Chris and I started an annual tradition a couple years ago and decided that we would go to a college football rivalry game every year. We love college football and are pretty apathetic about the holidays so rivalry weekend coinciding with Thanksgiving was like a dream come true 🙂 The only kicker was with Zoe being so little we wanted to pick a game close so that she could enjoy the fun too. So we decided the Civil War (Oregon vs. Oregon State) would be the perfect fit.

Thursday we woke up and headed north for Eugene, OR. We stopped at a friend’s house in Sacramento around lunchtime and crashed their Thanksgiving for a bit 🙂 I had a photo of their cutie pie son Louis and Zoe playing, but then I got a new phone yesterday and it lost my pictures. Damnit.

After we hung out with them we got back on the road for Dunsmuir, CA. We picked this place for 2 reasons. 1) Chris and his friend we on a hitchhiking trip during their Spring Break in college and hopped on a train that derailed in Dunsmuir and 2) it was an excellent halfway point (almost exactly between Oakland and Eugene.) Wanna know the coolest part? We stayed in a converted railroad car! It was so cool!

I will admit that it was a little kitschy (or a lot), but it was also totally awesome

Zoe approves

In the morning we headed for Eugene. The game was at 4pm so we had a little time to hang out before we left. We knew it would be cold and Autzen is supposed to be super loud, so we were a little nervous for how Zoe would do. But we bundled her up, took her noise reducing headphones and walked on over

We like to get to stadiums early and walk around, and there was a lot to see here. They had a really cool pavilion (that was heated) with lots of food and a live band

It’s also always fun to check out the tailgating (though I still haven’t found anything that beats the Raiders and Ohio State)

The stadium was really beautiful. I especially loved all the exteriors of the surrounding buildings because they were a great charcoal color that stood in awesome contrast to the lush scenery around

Once we walked around a bit, it was time to go inside

Our seats weren’t bad (really no seats in the whole place seemed too bad) and the field was gorgeous. Though both marching bands were decent, nothing beats Ohio State

The best part of the game was how AMAZING Zoe did. She was a fucking champ. It was amazing. The walk from our hotel to the stadium was about 1 1/2 miles. We thought she might fall asleep, but in true Zoe fashion she didn’t because there was way too much to see. She finally did when we got inside and slept for about the first half of the first quarter

I thought if we made it through 3 quarters it would be a success, but she made it the entire game and only fussed the last 2:30 minutes. Literally, that was it. She was GREAT. She was bundled up in a ton of layers, her headphones blocked out the (very) loud stadium and she was happy as a clam

It was so awesome. And, as football fans, we couldn’t have been prouder 🙂

The game was awesome as well. Though we did find ourselves rooting for Oregon State (the Oregon fans we were around we a bit dick-ish), and so that kind of sucked that the lost in the last couple minutes. But, nevertheless, it was an awesome game to have seen

The next day we walked around Eugene and the campus for a couple hours and again Zoe was happy to be out and about

We were a little surprised about how quiet the town was. It was Thanksgiving weekend, but it was also rivalry weekend so we thought we’d see more people out.

You might ask why the title of the post is “At Least the Football Game was Fun” ??? Well, Zoe had a really hard time all weekend. We weren’t really sure what was up. Besides being at our friend’s house, being at the football game and spending a couple hours walking around Eugene, Zoe was out of sorts. She was really fussy, refused to sleep, and just seemed not herself. It was kind of a bummer. But I realize we were also asking A LOT of a (nearly) 6 month old. So instead of staying through Sunday, we decided to come home early and do the nearly 9 hour drive on Saturday afternoon at about 3pm

It was a rough doing it all at once, but once we got her to sleep, she was fine. And it also gave us a day at home to catch up on things around the house. Don’t get excited and think we worked on the house though, sigh 🙂 But we DID hang our Christmas lights 🙂

I hope everyone had a great weekend!

Now, time to work on the house. Hopefully.

Well my friends, so ends the saga of grouting. And I couldn’t be happier. No more tile. No more grout. In either bathroom. In our kitchen. Nowhere in the house. YAY! The last little bit before we could declare that, was grouting the curb in the bathroom

We decided to use our urethane grout for the curb (the same grout we used for the main floor and shower floor, you can read more about it here). Because you can only work in small areas at a time (it sets up quickly after you get it on the surface) we had to really hustle. Grouting on the curb is already difficult with all the angles, then add in the fun surfaces of beveled subway tile and the quick working time of urethane grout and we were a little nervous about this project. Luckily though, Chris is a champ and I’m a master sponge cleaner 🙂

Chris worked in really small sections to ensure that he was getting the grout into all the grout lines sufficiently and that it all got cleaned up properly. You really have to make sure you clean it all up as soon as you can. Otherwise you have to use some sort of chemical to get the haze off. Also, you want to make sure the sponges aren’t very wet at all because the water and urethane don’t get along well and you’ll have problems if there is too much moisture in the grout. I know, lots of fun, right? But we worked diligently

Our guess was that the endeavor would take about 30 minutes. It ended up taking about 45, but it worked out better than we thought: no cussing, no sponge throwing, no temper tantrums. Success!

