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Day 581

I may be retired by the time the shutters are hung.

We’ve been focusing on other things in the meantime. We’ve had some visitors now that we’re vaccinated. My friend Jessica and her little girl, Sophia, came to visit and Sophia was very interested in “meow”.

We have a new coat rack. Please alert the media.

I added some feet to the laundry room cabinetry. I know your mind is blown.

I painted and put new hardware on this pair of dressers in one of the bedrooms. These were in my sister’s nursery nearly 30 years ago and then went to college with me. I’ve painted them three times now.

“Meow” is upset that the dressers are not going in his room.

I hosted some of my pals for a girl’s weekend.

We did some crafts and threatened to start an Etsy shop.

Josh and I discussed the vegetable garden and selected a location in the yard.

There has been SOME progress on the exterior of the house. They’ve been working on painting the porches.

I am LOVING the painted porch floors – light gray – a historical look.

Don’t mind the patchwork columns – the painter decided he didn’t like what the paint was doing so he was testing a new primer. He then proceeded to scrape ALL OF THE PAINT off of the front porch columns. They are now white again and I can’t talk about it.

Painting is going much better inside. I painted the bench I posted last time. I’ve also ordered the fabric sitting in the window to make roman shades. This is keeping me from losing my mind amidst the porch paint drama.

I recently inherited all of these blue willow treasures, which were my great grandmother’s. I have collected blue willow for years and am thrilled to have these pieces.

Joshua tilled the garden yesterday and we are gearing up to plant this evening.

Hopefully we’ll have some exciting things growing soon!

Yours shutterlessly,

Emily

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Day 243

I can barely concentrate on anything else at the moment because I’m so excited about the framing!!!

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But, first things first: Check out our driveway that has been graded up so there’s no longer a pond in the middle of it. They also put in a massive pipe specified by my dear husband who does not mess around when it comes to proper drainage.

I had been parking at the very beginning of the driveway due to it being impassible in my short SUV.  Next time, I will drive on up and park in front of the house…

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… right by the front porch!

They are starting to put in the floor system for the second floor.  The room above the front porch is the guest room.  Kath (my mom) will be so delighted to see this as she is eager to stay in her suite.

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They put in the stairs to the future headquarters of my design firm. The way things are going with COVID-19, it sounds like I will be subletting some of my office space to my husband.

Ok, back to the tour.

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My kitchen!

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Which will eventually look like this!

But probably not for 6 months…sigh.

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This is the living room, which overlooks the front porch and yard.  They had somehow missed one of these windows in the first round of framing, but they quickly got it added in after I brought it to their attention.

I’m sure I’m their favorite already.

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Though I planned for all rooms to have lots of light and pretty views, I am particularly smitten with the view from the dining room.

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I am also a big nerd about sight lines and axes.  This is the view looking the opposite direction of the previous photo.  Once all of these lovely temporary supports are removed, there will be a sight line down through the hall and out the windows of the library on the back of the house from the dining room table.

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The L-shaped screened porch that wraps the back and side of the house will have an uninterrupted view of the tree line.  Though right now, these temporary supports are really killing the mood.

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Here’s another angle showing the screened porch and those library windows I’ll be able to see through from the dining room.  I foresee spending a lot of time on this porch.  So does our cat, Bu.

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And this is the beast from her widest angle.

This house has been in my head and in my heart for so long that is really surreal to see it come to life.

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Still quite a bit left before she looks like my rendering, but well on her way!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Day 171

Things haven’t changed much in the last few days.  Apparently, the ground was still fairly wet under the surface, so earthwork dude was letting it dry out.

We had a safely distanced meeting on-site with our builder to discuss the next few steps.  There is some more grading to do and then the digging of the footers and the basement.   I must find my pink sunglasses Josh got me before it’s time for me to inspect these items.

I did a little practice inspecting today.

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Looking good and level.

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I had to check out the view from Pride Rock…er…Pride Dirt Pile.

Josh decided to have a little too much fun with photoshop after I started calling our pile of dirt “Pride Rock”.  Here I am presenting our house cat, Bu, to the kingdom.

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I blame it on the quarantine.

Moving on.

We moved the trail camera back to its original location because I have recently learned about myself that, to me, watching dirt being moved is like watching paint dry.

The usual suspects showed up: Bambi, house cat, opossum, and a few curious neighbors.

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Then came one of the funniest videos yet.

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It started with a young lady turkey casually strolling by.  I’ve just learned this is called a “jenny”.

Hey, Jen.

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Then a few seconds later she inexplicably picks up her pace and exits stage right…

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…because here comes Tom!

I think the quarantine is getting to them, too.

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Day 166.5

Yesterday was quite a day on several fronts.  I didn’t want to take away from the HUGE DEAL of the groundbreaking so I decided to do a separate post about the other happenings.

  1.  Los Tres Amigos Mexican Restaurant & Our Future Normal

Joshua and I have a borderline disturbing attachment to the local Mexican restaurant near our current house.  When times were different and we could dine-in at restaurants, we would go there once a week.  Given the current situation, we have ordered delivery from “Tres”, as we fondly call it, every Friday night and it is pretty much the highlight of my week when the fajitas and sangria arrive.

Well, last night, we had quite a scare.

At 4:58PM, I picked up my phone and called to place our order.  It didn’t ring.  I got that “beep, beep, beep” sound that signifies a call has been dropped and my phone said the call had been “canceled”  (What does that even mean?!).

I kept trying for the next fifteen minutes and the same thing kept happening.

Emotions were running high and I was distraught.  We tried calling from Josh’s phone.  Same thing.  Panic had set in.

Josh suggested maybe we look into ordering from a different Mexican restaurant.  I couldn’t even talk about it.

