every once in awhile...

joren mumbles, "well, i guess there's no turning back now." this was one of those days.

the garage is now open. but more importantly, do joren's arms look freakishly long?

it's alarming how much our house wasn't insulated.

and all this time i thought the chill was from a good old fashioned haunting. what a let down.

on my head? yes, a dusk mask. to protect the weave. the duck fuzz don't come cheap.

to those of you who have been to our house, maybe you can see the difference with the walls gone. and to those of you who have never been to our house, good. our feelings are not hurt. we didn't want you to come anyway.

today?

you could call it a sad day. i had to cut all the raspberries down. stupid progress. as i dragged the vines to the compost, they left a trail of tears of sorts. raspberry shaped and flavored tears. i know, because i ate like seven hundred of them, vine ripened and straight off the ground. if you were a betting person, you could enter me in some sort of berry eating contest, because i would win, or at least get some sort of honorable mention or more realistically take home miss congeniality. you could also probably enter me in an explosive, seed-filled diarrhea contest sometime tomorrow, i imagine.

complete strangers walking by say the darndest things

1. your siding project is really coming along!

2. putting in a new chimney, huh?

3. when will you start?

4. we did a remodel once, too.

5. that sure looks like a lot of work!

my idea, post some sort of a sign out front: "unless you're a framer or licensed electrician looking to work pro bono, keep your pie hole shut and keep walking."

and for the record...

joren loves input on house ideas. so go ahead. tell him what you think! maybe you did a project with your uncle once. or saw a show on hgtv about something regarding remodels, or gluelams or textured wall paints! he loves those, but not as much as decorative columns. point being, the more opinions the better. it takes a village of ideas, you know. suggestions are what a house is really built of. and love.

what will the new house look like?

there will definitely be some influences from our southeast asia trip...

um, yes. a cockfighting ring.

super spacious for giant forearms.

and yes. we will most likely be covering a large portion of the exterior with gold leaf.

some windows have changed, joren informs me. also, those white people on the deck? look closer. let your eyes adjust. sophisticated, design-conscious ghosts.

up top? you can't quite see it, but there's a hot tub. is, too. and to that i say, "usa! usa!"

so, come see it when it's done... to the land of cloudless skies.

fun fact (not to be confused with a fun run or funfetti, which are only remotely fun)

i've done some studies and i'm pretty sure joren's burning about 72 thousand calories a day. he eats six or seven meals a day, not including four or five ice cream breaks. in the meantime, i've had to be inactive for the both of us.

BONUS basement pictures

...because you demanded MORE!

really, there's nothing clever to say about these. so i'm not going to try.

these photos mock my creativity. they say to me--nay--DARE me to write something funny.

but i won't. i can't.

i tried. stupid basement.

you're probably tired of basement pictures, but there's only like 400 more

i know. snore. circular saw. cutting concrete. getting ready for what we affectionately called "the big pour". not to be confused with the the other big pour that happens every evening about 5 in my kitchen with a big bottle of gin.

take it all off

ahh, the vinyl siding. so off white. so vinyl-y. it's new home is at the recycling center where they're turning it into vinyl bibles and winter coats for underprivileged kids. or something like that.

our friend paul.

carl and joren. behind the scenes fun fact: i climb up on the scaffolding every 15 minutes and spritz joren to make it look like he's sweating.

i always hated that chimney anyways

a few weekends ago, joren killed the chimney. the neighbor took some of the bricks for a paving project. the others went a beautiful place i like to call brick heaven.

inside the chimney? prizes! old wasp nests! soot! step right up and win some ash!

living room view mid-tear down

new living room view
where the chimney used to be. also, some siding fell off.

stairway to nothin

joren explaining why he drinks beer so slowly.

and just the next day, poof. one big-ass step out the kitchen/basement door.

and that dumpster fairy

i mean, jesus lady. ease up on the dumpsters.

and can you believe?

basement digging season coincides with strawberry season.

seriously. have you ever seen anything quite as lovely? red all the way through. let's just all go ahead and agree that california makes pretty crappy berries in comparison. white in the middle, my ass.

see what i mean?

sure, it's blurry. but what's he doing all aloof over in the corner?

subterranean life

the last two months we've been working in the basement. and just to be clear, the equation "we" looks something like this: the square root of 92% joren (plus) 6% beth (divided by) my unfailing "good enough" work ethic

i am, however, still in charge of scooping the cat box and buying cereal.

moving the stink line...

digging up the basement... note the kayaks hanging from the ceiling. poor, sad, lonely kayaks.

we took out the slab and lowered the floor about a foot and a half. no hobos were unearthed.

somebody pooped a couple of times on the gravel-y floor. joren blamed coconut, but i have my doubts.

so joren dug a hole...

and the dumpster fairy paid us a visit.

One day...

joren decides to build a new house. a different house.

what does joren do? gets out the jackhammer.

In this house...

lived a cat named peanut.

and a girl named coconut.

but not this guy. he lives in mexico.

and beth. also a guy named joren.

Once upon a time, there was a house

just a little house on a corner. it never hurt anyone.

it had vinyl siding.

and, in the summer, a garden with peas. in the wintertime, no peas.