Sweet, Sugar, Handyman

  Michael and I can often be very different people. That works out great for me in the way that he can make something extravagant out of nothing (book shelves, dining room table, and now a deck). Yeah I'm good at cutting colorful papers and pictures together with stickers, but I also struggle with small projects that come with a two-page manual. For people who are thinking about buying a house, there is so much more money to be spent than just the price of the house. So many times since May, Michael has come up with a new idea for how we can make our house look extra great "and improve the sale value" (although we plan on living here for 30+ years). My question is always, "How much is that going to cost?" Somehow we've been able to keep our savings account in a healthy high-ish range for two people in our late twenties, not including the baby fund that we haven't taken any money out of yet. That may be a different situation come July. =) Although I was very surprised that we barely had to take any money out of savings to paint the whole house in June. We were just putting less into savings then.

  I looked up the average cost for building a deck, which would be way more if a contractor or architect is used, and it is between $2,000 and $15,000! Luckily we were close to the low end of that. For a much more detailed/ How-To post of the deck, be sure to read the post that Michael wrote. But here are the pictures I took on the Canon over the past few weeks ~

  December 21st: The second day that Michael began shoveling up squares of sod, I "helped" by sitting outside with him and talking for two hours. He said it actually helped him a lot (I love when me basically doing nothing is "such a big help" to him) and he worked until the sun went down. I took pictures that day, but won't post those just because Michael didn't have a shirt on. That was before it started getting cold. In his post you'll see me all bundled up in one of the photos- obviously that day was cold. To me at least; I'm pretty sure he was just wearing a short sleeve shirt and jeans.

December 30th and 31st:

  I did more helping on the 30th by checking the level when he was putting these posts into the brackets that were stuck in the concrete. Then I would hold the end of the long piece of wood he was cutting so it wouldn't topple over once it was cut in half. I also held my phone up as a flashlight when he wanted to finish working even though it was dark outside. He was so determined to get all the posts screwed into place that night. And he did. The huge piles of sod were picked up on New Years Eve by an old man who contacted Michael on Craigslist. At that point Michael's friend/ co-teacher at VAMP came over and helped for the next few days. That day my job of "helping" included picking up lunch for them, then later getting the pizza and drinks. Also giving sugars (kisses) on demand was requested. Just to Michael though! I didn't mind that.  =)

  My least favorite part of the project was on New Years Day when Ryan and I were at the mall and Michael texted me a picture of his "first injury of the year". When he was getting more wood from the top of his car, one piece slipped and hit him near the eye, causing a small gash, and a cut that went down his cheek to his jaw area. It made me so sad to look at it and turned a purple then blue color from the blood vessels popping in the bag area under his eye. Luckily it has finally healed!

  Michael, Brian, and I christened the patio that night after I dropped Ryan back off at the train and Michael sacrificed his Boba Fett keychain that we got together in 2009 during my first trip to Birmingham when I met his parents.  Boba was slowly dying though. His whole armor outfit had rubbed off at least a year ago and Michael recently noticed that somehow one of his Lego legs went missing!

  Another small snafu was when Michael went to dig the hole for one of the plants by the pole that holds all the string lights. He forcefully slammed the "hole-digger thing" into the ground and heard a crack. He had forgotten that the pipe for the sprinkler was there and the area began flooding. This was on January 5th, about an hour before my doctor appointment! He shut off the water, ran to Lowes and was back to glue the new pieces together with some "cement in a can" stuff, and we were still on time for the doctor appointment.

  After this photo was taken Michael moved that pile of dirt to the other side of the house (in the area you can't see behind the A/C unit shown below). He will work on leveling that out tomorrow morning and also talked about building another small deck in that area to hang our Eno hammocks from since there are two trees on that side. "The Quiet Deck" is how he referred to it. But I'm not sure if that will happen anytime soon. We've talked about wanting to build our savings back up first. Also in this picture below you can see how the outlet looked on the corner of the house, but was replaced as explained in the next part:

   In the two pictures above you can see both of the "step off points". The one in the first picture is almost level with the ground, as the yard is naturally higher in that area. The next photo shows an actual step down that needs to be noted. After he put up the lights, he came up with another idea to wire the lights to the pole so we wouldn't have to use the outlet on the side of the house. Here are those switches, including a dimmer for the lights (he's so fancy)!  The only "real" part Michael has left to do is complete the paver bricks, which he has started by outlining the original stepping blocks. Those will be replaced by the stack of bricks.

