more pics

getting more done each weekend out at the property. we are all tired though...i personally feel like i have 3 full time jobs sometimes! working 40 hrs a week at my secular job, saturdays and sundays at the property doing ALOT of hard physical labor and for those of you who dont know it, being a housewife is a full time job too!
ugh im tired : /
anyway here are a couple more pictures

tool shed and wood stove shed

both sheds gone! roof on carlas unit is done too.

making progress

been working hard out at the spanaway property.

carl found a 5th wheel on craigs list that had an electrical fire. picked it up for $1000.00. we are gutting it pretty much and fixing it up for Carla to live in. the fire damage is on the back side...for some reason i didn't get a pic of that...it started behind the refridgerator and  burned thru the wall and about half of the ceiling is gone.
since i took this we have taken out the appliances and furniture, some of which was salvaged, pulled out the carpet and flooring and carl just finished replacing the roof yesterday. still has a gaping hole in the wall where the fridge was. it has alot of smoke and fire damage inside but we are making progress.

carport partially pulled down

doing a little work on the house as well-got the carport pulled down and hauled a literal TON of trash to the dump with the help of our neighbors!

carport gone yay!

trash pile had wasps living in it!

trash gone now i have to work on that pile of branches!

so the work continues...carl bought this to stay in on the weekends so he isn't driving back and forth so much and can get started as soon as he wakes up. we do have running water and electricity at the house and we cleaned the shower so its usable as well. we have a semi-usable kitchen as we havent gutted it yet so its kind of like fancy camping? lol : )
you can see another camper to the right in this last pic-got that from the neighbors...its gutted and we are using it as a storage unit. alot cheaper than paying for storage hehe!

cat skull i found in the front yard

this used to be a vegetable garden in the far back corner of the property

lots of blackberries taking over

after i had started cutting some of this down

you can see the fence now!

can sort of see the broken wooden fence at the back of the property

these pics are after we tore down the ceiling and before we started pulling down the plastic and fiberglass

we had to pull out all those staples one by one

rat pee soaked fiberglass

underside of the roof doesn't look too bad

ceiling on the floor lol!

 seeing daylight thru the eaves at the end of the house

roof might be leaking here...

lets see whats new and exciting?! ha ha...nothing really, things at work are going well, i still like my job! started working out at the spanaway house again. trying to get the 2 back bedrooms finished so we can use them as storage. being able to empty the 2 storage units we are paying for will save us a little over a hundred bucks a month. so we started tearing out the ceilings and pulling down the fiberglass insulation (which is full of rat poop) carl is making sure to completely seal off the finished attic from the unfinished just in case there are any stray rodents wanting to set up housekeeping up there. i dont think we have any more living out there, at least not in the house-no food for them and we are constantly in and out of there and tearing things out but who knows.. they hide pretty well. anyway better safe than sorry of course-
we have become lien holders on the property-this protects us from having it taken out from under us if something happens to my father-in-law, i guess. not sure of all the legal stuff and how it works but apparently this is what we need to do.
went wine tasting last saturday with my daughter and son-in-law. we went to woodinville. i have never been there! it was a perfect day for it, sunny and warm, and just a beautiful little town with tasting rooms within walking distance of each other. gotta go back and take my husband with me someday soon!
i got a kindle recently too-havent purchased any books for it yet but have downloaded a few of the free ones!
my sister in law gave me her old ipod shuffle so im learning how to use itunes and loading some music onto the ipod to listen to...sheesh technology lol!
cant believe its almost time for highland games and renfaire already! thinking about attending the ceilidh this year on friday night at the highland games, should be fun :)

