Veggie garden update

My latest thing now is to grow our own potatoes!

I'm using store-bought potatoes and basically just letting them sit in the dark for a bit until the "eyes" start to sprout.  I'm growing the potatoes in these special bags with flaps on the side so when it comes to digging up the potatoes I don't have to dump out the entire bag.

I found some worms in the garden and threw those into the bag for good measure.  Hopefully they will help out as I had to bury the potatoes with more soil and then I threw some leaves/compost on top:

In the meantime, our zucchini plant is doing really well!

The cucumber plant, on the other hand, has only give us one cucumber.  It took me a while to pick it so it ended up turning yellow.  It still wasn't too bad.  I think we are suppose to pickle with these cucumbers.  I might transplant this one into the ground instead of a pot - maybe it will do better:

We opened up an avocado that was in the fridge and looks like it is starting to take root??!

I put it in some water but so far it doesn't seem to be growing anymore.  Hmmmm....

We have lots of tomatoes though.  YUM!!!

I tried to plant more corn and edamame but so far nothing has sprouted.  So weird!  Maybe time to move to some different vegetables.  What else can we grow??? :-)

Wood working?

We (as in me and the boys) picked up a whole bunch of pieces of wood last week.  It was for free from a lady that lived not too far from us.  Ya... I'm still scouting out free stuff online.  Ha ha!  Here's our "stash":

I think all I needed was some shim - like small thin pieces of wood to level up the ac unit.  But then I thought I might need a few more large pieces of wood to try and stabilize our pergola in the back.  The pergola is really wobbly and I'm trying to hang our outdoor swing chair on it.

The boys also wanted to build a few things so I started trimming a few pieces of wood for Charlie.  What a pain though with a hand saw!

A few days later, we have an electric hand saw!  But it doesn't do very deep cuts so we're having to make multiple cuts. And oh, it's super loud too!  Still, a lot easier than the hand saw.

Graham found his apron from years ago.  I wish I had a photo of him when he was wearing it then as the apron is looking pretty small now:

Graham says he is building something for "Fluffy" - his favorite stuffed toy-animal:

It's like mini size!

We've taken some time off recently from wood-working as I have been busy trying to fix up the drywall around the new ac unit.  It's almost done!  Hopefully the paint will go on it nicely.  Fingers crossed!!!

More recent happenings

Now that my chair is literally in the middle of the living room, smack in front of the TV - it has gotten a lot of attention!

Can't wait to get my "throne" back in the corner but until the ac unit installation and dry-walling is complete, we will all be fighting for it:

I caught Graham and Charlie snuggling together one day while watching TV.  Awwww.... so cute:

I had to take the boys out to get some passport photos taken.  I had even called the store to confirm that they were still taking photos and somehow, when we got there they said the service was not available.  Grrrrr.... but Graham and Charlie were happy because there was an ice-cream store across the street.  And it's one of our favorites as they specialize in "rolled" ice-creams.  YUM!!!

As the boys ate, I called a couple other places asking about taking passport photos.  Thankfully I found one not too far away but of course, I had to wait for these two monkeys to finish their ice-cream:

And then I got so mad because not one but both of them got ice-cream drips on their shirts!!!  Could have been PMS too that made it even more of an earful for Graham and Charlie.  Well, good news it I think the drips were low enough that it won't show on the passport photos.  We're not planning on going anywhere but Charlie's passport has expired and Graham's passport will expire soon.  Who knows how long these will take to process now with what's going on in this world.  I hope it won't be too long before we go on our next airplane.  We were suppose to travel back to Malaysia to visit my dad this summer but that has been canceled now :-(

More beach time

It is so nice to be on the beach again!  Graham and Charlie love LOVE being in the water and on the sand.  We are so lucky to have this just within 15-20 minutes:

Always snack time for Charlie!

Our favorite crepe restaurant has finally reopened!  We were tempted to go in but then, we figured with the number of new cases of Coronavirus skyrocketing, we opted for take-out:

But we're eating it in the car so it is still nice and fresh :-)

Gosh, we really spoil our kids!

