Roses Chatter

Case of the Missing Neighbor: Solved

ekbo — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 19:14:57 +0000

Maybe this post will not quite seem blog worthy – other options would be how cute Pippin is when playing with his mouse (and sliding on the new hallway floor), house remodel, Jay’s insane work schedule (can we say average of 4 hrs of sleep per night these days?), my itchy skin, or baby stuff. The story of my neighbor seems like the most ‘unusual’ so we’ll go with that.
Jay and I know the names of the neighbors who live closest to us and we wave at each other if we’re outside at the same time. Rarely to we have a conversation of more than, ‘How are you?’ They all seem like perfectly nice people, but at different stages in life than we are. The neighbor I talk the most to is the woman who lives next door to us and lives alone (important for later in post). This woman had been on vacation recently, but had seemingly returned. Then last Thursday evening, I noticed her garage door was still open, car in driveway, yard waste container not put away (2 of the 3 are unusual – she rarely has her garage door open for longer than a short time span and always puts her garbage/etc containers away promptly – unlike us). Friday, same picture. Saturday, also the same picture – though no sign of our neighbor herself. By this point I was becoming concerned – and hoping she hadn’t slipped in her house somewhere and was lying in pain, unable to get help… I mentioned it to Jay and he too seemed concerned. We decided that if nothing had changed by Sunday, we’d go talk to our neighbor across the street with whom this woman is better friends. Sunday rolls around and no change, so Jay and I went to knock on our neighbor’s doors, Jay checked to see if they were locked and if he could see in any windows – and I was trying not to feel like a snoop. After no results from this search, we went and talked to our neighbor across the street who knew nothing about this woman being gone again and was also concerned when we mentioned the garage door had been open for a few days. First the three of us went to close the garage door. Then she and I went and spoke to the neighbors on the other side of said missing neighbor – again with no new info, but more concern on their part. Luckily, both sets of neighbors had some ways to contact my neighbor and an email message and phone call were sent off. Tuesday my neighbor across the street got a call from the ‘missing’ woman – all was well, she was on vacation with her father in eastern Oregon and hadn’t checked email/messages in days. She’d rented a car and therefore, probably just forgot to close the garage door as her car was in the driveway. Mystery solved, in the best way possible. Exciting times at the Blanton/Otten household

My Little Escape Artist

ekbo — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 19:46:29 +0000

For a while now, Clara has been convinced she would love to be an outside kitty. We let the cats out on the patio, but that does not always satisfy Clara. Since we’ve been remodeling, the side door has been used much more than usual – and Clara can often be found waiting by the door, hoping to sneak outside. Last week, she was finally successful in not only getting out the door, but also in not being noticed… I think she was only out for about an hour, but that was enough time to get into a cat fight, lose her collar, and tangle with a rusty nail. Ah Clara… When she came in, I tortured her by washing out her wounds. The next day I called the vet to see if I should bring her in – I thought her wounds were minor, but wanted to be sure there was nothing else I should do. The vet’s office said that as long as the wounds were not red and infected, she should be fine. Yesterday I had to take her in for a check-up and showed the vet her largest wound – and found out it was more serious than I thought. Poor girl had a big tear that had opened up (I thought she’d just lost the top layer of skin…). So today, she’s having minor surgery to repair the wound (the vet did not think it would heal on its own and it was too long since it happened to just glue it closed). I think the worst part will be that she will have to wear a special kitty cone so that she doesn’t like the sight – any guesses on how often a day we’ll get hissed at? Poor girl! And thus she continues to be our expensive kitty – Pippin only has to go for yearly check-ups, but Clara, no, she gets to make many more trips for all kinds of reasons. Good thing she’s so darn cute!

Ok, who in Seattle’s with me?

dahlia j — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 23:30:37 +0000

Is it super cheesy that I want to go see this?

It’s exhibiting at the Pacific Science Center Oct 23, 2010 – Jan 30, 2011. I guess I can’t get away with the excuse that my kids really want to see it…!

