I mentioned (I think) last week or the week before that I had a little bird trying to nest in the tops of my Topsy Turvies. I kept the input covered for several days. Then I uncovered the ports and since I didn’t end up with a nest, I assumed the Topsy Turvies would be okay.

Lo and behold, look what I found this morning. Considering that this is my first even remotely successful attempt to grow anything, I am terribly reluctant to abandon my tomatoes to the birds. I suppose I could have left the nest in there and tried to water around them, but I was afraid that the nest might be abandoned anyway. So, I put up another cubby hole at the other end of the patio railing and moved the nest. Don’t tell PETA. I’ll check again this afternoon and see what the verdict is.

Also, wanted to share a couple more quick things. Here is The Barbarian’s Green Man sculpture on a tree in our back yard. I don’t know that he’s 100% pleased with him, but… he’s still out there. I wonder what the squirrels must be thinking.

And last but not least, here is the soap dish with it’s “matching” Q-Tip holder, that I made. LOL somehow, I don’t think that his and my skills are on the same level. HA!

Just a quick post then to bed.

The Barbarian is having trouble getting the title for his car, which turned into trouble with his insurance. He’s had a really bad day today, so send him some good wishes. All his applications were crashing at work. He lost a lot a work and couldn’t get much done. =(Actually, we went to Home Depot to pick up the flooring that we are going to lay in the bedrooms. Our local (closest) Home Depot was out of it, so we had to drive to the next nearest. We waited an hour while they found the product and got a forklift to come get it and load it into the truck. Luckily we saved $400 over what we expected to pay. We hauled the 27 boxes (each weighing probably 30-40 lb to the house and started unloading. The dolly broke. And apparently, sometime since this weekend, the A/C went out. *sigh* I’m trying to stay positive. =)

I wanted to share something the Barbarian made. This is a Green Man he sculpted. Once painted, he’ll be going on the tree out in front of the house.

Speaking of clay, I’d made a toad home. It made it through bisque firing, and then someone nicked it. =( *sigh*

My Kumihimo board arrived yesterday. Unfortunately, I was having such a bad day that I really was uninterested in opening it. After some anger, tears, and attitude readjustment, I opened the box and got it out.

Having watched several videos on it before, I got out 8 cords of really thick hemp twine and went to work. I worked on it off and on all evening while watching the original Amityville Horror – which I’d never seen before – and ended the night with this.

I’m thinking I’ll go get some finer (not so rough) hemp tomorrow and set about making The Barbarian a necklace to replace the one I made him several years ago.

The Barbarian and I spent all last weekend working on pulling up carpet and foam, pulling up tackboards and staples, and then vacuuming and prepping the floors. The intention was to buy the flooring this week and start laying it this weekend. I happened to notice though, while on my hands and knees that were would be a big difference in the levels of the floors if we did not lay down a piece of plywood in the woods to bring them up to height. Additionally, something I read in a couple of reviews of the product were nagging at me.

This morning, I called the manufacturer to ask whether or not it would be okay to install the flooring over a crawlspace. So now the weekend is coming and we don’t have a plan B for flooring. I’m trying to not panic and stay positive. My problem is that switching to hardwoods, bamboo, cork, etc at this point will increase our costs 4 to 5 times, as we had intended to lay the previously planned flooring ourselves. =(

On a happier front, I’m super-pleased with my container garden. I’m sure I’m doing it all wrong, but most everything is still growing. The Cilantro was lost, the Oregano as well, but the Cukes are getting their little tendrils, which I didn’t get last year when I tried this. The Basil seems to be doing okay, and the tomatoes are as well. I don’t know why but I’m really proud of myself. I mean – I’m a proud of myself for growing these few plants as I was when I spun my first yarn.

I crocheted a couple of Swiffer covers a day or so ago. One was from a pattern I found in the 2008 Crochet-a-Day calendar, and the other is my own design. I still need to test he out. If I like my design better, I may type it up and publish it.

