Ask me anything about a septic tank- I dare you

See these holes?

watch me throw 5 grand ( or more) in them.

It's a worst case scenario. The system is dead. More later- right now I just want to sit and cry....

The joys of home ownership

What is this? This is my septic tank backing up into my basement. I noticed today that I had a gigantic wet spot on my basement floor- which is carpeted by the way. This is why. When my washing machine empties it dumps between a gallon or two of "mess" up into my basement. We believe it may have been going on for a week. The smell wasn't at all bad until I opened the drain and cut away the carpeting. Now, words can't describe the smell.

I hope the septic dude can come tomorrow. If not, it's next week- we have to have the garage sale this weekend. Of course, now it's a "pay for my septic tank" sale.

Re upholstering the plycraft chair

Before picture-

Re upholstering the plycraft chair
Originally uploaded by thefarmersdaughter

After picture-

So- what have I missed?

Getting away just the thing we needed. It rained the entire time- gloomy and dark. It just didn't matter though. We went shopping (with the icky weather it was easy to choose what to do) and my husband bought a TON of clothing- he seemed to really enjoy shopping. Shoes, two belts, one tie, 4 dress shirts, 2 pair dress slacks, 1 pr khakis, one pr golf shorts, swim trunks. I on the other hand, found basically nothing. I bought a book and a denim jacket. But I am so pleased with my husbands haul of new school clothes that it didn't matter.

The boy was great for his grandparents- "a joy" and "so well behaved" after hearing about it I wondered if they were actually looking after MY child.

We are having a second garage sale in two weeks (Aug. 1 and 2) so I have that to prepare for- ad to write, some new stuff to find and price, signs to check etc.. also the front yard has changed a lot since the last sale so I have to figure out how to set this one up too!

Happy Anniversary to us!

This weekend is my 5 year wedding anniversary. We are getting away and leaving the boy with his grandparents. (all of them- they are taking shifts here so he can stay in his own house, in his own bed) We have never left the boy. Not both of us at the same time at least. My husband travels a bit for business, and I go on "mental health" weekend vacations, but we've never gone anywhere together- ALONE- since my son was born.

We never had a honeymoon either. We figured after we got married there would be time to take a vacation a little later when our work schedules allowed for it. Little did we know that we would get pregnant right after the ceremony and then I would have the accident and get a touch of the cancer. Just when we were feeling better about my cancer, my grandparents died, his father passed away, then my Dad was diagnosed with cancer, then he was diagnosed with his heart condition, and here we are- 5 years later.

All I really want is a couple nights in a hotel suite- no kid climbing into bed at 5 am to wake me up. I want to go to a bookstore- a movie- dinner- without worrying about kid stuff. Simple stuff huh? Wish us luck I didn't wear a dress- linen pants, rhinestone flip flops and an open weave twin set.

The bon-fire (before it was lit)
Kegs. They (and the wine) were in an old water container that horses used. (we were married on an old farm and we found it in the barn- it hadn't been used by a horse for over 20 years)

The tent
The neighbors tricked out their golf cart and brought it over for us to use the day and night of the wedding. We rode all over in that thing (see the beer cans?)
Oink!
wedding watermelons- no cake for us!
This is me looking out at the gathering crowd. The pictures in the window frame were of my grandparents. One set was dead and the other set was in an assisted living facility and couldn't make the trip because of their health, but I wanted to remember them.


P.S. Why was I AWOL for a week? I messed up my internet connection last week. Erased everything to be exact (I put a bike helmet on my wireless keyboard- without turning off the computer first). When I started to look for the information to fix the issue-I couldn't locate it. It's not so much that my filing is bad- it's not- it just wasn't here in the house and I wish I would have known that before I tore everything up!

Welcome to my new path!

The path project (summer project number 3 I think) is ALMOST done. I still need to put another bag of mulch out (left side) and get another bag of sand (or 2) in between those pavers. I'm not going to town today though, so just imagine that those things are done.

