Last Thursday
Last Thursday … the crazy street party that happens monthly in our new neighborhood. This month, we didn’t even realize it was coming up– we were slaving away in our backyard, hauling rocks and concrete back and forth, when we noticed the streets filling up with people … ahh, of course– it was the last Thursday of the month! Not a time for manual labor!!
Last Thursday is a random mix of street vendors, art, weird people, dancing, music, food .. It’s an unorganized street fair, where anyone can show up and set up a table to offer their own original craft or street fare.
Sarah was having a tough time transitioning from working mode to party mode, but I convinced her that her wearing a tutu and me wearing my fire pants that she made me was best … Last Thursday is no place for yuppie-wear. Of course, her tutu received *many* complements … this is Portland, and keeping it weird is the moto!
This month, Last Thursday felt like a mini version of Burning Man … as it turns out, this is the last Last Thursday before Burning Man! As such, street vendors were catering especially to the types of goods that Burners might want … and Sarah and I couldn’t resist! One fuzzy hat, Elmo fleece, and ripped tie-dye shirt later we were dancing to dub-step music in the streets!
Progress on the patio…
Justin and I have been working our little buns off for a couple weeks preparing and starting to create our very own backyard paradise! After buying the house,we quickly found that house projects are ALWAYS bigger than they seem and doing things in the right order is very important and a bit complicated to coordinate. 
BEFORE: 
Justin jack hammered the old ugly concrete patio and I slowly but surely carried each piece to a neat stack in the driveway. After contemplation, we decided to recycle that bashed up concrete as a back pathway in our yard. This is what the staging looks like so far.
Justin has been thrilled to able to use all sorts of manly toys including his new rototiller!
We hope that by the end of this week we will have sand, road base and Gatorstone here at the house to start laying the flagstone patio and finish setting the concrete pathway! Hopefully by then I can also finish my garden boxes I have been working on. If all goes as planned we will be finished in time for our house warming/ engagement party!
Is Chivalry dead?
Let me prep the setting for you. Justin sees an ad on craiglist for free bricks…just what we need for our raised flower beds we would like to create. Justin goes to work and I set out to gather the bricks.
This is about how my day has gone thus far…
This kind of an interaction with male folk makes me wonder if chivalry is a fading fad or if general courtesy of some male minds is being genetically phased out! I can’t go on and on about this as I’d like to because as you can see from my cartoon…I’m tired. Just thought I’d share.
…still one more load in the car to bring into garage!!
I am still excited for our beautiful garden! …just less excited now that I’m so pooped.
The Tree of Heaven is not so heavenly!
One of the tedious perks of owning a home is cleaning up what the last person left behind. We find new quirks every week that we hadn’t noticed when looking at the house. Not that these quirks would have been big enough to not buy the house, but it is interesting the little secrets you find once you live on the property.
One of the first things we noticed was that our lovely slide out drawer cabinets only roll out half way before colliding with the new door frames they put on. Big deal? …not so much. I’d rather our cabinets not roll out all the way and keep the nice frames then take them off.
We also have two mystery light switches! I always make sure my surroundings are quiet before flipping the switch because I’m sure that sooner or later I will hear a neighbor’s garage door opening and closing, the garbage disposal next door going off or something to that effect. Justin says the last owners probably covered over the old light fixture connections while fixing up the place and never got rid of the switch, but I’d rather use my imagination
The last not so fun thing I just found yesterday is our not so heavenly “Tree of Heaven” weeds. These weeds are like they say, as big as trees. I guess many years ago one of our neighbors had the mothership growing in her back yard allowing for it to drop all of it’s little seedlings throughout the neighborhood. These plants are outrageous and spread like wildfire!
We have “one” (which turned out to be 5) in our front yard and “two” out behind our garage. I thought…no big deal! I’ll go chop down the tree and dig up the stump. Wrong!! These roots are crazy long and mongral sized! I was digging for hours this morning and barely made a dent in it. Not only do the roots run parallel to the ground, they also go straight down into the earth making it very difficult to remove. The other challenge that I’m facing is the plants actually originates in our neighbor’s yard so I can’t get rid of all of it if I tried. Our other neighbor had one of these trees practically destroy his garage. Even a little one can eat up the siding of your house and the roots crack the foundation.
After spending all morning digging up all the roots I could find and chopping off the rest I couldn’t get to, Justin researches and tells me if you cut off the roots of this plant without completely removing the entire root, it goes into emergency mode. It starts sprouting up seedlings from the roots like mad (last picture above shows emergency mode)! Great! I just set off a domino weed effect in our front yard!! …Eek! We’re buying poison tomorrow!
PS: For the second time, my job has been cut from the budget!!! So…I’m starting the job search YET AGAIN!!! 
Family Comes to Portland :)
Gracie Lynn, my little sister, came to visit Justin and I in Portland! HURRAY!! We had such a fun time! Here are some highlight picture below:
We did the coast, a hike, Chinese Garden, food carts, shopping, getting lost in a honkin’ bean bag, exploring, Last Thursday on Alberta, Ikea, Timbers Game, dancing, Rose Garden…you name it, we did it! Come again Gracie Lynn!
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