a not so welcome surprise

The day before we left the cabin (so last Monday) we got a call from my MIL informing us that there had been some bad storms in the Twin Cities and that we should have someone check on our house. Naturally this came as a huge surprise- the weather had been fine where we were, and not having any TV, internet, or phone, we had literally no idea that there were severe storms down south. Luckily we had been having someone check in on the house, but we had not heard from them (probably because of the lack of cell reception) with a report on our property. My mind immediately went to our power lines which run through our, and our neighbor's trees.

A few hours later we got in touch with our house-sitter and found out our fence was blown in, and thankfully nothing else. We got home to inspect the damage to find out it really wasn't that bad- in fact the fence was already propped up like this when we arrived on Tuesday, from the street you could not even tell anything was wrong (except that now our gate won't close).

Just one post had snapped and will need to be replaced:

And we lost a few relatively small branches:

All in all, we felt very lucky, especially after driving around the neighborhood and seeing this within blocks of our house:

The city of Minneapolis is even saying that the number of downed trees from this storm will likely surpass the number- 3,200 on public property and boulevards alone- destroyed by the Tornado that went through North Minneapolis two years ago.

And the clean-up isn't even close to done. As late as yesterday, as I drove back from work and Target Field I passed roads still completely closed off by downed trees and power lines.

cabinski

Part two of our getaway included a few extra days at the cabin. Lucky for us, a few short hours after the group headed out, the sun came out and the temp warmed up and stayed that way for the rest of our trip. We were able to get in some fishing, suntanning & reading on the dock, and a trip down to Grand Marais with perfect weather.

Enjoying the sunshine and a quick read on the dock

Obligatory fishing pic

 Suspicious of the dock's edge (or stalking a bug, it's hard to tell)...

 little did he know he had every right to be...

  

Testing out Franklin's swimming abilities. 

Turns out he is better than Winston, but didn't appear to like it any more than his bro does.

A little sunbathing at Birch

Grand Marais- Artist's Point

Grand Marais- Artist's Point

 

nap time!

bwca

Part one of our long-weekend getaway included a 2 night, 3 day camping trip in the Boundary Waters with a group of friends. Picture Chihuahua overload below:

 Headed out to Banadad lake, through Poplar, Skipper, Little Rush, and Rush.

 Franklin's first canoe trip, gotta scope out the whole canoe

Maybe this is a better spot?

Or here?

Playing trump by the fire-my friends can play cards, what?!

Someone was a little scared of the fire and preferred to sit in the tent by himself.

Exhausted, those portages were hard mama!

Just lounging in the hammock, I think we need to invest in one of those for ourselves.

Playing 500 during the rain, if you look closely you can see that Franklin found a new nap buddy.

 A 14" small-mouth

 A little "baseball" game

His was bigger:(

Crazies going for a swim in the 60* weather!

All packed up- the view from our camp site

Another view from our site on Banadad Lake.

Paddling home, trying, and failing, to beat the rain

We seemed to have turned this into a little tradition- killing a car battery while out camping

*Disclaimer, I have not had the dead battery after either group trip 

Enjoying a much deserved meal at Trail Center before the group heads out.

exciting news

Lot's of exciting things to share this morning, at least exciting to me:

For starters, I did have a productive weekend even if I did not finish everything on my list. I went on 2 long-to-me runs, a 6 miler and an 8 miler; David put together our new lawn mower and mowed the front lawn; I gassed up and weed-whacked our lawn (we had a small rainforest growing on between the sidewalk and our fence, and this means the weed wacker is no longer broken); put away all the clean clothes (if you know me you know this is my least.favorite.chore.ever- it just never seems to end) so now I can see our floor upstairs and open the laundry closet door and it feels amazing. We also vended 3 pretty good Twins games. I even got to vend with a frozen margarita backpack on Sunday, dispensing $10 margaritas in the seats to the fans. Walking stairs for 2 hours with a giant 40ish pound backpack was just a warm up for our upcoming trip to the BWCA though.

Perhaps the most exciting news from the weekend, keep in mind this is relatively exciting news, is that I did my Sunday morning 8 mile run without music! In the past I could barely make it 3 miles if I did not have my ipod with me. But I was in a rush to finish the run before leaving for work and thus did not have time to drive back and get my ipod, and I was determined to cross that "2 long runs" off my to-do list. And honestly, I did not even realize it til I was about half a mile in. David is convinced this means I like running. I would not go that far yet (there are lots of ways I would rather work out, running just happens to be effective and free), but I do think it means I am enjoying it more and am getting better at it.

