The opposite of long change

I'm  currently in the process of working seven straight 12 hour days, some of which are nights!

Before that however, I had 2.5 days off.  After getting off of nights, we took Grace to the Orthodontist to get her fitted for a palate spreader.  Then later on I helped a co-worker move his refrigerator to his new house.

Wednesday we prepped Grace's room for painting and applied the first coat.  Thursday we got the second coat on, removed the painters tape and got her moved back in.  Quite the whirlwind...

At some point, I would like to be settled in and get back to doing my two favorite things:  Drinking beer and playing WoW :)

Here we are going from some ghastly color to a nice light blue color (her pick).   And today I'm back to work with speckles of paint on my eyeglasses :)

Petz

We have a new kitty that we picked up from the shelter in June, as well as a Dachshund that we got from the Hermiston Pet Store right before Christmas.  They give each other hell.  The dog tackles the cat and the cat tackles the dog.  It's fun to watch.  Yesterday the dog had all her toys piled under the cat's platform.  She so badly wants the cat to play with her like another puppy...

Seven off, minus 3

I just completed my seven days off.  Unfortunately I wasn't able to accomplish a lot in that time.  The week off runs from Friday morning to the following Friday evening.  I lost 3 of them because I had to work two nights, which ruined the following day.

We had visitors from Hermiston my first day off.  It was great to see them again.  I hope they come back soon and bring their kids, whom Grace is good friends with!

Before our friends arrived on Friday the electrician came back to add a light in the garage.  There was a little area off to one side that needed some light, and so we got that installed.  I only noticed the darkness when I finally got around to hanging all the brooms and mops on hooks, and realized I could barely see them without having the door open.

Also I had a HVAC guy come out to give me an estimate on a LPG shop heater, one which would hang from the ceiling and blow hot air down, yet have the exhaust vented outside.  He said $2900.  Not including the propane line and tank.  Ouch.  This is what I had in mind:

But I think it will have to wait, because it's certainly not a critical item.

We have a lot of deer in the area.  I have been feeding them corn and recently started putting out water, since we haven't had rain in a month.  They are always hungry and thirsty...  Monday morning, a mama deer and her fawn wandered into the back yard.  They ate, and then the fawn laid down in the grass.  I suppose it was cooling off, since the grass was still damp from being watered.  It had more spots than a leopard, and was about the size of a labrador retriever.

The next three days (Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday) I got sorta busy with making the house more live-able.  Now that we finally have the basement carpet in, I bought a TV for downstairs, and hooked up our Wii.  And we had some lawn chairs, but no furniture for this room. It's kinda odd, like furnishing three houses.  It looked pretty friggen pathetic, with a cheap folding table and lawn chairs.

So we got some recliners, book shelves, an entertainment center, and a Blu-Ray player!  Rock on!

We still have A LOT of pictures and drapes to hang, books to fill those bookshelves, and crap to put up on the plant shelves.  But at least now we are finally getting there.

We had the most stunning sunset one day this week.  I suppose it's due to the wildfires in the Okanagan and at Cle Elum.  Hopefully we don't have any here.

Yesterday I put together a heavy-duty shelf for the garage.  We've been walking around piles of junk on the floor since we moved in.  Since we have been unloading boxes, we finally had some wall space free in the garage, so I put up this shelf.

I liked it so much (and we have so much crap to store) that I bought 3 more shelves.  They are not yet assembled, as we need to unpack more boxes.
 

And today, I got up a little early and installed more drapes for the dining room and our daughter's bedroom.  Then we finally located the hardware to install the mirror on the guest bedroom dresser, so I took care of that.  Not sure why the photo has a streak across it.  It's not in the room :)

Hopefully, the wife will spend the next couple of days unpacking the book boxes that I brought in from the garage and getting some of the pictures hung.  Then we can bust out the antiques and for the first time in two years, it will start feeling like we live in OUR home.

Not alot...

Another 2.5 days off, coming off nights, as usual.  I didn't get much done, alas.  I was wiped out and slept half the day on Friday.  Then I slept half the day on Saturday.  In the afternoon on both days we drove to Coeur d'Alene and either shopped or test drove SUVs for Corie.

We test drove a Kia Sorrento, Ford Escape and Explorer, and a Honda CR-V.  I liked them all, although the Fords seemed pretty pricey, considering they were base models.  We may drive a Honda Pilot next.

We are looking for an AWD vehicle for Corie before the snow flies.  She has no experience with snow driving, and I think AWD will help her a lot. 

Although we didn't decide on a vehicle for her, we did get some drapes installed.  It was (and always has been) an ordeal.  It's all overhead work, and I usually have to do it a couple of times to get things exactly how she wants them.  Meh.  At least most of them are up.

Keeping my job during snow season...

The title of this post explains why I bought a tractor.  Its a nice little Japanese tractor called a Yanmar 1300.  Yanmar now makes all the smaller tractors for John Deere.

I've always wanted a tractor, and now I finally have a really good excuse.  Due to the odd hours I keep at the power plant, I didn't feel comfortable relying on a snow removal guy to keep my driveway cleared at 5:00 AM every time it snows. 

It's a pretty small tractor, but it shouldn't take very long to clear the driveway.  As you can see in the photo, it has a loader and the thing on the back is a rotary tiller.  Chewing up soil to set up a garden next spring is gonna be a snap!  It also came with a rear blade, which should handle the majority of the snow removal.  It was really important to have a tractor with a loader for when we get a really big snowfall, and I have to actually remove snow to a pile somewhere.

