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Ready for Halloween?

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Our next door neighbors house is all decorated and ready for Halloween. I just noticed that they had decorated yesterday.

Their daughter is two and a half this Halloween so I guess they figure she’s old enough to enjoy the holiday. I haven’t seen them yet so I don’t know what they’re dressing her up as, but I’m sure she’ll be cute since she’s an adorable little girl.

I really like the pumpkins that are on my neighbors front porch. Instead of one or two large carved pumpkins they have 6 or 7 small pumpkins that have painted designs on them. It looks really nice. LOL they usually have things like power wheels and dolls on their porch so the decorated pumpkins are a big change.

We used to decorate our house, but we haven’t for the last few years. We don’t have kids so it seems like a lot of work for just one day. Still .. maybe we’ll haul out the decorations.

Do you decorate for Halloween? Or whether you do or don’t decorate, do you answer the door at Halloween and give the trick or treaters some candy?

I’m starting to wonder about my new neighbors

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I’m really starting to wonder what’s up with our new neighbors. They’ve owned the house next door to us for close to 6 months now and they still haven’t moved in.

If they were doing constant renovations I could understand why they haven’t moved in yet, but they only seem to come to the house lately every three weeks or so and only for few hours.

When they first got the keys to the house they started rewiring the house. The house has or had old Knob and Tube wiring and he’s ever so slowly replacing it with up to date wiring … but 6 months? Whiles he’s been doing that, she’s been stripping the paint off the molding in each room and the front door.

From the look of things I think they’ve punched holes and done work in pretty much each room of the house … so even if they did want to move in their house is in no way ready to move in. LOL

Maybe they’re feeling a little in over their heads? I mean, when they first bought the house they were coming by to work on the house every weekend – All day Saturday and Sunday. However, like I said above now they’re only coming by once every three weeks or so for a few hours.

I’m actually starting to wonder if they’re really going to move in or if they’re starting to think of their house as an income property. I sure hope they don’t rent it out. We’ve had it with living beside renters!

Anyway, they did come by earlier today for a couple of hours and they had something with them that looked like I don’t know … one of those commercial pumps. I have no idea what they’d be using that for, but that’s what it looked like. Gee I hope they aren’t about to tear out the plumbing or pipes and the pump is for the flooding they’re expecting. LOL

What would you think if you had new neighbors that barely came to their new house in the 6 months that they owned it? I think it’s kind of strange.

Time to put that stinky organic brew on my garden

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I’ll be spending some time in the garden this weekend. It’s time to put some alfalfa tea on the garden beds.

I have two big plastic garbage cans of alfalfa tea brewing in my driveway. Alfalfa apparently has some kind of organic growth hormone in it and it just gives plants a huge boost. It’s the only thing I use to fertilize my garden. Well .. other than some home made compost and sometimes manure. LOL

It’s easy to make too – just add about four cups of alfalfa pellets to a large garbage can, fill with water and stir daily for two to three weeks. I also add some molasses ( it helps combat some of the fermentation) and sometimes – usually in late spring, I add some Epsom salts to the mix.

the only problem with the alfalfa tea is the smell. If you don’t stir it and aerate it daily as it’s “brewing” it can really get stinky. Even well stirred brew smells. When I put it on the garden I have to put on protective clothing to guard against smell splashes, and I tend to apply it to my garden in the evening – usually after dinner time. Why? Well since it smells I’m trying to spare my neighbors some of the bad smell … if I put it on the garden after dinner most of my neighbors who would be affected by the smell are indoors watching tv.

So .. sometime this weekend I’ll be applying the smelly alfalfa tea that I’ve been brewing to my garden. I’ll give it a little water afterwords – as it seems to help ton down the smell. Then .. about four or five days after my application my garden will start to look great. I’ll see new growth on my roses and the leaves of all my plants will look nice and healthy.

Do you ever treat your garden to an organic fertilizer like alfalfa tea?

I don’t think I could live through a huge home renovation

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I’m watching a show on TV about a contractors point of view on big home renovations. The show goes over a renovation from start to finish.


The episode I’m watching is about a couple that wants to add an addition to their house, expand the house out over their garage and put a pool in their backyard. Big job. Naturally they’re having problems with their neighbors over the trees of all things.

I think if I was going through a reno that big I’d be dipping my face in the best wrinkle cream I could find each night … so stressful! So expensive. Plus whatever estimate a contractor give you at the start of a job always goes up. I’ve heard you should plan for at least a 25% increase … so if you’re getting a renovation done and a contractor estimates that it will cost $100,000 to complete the job be prepared to end up paying out $125,000 or more.

I’m so glad we were able to do most of our own renovations ourselves. Of course when it comes to renovating our kitchen we might have a professional come in and do half the work. We’ll see.

Have you ever gone through a huge renovation .. like tearing half your house down and adding an addition? How long did it take? How much did you age as you worried over things?

New neighbors coming soon

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It looks like we’re going to have new neighbors soon. Yeah … I hate having an empty house beside us … of course I hated our bad renter neighbors even more.

The couple who bought the house came by earlier this evening. I think it was their first visit since the house officially became theirs. I have no idea when they might move in though – maybe this weekend.

If they’re like us, they’d be smart to keep their current house, apartment or condo for another month and start some renovations before they move in. That’s what we did and it’s amazing how much we got done in one month! We knocked down three walls, tore out all the carpeting and sanded and then put polyurethane down on the wood floors, painted every room of the house, got electrical work done to replace all of the old knob and tube wiring and had some new duct work done.

Wow … I think that’s everything we did .. I might be missing some stuff but that’s the main things we did to our house in a month before we moved in. mostly on our own!

I was rail thin by the time that month was over … oh and we each only took two weeks off so we also worked for the last two weeks of that month.

I had to drag my husband kicking and screaming into our big home renovation. I think he would have rather sat back and taken a enzyte, but in the end he really liked getting his hands dirty and had a feeling of accomplishment at how different our house looked once we were done .. oh and it looked good. It’s all open now instead of having tiny little rooms on the main floor.

Anyway, I have no idea if the new neighbors will renovate or not – but knowing the house they bought as well as I do, I think it would be in their best interest to renovate as the house needs work.

I just hope they’re nice. We have to share a driveway and considering the driveway is only about 10 feet wide our houses are very close together .. so the better we get along the better for all.

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