Story A Day

Adventures continued in Bellingham today. We started our day with a delicious meal of sausage and pancakes, courtesy of Youtree (Rachel’s husband) – yummy! Then we all went to the farmer’s market where there was a lot of of delicious food, great musicians, and beautiful weather! The photo below is of Rachel and Youtree buying their first strawberries of the season. After that Rachel, Jaspar and I visited the nature center where she works. The photo below is of the boardwalk through the swamp. The boardwalk winds for almost a mile through the swampy forest. It felt like something out of a fairytale movie, I half expected strange creatures to emerge We ended the day at a birthday gathering/BBQ of at their friend’s house. A great day! Here are some photos…

After a long day of travel I arrived in Bellingham, WA this evening to visit my friend Rachel and her family! I was a bit too late to catch Jaspar before his bedtime, but I anxiously await meeting him tomorrow. I did get to meet Rachel’s husband Youtree for the first time. It’s nice to finally meet him after hearing many stories from Rachel.  We also had a fun phone date with Heather in Alaska, and Kate L who is there visiting her! Tomorrow we plan to visit the farmer’s market, perhaps check out the nature center where Rachel works, and of course, have lots of fun playing with Jaspar! Many photos will be snapped this weekend Here’s the first…

Here it is! The house, garage, and a few of my pretty flowers I am liking the house colors more today, it’s growing on me, especially now that the white trim is done. In these photos you can also see the new sidewalk in the backyard and the paint lines for the new paver sidewalk in the front yard. Check it out…

The problem with paint is that it never looks the same color on that little 1×1 square in the hardware store as it does on the wall. I’m always surprised by the final product in a painting project, sometimes pleasantly surprised, sometimes just surprised. The painters have been here the last couple days doing the exterior paint on our house. I am happy with how the main part of the house and garage turned out, though I am a little surprised and not quite excited about the accent color we chose to put on our grungy, peeling foundation. We thought it was a whiteish gray, with just a touch of blue to accent the blue on the main part of the house. Well, it ended up to look more like a baby blue. Hmmmm…..oh well. I think I will get used to it, the first look is always a bit of a surprise, especially after getting used to an off-white house for the last 7 months. I guess that means I will need to plant some more things around the house Though, I did feel a little better when our neighbor said, “Your house looks adorable! It finally got its personality back!” I’ll post photos when they are done with the trim, probably in a few days since it is supposed to rain tomorrow!

I marveled at how crowded my yard was today with the addition of a third contractor sign. That’s when you know that you have TOO many home improvement projects going on Let’s see, there’s one for the landscape company doing a new sidewalk, one for the company painting our house, and one for the company building our garage. I will be happy to say that in about two weeks we will be mostly DONE with the storm repairs. We may finally get the rest of our insurance money from the bank to pay all those bills! Ahhhhhhhh…relief…just in time to start on the next house!  I think we must somewhat enjoy this home improvement thing, or we’re crazy, not sure which.

Yup, you read that right. We are buying another house. Crazy, huh?! It’s been in process for almost a month, but now that things are getting finalized I can share the news (paperwork usually takes a really long time with bank-owned properties).  We’ve been talking about buying another investment property for the last few months (we half-own a duplex in mpls that we rent to a friend). With the real estate market not doing so hot it’s a great time to buy investment property. We came across a duplex in mpls about a month ago and thought it was a great deal. It is currently bank-owned (was foreclosed a few months ago), has two bedrooms on each half, and is selling for almost $100,000 less than it was purchased for in 2005! And the great news is that it doesn’t need that much work, which is unusual for properties with these circumstances. We got the finalized purchase agreement last Friday, and because I am a licensed real estate agent the seller is allowing us to show it to prospective renters prior to closing. We already have a young couple interested in one of the units who submitted an application today. That’s a good sign! We’re excited about it. Here are a few photos (these are from the listing when it sold in 2005, it’s the same now w/o furniture)…

…that if you mix 1/3 cup of mustard powder and 1 gallon of water, then pour it into the soil, that earthworms will emerge in a scene reminiscent of a sci-fi movie!  How do I know such things?  I spent the afternoon volunteering at the Como Woodland with a group of high school students conducting field research.  They are studying invasive species.  Did you know that earthworms are considered an invasive species in MN?  The goal is to document their prevalence in particular areas.  The mustard powder is an irritant so the earthworms emerge from the ground to try and avoid it.  The things you learn…

Too sleepy to write much. A quick summary…a productive work day…a lovely chat with a friend on the phone…a nice time reading on the patio in the evening sun…a yummy BBQ dinner with my sis…a blissful two hour Grey’s Anatomy finale…sleepy time…

I am reading a book called “Why Gender Matters” which is full of scientific research regarding differences between males and females. The book then takes this information and applies it to teaching, parenting, etc. It’s an interesting read so far. One factoid that I found interesting was the study showing that girls and boys exhibit significant differences in their ability to hear. This has a number of implications – Some boys in class may seem inattentive, but really they can hardly hear the teacher. Middle school girls may feel that their father or male teacher is yelling at them, and yet the male does not think that they are yelling. Girls are more likely then boys to be distracted in a classroom with background noise. Interesting…

The naked-lady statue & fountain at Como Park is back for the season! They unveiled the fountain today, a bit later than last year! It was unveiled on May 15th last year A true sign of spring!