It's a nice little tractor with a live PTO, 4x4 drive, and a 3 point hydraulic-lift hitch.  So although its a small diesel tractor, it's the real deal.  Besides, if I need to get between trees (likely), it's way more practical than one of the cool old antiques I was interested in. 

Like the Farmall Super H:

Or the Deere Model B:

Both are beautiful classics, but unfortunately they are way larger than I need, and are not practical for using with a loader :(   I may someday pick one up for restoration and for fun though... I just love how they look!

Dachshund Blocker

It didn't seem like I did a good job of explaining my little dog gate, so I took a couple of photos this morning.

This is a picture of the front side of the gate.  It's pretty low, so less of a trip hazard.  Still keeps the dog out though!

Here is a picture from above.  See how it clamps to the center piece of the door frame?  If you look carefully, you can see the felt dots I installed to keep the wood from scuffing the door frame.

Lastly, here is a picture from behind.  Here the felt buttons are easy to see.  I slotted the back rails so that they could slide over to remove the gate.  It's not a pretty piece of work, but it's practical and I thought it was cool enough to share.

Come and meet my little friend...  The Ridgid TS2424

2.5 days of company

Mom came up for a visit, at my suggestion.  She arrived the day of my last night shift, so we didn't have much time to chat before I went to work.  And then I had a couple of days off (one of which involved taking Grace to the dentist for a couple of extractions).

I felt guilty about not accomplishing much of anything at the house, even though I had the excuse of company. 

Corie had a small card table wedged up against the laundry room opening.  The purpose of this was to keep the dog away from the cat's food and litterbox.  It's gross, but for some reason dogs like to much on cat poop.  So we had to keep the dachshund out of the cat box.

My mom managed to catch her foot on the top of that card table while leaving the laundry room and fell flat on her face in the hallway.  Fortunately she wasn't hurt.  However the incident made a back-burner project a front-burner one.

I got out the table saw and cut a 30" x 16" piece of pressboard to fit tightly in the doorway.  Then I fastened two stand-off rails on either side.  Next I made slots in two additional rails, so that they could slide over and lock and unlock the thing in the doorway.  Lastly I put little felt buttons on all the surfaces contacting the woodwork in the doorway so that it wouldn't damage the finish. 

It looks pretty good, is a few inches lower, keeps the dog out of the laundry room.  I now simply need to paint the thing and all will be well.

Yesteday though was a lot of fun.  We wanted to go to Sandpoint (and we did), but decided to check out a couple of local lakes on some back-roads.  We went to Granite Lake and Kelso Lake.  Below are a few images of Kelso Lake from the public dock.  Just a really nice quiet fishing lake.

This is a quick panorama from East to West (left to right).

 

Afterwards, we managed to get lost.  None of the dirt roads were marked.  The digital compass in the inaptly-named Explorer always read "SW" regardless of what direction I turned.  Eventually we popped out near Priest River, crossed a bridge, and headed East to Sandpoint.  I had to get on Google Earth after we got home to determine where we had been.

Looks like a forest service map and remembering to bring along the GPS will be useful in the future.  I suppose I could have used the Navigator on the Blackberry, but there wasn't much cell service in the back-country.  I think it needs cell service to load the appropriate map.

Eventually we made it to Sandpoint, after seeing a lot of neat new country.  And then we had Huckleberry Ice Cream cones!  Beats running out of gas in the wilderness and getting eaten by a bear... ;)

Seven off

Sooo... the DuPont schedule puts you through hell for 3 weeks and then compensates you with 7 days off in a row.  Not the ideal schedule, but there is a bright side to it.

So here (in pictures) is what I accomplished on this 7 off:

New Family Member

After the road trip yesterday, we went to the Animal Shelter and picked up a kitten.  Unfortunately I didn't get a photo of her yet.  She's a 13 week-old long haired White/Gray kitty who definitely likes to be petted.

One thing we hadn't thought of is that she's lived in a cage at the shelter for most of her life, and she doesn't seem to have much character as yet.  She's very timid, and doesn't want to play very much.  I am hopeful that she will develop some desire to interact with her owners.  The family dog is not much help in this regard.

Bridget the dachshund is so eager to play with the cat that she is scaring it half to death.  When they finally got face to face, the dog was all over her, sniffing and poking her rear end.  Cats like to have a little space, but the dog doesn't understand that of course.  And the dog whines for hours when she can see the cat, but can't get to her.  Very annoying.  We will see how it plays out as the cat becomes more comfortable with her new home. 

Road Trip!

Today I installed the front In-Wall home theater speakers.  They look about like the ones in the photo, and they don't blend into the wall very well at all.  However they do look nice, and I managed to get them placed correctly (level and centered) on the wall without hitting a stud.

I really wanted to mow the yard, but the weather was not cooperating.  It hailed, rained, blew and got sunny - but the grass was really wet, so I didn't bother.  Perhaps tomorrow.

Monday was my only day off between days and nights, and I had a mission in mind.  I had found a really cool old "monitor top" refrigerator for sale on Craigslist, in Kettle Falls, WA.  So we made the two hour trip over and picked it up.  It was an enjoyable family trip, and we got to check out some of the surrounding area of where we now live.  But the cool thing is the treasure I brought home!

It works and looks awesomely retro!  The tag on it says "General Electric Refrigerating Machine".
I guess "refrigerator" wasn't a word back then.

It works and freezes water in the freezer section.  The electrical cord is frayed and needs to be replaced.  I may or may not restore it to new.  It wouldn't take much to sand it down, repaint it with enamel and get the handful of metal parts re-chromed.  Either way it's pretty cool!