8.5 months!

Karl turns 9 months on July 10th. I can hardly believe my little baby is that old. I remember my father saying to me at the age of 6 or 7 "I wish I could put a brick on the top of your head and stop you from growing". I feel the same way! Karl is such a sweet and happy boy. Here are some Karl updates.

1- Karl is close to walking. He can pull himself up like a champ and is now letting go with both hands and standing on his own for a second before falling to the ground. This is a fine thing to do most times, but Karl has been known to stand on our first step, smile at me, let go and then fall straight back and whack his head. He also did this at the bottom of his highchair and fell forward knocking his forehead into the base of the seat. Poor boy. He's fine, just a little bruised everywhere. From all the standing his big toes have started to feel the wear. They are red and sore.

You may have to click on this picture to enlarge it.

2- Vampire baby now has 5 teeth (almost 6). Since his incisor came in next to his canines he has unknowingly begun biting me while nursing. It hurts, but usually only happens when he is half asleep. Here is a picture of Karl in true vampire form. Also, note the bruise on his forehead from the highchair incident mentioned above.

3- Karl sure hates to be away from me when we are at home. He especially hates when I hand him off to Erik because it usually means that I am going to do something for a while. If we are out at church or somewhere that toys or new faces can distract him he doesn't mind if I am not in sight. Strange baby. This is usually the face that Erik gets to handle at home when I am not near.


4- If I am at home and just not paying full attention to him I generally hear crying/whining getting closer to me. In the kitchen I will feel two little hands on the back of my legs and if I am sitting on the bed I will see the top of a head at the end of the bed shuffling along until he reaches my side.

Sadly, in this picture Karl walked all the way around to my side of the bed to discover "DADDY!?! Noooo"



5- Karl is getting the hang of eating- still won't eat purees- but is happy to chomp away on things he can pick up with his hands. Charlie has also discovered that the highchair is a magical place just waiting for his nose and mouth to find tasty treats. After dinner our dog is very helpful and cleans up any remaining crumbs underneath the highchair.

6- Karl loves reading books. On our way to a pool party we discovered he had fallen asleep while reading. It must have been some intense plot line!


7- Karl loves shaking things. Anything you put in his hands will get a good shake. He really loves rattles. Oh boy! We went to the pool yesterday and Karl found many things to shake- a hat & goggles!



Incidentally...I just noticed Karl shaking one of Erik's socks while I wrote this.

8- We should have named him Karl Empathy Sax. If Karl hears another baby crying he will chime in with his own wails until the other parent attends to their baby. It is awfully sweet, but can make for trouble in densely baby populated areas.

Overall, Karl is a wonderful child. He is happy most of the time and loves being with people. I look forward to seeing him take his first step and say his first word...but I also wish that he would be a baby for longer.

Flashing pics

Erik here, blogsphere. Today's lesson, flashing! It's important to flash properly so that our children can enjoy the same things we do. Without flashing, our load bearing members can become fatigued and rot. Today I capped my posts with aluminum flashing.

This flashing will protect my posts from water, and coupled with the new way of bracketing the bottom of the posts to concrete instead of burying them, this deck could potentially outlive me. I also added yet another longitudinal truss in this picture, it's flush with a joist so it doesn't need to brace against a bridge, but I do have a bridge on the next gap which should help keep things pretty stiff. Hehe... stiff...

Lazy Sundays

It's freakin hot out. So instead of working outside I'm messing around on the computer. So yesterday we went to a party and met Ellie Kemper from the office there. Claire took our picture with her.

Well, this wasn't Ellie Kemper. She claimed her name was Melissa. Given that this woman is pregnant, and I don't think Ellie is, I'll believe her. Humans are excellent at recognizing faces, but you may recall that I'm not human, so I think all you people look alike. Here's a picture of the real Ellie Kemper for reference.

One thing lacking here is the profile, and my argument is that the profile was even more of a match. What do we think, people?

When we got back from harassing celeb look-a-likes, I got Claire's help ripping down our fence, which meant more four-wheeling in the suburban jungle of Fairfax townhomes. Here she is triumphantly posing with one of the posts she pulled out of the ground.

We had my niece babysit, which was very helpful. Luckily for her the baby was in a good mood and not, pictured below, crying hysterically over the absence of mommy.

