"Garbage Plants"

While I had hoped to put in a full garden this year, that didn't exactly happen. I did, however, plant a pair or cabbage plants and a few little planters of herbs. Lily helps me to take care of the plants, and she is very good about reminding me to water them. She likes the herbs, but she is especially fond of her "garbage plants." I've reminded her numerous times that they're called "cabbage," but she just can't quite seem to remember that yet....

House Renovations

We've been doing some work on our house lately. (Well, we've been doing some work on our house for what seems like most of the past year, it's just been recently that we've been able to see a few projects through to completion -- or near completion!)

Our first major project was a re-doing of the garage. We put up a wall to add in an office and a library. Both rooms are nice sized, and it's wonderful to have a place for all of our books (which had been stored in about a dozen plastic totes since we moved) and a quiet place to work that is attached to the house, yet still separated enough from the house to be quiet and allow for some real work and productivity.

Given that the remaining portion of the garage wasn't quite large enough to still accommodate the cars, we decided to turn that into a usable living space as well. It's essentially a den/game room at this point, which is nice....

We also recently did a major overhaul on some of the floors in the house. When we bought the house, we knew that there were hardwoods underneath the carpets and we had the general intention of pulling up the carpets and refinishing the wood floors. A couple of weeks ago, we actually began to tackle that project. We pulled up the carpet in two of the bedrooms and the hallway, sanded, and refinished the floors. We're quite pleased with the results, and we're very happy to be one step closer to being an allergen-free house! Only one more bedroom, a living room, and a dining room to go....