Time for being outside!

I signed in to write this and realized we haven't written a post in Old Films Reviewed, even though we have watched a couple. 'Doh. Maybe some other time.

So this morning I awoke to a knock at the door. You see, Alice and I got some sort of sneezy sniffly coughy bug over the weekend, and while its not terrible, we have been sleeping extra. So I threw on the first thing i saw and ran downstairs for the door.

It was our neighbor Steve. Steve's landscaping friend works with the Hy-Vee gardening people and they had some sod that was drying out and needed picked up today and installed today or tomorrow. I asked how much it was, and he said free, so lets do it, right? We don't say no to free. Even it involves some hard work.

So I told Daniel "no staying late at work, we were getting 30 rolls of sod." (I wasn't really sure how much that was, but considering we lost half of our grass seed in the heavy rains a couple of weeks ago, I figured we would get a good chunk of the yard covered.)

Daniel had a bad day at work, and we went out to get copious amounts of fried greasy fish, I mean Long John Silvers. It was slow moving, it literally took us 20 minutes from ordering the food to getting it, and when we got back none of the neighbors were around.

Then we got the message to call Steve, and we got a 5 minute warning to unload sod from the truck. So Alice finished off the greasy potatoes and we went and unloaded tons of sod. It was probably about 40 rolls, and it seemed like more than we would need when we were unloading it. Then we went and started levelling some of the lumpier parts of the yard, then inside and Alice took a bit of a nap (she hadn't got an afternoon nap, my bad).

Anyway, long story short, we rolled sod out until just before 9:30 which was pretty dang dark. I think I did a good job patching and staggering the sod, and if we keep watering like crazy, and finish the small area that still sod, we should have an awesome yard.

I gotta say, it was hard work, and I was glad it was only in the 70s. I am fine with manual labor, but my all natural deodorant is not.

So yeah, we stink, and are postponing going to bed and showering because we are a bit hyped up. Well, I am postponing because I don't want to bathe Alice. She made sure to get showered with dirt a few times and whats another 20 minutes.

So yeah. Come sunlight, I shall have to take pictures and post them. That means I have to charge some batteries. (By the way, the 11 year old next door thinks I am a hippie because I use rechargable batteries.) So I am off to be a dirty stinky hippie. Until I bathe, that is.

3am Post! Sweet!

So I watched the Women's Conference from the comfort of my house, which was great. I remember in years past going to meet with the stake and feeling the awesome spirit of sisterhood, but guess what, you can feel it at home too. Plus its much less interfering with baby bedtimes.

While Alice was a bit of a buttface during some of the talks, she was amazing during President Uctdorf. I think that has something to do with the fact that I typically lie down with her between 7:30-8 and by the time he spoke it was already 8. Lucky her, late night fun! OK she was pretty cranky until I told Daniel to stack up blocks into a tower for her to demolish.

For some reason it just makes me feel better to knock things over and destroy all order. I mean it makes HER feel better.

So President Uctdorf shared this little example about how men and women are different based on cooking styles. She makes fabulous foods from around the world set and some immaculate tablescape and they will sit down and she will say "I put too much ginger in this." or "Next time I will add this to it." etc etc. The food he cooks best? Fried eggs. Sunny side up. Or something that had a nice sounding name, which was twice toasted toast. And he said when he makes it he feels like a hero.

Gotta admit, the foods Daniel makes the best either come from a box or its...tada! eggs!. His even have cheese. Sliced American. And the eggs are barely cooked. And even though he scrambles them you never add milk. Milk doesn't add anything to eggs. Ever. Or so I have been told.

I don't think I am buch a hardcore cook though. Occasionally I will get a table set and have more than three foods on the table (like pasta, veggies, and fruit! or even more rare dessert). Yeah anything beyond cooking some one dish meal, or having some meat bread and veggie belong to company. And in our case, its the missionaries.

Why don't we have people over?

One word folks. Laziness.

Mine.

Not that I am lazy. Its just the effort to invite people and find a time they CAN come, as well as planning a dinner. Ok I admit, company days are days I get to cook whatever I want. That means things that if cooked for Daniel will get the compliment "This looks god for what its supposed to be." Yeah, it looks and tastes like how curry is supposed to. Does he like it though? No. Does he even like the sides? No. Rice is ok.

Meh. I like rice, and I like to occasionally cook something amazingly different like curry! Or stinky stirfry. Cause soy sauce is gross.

Thats why sushi is great. I can make some, roll it and keep it in the fridge for whenever. Then slice and eat!

How did I get on this topic? Oh yeah, President Uctdorf. You know I can't even remember what else he talked about. I remember things from other speakers, but I am guessing waking up after being in bed for 4+ hours is getting to me.

Oh and people from the ward came and helped rip up our backyard! That means the fall yard project is now started and I can pressure Daniel into working on it more. As in actually grading the yard. ANd my homemade tortillas that I made the dough the refridgerated...they stuck together hard. Still tasted good, but they were funny shapes from peeling them apart.

FYI when you have kids, you will pass out at 9:30 sometimes. And when you get joined in bed at 1:30am by your husband, he will wake you and then you will be awake.

Maybe thats not a kid thing. But it happens to me at least half the time when he stays up late working on school. OK, I gotta get up in the morning. Not early, but I gotta get up. Plus my brain stopped working.

I fixed the back door!

So our back door stopped opening. It had been fine, then it got really hot and we finished putting the back of the house back on, and tada...its no longer functioning.

It only took a couple of months of me not being able to open the door to see if I could fix it without removing door trim and the whole nine yards. You see, there had been this little Styrofoam pad thingy on the top of the door and I took it off when we put them in (cause I thought I should) but it left behind some glue residue.

Well Being the smart one I am, I got a butter knife and a folding chair and Monday night I scraped glue off the door.

In about half an hour I had lots of little glue blobs sticking to my hands and fingernails, but the door opened and shut just fine.

I did wish I had some goo gone, but it was a such a small area I let that wish go away.

After cleaning off the glue, I wiped the residue with an alcohol based cleaner.

Thats it folks!

On a side note, I actually opened the door myself before scraping it. I hadn't been able to open it all summer (you know since it hit triple digits around the beginning of July). In celebration I pulled up some of the weeds growing in the back yard. (We are going to have a fall project of pulling up everything growing in the back and seeding and prepping a garden spot.)

I stopped when I ran into leaves of Three let them Be!

(Turns out they had thorns on them which equals brambles (blackberries/raspberries) and not poison ivy! Of course once I did that research I had rinsed with cold water, wiped with alcohol soaked cotton ball, AND showered. Cause you know you can't be covered in poison ivy when you have a tiny someone that wants to live on your lap.

The refiner's Fire

When you heat up metal to refine the ore...in other words get the impurities out it takes a lot of heat, some time, and you have to be willing to wait. Wait until you can see your reflection. Thats when you know the metal is pure. Well here is our fire of sorts. It was hot, it took 6 days (not all of them working days) and about 40 manhours (thank you elders). But we are done. The following is a bit of a picture diary.
Page one is me and Alice helping the Elders dig our yard. (We work hard and play hard. Cue disco music...)

Pretend there is text on the first page saying "Grrrrrr.." For the record that is Alice going from grin to grunty laughter. What a little monster. :-)
Page two is the completed deal. Don't you love the strip of sod? The entire 85,000 person town was sold out of sod, save this piece. We called like 5 or so nurseries before we found it too. And the rocks are one of three piles that need moved.



Daniel went to rent us a movie from Redbox...there is no way we are watching that tonight. For the record, 4 days until my Birthday! We are driving to Emporia and...painting my parents house??? Fun times huh? We will of course slack off some as well.