What we do when we're not slaving away on the house

Sometimes you just need to take a break!  Sarah and I have been working out little butts off on the house for almost 9 months now, and frankly, we needed a rest.  And what's a better way to relax and blow off some steam than to go and beat the snot out of your car on the race track!?

The weekend of July 17-18 was one of my favorite summertime events: the WaterWerks German Car Show.  Anyone who knows me knows I'm a huge car nerd, particularly when it comes to German cars; and especially when it comes to Volkswagens and Audis, which is what this show caters to.

Since I sold my red Audi a few months back, I had nothing to put in the show this year (it was time to give the other Audis a chance for 1st place anyway, hehehe).  So, instead of showing, I decided to put the S4 through its paces on the autocross course.  Lucky for me, I have a wonderful fiance who also shares my love of cars and Sarah said she wanted to race too.  So, bright and early Saturday morning we woke up, washed the cars and then hit the road to Cheney Stadium in Tacoma.

For those not familiar with autocrossing, it's a form of racing that usually takes place in large, flat parking lots (like at stadiums or shopping malls).  Setup on the parking lot is a course--marked with cones--that is around 1/3 mile long full of sweeping turns, slaloms, hairpin turns and other "obstacles" that require a lot of technical driving skill.  There is a lot of throttle/brake/clutch action going on for the short time you're on the track.  In autocross you are racing against the clock, not other cars, so there's only one car on the track at a time trying to get the fastest time through the course.

This was my first time doing this kind of racing, and it was Sarah's first time doing any kind of racing at all, and by the time we were done with our first runs we were hooked!  We had a blast and we can't wait for our next track day!

Sarah looked like a pro by the end of the day:

Me waiting for my time slip after a run.  S4s are big, heavy cars and NOT made for autocrossing.  They are happier on larger, faster tracks where they can stretch their legs and let the turbos spool.  Sarah's car on the other hand, is very much at home on a small, technical course like this and ripping the course up (the hot chick driving it had something to do with that too!).

Sarah ripping through the cones in her M Roadster.

Sarah's BMW had some engine troubles after later in the day, so we had to park it (don't worry, nothing major!).  With her car out for the day, she hopped in my car with me for a few runs until the guy with the track-prepped 993 Porsche stole her from me. Luckily, he brought her back though.

Poor Blog =(

We're sorry everyone, we've been neglecting the blog this month.  Sarah's computer died and all of our photos and other house-related stuff are trapped on it currently.

There's a HUGE update coming soon though!

Halfway Home

I'm about halfway done laying the new floors now.  I've done the kitchen, living room and most of the hallway.  I just need to do the master bedroom, walk-in closet and the other bedroom/office.  The floors look AWESOME, we're super stoked.

Once I'm done laying the flooring, I just need to install the new electrical outlets/switches, install and paint the trim and do a few small things, then we're pretty much done with round 1 of the remodel...FINALLY.


My work area:

Looking down the hall towards the master bedroom:

Looking from the dining area to the living room (if you click on the picture you can see a bigger version):

The kitchen:

We can't wait to be done!

Sneak Peek

I've been working on getting the house ready to lay the new flooring this week in the evenings after work. I finally laid the first planks last night and I'm off to a good start.

So far, so good!

Excitement builds

Our flooring has finally arrived! We are now this close to being done with round 1 of the remodel. I'm hoping to be done installing it by the end of the week...

Not quite a putting green yet

The front yard is almost finished now.  The rock walls are built and filled with dirt, the sprinkler system is installed, Sarah planted the flowers and I've spread 4 yards of topsoil in the flower beds and where the lawn will.  Now all I have to do is lay the sod this weekend.

The wall turned out pretty well, I'm very pleased with it. I only ended up needing to buy about 20 bricks on top of the ones my neighbor gave me in order to finish it, so that worked out really well (thanks again Barry!).

The sod goes in this weekend, and once it's established I can pressure wash the walls to make the bricks look new again.

More pics soon!

May is such a TEASE!

Spring is here...I think. May is such a teaser month. Sun one minute, drizzle the next. As a Washingtonian, I can only dream of waking up in the morning and it is already 70 degrees out.

As a kid this happened a few times each Summer. My older sister Autumn, our neighbor Kim and I would throw on our swim suits at my parent's lake cabin and hop into the lake for a morning swim. Memories of this resurface when Darrick and I join our friends Chad and Stef at their lake cabin in the Summer. Hopefully July and August will provide us with these opportunities again.

BBQ'd breakfast sounds like a delicious alternative to cooking inside this summer as well. =) A friend just told me recently that even Pop Tarts can be BBQ'd. I think I will have to try that as I need no convincing that good old bacon and eggs is simply scrumptious from the grill.

