blinds and leaking windows

Yesterday people moved in to the last of the six townhouses across the street from us.  The houses were being framed when Dd was born in 2018 and the first people moved in in March 2020, just when everyone with the option, shifted to working from home.  Blinds became very important, for us and for them!

Gather round, while I tell you the story of our blinds and the leaky windows behind them.

We bought our blinds in four batches from The Shade Store between Dec. 2018 and Sept. 2020, because they are not cheap, even with Jack's professional discount.  Prior to that we had paper blinds on the second floor and no window coverings on the third floor.   I mentioned the new neighbors across the street but our downhill neighbors also had trouble adjusting to the reduction of privacy caused by our house.  In the first year, on two occasions they asked us not to open our (cumbersome, rarely opened, paper blinds) so that they could have privacy in their yard, and I think their house which has few curtains.  We said we were saving up to buy blinds and they offered to split the cost with us.   We declined and pointed out that virtually no one in our neighborhood has outdoor privacy.  Yikes.

Our windows started leaking a little over a year after we moved in.  I am still annoyed that they apparently did a crap job installing them, but I am thankful that all of the cost of repair, which must be ridiculously high at this point, has been covered by the subcontractor.   2020 reminded us that there are worse problems to have.   As I write this, I only know of one leaking window in the house, behind the kitchen stove, and I am expecting a call about it tomorrow.

Let's mix it up by going top to bottom, rather than in chronological order!

On the third floor we installed white painted boards just below the highest windows and attached the blinds to them.  This means that we can never block out all of the sunlight, which is fine for the third floor, with the exception of a few late summer dinners where the sun is in just the wrong place.   We did this because the west windows of the kitchen, where there are actually three stacked windows are too tall for any of the type of blinds we wanted to buy, and top-down electric blinds don't exist.  The opening at the top doesn't intrude on privacy and in the summer we keep the operable upper windows that are kid-safe and rain-safe open almost all the time.   I'm pleased by how you can't really see the wood we mounted the blinds on at all.

Jan. 2019 and May 2019 with Dd brightening things up

We did the third floor west wall blinds in Jan. 2019 and the third floor north wall blinds in March of 2020, which was good timing with the new neighbors across the street.

At one point, I thought we should wait until the windows were all fixed before spending money on nice blinds, but it seems unwise to put any hopes on the end of window repairs.

To appreciate the blinds in our bedroom, I must include some picture of just how bad the west wall of our bedroom has looked at different points.  

Here is the initial water damage from Dec. 2017, which prompted the first round of  window-repair scaffolding for about 2 months at the beginning of 2018 (when I very much wanted to take first-trimester naps at lunch time but there were men inside and outside my windows).

Aug 2018, "fresh" $5 paper blinds                                               March 2019 "black out" paper 

                                                                                                      while Dd shared our room  

The fall of 2018, when Dd was a newborn, was the third attempt at fixing the bedroom corner leak.  A guy from a new crew took the complaint seriously and cut out the drywall in the corner, going up about three feet to trace the leak.  I guess I was too annoyed by the window and enamored by Dd to take a picture of it.  It remained all chopped up for months though.  At some point they replaced the drywall, but it leaked again (along with others) and they came back with the scaffolding (round 2) in Sept. 2019.

May 2019 - blinds that open from the top or bottom!

Sept. 2019, nice blinds with scaffolding

During this second round of scaffolding they accidentally broke the window over the front door.  Then the took it out, realized it would be better to leave it in until the replacement came, re-installed the broken window and ordered a replacement without measuring the window.  The very large replacement then came and did not fit, so it was taped up in Seahawks colors for several weeks but did not guillotine anyone walking in or out the door.

Here's Dd enjoying scaffolding round 2, just before his 1st birthday.

Moving now to the office, we installed the blinds in March 2020.   Unlike the third floor, where we were able to hike the patches in the wall where we had to cut out drywall to put in the wiring, in the office the holes were much closer to the ceiling where a picture would look quite odd.   

Here's a picture where you can't see the patch in the wall!

So how do we like the blinds?  Mostly they are great and we can't believe how long we made it without them on the third floor where it's easy to be blinded by the sun or feel like you're in a fishbowl.  The electric blinds really are pretty cool.  They have a remote and so you can raise or lower a whole batch of blinds with a few clicks and you can program them to close or open at certain times of the day.  In the office, two of the blinds open halfway every morning so that the plants I have by my desk get sunlight even on weekends when I would forget about them.