mom takes a tumble

been meaning to post this for awhile now...
my mom took a bad fall late in the evening on march 31st. she stumbled over a pillow that had fallen on the floor in the doorway between her bedroom and master bathroom. it was dark and they have no night light in the bedroom or bathroom so she didn't see it. anyway she tripped over it, fell down hard hitting her head on the cats water dish. it knocked her unconcious. my step-dad was in the next room and heard what he thought was the cats knocking stuff over. he went to investigate and found my mom out cold, a pool of blood around her head. unfortunately i had left my cell phone in the other room on charge and we don't have a house line so he couldn't get ahold of me. eventually he was able to raise my brother in law, David and he came up and called 911. we had an ambulance and the fire truck here. mom of course refused to go to the hospital that night to get stitches.
i get up the next morning, check my phone and see i have a voicemail from my stepdad. i check it and see it came at 12:01 am april 1st. all i hear is "someone help me please!" it doesn't really sound like his voice and i figure he is playing an april fool's joke on me. so i text him saying ha ha very funny pop-he texts back-wha? i tell him i got his voice mail very funny haha-he says that wasn't a joke, your mom fell and busted her head open last night-
at this point i'm still thinking he is joking so i said something about how it didn't sound like him and he says well i was in a panic.
so i head over there thinking if he is joking i'm gonna punch him in the stomach!
he answers the door and is on his phone so i just shoot him a look and walk into the computer room and there sits my mom with a huge wad of gauze tapped to her head and dried blood in her hair!
i completely lost it, started crying, went to my knee's, jeez it was just this gut reaction i couldn't control, you know i just felt like i should have been there! my poor mom is trying to comfort me at this point which is ridiculous-anyway i get control of myself and settle down and talk to her about what happened. stay for half an hour or so, apologizing the whole time to both of them.
went home and moved my cell phone charger into my bedroom-that's not happening again!
i went over there that evening to help mom change her bandage, it was about 9pm i think-anyway the cut is all the way to the bone and about 2 inches long-well it won't stop bleeding so i convince her we need to go to the emergency room and get stitches. she just says ok and off we go-my stepdad just looks at me like "really?!" cuz he could NOT convince her to go the night before...anyway that emergency room visit took 4 hours! they did a CAT scan tho and said she did have a concussion. she got 9 stitches. gonna have a nice scar above her eye...
thank goodness she is ok, she did bruise up one knee pretty badly too.

California visit

Just got back from a week long visit with my sister-in-law Jackie and her husband Tony. Well technically we got back last night but after 15 hrs in the car I was too tired to blog! Four of us went, me, Carl, Carla and Barbara. Carla drove first as we used her vehicle for the trip.
We left at 3am last Thursday and drove straight thru to El Sobrante CA. (It's just outside of Oakland and a little north of San Franisco). We got there about 6-6:30-ish that night. Rested up a bit got changed and went to the memorial with Jackie, Tony and my father-in-law Carl Sr. He lives with Jackie and Tony now.
Saw one cool thing on the way down there-3 huge buzzards standing on the shoulder of an on ramp on the opposite side of the freeway with their backs to the sun and their wings spread wide! Don't know if they were sunning themselves or drying their wings, but it was awesome to see. Couldn't get a picture as we were driving about 70mph at the time...
The weather was cold and wet except for one day of sunshine, but even that day the temp was only about 62.
We were able to use the hot tub a couple of times, which was nice! I could definetly get used to that!
Jackie took us to a little bead shop that reminded me of the Black Market Beads we have up here. I bought myself a couple of bracelets and a pair of earrings for my daughter. We also went shopping at a mall on Tuesday where I picked up a couple of tee shirts for my son.
Unfortunately we didn't get to go to San Francisco but we had a really nice visit with the family. Sometimes it's nice to just sit around and catch up.
So I have today to rest up a bit do loads of laundry and then it's back to work tomorrow.

Surprise!

So last Thursday as I'm leaving for work I drive past my sisters house and notice that her car is still in the driveway...odd, she usually leaves about half an hour before I do. So I think maybe she isn't feeling well. I get to work and start my day thinking I will text her later and see if she is ok. But it's a busy day and I really don't get the chance. About 1:30 or so I go into the stock room which is just a few feet from my desk to get some paper for my printer. I'm about to walk out of the door with a ream of paper in my hands when JoLene walks by. I say hey sister and am about to start asking questions when I see this blonde lady a few steps behind her. It takes about 10 seconds to register that it's my sister Sandy!!! I haven't seen her in at least 12 years! I drop the ream of paper and throw my arms around her and ask "what are you doing here?" LOL!
Apparently she and JoLene have been planning this since November of last year! So it's been awesome seeing her, she is staying with my mom (who had no idea she was coming either) and will be here till the 22nd. What's weird is I took PTO this week because I had to use some up before I could continue to accrue more. Good timing hehe. So we've had a couple of family dinners at mom's and are planning on taking Sandy to Pike Place Market this Friday.
And what the heck?! I woke up to snow on the ground this morning...

love this quote...

