Put on the Glasses

I was very happy to see that my marigolds have bloomed. I grew these little flowers from seed and they survived. I am starting to believe that I am actually capable of gardening! Here is my pot of basil: Here is my other marigold pot: I am so happy that they haven't died. With all of the rain we have had, I honestly thought most of my stuff would drown or get crushed. I am ecstatic.

On Sunday, I wasn't feeling well. So, Brian and I stayed home and finished up unpacking. A bunch of new neighbors have moved into the building and I have been keeping an eye on the backyard to see if they use it (they have kids and I am protective of my marigolds and tomatoes!). I looked out of the window and noticed that a chair of ours was gone. I told Brian immediately and we both shrugged, knowing that the chair was free anyways. A couple of minutes later I noticed that the chair had not been stolen, but moved closer to the building. This confused me. Brian and I had just been outside earlier, reading the paper and drinking coffee. So, a new neighbor must have moved it, right? A little while later, I don't remember how long, I heard a funny noise in the backyard. I went to the window and I couldn't see anything strange, so I started to lift the screen to poke my head out. As I did so, a tall, lanky man walked away from our building, hopped on top of the wall f...

Leela spends all day sleeping and being cute. She is definitely not as active as Livia, who runs circles around the apartment and explores every surface and corner. Leela only cares about a comfy spot to nap all day.

I just had to take a couple of pictures of Brian cutting the grass with scissors. We don't want to buy or store a weed whacker so he is forced to snip.

Brian laid down new flooring in our apartment. The old flooring was not only filthy with dirt and paint splatter (not ours), but badly damaged from water and wear. We knew that refinishing the wood floors was an impossible task for us, not only financially but also in our lack of tools. Therefore, we decided to get IKEA brand laminate flooring. We went with the cheapest, the SLATTEN, at 65 cents a square foot. What IKEA doesn't tell you, however, are that the additional costs make the flooring much more expensive. Brian and I ended up going over our budget because you also need the plastic liner that goes under the floor, spacers, a rubber mallet, a tool to help you tap the floor in, a miter saw (or table saw), quarterround trim and transition pieces to use between rooms. Luckily, by shear happenstance, IKEA was out of a lot of these tools and we ended up buying them at Lowes where they turned out to be cheaper. Above, you can see the beginning of plastic being laid down ove...

The living room was about the same as the bedroom. As you can see above, the walls were a medium grey with dark green trim. The ceilings had also been painted on in this room so we had to paint them. Here is Brian touching up the ceiling: We only primed this room once because it didn't have peeling paint like the bedroom. Brian was too fast for me. His favorite method was jumping up and down (I could almost hear that House of Pain song playing in the background). Here's a shot of him hopping: We are really happy with the color in the living room. It is called "Henderson Buff" and it never seems to be just one color (click here to see how it looked on the paint swatch). In the can it looked yellow. On the wall it changes as the day goes on and it changes depending on what color you have just been looking at. At times I have seen it look lime green, chartreuse, tan, gold and sage green. Here is the room after we finished the walls (the blue tape is still u...

When Brian and I first decided to move upstairs, we had grand dreams of renovations and changes. It turns out that these changes are significantly more time consuming then we ever imagined. For instance, I didn't remember how long it took to paint a room. I wasn't able to get very good pictures of the apartment before we painted it. The bedroom, as you can kind of see above, was a pinkish-white with brown trim (the picture was taken with me standing in the bedroom facing the door). Also, as you can see below, the previous tenants painted on the ceiling with their wall color. This forced us to paint the ceilings too. So, we had to put two coats of primer up before we could paint. Here is the sterilized and primed room: After all of that dried (in high humidity on this island) we were finally able to put color on the walls. Here is Brian finishing up the trim in the bedroom: We love the color on the walls. It is Benjamin Moore's Venezuelan Sea (click here to see...

Livia loves the new place and seems happier than ever.  However, Leela cowers under the bed.  Maybe that is why Livia is happy.  I wonder if the cats will ever get along. We are still unpacking.  More posts to come!

Pretty sure there are few foods better than a peanut butter and pickle sandwich made with Gedney pickles!  Thanks for the pickles Nicole. We are still very busy moving.  Many posts are coming in the future. 

Brian and I have had a busy couple of weeks! I will save the details for later but I just wanted to throw up a post so that you didn't think that I had forgotten about you. Brian and I went to the Big Apple BBQ this AM with Tanya and Jorge. It was much fun. I had pulled pork and brisket! The festival has top pit-masters from all over the US.  On the way home we swung by our hardware store to pick up some wingnuts and found an art show! It was fun. The picture above is of the street in freont of the hardware store. I will tell more tales later of Nicole's visit and renovation. I am off to paint my new kitchen orange! Woohoo!!!

The old tenants have departed and the apartment upstairs is now ours for the fixing. We are moving on the 15th. So, until then, we will be working our butts off getting the place ready. First, the old tenants left a lot of junk. Above, Brian can be seen taking apart the queen sized IKEA bed they left behind. They didn't even take the bedding (they even left a wet towel on the bed... ew). They also left a couch, desk, bookshelf, table, stools, entertainment center, TV, speakers, dishes and a bunch of food. Most of our first day in the place working was taken up cleaning up their mess. Here you can see Brian sawing the couch in half so that we can get it out of the apartment: It simply wouldn't fit through the door and it was in bad condition. I don't think anyone will miss this couch. You can sort of see in the picture above the neat little shelves between the kitchen and living room. We are very excited. Right now, we are painting, sanding, and filling holes. We ...

Just in case you haven't heard, Brian and I are moving! We are not leaving the building. Instead, we are moving up to another apartment upstairs when other tenants move out. The apartment upstairs is the same size as ours but it has over twice as many windows. We are very excited to have natural light in all of our rooms. The big downside to the apartment is that it is in need of renovation. It is the only apartment in the building that hasn't been updated in 7 years. For instance, there is no sink in the bathroom. So, we can't move into the apartment until the landlord puts in a new sink. All other renovations we will handle on our own. We are excited for the move and so are the cats. We already started packing some stuff up and Livia has discovered a new perch: She loves it up there. We will keep you posted about the move!