Cleaning up

It's amazing how quickly the house gets so messy.  Sometimes I really wonder why I even bother clearing up because once I'm done, it gets all messy again within hours!

I'm not exactly sure how we accumulated so many card boxes.  Okay, so I have been ordering quite a few things online :-)

A few hours later...

I'm getting somewhere!  The boys schoolbags are still sitting in the same spot since March - untouched.  I finally emptied out Charlie's schoolbag as the zippers don't work very well.  Poor kid has been going to school the entire year with his bag half open. Somehow, he didn't even mind it.  Ha!

A few more hours later...

Yay!!! I can see our entire rug! Such precious square footage.  Ha ha! I still haven't unpacked any boxes in the garage.  This summer already seems too short to get anything done.  How is that??!

Magic "Science-y" slippers

I bought a pair of slippers, I mean - Graham and Charlie bought me a pair of orthopedic slippers for my birthday a couple of weeks ago.  Bobby says it's almost like "torture slippers" because the soles of your feet really hurt after wearing them:

And yup, this is what the soles of my feet look like after a few minutes of wearing these slippers!  Oh, Graham called them very "science-y" because every knob on the slipper has an organ (like body organ) associated to it.  It almost reminds me of acupuncture points for the Chinese.

So what's crazy about these slippers is after wearing them for 2 weeks, my posture has changed.  I could feel the posture changing even after a few days and I feel the weight of my body more balanced/centered.  My shoulders are also less hunched over and my hips don't hurt anymore from sitting down for too long.  That last issue really bothered me as the pain in my hips would actually wake me up while I'm sleeping. And I swear, I'm even walking differently now!

I'm still trying to convince Bobby to try them, at least for a few minutes a day with socks on.  He's got to believe me at least just a little bit, especially now that he is finally sleeping better too.  I covered up the closet mirror with a mural as I told him that the Feng Shui is not good and finally, it's been 3 days in a row where he has slept all the way until morning!

Garden sculpting?

I saved a couple of Mexican Marigolds from the discount isle quite a few months ago and they are now doing really well!  Almost too well!  I remember seeing MASSIVE bushes at the Botanic Garden.  I'm hoping these 2 plants will not get so big.  Soooo... why not sculpt them :-)

I couldn't quite get a good angle on this one after it's "haircut": 

Maybe from this angle?

This is the second bush that I sculpted.  See it yet???

If you guessed bunny rabbit, you guessed right! :-)

If you didn't, then I'm interested to hear what else it could have been.  Ha ha!

Bobby keeps making fun saying we have dinosaur rabbits in the front yard :-P  Well, once the bushes grow out I will have to figure out what else to sculpt :-)

More projects around the house

Perhaps third time is a charm with this outdoor drape.  So the screen to the right is the fancy one I had bought recently.  And the drape to the left was a piece of fabric (passed along from my mom) that I had found in storage, which I had attached some crystals to at the bottom:

So here is attempt #3 - a throw from IKEA and looks like this will be it!

Another look from the other side.  Winner-winner chicken-dinner!

And ever since we moved into this house, I have wanted to cover up this mirror in our bedroom.  It's a mirror that's also our closet door, which according to my late grandmother: "Never have a mirror facing you when you are sleeping."  Well, technically it is facing Bobby more so than me since I'm on the other side of the bed.  And weirdly enough, Bobby says that he has not been sleeping very well.  Must be all the stress I give him.  Ha ha!  

Anyway, I discovered all these fancy murals online that you can just peel and stick.  And I have chosen... (see it yet?):

Here was the pain-in-the-butt factor - the mural came in 2 pieces! It was bad enough that I had to try and line up the first sheet.  And I knew it was going to be tricky because the first sheet was just that little bit slanted :-\

And yes... I did it!  It is the Eiffel Tower!  Still a place I hope to visit one day.  Now I have the Graham and Charlie talking about visiting it too :-)

So as I had mentioned, I already knew the sheets were going to be slanted and sure enough, oops on the tiny sliver of mirror peeking out!

