Stabbing at Our house!

We'll get to the stabbing in just a few minutes.

First, lets begin where we began our morning - looking out the bedroom window to see a beautiful blue sky and the top of this lovely palm. What you don't see is the bottom of this horribly overgrown palm accompanied by Jade plants so big they have their own interstates and weeds so tall that when I go out back, I have to take walkie talkies so Jesse can find me.


Time to tackle those problems. Actually, we were supposed to be postponing those problems until after Jesse and I finished up the permit paperwork...but sometimes you get a wild hair.

Luckily, the previous owner left us a lovely wheelbarrow to help us with our task. Unfortunately, it had a non-working front tire -- off to the Big Orange Box for a replacement!

The first thing we tackled were the dead palm fronds near the bottom of the tree (we would later determine that this is a Canary Island Date Palm...more like a Canary Island Death Palm.) Once we got all of the dead fronds away, it started to look quite a bit better. However, there were still many fronds sagging dangerously at eye-level. I like my eyes. I really like that they can see. We decided to prune these scary fronds away. We ended up with a pile almost as tall as Jesse.
Now that you've seen the scale of these things, let me show you the real scale...
Yeah - see that spike? If prisoners could get a hold of those things they'd never have to make-shift a shiv again. They're super stiff, hearty, sharper than any knife in my house, and huge. And they're at the base of every palm frond. Lots of them.Jesse and I were both mildly skewered a few times - enough to where we decided that once we had the tree pruned, we'd better make sure none of these guys were left at the bottom. Then we were hauling the fronds up the hill to a pile before loading them onto the truck. That's when Jesse, in a moment of "lets hurry," decided that he didn't need to gently hand the frond up to me. Instead he threw it, like a medieval weapon, at me. I had no time to react. In my head I was saying, "noooooooooooo!" and trying to move my hands away quickly enough. It wasn't fast enough. Three of the evil-spikes went through my work gloves and punctured my hands. One of them quite badly. The pain was awful. The screaming woke the dead. I would later find out that many people think this particular species contains a toxin or poison that causes immense pain for days - even if the wound doesn't get infected. I am one of those people. This happened around ten in the morning. It's 12 hours later and I still can't lift anything with my left hand. Yuck yuck yuck.

Needless to say, I wasn't going near those things again, so Jesse took the lead in loading up the truck (our neighbor let us use her driveway to get back there.)I wasn't completely useless, though. I took the weed whacker to the Corinne-high weeds. We even found a little retaining wall that someone had built long ago...


Here's the finished tree -- we still have some work to do around the trunk - shaving down some of the left over fronds to eliminate the death-spikes -- and by we, I don't mean me.Ha - we never even used the wheelbarrow.

We finished up pretty early so I could make dinner (cranberry, apple and goat cheese-stuffed chicken breasts with cous cous) for Jesse, Tanner, and my cousin, Eric - who's in town for the week. Not a bad dinner for not really having a functional kitchen yet. It was missing a side of veggies, though. Afterward I baked these amazing things that I've only heard tell of before yesterday - chocolate chip cookies that are already made - all you have to do is put the dough on a cookie sheet and bake them for ten minutes! Brilliant!

As I type, Jesse is next to me trying to get the paperwork all ready to take to the permit office tomorrow...we'll see how that goes!

Pictures!

Okay - here it is - what you've been waiting for.
The picture of our house.
Just know that it doesn't look very pretty now...but it will.

Sorry about my car in the way - I was too lazy to move it.
Here's what it will look like when we're done with it (courtesy of Jesse's mad Photoshop skillz):

*This does not include the fabulous landscaping I plan on doing.

Wednesday was all Jesse - I had a book group to go to (the author joined us by phone!).
He stopped at the Big Orange Box (Home Depot/BOB) to purchase a weed whacker, which he insists on calling a 'string trimmer,' so that we could work on the front lawn. Our friend, Robert, was kind enough to lend us a lawn mower and an edger to help with the process.

When we bought the house there were knee high weeds in the front. They were the first things to go. Now, equipped with a WEED WHACKER and an edger, we (the Royal We) were able to get the lawn, er-dirt, looking MUCH better. In fact, he made it look down right beautiful.

While we were working out front, a new neighbor even stopped by - Mike, from the beautiful corner house. He let us know that the neighborhood (Islenair [Eye-len-air]) had a nickname for our house. It has affectionately been known as the 'Crack House.'
We plan on turning it into the Mac House (get it - McDaniels - Mac...)

Here are a few more pictures followed by a story.

This is our (very full) garage. One day we hope to be able to fit a car in there with all of our crap.

Our first yard waste container. This is just from the first 'weed mowing.'
After Jesse's work on Wednesday, the bucket is now full.

Our kitchen with fancy new range and microwave. Notice the cooler - it is where about half of my perishable items went bad while waiting for our new refrigerator. Also notice that the "Over the Range" microwave is not anywhere near "Over the Range."

Our 'counter top' that we borrowed from my work:

The countertop that nothing clean may sit on:*The chair was a gift from the previous owner. It is full of dust and dirt and who-knows-what. Cheeba loves it.

And now for the story!

Jesse is, of course, not used to living with a cat. I have a cat who is not just a cat - she is a special cat. She's deaf and about 50% blind. She gets around perfectly and is her happy little cute cat self BUT if she were to get outside - being that we live on a canyon - she most likely would not survive long enough to be found.

I've had Cheeba since Spring 2002. I love this cat. Love.

Our first day at the house, though, Jesse kept leaving the door open. I let him know (politely - the first time) that he could not leave the door open as Cheeba may go exploring and never come back. The warnings got progressively less polite throughout the day as I kept finding the door open.

Finally, late into the evening [read: dark outside], I went into the kitchen and the door was OPEN. I couldn't find Cheeba anywhere. Screaming ensued.

We found her (sleeping) - but that wasn't the point. Here's what I said:

Jesse, do you watch the office?
Sometimes.
Well, do you know why Angela broke up with Dwight?
No.
He accidentally killed her cat. And even though it was an accident and he felt really really badly about it, and even though she still loved him very much, every time she looked at him she saw her dead cat and so she broke up with him.
Oh. I think I get the point. Will you make me a sign so I stop leaving the door open?
Yes.

Lastly, here is a picture of our living room, which is one of the places in our house that makes me believe that we'll 'get there.'