Just a quick note. I wanted to show up my little garden. It’s not producing anything let, but I still have hope. =)
Tomato and cucumbers. The tomato plant on the left has two blooms. (That’s good right?) LOL

Basil and peppers. As aggressive and hardy as I thought the basil was, only one plant looks to be thriving, and even that one’s not doing so well at the thriving part. More like surviving. The peppers seem a bit small to me too.

My mystery plant. Do you know what this is? Debbi? Thoughts?

I’m beginning to think that I may not know enough about gardening to be hugely successful at it. I’ll be super-glad if I can get one cucumber and one pepper and some harvestable basil off the plants. I’m not as concerned about the tomatoes, as I didn’t start those from seed.

Also, want to give a super loud shout out to my Little Bro back home. He set about making Bean a sandbox, and just look what he did!!! SIL talks all about it here.

Speaking of Bean, what didn’t I try to grow any of those?

And yet I’m ready for the work week.

Seems there is no respite in the land of DIY home improvment. We work all week, looking forward to the weekend, but once the weekend gets here it’s nothing but more work. =(

We’d intended to have all of the painting complete last weekend, but alas that didn’t happen. Luckily, I think we only have a couple of hours of painting (max) and we’ll be done. Then it’s off to pull up the rest of the carpet, the carpet tacks and staples, etc. Hopefully, we’ll get that part done this weekend. Maybe we can start laying the floor next weekend. Once that’s done, then we can move in!!! WHEE!!!

The container garden is going well, though it seems that things are taking longer to grow than I would have expected. =( My Cilantro didn’t make it, and only four of my Basil sprouts made it, which I can hardly believe considering that when left to its own devices, it propagates on its own. I don’t think my Oregano made it either. I ended up having to start over with my tomato plants (which I think I mentioned) and they are doing well in the Topsy Turvies. One plant has a couple of flowers on it, so hopefully we’ll see tomatoes soon. It’s very exciting. My little random plant that my mom gave me is doing well, though I still do not know what it is. I may have to take a picture and have SIL’s Sister identify it for me. =)

Not much going on on the crafting front. I’ve started making simple hats from my own hand spun yarn, as it seems that I am unable to sell the yarn. No need to mention the disappointment felt there, huh?

I don’t know why but I’m feeling a little lost tonight…

Painting a house is a lot of work. I’m sitting here this morning, in pain, waiting for the pain killers to kick in. We spent most of the day yesterday painting, and pulling carpet at the new digs. We cut up and hauled out over 300 sf of carpet. We painted The Library (how hoity does that sound) Smoky Slate, which is kind of a green color. I really like this color. I’m thinking it will look great with our (faux) cherry wood bookshelves (again with the hoity.) =)

We had to go back and revist a room though. Originally, the room was white with a singular periwinkle wall (Says Stardust on the can – maybe the Delux brand). It looked very girlie. We chose Bad Lands in Olympic for the room. It was supposed to be purple tinged grey (mostly grey). But on the wall, it was lavender or lilac. Not really an improvement on the girlie front. So we took the can back to Lowes and asked them to dull it down. They added more yellow and more black. we took that home and put it on the wall, and it was basically the same.

Unwilling to give up on the gallon, the Barbarian and I went to A.C. Moore and picked up paint. Then, he proceeded to custom color the paint to something more like what we’d envisioned. He calls the color Goblin Armour , and I think we’re going to have it color matched today, so we’ll have more. We’ve decided to hang the Labyrinth movie poster in there, along with my black and white Labyrinth set photos, and promo cards. I’ll probably also put a small shelf on the wall to hold my promo Labyrinth crystal ball.

If you’ve ever wanted to learn how to ‘body juggle’ balls like Jareth does, check out Sphereplay.