The mind is sharper and keener in seclusion and uninterrupted solitude.
Originality thrives in seclusion free of outside influences beating upon us to cripple the creative mind.
Be alone-that is the secret of invention: be alone, that is when ideas are born.
Nikola Tesla

a few things I've made recently

This is a reversible tote I made from an unfinished quilt my mother-in-law left behind. I was able to make 4 of these, they all came out slightly different. I gave one each to my sisters-in-law and my daughter.

Wrist cuff made from scraps of muslin and a couple of silk leaves. Made the rose from a long strip of raw-edged muslin. Used clear snaps to close it with.

These will be cute with my fairy costume I think! Shoulder-duster length earrings from lace and trim scraps I sewed together and then stiched to the goldtone earring finding. Glued on the red flat-backed crystals added the earwires and done!

back to normal

things are pretty much back to normal now that the snow and ice are gone. was able to get to work monday, the offices had reopened last friday the 20th but i wasnt able to get there-my van was still encased in ice and i wasnt about to drive on the roads with all that snow and ice still on them. a few things have changed at work, some rearranging of duties for the 6 of us that are on my team. it should be interesting. myself and one other girl on the team, (she started the same time i did) have been given full responsibility for working this report/spreadsheet that neither of us is very comfortable with yet...awesome... i have to learn not to be afraid of making mistakes-i know im going to, everyone does, right?! its just that it involves billing secondary insurance claims and i dont want to be responsible for denials because i accidently sent a claim out that was already billed! and its hard to figure out if a claim has been sent, and if so how, electronically or regular mail, and did it get paid and the check went somewhere other than where it was supposed to, bleah...these are things we have to research for each claim and right now we have thousands of line items on this report that we have to try and figure out. im sure i will get comfortable with it eventually but obviously im not right now lol!
on to other things-
went out to the spanaway house yesterday-not too much storm damage out there surprisingly. we have alot of huge cedar trees in the back yard but really didnt have too much breakage. having our friend come out and prune last summer really made a difference i think.
carla had 3 or 4 couples looking at her house once the snow melted. they all got applications from the park managers but as of today not one of them had turned it in, *sigh...she is getting really frustrated.
ive been doing a little sewing and jewelry making. also working on a costume for faeriecon in february. my mom is making me an awesome scarf/necklace that is crocheted. its kind of a super long lariat style with flowers and leaves randomly placed a over it, its going to be perfect for a woodland faerie! i made some earrings today that i might wear with my costume as well they are made from scraps of lace and random trims that i sewed together and attached to earwires. i will try to get some pics posted in the next day or two.
well im off to bed-430am comes early...

snow and ice

6 or 7 inches of snow with an inch of ice on top.

ice encased weeds?

ice coated butterfly bush.

more ice encased greenery.

my van coated in ice-i'm not going anywhere!!

van frozen shut.

this one's out the window-not very good...

a few pic from my phone of the snow and ice.

snow days!

well the predicted snow storm hit us pretty hard. we had 6 or 7 inches here. thankfully my work closed the offices yesterday and today. it looks worse out there today, there seems to be a thick coat of ice on top of the snow now, so i would not have driven even if the office was open! carl had to work doing his delivery stuff tuesday and wednesday. tuesday he was in bellevue and issaquah-lots of hills and rural roads but he said it actually wasn't too bad. yesterday he had his tacoma route, again lots of hills and snow filled parking lots. he got stuck a few times and slid around a bit-took him 4 tries to get into our drive way once he got home! thankfully he is off today. he has to work tomorrow, really hope this stuff is mostly melted by then...he has studded tires on his delivery truck and i went to les schwab as soon as i got off work monday night and had some put on my van.
my daughter and her husband live in lynnwood and they got hit pretty hard too-she sent me a picture from her phone yesterday-her car is completely buried!! she said they have been hearing branches snapping off the trees in her backyard. they have a huge stand of bamboo that is overloaded with snow that is laying on top of their second floor deck! she tried to go to work tuesday and slid off the road about 2 blocks from her house. fortunately mikey was at home and was able to walk down to where she was and drive her back to their house.
the lights keep flickering here...hope the power doesnt go out :(