Did you know?

ekbo — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 19:16:29 +0000

that many garden hoses are made with PVC that has lead in it (and apparently the brass fittings also have lead in them)? At least this is what I’ve just been reading… And (if you’re like us and do not put your garden hoses away when the sun is shining) if garden hoses have been exposed to the sun for long amounts of time, the lead that leaches from the hose into the water leaving the hose is higher. So glad that the hose I’ve been using to water the garden for the past 2 years has never been covered or put in the shed… so much for my organic garden? Next up for today, looking for new hoses!

Progress has been made

dahlia j — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 03:56:06 +0000

As it turns out I haven’t been able to be at the computer as much as I’d hoped so the basement updates have not been happening. So it goes, I guess. BUT, things have been happening around here!!

Our backyard looks like a junk yard right now but we have new cement steps going down to where the new door will go. The are a lot wider than the old ones and feel much safer. Inside, our contractor is almost done with the framing and it’s been pretty exciting to see what the dimensions actually look like in 3D, especially since I’m not a very spatially visual person. Our plumbing for down there is almost done and for the past two weeks we’ve been washing clothes in the basement and then dragging them upstairs to dry. Not the most ideal situation but it feels like progress since something mechanical is actually working down there. And our water pressure is 10 times better all over the house.

Our old deck. Messy but in use.

No more deck!

The new oustide steps. At the top is where the old door was

Along with our new plumbing we decided to get a new toilet for the little bathroom and while the old toilet was out I realized I should commence with my dream of painting that space since no toilet in there would be a most convenient time. Luckily, my brother is rather available these days to take on little bits of work so he painted the whole thing for me. My only contribution was to sing kid’s songs for him when he said he required music while working. I don’t think he was impressed, but I was impressed with his work! I have some other things to do in that room and then I’ll post pictures.

This week the electrician is here doing all of the new wiring for downstairs. I’m also hoping he’ll be able to fix a few weird things upstairs like light switches that switch nothing on and outlets that don’t work. Fun stuff like that. We’ll be gone for a week and during that time our contractor will be ripping up the floor in our entry way to make the stairs. It’s being well timed for when no children or dogs can fall through the gaping hole that will be created. It will be a trip to come back and see the new entryway!

Basement before framing, hvac guys putting in the new furnace

Basement before framing

New bathroom

From left to right: bedroom, rec room, bedroom

New, bigger window

Separate from the basement, but everything seems to come at once around here, we got our driveway paved. Long story short, our neighbor was paving his side and it didn’t really make sense to leave ours gravel and have a little drop-off at the property line right where you are getting in and out of cars. It still looks a little landing-strip-like to me but I’m getting used to it.

New driveway

Jonah has not been impressed with the noise. I’m hoping it’s a phase that all kids go through but he’s really into talking about how things are “loud” right now. Not all things are loud and bad (he loves the vacuum cleaner right now and you can get him to vacuum with his headphones) but all things seem to be loud. Luckily we have noise-canceling headphones for him for shows and they’ve really come in handy. Plus, he’s gotten really into wearing them so it won’t be a hassle to get him to wear them when we see music! Bonus!

Mother’s Day Gift

dahlia j — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 22:49:31 +0000

Is anyone getting tired of my crappy phone pictures yet?!

Jonah planted me a little flower at preschool for Mother’s Day and it’s doing really well in the kitchen sink window.

Mother's Day Flower

Cooking with Cynthia Lair

ekbo — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 00:36:47 +0000

I first heard Cynthia Lair share recipes on NPR, including from a snippet of her online cooking show which can be pretty funny. After this, I looked up her website and printed off some recipes that sounded good – and they were! I think it was her apple-walnut kale recipe that really sold me. I had never cooked much with dark greens as they can be bitter and tougher, but I began giving them a try thanks to Cynthia. And I discovered I really like them – and (a bit of a shock to me) so does Jay.
Cynthia Lair focuses on making food that is fresh, uses more natural ingredients, and is fairly simple to cook. Ideas that sound good to me! For Christmas, Jay got me her cookbook which I have recently been using A LOT. The recipes are a little different than our standard fare, usually quite tasty, and, for the most part, do not require a lot of time in the kitchen. Did I mention they are quite filling too? I mean, I know this is the goal with food, but sometimes a meal just doesn’t stick with me as long as others. An added bonus with her cookbook, tips for feeding kids a variety of foods as well as how to make parts of meals baby friendly — both of which I’m sure will come in handy in this house soon.
I would suggest checking our her website and see what you think!

