Let the Fishing Begin

Fishing season is now officially underway for Jeramy and I. Salmon fishing has actually been open for over a month now, but there are not many around to catch until late July or early August. Saturday we took our friend Bob, and we caught 4 coho, 1 chinook (which we had to throw back because it was wild not hatchery) and 4 dungeness crab. On Sunday Jeramy and I went alone and caught 3 coho and 1 pink. I almost had a 20 pound King too but he didn't cooperate too well as he kept diving under the boat and eventually spit the hook. Not surprisingly, this loss precipitated lectures on how to fish properly and exemplified the need for a better boat with more room to land fish (which isn't going to happen for a couple more seasons!). And then if the loss of the King wasn't enough, Jeramy discovered that the wheel bearing on the trailer had gone bad when backing down the launch to load the boat. This necessitated an emergency fix in the parking lot with the old wheel bearing.

But despite these set-backs, we did have fun as you can see...

Babysitting Julia

I forgot to post some pictures that we took a couple weeks ago while babysitting Julia. It was the first time that we had watched her at our house. It took her an hour or so to become brave enough to explore her new surroundings, and she still cries whenever Jeramy tries to hold her (although she'll happily sit next to him and eat grapes). Cujo was a little jealous at first and kept nudging my arm with his nose in an attempt to get me to pet him, but he got used to her after a while.

Anyhow, here are a few of the pics I took...

Wonderful Cards, Invitations and Announcements

If you need Christmas cards, invitations or announcements of any kind, I've ran across a wonderful website. This lady has recently expanded her hobby of designing these into a small business. Take a look...she has tremendous talent and they're reasonably priced! I'm thinking of getting Christmas cards through her this year.

http://www.weelittledesigns.com/

Harry Potter (don't worry, no spoilers here)

I haven't posted in a little while. This is partly because my weekend was consumed by Harry Potter. I bought the final book at 12:53am on Saturday morning (yes, I was one of those people who went to the bookstore at midnight) and finished it Monday evening. I would have finished it sooner, but apparently those around me did not seem to think it was necessary to completely detach from life to read the book. As a result I had a 2 year old's birthday party to go to, dinner and movie with friends, my grandparents' 60th anniversary party, and even work. Plus I wanted to take a slow enough pace with the book to actually enjoy it. I have a bad habit of reading books so fast that I miss several key parts!

Anyhow, I'm not going to post any plot info here as I don't want to ruin it for anybody who has not yet finished. However, I will admit that after reading the last page a sadness came over me. It wasn't because of how the book ended. Rather, its just sad that the series is finished and there are no more books to look forward to. Perhaps there are support groups out there that I could join for Harry Potter induced clinical depression...

I'm sure Jeramy at least is happy that I'm done. For 3 days I did nothing but read, which left him with little companionship and allowed the house to become an absolute mess. Due to this neglect Jeramy even had to go as far as running a load of laundry for himself!

Kitchen Floor - Take 2

On Saturday we finished putting down the kitchen floor for the second time. It's just so nice to be able to walk in there without having to find a pair of shoes first! Here are a couple of pics highlighting our progress...but of course I forgot to take one of the finished project. Go figure!

OzzFest

We went to OzzFest at the White River Ampitheater last Thursday. The tickets for the concert were given away for free this year, which was cool. Except that the prices for everything else were exorbitant. Beers were $10 - $12 each, and a slide of pizza was $8.

I do have to admit though, that I was a bit of an oddball among the rest of the OzzFest patrons. While Jeramy fit in quite nicely with all his tatoos, my baby doll top and flared dark jeans were just not quite the norm!

Am I in Seattle or an Oven???

Yesterday it got up to 89 degrees, and those crazy weather forecasters have predicted anywhere from 95 to 100 degrees today! Right now it is noon and 85 degrees. Now while this may seem cool to some people, keep in mind that I am in Seattle. Anything above 75 degrees is hot to those of us here in Puget Sound. The only thing maintaining my sanity right now, are the air conditioners in our house (remember that few in Seattle have central a/c and a large number have no portable a/c's either). Jeramy framed 2 air conditioners into our sliding glass door for the summer, so we are much cooler this year than last. When I got home yesterday it was a chilly 66 degrees in our house...so cold that the furnace had kicked on as we forgot to turn it off. I am bit worried about the impact of the a/c on our power bill, but at least I'll be nice and cool while I worry.

So you may wonder what we chose to do yesterday in all this heat. Well since the flooring guy came out and gave an estimate for the insurance company, we started installing the kitchen floor...again. Yesterday, we put all of the plywood subflooring down. Knowing the degree of my mechanical aptitude, you may be tempted to laugh at my liberal use of the term "we" here. But I've got to tell you that I possess tremendous skill when it comes to the installation of plywood subfloor. For example, I am quite proficient at:

• Opening doors so that Jeramy can bring plywood pieces from outside into the kitchen


• Dusting sawdust off of freshly cut plywood


• Holding plywood in place as Jeramy cuts them


• Finding a wide assortment of tools such as tape measures, squares, screws, and drills


• Standing on pieces of plywood as Jeramy screws them into the ground


• Noticing problems but failing to mention them until its too late


• Serving refreshments
  

Anyhow, I'll leave you with a couple of photographic highlights from yesterday, both of which demonstrate why my home is a marvel to interior decorators far and wide.

My air conditioners...
Our plywood kitchen floor (plywood is seriously the latest trend in flooring, you know)...

This is how our Saturday went...

Our dog didn't want to get out of bed (this really is how I found him!)