So many things were going through my head:

  • Los Tres Amigos was closed for good because they weren’t making enough money from delivery and take-out during the pandemic.  I should have ordered from them every day! How could I have let this happen?!
  • All of the people who work at Los Tres Amigos were sick with coronavirus.  OMG I hope they are OK!
  • Will I ever get to eat Los Tres Amigos again???

I tried one last time and miraculously the call went through. I was so relieved! Evidently since the tornado last month, their phone lines haven’t been quite right.  I made sure to tell them they gave me quite a scare.

After this traumatic experience, it occurred to me that I may not make it out in the country and a 50 minute drive from Tres.

     2. Tiger King & A Moment of Self-Reflection 

After savoring every morsel of our Mexican food delivery with a new-found appreciation, Josh and I decided to start watching Tiger King.

About 2 or 3 episodes and 2 or 3 glasses of wine in (don’t judge me…it had been a long day and I certainly wasn’t driving anywhere), I was wondering how people become “large cat people”.

I reflected on this blog and how I’ve spent that last 100+ days fascinated by the “exotic” creatures on our property.

I turned to Josh and said, “Let’s not turn into ‘large cat people’, OK?…well, I guess we are ‘large ‘house cat’ people’.”

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DAY 133

Well, a lot has happened in the last 3 weeks:

  1. We got our building permit! After the “plan review fee”, the “privilege tax”, the “educational impact fee”, and a handful of other absurd fees, I’m pretty sure we’ve paid for a county employee’s annual salary in order to obtain our permit.
  2. It has rained approximately 67″  this February, which has put everyone in construction behind and has delayed us breaking ground until the earthwork guys catch up.  Patiently waiting…..
  3. I had surgery and Josh has been buried in his Finance class so we hadn’t been able to go for a site visit until yesterday.
  4. Our neighbor’s barn is nearly finished.  Our construction envy is growing by the minute.
  5. The critters have come out in full force! We had a record 60 videos on the trail camera this time, which is about 5X as many as we’ve had before.

 

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Neighbor’s barn.  Maybe one day there will be a structure on our property, too.  Not jealous or anything.

Focusing on our wildlife for now.

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I think this is an owl on the ground to the right of the trees.  Josh agreed with my assessment for once.

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Up close and personal with Bambi.

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Practicing for her real ID picture.

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Turkey invasion!

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House cat makes an appearance.

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Turkeys are back for the first recorded snow since we’ve had the camera!

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Our resident black squirrel with white-tipped tail dashing by on a sunny day.  I can’t wait for Bu (our indoor house cat) to lay his eyes on this guy.  He’s going to lose his mind.

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Evidently our neighbors believe in free-range horses.  Exhibit A.

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Exhibit B.

Remind me to look into a property fence…

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Pretty blue bird on the ground below the trees.  Looked very busy.

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Cute little bunny! Another creature for Bu to go nuts over from his indoor perch.

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And finally, more snow! It didn’t snow at all at our current house on the other side of town.  I can’t wait to be in the new house and watch it snow this time next year.

Patiently waiting…..

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Day 112

We put up a “gate” this weekend at the property.  And by we, I mean my dad and Joshua.  I was busy reviewing trail camera footage.  More on that in a minute.

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This is a temporary setup to try to deter unauthorized visitors.  But, between the medium-duty chain, the plastic sign, and the fact that there’s no lock, it’s basically Fort Knox.

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Hopefully people will get the message.

Back to the trail camera.

The house cat made another appearance, as did the shaky branch.  We had a deer family and a squirrel.  I was about to report to the guys that there wasn’t anything exciting, when I came across this fella:

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I wish I could share the video so you could see this creature in action.  He has a most unusual gait and what appears to be a large head.

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I was pretty sure it was a wild boar, as our neighbor did mention she’s seen a few.

When the guys got back in the truck for lunch, I handed over my laptop for them to take a look.

About .283 seconds later, Josh said, “Um, that is an opossum.”

Just call me Bindi Irwin.

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Day 101

Greetings!

Well, the house isn’t done yet…or started for that matter.

We did, however, close on our construction loan.  Our plans have been submitted for our construction permit and we’re hoping to get the green light this coming week.

Though there’s not much to see just yet, we still make regular visits to the property to check on it and collect the footage from the trail camera.

After reviewing last week’s footage, it seems we aren’t the only ones eagerly awaiting construction to start:

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Hiiiii….

Screen Shot 2020-01-26 at 2.05.13 PMThis is the second time we have seen this truck.  If there’s a next time, I’ll be running their plates and sending them a note with the blog URL.

This is also the second time we’ve seen this little guy/gal:

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The first time we saw him/her, Josh had reviewed the footage before I did.  I asked him if there was anything noteworthy and our conversation went something like this:

J: “A few vehicles, a coyote, and a house cat.”

E: “A house cat?”

J: “Yeah, a house cat.”

E: “As opposed to what? A leopard? A lion? A bobcat? Isn’t it just a cat?”

J: “No, you can tell it’s a house cat.”

This went on for a while and we eventually determined that while I would categorize all domestic felines as “cats”, Josh grew up with farm cats that lived in the barn and did not come in the house so therefore just “cat” as a descriptor is a little too vague.

I am assuming this critter’s full figure is what led Josh to determine that it is clearly a “house cat”.

Hopefully by the time the house cat returns, construction will be underway!

P.S. This is not the first time the term “house cat” has come up in our marriage.  When shopping for shampoo to bathe our (house) cat, Bu, all the pet store had was “show cat” shampoo.  Josh rolled his eyes and exclaimed, “We don’t need “show cat” shampoo, we just need “house cat” shampoo!”.