In other exciting news (are you starting to see a common theme here, that I see being productive/ having a clean house/ crossing things off my to-do list is exciting? Well it certainly is exciting, especially when it happens during the Twins' season!) Last night I cleared off the kitchen table so we could actually enjoy our dinner there. Never mind the fact that almost all of it just moved from the table to the guest bedroom (next goal = put guest bedroom back together). Then, after dinner, David finally had had enough of the heat, and voluntarily went to the store to get a window AC unit for our 3rd story/attic bedroom! It has been pretty stuff up there, even though on the warm days we have managed to get a cool breeze going through the rest of the house, keeping us comfortable. Because we were working with such an odd-sized/ small window we had to get the smallest unit they had, which advertised it was for a slightly smaller room. However, it worked like a charm last night even on the low setting. We think the lower ceiling has something to do with it. Best $120 we have spent in awhile.

Now for some less than exciting news: I still can't find my camera charger (I'm sure it is somewhere in the full-to-the-brim guest bedroom), and my camera officially died this morning while I was trying to take an outfit pic to share with you :( Looks like there will be another week without a WIWW post.

finally friday

I have decided this is a fun little game- tell you all my plans for the weekend, and then see on Monday how well I followed through. Because, like I said before, I am always motivated by a good list, and this way I have the added encouragement of blogland holding me accountable.

-put together lawnmower
-gas up the weed wacker (crossing my fingers now that we fixed the gas line) and then go  whack some weeds
-2 long runs
-nail the rest of the boards up for my hallway project
-find my camera charger so I can take more pictures
-make 1 of the 3 returns sitting around the house

 Let's see if I can get that stuff done, plus the usual weekend tasks, and of course work a few Twins games.

Now, switching gears, for some much anticipated pictures of our backyard...

Before:

 

During:

And Currently:

It has been 2.5 weeks since we tore up the backyard and sprinkled the seed. Luckily we have gotten plenty of rain, however I am thinking a little mores sunshine couldn't hurt things. On the plus side, we have just as much, if not more grass than we started with, spread out evenly over the yard. On the down side, there are still a lot of bare spots, the grass just seems to have grown in 5" circles all over the yard. So now, do we try putting more seed down now, or do we wait until the fall in hopes that there are few a few straggling seeds down there just waiting to sprout? Professional opinions anyone?

a venda tale

At last night's game:

I am selling cotton candy in the upper deck. It is a pretty bad game and having already sold one load, I am kinda puttering around with my second load, knowing everything has been covered well. My manager comes up to me and tells me there is a cotton candy sale in the outfield they need me to make, a birthday girl. Normally I wouldn't be too thrilled about being sent to the outfield in the middle of the game, but like I said, it's a slow game, so I wasn't going to miss many sales in the grandstand, and I thought perhaps the birthday girl had friends with who would all need cotton candy. 

I get to the designated section after being stopped by a few sales and the girl was nowhere to be found, but another manager-type-polo-wearing-person spots me and says, "Cotton Candy! Thanks for making the trip down, the birthday girl is over here."

I see the girl, around 7 or 8, there is a boy her age walking with her, and an adult male (I won't say "dad" because I assume no dad would actually act this way). They group approaches me and the adult says, "Tell her what you want." The girl replies, "It's my birthday, can I have a free cotton candy?"

At first I smiled sweetly (getting asked for free product happens a lot), apologized, and said no I can't do that (assuming the adult would quickly get the money out of his wallet). But no, the adult follows with "Oh come on, it's her birthday." I say again, I can't do that, and the adult follows with, "you seriously can't give her a free cotton candy?" At this point I explain that I have already paid for these myself and it would be coming out of my pocket and I can't do that. He presses TWO MORE TIMES to get this free cotton candy, not understanding (or not caring) that he might as well be asking me for $5 in cash. I continue to say no, at this point mostly just annoyed with the gentlemen. When he is finished, I wait for a few more seconds, still expecting him to dig out his wallet, but he doesn't, so I turn to go up a new section.

I hit an outfield section and when I get back down to the bottom of the stairs the group is waiting for me, to make one more attempt to get this free cotton candy!!! Seriously?!

