A Walk Around My New Baby

Just a quick post. Assembling my new patio set, which arrived yesterday, takes priority today. I'm sure you understand! It's nothing personal.

I've been looking for these photos to share, but I hid them so well on my computer that I thought I had lost them forever! Is that yet another sign that I'm getting old? This whole aging process is a beast, I tell you.

When I was on the road for my first week with my New Baby, I couldn't stop taking pictures. I get tingles seeing the sun hit the colors just right! You would have to see it in person to truly understand, but these pictures attempt to capture how dang gorgeous this airplane now is. I did a "walk around" to show off every angle.

I think it's pretty. And that's all that matters, dang it.

Beauty is Pain, Baby

As I type, I am wincing from the pain in my fingers. Typing can be quite a chore with shredded digits! They did quite the job yesterday in grouting the guest shower. Unfortunately for them, I've never been able to find a better tool than fingers for initial application and then removing excess grout. So they are crying this morning. Gloves came on later in the process, but certainly not in enough time to save the poor little things.

Waaa.

But it is worth it! And they know it! The shower is done. Well...done enough for before-and-after pictures. I have to wait another day to let the grout cure before I can seal it. And then we will caulk all edges with DAP to keep everything safe and dry (probably on Friday). But pictures of those processes aren't necessary to show what a difference has already been made.

I am tickled with how new it all looks. And, with any luck, I will never have to do this again. It wasn't applying the grout that shredded my fingers, but rather the wiping after the required four hours of drying. I didn't wait that long last time, and wiping was MUCH easier as a result. In fact, it was so tough yesterday that I had to call in John to help me when he got home from work. It was simply drying too quickly for me to keep up with it. He was a real trooper and helped out. I then applied a touch-up layer to areas that hadn't received the grout well enough. I let that dry while I went outside to "help" with the shed John has been building for the past week. Wait until you see it!

Summary: I'm glad I did the shower but hope with all my heart that I never have to do it again.

We All Saw This Coming

It's no surprise to anyone, I'm sure, that I am grouting the guest shower today. Once I finished the Master Bath shower a few months ago, it was only a matter of time before sheer embarrassment made me fix the bathroom used by guests. I love how our shower turned out. It makes me smile every three months when I get in there to take a shower myself. I am so proud of it as a clean, fresh, and brand-new shower. Don't my guests deserve to use something just as nice?

My mom will be here in a little over a week, so a time crunch is in place. In fact, when I announced to John last night that I was going to grout the guest bathroom this morning, he looked a little worried. After all, it had taken me two weeks to do our shower...a project that was extended from my original estimation of three days. But there was a war against mold going on in that fun job. It took forever to kill that awful stuff without flooding the basin with bleach water. This shower has no mold...and is scrubbed and ready for the face lift to be underway in the next hour.

They did a horrible job when building this shower. There are holes and cracks where things should have been caulked. In fact, this entire bathroom seems to have escaped any work by the caulking man. Within a week, it will be ready for guests yet again. Shiny, bright, and new! Something I will be proud to send guests towards for a shower.

With any luck, I will be done grouting today, will seal the grout tomorrow, and will be able to caulk it all by Friday. While things cure, I hope to spend my time outside moving a whole lot of river rock from one place to another in anticipation of garden boxes being built next week. It's all so overwhelming and fun at the same time!

Next time you see this shower, it will be a whole new baby.

March is Busting Out All Over

We have signs of Spring all winter long down here. It's one of our three planting seasons, after all, and lots of people in our neighborhood have had tons of things growing in their yards. We have been a little behind since we're the newcomers. But our little green guys inside have been making us proud!

They've been sleeping with the window open, just like their parents, for the past week. This has been getting them use to cooler temperatures at night. Tomorrow morning is their first journey outside. I am going to leave them in their Jiffy pots but put them in full sunlight. This will acclimate them to the wonders of the sun, as well as get them adjusted to breezes from the wind. It will be good for them to start getting stronger so they can survive "transplant" time in two weeks. Transplanting won't be too hard on them...we simply put the Jiffy pot full of the seedlings into a larger pot full of potting soil. Nothing needs to be dug up or uprooted. I see a 100% success rate in the upcoming transplants as a result. I could have been a surgeon.

I've been dying for some color outside, so I remedied it yesterday by purchasing a beautiful poppy plant ($3 at Home Depot) and bright blue pot ($3 at Walmart). These little guys have tons of flowers left to bloom, and the red blossom opened up just since yesterday when it was planted! I love looking out the window to see a bright burst of color. And I really love flowers. What woman doesn't?

I also planted two more herbs yesterday. It's so nice outside that they are able to start their growing journey in the great outdoors from Day 1. They will begin sprouting in less than a week and will soon be the size of all their other herb buddies who have been living indoors for the past month. What a happy reunion when they all live outside in their peaceful pots! We are doing all of the herbs in pots instead of in the garden boxes. This will prevent things from cross-pollinating as well as keeping the herbs in check by limited their root growth potential. I can hardly wait to head outside to snip off some fresh basil for some pasta!

Spring is certainly in the air. I hope we don't skip it entirely...this week will be in the high 80s. Where did my high 70s (utter perfection) go so quickly? We only had a few days of it before it jumped up an additional ten degrees. I hope it isn't an indicator that the summer is going to be miserable. This is my favorite season by far. When I was growing up, it meant softball was starting! But now? It just means my plants are growing like weeds and are almost ready to move out into the real world.

I just hope I've prepared them well enough to handle it. It's a cruel place out there.