Here is how the path is ending- 3 large flat stones then the short cement step area. There are red twig dogwoods, coral bells, some hens and chicks, and some blue grass planted in this area. The red lava rocks are to help with drainage ( making the pitch away from the house was the hardest part of this job) and then I use bark mulch for the rest.... This whole project will come in under 70 dollars. I have spent 60 already and need about 10 dollars worth of sand and mulch.

Thank you Alana- it was your garden therapy posts that got me thinking about doing this project- and your links provided me with a wealth of information!

Here is my side garden- my rock garden - sorry the sun really bleaches out the colors of those lillies-on the upper right is the dirt path that used to be those horrid stairs. Now we just have to plant some grass seed!
Here is the front plantings off of the porch. It's too crowded- I need to thin in the fall... those daylillies went a little wild- and some flowers are showing up (purple coneflowers) that I didn't plant- maybe birdies did!
Here is the back porch project. Some of the porch was already painted white. Some was black. I painted both the front and the back white. I think I will probably have to do that every year- it gets dirty etc.... and I like the freshness of the white railings. I am going to keep the bottom a darker color- it would get dirty and nasty way to fast.

Here is before-( I pulled off a bunch of green garden plastic fencing that we had installed when Max was just a baby- we don't need that anymore)

Here is after-I also cut back the tree and the shrub back there....
Just in case you thought all we did was work work work all holiday long- we also used the slip and slide a lot- and we went to the beach-
My husband is still working on the fence posts. It's been tough going due to tree roots. More about that later.

Re-use, recycle- oh, just get to work!

Friday is done- day one of my husbands 3 day holiday weekend. I am so very ,very tired- and I believe that I am broken in 3 or more areas. My husband wants everyone to know he "worked his ass off today".....Here are pictorial updates.....

This is how the house looked up until Thursday night- I forget that was just yesterday. The door you see is just our mudroom door- but we had no way to get to it without crossing the grass.
Thursday night I took all the grass out of that area and my husband took out the nasty wooden walkway
The boards are going to be re used in our deck down to the river.
Today I started pretending I am a mason. I got this far today building the new walkway. The bricks are originally from this house- I took them out of a horrible round walkway when we removed the portico 3 years ago...
Here is the last of the railroad tie stairs. My husband removed all of them Thursday night
Here is the pile of dirt we bought for the projects- 6 cubic yards of dirt and ( a little) horse manure. It comes from a local guy on my husbands soft ball team- it's really great dirt ( I never thought I would say those words together ) except of course for the softer "bits" you run into every so often.... Here is the path now- my husband filled in all of the holes and leveled it out with the dirt load.
see, no more dirt. That is also where the fence is going- between the road and the trees- so we raised the tree limbs some too...
Here is my grass that I removed from the front of the house- it filled in about 1/3 of the old stair area- now we just have to seed the rest...
We still have a lot to do in 2 days- my husband has to build a fence ( or portions of it) we have to lay in a new cement step in front of the door and I have to finish the walkway, and I have a front porch and back deck to paint....... who said this was a holiday?????

Gratuitous pictures of cute kids-

The boy's mine. He does love to dance....

Summer projects 2, 3, and 4.

Since I completed project number 1, I have to make the plans to move on to another one.

Number 2 is my inside project (for rain etc...) it is re covering my Plycraft chair. (under the deer head) The naugahydes are ripped and torn. I have the new upholstery fabric and just need to dis- assemble the chair and re upholster it. It sounds harder than it will be (I hope)

Project 3. New walkway to mudroom door. All the grass leading to the door has to be torn up. The dogwoods need to be planted, coral belles, bluegrass, something with color (yet to be determined) and nice bark mulch. Also, a hose hook and a paver walkway. (there is a wood walkway up against the house that is going to be pulled up and we will cement what we need and fill the rest with dirt.)
Project 4. My studio. The new buffet is going into this room (the empty space used to be a table) and I need to clean up and organize my" dirty little secret "room. It's a mess and it really shouldn't be. It's very embarrassing. There is an Edward Wormley desk in there, a great vintage chair and tons of interesting stuff- it just should be nicer than it is.



So that is the next group of projects. Two inside for rainy days and one really large project for the front yard area.