When Scott was here for Ellee’s birthday he bought us a salt block to put in our back yard for our deer friends to snack on. Last week I looked out the window and saw this on two different occasions!
We’re so thankful for our beautiful backyard!
Flat tires are not fun.
On Tuesday about about a quarter mile from home I got a flat tire… bummer. Especially since last week I had broken my cheap tire pump. I tried to go to a gas station and pump it up and then swap the tube, but the station closed at 11pm while I was there and I didn’t have enough change to run the $0.75 air pump again… oh well… Wednesday morning was rainy and I had some things to mail so I drove… Wednesday night my tire still felt like it was holding air so this morning I was pretty bummed when I was all geared up and hopping on my bike to find they tire was flat again. Oh well. I had been doing pretty well, riding all last week and monday tuesday of this week. I actually miss it now and driving seems boring. I’m excited to get a new trunk bag, rack, and tire pump from my brother in law, Andrew, this weekend! I’ve still been updating my commute times/speeds on the biking page..
Biking is fun.
I’ve really been enjoying the commute to/from work on my bike. I feel energized all morning when I bike to work, and the ride home is great for unwinding. I actually look forward to the ride now, rather than think of reasons I should drive instead. I’ve got my time down to between 20-25 minutes at around 15mph total which is pretty good on a mountain bike… I’ve created a new page to keep track of my times. Last week I had to replace a broken pedal on my bike, fortunately it broke slowly and i was able to make it home okay. I also picked up a handlebar end mirror to help me stay track of traffic around me better. Glancing back over my shoulder didn’t work too well since I’d be looking around my glasses which means the cars were blurry blobs… More rides to come. Stay tuned!
Ice Ice Baby
One of my goals while I am off of work this summer is to paint all or most of our house. We painted our living room this spring, but had yet to paint anything else until last week.
Dana stayed with Tony and I for a few days and the two of us decided to paint one of the guest bedrooms that I have had a “vision” for for quite some time. The room isn’t put together yet, but here is what we have so far: (I don’t have any specific before pictures, but here is a picture of the other bedroom that looked exactly like the bedroom we painted)
Problem Solver
Due to the wicked storms and 16 hour power outage last Wednesday, Tony and I (who am I kidding…mostly Tony) had to keep an eye on the sump pump to make sure it didn’t overflow into our basement. Tony, an amazingly creative problem solver :) , came up with a way to quickly siphon the sump pump using a hose leading from the sump pump outside to the almost end of our yard. It worked like a charm!
Before we got ready for bed, I asked Tony if he was going to set the alarm to check the sump pump in the middle of the night. He casually replied that he’ll just make an alarm that will go off when the water reaches the danger zone. After spending a short 15 minutes, or maybe even less, he came up with a system in which a piece of wood with a light ball attached to the end would raise up with the water level in the sump pump and loudly ring a bell when the water reached a certain point. Here’s a clip of how it ended up looking and working. It’s dark, but fun to watch just the same!
Sure enough at one in the morning Tony woke me up saying, “Alison! The alarm is going off!” He went downstairs, used his hose system to siphon the water out of the sump pump, and came back to bed knowing that he didn’t need to worry about it overflowing. His newly created alarm system would let him know if he was needed in the basement again!