Our new refrigerator was delivered.

We celebrated Jeramy's niece, Julia's first birthday.

Back at Work

Yesterday was my first day back at work after nearly two weeks off. Although working on the 5th of July is always tough under any circumstance, it really wasn't so bad. I'm feeling pretty refreshed and ready to get back into a routine.

On other fronts, Jeramy stayed at home yesterday and today, but that is not to say that he wasn't working. Yesterday, he took out the asbestos tiles and damaged particle board that was underneath. (Don't worry, he wore a respirator and tyvek suit, sealed off the room, and used a new shop vac with a HEPA filter when removing the asbestos). So the kitchen is now just down to the sub-floor (see below). He can put down new plywood and flooring just as soon as Farmers sends somebody out to estimate the cost of doing that professionally so let's hope somebody can come out today! Or then again, maybe we'll just leave the floor this way and go with a more rustic style for the kitchen!


I also finished up my latest knitting project, which is an afghan for our friends Matt and Jen's new baby. Mac is due August 1st but it is sounding like he might show a couple weeks earlier than that. I think Jen is hoping he will...it's too hot to be that pregnant! Although it is hard to see against my green carpet, the blanket is light blue.

Yellowstone Pictures

As promised I've got a lot of pictures from Yellowstone to share. I've posted them at http://picasaweb.google.com/jennifercarol1978.

Here are a few of my favorites:

Introducing Ellie

Cujo has a new cousin...Ellie! Yes, I'm talking about dogs and not babies, but you know how obsessed we are with our dog.

Anyhow, my sister Jaime got a Boston Terrier puppy. She is 3 1/2 months old and absolutely adorable! Jeramy, Cujo and I went to visit last night to escape our furnace of a house.

Here are a few pics:

Update on the Refrigerator Fiasco

We've had a busy couple of days trying to fix the whole kitchen refrigerator fiasco. Here's a timeline...

~ Monday morning: A project manager from Service Master (the water clean up company contracted by our insurance) showed up to assess the damage. Shortly after a couple of crew workers showed up. They proceeded to take a lot of pictures and *gulp* rip up all of the flooring that we just put in last month. Below that flooring there was a lot of standing water over the old linoleum tile. The crew workers put down deoderizer and set up heaters/fans, a dehumidifier and monitoring system to get rid of all the water. The downside was that it has been a hot couple of days in Seattle and this helped heat our house to 85 degrees. Also, the project manager took a sample of the linoleum tile that we laid our floor over to a lab, because she thinks it contains asbestos. At this point, here is what the kitchen looks like:



~ Monday late morning/noon: we went to 2 Home Depots yesterday in search of a new refrigerator. $1000 later we have one on order and it is supposed to be delivered on Saturday. I'm pretty excited because it has a titanium finish, which should match the new kitchen very nicely! It's just too bad that we're replacing a refrigerator that was only 5.5 years old.

~ Monday afternoon: get a phone call that the tile does indeed contain asbestos and somebody will have to come out and estimate the cost of its removal. Jeramy also has initial conversations with the adjustor. Cujo and I escape to the camper.

~ Tuesday morning: Jeramy, with a respirator on, digs all of the spoiled salmon out of the garbage and I take a picture, because the adjustor told us that we might be able to get reimbursed for that loss. It was absolutely foul. A couple hours later the garbage man arrives, empties what must be the smelliest garbage cans on earth, and hauls that nasty stuff away.

~ Tuesday all during the 2 o'clock hour: Jeramy is at home while I'm shopping. First (I think) the asbestos guy arrives to estimate the cost of removing the old linoleum. Second, the insurance adjustor arrives to do her thing. Finally the Service Master guys arrive and take away those stupid heaters.

~ Tuesday late afternoon: Last month Jeramy made a framing for our sliding glass door to hold a couple portable air conditioners. We had to remove it to get the smelly, broken refrigerator out of our house. He hadn't put it back yet, since we had to have all of those stupid heaters running. But with them out of the house he was able to put it back up, along with a new portable air conditioner we bought at the same time as the refrigerator. Our house is now several degrees cooler!

Jeramy is hoping to do most of the rest of the work himself to save costs. We are hoping that we might be able to save enough to pay for the deductible and maybe even some of the refrigerator. He is taking Thursday and Friday off, so hopefully we'll reach some sort of state of normalcy by the end of the weekend.

Vacations and Broken Refrigerators Don't Mix

Well we got home from our vacation to Yellowstone this afternoon and were welcomed by a most un-welcome surprise. Upon entering our house we were greeted by a startling aroma...it basically smelled like something had died in our house. After plugging our noses and investigating, we discovered that at some point our refrigerated stopped working. It was plugged in and running, but neither the fridge or freezer were cold. Everything went bad, including about 20 lbs of sockeye salmon and a large chunk of halibut. Yuck!!! Too make matters worse, the kitchen floor (which as you know we just replaced) is warped from the water that seaped out of the freezer as it warmed. From our recent re-model we know that there is just particle board under there and not plywood, making the floor a big sponge.

First we got the refrigerator outside and Jeramy donned a gas mask and proceeded to empty out the now warm contents. We called our homeowners insurance and somebody will be out in the morning to start work on fixing this whole mess. In the meantime, the stench (even after having the doors open for a few hours) has driven us back out to the camper.

Anyhow, the trip was a lot of fun and filled with everything from wild animals to a forest fire that forced us to evacuate camp. So as we are getting back to normal over the next few days I'll post some more blogs on all that and put up pictures.