Between babysitting and paying protection monies to the cronies at the dump, our demo cost 30$. "Why tear down the fence while you're still working on the deck?" Because our HOA told us we had to. I really couldn't argue with them...

It was shockingly easy to tear down, having few remaining structural members. We have a month left to rebuild it. This weekend I also did some more work on trusses and bridges, in preparation for this week's framing inspection. Here's one of the longitudinal trusses braced by a bridge. Also pictured is the outer rim joist, which was added a few days ago with the help of one of my tall neighbors. :)

And here's a shot of my co-captain of safety (no beers this time) testing the strength of the outer rim joist while I install a truss.

Paul has the distinction of being the first person to use our second floor doors in two years. I think he was also the last person to do so as well. Given his propensity for recklessness, I've put up an over the top "DANGER" sign to limit my liability.

Back to lounging in the AC with lemonade and lousy movies.

It's a deck, Jim

When I was 17, it was a very good year. Filled with false confidence, I decided any idiot could build things, so I built my own bookcase. I had 2 tools. A jig saw, and a drill. I based it on the length of wood I found at the hardware store. I built it in the garage, and I was pretty happy with the results. It looked a little on the small side. Then I tried to take it inside, and I realized that it was the largest bookcase conceived by man. The garage made it look small. (Ironically this bookcase now lives in the garage).

Well fast forward 11 years, and I designed my own deck based on wood lengths I found at the hardware store. 16 foot board lengths. Claire commented from our balcony that it appears we have possibly the largest deck in the neighborhood.

That picture shows that I still haven't trimmed my longer joists for the remaining outer "rim joist" or "apron," I'll do that tomorrow. It does look kind of big in relation to the other decks in the neighborhood, but it's smaller than our next door neighbor's.

This picture makes it look smaller.

What do you think? Our deck before was super small, so I'm looking forward to a 220 sq foot deck.

This weekend I got up all the joists (if you're wondering how a lone computer nerd got 16 foot joists 10 feet into the air, sorry, it's an ancient chinese secret), and by tonight all my joist hangers are installed, and most of my trusses are up. I even had time tonight to add a few bridges.

Here are some trusses:

Take a close look at my rim joist...

...No ledger bolts! That's right sports-fans, this deck is 100% free standing, making it way safer than decks attached to the house; house attachments are where most deck failures happen. In order to do this, I had to use 5 3inch wood screws in each joist to secure the inner aprons, and then slide the entire box up against the house. That's 70 screws just for the inner rim-joists.

Here's a closer look at my truss work and the strong ties that hold up the joists. Each tie gets 14 8d nails. That's over 200 nails.

Here's a view with the 6ft ladder included for reference.

Here's one of my lateral trusses, from the side. I used half inch bolts to secure them to the posts. In order to do this I used a 1.5 inch wood cutting bit to cut in a flush cylinder for the bolt.

In case you were wondering what a "bridge" is, here's one:

They help stiffen the structure and ensure the joists are straight. Once I finish the remaining rim joist, bridges and trusses, it'll be time for framing inspection.

I made some more mistakes since last time, such as:

• I fell off the ladder a couple more times.
• I used "strong ties" instead of "hurricane ties." The strong ties are more substantial, and cost more. They're also meant for something else, but they worked anyway.
• I was bragging to Claire that I went the extra mile and treated the notches in my posts. She found a thing in the building code this morning detailing how you have to do that for minimum code requirements.

I'll probably have a whole new list of mistakes after we get a framing inspection done next week.

Who Am I?

Have you ever heard the song "Who Am I" written by Bernstein? I have a version with Nina Simone singing and in the years immediately following college I was really attracted to the piece for the strong words and fantastic music written to go along with them. Lately, I have been spurred into thinking about what makes us who we are- mostly incited by a recent post from a fellow blogger bemoaning their uncertainty in career and life choices.

What I have noticed, in my short and rather inexperienced life, is that Western society equates job/career with who you are. More often than not, when meeting a new person, one of the first three questions is "So, what do you do?". We are so quick to label each other as good, bad, happy, or sad based on preconceived notions of their job.

