House Tour

I've lived in my house for 1 ½ years now! I am not sure what I have been waiting for prior to this point, but I am finally going to give a tour.

The front (the grass is green during the summer)

The entry way. Most of the walls in the house are painted a dull mustard color (except my bedroom which is white) with some brick-red accent walls in certain areas. It was all painted when I moved in, but I do like the colors.

Looking into the living room from the entry way. Between the entry way and living room a left takes you to the kitchen or a right down the hall to the bedrooms.

Taking a left from the entry way...there is a small wall that seperates the living room from the kitchen and dining room.

The dining room. The table gets little use, mainly I sit at the bar to eat. But it's ready for the once or so per month that I use it.

A look at the kitchen and pantry (in the distance). On the wall, a cool piece of artwork I picked up in Africa. The other side of the kitchen. Also, the laundry room and door to the garage.

To the other side of the house...taking a right from the entry way and proceeding down the hall.

The office is to the sharp (90°) right.

To a gentle (45°) right is the spare bedroom.

Straight down the hall is a bathroom. Can you say pink? I already had the towels and the shower curtain was about $0.50 so I'm happy with it for now.

My bedroom is to the sharp (90°) left . It was nice to have a room that actually fits my bedroom furnature.

Looking from my bed back towards the door...a closet and bathroom.

And the backyard. I've done lots of work to it, but I'm not finished. The grass is usually greener then this, but always really patchy like the picture shows.

That's it. I have loved my house so far. I've had to learn to do lots of maintance things, but even that has been fun and rewarding. Any time anyone wants to come and see it in person, I welcome visitors :)

I did it!

I stayed home this year and handed out candy to trick-or-treaters. This may not seem too shocking of a task unless you are familiar with the insanity of my subdivision on Halloween. A newish subdivision, sidewalks, and houses which are fairly close together = ideal situation for trick-or-treating. Each Halloween it seems that 1/2 the valley takes advantage (1/2 is probably an exaggeration). Usually there are students from the college criminal justice department who stand on the corners amidst flares and direct traffic. This year there were no traffic directors, however still plenty of people, cars, and chaos. From about 6:00-7:00 I had a pretty steady stream of kids coming to my door...344 to be exact...until I ran out of candy and had to turn people away. It was actually a much more pleasant experience then I was anticipating and I enjoyed seeing all of the kids in their costumes. I also got tons of compliments on my pumpkin. I'm not sure how much they count coming from kids under the age of 10, but I was glad they liked it.

The joys of nature and home ownership

Oh the joys of owning a house :) Remember a couple years ago when they were worried because so many bees were disappearing?

Back in April I was mowing my backyard one evening when I noticed a few bees flying around one area. Upon closer inspection I discovered they were coming in and out of my sprinkler box. Hum...what should I do? Maybe open the sprinkler box - possibly a really dumb idea but I decided to give it a try. With my shovel I stood as far back as possible and pried the lid up...about 1/4 inch on one side, not even enough to do anything. Then reality hit me and I decided it was a really dumb idea. The next day I called the exterminator. He came right away, got decked out in his bee outfit, opened the sprinkler box and sprayed the attacking bees. From the safe confines of my house it looked like there were a lot of bees, maybe 75 or 100. When the exterminator finished his business he left me a small piece of honeycomb (about the size of a flat grapefruit) which was the smallest of 8 pieces. What!?! And said there were several thousand bees. WHAT!?! On second thought, I'm pretty sure it was the spirit telling me not to open the sprinkler box.

Fast forward to July.

Katie and Ryan came to visit last weekend and I opened the sprinkler box as I told them the story of the beehive. Boy was I surprised by what I saw (all the brown is bees).

Today I decided to clean this up (don't worry, I wore gloves). There was so much is it almost filled a grocery bag.

All that remains is some honeycomb left on the cover and some powder to make sure they don't come back. I also included an after picture of the box so you can compare to the pictures above to see just how many bees it really was.