Talon's Sea World Trip

When I was in the second grade we lived next door to my mom's really good friend Marina. Marina and her husband Dan didn't have any children. Marina was from Germany, and her brother (or maybe it was her sister) and his wife (or her husband, whatever) and their two children came to visit to go on a California trip. For some reason, I was invited along. It was a really wonderful trip. Even though the two girls only spoke German, I don't remember it being a problem - we were still able to communicate and play. We went to Sea World, Disneyland, the beach, and who knows where else.

I've always wanted to pass it forward. That is the first (and so far, only) time I've been to Disneyland. It's one of those places that I've meant to get back to, but it just never really happened (I must not want it that badly). I have a number of nieces and nephews. Some live out of state, and some have had an opportunity and will likely have future opportunities for their own CA/theme park trips. But my one nephew Talon hasn't been and probably wouldn't have an opportunity to go. So I promised him that when he got older, I would take him.

The original plan had been for Disneyland, but when we took our San Diego trip in March, J scored free tickets to Sea World. So I thought I'd leave it up to Talon. When I saw him at Sunday night family dinner, I started to ask, "Hey Talon, do you want to go to Sea World, or would you rather go to Disneyland?" but I only got as far as, "Hey Talon, do you want to go to Sea World --" when he yelled, quite excitedly, "Heck yes!!"

Sea World it was.

We left Friday morning, went to the beach, spent Saturday at Sea World, and then drove home Sunday. It was just a short trip. Talon was actually well behaved, but he had normal ten-year-old habits that are just annoying. No fault of his own, it's just his age.

Can you see Shamu?

This kid loved the Shamu show.

Did I mention Jacob came along too? We had four free tickets.

I wore a swimsuit top. First of all, I knew we were going to get wet, and second of all I didn't want a weird tan. A woman looked me up and down and said, "A swimsuit! Great idea!"

Under the shark tunnel.

The Dirt Nerd was amazed with this tree.

He had this shirt specially made from one of the shops on the beach.

We passed the tree again and he had to admire it. Again.

I love Talon's face in this picture.

It was a good trip.

Clogged AC Drain, Insulation, and Chickens

Why are my house projects never-ending? Does everyone else do as much with their house? It's really my own fault. But sometimes I look around at my beautiful light fixtures, new bathrooms, wonderful shelves, and I think....my house is fabulous.

Monday through Thursday I was in San Antonio at our home office on a business trip. I worked a partial day Friday and then went home after lunch. Joseph and I took my truck to pick up some mulch. I didn't count how many wheelbarrows we filled and dumped in my truck, but it was ten to unload. J found the woman on a forum who was advertising the free mulch; she had extra from a large delivery. I asked J how much it cost to have mulch delivered. He said it was free, you just had to contact a tree removal place; they deliver it to you instead of paying to take it to a dump. I looked at him with narrowed eyes and said, "You mean someone could have delivered it to us for FREE instead of doing all that work to go get it?" J then informed me that we were gathering good karma by helping the woman out and taking the mulch off her hands.

The first thing we did Saturday was run to Lowe's.

Our first project was to take care of our AC drain line. We have two pipes that release water on the side of our house (which I very helpfully circled in red below). Usually the bottom pipe is the one that drains, but the top one started leaking, which we were told is a potential problem, since it's an indication the other one could be clogged. J went into the attic and saw that the drain pan had standing water, another bad sign. So we bought a wet vac and hosed it out.

You can also see the sunscreens we had added to our house recently. We're trying to cut back on the electricity bill, which brings us to project two.

We have been meaning to add insulation to the attic, and this weekend was slightly cooler and cloudy/rainy, so J thought it was a good opportunity to jump on that project. I'm pretty proud that I was able to get 20 bags of insulation, the insulation blower, the two hoses to the blower, and the wet vac in my truck and all tied down. We made it home without anything flying off. Admire it. Just admire it.

I fed the insulation into the blower while J was in the attic with the hose. This is the before shot. Afterwards his clothes were completely covered in dust and insulation.

This is during one of our breaks. He was drenched in sweat. It was not a fun job. It took about three hours and we had to break multiple times. One time we had to break because I got my fingers caught in the blower. It kept getting clogged, and I couldn't just keep stopping it and turning it back on, so I would quickly push it through and pull my fingers out. But I miscalculated once and I am so lucky to still have all the fingers on the left hand. It hurt like the dickens. (Who are the dickens and why do they hurt?)

