Intersecting, Angled Planes

Just thinking about them makes my head hurt. Looking at them makes it hurt even worse.

This morning, I thought I'd work on trying to finish out the framing on the vaulted ceiling we are putting in upstairs. It's a nightmare.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Target Practice

With all the huge gun and related social debates raging in America today, we have our own little gun debate going on at our house. Joe, being a typical boy, loves toy guns. He can make an amazing machine-gun sound effect. And, like most boys, he loves the idea of fighting 'the bad guys'. However, I find it a little hard to stomach when he pretends one of his sisters is a 'bad guy' and unloads on her with his finger and sound effects. "Joe, it is not okay to shoot your sister." "But it's okay to shoot bad guys, right?" "No, it's not," I tell him. "The bad guys need a chance to become good." And I remind him how Darth Vader was a seemingly irredeemable bad guy that chose good in the end.

Not to be deterred from his desire to fight the forces of evil, he came up with a satisfactory alternative to people to use his Nerf gun on: The mindless, soulless zombie.



Joe's Zombie

I rather like his creative use of the red marker, smacking it hard on the paper to create a bloody splat effect.

Finley, having just received a Nerf-type bow with arrows for her birthday, decided to add some additional targets.

The Zombie Wall

One of Finley's Zombies

Shoot away, kids. If we ever do have that zombie apocalypse like the CDC warns against, I will be thrilled to have you there to protect me.

Kinder Camp!

Today was Zivah's first day at Kinder Camp. Kinder Camp is a program the school has to help kids get ready for Kindergarten. I woke up in the wee hours of the morning thinking about all the things I needed to tell Zivah before I dropped her off, such as, "If you need to go potty, shut the door to the bathroom." (The kids aren't so concerned about privacy here at home.) I wasn't too worried about her, though, as her teacher for camp was Joe's kindergarten teacher, who was fantastic.

When we went to pick her up after the four hours at school, Finley was very excited to see Zivah walking to the door. "Here she comes! Here she comes! ... I'm so glad to see you!" she exclaimed as she hugged Z nearly to death.

When asked what she did at Kinder Camp, Z responded, "We had to draw circles and sit in a line and got to eat sumping." She said she had fun and is genuinely excited to go back tomorrow.

Life keeps rollin' along...

The second story of a house without insulation can get pretty toasty on a late July day, but I've been braving the heat and drilling some holes for the electrical lines.

 I can only take so much at a time, though, and thought while I cool off, I'd better update the blog.

A few weeks back, while I was bush-hogging, the power steering went out on the tractor. We figured the seals had failed as fluid was squirting out from around the rod every time I turned the wheel. We bought all the seals, and I watched as Chris struggled to get the cylinder apart and back together again. We weren't exactly sure if we were putting it back together correctly, but turns out we must have, as it has been working fine ever since. It feels good to fix something on your own.

Finley and Zivah's birthdays were this past week, and I am ashamed to say that I haven't even made a cake for them yet this year. I was a little preoccupied with a project at church, among other things, but I plan to make one before the month is out. If I let it slide, and there are no blow-out-the-candles-on-the-birthday-cake photos, I will probably feel guilty for the rest of my life. Better late the never, right?

Lest you think I am a complete failure as a mother, I should point out that we did celebrate at the indoor 'Pump It Up' playground with the Nicholas cousins. The kids had a lot of fun.

Now that the sweat has dried, so I guess it's time to get back to it.
Until next time...

Steps for the Deck - among other things.

We finished the deck yesterday. We won't talk about all the angst this particular project created: the "discussions" Chris and I had about how to build the deck, the little problems that kept arising, and the worries we had (have) about how picky the inspector will be about certain things... I'm just glad it is done.

 The chickens better not even think about climbing those steps and leaving deposits.

Besides the back deck, we got the two showers set in place and the drains hooked up.

 

 The long weekend wasn't all work. It rained a lot on the 4th, so much so that our dry pond filled up and there were huge puddles and impromptu creeks throughout the property. The frogs emerged in all their glory, and after we got back from a cook-out, we spent at least two hours searching for frogs and fish and splashing through the water.

I love this picture of Z (and the frog). She carried that frog around for most of the time we were frog hunting, and only reluctantly let it go when the sun started to set. She asked he if it would be okay, and I assured her the frog would be perfectly happy playing with his other froggy friends and finding his own food to eat.

The Deck

We've been working hard for the past four days to get this deck put up. Saturday, we got the basic framing up. Sunday saw the floor joists, decking, and main rails in place. Monday, I screwed all of the decking down (as we had only tacked it here and there as we went), and today, I knocked the balusters out.

I did have a little help this morning. Joe and Finley helped me cut the balusters to size. (You can click on their names to see a video of them using the chop saw.)

Now all we need are the steps.

Oh, and everyone needs one of these to make things easy:

Chris surprised me one day when he came home from work and gave me my very own impact driver. Now, that's what I call romance.