Abloom

I have white lilies! It has been such a treat to see what will bloom in my various new flower beds. I always wanted pink lilies. At the old house I had red, yellow, and orange. At the mini-farm? Pink AND white! As well as lots of columbine, daisies, roses, other lilies, and maybe a hydrangea!

Ready, set, ride

I must admit that my mind was completely blown on Sunday. Remember when I was told that the track would be completed by Sunday evening? IT WAS!!! I didn't think it could happen by the looks of it when I returned home from work that morning. It was a big muddy mess of dirt piles. After just a few hours of Sean and the Magic Bobcat, it now looks like one of the sweetest mini-bike tracks I have ever seen! Ok, that's not saying much as I've only seen a few, but I heard the same opinion from much more credible sources than myself. In fact, I think I even heard "best in the Midwest". Wow! I'm pretty excited for Brad to be able to enjoy it and get it all broken in. Sean R has got some maaaad track building skills. As soon as the rain let's up for a solid 24 hours and the mud dries out, I'm sure there will be a fest of pictures of happy riders!

Must vent. Sorry, no picture.

I think today gets the fail-whale when it comes to my goal of having the trim stripped/sanded/painted. We tried, really we did. I'll share the process, but do NOT repeat it at home, as I'm pretty sure it was incorrect. Mistake #1 was painting the walls before the trim. I got antsy to be rid of the yellow with gold metallic accent swooshes. When we started on the trim we realized that the stripper and the sander were buggering up the wall paint. Oh well, nothing a few little touch ups won't fix. #2 was the whole stripping process. Messy, fumey, and maybe not even entirely necessary. Yuck. It went on ok with a paintbrush but once we started scraping it off, it was just a gooey mess. Mistake #3 was the scraping of the stripping agent. Mom and I spent all day scraping. Still not done. However, in comes dad and saves the day by suggesting we use steel wool pads with mineral spirits. It looks like that will do the trick and remove the varnish from all the wood trim, widow sills, doors, etc. We have given up for the night though and will get at it again tomorrow afternoon. Brad fell asleep on Willa's floor doing the hand holding that she requests every night and I ate cold leftover Chinese food by myself in the dark. Painting trim makes me crabby. Fingers crossed for success tomorrow!

Never question our priorities

Diving right in to the first project on the list of anyone doing a major home renovation has got to be...the dirtbike track.  Ha!  Just kidding!  That turned up about 79th on my list, but 1st on Brad's so we averaged it out and it came immediately following pulling some weeds, starting a mini-garden, and fixing the toilet paper dispenser thingy.  Not even kidding.  But, it is kind of a cool process and I am so glad that we have the space for it, so I will try to stop my whining and complaining.  Now, if only it would stop raining!  The above picture is the before shot of the location of the track.  It was the giant garden of the previous owners.  Man, that sucker was huge and overgrown!  So, we decided to do a small, raised bed garden on the opposite side of the yard (pictures to come) and use this space for the track.  Now would be the perfect time for Brad to guest-blog so that this post would be more technical and accurate but that will probably never happen, so I will relay what I have witnessed happening in the process thus far.  It goes like this:
1.  Talk a lot about Bobcats.
2.  Find someone who has a Bobcat.
3.  Bring home the Bobcat and talk about it some more.
4.  Give Allison's parking space to the Bobcat.
5.  Drink beer.
6.  Have Sean come and drive the Bobcat all over and make some mounds of dirt.
7.  Drink beer.
8.  Have Sean, Ben, Nick, Darren, Travis, etc come over and look at the dirt mounds. 
9.  Have the aforementioned individuals attempt to ride a dirtbike on the dirt mounds. 
10.  Drink beer.
11.  Break the first Bobcat.
12.  Have 6 motorcycle mechanics look at the Bobcat and determine they can't fix it.
13.  Drink beer.
14.  Rent a Bobcat.
15.  Use the rental Bobcat to push the broken Bobcat out of the way.
16.  Drink beer.

So, that is where we are at this morning.  I have been promised that this project will be done this evening.

A New Beginning For Old Van Boenings

Its official!  The Lincoln mini-Van Boening family has relocated!  It was quite the process, one that didn't seem real until the keys were in hand and we were standing in the driveway on June 1st but IT HAPPENED and that's all that matters at this point.  We are finally getting in the groove of a totally different way of life.  A home in the country wasn't really something we had ever given a lot of serious thought too.  I think personally I always considered it to be either too expensive or too much work or too long of a drive.  Then we saw the N 14th house and instantly fell in love with the idea of it.  Barely outside of town.  A huge yard, but not so much as to be intimidating.  The right direction for work and family.  And the potential to fit with our lifestyles was mind-boggling.  An attached garage in which to park cars?!?  A shop for Brad?!?  A garden?!?  Space to picture things like composters, chicken coops, dirtbike track, kiddie pools, fire pits, hammocks...So many possibilities.  So we decided to bite the bullet and make it ours.  Then, begrudgingly, many months later the bank decided to let it be ours.  Words of advice to anyone who wants to buy in a rural area, keep some serious records of all deposits made to your bank accounts throughout the loan process.  Don't throw away any paperwork.  Make sure both spouses have several credit references.  Very important. 

So...new house, new lifestyle, new blog!  We have several projects lined up to update the home and property.  The house was owned by an older couple who really had a thing for frilly curtains, yellow paint, and privacy.  We do not have a thing for any of those things.  Hopefully we can share some before and after pictures of our projects, and some pictures of the get-togethers that we are excited to have the space to host.  As well as the obligatory adorable Willa pictures, maybe the occasional picture of a dog that is longer than most dogs, and other events from our day to day lives.  But mostly just a place for me to reflect upon the process of building a home, a family, and trying to find peace and simplicity in amongst our life of busy-ness and chaos. 

God speed...