Excuses, Excuses

I literally have nothing to share these days. I went on a little bit of a blog boycott while waiting for all of the fences to get repaired. FINALLY, last Friday, our neighbor's had their fence completed. Because they preferred that we not rebuild it ourselves, we had to just sit around and wait to do ours. There is still a minor gap in the corner that Kennedy is planning on finishing up, but at least our neighbors can't see into our backyard (and vice versa.) Talk about awkward.

Needless to say, we learned our lesson and will NEVER dump ashes again. It only makes for some nit-picky (or nosey) neighbors.

This past Saturday was spent out on a boat for 8 hours. We returned looking like lobsters and feeling like giant bruises. WEAR SUNSCREEN!

Perhaps tomorrow I can get back in the swing of "projecty" things. If not, this blog is doomed.

Fire aftermath

We were pretty sure we'd get all this fence stuff taken care of in 1-2 days. As usual, our project-time-estimates end up being about 3 times too small.

We still do not have a fence to enclose our yard, and are currently using slightly charred panels that the firemen chopped down to prop against the openings.

The reason being, I hate taking the dogs out in the backyard on a leash. Plus, Cece won't even go to the bathroom on a leash. AND she will only go in one spot in the yard and it happens to be right by the burnt down fence.

Well, I thought we were coming to the end of the fiasco, what with our neighbors making a claim on our insurance and getting their fence and deck repaired. (We have to wait on our fence so they can get to their deck to be repaired.)

Then Sunday, neighbor Chuck comes over and says he was talking to the guy behind him (not even on our street,) and THAT guy wants to file a claim for his tree. And by the way, his tree was fine. He had one crispy branch that needed to be trimmed. But what is this? Middle school? Come over and talk to us about it yourself!

So before we even had a chance to address that situation, I guess the guy got over himself and just trimmed the branch himself, thank goodness. I literally do not even know what this guy looks like.

Yesterday, I get a call from the neighbors behind us (not even in the same neighborhood.) We did burn their fence down, but Kennedy took the next day off work to rebuild it. Then we get a call that there are some nit-picky things with the fence that he wants fixed. Plus they say there is a patio cover with fire holes in it.

However, as soon as Kennedy had finished the fence, he had the guy come look at it to "approve" it. The guy was like "yes this looks good." NOW he has a problem with it.

Well, I have a problem with people not being direct and moving on.

MY QUESTION: Why are you waiting until 1.5 weeks later to discuss the patio cover? And how did the fire get allllllll the way across your yard and ruin your patio cover but not touch anything else in it's path?

Now I feel like we're being taken advantage of.

Is this whole ordeal going to be dragged out for the rest of my summer? Am I even going to get to use my pool or will I have to feel weird because we have a big open gap in our fence for all the world to see?

The moral of the story is, it doesn't matter if you go out of your way to make a situation right or to fix a mistake, some people are just snobby and rude and nothing can change it.

I'll blog more later when I finally get an actual project done around this place. For now I have to go be a diplomat to jerks.

"We're having a fire!....sale...."

If you know what that quote is from, I will literally make a blogging award and give it to you.

Let me just start by saying that between the smoke from our fire pit, setting our fence plus 3 other neighbor's fences on fire, and grilling burgers inside, I probably have developed an advanced form of lung cancer this weekend.

"GRILLING BURGERS INSIDE?!?!" you ask? "Why would ANYONE do something so insane????"

Well, I think the more important question is, "Why would someone set their fences plus 3 neighbor's fences on fire?"

So I'll address the latter question first.

(The damage.)

We Deans have had our share of miracles this spring, and I believe we can add this to the list.

Last night we had some friends over. We ate outside, we had a fire pit going, we had this AMAZING playlist playing ("I feel like I'm in an indie movie!"), and times were great.

This afternoon, long after the fire had died and the embers had cooled, we decided to dispose of the ashes.

BIG MISTAKE

Do not take 16-18 hour old ashes from your fire pit and dump them behind your utility shed where you threw all of the leaves from the previous fall. Fire may ignite and destroy property that does not belong to you!!!

We learned a lot today. Something else I learned is that I should probably start wearing a surgical mask more often (or a gas mask) to shield my now-vulnerable lungs from smoke and fumes.

The miracle lies in the fact that this could have been WAY WAY WORSE. Our neighborhood is tree-laden. Luckily, the fire didn't have time to spread through the tree-tops. Otherwise, it could have been carried right up to several back doors. Another lucky thing is that the fire department is literally 3 blocks from our house, so they came pretty quickly. We were truly lucky in this instance!

So guess what our next project is?

No, silly! Not the office! It's rebuilding 4 fences and a deck! Yaaaaaay! 

So, yeah I had to get through all of that boring stuff to finally come to answer the big question as to why anyone would grill burgers inside????

Our gas grill was out of propane.

Cold front in April?

Well, we're continuing to deal with the effects of climate change here in Tejas. Unfortunately, it just won't stay hot like it's supposed to! I'm ready to swim! Cece is REALLY ready to swim! But I refuse to get in a pool that is under 85 degrees (and even that is a bit chilly for me!)

Perhaps it has prolonged a spring where I might have otherwise killed all my plants by now. So I'll be optimistic about this. (But I still resent having to wear jeans to a baseball game -- WHAT?!! The world must be approaching it's end!)

Ok, I've had some BUSTED UP projects around here lately. Mainly the one where I was going to sew my own curtains for the fireplace room but then they ended up hanging crooked. I mean, who knew sewing a piece of fabric into a rectangle would be so difficult? Nevermind the fact that it took me a week and a half to even sew the things in the first place. Bottom line is, they just didn't work for the room. So we now have curtain rods, but no curtains.

I haven't decided if I'll give that project another go, or just break down and buy some already made. Maybe I'll check Pier 1 first....

Another BUSTED UP (or we'll just say neglected) project is my plan to organize the closets in the bedroom.

I started our hall closet, but quit half-way through because there are still a lot of things in there that need to be "stored."

Then I moved to our lovely office, (which is about to undergo it's own little renovation,) and successfully organized that closet. It took like, 3 hours. Plus, the closet doors fell off (thanks, previous owners!), so you can see the "organization" and it's slow demise.

Still, I haven't found the motivation to go upstairs. Maybe it's because I hate our bedroom right now, and will continue to hate it until I can bust some walls up.

As of now, we have two clean baskets of unfolded laundry downstairs, and 3 clean baskets of folded laundry upstairs. I will say, my closet is basically empty right now and I am having to dig every time I need clean clothes.

Enough about BUSTED UP projects. Let's talk about some successes, so I don't leave this post feeling completely defeated.

Let's talk about grass.

Token "before" picture

And our current situation!

I probably shouldn't admit to this, but there are still quite a few bare spots. You just can't see them in this photo! So to you, it looks magnificent! It's definitely getting there. Now I need to get some real planters for either side of that french door.

This next thing isn't a project, but I just wanted to brag for a moment because I never win anything!

But I did win this....

A re-usable shopping bag, a green tea flavored lip balm, guitar picks, stickers...this company is rad!

Thanks to Sweet Leaf Tea! This is literally the best tea on earth. It's an organic tea, it's delicious, and it's based right out of Texas. I'd say that's a triple-threat!

(Uh-oh...looks like I let a little bit of that Texas pride slip out. I apologize if you aren't from Texas.)

I think this seems like a good place to call it quits for the day.

Etsy!

I have an esty store, ya'll! For now, I'm just doing the pet placemats, but if that's successful, then I'll be able to expand it!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/kissattack