What we do for our pets

dahlia j — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 21:43:42 +0000

A cone respite. You'd think he'd move further from it...

We’ve had a battle with Gaje for the past two months on healing a small patch on his leg. After his surgery his incisions healed nicely and quickly and even though he looks a little patchy his hair is growing back fairly fast. But that damned leg. The clinic outfitted him with a morphine patch to manage the pain in the first couple weeks of healing and to this day that we haven’t been able to heal that place. We started out with bandages in the area but of course no air meant no scabbing meant no healing. Then we switched to his floppy cone and somehow he’d manage to contort himself just enough to lick the newly formed scab off at least once a day. Then we switched to a sock but that kept slipping even with tape. We purchased bitter lime to spray on the area and that didn’t slow him down one bit (I’m taking that shit back, I’m so pissed!). Then we switched to a leg warmer made with a sock and somehow he got that down too. Now we have a new cone for him that is much harder and longer. It definitely keeps him away from the leg but he bashes into everything in the house and he can’t eat or drink (and it’s been downright dangerous for him to be around either of the kids with it). So, we tried a couple days of him in the sock, well taped, during the day and then the cone at night. We’d had a couple days worth of scab going and I thought we were headed to the clear but then on Sunday he got the sock down and off came the scab. If there were ever a time I could reason with a dog, this would be it. I would definitely tell him he’s got a good thing going, having that leg and all….

Basement Remodel Has Begun!

dahlia j — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 21:41:23 +0000

Finally. Finally. Really, finally!

Today we started our basement remodel. My plan is to keep a record of the goings on here, for posterity’s sake, and I’m going to try an include some of the little details/musings that I know will get lost along the way. I’ll post some pictures of the as-is space when I remember to bring the camera upstairs but for now I’ll just start out by saying I’m a little scared about what the next two months has in store for us. The details, oh the details. The shear noise that flows throughout the house is amazing, as if I needed any other distractions for my children to avoid sleep. They are hammering in the basement. They are cutting duct work in the back yard. It’s a regular construction zone here!

Luckily our days usually have activities that bring us away from home but I am worried about the nap schedule. And the overall timeline. We have people visiting at various points at the end of summer and we’d like to have space for them to stay here with us. Oh and could we time the part where there’s a gaping hole in the floor (for my children to fall though) for when we are out of town for a week? Is that too much to hope for?

I have to admit, we’ve met some nice and interesting people along this path though. Hardworking people with a totally different skill set than my peer group. Our heating guy could totally be on an episode of Twin Peaks (mannerisms and looks-wise) and my mom really likes him because he tells funny stories about his grandsons. Our architect has those big piercings in his ears and at first glance he could pass for a young college guy but in reality he’s been in his field for a long time.

This weekend we made the final push towards cleaning out all of our junk and I think Slanky made 4 or 5 trips to good will, and freecycled so so many things but this morning when I looked at what is still left it feels like we still have a long way to go.

Stay tuned!

Syttende Mai, Revisited

dahlia j — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 20:47:43 +0000

One of the many things I love about Ballard is its Scandinavian heritage. Every year our neighborhood celebrates Norwegian Independence day with gusto (I believe it’s the biggest party outside Norway) and besides the two hour long parade there were events all day. On a Monday. Sweet! Slanky already wrote about it here but I wanted to post a few pictures I took with my phone.

Last year was really fun when we got to check out the Norwegian Fjorde Horses but sadly they weren’t in attendance this year. We did check out the parade though and there were a ton of marching bands, Scandinavian themed clubs and even cops on harleys.

I feel like I had more to say about this but since it’s been a while I can’t remember it now. Can you believe no one has posted on the blog for almost a month?!

Here are some photos….

Cops on Harleys

Flags

Enjoying the parade

Viking Ship?