Raise the roof

I'm back! 

Where have I been? 

Oh...you know...chillin. Doin' a whole lotta nothin'. 

One day I didn't write a post. And then the next day, I didn't post again. And so on and so forth until three (THREE?!?!??!) weeks went by with no posts. Sucky!

Fact is I love blogging! But as Ed often says (especially over the last three weeks) "can't write a blog when you're not doing anything." LOL Very true husband. Very true.

In all fairness (to myself?) I haven't been doing nothing. I went dancing downtown for my friend's birthday one weekend...

Whoa! haha

I went out on a boat for another friend's birthday...

I did a fake wedding shoot with my friend Melanie who is a photographer. She's a photography professor right now but wants to start doing wedding photography too. As you can imagine it took no convincing on her part whatsoever to get me to get back in my wedding dress pretending it was my big day again. SO. MUCH. FUN. No pics available right now but I'll be sure to post them when they're ready. Here's her website www.fianderfoto.com.

I went out to see my parents new house (they moved). They're renovating as well so I had to check it out.

LOVE their new house. My mom has added hanging ferns to the porch since this picture was taken. It looks beautiful! Included in my trip to Winchester, VA was a visit to Hobby Lobby (finally). I must say....I loved it. I could definitely do some damage in that place.

I also blew through the entire first season of Game of Thrones. I'm totally sucked in. It's so good.

Last and definitely least....we found two mice in our basement. They were not alive. I think Peanut had something to do with that. Eeeeeewwwwwww. Traps were set and exterminators have been called. 

Now you're all caught up :)

So. 

Where did we leave off? Ah yes. With the $*(#*&$ #$*@#*& doors.

Stupid doors. Stupid, stupid paint stripping. Blaaaahhh. That project is still not done and I'm moving on (for now). 

I'm moving on to the patio...

For the first time in the whole year that we've lived in our house, we have never had people over. Sure I hosted wine book club once and have invited family over for dinner, etc, etc. But we've never have a big cookout or house party. Unacceptable! Now that our house is more than halfway "done" we've invited everyone to a BBQ in late July. Let the party planning (and last minute project doing) begin! 

Can't have a cookout without a nice outdoor area to hang out in!

One that doesn't look like this.

Our covered patio is basically our outdoor workshop. But that's about to change. Let's take a quick tour of backyard shall we?

Our trashcans used to sit on the brick area and a crusty old shed sat where the grill is. The trash area has been moved around the house to the end of the driveway (trashcans next to the grill...not so appetizing) and the shed was moved to the edge of the yard (where a shed belongs).

We have borrowed a power washer from Ed's parents to clean up all the brick and cement. Look at the brick that used to be behind the shed (now behind the grill). Sick!

There are two patio areas in our backyard - one covered and one not. 

Covered... (sorry for the bad pic!)

And uncovered...

Step 1 of patio makeover: Remove old corrugated roof from the covered patio. 

I don't think this is what conservationists mean when they say people should install "green roofs"...

So hubs and I went to Home Depot to pick up some new corrugated roof panels. We're going with a tin roof instead of fiberglass or plastic. I think it will look better and it costs the same as the other materials. Also sitting under the tin roof in the rain will remind me of the tin roofed cabins we stayed in at summer camp :)

My moon and stars loading up the new tin roof and some extra beams....

We need the new beams because the beams on the outside edges of the existing roof are chewed/rotten.

We got back from Home Depot, unloaded the tin sheets and beams and then Ed had to run some errands. I attempted to remove the old roof by myself but only made it halfway through before stopping. The roof is so full of moss, water and general rot that it was too heavy for me to lift off. At least I got half the nails out.

So that's what's up with me. I can't wait to catch up on all of YOUR blogs! What's worse than not blogging? Not being able to read your favorite blogs due to a crazy month at work. Enough of that! I'm ready for more slacking at work and more working at home haha. Aim high.