Sometime last year the Travel Channel had a really fascinating series based around anisland tribe (Tanna Tribe) coming to America and experiencing modern life while trying to promote the idea of peace. It was interesting for a lot of reasons, but I remember Erik and I commenting on how the show labeled each of the tribesmen. There were 5 of them- The Chief, Head Dancer, Medicine Man, The Translator, and Happy Man. The Travel Channel tried so hard to appease our job=identity proneness that they even gave a label to a man who was just happy.

I wish that we could start valuing people on their character rather than their profession. I wish when I responded to the question of "what do you do?" with "stay at home mother" that there would be less judgment and smugness in the eyes of the asker.

When I think of the people I care for I don't love them because of their job, but because of who they really are. I don't love my husband because he can program computers. I don't love my sister because she has a degree in Art History. I love them because they are kind, funny, gentle, sweet, caring, dedicated, and smart.

Next time you meet someone new instead of asking them "What do you do for a living?", why don't you ask them about their family or their hobby? I bet you will get an interesting answer and they will probably be excited to share something about who they are.

Who am I? I am a woman who loves: singing, playing the piano rather poorly, trying new recipes, getting compliments, nursing my son, walking with Charlie, jogging and thinking about how terrible it is the whole time, creating, reading books as long as they don't make me cry too hard or scare me too much, spending time with my family...

...who also happens to have worked for a great politician and worthy causes.

Edit: Originally, Claire posted the lyrics to "Who am I," but I reminded her that we, do not in fact, live in a free country. We instead live in these United States of Disney and co. I don't really feel like figuring out how to deal with a DMCA takedown notice in ten years when RCA or Sony BMG decides to troll blogs looking for this sort of violation, so I've removed the lyrics. Here is a youtube link to nina simone's performance instead. That link probably won't last for the same reasons. Note that this is ridiculous - and that fair use doesn't cover this kind of thing. It should, but instead of getting better, it's getting worse.

Updates- budget & Karl

Well, readers, I must be honest and admit that I haven't been keeping track of our budget as well as I have previously. We have spent over our $61 budget, but the extra money came from odd jobs I've been doing and our yardsale! My sister says I need to admit that I bought a shirt for $12 and lunch out for $9.49.

Yardsale:

I guess the experiment isn't quite accurate since I haven't been keeping up with receipts and income earnings, however, Erik and I are both pleased that we have been working so hard to stop needless spending. For the foreseeable future we are aiming to spend around $100 a week on groceries, gas and extras. Any leftover or additional income will go towards our fund to visit family in Seattle, Los Angeles & San Diego!

Sunday was father's day and Karl and I were able to spend the morning with my father and the rest of the day with Erik. It was such a gorgeous day and even sitting in a turned off car on Rt 66 waiting for an accident to clear wasn't so bad. Erik was treated to a lunch of sandwiches and a dinner of teryaki chicken with grilled pineapple- delicious. I also made him chocolate cookies for dessert and to take to the office. Erik found a present from Karl (a new shirt- seen in picture- and a pair of shorts!) and got a lick from Charlie.

On Monday, Karl and I took Charlie for a walk around Burke Lake. It is a gorgeous park and the trail is cut out in the middle of trees, so it is well shaded. We walked and walked as I had no idea how long the trail was (4.5 miles). After about 40 minutes I turned around walked back to the car. After 80 minutes of walking Charlie was exhausted and didn't care one bit about the group of dogs hanging out around the marina. Karl fell asleep about 5 minutes left in the walk and continued his nap for another hour after we arrived home. It was a great walk and I wish my camera batteries hadn't died right as I tried to snap a picture of K & C. Next time I'll get one.

Stay tuned for an update on Karl at 8.5 months!

Time to build a deck

Two years ago we had a party on our old deck. I became keenly aware of how poorly constructed it really was when we noticed how little support the railing offered. We knew moving into the house that eventually we'd have to tear it down, it wasn't built to code. Didn't really like the design either. Some winding steps took up a huge amount of space right in the middle- taking a 200 sq ft deck almost down to 100 sq foot. I had a nightmare where a law firm wanted us to host a party on the deck. It had to go.

While tearing down the old deck, our AC compressor exploded in an unrelated monetary disaster. Our budget for a new deck was decimated. Sad. Two years later we're ready to build.

Anyways we got our building permit and dug some holes. Cousin Marc supplied a cement mixture and helped me buy the lumber. Now it's time to start building.

