided we'll put in a new door knob, so he has to patch up a few places in the door to make that work and look good.  We're shooting for getting the final sign-off on our permit before it expires/needs to get extended in April (or we'll pick up the pace if we get a purchase offer!!!).

Yes, I work in whatever I happen to be wearing - busy moms don't have time to change their clothes for every occasion.  My jean skirt happened to be on the top of my jeans pile and it was nice enough to go for it!  Since I had a skirt, I picked a blouse to complete the look ;)  Don't mind those winter white legs, it's still officially winter!!  

While I was scraping, Brian was also working on the door some.  Noah was playing in the front yard, mostly entertaining himself and doing a very nice job of it.  We each took breaks to check on him and play with him some.  Noah went in for a morning break/snack and made himself a cup of warm milk with chocowate. all. by. himself.  Okay, he did come out and ask if someone would help him reach the chocolate in the fridge.  

Noah giving his "street skweeper" a car wash, playing in the front yard in his Thomas undies!

He also took charge of his clothing situation throughout the day.  He peeled off his pants, socks and shoes when they got wet during the car washing.  After a bit, he wanted to jump in the driveway puddles that formed when he sprayed lots of water, so he asked if he could take all his clothes off, so they wouldn't get wet.  I told him where his swim trunks were and he went up to his room, found the swim trunks, and put them on (as well as taking off his shirt).  I was amazed how much he is able to do for himself!  Now, if only we could get him trained to put the clothes that are peeled off into the proper basket!  He did get the dishes cleaned up after one of his snacks this weekend too - right into the sink where it belonged was acceptable to leave it.    

Veggie Crate

 I saw this little crate full of veggies in one of my magazines (either Organic Gardening or Mother Earth News). It was so cute, and I had some lath left over from my Christmas gift making that I thought I should just go build myself one.

This is it.  It kind of needs to sit outside for a few months to get nicely seasoned, but otherwise, it came out great!  It was so quick and easy to throw together.  Now, what can I put in it?  Hmm, need to plant a garden so I can use it the same way I saw it shown...

Floor work

Our main level is on the list for some TLC.  When we first saw this house, the floors were one of it's finest features.  Unfortunately, the previous owners has strategically placed rugs and furniture.  I'm not sure how much you will be able to tell in the before and after pictures, I can't see it very clearly.  These are very nice looking floors when you keep your face a long ways away!  When you get down and look carefully, there are scratches and gouges and weird spots where the stain didn't go on very evenly or where the poly bubbled up.  The wood is pine, so it's fairly soft for being in such a high traffic area.

We took one of our "between major projects" weeks and cleaned up the entry and living room floors with a good scraping/sanding and a fresh coat of poly.

Before

During

Working hard

The bubbles in the old poly had to get scraped off with a paint scraper, it was one of those cases of "it looks a lot worse before it looks better".  Brian manned the sandpaper and I worked the scraper.  This is a "rustic" floor and it has the old-school nails.  All those nail-heads make it so we couldn't use the power-tools methods here.  I bet Super Jim could actually have done a good job with this (he's our very trustworthy and excellent wood flooring guy, Noah added the Super to his name!), but we do like to practice a little DIY whenever feasible.

After

It made a nice improvement!  We'll definitely be able to keep this floor off the "do something about it" list for another few years after that treatment.  

May 2011