   He bought some chair covers for all of the outdoor furniture and those arrived the other day, which you can see in one of the pictures from this morning. He had pulled up the dead flowers from both sides of the porch (I also pulled up all the pink and white pansies (?) that were in the front yard because they had really been wilting from the cold weather) and he let me pick out the new flowers I wanted in the back. He says we can get tulips -my favorite- for the front yard later.

  The last part of the deck (as of now) that Michael wants to add in order to fully complete it, is to hook up water proof speakers and place those around the screened-in patio so when we have parties, we can have music playing outside. I told him we can get those at the end of March since that will be one of the months where we both get three paychecks. Oh, we did buy four tiki torches last night because he said the mosquitoes were biting him the night before when he sat outside. Those aren't in the pictures though because he hasn't put them in the yard yet.

Side note: Week 15 of my pregnancy has brought on a sinus cold with a lot of sneezing, causing a stuffy/ runny nose and today I'm mostly in a stage of coughing. Other than that, everything is terrific!!

A New Beautiful Deck

This post was written by Michael, and photos were taken on his iPhone 7:
I'll write my own version (with a lot less details) and Canon pictures soon.

  A while back when we bought the house, it was a small dream of mine to have a nice deck or patio outside of the screened in patio for us to throw parties, entertain guests, and just be able to relax in the cool evenings that Florida has to offer.  I didn’t want to build something that would be lifted off of the ground since I didn’t want to see over my 6’ fence into my neighbor's yard.  I started to brainstorm and though a paver patio would be nice.  The bricks would look nice and it would add a nice touch to the house.  However, when looking into the cost of the pavers and the amount of pavers I’d need for the size deck I wanted, I quickly thought maybe it wouldn’t be the best decision.  I kept thinking and decided that I'd make a ground level wooden deck. So I sat down and thought about the best way to go about this.  I’d have to build the deck off the ground so the moisture and water drainage wouldn’t affect the deck over the course of how many years.  I did some research and created a plan for the project. 

Here is the back of the house before we started the deck project.

   I started work on the deck on December 20, 2016.  I began by staking out the size footprint I wanted for the deck.  I had already picked out the furniture I was wanting and made sure I staked that out as well in the areas I wanted it.  With some neon string (which Sasha continued to blindly trip over) I marked out everything and stepped back to make sure that’s what I was wanting.  Once it was all measured out properly I began by digging up the perimeter leaving some extra space to work.  Let me tell you this was truly some backbreaking work.  I took a few days carefully removing all of the sod and saving that for later as well as all of the dirt that came with it.  I dug down about a foot all around and started to level out the ground.

Started with the stakes in the ground to the desired footprint.  I started to dig down and remove the sod and dirt.

The sod and dirt completely removed.  You can see our sprinkler lines running through the platform. 
I had to be careful not to hit them.  

 Once the ground was level I packed all of the dirt down until it was firm all around.  I then measured out where my concrete pylons were going to go.  I had bought some 8” tubing from Lowes and some concrete made for deck pylons.  I dug down an additional 2’ for each pylon and placed the cardboard tubes (already cut to size) into the holes.  I made sure each tube was level and filled the tubes about 4-5” with multi-purpose concrete gravel.  I rechecked the tubes to make sure they were level and filled in dirt around the outside of the tubes and packed it down.  Once the tubes were secure and level, I mixed up the concrete and poured it into the tubes.  I made sure each tube had a little more concrete than needed.  I read that you want to make the tops of the concrete slightly beveled and rounded (like the top of a ball) so water won’t puddle up and rot the wood away over time.  I carefully sculpted each pylon to a nice soft edge and once the concrete got firmer I placed my 4” metal pylon brackets in.  I made sure each bracket was level before moving onto the next.

Leveled out the dirt with a slight natural grade and raked the dirt to an even finish.

Freshly packed dirt.  Still had to go back to fill in a couple of areas and pack them down.  

Dug the 2' Deep holes for the pylons.

Leveled out the pylon tubes and inserted the gravel and prepared them for concrete. 

Another shot of the tubes ready for concrete.

Concrete is added and the metal brackets are in place.  Just waiting for the concrete to dry for 24 hours before using them.

  After 24 hours of curing time with the concrete, I moved onto laying down some heavy weed cloth.  I made sure the ground was clean of any roots and debris and laid down about 400’ of heavy weed control cloth.  Rachel and I then moved onto cutting the wood for the legs of the deck.  I bought 12’ long pieces of 4”x4” pressure treated wood.  We measured out the overall height of the deck including the decking and cut the legs to length.  We constantly made sure the legs were level and in square.  I constantly had to cross check everything because the ground had a natural grade to it so the legs looked like they sloped up as the ground sloped down.  It looked wonky for a few days but then it came to look right.  Lol.

