It's Starting Again.

We are once again doing renovations around this dumphole we call a home. It started when the neighbors cut down all the trees between our adjoining back yards. It has really changed the look (and temperature) of our house, not having all those trees for shade and privacy. We didn't do anything except complain about it and run the AC last summer, due to having a newborn, but now we're ready to make some changes. We met with a guy to get a patio cover put in over the living room slider, and today signed off on getting all the materials ordered. It'll be 14' by 23' and give us a nice outdoor space for eating and hanging out. He'll also pull down the dry rotted cover over the kitchen slider (which we are not replacing.) Our side gates are also broken and rotted, so those will be replaced as well, and then we need to get the entire house painted. And once all that is done, we'll have the back yard resodded and look into putting in some new trees on our side of the fence. We're also in the system to have our big trees trimmed by a local company, so that will hopefully happen in the next month or so. I continue to be concerned as to why our neighbors park under our big pine, rain or shine.

And we've even taken on a few projects inside the house. I bought curtains for our bedroom - you can't see in from the neighbors house, but the sun pouring in all day has really faded our carpet and comforter. So now we have some little sheers to hopefully keep everything from getting ruined any further. Tim installed them and I hemmed them. TEAMWORK!

(please ignore the piles - Thursday is laundry day.)

And here's a photo of our new dining room chairs.

I said it when we were redoing our kitchen, but after so many years of renting, it's such a revelation that if there's something we don't like about our house, we can change it. And that we're grown ups, so it means that we can change it by deciding to have nice things, not by scouring craigslist or waiting for a family friend to give us their old couch. I CAN PAINT THE WALLS AND THEN PUT HOLES IN THEM IF I DANG WELL CHOOSE! I CAN BUY AN EXPENSIVE PIECE OF FURNITURE AS LONG AS I MAKE PEACE WITH THE IDEA THAT A CHILD OR CAT IS GOING TO RUIN IT WITHIN MINUTES!

I can also have the worst looking yard on the block if I decide to make it so!

Anyhow. Here are some videos of recent amusement. The first is Ellie in the furniture section of her favorite store, JC Penny's. This is our second tour through "her home." The first time (which I wish I'd caught on camera) she turned the corner to the sale area and goes "oh look, I have two Christmas trees in my house!)

The second is Adam, climbing the stairs at Gigi's house. He is quite the little mover and shaker. And he loves his lambykins.