gideon changes persona’s daily. “today i’m the race car man.” and then, if you call for your race car man four hours later, he will indignantly reply, “i’m not the race car man, i’m the working guy!” but for the longest time now, he has been the “orca man” (with a few train men and lion guys thrown in-between).

he likes to watch you tube videos of killer whales playing frisbee with sea lion pups and body slamming unsuspecting kayakers. he sleeps with his orca, bathes with it, rushes to it when let down from the table. “where’s my orca!?!”

jehu, on the other hand, has been the “little kitty” for like six months now, with no alterations. “the little kitty would like a drink. put the little kitty in his bed.” except for yesterday. he came up to me and said, “i am a cow.” i just looked at him dumbfounded and then said, “no. you are the little kitty and you will always be the little kitty.” that’s just the way it is.

i’ve been throwing ideas around for the boys’ new bedroom downstairs. since gideon’s favorite color is black, my mother and i are thinking of making some black and white checkered quilts for their beds. for color, i want to get two mis-matched head boards and paint one “brazen gold” and the other some kind of robin’s egg blue. meanwhile, my friend kandi is going to paint gideon an orca to go with. it’s going to be painted on a long piece of particle board and i want to frame it in some kind of brushed sheet aluminum. but first we have to put the pergo floor in, finish sheet rocking and painting, find jehu a bed, cut out a bazillion quilt squares and maybe they will have a room by winter. maybe.

that hubby of mine got me flowers. doesn’t really make up for the fact that he cut off all of his hair, but i still love him.

and this is as close as you are going to get to a before and after shot of my new floor (and doors too). we are still working on the giant hole we sawed in the basement two weeks ago. but in this picture you can’t really tell that i need mop boards, door knobs, trim, and paint. you can just pretend it is finished.

out back the catalpa tree is full of blooms. it has been breathtaking all week, with the warm weather and the french doors wide open. the only drawbacks are jehu throwing all manner of toys out of it, gideon thinking he can use it for a urinal when the bathroom is too far away and he wants to get back to eating his toast, and the disturbing screaming you hear in the distance when one child has pushed the other out. maybe, in a year or so, we will build a deck.

but i am quite pleased with the way the tree has filled out. marc went up cleaned out some of the dead stuff and tidied it up a bit. when we bought the place in the winter it was a terrible eyesore. now, not only is it pretty, but it makes wonderful shade. marc says it couldn’t have been planted in a better spot. it seems that the longer i’m in my lovely ghetto home, the more i like it. everything seems to be falling into place. except for those incidents where the fence tried to fall over because the wind was blowing and the basement flooded because we watered the yard. but all that aside…

when it came down to it, hubby wasn’t all that eager to saw a big hole in the side of our house. my parents, on the other hand, were quite excited. so we took a deep breath and dove right in. turned out wonderfully. afterwards my dad was mentioning all the things that could have gone wrong and didn’t. “what do you mean,” i asked, “haven’t you done this before?” came to find out he has never even framed in a window. “just have to know how to think,” he told me.

if you noticed in the previous post, the concrete saw turned my house into mount saint helens. they closed the bedroom door and sealed it with a wet towel, but they forgot to close the vent. now, not only do i still have to paint the basement, i have to wash all the walls as well.

but at least gideon has his new window. one step closer to moving the little turds to the basement. which, might i mention, flooded last week. so perhaps not as close as i’d like to think.

if you want more pictures of the hoopla, you can check here. thank you granddad and grandma, for all of your hard work! it’s great to have a family who is willing to travel with shovels.

actually, my brother can’t be separated from his. my husband is the same, he’s had his since high school. and my mom, of all people, scored the black one for her birthday (hence the bow). she also got a jack and pruning shears because she’s like that. one year i mistakenly got her fake nails. she ate them.

can you guess?

in any case, it’s as dirty as you wouldn’t believe.

it’s in. yippee. and husband did such a good job on it too. he laid it out on the computer to make sure he didn’t have to cut any super skinny pieces and that the tiles around the edges were all the same width. now that’s how mavis likes it. he’s probably more like me and my pal monk than he’d like to think (that or he had ulterior motives, hard to say).

i won’t post any more pictures till we finish the baseboards and trim work. then i will give you some lovely before and after shots. anyways, i’m out of here. and congratulations to jill who won the pink, frou frou apron. i’m rather jealous.

my husband, the architect, who hates anything that has to do with houses. you should have seen him grin and bear it all weekend. what a nice hubby. and i am positively thrilled with my new french doors.

so the boys pulled off the deck along with some house and a door, etc, and dug out all the rotten bits. the deck was put on wrong so water pooled against the house.

the 2×8 that sits on top of the concrete (that the joists sit on) was all rotted out. so they had to shave it off some, butt the new one up against it and hammer it in, sliding the old one out the back. or something like that. they also had to pull up some of the sub floor in the kitchen and then piece it all back together. then they put the door up. and someday, someday i tell you, someone will put down my kitchen floor. and if you want to check how rednecks get things done, you can see all the pictures here and here.

why do we have to pull the deck off to put in my kitchen floor?

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but it’s true. there was just that little tell tale, rotten spot (to the right of my foot) that compelled marc to check it out on one of his lunch breaks. when i opened the door to check on him, he was busy tearing apart the house. i can see daylight in the basement now. i asked, “um, at which point in this progression of events do i actually get my floor?”. it wasn’t good.

so i called my dad. my brother and him are driving 7 hours and will be here today. so we are going to have a knock out, drag out weekend. with maybe pink, bubblegum vct at the end of it. and new french doors.

one room in my house is finally clean. and even close to done. except we still need to paint it, do some fiberglass repair on the jetted tub, replace the window, replace the faucet and shower head, wire in an outlet, put up some towel racks and find a new door.

but we did plumb in a new sink, find a shower rod and shower curtain, install a new light fixture, and put on a new toilet handle.

just think, only nine more rooms to go. we’re focusing on the kitchen next, but i found out it will be two weeks until i get my flooring. meanwhile hubby is going to till and seed the new lawn and i am going to paint lots of moulding and wonder at the triviality of life.

grandma gayla gets after me for posting only strange pictures of the baby. but i can’t help, she is such an odd little thing.

i thought it was so funny when boy called her “inigo montoya” the other day. usually nicknames are more in the range of “my sweet little poppet” and “muffin butt.” but different strokes for different folks, i guess. if only he didn’t tack “you killed my father, prepare to die” on to the end of it, then it would be sweeter. maybe.

in other news, my little sister natalie is here along with tree papa. still slaving away. just put up some new pictures and the floors are done. hooray. next monster project, making big dishwasher fit in small hole. we’ll see.

the boys like their aunt natalie.

yep, there’s boy sanding the floor with a little block sander. and look, there he is staining it with a little foam brush. now you know why it’s taking all day. but here is a sneak peak of the new stain. i think i like it. when it’s all done we’ll throw up some very white baseboards and it should look sharp.

and of course, the mandatory baby pose. can’t sign off without reminding y’all that i have the cutest baby ever. sigh. what a doll.  what a nose.  i love it.