On the other hand, they have a sticking problem and a couple of them look like this when they are lowered.   After a few agonizing minutes they mostly unstick themselves, but it looks pretty terrible at first.   The company readily sent out replacements for this issue and for the cases where their measurements were wrong.   We ended up deciding to stick with the stickiness and used the replacements on other window, so we got a couple of free shades for our cheapness.

All that remains is to keep getting the windows fixed and to put up the five blinds on the south wall of the kitchen, which have been sitting in the office, waiting for us to make time for them.  It will be interesting because we'll be putting glass behind the stove but over the blind, to protect it from cooking.  Wish us luck!

Dd turned 2!

Dd turned 2 in October and we managed a socially distanced (bring your own food) party with close family up at Jack's family's property, near Cle Elum.  I was happy to share it with my family and delighted to learn that it was Jack's (maternal) grandma's first visit after 30 years of Jack's mom and step dad being together.

The balloons were popped quickly

model social distancing

GG dressed for the parade walk my mom lead

Dd remains a delight.  His particular interests are trucks and infrastructure like heating systems and drains of all kinds.   

He's a good sleeper, a good eater and a pretty happy kid.  His most common malapropism is "pick my body out" (instead of "up" which is usually when he's hungry and we're trying to cook).   The song we are most sick of singing is Old MacDonald, which is mostly about trucks, not animals.  Our copy of "Machines Go To Work in the City" is heavily taped and much-loved by Dd as it was by D.  Being a second child seems to work well for Dd and he has been exposed to bad knock knock jokes at an earlier age.  His are all about food and don't have a punchline.

As is typical, his verbal skills have rocketed up this year and he recognizes most letters and numbers.   Our present to him was a three-wheeled scooter and he has learned to actually coast on it, although the breaking is not yet reliable.   His hair only just grew long enough to be cut and he continues to resemble Jack as a kid.

zip strips are holding us down and keeping us stationary!

I know we have much more serious issues facing us, but here's an annoying little thing in our lives.  In July, we returned home from a getaway with our bikes safely attached to our car.  After taking them off the bike rack, we somehow lost our bag of plastic clips that attach the bikes to the rack.    We realized they were gone in August.  We've searched and organized the basement, but I think we must have left them outside or on the car perhaps.  In any case, they are literally impossible to buy and this is the first time we've ever encountered this in our spoiled little lives.

We ordered them in August and they were supposed to come in October, and now that site says they will come in March.   We ordered some more on Amazon, but we are pretty sure they are just lying about having them in stock as the shipment is just inexplicably delayed now.

We've tied the bikes on to the rack once but it was pretty hard and time consuming and still didn't feel very secure.  Considering that it takes us a really long time to just load the bikes, drive somewhere and unload them, even at the best of times, we will be riding from home for the foreseeable future.

On the other hand, considering the shortage of all things bike related, we did have a lot of good bike buying luck this year.  I bought a new bike in January,  just before the bottom dropped out. In addition to the uber feminine "acid strawberry" color, it has frame dimensions for women, which I've learned is essential for me  (no more reaching way forward for the handlebars, while having the seat all the way up).

The kids are growing like weeds so we've been changing bike set ups a lot.   In April we got D a used bike for a good price that was borderline too big (24" wheels), but a month later seemed just right for him.  Within a couple of months he was shifting gears pretty well.  Dd showed that he had outgrown the Burley trailer by being able to stick his foot out to reach the back tire of the parent towing him, or smooshing the side of the trailer so that the wheel rubbed.  So we sold that and bought and bought a used Weehoo trailer, also in April. Then in August we bought D a really nice used  (Burley piccolo) ride-along for a great price as well.  It is way more stable than the $40 ride along we bought last year and can fit him for a few years.  It even has gears!   With both kids in trailers we can safely ride from home.

Soos Creek trail in January.  D is on the ride-along because there were hills and he didn't have a gear bike yet.

First time on the big bike on the Green River trail in April

We did the Green River trail again

This was the last trip where we had the clips, in July.

We rode in Yelm in July

Dd started on D's old strider bike.

Riding in our neighborhood in October with D on the new ride-along

kitchen upgrades

We’ve been cooking more than ever during this pandemic.  Jack and I went on a dinner date in February and we get takeout every other week or maybe less.  It always seems like a good idea when we're busy, but then the money and time it takes to decide what to get, to order it and maybe to pick it up often doesn't feel like that much of a time saver.  

