Chomp!

Time ain't always on my side. Two babies tell me what to do and when to do it. I have 6 lamps I need to make for a dood in Australia. He's being patient, and by that I mean, he didn't reply to my last email that said, "I don't know man... another 4 weeks? 5 weeks?" My mominlaw needs pegboards put up in garage. Nate needs his butt wiped and Claire needs to go to gymboree. And the two cute gymboree nannies that actually talk to me are gonna stop nannying, and leave me with the old grumps. And there are about 12 trees that need to be cut down in the backyard, and hauled out to the street in two days, for "large brush pickup day". In steps my new best friend, the alligator lopper.



My brah Lopper and I did a number on the backyard. A serious serious number. That back fence was mostly invisible, but now very visible after Lopper's chainsaw mouth did its stuff. Sadly, the lopper is not a magic lopper that would make each limb turn to fairy dust as it hit the ground, so he left it up to me to haul to the front yard. Planning on doing this on a Thursday evening, then watching loud rock music that will start at midnight. It's a bad mix, and I know this going in, but after the double nanny dis, an old man needs something to look forward to. And for this old man, it's The Damn Times.

Gittin Horizontal. Gittin Vertical.

Due to our maxed out growing family, our 1300 square foot house, and heavy influx of visitors (mainly of the grandparent variety), we had to add on to our home, and make every square inch work hard. Sometimes pull some double duty. So pa and I built a murphy bed!



AND when it was done, it worked! It goes up. It goes down. It can be slept on. It can be high fived over.



Here's a shot from a post overnight stay.



When guests are away, the desk comes back to life, and the bedroom turns into an office.



Someday there will be a little storage area next to ole Murphy's bed, but only Murphy knows when that will be. He also created this law that deemed Nate shall wake up twice during the night since I'm illin'. You've got a funny way, Murph.

Gettin Bigger and Balder

This was pretty cool yesterday... The kids section of Apartment Therapy, called Ohdeedoh, wrote a little thing on the kitchen I made for Claire. I've been reading that goofy ole blog for years and years, so you know. It's at least pretty cool to me! They said lots of nice things, which is music to my ears, as these days I hear a lot of baby crying and two year old yelling, which is quickly becoming white noise to my ears.

In other "Made for Claire" news, I made this table rather quickly, out of a piece of plywood and an old herman miller swivel chair base I bought at a garage sale about a year ago. I tried really hard make the swivel part not swivel (as the table ends up not level as it spins), but with two year old tyrants, that didn't last. I'm assuming Claire and her hoodlum toddler clan will be throwing this table through her new window soon.