Hmm. Those look kind of tall. Actually they were almost waist high on the second floor. Check out those diminutive 6ft ladders next to the one post. The shadow makes it look smaller than it is, it goes all the way to that third lattice in the door.

That's better! I overbought the posts by a wider margin than I realized. Now, what to do with 3 foot posts?


Aha! Diagonal truss bracing! I think they make the whole thing look pretty cool too. This week I'm hoping to get my last header installed, which means I can start work on the joists this weekend.

Mistakes I've made during construction:

1. I started off digging 8 inch diameter holes, 2 feet deep, due to a misreading of the building codes. I had to make all my holes 16 inches square, 2 feet deep. Our footings account for 30 bags of 60lb concrete.
2. Using non-galvanized hardware to secure the posts to the cement footings. I had to take down two headers and all the posts and redo.
3. Forgot to check both angles of level on the second set of headers (we have 3 total). Since I drilled for the lag bolts two of my posts were ruined and I needed new ones.
4. Chose a freestanding construction plan. I'm still not sure if this was a mistake. It meant not having to screw around with my siding and the headers in my house, but I did have to dig more holes. The extra headers are extra work. I'll be happier this way in the end.
5. Twisted my ankle on a low spot, then dropped two 12 foot 2x8 headers on the same ankle. I drink so much milk that my bones are solid. :)
6. Tried to buy my lumber at Lowes. They didn't want to deliver it, so I returned my entire 1400$ order and put in a 2500$ order at home depot instead. We also got 3 new french doors from home depot for that extra $$.

Fun things that have happened during construction:

1. Picked up some supplies at home depot with a rejection sticker on my truck for VA safety inspection.
2. Parked the truck in the back yard. If you're familiar with our house you might recall that we have a row of trees out back, in between rows of town homes. Use your imagination.
3. Got to play in the baby pool with Karl. Claire posted a picture of us earlier - I told her I look fat.
4. Marc and I got to goof around at home depot an unprecedented number of times. This included some gratuitous photos of concrete form tubes for his phallous palace collection on facebook.
5. The UCB have posted the BP spills coffee video. "Don't worry about it, it's a small spill on a very large table..."

Summer Fun

Karl has been loving the summer so far. Most of all, Karl loves water. Bath time is a ton of fun and playing in his little pool out back is just as great. Today, Karl went to a real pool...he didn't like it nearly as much. He couldn't sit and definitely could not crawl. After getting a face full of water he quickly figured out that crawling was not a possibility. By the end of our time at the pool he was having an OK time. I didn't get any pictures of Karl in the big pool, but have some of the baby pool in our backyard...who is that big kid in there?

Life on a budget- part 3

These past few days have proven excellent for our budget. Not only have we spent very little money, but we have made money as well!

A couple of months ago a friend of mine called and asked if I was interested in a bookcase that she had found. Sure! It was a children's bookcase and I thought it would fit well in Karl's room. It was too big and we just didn't have room to keep it. So, I posted it on craigslist two days ago and sold it last night for $25! Erik also gave me $4.00 that he had in his wallet. Sweet!

$34.68+$2.00 (found in jeans)+$4.00+$25.00= $65.68

These past few days I did end up buying the following things: an onion, a Slurpee for Erik (he is out in the heat working on the deck), and 2 lbs of butter (they were on sale!) I spent $4.48

$65.68-$4.48= $61.20

You might be thinking that we must be depriving ourselves of good food and that couldn't be further from the truth. Erik and I have been eating very well- a meat, vegetable, and carbohydrate at each meal- and have even had dessert each night!

Last night we decided to go outside of our pre-determined meals because we found some corn in the back of our fridge (only one ear was still good). We had 1 ear of corn ($0.44), 2 chicken breasts ($5.50), BBQ sauce (free- made by Erik), salad (about $1.50)and some rice with flavoring ($0.99). So, total our meal per person cost $4.22! For dessert I made brownies from scratch and that probably cost about $1.50 total. All together we ate for less than $10.00 last night.

On a not so good note, we got Erik's truck back from the shop...that put us back a bit! We won't count that in our remaining $61 budget ;)

A quick shout-out to my friend, Jean, who let me listen to her Glee Vol. 2 soundtrack! It was a great pick me up :)

If any of you are curious, below is the brownie recipe I used. They were delicious!