Restaurants have been open in King County with lots of restrictions, but they don't sound appealing, especially with the kids.  A year ago, my favorite place to eat was the Whole Foods hot food bar, but that is also not a realistic option these days.

Anyway, we like to double recipes and cook big portions so we've now outgrown several kitchen things.  The instant pot doesn't build up pressure if it is more than about 2/3 full and literally not being able to stir a soup in the dutch oven for lack of space is quite annoying.  If you make a one pot meal, it has to be a pretty big pot :)

Happily we were able to sell our 6 quart Instant Pot and put the money towards a 10 quart model.  My goal is to use it every day so that Jack won't put it away in the cupboard.

We also used our 4 cup glass measuring cup so much that all of the lines and numbers wore off and when I went to replace it I saw an 8 cup measuring cup with a lid, so I went with that.  It's great.

Lastly, we just welcomed our 13.25 quart cauldron, which we considered for about six months before finally seeing a real sale on the non-doll-house-sized le creusets!

We are ready for a new president

Actually we are beyond ready.  

D was quite curious and engaged with many of our voting decisions and the whole political process, listening in on the politics podcast Jack frequently listens to.  

It’s interesting to watch much of the rest of the country start working from home and voting by mail/drop box. Just as I am totally accustomed to working from home already it’s hard to remember when we had to vote in person.  

the series of the moment

No, not the world series .... books!

The Seattle Public Library finally opened up a few weeks ago for curbside pickup.  I've been going once a week to pick up holds and D's rate of reading and the fact that there's no browsing has been keeping me on my toes.   My mom has also brought us lots of new books for the last few months since the King County Libraries opened earlier.

For better or worse, children's chapter books seem to be all in series so I've had to get organized about tracking which books he's already read.  To celebrate D's reading and to keep track of future books for Dd, here are the series we've been reading.  He reads a lot of these in about an hour, so finding age appropriate stories that can keep him busy for longer periods of time is getting tougher.   

Series We Have Read Several of:

• Dog Man - graphic novels with witty pun titles referencing classic titles like "Brawl of the Wild", these are probably D's favorites
• CatStronauts - also graphic novels that make D laugh, set in space
• Captain Awesome - I don't really know but D seemed to enjoy them
• Sherlock Sam - these have a higher level vocabulary and have been mostly read aloud books.  They are set in Singapore.
• The Clubhouse Mysteries/Black Dinosaurs - We started out reading these aloud and then he kept finishing them on his own.  The characters are pre-teens who keep getting into scrapes.

Series We Have Just Started:

• Desmond Cole - ghost stories - we've read one and look forward to more
• Luciana -  science adventures
• Cam Jansen - I think I read some of these as a kid and they are plentiful, quick mystery reads
• Upside-down Magic - a misfit girl with magical powers
• Lemonade Wars - set in a the real world, with lots of math embedded in the story

Books We Want to Read:

• Redwall
• Narnia
• Trumpet of The Swans -- one I still remember that is not part of a series!!
• Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter - we'll continue with these when the time is right

Lastly the category of books we have read 5,000 times is brought to you by Dd.  All four of us can recite “machines go to work in the city” by heart. 

Did you see highly camouflaged D in this last picture?   Boo!

beach - smoke - beach - sickness

As noted, September has a miserable amount of wildfire smoke.  Dd brought home a cold that knocked me down as well.  Miraculously we managed two little getaways exactly in the gaps without smoke or sickness.

At Grayland Beach State park (Yurt 118) we had relaxing time wandering the beach and visiting with my sister and brother in law.  Packing was even on the simpler sides since we shared dinners, didn't pack all the normal tent camping sleeping gear or our bikes.   It was a little cool, but that suited us.

Two weeks later we took the new Argosy small ferry to Blake Island and met my parents there, who kindly carried most of our gear.  They have probably taken their boat there four or five times this season since it is one of their closest getaways from Des Moines.  We had planned to camp two nights but the smoke didn't let up until Saturday morning and Dd's cold improved a lot Friday evening, so we were pleasantly surprised to make it there for one night of camping.  Because of the recent departure of the smoke and a rainy Friday night, the very popular park was nearly empty on Saturday and Sunday morning, which was a treat.  We played on the beach, hiked a bit and spent some good time with my parents.   We had a gorgeous site (#28) and set up our tarp very successfully because there was a bit of rain.  We bought a new tent at the end of last season and this was our second time using it and our first time testing it in the rain and worked very well (unlike the tent it replaced, which would have been miserable in a serious rain).  No one could say we slept well, but compared to our camping trip last August, it was a big improvement.