Heater Issues

The heater works, that's not the issue.  The issue that I'm experiencing is that in one room - Robert's - the air coming through the heater vent smells like something's burning!  Of all the rooms, why his?!  Since no other room is afflicted with this tainted air, I'm guessing it's something in the vents leading to his room.  I wish I had $15,000 to do some asbestos abatement and install a new heater!

Garfield!

Woke up this morning and saw that blob in the backyard.  "OMG," I thought, "something died in the yard last night!"  I walked over to see what it was, and it turns out Garfield (who's been MIA for a while now) slept in the backyard last night!  I guess he's been keeping our yard mouse/rat free for long enough that he considers it home!

Organizing "The Case"

The ever contended glass case that sits in the living room was packed full with boxes and boxes of Giants giveaways and paraphernalia.  As the 2011 Giants season moved on, I was just accumulating more and more stuff.  And the box from the Giants arrived with the first half of the season's giveaways.  Needless to say, there was a whole lot of stuff in there, and it looked a mess.

I took out what was in there and separated out the duplicates and triplicates.  Here's what was going to go back inside:

Here's the finished product:

 

 

There's still a lot of room in the center of the case.  I'm going to look for brackets and a shelf to put in there.

Floor mats Are Here!

The rest of the floormats I ordered finally came in!  We got 80 square feet of 3/8 inch gray floor mats from EZGoodDeals.com.  It was by far the most affordable place to get them.  Installation was a snap (HA!  Get it?  Snap?  Cuz they snap together...).  Anywho, it adds that necessary face plant padding to the floor in Robert's room. 

He's been sitting up a lot more lately, but when he's over it, he just tosses his body backwards.  I don't think anything is going to absorb that kind of hit, so I still just sit behind him so he can fall into me. 

As he's doing tummy time, though, I no longer have to worry about him getting tired and dropping his face into the floor.  The mats provide a sufficient cushion for the 3 inch face plant. 

Here's how his room looks now:

Father's Day

It's Father's Day, and Robert decided to celebrate early.  He woke up at 6 AM ready to play.  You gotta love a happy baby!  With his big, little hands, he grabbed at my face and started pulling.  As dawn leaked into my eyes, I focused on my smiling little man.  "Morning, Sunshine," was all I could muster.  He laughed, giggled, and continued to smack me until I got up.  If this is how he wakes me up at 6 months old, I wonder what he'll do when he's older...

We went to Art's Cafe on Irving for breakfast.  We figured it'd be relatively empty, since they opened at 8 AM.  We were right.  Breakfast was great, and Robert is evermore eager to share in the culinary delights that we feast on.  When he has teeth, he will partake, but for now, it's all mama and Gerber! 

We spent the next few hours on Clement street, waiting for various shops to open.  Sloat Garden Center opened at 9 AM, Green Apple Books at 10 AM, and Citikids at 11 AM.  We estimated that we could spend about an hour at each, and it'd be a perfect place to walk around and digest our meal. 

Sloat Garden Center off Clement is a lot smaller than the one on Sloat, and we breezed through it without a purchase in about 20 minutes.  We were hoping to find more herbs for Sandra's little herb garden, a fruit tree, or something else to put out in the backyard.  With 40 minutes till Green Apple opened, we careened down Clement to see what we could find.  Robert, riding in his stroller, was asleep.  Lucky man.  He got to wake us up, play, eat, and now he was lights out but still along for the ride. 

We walked down Clement and turned onto Geary to check out Lamps Plus or whatever that light store's called.  I noticed this little beauty in the window:

and thought that's be perfect for the hallway!  It's got all the benefits of track lighting (positionable lights), but none of the hassle (mounting the track).  We have to someday come back while they're open to check this bad boy out! 

Anywho, we got Robert a book from Green Apple, and looked at car seats at Citikids.  I couldn't believe it wasn't even noon yet, and we had already done all that. 

Replacing the Alleyway Drain Cover

A few weeks ago, I cleaned out the drain to make sure it wasn't backed up.  The drain cover had been rusted so badly, that it was crumbling in my hands.  I decided to look for a new one.  Home Depot and Lowes didn't carry it.  It wasn't even that they didn't carry it, they didn't really know what I was talking about! 

I decided to check out the Plumbing store on Lawton - they have everything there!  Sure enough, they had it for $6.95.  I picked it up and laid it down - perfect. 

Now, I just have to figure out what to do about the gap fom the concrete to the drain opening!  You think there's some kind of rubber cement that'd do the trick?  I want to keep this drain from leaking into the garage. 

Garfield's Back!

Here he is, stalking something in the backyard again!  I initially thought that he was after the mint plant, but he walked right past it. 

Scary Times Ahead

For once, the time stamp on this post is correct. I know the blog has been 99.9999% about the house, but this kind of relates to the home (plus, the label really applies it!).

Tomorrow's a big day in one huge way - Robert starts day care tomorrow! It's really scary, actually. I can't even put a number to the amount of child care providers I called in the City to just look for availability! It took us pretty much down to the wire to find a spot. I went through Google, Yelp, Community Care Licensing, my work's EAP - basically everything I could think of. Nearing desparation, I looked through Craigslist. I figured, "Shoot, I got half the furniture in the house from Craigslist, why not see if it'll pull through again!" It did.
Providers were posting notices of availability! For the first time in MONTHS, my search didn't amount to calling and asking if someone had availability but to calling and asking when I could meet with the providers and tour the facilities! It was pretty exciting. We were two weeks away from the date that we would require their services, and with a few days before we had to leave to Maui, we started to meet people.
I won't mention all the details, but initially, we were far from impressed. We narrowed down the available places to two, and finally, tomorrow, we're giving one of them a shot. There are so many what-if's that could happen, that I'd rather not think about it. I guess all that remains is to be patient and see what happens...