Award Winning Brownies

2 eggs

3/4 cup of sugar


1 tsp. vanilla extract


1/2 cup butter, melted


3/4 cup cocoa powder


2/3 cup all-purpose flour


1/4 tsp. baking powder


1/4 tsp. Salt


1/2 cups walnuts, chopped (I didn’t use)


1 cup Ghirardelli double chocolate chips ( I didn't use)

***

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Using a spoon, stir the eggs with the sugar; Add the vanilla.

Stir in the butter. Sift the chocolate powder with the flour, baking powder and salt and stir flour mixture into the egg mixture (I didn’t sift the ingredients, but I did whisk them together). If using, add the nuts and chocolate chips.

Spread in a greased 8 inch square pan. Bake 20-25 minutes or until just set. Let cool completely.

Life on a budget- part 2

6/9/10, I went to Costco today...mistake! Everything there was calling my name and I barely refrained from buying 16 large cupcakes. I was pleased to see that they now offer organic meats, cheese, produce, and milk. My sister in law informs me that this is a recent development.

I did my best to stick to the $40 budget I had set out for myself, but I exceeded it by $34! I ended up spending $74.83 on everything. I was able to buy:

3 lbs of organic chicken, 3 lbs of organic beef, 1.5 gallons of organic milk, 12 cans of tomato sauce, 24 organic eggs, 12 freshly baked bagels and 36 rolls of paper towels. Not bad, eh?

$109.51-$74.83= $34.68

That my not look like a lot of money left (and it's not), but we now have enough food to last until 6/21/10 with some alterations to our menu. Instead of stir fry and frozen pizza we will have chicken parmesan and meatloaf. Tasty substitutions! I think we should be able to make it the last 9 days on $35...especially if we just start eating eggs a lot. I'm not terribly worried.

I have made up our menu for the rest of the month (click to enlarge):

In other news I am making some money on the side doing some sewing projects. So, that will help supplement our budget if we need to. And the brightest note of all: I found $2.00 in my pair of jeans that I didn't realize I had. SCORE!

I also read this really interesting article about the idea of 'wants' vs. 'needs'. Ex: I need to eat vs. I want steak. I am often guilty of confusing my wants with my needs. The author suggests that once you have a set budget for each week to write down what it is that you want. For her it was a 4 qt crock pot for $15. At the end of each week (or day) she would put whatever change was leftover in a bank. It took her 13 weeks to save up enough money to buy the crock pot, but she extolled the values of waiting until you actually had enough money as it allows you to 1) stay within your budget 2) makes you think each week whether you really want that item.

How many times have you come home with a piece of clothing you really wanted and it is still in your closet having only been worn a handful of times or not at all? I still have a dress from the 8th grade with tags still on it. I promised my father that if he loaned me the $10.00 for it I would wear it often. Nope.

I have made a list of a few items that I want and we will see how long it takes me to save enough for them :)

Wants:
- a new vacuum (Bissel Power Groomer): $99.00
- GLEE vol 2 soundtrack: $10.00
- Bedside table matching lamps: undetermined as I have not found them yet!

Experiment: Living on $140 for 24 days

Building a new deck is an expensive project, so Erik and I have decided to pool the cash we have and to only spend it until July 1st- 24 days from today. It should be do-able if I buy in bulk and in discount. On Wednesday, my awesome sister in law is going to take me to Costco and let me buy things and then give her cash for the purchases. I was considering buying a membership, but am not certain it is worth it yet. I will check it out and report back. I worry that I will buy things I don't actually need just because it is a good deal.

Here are the meals I have planned out for the next week (click to enlarge):

6/7/10, I went to the grocery store and spent only $28.74. I was able to buy 5 lbs of potatoes, lettuce, mac and cheese, spaghetti, rice, infant ibuprofen, chips, cheese, pork chops, and bananas. And all the produce and meat was organic, too! Not bad :) We should be able to eat on this until Saturday the 12th when I'll have to buy ingredients for stir fry and a frozen pizza. Luckily, I've got some chicken in the freezer that we can eat on Thursday.

$140.00- $28.74= $111.26

6/8/10, On my way back from Camp Hill I decided to take the Toll Road instead of waiting in traffic with a crying baby another 30 minutes. It was worth the $1.75.

$111.26-$1.75= $109.51

6/9/10, Tomorrow I am heading to Costco with my sister in law and plan to spend around $40. I hope to get some good deals!

