Lots going on but no time to write . . .

The last couple months have been professionally very busy, so I have neglected this since the beginning of the year. Lets see if I can catch you up to the thrill of our first house.

We enjoyed our first holiday season in our new house although we spent Christmas Eve, Christmas, Boxing Day and New Year all at other peoples houses. I really enjoyed getting a tree for the first time in three years.

We almost had a lean put on the house due to the previous owners' unpaid bill. Just another reason why the title company and title insurance is so important. Other that a brief freak out, we really didn't have to worry about it. Matt called the title company and they took care of it.

Speaking of the title company, it appears that we initially overpaid them for our escrow account. Since we have decided to escrow our property taxes, this extra money is not lost. We had the option to either get a refund or keep it in the account and have slightly lower monthly payments; we opted for the latter.

We also had the taxes reassessed. Although the state equalized value is not as low as we had hoped, our property taxes have been reduced. We are just waiting for the summer taxes to be issued to the mortgage company so that our payments go down noticeably.

We also had some less pleasant experiences. One Sunday we had our pipes block up in the basement. I had just started a load of dishes in the dishwasher, I was starting a load of clothes in the washer and Matt was upstairs taking a shower. Euler was down in the basement with me and he seemed interested in something on the other side of the basement. I went over to see water bubbling up the drain.
That was a fun moment. We clear out anything that could be damaged by the water and called a plumber. We believe it is a result of the large trees in front of our house and the roots growing in the pipes. We now have a plan to routinely have them taken care of to avoid the use of emergency plumbers. We had an interesting afternoon bleaching the basement floor to clean out the sewage. Luckily this had an easy solution, however unpleasant.

We hosted Easter dinner at our house this year. We were very blessed to have nice weather so we ate alfresco. We moved our dinning room table out to our driveway and set up a folding table next to it. We used our patio table as a buffet. It worked out perfectly. Since both Matt's family and mine came over, it would have been a tight fit in the house. Matt made a pork loin and I made Easter rolls. Overall a huge success.

We had a fun Cinco De Mayo party at our house as well. Matt had been talking about doing a pig roast for some time and I insisted that this would be the perfect opportunity. Matt had been setting up the garden and we decided that using part of that area would be perfect before he put any plants in.  We went to a local butcher an ordered a pig. Matt got up early and got the coals going and put the pig in the ground. Unfortunately the weather did not cooperate as well as we would have liked. As Matt was trying to get the coals hot, there was a bit of a down pour. For fear of not having a thoroughly cooked pig, we took the pig out of the ground and inside to the oven to finish cooking. The  pig turned out well and everyone had a good time.

Matt has put in a garden that is growing at an amazing rate. Initially he was a little dishearten by the lack of progress with the seedlings he started. We ended up going to the plant expo held down town and picked up a lot of plants. Matt then mixed the soil with fertilizer and compost. We also have has some really warm weather and lots of rain. It seems our plants are trying to break free. We have also put in a compost and have seen a drastic decrease in the amount of garbage we are taking out.

The U-shaped garden

Lots of tomato plants in a variety

Some summer squash and zuccini

A variety of peppers

The tomato plants growing

The other group of tomatoes growing

The squash bigger and flowering

The other box of squash growing

The peas and some herbs

The peppers making some progress

The lettuce and carrots, the only seeds that survived

We have seen quite a few bad storms go through already this summer (although technically still spring). The worst so far happened while we were on our way home from a wedding. Matt safely navigated home through many large puddles. We found out latter that a few homes on out street actually flooded. We had our usual trickle through the basement, but we think the cleaning of our pipes from our previous water issue helped us avoid a more serious problem. As we are expecting many more storms, I will keep updating anything affects the house.

We have started the slow process of making improvements in the house. We tore up the carpet in the dinning room. Matt was tired of seeing the white carpet so dirty. Between the dog and me, we tracked in a lot of dirt over the winter and spring that the vacuum could not pick up. Under the carpet and pad we found white-washed floors and glue. Although this carpet pad had not been glued to the floor, it appears that the previous pad had been. We are at a bit of a stand still trying to decide what to do from here.

Other random house related stuff: Matt got an electric lawn mower and had been using the clippings on the garden. We seem to have grapes growing behind our garage. I have hung some pictures using the removable velcro-type stuff in the living room and the picture molding in the dinning room. We finally received our tax refund from the federal government. Matt bought some bookshelves for me to put in the coal room for all our books, now nicely organized. I clean out and organized the garage so that both cars can fit.

First Snow

As first time homeowners, we are having a lot of firsts come up. Today was the first snow for our new house. It is also the first time we have had Euler in the snow. We had put off buying a snow shovel, but Matt had to break down and get one based on the weather forcast yesterday. I parked on the outside of the fense last night so that I wouldn't have to worry about opening the gate to leave in the morning. Also, if there had been a lot of snow, I could just push it the rest of the way to the street with gravity's help. Euler seems to really enjoy the snow, including taking a bite of it here and there. Luckily, the accumulation was minimal (less than an inch), so no shoveling was required and the temperature was warmer in the morning than it had been the day before. However, there is another storm front coming through, so I am sure we will put the snow shovel to good use very soon.

New Gate

We spent some time on Sunday putting in the gate for the driveway. Not the brightest idea, given how cold it was, but Matt wanted it done. It will be nice when we don't have to go out side when ever the dog needs to go out. We are a little concerned that the quickcrete is not completely solid, but  hopefully the cold weather will not effect its stability. There is still one little spot that Euler can get through when the gate gets put on the hinges. We really don't want to by a roll of chain-link fensing for 2 feet of fence. Right now, Matt has put a piece of cement board there while we come up with a better solution. All in all, we are making pretty good progress on our list of things we want to do to the house. I'm sure this will soon change as the quick fixes get done and the projects that require more than a couple hours and some major demolition are left.

More Unpacking - Slooooooooowly

Not a lot going on with our house this week. Our new bed was delivered on Monday. Subsequently we now have a guest room that consists of more than a blow up bed.

We have decided that we need to do something about closing in the yard sooner rather than later. I left Euler out in the yard with his tie-down clipped to his collar. He slipped his collar off and scared us. Luckily he didn't go far, but closing in the yard has moved up our list.

Our pantry might have some issues. Our basement stays quiet moist which is one of the reasons we got a dehumidifier. This week we had enough rain to see which basement wall receives the most water pressure. Unfortunately, it seems to be the corner Matt has started the pantry. He is concerned and started talking about putting in a sub-pump. One nice thing is that the area we are planning on putting in bookcases seems to stay dry.

I found out that who ever put up the closet rack in my closet did not screw it into the studs in the wall. Of course I found this out when I went up there and saw that the closet had collapsed into itself. This just adds another item to our project list.

I officially changed my residency with the state today. This was the last thing I needed to do in the moving process. At least I think this is the last thing.  Now just to finish unpacking.

I have taken out the Christmas decorations and started to decorate. I am excited to have our first tree. We are hoping to get one this weekend. Fingers crossed!

Pantry

Our pantry is underway. Matt spent some time today painting the soon to be pantry with sealing paint. That area of the basement is more moist and had not been painted as recently as the rest of the basement. Now that alcove is all nice and bright white. Although we had quite a few windows open because the smell was very strong in the basement.

We checked out the Farm Market today. It was more of a flee market today, but we were able to pick up some fresh vegetables. Matt made a root stew with some of the vegetables and the ham bone from our housewarming party. Yum!