Sleeping Porch, Update #1

Here is the 'during' picture for the sleeping porch. John had opened up the space and knew he needed to add the header beam. Once again, picture me after work, in a dress & heels, holding up my side of this huge & heavy beam while John secured it. And if I leaned a little too far, yup, I'd fall two stories to the pavement. This next picture is the view from outside. Look how much bigger that opening is. Matches the house size much better than the little window did. And finally, another inside picture after it is partially framed in. The final steps will be to do the finish framing around the inside of the window (to match the woodwork around the interior door) and install the railing. We'll match the railing with the same style that will go around the front (and back) porches. I have 75 slats in the garage calling my name.

Van Gogh Temple

Audrey's last art project this semester was to create an impressionist oil pastel in the same style as Van Gogh. She got a picture from Grandma of the Rexburg, Idaho Temple and Audrey thought that would be an awesome picture to use! It is way cooler in person as the oil pastel is raised/layered just like a real oil painting would be. Anyway, what a great way to end the semester! Here is the original picture that she based the impressionist work on.

Fire !!

At work we have a security system now. We have to wear scan badges or we cannot get into our own office (no keys anymore). Our offices are on the second floor of a warehouse. Not a particularly pretty entrance or anything, but we don't get a ton of visitors. There is a main door at the bottom of my long stairs that I can open remotely. There is a security camera focused on the entrance to that door (the folks have to come up a smaller flight of stairs and ring the door bell if I'm not near my desk). I can also see an awesome view of the smoker's on their break at the picnic table. How fun is that? Anyway, I had just come back from lunch. It was quite windy that day. I was at my desk talking with one of my bosses and I say "Boy, it sure is windy down there" and then went on to mention how unusual the swirling smoke looked. Then I said "Oh my, there are flames!" and I grabbed my water bottle and raced down the long flight of stairs (in my dress and high heels), out the door, down the shorter set of stairs and dump the contents of the water bottle into the smoker's can. I knew not to touch it because of the heat, but wanted to ensure it was 'out'. So I hiked up my dress a bit and stepped up onto the picnic table bench and stared in. Evidently my boss was watching this whole scene and hollered at one of our merchandisers to "Come and see this!" since I looked pretty funny standing over top this smoldering smoke can in my dress and high heels! I say quick thinking on my part and now I'm the fire fighter at work!!

Kitty, Misc.

You might think we love our cat or something...

Here she is eating cantaloupe. Yes, I said cantaloupe. She is more interested in this fruit than sometimes a piece of meat. Sometimes. And no, watermelon or honeydew melon is no substitute. She won't even try those at all. But something about cantaloupe and this cat... And here she is about falling off the couch. She likes to get herself all comfy but sometimes that means she is truly, barely hanging on. She just does not know it yet. And wouldn't all the blood be rushing to her head since it is lower than her tail end? And finally, being harassed by the kid who promised that the iPod was not on. Just trying to get a funny picture of the cat before she woke up. Did you notice the blue blanket? That is the cat's.

Optical Illusion Drawing

One of the classes that I enjoy the most is Audrey's art class. I love when she brings home her different projects when she has completed them. This picture took her a very long time to do as she had a FINE point pen. Once she started with the one pen, she could not change. Do you realize how many 'shades' of black there are? And then it would not match... The picture is about 14"x14". Don't stare at it too long!

Food Storage ?

I went to put away some groceries and tidy the fruit room, and look what I found! Audrey had just asked me where the kitty was. Must be a new hiding spot - she's got lots...

Sleeping Porch

I will post a few pictures of the Sleeping Porch at Lacey. Look at the 2nd story at the tiny window. That will be your focal point for this post: The awesome thing about the sleeping porch is that they had just put paneling over the original woodwork. Note the tiny window (on the left of the picture). So once we removed the paneling, we could see the exact outline of where the sleeping porch used to be open to the outside (anything with the pink insulation was open). Once again, see how small the window was compared to how open the view and space used to be. This is the view from the master bedroom. There is the original door and two windows that open, in case you want to get a little breeze. Stay tuned for more pictures. On my way home tonight I stopped by to say hi to John, and he had opened up the space and was having me help him hold up the 12 foot header beam that he was installing. I will have more pictures soon to update.