Heavy weed cloth was laid down and holes for the metal brackets were cut to allow for them to come through. 

Got all of the 4"x 4" wood cut and screwed into the brackets.  As you can see it doesn't look level but that is because of the natural grade of the ground vs the deck level.  

 Once the legs were screwed into the metal brackets that had been embedded into the concrete pylons, I started work on the decking frame.  I built the frame out of 2”x 8” pressure treated wood and bought 12’ sections at a time.  This cut down on price, but man were these heavy.  I cut each piece according to the dimensions and attached it using 3.5” exterior decking screws.  Once the exterior frame was made I continued to connect each section doing a grid pattern.  I knew before I started this, which ways I wanted my decking to run so I made sure that the joists were spaced evenly and crossing each board making them structurally sound.  Once all the joists and cross beams were securely screwed in I started building up the bottom lip of the deck.  Because the deck was level and the ground wasn’t I needed to make sure that the bottom of the deck would be sealed from any dirt and possible cave-in situations.  I cut extra boards (the same I used for the framing) and screwed that into the base of the deck adding a backing to the inside of the deck.  Once that was complete we (my friend Brian helped from this point on) filled in the boarder with dirt and packed that down.  Once the dirt was packed and was checked for caving in issues, we moved onto cutting the decking. 

Getting the frame made.

The frame is almost done a few days later.  Had to go pick up a few more boards to fill in some areas.  

Another angle before I picked up more wood.

  I decided to go with the standard pressure treated wood decking.  I knew I wanted to stain the deck so I wanted to make sure it was natural wood so I would see that beautiful warm wood color.  I bought 2.5” tan decking screws for the top and these bad boys were fantastic. Brian and I decided we wanted an “organic” pattern to the deck and didn’t want a traditional repetitive staggering of the wood.  Not only would this make it easier to just cut and screw but also it gave it a much more natural and interesting look to the project.  He cut the boards and staggered them as I followed behind screwing in each board.  It was nice that any smaller pieces we could use to connect a few joists together and give a more organic look.  We made sure each board had a start and finish on a joist and would share that joist with a new board.  We didn’t want any “floating” sections to break over the years.

Test fitting some boards and getting the overall look we were going for.

Screwing down the boards one at a time.  Trying to keep up with Brian.

Decking is all complete and needs to be trimmed.  

  Once all the decking was attached we marked out the angles and left a little bit of overhang (about 2”) for aesthetic reasons.  We marked out cutting line using a chalk line and with a circular saw cut the excess wood off the sides.  I will say it was at this point that the deck started to look pretty professional.  I was actually surprised.  Lol.  Once the decking was all cut and finished we moved onto landscaping.  I knew ahead of time what I was wanting as far as plants went.  Since this deck was “ground level” it wasn’t going to have a railing however I did want to make a nice “railing” around it using some shrubs.  I bought a few Podocarpus plants because they are very easy to trim into any shape and they will end up growing into each other creating a wall-like shrub.  I then bought a few Leyland cypress trees that were planted around the corners of the deck.  I will keep these “trees” within 6’ tall by trimming them.  We threw some red mulch down and embedded a 12’ 4”x 4” pressure treated pole and cemented that into the ground at the end of the deck.  This pole is for the support of the string lights that were next on the list. 

Finished cutting the sides of the deck off and started to lay out the landscaping.

Finished getting the landscaping done and the furniture on the patio.

Another angle.  Sorry it's a bit dark.  We worked hard into the night.  

   Once the landscaping and the pole were in place I needed to wire the string lights up.  I bought some of the new “commercial” string lights Lowes started to carry.  They were cheaper than ones online but were still more expensive than the consumer lights most stores sell, but will last a lot longer.  These string lights had a heavy-duty electrical cord and a nice rubber socket connected to rings to hang the lights. You can find the link for them here:

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Portfolio-24-ft-12-Light-White-Plug-in-Bulbs-String-Lights/999977042

