The renovations have slowed down a bit lately as regular work has taken over.  I start teaching this week (where has the summer gone?) and so have been prepping for that, whilst Rick has been working overtime doing computer-related stuff.  One thing that has not been working overtime is our lawnmower (did you like that segue? )

Although the lawn mower almost brand-spanking new -  we only bought it back in March and it has less than 10 riding hours on it – we’ve had to return it to the manufacturer to have it worked on.  Rick started using the mower and after a bit it stopped cutting.  When he inspected underneath, he noticed that the transaxle has a bunch of stress fractures.  Not good.  So while our lovely new mower is having plastic surgery, the dog run in our back yard currently look this:

and this

Don’t judge.  Luckily, it’s just the dog part of the yard that looks like this – we managed to get most of the lawn (the main bits that the neighbors can see) done before it conked out. We’re working on getting a loaner mower whilst ours is being repaired, so hopefully soon we’ll have a less “junglified” yard for the dogs.  In the meantime, I guess Rick is just going to have to get his wacker out.  Weed wacker, peeps.  Keep it clean

The house renovations have slowed down a bit lately.  Maybe all that new homeowner vim and vigor has finally run out. Or the money has run out. Or perhaps is just takes two to do the renovation tango.  Renovating can be fun, but it also can be a tough job for two people to do together, let alone on their own-some. My month long excursion to the UK didn’t help our progress. Plus, as soon as I got back to America, Rick had to go on a week-long work trip to Notre Dame university (I tried not take it personally). Yesterday, a good friend noted that I hadn’t posted on the blog for some time, to which I replied that we hadn’t recently finished many projects to blog about.  But it got me thinking about all we have done around the house.  Today marks six months being in our new house.  Six months! Where did the time go? Seeing as I tend to be a ‘glass half empty’ kind of girl, now seems like a good time to think about all the projects we have completed so far:

All carpet has been pulled up

Back yard fence was built

Front and back doors were replaced

Landscape lighting has been installed

Downstairs bathroom was gutted and new tile installed. Bathroom vanity made over with a granite top and vessel sink.

New exterior lights installed

Dining room window replaced

 French doors hung between kitchen and office

Foyer chandelier replaced

Two foyer walls removed and headers installed

Dining room floor painted

Master bedroom ceiling fan installed

Dining room chandelier replaced

Siding removed and rehung

Thermostats switched out

100,000,000 green bugs,  3,000 big-ass spiders, 2 bats, a mole, a lizard, a frog… and a partridge in a pear tree.

Pheww! We’ve been busy! But all this optimism is making me feel all Paula Abdul – I’m much more Simon Cowell-esque (must be a British thing).  If I wear my pessimist hat for a minute, I’d hate to compile a list of all the projects that we have left to do around the house. Wow, that list would be longer than a prize bull’s ba-donk-a-donk. We’ll get there in the end.  That’s what the bull said.

As the afternoon progressed, the clouds rolled in and the wind picked up, so much that parts of our fence started swaying ominously.  We prepared for the thunderstorm by propping up sections of the fence with 2×4 posts (the extended gate needed extra support in the high winds, as did the temporary, non-cemented sections of the back fence).  But before we called it a day on the outside work, we decided to quickly finish off the fence by removing the tops of 4×4 posts and placing decorative wooden knobs on top.  Tres chic!

It was not long after we finished with the knobs that it started to rain.  The wind really picked up, ripping the new screen door open and crashing it closed. Rick solved the problem by tightening up the hinges and the latch on the door.  It appeared that we were going to be in for one heck of a storm. But, the thunderstorm never really amounted to much all evening.  There were a few flashes of lightning and rumbles of thunder, but not even enough to make our doggies scared.