latest posts relevant to ‘house’

as most new parents can relate, our house has been a bit of a mess. and by a bit, i mean completely. we’d spent the three months prior to bringing Justin home, driving up to Dartmouth and back. and spent the first three months of having him home, trying to get the necessities done and maintain our sanity.

for our sakes, i’m happy to report that Justin is a very good baby. he’s laid back, he loves routine, and he sleeps through the night.

developmentally, his complications of prematurity have pretty much gone away. he’ll go back to see a pediatric ophthalmologist, but the Retinopathy has faded.

he’s above the 50th percentile for weight & length for his adjusted age (calculated from when his due date should have been). he’s obviously still well below average for his actual age (as he was 3 months early). for motor-skills, he’s grasping and sweeping, but not quite yet rolling over. he’s trying to, though, it’s only a matter of time.

so, back to the ‘busy & visit’ – we’ve been wanting to get our house back into order, and we had the pefect excuse – we hosted my brother and his family (from Western New York) for Thanksgiving this year. it was the first time we’ve ever hosted Thanksgiving (and the first time we’ve had guests with children stay with us) so we put a lot of time into cleaning & organizing in anticipation of being outnumbered for a few days.

everything went swimmingly; we had a lot of fun, we ate turkey dinner when the turkey was done, we played board & card games, we had a relaxing time.

Justin went with all of us to the New England Aquarium. his cousins had a great time, and he watched the fish swim by in the giant salt water tank (i think at this point it’s still about the contrast) while i carried him around in a Baby Björn that we borrowed from our (super-nice!) neighbors. he loved it!

so, after a busy busy November, we’re left with great memories and a clean house. now, on to the next set of house projects.

the chilly nights are a clear sign: summer is over. the school bus now makes its rounds at 8:15 and 3:45. windows closed, extra blanket back on the bed. and our first fall season as a family.

while taking care of Justin is our priority, we’re still attempting to finish up a few projects before winter hits (and then our projects shift to what we can accomplish indoors). i’ve also been extremely busy with web work, which i shouldn’t ever complain about.

while i’ve been coding, carrie has been working to clean and seal the deck. this is another one of the routine maintenance items that the former owners seemed to neglect. she’s got it all cleaned, has one coat of stain on the railings, and she’s waiting for the next clear day to continue staining.

landscaping under the deck will follow, and can continue even when the weather gets a bit chillier.  a good layer of landscape fabric should take care of the carpenter ant problem we had this summer (apparently, there is a lot of wood buried under the deck). we’ll see what else we can get done before … the flakes start to fly!

(and of course, these updates are a flimsy excuse to post a new Justin picture – enjoy!)

we wanted to do something interesting with the paint in our master bedroom. the paint color that it was, while not only being poorly executed, was something similar to this.

we decided on blue over white all the way around, and to create some visual interest on one wall, we did random stripes:

although it took quite a while, we really love it. and we’re finally sleeping in our master bedroom!

the room is really big, so while it seems like it might be overpowering or seizure-inducing in these few photos, it’s not quite so dramatic while you’re in the room.

yes, i’ve been quiet. but it’s been a busy sort of quiet.

to bring everyone up to speed:

• we’ve moved.
• carrie has taken another section of the CPA
• i’ve been insane mad crazy busy doing web work
• we’re preparing for our first guests at the house

and speaking of the house, i guess i should finally post a few pictures, right? i didn’t catch it when the trees were at peak. but at least you get to see the garden hose on the front steps.

and not to leave you without a pun, carrie planted mums by the lightpost.

How is it that weekends keep getting shorter? This thought struck me when I was digging out a couple of large rocks yesterday afternoon. Sure, Saturday, we waited out rain that just never ended and then Sunday was…plants and rocks. It seems that everywhere I wanted to plant a rhododendron or a forsythia, someone had already come by and planted a rock, the jerks! (I’m told that the someone is the builder in a couple of cases.) On the bright side, I uncovered more of a really pretty piece of ledge that sticks up out of the ground near the edge of the property! I’d plant things near that one, but I’m positive that many rocks have been planted there already.

So what the heck does this have to do with the internet? Nothing, actually! But, with the acquisition of a house in the sticks came the dilemma over what to do about an internet connection. Satellite? Dialup? T1? You see, Comcast and Fairpoint don’t seem to know where my town is and if you look for “internet” and “Rindge”, you get this nifty little article from the New York Times commenting about how all the major internet providers have skipped the town and only service the surrounding areas. The article is from 2006. If that’s not enough to call attention to the town’s lack of internet, I don’t know what is.

Maybe there’s a lack of internet because everyone is just too busy planting rocks.