Back to what I'm posting about...our garden. The rain and spontaneous spurts of sun have really boosted the growth so far. Along with a few doses of Miracle Grow, I can say most of the plants are looking quite green and bushy. This makes me happy. =)

The sweet peas have grown to about 5 inches tall. It is amazing how they wrap their tiny terminal tendrils ( I looked that up) around twine or anything supportive so that they may climb their way to creating a breadth of color and scent in the upcoming months. I am excited to open the door to the patio on a hot summer day and smell their wonderful scent.

The veggies all seems to have taken flight, but their engines have stalled. Lot's of leaves but not many signs of fruit to come. I think heat and sun in the next few months will allow them to really soar. Patience is a virtue.

Sadly, Leroy snapped my basil plant and killed it last week. Hot Fiance Darricko bought me a new plant yesterday and gave it a new home in the original spot of the deceased. A sweet present to a girl who had just gotten home from 36 hours of hospital work. Thanks Darrick. I will make you some kind of basil yumminess soon.

The corn has definitely taken a liking to the soil I prepared for it. At first the starts were looking spindly and sad, but over these last couple weeks they have perked up. Same for the raspberries and strawberries I was given by a few friends.

I would say the flowers are what I am enjoying the most right now since most of our plants haven't actually produced yet. The snapdragons are blooming and I officially love the look of them in a simple glass jar; see below. Notice that I just had to take a few shots of the dogs with the flowers...hehe! Bentley is the black lab in the pictures. He is our friend Austin's dog and has been staying with us for the past week. He makes me want to get a third dog. Maybe a yellow lab. D says "NO". We will see.

For those of you planning your own garden this year, check out my homemade signs. They were very simple to make and you can use any color of paint that you want. I chose to have Darrick cut up a board for me, spray paint the wood black and then we nailed the wood to stakes. Last, I wrote what kind of veggie the sign would represent with a pale purple paint pen. Easy as pie and it makes the garden look loved that much more.

The first pictures you will see are what the back yard looks like right now. All fill dirt. Sod to come.

TTFN, Sarah

Feel the Heat

I don't know what the codes were regarding attic insulation when our house was built in 1973, but I find it hard to believe that the codes called for, um, ZERO insulation back then. Okay, our house doesn't have zero insulation in the attic, but it might as well. The attic has 35-year-old cellulose blow-in insulation in it that doesn't even cover the 2x4 rafters. So, on a good day we have something along the lines of R-5 insulation up there. For reference, current code calls for R-49 in the attic. Because of this, the heatpump has been working overtime all winter (and the previous 35 winters before that I'd assume...). When the heater turns off, you can literally feel the heat moving upward and being sucked out of the house.

Since we're still waiting for the new flooring to arrive, we're taking care of some final projects that need to be addressed in the meantime. One of those projects is insulating the attic.

After doing some research about insulation options, we decided to go with the Owens-Corning AttiCat system. This is the one that you can rent at Home Depot. We originally were going to go with insulation that is made from recycled newspaper treated with a fire retardant since it's "green" and earth friendly and all that crap. But, after comparing the two, the paper-based insulation would have been a couple hundred dollars more expensive and weighed about twice as much as the fiberglass-based insulation.

So, this morning we went down to Home Depot and bought 23 packages of the AttiCat insulation and rented the special machine to blow it into the house. This stuff is pretty cool and it's really easy to do. All you do is plug in the machine and drag the hose up into the attic and have your lovely assistant (Sarah) feed the bricks of insulation into the machine. The bricks expand about 16 times in size when fed through the machine and then it pumps it through the hose and all you have to do is "spray" the insulation into the attic.

This was the attic before we started adding the extra insulation. The gray stuff on the bottom is the old insulation that's covered in 35 years of dust. It's maybe 3 inches thick.


And after two hours of crawling in the attic blowing insulation around, it looked like this:


It's kinda hard to tell when you compare the before and after pictures, but there's 18-24 inches of insulation filling the entire attic now, giving it an R-value of 50-60 or so (MUUUCH better!). The results could be felt right away. It's amazing how much warmer the house feels now and the heat has kicked on a lot less than usual this evening.

Another great thing about this product is the mess was pretty minimal. After blowing 2000 cubic feet of insulation into the attic, this was the mess that had to be cleaned up. And most of this mess was because I accidentally dropped the hose when it was on and blew a bunch of insulation around the place.


We should have done this months ago!

Happy Puppies

With the gorgeous weather we had this past weekend, we had to get out of the house for a change instead of spending all of our time working on it! So, Sarah and I met up with some of my car nerd friends and we went for a leisurely cruise up to Bellingham. Of course, I-5 isn't very leisurely or interesting, so we took the back roads there along Chuckanut Drive. It's a beautiful drive that takes you through La Connor (where the Tulip Festival is every year, the tulips were dead and gone by now though unfortunately), and through a few small towns and then along the water through some great twisty roads that invite a little "spirited driving."

