Another House Saturday

Hola--

Another House Saturday. We made it through another Saturday. Yessssss! It's been all about the house lately, I'm sure you're getting tired of it. I know I am! Teresa, too: "I just wish all this house stuff would be over with..." (I feel your pain, Teresa!)

Loam and Gravel. Yesterday we spent our hours hauling loam (dirt) to one side of the house, and hauling gravel to the other side. Did you know they have "regular" gravel, and "rounded" gravel? We chose "rounded." It's not jagged or sharp, as the name implies. Fewer injuries that way. It also looks more "landscaped," in my opinion.

Cutting Shelves. We threw out all our particle board shelves that we had in the garage. Particle board grows mold very easily, and we'll have none of that, thank you very much!!! The experiment was to buy plywood, cut it and paint it: mold spores will not permeate the paint.

So, Frank cut shelves. The kids sanded and painted them. They are drying as I type this. Of course, it took longer than we thought. (No. Really??) We will cut and paint shelves for one more round, saving 4 shelving units (18 shelves total). Then we'll decide what makes sense from there.

Woodpecker Hole. Frank also patched a woodpecker hole: yes, a woodpecker tried to drill a hole in our house...sigh.

(My friend told me they're buying a house that "needs work." I did not say it out loud, but inside I screamed "RUN!! RUN AWAY FAST!!")

IN OTHER NEWS.

Kara had a good x-ray last Thursday! She can slowly use the boot less and less over the next 2 weeks. The bone is healing well and for that we are extremely grateful. She's still going to physical therapy and doing exercises to strengthen the muscles and increase flexibility.

Fisher Cat. Teresa and I saw a fisher cat in the backyard this week! Bigger than cats, kind of a weasel-y face, and furry. They really have no enemies except humans, and they're agressive: a little mean. You just leave them alone, and walk away slowly. Now we know what might have dug around the wasp nests we had, and possibly what brought about the demise of the neighbor's cat a couple of weeks ago. :(

That sums it up for the Boston Whitesells. May your week be full of productivity and progress! Kari

Oh What Do You Do in the Summertime?

Hola!

OK, I have to admit, I mostly post the "fun" stuff that we do, on this blog. It's more motivating and enjoyable for me to share, post pictures, and journal the fun memories that we have as a family or with friends.

But believe it or not, we also do tasks around our old house, many of which are long, boring, and tedious! They need to be done if we want to still HAVE a house.

GARAGE EEEEEEEWW. It has been hot and humid in New England this summer. We came back from our family reunion vacation in July to ...(drumroll)... MOLD in the garage. Fuzzy growth on tons of our camping gear, sports equipment, a big desk we have out there, etc., etc. Nasty.

Lest you have forgotten about our basement renovation (we try hard to, but haven't): our house has been a disaster since about March, because of flooding this past spring. The remodeling goes on. Then add to that: we have been emptying the garage piece by piece, recycling all cardboard boxes (mold grows easily in boxes and particle board) and putting our stuff in plastic bins.

We have been EMPTYING the garage, but hmmmm, surprise, it all has to GO somewhere. So all these new plastic bins? Have been relocated to other rooms in the house: bedrooms, the living room, the family room...you get the picture. We can barely walk through the house.

Yesterday, after weeks of working on this, we finally got to the "empty garage stage." (Here is a photo from 2 years ago, so you remember the general size of the garage.) We treated the walls, ceiling and floor in there with a non-toxic, mold-killing mixture. It was about a 7-hour procedure.

This whole process has taken...it has seemed like forever. The last 5 months have been slow and torturous.

FALLING TREE PROJECT. Then by late afternoon, Frank moved on to another project. He had to cut down our poor tree in the backyard, that has been leaning further and further to the ground.

He took it down with the chain saw and he found many inhabitants inside: 1) carpenter ants, 2) termites, AND 3) two kinds of beetles. No wonder it had started to fall down...this tree didn't have a chance!

Now we have a stump. It's a lot harder to eliminate a stump than I thought. The whole bottom of the tree is a huge knot, plus all those roots and all those bugs. Frank's entertainment last night was lighting a fire underneath it and trying to burn out the bugs.