    I bought some 3/32 stainless steel wire with stainless connectors to use as my guide wires from the pole to the house.  I strung up 5 guidelines from the pole to points on the house.  I made sure these were nice and taught before hanging the lights.  I used black zip ties to hang the lights to the guidelines.  This gave me the ability to move and shift the lines once up if I needed to space them out.  Once the lights were hung I needed to move an outlet from the house exterior wall to the pole.  I should have done this before adding the decking, however, it wasn’t that much of an issue.  I used exterior rubber conduit and exterior waterproof boxes for the electrical.  I ran the wires from the exterior outlet under the deck and to the pole.  I wired up a wall outlet using a half-hot method.  I wanted the lights to be on a dimmer because with 5 strands of lights they can get a bit bright.  I wired the bottom outlet to be used only with the wall dimmer while the top outlet would always be on.  I wired everything up and gave it a test.  It worked beautifully.  This video helped me a lot when wiring a half-hot outlet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjVSJUGlZf4  

Got the dirt and the sod cleared and the lights wired.  Isn't it so pretty? =)

   Once the deck was finished and the lights were up we added our patio furniture and the grill and called her done.  I am so excited to have this build completed.  We finished the deck on January 8, 2017 totaling a 20-day build, not counting my days working Grinchmas at Universal.  So overall I am very happy with the results.  I still have to stain the deck but must wait a few months for the chemicals and moisture to evaporate from the wood.  I think we are going to go with a redwood/ cedar wood color for the final stain.

15 Weeks

I have been sooooooo excited for Chip lately!! Being pregnant for 9 months is too long. It's a big tease. You get to see pictures of the baby and eventually feel the baby kicking inside (I read that's around 25 weeks- so mid March for me) and the baby is like a huge present that you've been praying for all year and get excited for and think about all the time, but know you can't open for a long time! Since I have 25 weeks left (maybe 24 if I'm extra lucky), I made these little countdown sheets to rip off as each 3 or 4 days pass. Doing it by days would be too many and that number is too high and kind of makes me sad. 25 weeks doesn't sound as far away as 173 (?) days. I was surprised to learn that the baby doesn't even weigh one pound until 22 weeks. Seems like since 20 weeks is the halfway mark, that's when the baby should weigh at least three pounds, or half of what they will weigh when they're born. Also it's hard to judge how many months pregnant I am (Michael hates when I just say it in weeks.. you know, 'cause math..) but dividing the number by four doesn't always seem to match up. Like next week I would be 4 months, but if I still have almost 6 months to go, that equals 10, which isn't right. I told him I'll try to switch to saying how old Chip is only in months after the birth because then I'll go off of the 2nd of each month (or whichever numbered day Chip is born).

  I really like having things to look forward to, hence my countdowns, which is why I often try to make plans to do fun things. The next big thing is on Saturday when we go see WICKED!!!! Michael says he is looking forward to it since he saw Phantom of the Opera on stage when he was younger and really liked it. And then hopefully we're going to Animal Kingdom on Sunday. No big plans after that though, until my birthday in June, but I have no idea what I'd like to do for that. And it will be the big 3-0!! So we should plan 30 fun "things to do before you have a baby". I'll be 37 weeks on my birthday. =)  I would really like to visit Mia and Jay in Denver around March (if it's not still "too cold" for me then), but Michael doesn't get any time off between this class graduating and the next class that starts February 27th at VAMP.

  I have begun looking further into day cares around our area since we'll have to put him or her in one when I go back to work after maternity leave in October. Michael says thinking about touring places and meeting the teachers already stresses him out and says it's "too soon" to worry about that. Lindsey said a lot of babies get put on a waiting list since a lot of moms have to work, so day cares are in high demand for young babies and getting on the list early is a smart idea! 

  I just called and confirmed with the receptionist at our doctor's office that the next appointment on the 19th is to find out Chip's gender. I'll be 16 weeks and 3 days then. Lindsey was able to find out early today (she's about 5 days ahead of me, I think) so she may be 16 weeks tomorrow. But she told me her results after she told her family... it's a boy!! I have already been thinking about how I want to do the reveal on Instagram and Facebook using pictures, after we tell our families on the phone. I like the idea of having a box of colorful balloons and we open the box the a video. Then do it again using the Canon to take still frames that I would post on here. I was looking on Pinterest and saw a Harry Potter one where the parents were dressed up in a woodsy area, making a potion, and their potion was blue, meaning they were having a boy. That's a fun reveal! The anatomy scan will be when I'm 19 weeks, so I'll have to hold off on buying specifically boy or girl clothes until they double check all of the parts. On my 15 week app, it says now is when the outer sex organs begin to develop. I'd feel bad if they say Chip is a girl and then later find out he was being shy about it and have to exchange all the flowery tops for fire engines. I'll just keep the receipts. ;)

The Year of Chip!

