Home Improvements

The joys of home ownership. N-O-T.

Matt and I often talk about how exciting it will be when we can become renters again. I think I'm more excited about it than Matt. :)

Lately we've been fixing up some stuff. Matt was a lot more accomplished and doing the things he started than I was. So here's a post about how awesome Matt is about home improvements. You may be wondering why it is that Matt and I have been working on separate projects. It just kind of ended up that way, wouldn't it have been better if we worked together? Totally, but *spoiler alert* I'm afraid of dealing with electricity. I'll explain in the next post.

I should have taken "before" pictures but I didn't even think about it until I saw how beautiful Matt was making it. Matt made the shelves that the pile of wood is sitting on. That pile of wood has been taken up a lot of space in our garage for over a year. We had this great idea of putting up shelves and Matt attacked it!

"Kind of Before"

Matt got a work table from his Mom and had a great idea of putting a peg board behind it in order to hang up some useful items. It is awesome!

"After" -- Do notice the peg board with useful items attached to it.

This was project number one.

Project II

Matt LOVES pottery and over a year ago purchased a Kiln to heat pottery when he saw a killer deal on one. Last year he purchased a wheel. The wheel has always worked but the Kiln need a special outlet. 

Matt spoke with an electrician and figured out what he needed to do. Does Matt have a lot of experience with putting up electrical wires in one's home? 

No.

Yes, I was a little worried. Hence the reason why Matt is doing this project without me. Matt invited a friend to help him put it in and they drilled holes and ran wires through. Here Matt & Duke are drilling holes to run the wire to that blue box. 

Here's the almost final project.

What it looks like in the house. 

It works! The kiln works! I'm so proud of Matt. Now we can use the pottery wheel because we'll have a place to heat up and cook the pieces. We have had some people come over and throw a little bit but we haven't cooked a thing. I'm looking forward to that part!

Matt and Zach

So here is the positive part of the home improvements. Matt is awesome and got the garage looking wonderful! I'm so proud of his hand many skills and I love how much room we have in the garage now! The next post.... my projects. The agony!

Halloween

Matt's mom bought our little Tomatillo this adorable costume. So stinkin' cute!

Matt is working on being certified as a Canyon Leader for the boy scouts so he can take boys through canyons. The testing was this week so we packed up our gear and set out for yet another camping experience. This time we headed to Moab.

Yes it's November. Yes it was FREEZING. Yes our little Tomatillo was warm. :)

At least for the first two nights.  He did really well camping! The problem at night is, he doesn't like having his arms bundled up in his blanket. He grunts and slowly begins to cry, getting louder and louder.  Sometimes I can get his hands to be bundled up but it's a risk I take because in the case that he doesn't want it he'll wake up and have a difficult time going back to sleep. So I get to choose between freezing hands and a sleeping baby.

The last night was the worst, it was freezing. Also, as a result Tomatillo woke up a few times too. His hands were ever so icy! Since we were camping with a large group of people (others who were participating in the certification) we were worried our baby's cry would wake others up.  So I swept him up and we ran to the car for refuge. A little time with the heat running, Tomatillo slept long and hard.

Bundled up with at least 4 blankets and a hat. This night he let me shove his hands in with his body.  

Our sleeping arrangements. Matt, Me, and Tomatillo.

While Matt was getting tested....

For this test Matt gets to climb up this rope using some hand dandy prusiks.

You see that knot on the rope (the white rope)? Matt has to climb up this long rope, detach himself from his belaying device and reattach himself above the knot. This is possible with the use of his prusiks, the blue rope.
The orange rope is attached to the blue rope so he has a place for his feet and the green webbing is attached to his harness. He's hardcore. :)

We went for a hike. :)

Hiking Park Avenue

My sister Aline is pretty into Arches so I've gone quite a bit with her and I feel like I'm already too familiar with Arches National Park. I sought to do things that I've never done before. Some of the stuff was pretty dumb, which is probably why I didn't do it in the first place. After returning home and looking up "Things to do" in Moab I've decided that, in the future, I will be avoiding Arches altogether. There are HUNDREDS of additional trails around Moab. Why didn't I think about that before our trip? I really wish I would have done this. Ah--- the regret! 

An additional note. Before having a child I always felt kind of lame hiking by myself but now that I have someone to carry around I don't feel like such a  loser any more, even if my partner is always sleeping on the trips and makes for poor conversational company. 

I have to admit I was pretty excited to show him around. 

Delicate Arch from behind.