Upcycling Part Three.....

This is the ruff cut ceder wood that was on the walls in our 3 season porch that we are making into a 4 season porch. I hated the wood because it was so ruff and it collected dust that was impossible to clean. The old owners of the house never finished staining it. There were spots of different stain colors on different walls in the room. So after much debate Rick took it off. He did not really want to just throw it away so he piled it up in the garage.

Well the other project I wanted Rick to do was to close up underneath the porch. In the fall it had a ton of leafs blow under it and it was a huge pain to get them all racked out. So Rick went to work and cut all the boards he had taken off the walls down and and used them to close the porch up.

It turned out great! It is so much nicer looked then having it open. We also have a great storage place for all those things we kept under the porch and deck. Now they are all tucked behind the wall and it looks much neater. Rick put a door in the front and is going to put on on the side under the deck also. We were short a little wood so that door is going to have to wait.

So we are happy that we did not just take the wood to the dump and reused it.

We are debating about taking these two trees down. They are really close to the house and have several huge branches that hang over the house. If they ever blow over or even lose one of the big branches it will cause a lot of damage to the house. If we ever get our landscaping done they may have to come down.

The inside work on the porch is coming along good. Yesterday we go the flooring and hopefully by next week the walls will be done and the floor will be in.

Later Sharon

Another Pin On The Map....

I decided last year that I was going to keep track of all the places that Rick and I have traveled to together on a map. So I got this map and had Dad make me a frame for it and started pinning away. In the last 5 years or so we have been to 23 places. Last weekend we went to Duluth for our last camping trip of the year so I got to add another pin.

Even though it was cold and rainy a lot of the weekend  we managed to have a good time. We did a little biking, Rick even got me to go on a real mountain bike trail. All the trails were very wet and muddy so a lot of them were closed off so we manly stayed on the big trails that are used for cross country skying in the winter. They are really nice.

 We were lucky and got to see lots of beautiful colors while were were there. This a couple pictures of the river that is right near the camp grounds we stayed at. It is Indian Point Campgrounds It was very nice and am sure we will stay there again.

 We tried to get some pictures that we could use for our Christmas card with the dogs. It is not an easy thing to do because you need someone to call to the dogs so they look. Pretty much every picture we took either Morgan or Dexter was looking the wrong way. This is one Rick took of me while he was trying to set the timer on the camera.

                   I also got a fun one of Rick. We did manage to get one good picture but you will have to wait until Christmas to see it.

 We went to Lester Park in Duluth to bike on the trails. This is the view from one of the many many hills we had to bike up. It was beautiful in the park. I wish it had not been so wet so we could have gone on more of the trails. We both got pretty muddy by the time we left. 

 You can see one of the mountain biking trails in this picture. We went on a few of them but they were pretty slick with all the rain and I really did not want to go falling down a hill so we stuck to the bigger trails.

 The dogs are doing very good camping. They were all tired out for the ride home.

 I was very sad to have to clean up and winterize the camper when we got home. It seems like we just got it. After we got home on Sunday we took it to my Dads for the winter. We are lucky that he has this big shed for us to put it in.

 I finally got Oliver's custom done. I think it is super cute. Hopefully it fits him. I am taking it down to  him in Sunday. I also took the fins off of Josie's little Mermaid custom and made it shorter. She is so tiny. I had shortened it up before I cut it out but I forgot that the fins were going to make in longer. So I had to take them off and I ended up cutting another 2 inches off. Now it fits her perfect. Amy came over today to pick it up and Josie did not want to take it off. She is going to be very cute.

Today I am going into work  from 5:00 to 9:00. I never ever work evenings! I am only going in because Carleton is having Salman Rushdie, author of Satanic Verses speak. They are expecting 1800 people to be there so they need extra Security to help with traffic etc.

Rick is busy working on the porch, it is coming along great. Hopefully I will have pictures soon.

Later Sharon

This and That....

So had a bunch of my hair  cut off. I could not take it anymore! The only good thing about having long hair was being able to just put it in a ponytail. I have not been real happy with the way the stylist that has been cutting my hair for the last few years and decided it was time for a change. A friend told me about a stylist and salon that was in Faribault that she really liked so I thought I would give it a try. I was so happy that I did! The stylist, Theresa at Salon TC  did such a good job cutting my hair. I have not had this good of hair cut in years. It was much needed change.