And now, we’re ready for the glass enclosure!

One of the many jobs I have is working for my brother’s real estate company. I do his bookkeeping and manage rental properties of his. And this…

…was the first rental property he took on that I managed. Yes, you see peeling paint, total ugliness and a couch there in the bottom right corner. Oh, and want to see a really safe set of stairs to a vacant 6th unit?

Don’t worry, no one actually went up those stairs.

My brother likes projects. And well, he’s been very successful, so we tried a new adventure. But man oh man was this building an adventure I don’t think either of us were ready for.

I was in charge of managing the property: dealing with tenant complaints, fixing the building up and facilitating the raise of their rent which hadn’t been raised in nearly 20 years (which, let me tell you, they all went ape shit about). I entered the situation thinking it would be difficult, but it was not nearly as difficult as I anticipated. That makes it sound all peachy keen. It wasn’t as difficult as I anticipated? It was 5 times more. I started out way too nice, and these tenants were not nice. So my nice attitude got swallowed up and I had a hard time recovering.

But recover I tried.

And over the last year and a half (my brother bought it in May-ish of last year) I oversaw repainting…

Reroofing…

The removal of those really safe stairs (that Chris and I did)

And let me tell you, removing those stairs was waaaaayyyy easier than it should have been. Some of the supports weren’t even nailed into the piers they merely rested on. Oy vey.

After we ripped them down they got rebuilt. And holy shit was that an undertaking. The architect and engineer weren’t great communicators (although they were friends before they started this project, they hilariously ended their working relationship once this project was done), so the plans we got contractors to bid from where nowhere near the same as the end plans the contractor actually built from. The end plans were INSANE. I spent 20 hours in one week going back and forth between the city of San Francisco and Cal OSHA figuring out what kinds of extra permits we needed and all sorts of other crap. And when our contractors finally started building, it was a little out of control

According to the insane engineer’s plan, piers had to be dug 7 ft. down into the ground and the concrete pad was 3 ft. thick. We had another engineer look at it (it’s a really long story) and he said it was so over engineered and that it was more elaborate than an airplane landing strip. Yeah. Fun.

But build away they went

Do you think that’s enough rebar?

In case you’re wondering for scale, that concrete pad is 3 ft. thick ABOVE GROUND in the thickest spot.

At the same time this was getting built, I was flipping the vacant unit (vacant for 10 plus years) that was built into the roof. How did Chris and I get all the materials up to the roof while the stairs weren’t finished? Up the fire escape of course

Yes, that fire escape that doesn’t have any stairs until 4 ft. up. So all the buckets of paint and buckets of supplies got carried up a ladder, then carried up the fire escape “stairs” and onto the roof. It wasn’t a fun 10 days of fixing that unit up, but we got it done.

And then, the appliances got moved in. And the stairs weren’t as done as they were supposed to be, but Sears still carried the stove and fridge up (thank god)

And finally, the stairs were done

The Simpson ties alone probably cost over $1,000. Seriously. There were so many. But the good news is that if the world did end on the 21st, those stairs were going nowhere. The whole building may have fallen over. But those stairs? Nope, not going anywhere.

Those projects were fun, but the real fun were the tenants. Oh man. They called about everything. Light bulbs that went out. Their key broke off in the lock. They had ants. Now, you know, I’ve been a tenant before. For many years. In many different residencies. And I never called my landlord about those ridiculous things because it was my problem to fix them. The key broke off in the lock because I turned it too hard so I need to call the locksmith (or just get a pair of pliers and pull it out which is what Chris did for them because we were there working on another unit anyway). A light bulb went out? Hmmm, I’ll just screw another one in. I mean really people? Oh, and their rents were never paid on time. And one of them always sent it folded in a napkin. Gross.

But finally, we put the building up for sale. And last week, it closed. HOORAY!!! Of course the water heater broke and had to be replaced three days before escrow was set to close, so that was an adventure. But it did in fact close just in time for Christmas. And the best part? My brother gave me a bonus for all the hard work. Now that, is a Christmas miracle 🙂 And I know Chris is happy I won’t be complaining about this building anymore 🙂

I hope everyone has a happy holiday!!!

Chris went down to LA this weekend to visit family. I am normally less productive while he’s away 🙂 but this time was quite exceptional. While I was “productive,” I was in no way house productive.

