Packin' Some Variety.

Wow, I am slim on the ol' Variety Pack posts.  Let's resolve that asap, yeah?  Yeah!  Lessss' go!

Ok!  First off, Mike has been making use of his office, doing stuff, spiffin’ it up, making it his which is cool.  All these years, he's kinda ignored that room.

Clearly I'm rubbing off on him as one day out of the blue he said, "babe.  Let's take the door off.  It's irritating."  Wow!  Gladly!

Zip zip!  Off it came.  No more slamming door!

I don’t have uh photos for you as um, uh, that room is a uh, lil' less than tidy and I don't wanna embarrass my sweetheart.

I gotta find some better door storage though as they're piling up, haha, leaning in inopportune places in the basement.

Ugh the basement.  Heh, I just never seem to get to purging it.

I picked out a stain and got the front porch gussied up after leaving it undone too long!

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I was worried about the Black Oak color choice as Mike liked the sun-bleached worn out gray of the old porch boards.  My goal was to be ehhhh somewhat reminiscent.

A little deck cleaning to start, let it dry, brushed on the new goo....

All I needed was one of those lil’ paint sample sizes which was great.  And it turned out better than I anticipated which is even greater!  Greatest of all?  Mike thinks it looks fantastic.  Yay!

Check and mark and done.

Super sick of the light fixture out front, I replaced it.  It was such a pain to get into the old one, to get the glass and cage back on, I had it; vrrrtt, outta there.

Sooo I ordered this one from Amazon.*  There was a version with a frosted globe that I preferred but felt the asking price was highly inappropriate.  Clear glass it is.

Truly, installation was a huge pain in the a**.  Huge.  Because all the flipper did was drill through the new brick facade and cram wires through.  No box, no nothin'.

What should have been a twenty minute joyous experience turned into a multi-hour excursion where I nearly gave up a hundred times.

Why does everything in this house have to be so dang difficult?!?!  Jeez louise.

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The new fixture's base plate needed some uh, adjustment (aka breaking off of orange plastic plug bits) in order for the plate to be useable (couldn't use anything but, unfortunately, and oh, oh I tried) so the fixture would sit nicely flush against the brick.

What a fight it was.

Eventually I got it.  Not without a sh*tload of swearing and sweating and aggravation though.

It is bright.  I feel like it's contributing to light pollution.  We're required to use that bulb with the camera* though, heh, in our efforts to nab freakin' package thieves.  I tried to find a way to frost the glass but couldn’t find anything outdoor rated.  I like the fixture though and bonus, it is much easier to get into then reassemble.

Oh, yes, I decided to spring for new floor registers* for the first floor, though oh oops, sans the bathroom.

They were on bargain sale at Menards so why not?  Besides, the old builder-grade butt ugly boring ones didn’t sit right.  I was tired of tripping over them and kicking them back in.

While I was in there, I fixed up the damaged tape from the old registers, thanks to that kicking 'em back in part.

Heh, Finn's toys....Old register on the left, new on the right.  Woot!

Mike was funny, “oh.  Uhhh.  Did you...did you change out the registers?  Wha...ok.  Huh, all right, I think I actually really like that idea.  Nice, babe, looks really good.  Huh.”  After all, the details are not the details, amiright?

Ah, I finished patching up the west side of the house finally.  Went through a whole second bag of concrete patch but whatever, it is patched.  Next summer I have to remember to paint it to match.   Black!  Yay black!

Ooooh big one….I was on a raging outdoor roll one day and finally got the garage electrical wire hung.

No I did not forewarn my husband as he woulda foot-stamped “absolutely not, we’re hiring someone,” as he has said in the past.  I love him and hear him but that woulda been a silly expense.

I had the beast 17' foldy-uppy ladder* outdoors already from working on the back door awning and the wheelbarrow hoist so why the heck not.

Heh, that damn ladder...I bought it originally hoping it’d be easy to maneuver by myself.  It is not.  But.  I got it up.  And down.  Don't ask me how.  Surely I was grunting and swearing.

I had gotten this screw-in insulator/wire holder* and a wedge clamp* over at Menards, disconnected the wiring, fed the cable through the parts, looping several times around the insulator, then death-grip climbed the ladder to hang it on the house where other wiring is hanging.

Without falling.  Without touching anything else.

Yeesch, yeah, I know.  Our neighbor stepped outside as I was scarily nearing the top, she quickly averted her eyes.

Not gonna lie, climbing that cable up, it getting heavier and wonkier as I went, I was worried it was going to yank me off the ladder and Mike would come home from work to find me splattered in the yard.

Top left, hooked up.  Botton left, the insulator under the garage eave.  Right, the wiggly wire line is my proud accomplishment.

Hook, click, Biiiiiig sigh of relief, I zip-tied the cable down the conduit then cleaned up the area around the junction box.  The wire had been coming out of the semi-open box all this time; now it was going in the conduit into the box and I could seal the box up finally.

Yesssss.  And yes, I did stand in the yard for a good twenty, twenty five minutes, feet firmly on the ground, admiring this task achieved.

Mike did not notice at all.  For weeks.  I ended up blurting it out one day, I got tired of waiting, as we’re standing on the deck.

His face went from super excited to happy to wait a minute to confusion to looking up and down the side of the house to furrowed brow to concerned to nearing mad before I cut that progression short. “Isn’t that great?!”  “Uh, yeah babe but…”.  “Yeah I think it’s awesome too!  Is the grill ready?”

I am the Queen of Subject Change, a sleuthy sly skill honed and mastered over many a decade.  hahaha....

Aw jeez, I have a bunch more but this is getting lengthy.  More to come!

Oh wait, I need a recipe, hang on!  Ummm......Oh!  I mentioned these Grilled Yogurt Flatbreads in a Flaky Baker Instagram post but here is the link to the recipe itself.  They are SO. GOOD.  Can't stop eating 'em good.  Make sure you use actual Greek yogurt; the regular stuff won't work.

Ok!  See you soon!

*The Toucan Wi-fi security camera, porch light fixture, new floor registers, multi-purpose ladders, screw-in insulator wire holders, wedge clamps are Amazon affiliate links.  Mwah, thanks!  Please see the "boring stuff" tab for more info.