This Means War.

Our tennis ball sized watermelon?! Rude tiny critter, very rude.

Us vs. the Yard - Round 2

The garden is ruling!

House Updates

Every weekend we're at home - which hasn't been many this summer - it seems like we're trying to knock projects off of our never-ending to-do list. This past weekend was a particularly satisfying one, I think because we accomplished so many cosmetic fixes.

We (Mike) installed a wall nightlight in Pickle's room (replacing a lovely hole in the wall), and he replaced the horrible florescent basement-style lights at the top of the stairs and the second-floor landing with regular non-offensive ceiling lights.

We also hung a couple more pieces of artwork in her room, it's looking like a proper nursery now!

He also washed grime off of our siding, painted a ceiling, and removed a light on our garage that didn't work and was filled with wasp's nests. What a guy!

We also got the stairs painted! The stairs and second floor landing had been covered in carpeting, and after ripping it up, we discovered that the landing had hardwood flooring underneath it, but the staircase was unfinished. We decided that the most economical (and fun) option was to paint them, and agreed upon green tints.


We bought a quart each of white and green patio/floor paint, and I started mixing. My highly scientific method involved filling jelly jars with progressively lower amounts of green paint, and then filling them all to the same level with white paint.

We have 13 stairs, so I used the base green and then made 6 lighter tints. Each color was then used on two stairs, except for the very lightest tint, which was only used on one stair.


We painted every other step so we could still move between floors, and were just careful to keep the jelly jars on the steps they belonged to so we didn't mix up our tints.


I'm really pleased with how they turned out!

Pickled Scapes and Cherries

Garlic Scapes