The good news is that my manager thought the whole thing was really funny. The bad news is I felt bad for that poor girl the rest of the game and simultaneously pissed off at the guy with her who had to make me feel like the jerk for not paying for her birthday treat... but seriously, what grown person does that?

one down, fourteen to go

That's right, only a few days in and I can already cross the first item off my 2013 summer bucket list: have a garage sale. Like I told you on Friday, if the weather was good, we were going to go ahead and have a "garage" sale in our driveway off the alley on Saturday. And, for once this spring, the weather cooperated. We spent Friday night getting the last of the preparations done, the last of the items priced, the signs made and locations to place them decided upon. We got up bright and early (6am) Saturday morning to haul the boxes from the sun porch to the backyard and set up each department. Two hours later we were officially open for business (after making a few sales to those pesky early-bird shoppers).

We had perfect weather for the sale- 70's and overcast. Saturday also happened to be the day our neighborhood was having a community festival, so there was lots of foot traffic and lots of people watching, making the day go by fast.

I know people think having a garage sale is a lot of work, too much work for most people. And it is, but I think it's fun work. Yes, it kind of sucked hauling the stuff down from the second story, and it sucked even more hauling it back up when we were done (these steps could have been avoided if we actually had a garage). And at times sitting outside got a little boring, but overall we got to sit in the nice weather for a day, meet some new neighbors, enjoy lunch with relatives and friends that stopped by, and make some money in the process. I also think it is really satisfying watching other people get excited about buying your  junk stuff or finding a good deal at your sale. For instance I had a brand new Anthropologie dress, with the $98 dollar price tag still on it (I got it at a thrift store). It was too big for me (I at one point had plans of taking it in), and I watched a young woman eye it from the sidewalk and then hustle over to it and excitedly snatch it up, barely taking time to look at it before she brought it over to me and paid for it. I made $8 and she left feeling like she just "scored."

Oh, and call me weird but I also find it really relaxing/ theraputic going through all of the crap and pricing it. It makes me feel good about all of the stuff I am purging from my house- see I really do enjoy the entire process.

In summary, we worked 12 hours, not including the pricing that went on in the weeks before, from 6am to 6pm on Saturday. And we made just under $165 which isn't too shabby considering we had no "big-ticket" items to sell. All things considered, yes, I definitely plan on doing another one, but hopefully I don't acquire enough things to fill a garage sale for a few more years....

Forgot to take pics, but here's a little diagram I made in the planning stages, 

now with the updated changes made to show how we actually set it up on the day-of.

summer bucket list

I've been in a list-making mood lately so prepare to be bombarded in the next few weeks. Today, with the hopes of warmer weather, and no rain in the near future, I give you my summer 2013 bucket list (in no particular order).

1. Go to the drive-in. This is a standard summer activity, but I don't want to get so busy we don't make it.

2. Host a garage sale. Weather permitting this is happening tomorrow!

3. Run a half marathon. After successfully completing the Mississippi 10-miler, I registered for the Gopher-Badger Half on August 10th.

4. Go on a picnic/ date at the stone arch bridge.

5. Go to a bag-sale or two.

6. Tailgate at a Saints game. Might be tricky justifying not working it on a non- Twins night. But it's been years since I have been able to sit and enjoy a baseball game in the Twin Cities.

7. Play beach volleyball, anywhere.

8. Make homemade popsicles, something fancy, along the lines of this.

9. Go to the Farmers Market (I might make a habit of it if they allowed dogs).

10. Pick strawberries/ blueberries/ apples.

11. Make a rhubarb cocktail, something similar to this.

12. Complete a new 30x30 challenge.

13. Make an ice cream sandwich from scratch.

14. Try grilling fruit.

15. Plant a rhubarb plant on the premises.
 

Some of these things are fairly ambitious for our jam-packed-with-roadtrips-and-twins-games summer, but I am always motivated by a good list, so let's see how many of these things I can cross off by Labor Day!

winston (or franklin) shaming

I come in from watering the lawn before work yesterday and see that someone had snagged my sandwich from the very bottom of my lunchbox, ripped through the baggie and then proceeded to eat over half of it, including all of the turkey and cheese. Not sure which chihuahua is guilty, or if it was a team effort. Unfortunately (or rather fortunately) the guilty party did not give himself away by vomiting up his feast at any point last night...

progress

We didn't quite accomplish everything on my list from Friday, 

but we did have an eventful weekend:

-worked 3 Twins games

-went to the drive-in & grilled some tasty brats

-mowed and weeded the front/side yard

-climbed on the roof to scrape & prime the dormer window

-primed total about 1/3 of the house (including the hardest part)

And in other news, the grass seed was hard at work this weekend too, seedlings have sprouted all over the backyard!