We also have a big trash pick-up coming through so we did some yard work - trimming of trees/bushes, pulling weeds, general clean-up. J has been using Photoshop and has a master plan of our future backyard (to include an outside kitchen). I'm sure it will take years until it is how he wants it, but since the inside of our house is pretty much done, we may as well move outside. I just want a second shed and grass. But J is mad about trees. I think by the time he's done we're going to have a forest.

We also got some new chickens. Do you remember the old chickens (post found here - read the comments to find out what happened to them)? Well we have replaced them. I only wanted two but J found someone who was getting rid of three and she said they were good layers. We just got them yesterday and I already have two eggs!!!! Joseph made a rule that the eggs must be washed. Which makes me wonder if the eggs you buy from the store are washed. They do come from a chicken's butt...

My Truck

A couple weeks ago I was driving along in a parking lot minding my own business and a guy in a bigger truck backed into me.

Here it is before it was repaired.

And here is the after. It actually looks better than it did before - those weird marks around the wheel well have been there for awhile - I have no clue where they came from. And the little ding in the back has been there for awhile - I paid just a little extra to have that dent removed. So now one side of my truck is perfect.

I can't decide if I love it or if it's weird because now it doesn't match the rest of the truck that is showing its age with dings and wear. The guy who backed into me probably thinks I'm weird for getting it fixed, but that's a pretty big dent he put in there.

I think I love it.

I hurt my wrist but it was worth it

When we first looked at the house, I noticed the bathtub in the master bath was dirty. I figured it wasn't anything a good scrubbing couldn't take care of.

I was wrong.

It wasn't just dirty. There is a section in the bottom of the tub and another on one of the ledges where water settles in a pool and it has formed stains over the years. I tried everything. Bleach, apple cider vinegar, bar keeper's friend, magic eraser, soft scrub, magic bubbles, anything and everything, nothing worked. It was a serious issue for me. I googled and searched, tried different things mentioned on pinterest, but nothing helped.

Pinterest had helped me get candle wax out of my pants (that was an unfortunate incident that speaks to my clumsiness), helped me remove difficult laundry stains, but in this, it failed me. I made sure my shower curtain was always closed and I just resigned myself to a stained tub. I wondered how it would go over if we ever put the house on the market.

Well, I mentioned in my last blog that last Saturday I went to Abby's apartment to help her clean. Her husband's mother came over to help, and I was told she cleans houses for a living. I asked her what could be done for really stubborn bathtub stains. I had about a 15% hope that she could help, but I figured, eh, may as well just ask.

She told me she had a secret. My hope jumped to 75%. She showed me a stainless steel scrubber. My hope plummeted down to 3%. A stainless steel scrubber would scratch up my tub.

She went into the kitchen, where I had already scrubbed the laminate countertop with a regular lysol cleaner. She put some soft scrub down and started scrubbing with her stainless steel ball. She pulled up rust stains, and I was amazed. When she washed off the cleaner, I ran my hand over the laminate, expecting it to be torn up, but it was fine. My hope went up to 85%. I asked her where I could get a stainless steel scrubber.

She said she got them from Amway. You can't get them at a store, you have to special order them. Dangit.

Joseph and I had to go to Fry's later that day to buy food. I stopped in the cleaning aisle. And found...

Stainless steel scrubbers that looked exactly like what David's mom showed me. I was skeptical - it says for pots and pans! - would it ruin my tub? Eh, my tub is already gross, let's just try it.

I used some soft scrub I already had (it had failed me by itself) but combined with the stainless steel, I started to see an improvement. I scrubbed. And I scrubbed. And I scrubbed. I could only do about 5-10 minutes before my hand felt like it would fall off, so I did it over a course of six days. My stainless steel ball took a beating.

AND IT WORKED!!

This corner was seriously disgusting. Once I got the first brown layer off, there was an additional layer of crust I had to scrub off.

You can still kind of see the bottom stain. That is still a work in progress - it's a bit harder since we have that non-slip stuff on the bottom. But it looks 100 times better than it did.

I'm so bummed I didn't take before pictures. But my bathtub was nasty. Who would have thought to take a picture of that? I did find a photo on the internet....

My tub wasn't that bad. But it was that brownish color that I just could not get rid of.

I had to wear a brace to work because my wrist was killing me by Thursday night. But it was worth it. Now my clean tub matches my gorgeous bathrooms.

I can't believe it didn't scratch my tub to pieces. I'm so glad it worked. Now I can actually feel like I'm clean after my bath. Sometimes when I go into my bathroom, I just stare at the tub and grin like a fool. Because I can leave the curtain open now.