Our Second Visitor

This past week was a flurry of activity, most of it not blog-worthy, as we prepared to have our second guest in the house, the first since really doing any work. Sorry, Chris! (he visited while we had no floors, helped us move, and we put him to work!)

This visit was much more relaxing as we spent a day and a half with Scott's lovely Aunt Patty. Her visit motivated us to turn the tool bench in the dining room back into a dining room table and finish up some odds and ends we've been procrastinating on, but most importantly, her visit meant the house got its first deep clean.

I've mentioned several times how often I dust/vacuum and yet there is a perpetual layer of dust on everything, so I had to go all out cleaning so I wouldn't scare off Patty and any future guests! The cleaning took most of our week last week, but I should note that it was also because there was so much stuff that we had to find a place for (primarily tools).

We did have one exciting event... Clover caught her first snake! I have a feeling he was near his hole in the flower bed and she nabbed him and drug him out. I saw her from the kitchen window playing with something black and round, and once the round thing uncurled, I realized it was a snake and jumped into action. I ran outside, grabbed her and carried her, screaming, inside. While inside I grabbed a basket of chips from the pantry, dumped the chips and headed out to capture the snake. Luckily, he was back to slithering around so no basket was needed, he just shook his tail at me and crawled back in his hole.

Once Patty arrived we had a day and a half of good food, good company, and thankfully good weather!

We took her boating on Friday and enjoyed the view of the chilly turquoise water while sipping mimosas. Scott fished a little and we saw one dolphin, but we mostly enjoyed the sunshine and the breeze.

Scott smoked a pork loin on the egg for dinner and I cooked roasted sweet potatoes, green beans with prosciutto and shallots, and whipped up a salad (read: poured it from the bag).

Patty left early Saturday morning, leaving us with the weekend for work. My parents swung by and helped us put the drawer slides in the island and visited for a bit, and when they left Scott and I were pretty wiped, we binged some Netflix (we highly recommend The Serpent if you like true(ish) crime).

This morning we were back to work early after I ventured out to see that my desert rose had its first bloom (thank you Rhonda and Bob!), and checked my limes. There are so many tiny limes, I can't wait until they're big enough to eat!

We finished assembling and putting in all of the drawers in the island after a trip to Lowe's this morning.

I do love the soft-close slides!

With the drawers done, we needed to start on the fronts, which required a zero-clearance throat plate for the table saw (which we don't have), so it was back to Lowe's for a piece of plexiglass (idea curtesy of Padre).

Scott used the scroll saw to cut the plexiglass in the shape we needed then we took a trip to Ace hardware for screws and a heat gun. He used the heat gun to make the plexiglass pliable so he could push the screws in flush with the top of the throatplate, making a smooth surface to push the wood on. Once that was done he slowly rose the blade (with the new throat plate on) until it had cut through the throat plate. A couple test pieces were cut, and he determined it's not perfect, but it'll do!

He still needs to make a cross-cut sled for the table saw before we can start on the drawers, but that shouldn't be too hard. He has to work tonight so I'm on the couch with the dog and cat, listening to the thunderstorm outside (that we desperately needed).

This week we received a request for "full room photos" (love you, Slim!) that I have been avoiding due to the tools and mess in the background of every room and the true lack of finished, well, anything. After Patty's visit I can say the house is mostly clean, still nothing is decorated, a ton of our stuff is still in storage, and not a single room is done. All of that aside, my goal is to take some full-room photos this week in the daylight (I did try tonight, but the storm is not doing me any favors!), so keep an eye out for those!