Bandana

Once upon a time I put Penny in a bandana. The end.

AGT

I have really been enjoying America's Got Talent this summer (hooray for summer TV). I was bummed to see Hannibal Means go home. He is someone who would be an amazing guest at a dinner party. Dave and I have been walking around saying "HAHN-ee-BALL MEEEANS" for a week now, so it's time I give him proper recognition here.

Celebrate yes!

Serious in Sepia

Why so glum?

Corn crash

The corn my brother planted in my garden has met its untimely demise. Last week, we found most of the corn lying flat on the ground. Brian's best guess was someone came into my backyard and stomped it down (malicious, I know). My best guess was raccoons (I'd just seen one in the neighborhood days earlier).

Turns out it was wind. And more of it came last weekend to finish the job. Sad.

I thought if we propped up some corn using those wire tomato thingys, we could salvage the corn. Wrong.

Hot hot hot

It was a hot one this week.

All decked out

It took just six hours for a new deck (minus the railing) to be put in place and that included allowing time for lunch. Speaking of which, figuring out what to prepare for lunch is often one of the most stressful parts about these projects because I need to perform (and it better be tasty).

Oh! And my dad removed that last stubborn floorboard by slicing through the nails with a recip saw.

Before. Well, just moments after before.

During. Drills up, gentlemen.

After. Yay to these guys and my dad.

Balance Beam

Deck rebuild starts tomorrow! But first, a picture from the recent past -- Penny as Shawn Johnson.

Go for the gold, P-dog!

Deck be gone

Replacing my deck seemed like one of those projects that would always be on my to-do list. And suddenly—POOF—the old deck is gone (thanks Brian and Dave!) and new wood is arriving today. Well, it isn't really gone; I still have a huge pile of wood to throw away.

Like with most of my projects, I sent pictures to my dad for some long-distance consulting. He could charge for this stuff (not me, of course :), but maybe my siblings...hehe).

This is one of the pics I sent my dad. The problem: How on earth do we get that last floor board out of there?

Clean up

If you roll around in stinky stuff, you're gonna get a bath. Got that?