Some Favorites From my Garden

Photo Special: Montreal

HUH? Wait. WHAT?

I hate it when people bust me taking their photo. OOPS. I had to pretend I was just "taking pictures of other things".

New House, Vol. 6

...and then I came home from work one day and I had no roof!

The only thing left standing is the chimney and this toilet. Poor workers need a place to pee, after all:

New House, Vol. 5

Roof Tearoff. Can you see in this photo how bowed the back roof was?

New House, Vol. 3

Me, having a Carol-Burnett-having-a-Gone-With-The-Wind-moment:

New House, Vol. 2

If you can try to match these up with yesterday's post - these are the corresponding 'during' photos to go with. They're not after photos by any means...

Kitchen (please note the ONLY insulation in the walls was this thin layer of tar paper):

Entryway (a different view, from the bedroom looking out the door (the pink cabinets are in the garage now):

Demolition of the plaster and lathe in the bathroom:

Bathroom:

View of the entrances to the tiny bedroom (now open to the entryway and the bathroom door):

Stay tuned!

New House

So I bought a house.

Why, you may ask? Why would I move from a SAFE 2nd floor walk-up apartment that I LOVE, that only costs me $800 a month in rent, that is in the PERFECT location in the best neighborhood in all of South Minneapolis?

Because I went to my mom's over Christmas break, watched a million back-to-back episodes of Property Brothers and Tiny House Nation and Rehab Addict that's why. That's why on a whim the very day that I got home I bought a 684 square foot fixer-upper. 

This week I'm just going to post photos of my house project. I haven't been writing much lately because if I'm not in Mexico or at my full-time job or caring for those who have cancer (my mom), I'm over at this house trying to be as helpful as a 5'2" woman with no experience in such things and a car-accident back can be. 

The back of the house:

Kitchen:

Front entryway:

Bathroom (please note the 4' clawfoot bathtub that had to be cut into the tile in the wall because the bathroom is only 3'9" wide):

From the living room through the dining room and into the kitchen:

From the dining room into the front bedroom and the bathroom:

Anyway, the house is great and could have been moved into as-is, but I decided that the roof was too saggy and needed to be replaced (see photo 1) and the layout of the house is inefficient and that I wanted to add an adorable 2nd floor loft and I had been watching all those shows, so here we are. 

Stay tuned...

Cancun

Apostle Island Ice Caves

Last year I forced my brother and his wife to take my cousin Ross and me to the Apostle Island ice caves up in northern Wisconsin. The conditions are very rare for Lake Superior to freeze solid enough so that you can hike out to these caves in the winter. Typically people kayak to them in the summertime. 

Well in 2014 for the first time in five years the National Park service opened them up to the public. It was about a three-mile hike round trip, and worth every minute.

Left to right: Ross, me, Pete, Tanya

Clockwise from left: Pete, Ross, Tanya, me

In hindsight this was probably a bad idea

This too

"Promise me anything, but...GIVE ME A HAMM'S" (remind me to tell you about this sweatshirt)

In hindsight this was probably a very very bad idea.