Busy Bees

Mark has been a busy bee these past few weeks.  I've teased him about being an Energizer Bunny, he just keeps going and going and going and....

First outdoor project was placing cedar logs to edge the driveway.  In the course of cutting the monster logs for the porch posts, we ended up with a few extra.  Mark also had to cut several for the clearance for the power line to the house.  So, in an effort to put them to good use, he decided they would be nice to "edge" the driveway (don't most people just use bricks?).

Next project up was moving the huge boulders that were left in our front yard after construction.  Mark decided to build cairns with them, only slightly larger than your typical cairns!  These make a nice entry way into the one day more landscaped area of our yard.

Then for Labor Day we tackled the garage, one more time!  I WISH I had gotten a picture of it when it was totally packed full of boxes, furniture, doors, windows, appliances and all the things that have slowly worked their way into our house.  We felt we were ready to do the final clean out, at least until springtime.  Several boxes made their way into the basement for further organizing, and other things made their way into the basement because the mice have already started moving into the garage and I didn't want blankets, photos or books shredded by nesting mice.  Most things have finally found a home in the house, in a place where they will be used or admired.  We have taken a large load to Goodwill after we had moved it to the house, but I guess that is to be expected.  I still have a huge pile of school stuff in the basement as well.  Most is specific to elementary or to special ed, so it isn't pertinenet to my current job.  Since I'd like to get back to elementary and/or special ed, I'm not ready to get rid of much of it at this time though.  I have no plans to show pictures of the mess in the basement!  The garage is now ready for Mark to build his workbench, and I think he's out buying lumber as I type so he can start this next project!

My favorite of his recent projects has to be the bookcases!  We realized we had both given away all of our bookcases before we moved out here.  We also got rid of a lot of books, but we are both book fans, so they have already started accumulating.  With no bookcases in the house, books were some of the last items left in the garage, but we quickly decided where we wanted bookcases in the loft.  Mark has built these shelves on both sides of the loft, and while I think we will need more book space, this is a great start!  I love the open backs on them, but Mark is wanting to put a back on the shelves.  We are going to live with them open for awhile before we decide.

While he's been working hard on this multiplicity of projects, I've been trying to get used to my new job, reading curriculum, grading papers and the other daily stuff of life.  However, Saturday morning I did get busy and finally mounted some photos in the house, which was a big excitement for me!  I want to have photos in places, but honestly haven't quite figured out what type of photos and where.  This was one spot that we decided could be "busied" up with a wall collage.  While all these photos won't be staying in this spot, they will definitely have a frame somewhere in the house.  I need to buy more photo prints, especially in the larger sizes for this wall.  I do feel like I got a good start though!