IN OTHER NEWS. Meanwhile, David & Teresa have been mowing lawns for some extra cash this summer, and a little babysitting.

David went to a 2-day scout activity. They worked on merit badges that have been retired--you can't earn them today. It was a special thing for the 100-year anniversary of scouting. He earned 4: Pathfinding, Tracking, Signaling, and Carpentry.

Kara has a removable "boot" and she goes to physical therapy twice a week. They have her do exercises in the pool and she does other exercises here at the house each day, to strengthen muscles and increase flexibility. She goes to the doctor this week and she'll have more x-rays taken.

I'm having the kids figure out what they want to do in their waning weeks of summer! They only have 3 weeks before school starts.

Have a great week! Kari

Washington D.C.

Hola!

We just returned from our jaunt to Washington D.C.

The timing of this trip was pretty much for David and Frank to be able to go to a little bit of the Boy Scout Jamboree 2010, their 100-year celebration. To send a scout for the entire 10 days, was around $2200. We quickly calculated and decided, "We could take our whole family down for that much!" (And actually, this little vacation was even less expensive because Frank's sister, Dana, lives just outside D.C. in northern Virginia. She was very kind to let us stay with her.)

Anyway. True to this Whitesell family's form, we crammed as much as we could into each day. Here's our summary...

DRIVING. Mapquest said this trip would take us 8.5 hours. Considering we would drive through New York City, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and D.C. to get to Dana's house, we scoffed and said "add 4 hours to that!" Luck was with us and we made it down in 9.5 hours, and back in 9. Whew!

D.C. TRAFFIC. We avoided rush hours, and did relatively well, actually.

D.C. PARKING. No need to worry about this one: there quite simply IS NO PUBLIC PARKING IN DOWNTOWN D.C.!!! Nope. Nada. None. Ridiculous. So much to do and see, and these multiple thousands of tourists are supposed to share approximately 12 parking places. Frank would drop us off, then drive around 25 minutes to find a space. Feed the meter, watch your clock, and go move the car--most said "2 hours max." At any given moment, you could look up and down the street and see no fewer than 3 meter people giving out tickets.

WASHINGTON MONUMENT. Striking and beautiful, we hiked around it (photo in header). We would have loved to go up the elevator also and see the city view, but tickets, while free, disappeared quickly every day, by 10 a.m. It was hard for us to get into the city before that; like I mentioned before, we avoided rush hours.

SMITHSONIAN MUSEUMS. We went to the National Air and Space Museum (see photo), the Museum of Natural History, the Postal Museum, the Gallery of Art, and the Zoo. Each is an amazing collection--huge, beautiful, clean, and free to the public. I don't mind one bit that my tax money goes towards the upkeep of these valuable resources! They are incredible.

PRINTING MONEY. We also visited the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Here are the kids (Kara, Teresa, & their cousin Nick) next to money sheets totaling a million dollars.

MY PERSONAL FAVORITE. This kind of surprised me, but my very favorite place that we visited was Mt. Vernon, the home of General and President George Washington. A beautiful, huge complex of many buildings and gardens, set right on the Potomac River.

They tried to make the complex self-contained: they grew their own food and had a blacksmith shop. We learned about the leadership and life of our amazing first President. He could have stayed President for life, but instead served two terms and handed power over to the next leader.

Sadly, after so much success as a General and 2 terms as president, he went home to live out his days, and only lived 2 more years. He thought he was catching a cold, but it was some infection, and he died within a few days. He was only 67 yrs. old.

It's a lovely home, though (see header). Seems he was a sort of celebrity near the end, and people kept showing up to stay as houseguests of the Washingtons. One year, Mt. Vernon had (drumroll...) SEVEN HUNDRED overnight guests! Quite an expensive feat to feed and provide liquor for all those people.

Vacations are a wonderful chance to remember that there's a world out there, with beautiful things in it.

Well, now we're back! Let the house problems continue. I'd list them all but I think it would make me cry...I know that patience is a virtue. I'd just prefer other people to have it instead of me. :)

Have a great week, Kari