I did cut the sheet to compensate for the slant but guess I miscalculated just by that little sliver.  Thankfully it's not obvious and guess, what... a few days after installing the mural, Bobby is sleeping so much better!  See... Grandma is always right.  And never underestimate the power of Feng Shui :-) 

Installing ac unit - Part 1.5

I'm calling this Part 1.5 because it looks like I forgot to add a few more pics from my last "adventure" with the ac installation.  This is what happened to the walls once the old ac sleeve/frame was removed - all ragged and torn:

And with the magic of blogging... Ta da!!!  Nice and straight and clean lines now:

Thanks to... (drum roll please) my new handy-dandy drywall utility saw.  The teeth on this thing is SHARP!

Perfect square!  This spot would have been a good window. *Hint *Hint:

Once the ac unit was in the sleeve, I had to anchor everything to the wall.  I decided to use my drill since now that the battery is all charged up, I am ready to go!  Except perhaps I got overly excited because I totally stripped the screw that I was trying to get into the wood!  NOOOOoooo...!!!!

It took me all morning trying different methods to get these screw up - from a rubber band to banging another screw with a hammer into this one, you name it! Well, once all else had failed, it was another trip to the store.  So, here is Option #1:

There were 4 sizes of these fancy screw bits and by the time I got done with bit #3 and the stripped screw was still not out, I thought I would try the new pair of locking pliers:

It was tedious but Yay!!! The stripped screw is out! But by this time, I think it was like 3 or 4pm and I was totally mentally and physically exhausted:

Graham was totally excited though because he requested that I buy an electric saw for our wood-cutting projects:

I'm so excited too because this saw can cut tiles too.  Muuuahahaha...!!! The possibilities are endless now! :-D

Birthday present

So I ended up returning the big camera that Bobby had bought for me on my birthday.  And actually he should be happier about this because the one I wanted was cheaper!  And it's much smaller.  Can't wait to start using it!  And oh, it's super red in color too! :-)

Yay!!! Happy Mommy, Happy Life.  Ha ha! :-)

Installing new ac unit - Part 1

So the "handyman" made the cut for the wood and now has to fit it into this frame to support the new ac unit:

The old metal frame/sleeve was a beast!  Although, to be fair - the old unit was 15,000 BTU and this new one is only 12,000 BTU:

After a few minutes of banging the piece of wood with a hammer and dry-fitting the new sleeve (like 6 times!), looks like we have it at the right height.  And what can I say... perfect fit! :-)

I also added, I mean the "handyman" also added this small piece of wood since the top piece of wood was just "floating".  Makes me really wonder what else was being cut sloppily behind these walls???  I probably should have leveled up the top piece since not the entire thing is sitting flush on the bottom piece.  Well, perhaps it is now better than what it was??? What do I know about constructing.  Ha ha!

Anyway, the new sleeve is in.  Ta da!!!  Getting those 4 screws in was a pain, like literally on my hand because I could not find the battery charger for my hand-drill!

And then, I had Bobby help me put the ac unit into the sleeve.  Yay!!! Success!!!

Hmmm.... it's looking slanted! NNNOOOOoooooo....!!!!

Well, I'm fitting the foam in for now between the ac unit and also the sleeve/frame.  And then, since I'm not able, I mean the "handyman" is not able to cover up the top gap, we shoved it with newspapers to block the bugs and rodents:

This sleeve is still an eyesore (from the rear) but at least it's nice and new.  And best of all, no more squeaking!  Bobby is definitely liking that part!!!

There are also gaps along the outside between the sleeve and wall/stucco so I will need to get that "handyman" to caulk and seal that too.  Well, one thing at a time.  Dry walling and slapping on some tape and compound on the inside.  And then sanding and painting (I hope I can find the right paint color!).  I told Bobby that it probably would have been cheaper to hire a real professional to get this done!  Already spent so much just on boxes of nails and a new saw and what-nots!

As usual, will keep you all posted on the progress :-)
And oh, I did mind my battery charger for my hand-drill today. So happy! Yay!!!