Once we arrived in Bellingham, we all got lunch at the Weblocker Restaurant. Then, we went to Larrabee State Park to hang out on the beach for awhile before heading home.

Lucy and Leroy had a blast at the beach! We already knew Lucy loved the beach since she's been to a few of them now, but this was Leroy's first time playing in the sand and water and he loved it!

Leroy HATES getting baths, but when Lucy jumped in the water to chase a stick, he went in right after her without a second thought!

After swimming, they frollicked on the beach for a bit and helped themselves to a roll on a stranger's towels.


After that, they played some football with us guys.


And my friend Bird snapped a "fantastic" candid shot of Sarah and I:


(I can only assume I said or did something asinine just moments before this photo was taken...)

More work in the yard

While we're waiting for the new floors to arrive, I've turned my attention to the front yard. A few posts back, I updated you on the beginnings of that project. Since then, I've made a pretty decent amount of progress. The first part of the retaining wall is now complete and I've filled it in with about three cubic yards of dirt. I still need to bring in another yard or so of good topsoil to really level everything out before I lay down the new sod though.

Looking pretty good, huh?

Here's a good detail shot of the retaining wall. The black fabric you see along the top is a weed blocker that will help keep weeds from growing through the rock. It also helps keep the dirt from leaching out when it rains. It will be hidden once I lay the sod. I still need to pressure wash everything to get rid of the moss and dirt from the blocks. It will look pretty much new once I do that.


Talk about increased curb appeal! Can't wait until we can paint the place in a couple months.


While I'm talking about the yard, our neighbors across the street (Barry and Pat) deserve a huge THANK YOU. The entire transformation of the front yard has essentially been free for us since it just so happens that they were digging up and redoing their back yard at the same time we decided to tackle our front yard. All of the stones for the retaining wall came from their yard, as well as all the fill dirt I needed. We totally lucked out on this project!

Leroy had a bad day

Leroy had another round of shots on Friday morning at the vet. As usual, he was excited to go to the vet because all the girls there love him and he never misses an opportunity to say hi to people.

All went well at the vet so Sarah and Leroy went back home. However, a couple hours after they got home, Leroy developed an allergic reaction to his leptospirosis shot and his head started to swell up! And I don't mean it got a little inflated looking; poor Leroy looked like a bobble head doll! His neck also started to swell to the point he was having a hard time breathing, so Sarah quickly tossed him in the car and back to the vet they went!

Adding insult to injury, Sarah got pulled over on the way there. Not for speeding, but because she didn't have a front license plate on her car (my bad!). Luckily, the officer saw Leroy's giant head and let her off with a quick warning

Once at the vet, they shot Leroy full of steroids and Benadryl. The swelling stopped soon thereafter.

Leroy is doing much better now after a few days of rest and relaxation.

Not a happy puppy:

Time Flies When You're In A Garden

Let me tell you about my Bad Ass Garden!

Be prepared this summer to enjoy tomatoes, corn, zucchini, cucumbers, pickling cucumbers (yes I make homemade, knock your socks off, jalapeno pickles), spaghetti squash, rhubarb (it is sad to note that rhubarb doesn't produce much in the first year, but wait until next year for some rhubarb pie!), blueberries, raspberries (thanks to our neighbor Diane who loves to give me starts), giant pumpkins, oregano, chives, onions, basil and a large pot of rosemary. I also decided to grow some peppermint along with three types of lavender.

It's all been planted in raised beds that were tilled up with steer manure and peat moss. I checked the soil pH, the drainage is fantastic and I gave each start a little jump with some fish fertilizer. Let me just tell you that fish fertilizer made my hydrangeas rally after little care for the last 2 years.

I used a Jiffy greenhouse to plant marigold and snapdragon seeds. The starts look great and I've planted a few of the marigolds in the vegetable bed as I read that they are a pest deterrent.

Another fun and ultra simple thing to plant are sweet peas. I planted them just outside the downstairs patio door so that when you open the door in the summer, they will smell just great. I got a wild multi colored set of seeds which are doing really well. In the last photo below you can see how I made a trellis from stakes, nails and twine to hold them up as they start to get longer and want to travel.

I still have 3 rhododendrons that died on the side of the house to dig up. I purchased a pink hydrangea and a purple rhody to take their places.

I also want to find a purple lilac tree and a pink dogwood. Both are blooming right now and they look awesome!

One last thing that I did was transplant a begonia from a plastic pot from the store to a lovely green ceramic pot which sits right outside our door.

So now the rain has come and the forecast states it will rain for the rest of this week. I'm super stoked that I got the garden planted! I will post more when things start to really take off!!!

Hope you enjoyed this post! If you have some gardening techniques to share or starts you want to get rid of let me know!

I'm planning to get some horseradish and green beans in soon along with some multicolored poppies and nasturtiums.