  I had another doctor appointment today and I thought it was just going to be a quick conversation with my doctor, but they did another ultrasound which made me so happy because I had really been wanting to see our Chippy again. Plus Michael said he originally wasn't going to come, but then yesterday he said he was! I told him that I was so happy how involved he wants to be in this process. He was already talking about wanting to throw a baby shower with his friends and my Orlando friends since the deck is basically done and will be completely finished before April or May.

  This ultrasound was done over my "stomach", so I was surprised when the pictures turned out as detailed as they did a month ago. Chip is 14 weeks and 3 days today (according to the last sonogram). I didn't think to ask if he was growing at the same rate, but the ultrasound nurse and my doctor didn't mention any different dates, so we're still aiming for July 2nd! I really liked when she would hold the wand thing in one place for a few seconds and we got to watch Chip "moving and grooving". Also we got to hear the heartbeat for a few seconds and it was even stronger than last time- 156 BPM!

  Luckily for now the bad dreams I was having last week have stopped and I even had a dream a few days ago that Michael and I were planning our vow renewal and decided that April 3rd would be a nice date to honor Shrimp. I have a new symptom that they say is normal, and hopefully it will force me to eat (or drink) more greens and go for walks on my days off. I walk around outside at work on my breaks, but that's only 30 minutes those days and I don't walk very fast. I need to kick it up!!

  Today they also took blood to check for my blood count, confirm my blood type, and any infections I could have. She said both of the ultrasound nurses did not mention anything about me having ovarian cysts like I did in March, but she says they could have gone away already once the placenta takes over around 12 weeks. We have our next appointment in two weeks and she said about 3 weeks after that, we can find out the gender. When looking at the pictures we noticed that there was a small appendage in the lower region that we were wondering if it was a "boy part" but after looking at it more, Michael thinks it's too high and might be part of the umbilical cord. Guess we'll find out next month!!

New Years Eve

   For New Years Eve weekend this year, my BFF/ Full Sail roommate Ryan was in town again with the Ringling Circus. She had some extra Christmas days off and then went back to work today, with the show performing two weeks later. We didn't get to see her husband Ben because he already switched to the Ice Show and was touring in Providence, Rhode Island. Ryan and I joked that she lived with us for two years since she stayed with us the last day of 2016 and the first day of 2017! On Saturday I picked her up at 11am and showed her the house that was our second choice (on W Illiana St). We decided it would have been a cooler place to live if we just finished Full Sail and weren't having kids for a while. But since we already waited 5 years to "be ready", the house we bought seemed better suited for a family. We still mention often to each other that we really like our house! 

   I brought Ryan back to our house and Brian (the other teacher Michael works with at VAMP) came over to help him with the deck. They just got it finished tonight!! Ryan and I went to Target so I could look for maternity jeans and I got Chip some little plush toys for 90 cents each- they were actually considered Christmas ornaments, 70% off. 4 of the 5 I got were animals (fox, lion, giraffe, wooly mammoth) so those can definitely be played with year-round. So can the pink Santa gnome. 

   Later we went to the store to get Michael and Brian some alcohol as requested, and picked up two pizzas. Ryan let me "force her" to watch the first four episodes of Season 4 of Glee, since she hadn't seen any of the episodes after all the main characters graduated from high school. Then Michael and Brian watched Rat Race with us, and then we just talked the last 45 minutes of the year. I was surprised that I was able to stay up until midnight since 9pm has been my average bedtime for the past two months. At 11:45 I found the New York channel where they sing and do the countdown, so we streamed that on my phone (we don't have cable) being able to watch it on the television screen using Apple TV. The countdown was uneventful as I feel like all of the holidays have been forced upon as lately and we're all going along with one big prank and it's really still just the end September. 

   But it beats 2014 when Michael and I watched "Guardians of the Galaxy" and both went to sleep at 10:30. Last year we celebrated with our friend Amber (and Brian again). Michael played a Star Wars video game as Boba Fett then we watched "Fanboys", and threw pretty smoke bombs in the road that were all different colors. Here's an Instagram picture from that night at her house: 

   The other night Michael gave me a few good kisses at midnight then we went outside to watch the fireworks that people were setting off around in neighboring areas. Yesterday Ryan and I saw the movie "Passengers" at the AMC. We both liked it and I was interested by the twist at the beginning! We ate leftover pizza and hung out at the Artegon mall for a while until I had to take her back. 

I hope everyone else had a great holiday and are enjoying 2017 so far!!