New Window

Last week I had a window replaced in my sunroom. It's the last big project I had on my list. It feels so great to them finished. Of course, there is still the small project list.

The center pane was rotting because of rain getting in.  

 Here they have the outside trim taken off.

Once they had the window out, it only took them about 10 minutes to get the new one into place. Good thing the snow hadn't started flying yet.

 They did a fabulous job on finishing the window. They matched the stain perfectly. The trim came off great and they were able to put it back up. You would never know that the picture below is the after shot. I didn't have to do a single touchup.

Instead of putting wood trim back on the outside, they put up vinyl. Yay, less maintenance for me!!

Botanical Center

Recently I was at the Botanical Center for some meetings and took a tour during lunch. It's been several years since I'd been there. There weren't a lot of plants blooming, but it was beautiful anyway.

Great picture of the koy pond with the dome reflection.

They had pumpkins out for fall but no mums yet.  I've heard that the poinsettia decorations at Christmas time are great, so I might have to make another trip.



New Roof

Today another large project from my list was completed -- my house got a new roof. This was one of the things that I knew my house would need within a few years of buying it. The garage and the house (except for the addition) had two layers of shingles so it needed a complete tearoff.



Before



Before

They arrived at noon and when I stopped by at 1:30 they were already putting the tar paper on the garage and had the front half removed.

While I was there the foreman told me each of the front corners of the roof needed new plywood. They were rotten enough that if they had stepped on them, they would have fallen through.

 When I came home again about 5:00, they were just finishing up.

  On the picture below you can see that the three roof vents were removed and a ridge vent put in for better ventilation. Well, you can't really see the ridge vent, but you can see the others are gone.

 There was also a board that was soft right along where the addition was put on that was replaced. Not sure how I'm going to get up there and paint it??!!

After

Here's another shot of the before and the after. The picture makes the shingles look like they're kinda blue, but they're grey.

  

 They did a fabulous job in less than six hours!!

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday, Lisa!! 

Applesauce

I recently got three grocery bags of apples and decided to make some applesauce. I kept a few out to make a couple batches of apple crisp later. They were beginning to get soft so I knew I had to do something with them quickly.

They were Jonagolds and were huge. The one on the left is an apple I had just bought at the store...and I thought it was a decent size. 

One thing that I couldn't do without is my apple peeler. It comes in quite handy when I'm doing a lot of apples at once.

I sliced them up and added some water and cooked until they were mushy. And I'm sure that's the technical cooking term! 

 I love chunky applesauce so it didn't take long at all.

I ended up with 12 containers for the freezer. It will be a wonderful treat throughout the winter.

Microwave

When I bought my house, I knew one of the things that I wanted to add was a microwave above the stove. The existing stove had to have been from the early '80s and was all one piece but had two separate ovens and no vent. I knew I would wait at least a year before doing anything because I had gotten a home warranty when I bought the house, and if anything had happened to it, there was a chance they would replace it. 

So in the meantime, I had to buy a microwave. There was a built-in shelf that I put it on.

A few months after my home warranty expired, I purchased a new stove and got rid of that ugly, big beast. Up next was the microwave.

"Up next" being another year or so. I willing admit that I am a procrastinator on some things. On this project it was finding and hiring the electrician to put in an outlet above the stove for the microwave. I was getting along fine without a vent above the stove, and it was just as easy to leave things the way they were. 

But this summer/fall, I'm tackling several large projects and this was on the list just waiting to be crossed off. I finally got the name of an electrician from a co-worker (and then also found out he was the son-in-law of a co-worker from a previous job so I was really happy). So a little over three years later, I now have the stove and microwave I want.

I moved the toaster oven to the shelf where the microwave was, but I'm not sure I like it there so there might be more re-arranging going on.

Start Somewhere Walk

Iowa is currently ranked the 19th healthiest state in the U.S. The Healthiest State Initiative was created to make us the healthiest state by 2016.  Yesterday the Start Somewhere Walk was held as the kickoff of the initiative. Iowans gathered at businesses, schools, grocery stores and other places all over the state for a 1K walk at noon. It was a great day for the quick 10-15 minute walk. It was held to inspire Iowans to improve their health and happiness.

Check out the website and pledge to help Iowa change.