We have ants!

So big bummer, we have ant problems. Jen has been seeing quite a few of them recently. I would say I kill a random ant about 4 times a day... Jen said she found about 10 in the garage bag in the kitchen yesterday (she decided we could use a new one...).

I sprayed the perimeter of the house with some home protect stuff (will check the brand later) on Friday, hopefully that will help.

Pull-up Bar

The homemade pull-up bar I constructed. 1/2 inch vertical pipes, and a 3/4 inch horizontal bar. Couldn't find a 3/4 inch flange to attach to the joist. Also, I am not sure the larger flange would have fit on the joist.

I attached some 2x4's to the webbing to hopefully add some support to the flange screws. I don't have any concerns about the vertical force on the joists, but I am a bit concerned with lateral movements.

It has worked really well for the sets I have done so far. If it ever feels unsecured, I figure I can put blocking between the joists. Total cost was about $35.

[rebates] IPod, Activa

Apparently there is a class action against Apple for the 1st gen nano's. Because the scratch... Jen and I both have one, and they are scratch, so why not. The rebate amount depends on the number of participants, so it is variable.

Sent in a rebate for Activa, it will reimburse the cost of the product, so we picked up a pack and sent in the rebate. 6.99

Long lost update

So needless to say it has been awhile. Jen and I have had a busy life the last couple weeks. We introduced our new son, Nicholas, into the world and finished moving into the house.

Our folks have been over numerous times, we planted seed on the hillsides around the house to slow erosion. Then of course it didn't rain for 2 weeks... But it finally is today, hurray!

Today I am finally running some Cat5 to the bedroom, so the internet isn't so slow. I can now just remote desktop to my PC and work from there.

Concrete problems

Looks like Lighthouse is going to have to come out and do some work... Like jack hammering up all the surface concrete they poured. I just hope it doesn't look like that under the garage floor. We haven't even started driving on the apron or garage floor yet, but I suspect they would crack pretty badly if we did...

Would love any advise people would have on alternatives and if they would be sufficient or not. I am sure LH will try to fix this as cheaply as possible. Or maybe it will be the responsibility of the sub that poured the concrete. Not sure.

Garden Update

So now it has been about 3 weeks since I started this project. The beans and peas are really doing amazing, there are already some beans coming in.

It is about time to get them outside I think. My folks dropped off a tiller for us to use, so I need to till up some ground and get a fence for the bunnies/deer.

Kitchen Table

This is the kitchen table that we put together for about $30. We went to Basset Furniture to look around and found this table top in the clearance area for $50 (I think). It has some pretty significant flaws, hence the low low price (I think it probably retails for over $1000). Jen and I hemmed and hawed about it for probably an hour with the manager there, eventually he said to just take it and shop there in the future.

Of course we could take it that day since we had the golf, and um yeah that wasn't going to happen. So we came back the next day with a truck and they gave it to us.

Fast forward to a couple weekends ago and I bought 4x4 Douglas fir posts and some paint. So for about $30 I built the legs.

The chairs were a Walmart clearance item for $50 per. Which we thought was pretty reasonable for dinning room chairs. We couldn't find anything cheaper.