Planted Snow Peas Today

Gardening wasn't even on my radar though I had already bought pansies and marigolds, etc to make the yard look nice for possible buyers. It's just been too cold at night to risk it. But when I was in Alpena today I happened to see veggie seeds and oh, gosh, I hadn't bought any snow peas yet. Normally they would have been planted for a couple of weeks. But at least they're in now and it's going to rain tomorrow so it's good to have them in.

I put in the 2 varieties I could find, Burpee - Oregon Sugar Pod II and Livingston Seeds - Dwarf Grey Sugar. Hopefully in a couple of months I'll be harvesting some snow peas. Unless the house sells and we have to move!

Short Keto Update

As of a couple days ago I am now down 35 pounds. I have less than 5 pounds to go for my final weight goal. If I go a couple pounds beyond that I won't complain. After all I have dropped from a size 14/16 pair of jeans to an 8. Pretty damn nifty! Hal is down 25 and may go for a total of 30. Pretty cool.

Laundry Room is Finished

It's as finished as we plan to do at this time. The possible shower is on hold for now, it took me a week longer than planned because of that oil stain, but last week I did get those walls painted. The exterior block wall I coated twice with Dry-Lock waterproofing paint just in case there was any possibility of  water penetration, and then it and the other 3 walls all have 2 coats of porch and floor paint tinted with Benjamin Moore's Ocean Beach, a yellowy beige which I really, really like. The floor has to cure 30 days before it can be painted so it's likely it will not get painted at all.

So much prettier

The corner where the shower would be.

I put my 5 foot diameter rug that was in the living room, it was too small for the space anyway, into the laundry room, makes it "homier". Now that it's done, it is just so much more pleasant to be in! I have no idea why I didn't do this 19 years ago when we moved in, but it probably had something to do with not knowing how to fix the floor. Sure hope these things help, the house will be re-listed May 1st.

Selling the House - Laundry Room

The laundry is in the basement, It is a large room that also boasts a washtub sink, a toilet and the plumbing for a shower. One of the big problems with the basement and thus the laundry is the floor. Whoever did the concrete floor screwed it up and it didn't cure properly so it "dusts" and is rough with exposed aggregate. So I bought two 50 pound sacks of concrete floor leveler.

The first one went on pretty evenly but the second one became harder to spread, I think the water was being sucked from it by the first layer so there are all kinds of smooth ridged, level changes. So, yeah, looks like a clueless homeowner may have done it, but at least you can walk on it barefoot with hurting yourself and it isn't wearing away year after year through dusting. If we had tried this 19 years ago, we might have actually tried to fix the entire basement floor. This will have to do.

Unfortunately the concrete has to cure 30 days before it can be painted. So it may just stary gray because my washer and dryer are going to be hooked up sooner than later. They've been unhooked for almost 2 weeks now.

Home Improvements for the Sale - Main Bathroom

Hal and I met with our realtor earlier this month and discussed ways to help the sale of the house. Besides dropping the price again, now down to $199,900, we said we would redo the bathroom floor to match the vinyl we put down 5.5 years ago. (We had lots of excess pieces in the loft, which was a good thing as that particular flooring was discontinues), improve the crappy laundry room and once it dried out, grade the driveway and perhaps add some gravel to the worst spots.

First thing I tackled was the main bathroom. I talked to the owner of the company who did the beautiful job on our floor and he gave my number to his current floor installer. He came out the next day, offered to do it the next day for a very reasonable price and he and 2 workers showed up the next morning.

I have to say, while it looks good from a distance I will NEVER hire him to do the floors in my future home. Here are some photos.

There isn't anything I can do about the bad joining in the above photo, thank goodness it is by the back of the toilet. As for the curling and large gaps by walls the guy actually told us we could fix that with shoe molding.

So that's what Hal and I did on the weekend, lots and lots of quarter round shoe molding! Of course that wouldn't fix the curling at seams in the middle of the floor, we had to buy adhesive to fix those.

At least it looks good form further away and way, way better than the crappy beige carpet that was glued to the floor. Still can't figure out why we didn't do it all when the rest of the floor was done in 2013!

The Robins are Back

Saw my first robin this afternoon in my front yard. Just bouncing on down the hill. The gold finches which have stuck around all winter are turning more yellow every week. The weather is also slowly warming up, the next 3 days are supposed to be averaging around 60 F degrees. Looking forward to that as we're still getting days like this morning which had sleet and a dusting of snow. but April is volatile like that. A week from now the forecast keeps switching back and forth between an inch of snow or 5-8 inches. At thirty-five degrees for a high either could happen.

Another sure sign of spring, the bears are awake as you can see from the state of one of my suet feeders. I was able to repair the other one and somehow he did not destroy the thistle feeder he tossed to the ground after bending the metal pole over. Tonight all the feeders are inside.

Maple syrup season is over, we have approximately 10 gallons I think, from sap gathered over the last 3 weeks. A pretty good season I'd say. Now we just have to get around to canning it. But tomorrow Hal is going to smoke some chicken. Third time this year. Yum.

It's Only Another 2.4 Pounds...

It's only another 2.4 pounds, but as of this morning I have achieved my secondary goal of 10 pounds less than my original goal. That original goal was 165 so today I weigh a mere 155 pounds. I have no idea when I last saw that number but I'm pretty sure we were still living in Virginia so it's more than 20 years ago.

I know the Navy body mass calculator still thinks I am obese and indeed, I have not lost the last of the belly fat so I am keto-ing on. I now plan another 5 pounds for certain and if I am not pleased with 150 I shall then head for a little less than that. By the time I see my physician's assistant at the end of the month and get my cholesterol test, I am hoping the number will have dropped from last year. We shall see.