Instead: I went out to dinner with friends, worked on my animal room paintings A LOT, did a bunch of research for my brother’s company, gave my car a superdooper cleaning, made a costco run, did 4 loads of laundry, watched some movies, ran a bunch of miles, did my taxes and spent a large portion of Saturday screaming at the television at the top of my lungs

In this household we still have not forgiven Florida (nor will we ever) for beating UCLA TWICE in the last 5 years in March Madness. So I was literally yelling and jumping around the house – by myself – when Butler beat Florida.

I promise my to do list in my planner makes me look quite accomplished. Even if the house has nothing to show for it 🙂

I spent some time painting at my brother and his fiance’s condo last weekend. They wanted their living room color scheme changed just a little bit.

Here’s what it started with

Of course I didn’t take any pictures of the progress because I was furiously working to get back to the house and finish the tile and grouting jobs.

But here’s what it looked like in the end

(please excuse the little bit of red at the top. I wanted to move the TV out so I could wiggle myself back there, but after Adam took a business call he didn’t have enough time before they had to rush out to make a flight. I told him I wouldn’t be able to get it ALL done then, but he said no biggie. So I’ll get that last little sliver some other time)

It’s not too much of a difference. The blue is a more vibrant, slightly purple-y color, and the brown is a chocolate reddish shade. After two coats and allllllll the cut-ins because of the strange shape of the room it took much longer than I anticipated. But I got ‘er done. And the entire time I marveled jealously at how close they live to Home Depot – you can literally see one of the entrances to the store from their living room window. Lucky bastards.

A day after finishing the tile, we got to the grout. It was another LONG day, and again, a morning spent painting at my brother’s.

Like with the basketweave we spent the first hour or so scraping out all the little bits of thinset that were still poking their way out of the cracks between tile we had missed during the tile laying process

And then we started the TERRIBLE task of grouting. To date, I think this may be my least favorite project. I was totally gung-ho and encouraging in the beginning. But by the end I was cursing at the tile, calling it names, and about ready to give up. It was a long long long long long process that was not fun at ALL

(I recently cut my hair even shorter than it already was. Apparently having strands of hair that were 6-9 inches was too much for me to deal with because I’m too lazy and so I got a SUPER short pixie cut. I now frequently wake up with a mohawk in the morning).

Once all the grout was in and Chris and I had sufficiently cursed the tile, it was time to wipe allllllll that haze off. And we wiped. And wiped. And wiped. And wiped. And wiped. It was NEVER ENDING

Can you tell in the 1/2″ sliver of Chris’ face you can see how annoyed he is at this whole process?

But thank GOD by the end of today (yes, two days later) I finally got all that friggin’ haze off our damn walls and the tile looks AMAZING all grouted

I absolutely LOVE how it all looks. I love the color of the wall tile with the floor (I am SO happy we hunted for the gray dot instead of going with the black). I love the wall tile with the wall color. I love how it looks with the Schluter trim. I love it all. But, I HATED what it took to get there. So when we redo the bathroom in the back, will someone remind me how awful all this tiling was so we NEVER use basketweave or chair rail height tile again? Thanks. 🙂

I normally save art projects for my art blog, but because Chris and I build these out of wood, I figured they could fit in for a one time post.

My cousin Jackie gave birth a number of months ago, and I was WAY behind on her present (right before her baby shower in January when I was almost finished I broke it, damnit!). I finally finished it a month or two ago, but I had never gotten around to shipping it….I’m just a bad present giver!

My little second cousin’s (is that the baby of a cousin?) middle name is King, so I thought putting “King Max” would be pretty cute (and the paper on the red blocks is “king of hearts,” hehehe).

Finally finishing my cousin’s got me motivated to make another one for my good friend Krislyn’s baby (just UNDER a year ago we went to Lake Tahoe for her bachelorette party!) Krislyn is my fellow A’s fan, so I thought of COURSE her future son needed an A’s themed abacus

(I sell other abacus’ in my etsy shop)

I LOVE making these toys. I love the fun colors. I love that they’re all wood. I love that they’re educational. They’re just all around pretty damn awesome (if I do say so myself 🙂 ).

Well, Chris and I had a lot planned for this weekend, but it didn’t go QUITE as planned…..

The deck tear down wasn’t quite as easy as the last one, but it went smoothly until it came to ripping out the last concrete pier poured into the ground. Apparently this is the only thing on the house the previous owners did right. We battled with it for about 20 minutes, testing out quite a few methods to try and rip it out

Finally, we succeeded

It was pretty depressing. We’ve been getting really tired of microwave meals because we have no way of cooking any food. We also only have about one square foot of counter to prepare meals, so both of us are looking forward to have an operable kitchen. We’ll have to wait a bit longer now though 🙁