When I decided yesterday morning that I would call and try and get in to get my hair cut before the weekend I never thought she would get me in yesterday afternoon so I did not bring any clothes to change into after work. So on my way to my appointment I stopped at Target and got myself a whole new outfit to wear. New jeans, shirt and new boots. I had it picked out tried it on and bought in 15 minutes. I power shopped :)

Poor Dexter and his allergies gave him some trouble last week and it is all my fault. We finally found a brand of food that he can eat that does not have chicken in it because he is allergic to chicken. I have been getting him the beef flavor for the last 6 months and he has been doing really good on it. Well the other day I stopped to get him food and saw that they now carried the pork and pea's flavor in the same brand and it did not have chicken in it so I thought I would buy it. Well what a mistake that turned out to be. After just one day of eating it we noticed that he started to itch, scratch and lick again. At first I could not figure out what was causing it and then I remembered that I had changed his food. Poor Dexter was itching so bad. Thank goodness I had a small bag of his old food left over. Once I changed him back to the old food he was better withing a couple of days. I am not sure what was in the new dog food that he is allergic to but it was bad. I will not be changing dog foods, even flavors again!

I went to the doctor the other day for my regular yearly check up and the Doctor told me what I already figured that I have carpal tunnel. It comes and gos all the time. It has been bad the last few months because of all the remodeling we have been doing and how much I have been abusing my hands and wrist. Anyhow my hands were going numb at night and driving me nuts. She told me to wear braces on my wrist at night when I sleep to keep me from sleeping with my wrist bent. It  works when I manage to keep them on. I keep taking them off in my sleep. Rick said he has to laugh when he hears the Velcro ripping open every night. I always sleep with my wrist bent so I think I half wake up because I am trying to bend them so I just remove the brace. It is pretty funny. The good news is since I have started wearing them at night my wrist and hands have been much better.

Our new windows should be in this week so hopefully I will have some pictures of the finished porch soon.

Time to get on with my day

Later Sharon

Another New Bike.......

I am so behind on my blog! I have had my new bike for over a month and I am just now going to blog about it.
Rick has wanted a mountain bike forever so he finally talked me into getting one so he could get one too. We sold our trail bikes and our road bikes. I was a little sad to see my road bike go, I really liked it..... We had hardly road our road bikes at all this year mostly because I really do not like riding them out on the roads. People just do not pay attention when they are driving and if you get hit by a car while riding a bike the car is going to win every time. That and there are a lot of people out there that think bikes have no right to be on the road. We have had people purposely drive close to us trying to push us off the road and onto the gravel shoulder just because they do not want to share the road. And then there is the people that are on there phones talking and texting.....So anyhow we were not getting the use out of bike that we should have been so I let Rick talk me into a mountain bike.

I have always had Giant bike but the Trek bike that I got was just to good of a deal to pass up. I have to say so far I am having lots of fun on it. We have been taking them out to Courthouse park just south of Waseca and biking on the trails. The trail are just right for the kind of riding I want to do. I am not one that will go down a bunch of switch back trails that are narrow and steep. The trails at Courthouse park have a great blend of hills and flat paths and  plenty of twist and turns and just enough tree roots etc to go over to make it fun.

Another reason we got the mountain bikes is because a lot of the places we like to go camping have bike trails but most of the time they are crushed rock and you cannot take a road bike on them because you will pop a tire. So we are looking forward to taking them camping with us. I got these bike racks that hook right to the truck bed and we have the bikes all loaded up in just minutes.

This is a picture of Rick coming down one of the smaller hills at Courthouse park.

The other day after biking we decided, well I decided, it was time to get the trees trimmed up. While we were busy doing it I looked down by the wood pile and found one of the eggs we had put out for the Easter Egg hunt way back in March. I am guessing there is a squirrel in the neighborhood with a sweet tooth because the candy was gone. :)

It is Halloween time again and once again I am trying to get costumes made for the grand kids. I am not being a very good Nana this year because I am really only making one for Josie and one for Oliver. I got Eli a super cute puppy costume and Liam a Star Wars Storm Trooper costume off of Zulily. I promised myself that I was going to get sewing on the costumes early this year and here I am only a couple weeks away from Halloween and I only have one done. Maybe next year I will be better and have time to make all four.....So this is the one I got done, it is a little mermaid costume for Josie. Christa is making her a wig with long red hair to go with it. Josie looks very cute in it.

Hopefully I will have another update a little sooner then I got this one out....

Later
Sharon