That being said, I was thinking about rooms. Typically, in the average house, room’s are named by function or owner. Mom’s room, kitchen, Bobby’s room, living room. The Barbarian and I don’t have kids – so how do we call our rooms? Well in our last house, we named them by the color of the walls. The rooms that held the computers was the “Peanut Room”, because the color on the walls was Peanut Shell. The room that held all the books – typically called the library – was the “Yucca Room”  because its walls were Yucca colored (green).

So far, our rooms have been named Th Front Bedroom  and the Back Bedroom. Eventually, theFront Bedroom  became known as the Periwinkle Room. Now, we have The Library (which is painted in Smoky Slate, and the Labyrinth Room (which is done in – well see above.) Our bedroom is just called “The Bedroom”. Oh, and the Kitchen, Living, and Dining rooms are typically named…. yeah, we’re weird – but we’re not that weird.

So, The Barbarian and I were sitting in the middle of the floor among the miriad of paint samples were looking at as ‘potentials’ for the new digs, when I get a call. It’s my neighbor asking if we are still at the house, and if we want to get the stuff moved out. *Sigh* I’m not sure how I managed to have a single bar long enough to take the call, but shortly thereafter, it promptly hung up on him.

So, we walked over and rang the bell. He answered, I explained my cellphone situation (AT&T sucks in my area) and we proceeded to remove the grill and the lawnmower from the premises.

Now, the problem is that someone at some point, placed some other items with the lawnmower. I’m thinking that those items were intended to be picked up too. Our understand was that a friend of the family was going to come pick up the stuff, but didn’t get or make the time. The only 2 items mentioned this whole time have been the lawnmower and the grill. Now, I’m wondering if we’ll get a call saying, “Oh, I want that other stuff too.”

Meanwhile, my Realtor has said that everything in the house at this point is ours.  But I’m leary.

I think we have the colors for the wall picked out. I need to snap some fotos and take some footage before the demolition begins this weekend. I’m kinda excited. =)

So – before I slip away for the day. Only 2 more hours of work, and then The Barbarian and I are going to go play in the mud (a.k.a. clay) – I wanted to share the Etsy site I pilfered off a friend’s website (she knows who she is). ButterflyGirlDesigns. Her spindles rock, but at the moment, I’m drooling over her batts. They’re not huge, but they are gorgeous. If I didn’t have a huge bit of spinning I already need to be doing, I’d be purchasing – RIGHT – THIS – SECOND!

SO head over and check her out – but don’t buy anything you think I might want!

Wednesday has passed and I still have their stuff. I have heard through the grapevine (a.k.a. I received an email from my agent, who got a phone call from the Broker In Charge who lives down the street) that the neighbors were in the street talking about the sale and stuff. So somehow, the next door neighbor has agreed to take the stuff for the previous owner.

So, I look up their home on the county website and then get their phone number. I call and leave a nice message on the answering machine saying that we’ll be at the house if they are wanting to get the stuff.

6:20 pm – I’ve not heard back.

Well, we’ve had one heck of a time so far. We closed at 11:00 am on Tuesday, but the seller’s agent came to the closing without the keys, without the American HomeShield policy, without contact information, stating – “You realize that the grill and the lawnmower didn’t convey, right?”

We signed the papers, with me biting my lip the whole time, fighting every urge I had to leap across the table and smack the shiznit out of the seller’s agent. Throughout this whole process, and compared to any buying or selling process I’ve ever been in before, he has been the worst agent I’ve ever met or seen, or had the displeasure of working with. OMG.

After the papers were signed, I told my agent that they needed to get their stuff out “now.” As I was heading over there, and was planning to change the locks ASAP. On my way over there, I received a call from my agent stating that the Seller’s Agent (hereafter referred to as ASS) was refusing to relinquish the keys, as we weren’t the official owners yet.

Keep in mind that the seller’s are in Florida. One in Tampa, the other in Orlando. They are getting a divorce. They are not speaking apparently.

7:00 pm, I still don’t have the keys and their stuff is still there.