I'll keep you updated on how our adventure is going.

Mountain living (& Karl is giving away a CD!)

When people ask me where I grew up, the answer is hard for me to find. Erik can easily reply "Just a streetlight away here in Fairfax, VA". I usually choose between North Carolina and Pennsylvania. Now that I think about it I could probably just reply "Monterey, VA" seeing as most of my summers were spent there in the cool mountains. It is a gorgeous place to visit and even better if you get to spend at least a week there. My mother legitimately grew up there and we are so lucky that we have a place to stay there.

This past week Karl visited Monterey for the first time. Mom was up there working on her latest book (spoiler: it's awesome!) and didn't mind if Karl, Elizabeth and I came to bother. My parents have worked tirelessly on renovating the cottage that was previously two apartments, the office for the local newspaper, and an optometrists office (not all at the same time). And just this past year they acquired the cottage directly in back of the one mentioned above. It looks awesome!

Anyway, Karl had a great time in Monterey and in Waynesboro. Here are some pictures of our time there and Karl's take on everything:

The first night in Monterey- Aunt Lele and Grandma taught me how to play the guitar. I was a natural!


What a morning! Mom and me at the playground next to the old Elementary school.


Later the same day, we went to visit 98 year old cousin Venie. She loved me and let me crawl all over her floor and lap.


When we were finished playing with Venie we went outside to leave. Silly Mommy and Aunt Lele had left the gate open allowing Venie's sheep to get into her garden. Aunt Lele carried me around while she and Mom herded the sheep around the house and out the gate. It was really funny.





The day was exhausting and I required sleep. Mom was nice enough to put me down for a nap.
That afternoon I had another music lesson: the xylophone. Grandma taught me how to play it and now I am sure to look for the wooden mallets if I want to play!

We left the next day after visiting the library and playground again. Grandma showed me a chair her father made for her when she was about my age. I wasn't too happy about sitting in it because I wanted to play!


After I made a mess of my outfit and Mom took some pictures of me in the garden...



...we headed to Waynesboro. Aunt Lele and Mom took me on a walk to the playground in the park. I can't wait until I am old enough to explore the park and the big playset they have!



On Saturday, we all went to see Grandpa's Bluejeans & Bluegrass festival. I was hoping to meet my favorite bluegrass artists: Kim and Jimbo Cary. Grandpa gave me a cd of theirs that was recently featured as background music on some of my crawling videos Mom posted on this blog. I was in heaven when I arrived and heard my favorite song "Be Nice to your Animal Friends" being played. Jimbo and Kim let me play with all their instruments and puppets. I was glad to add some tambourine and drum beats to their songs. I think it really added something.

Kim and Jimbo said I was SO good that they gave me another copy of their CD! Mom says that not a lot of people read our blog, but I told her we should give it away to a lucky follower. It's great for kids and adults! Leave a comment and we'll pick one at random :)

Memorial Day weekend!

We had a great Memorial Day weekend. My sweet sister came up to help me with some decorating projects and on Saturday the whole family ventured out to Wolf Trap to see Garrison Keilor. It looked like it was going to rain the whole day, but not one droplet was felt. The picnic was great and I even experimented and made curry chicken salad. It was really tasty and had dried cranberries and walnuts in it. Here is a picture show of our weekend:

Friday night: Karl tastes a banana (no allergies unlike Dad) and gets really messy.

Bath time is required.



We woke up early on Saturday to head to the farmer's market to buy fresh ingredients for our Wolf Trap picnic!

"ready to go, mom"

My parents arrived shortly after lunch; Karl couldn't wait!

After a nap for Karl we took off for Wolf Trap. The show was sold out and Erik commented that he saw a lot of Prius' with Obama bumper stickers. Looks like were the target demographic! Karl enjoyed sitting in the grass and checking out all the people around us.

After the show we took a family picture

...and Karl showed Elizabeth how to play the piano

The next day Lee and I recovered a headboard and made some pillows


We also went over to my in-law's for a cookout and Erik worked on the deck.

Our weekend was wonderful and it's easy to forget the men and women who serve in our armed forces when a 3 day holiday weekend is near. I am thankful for these patriots who let me sleep peacefully at night and give my child the chance to grow up in a country where dreams can become reality. America, my home sweet home.