Citronella!

I decided that one section of the backyard is going to be full of Citronella plants.  I've started rooting a whole lotta clippings in the kitchen.  Here's a picture of my forrest:

Clearing out the Backyard

Today, I spent some time in the backyard clearing out the jungle.  There is still a whole mess of plants around the yard, and I guess I'm tackling it one area at a time.  This time, it's the place right next to the kitchen door.  It took me about two hours to rip out all the weeks, roots, plants, etc.  Here's a picture of what it looks like now:

All those bricks in the bottom of the picture had a thick mat of roots growing all over and in between them.  It was a pain in the butt to cut it all cut up and pulled out.  I have a feeling this isn't quite over yet...

Spearmint Plant!

Today was a pretty exciting day! 

We went to Sloat Garden Center today to check out some plants.  My main goal was to get some sort of mint plants to propogate along the edges of the yard to build up a defense from mice and rodents (supposedly they hate the smell).  Sandra wanted to get some herbs and indoor plants.  We ending up getting a spearmint plant, a lavender, a cilantro, a rosemary, and a sweet basil.  I think except for the mint and lavender, these will be grown indoors.  We'd need to get a better planter if we were going to put the rest of the herbs outside. 

And I planted my spearmint plant in the yard!  It's the first plant from the group that we bought at Sloat Garden Center that we're planting in the yard.  I hope it takes.  It's an invasive species, and I hear they grow and spread really quickly.  Here's the little guy now:

It's not your imagination, if you noticed...  The top of the plant is cut!  I took a clipping to put in water to root.  This little guy's going to have clones all around the yard!

Nice Bathroom

Here's the bathroom at Star Noodle in LaHaina, Maui.  I liked the barn doors, the stone walls, and the sink.  I'd never do this sort of design in a place I lived in, but it was very cool to see.

Hello, Garfield.

As I admired the jungle that is my backyard, I noticed an orange cat sun bathing on the stairs.  Hello, Garfield.  I see you!

Robert's Dresser

The dresser from Amazon arrived on Monday. Hinojosa had helped me bring it to Robert's room. It's pretty heavy. Sandra was concerned about the state of the dresser, since the delivery man basically dropped it on our front steps. Yesterday was the day to build the dresser! I could watch the Giant's game in Robert's room, so it all worked out.

I started around 5:30, and by 7:00 PM, dinner had arrived (pizza!). I had pretty much everything except three drawers done. It was looking pretty good! The wood that's visible is solid and nice. The problem is the wood that makes up the other three sides of the drawers - they're pretty flimsy. I'm pretty sure I could've cracked a piece in half putting it together, if I just pushed on it a little hard. I made sure I took my time to read the directions, lay out the pieces, and put it together really, really slowly, just to it'd only happen once. Here she is, done:

It's the four drawer dresser that matches Robert's crib.

Clearing Out The Yard

I had planned on cleaning out the yard all weekend. Mother's Day and Giant's games pretty much kept me from getting to it. I decided today was going to be the day, since there was no game, and garbage was going out tonight.

Then Hinojosa hit me up and said he needed more drywall. He'd cracked the drywall he picked up last week, so I offered to help him cut it and all. He got there around 5-ish, and we cut and mounted the drywall onto the frame he and his group had built. We used a drywall saw to cut the hole for his mechanics, and voila! All done. He asked what I was planning on doing, and I said clearing out all these weeds. He offered to help, and we pretty much massacred half the yard!

Here's what it looked like afterwards. Again, I didn't take before pics... :-(

We pretty much filled up the entire 55 gallon compost bin, too!

I had to get in and compact it a few times, but it did the job. We used the "Vaquero Grande" by Cold Steel to cut through the ivy and vines that were climbing up and over the fence from the neighbor's yard. I hosed off the cement and started scrubbing it, but it'll take a while to clean off.

I want to plant varmint repelling stuff back here - citronella and peppermint plants, primarily. We'll see how well the citronella does outside!

Curtains, Robert's Room, and un Raton

It seems like forever and a day has gone by since I've updated the blog.  The house is extremely livable, and we've been here for almost a year now.  Robert Jacob Leung was born around the end of last year, and his room is almost ready for him.

Yesterday, after work, I put up his curtains.  While I was drilling the holes in the walls to hold up the curtain rod, I noticed movement outside in the backyard.  I paused to get a better look, and I discovered a HUGE rat climbing up the dying vines in the backyard over the fence to the neighbor's side.  I really hope this thing doesn't live underneath our house.  Just to be sure, I'm planning on getting under Robert's room this weekend.

Anywho, the curtains are up.  We used the brown curtains with the blackout lining that Sandra's mom made for us.  We got the curtain rod from Ikea a while ago.  It was the only one we could find that was long enough for the 9 foot sliding glass door.  Instead of putting the cloth over the rod, I decided that I wanted the curtain to open and close easily while sliding along the curtain rod.  We picked up curtain clips from Target.  They were about $4.50 for a pack of 7.  Because the curtains themselves are a bit heavy, we got two packs to distribute more of the weight.

Robert's room can now be shrouded in darkness any time we want!  The problem with that is that it gets too dark, so now we're looking for night lights...

Built a Cage

The little man will begin his cage days with this cherry stained, Million Dollar Baby crib, courtesy of Poh-Poh.  ()