We've been in our house for several years now.  When we were going through the building process we looked at the cost of having it painted in two tone paint.  The cost was outrageous so we decided against it, though we did go with a "custom color", meaning we decided against the two shades of white that the builder was offering. We paid the extra money for the custom paint color and selected a beige that we figured would go with about anything. Other than putting up a few photos/paintings on the walls we haven't done much, until now.  We've always wanted to paint an accent wall in our Living Room, we just never could decide on what color we wanted.  We had always thought that we'd go with a burgundy shade.  We were buying some paint for another house project and decided that we can use the same so last night we attacked the wall with the new color. It's technically called "Toffee Crunch".  So far we're happy with the results.  We'll see if we still like it in a few more weeks.

No offense to my good friend Rich*, but I really hate painting! I'm not very good at it and no amount of training by Mr. Miyagi is likely to help that anytime soon. I've had a painting project waiting for me for more than the last six months.  Sure I've been busy, but deep down I've avoided doing it because I really hate painting that much (sorry, Rich). It's not really the painting that I dislike but it's rather the clean up afterwards.  I'm always tempted to just throw the brushes and roller heads away and start over next time. One of these days all of the painting in my home will be complete and I won't ever had to do it again.  Until then I'll suffer through it, if I have to. *Disclaimer: Rich is an awesome artistic painter.  I'm in awe of his talent and love his work.  (Hint, you should visit his shows and buy his works).  He will be rewarded in the afterlife for developing his talent.  As for me, I'll be forced Sand the Deck, Wax the Car, and yes Paint the Fence as my punishment for burying my talents.

I had a long list of things around the house that needed to get done today.  We were all so tired from last night that we slept in until 9:30. The first thing that I did was call a local nursery and have them deliver four yards of shredded bark.  Once it was delivered we got the entire family involved in spreading it around the flower beds.  Even our youngest daughter was loading up small buckets and dumping it where it needed to go. Thanks to my sister and brother in law for taking care of all of our weeds for us, things are looking much better, as you can see from the photos below.

I also had two loads that I had to take to the dump.  I did some work on the truck, fertilized the lawn one last time, winterized our sprinklers for the year and did some shopping. There is still a ton of work to be done around the outside of the house and in the yard but at least this is a start.  If the weather holds out maybe I can get some of these other things done before the snow flies. My list for the day also included painting the room in our basement but unfortunately I wasn't able to get to it today.  Hopefully I can get it started on Monday evening. With all of these Home Improvements going on you'd think that we were getting ready to sell our house.

Just to refresh your memory a bit.  In the past I've written posts like this, and this and finally this. There is never a dull moment in our home with him (and his sister) around. Lately though it's been more terrifying.  We live across the street from a large park.  We did that by design, we don't have a large yard, so we wanted to be near the park so the kids could have a place to play. It has its ups and downs.  It's nice to be able to send the kids over to play, but when the older kids are "playing" until all hours of the night it gets a bit frustrating. I guess we've hit the Independence stage with our son because lately he's been opening the front door and leaving the house.  Each time he heads for the park.  Last Saturday he made it all the way over there without anyone noticing.  That was until someone brought him home. So now our exterior doors look something like this.  Now if only this same thing will work when my daughters are teenagers.

It seems that our luck conntinues.  On top of the issues with the truck while I was gone, apparently our Microwave died and our car ended up with a flat tire. Hopefully our luck will change soon.

That is all.

Why I own a home?  Anyone want to buy a house?  Maybe I'll just rent something for the rest of my life. My home is 4 years old.  I built with a builder (who is also a friend) that I trust and they built us a quality house, but there is a never ending list of things to do around here. So far this year, I've had to replace more light bulbs than I have ever had to in the entire life of the house.  I realize that they only last so long, but the lights are on at different and varying times and length, so I'm a bit baffled as to why all of them seem to be going out at the same time.  I replaced 3 just this last weekend and have about 3 more to do. My sprinklers had issues earlier this summer, pieces of the eves on my house are falling off and blowing away, my basement cold storage room flooded twice in one day (last week), and one of the faucets in my bathroom died the other day. I'm afraid to ask what might be next.  Don't get me wrong, we love our house.  We've thought about moving many times recently (in fact, we're currently considering a cross country move, though it will likely never happen) but when we look at homes we haven't found one that even comes close to the one we have, in our opinion. So here I sit, waiting with pen and paper to add more to the list.

With the storms today our cold storage filled with water.  At least it didn't happen while we were on vacation.

[hidepost]We went to church today at the local ward.  This is the ward that my wife grew up in and I served in as a missionary. She was here for many years I was only here for 8 weeks.  As with most wards, the people have changed quite a bit.  Both those that are still here (they like the rest of us have aged 15 years) and those that are new. After church we took the long way home and drove around the area for a while.  It brought back floods of memories for me and by the time it was all over nearly everyone of the kids had fallen asleep at one point. The main part of town doesn't appear to have changed much, but the outskirts of town have changed a lot. There were several homes for sale that my wife kept saying things like "We could buy that one".  The only problem with that is that there was no pond/lake, wooded property, at least a mile long dirt driveway, etc.  So I think that we'll stay in our current house. [/hidepost]

My stop and waste valve is in the basement of my house. This evening I went downstairs and turned it on, then walked over to the timers to run some tests to make sure that the sprinklers would function properly. Then I noticed what sounded like the continuous flow of water through the pipes. My first thought was "That's funny, I haven't turned the valves on yet". Then it hit me, I went outside and noticed a spring bubbling up in my front yard. I quickly shut it off and started digging out the pipe. Sure enough, I've got a broken pipe in the main supply line right after it leaves the house and before it goes into the valve box. I guess that's another one to add to the list for this week.