Whatcha Doing?

I spent most of this week couped up at home - I caught a major case of the flu last weekend and only felt better on Wednesday.  Buddy did a lot of snuggling and naps with me to make me feel better.  He is a little attention hog - this photo was taken just a few minutes ago as I was preparing this blog.  "Whatcha Doing?"

Buddy photo-bombing my free patio chair shot

Hubby and I both have a really hard time leaving perfectly good items curbside when we come upon them.  A week ago we were driving near my Mom's condo and found three of these patio chairs with a "free" sign.  We happened to be driving the truck.  Hubby immediately pulled over and put them in the back.  I tried to talk him out of it frankly - we really don't need any more patio furniture - but he insisted.  They were in really good condition with only one having a bit of rust from the winter rains.  He now uses one in the yard for sitting when he plays marathon ball sessions with Buddy who has now learned to give up the ball, encouraged by treats of course. The other two just sat on the side of the house for a few days.  Then we made a visit to our neighbors and gifted them a bag of tomatoes (whether they wanted them or not) and they brought their German Shepherd out to play with Buddy in our back yard.  They saw the chairs and we told them the story casually mentioning the fact that we didn't know what we were going to do with the other 2.  They said they could use them for their front porch - they only had a plastic chair that had broke as the wind had blown it over and these would be perfect.  So, three chairs went to two households and everyone was happy.  Freebies for everyone...and I managed to unload a few tomatoes in the process :)

My tomato harvest still runneth over - I am now supplying 3 households with tomatoes from two plants.  These zebra plum tomatoes are still producing like crazy and the beefsteak tomatoes have started to ripen as well.  I have been freezing small batches of chopped tomatoes every few days.  We shall be having lots of yummy chili this winter with my harvested tomatoes.  I love the fact that you don't even have to blanch them to freeze them - just chop and freeze.

On Wednesday the workers will arrive to take up most of our flooring (entire house except bedrooms and utility room) and Thursday they install our new laminate.  We originally wanted hardwood but with Buddy we changed the plan to a high end laminate that is rated for commercial use - it cost more but it looks great and will last as long as we own this house hopefully as we intend to stay here 15 - 20 years.  We had a cheaper laminate in our previous home and know the value of a higher end version of the product.  Why are we changing our flooring?  Because the lady who build this house invested in some things like a heat pump that has air conditioning but cheaped out on others like carpeting.  We live and work from home - the carpeting is a very low grade which is ok for bedrooms but really is not great for high traffic areas.  Plus - who puts carpet in their dining room?!! This is a happiness investment - yes, it will make the house look better but we don't expect the value of the house to increase based on how much we spend.  The appliances were nearing the end of their useful life but all still worked fine - but they don't really go with the cabinets or flooring so we decided to upgrade those at the same time as there was money in the budget.  My new fridge and stove arrive Friday and the dishwasher is on back-order so will arrive early September.  We got a smoking deal on it so were willing to wait.  Living without appliances for the last two weeks has been challenging but we have learned to cope.  I roasted corn on the BBQ this week - something we hadn't previously done and it turned out perfectly.  I just removed the silk, added butter, put the husks back on and BBQd in some tin foil for 20 minutes turning every five minutes.  Of the appliances we miss the most - hubby misses the fridge and I miss the stove.  Our mini-fridge has been a Godsend but I have not been able to take advantage of several sales this month due to having no room to put items in the fridge.  The first thing I am going to do is buy myself the biggest watermelon I can and then bake something. We both could easily live without a dishwasher - not a modern convenience that is mandatory in my books.

The rest of our renovation will wait until early September/Fall as we are installing a new back splash (there was never one), counter tops(current one has some damage) and exterior lights.  We will also have to do some paint touch ups when they reinstall our baseboards.  If I can live through this week the worst part of the entire thing will be over.  Why did we not remove the old flooring ourselves to save money?  It was cheap for them to do it as part of the process and since we work from home we needed it to occur as quickly as possible - plus they are removing subfloor in two areas and it was just SO MUCH EASIER to pay for this.  If we had all the time in the world we might have done a lot more but we just don't as our business comes first.  The flooring came in 30% under our budget including removal and installation so we are still ahead of the game.

Mom bought us tickets to the air show next weekend and my Stepson arrives for a 9 day visit next Sunday so things are really busy around here - if I don't blog for a while you will understand.  Have a great week everyone!