#!#$#!

We think our photos leave out lots of "real" chaotic details, funny later but bloody painful at the time kind of stuff. Mostly what Joe encounters upon fixing something. (Yes, there are no polite words to describe what this #!#$#! house puts me thru on a daily basis.)
Only a couple of examples here: After we had helpers for moving and had to remove the front door off the hinges,(to get stuff thru the door, on account we have narrow doors,31 inches is the widest.) Joe had to reseat the door hinges... someone put it back almost right, but not quite. When Joe was fighting with the door, somebody was blaring country music (his least favorite). He almost put a for-sale sign on the house!! Another time when he figured it would take half an hour to change locks on four doors, well, ...after two hours of chiseling, pounding, shimming, cussing, swearing, more shimming, and chiseling, he got all four doors working, locked for the night. Joe waited a couple of days before he even tried hooking up his own TV and PS3. (Just in case they decided to fight with me too.)
This evening Joe just hooked up his old stereo system with record player in the living room. Not too shabby. Sounds pretty good. It's even better we have no neighbors sharing thin walls like at our old apartment. Yeah so I can play my old Zepplin and Doors and AC/DC as loud as my ears will take. It definetly brings back alot of good memories as well as paving the way for a whole boatload of new ones too. Currently we're listening to some GNR, it sounds really good. And the nice part about setting up my old stereo system is that it didn't fight with me too much. Kayo mentioned how neat the set up looked. On one side of my tv sits my PS3 and on the other is my old almost antique receiver and record player sitting on an old milk crate with my albums underneath. Kayo says we need a disco ball now. Maybe. But I don't have any disco albums.
The reason we took the front door off its hinges was to get our box spring in the house and up the stairs. It was a VERY tight fit. I was in front of the box spring pulling for all I was worth and my cusin Al was on the bottom pushing for all he was worth. It was one of those 1,2,3 heave. We finally did get it upstairs after about a half hour of heaving and a wee bit o swearing and one permanently dinged piece of wood trim on the ceiling. It's almost not noticeable. I think if and when we ever sell this house the boxspring will go with it. Because I really don't want to take the door off the hinges again. Or to try getting the boxsping back down the stairs.

Inside Out

Today we had a beautiful sunny day, though the temperature was barely 60 degrees. I took advantage of the warm sunshine.And I figured it was good time to take some pictures of outside. Here's our grape vine patch in the back yard. We are anxious to know what kind of grapes they are. I'll definitely have to make grape jelly. In the photo you are seeing the hill that we own.Some tulips in front of the house. We moved in to enjoy them in time.Finally, here're photos of our somewhat settled living room and bedroom.

Welcome to the 600 Block!

It's hard to believe... but we woke up at our new house this morning. On this Memorial Day!

Actually, Joe is still in bed... after three weekends and weekdays inbetween of hard work to get the house ready. In fact, we were scrubbing the bathrooms till midnight last night! And we still need to reorganize our stuff and clean some more..., but then this is only the beginning of all kinds of work around the house, we keep reminding ourselves.

Here're some new photos to share: Our bedroom... the purple had to go! We painted the walls to match one of my large paintings. The spare bedroom, painted in "green tea" to be officially our Japan room. And our kitchen... the first room I attempted to organize and personalize. Those shocking colors now sit a lot better with our brand-new appliances and some chilipepper stuff, and with the floor painted, phew. Now, I just wait for Joe to get up and make us breakfast in our new kitchen!!

P.S. Though we couldn't be in Hawaii to celebrate Y/M's marriage this weekend, I have to say we got to be at the next best place... our home.

Paint, Paint, Paint

It turns out that I (Kayo) am allergic to our new house. By ripping up the old carpeting, we definitely stirred up all the mold trapped underneath. Today I had to work all day, so I decided to take a break from the house and did a couple loads of laundry instead. And I wanted to post some new photos of the house, too.
This weekend we started painting... painting the whole house (inside). Walls and ceiling. Luckly we had many helpers for the big job. With Joe's big family and cousin, plus Phil & Judy (oh, and Ginger who left some white paw prints on the floor), we went through 15 gallons of primer alone, to cover decades of smoking. It was neccessary.No more dark paneling. No more purple... though we still call that room "purple room," aka "Barney room." Well, in case you are wondering where are Kayo's funky colors? here's our kitchen. You have no idea how many WOW's I got for my color choice! I think (and hope) once the pink (Mexican chili) wall gets decorated with all my chilipepper stuff/ art pieces, it will look more normal, ever slightly.

Disastrous Areas

Here's a picture of the disastrous area (our apartment).
And here's an outside picture of another disastrous area (our new house). It doesn't show any signs of destruction (ripping and stripping) inside.

Work (Stripping) in Progress

Good morning. Before I HAVE TO start packing here at our apartment, I thought I'd update some photos from the last two days.

Here's the kitchen floor underneath the two layers of lenoleum. I have to say they weren't as bad as you might think. Sadly the original wood floor beneath cannot be saved... so eventually we may want to tile (No! More work!) or something.

Joe completed ripping the large upstair bathroom. He described the orange carpeting as "Toby the Cat" and it's all gone. Again, we cannot reveal the floor underneath efficiently, so the final flooring for this room will have to be determined. (We're NOT tiling, are we? Maybe?) Meantime, this bare plywood floor beats the thick shag carpeting! And from there, Joe worked his way out in the small hallway and down the stairs, ripping the carpeting. Ambitious!!
Since we knew underneath the carpeting was the beautiful original wood floor in the dining room, Joe eagerly started ripping, skipping the living room. This floor will look very nice when finished, sanded and varnished. Our conclusion: Back in the 70s, they really didn't want to see wood, I mean real wood, in the house... unless it's FAKE wood. What were they thinking?? More stripping to be continued... yes, tonight after work.

P.S. We promise to take some pictures of the house outside soon.

Test, Test...

It was only yesterday that we called our internet provider for the new service at our new house. And this afternoon a technitian came to set our cable internet up. That was quick! So I'm now trying out our new connection with our blog posting.
Well, Joe is pounding his way up the stairs, taking off nasty wood strips with lots of small nails that were holding the carpeting in place. I better get started here too, back to ripping two layers of the kitchen linoleum. Fun!

Purple No More...

After only a few days of our home ownership, we've realized how exhausting it really is to own a house. There're lots to do and lots to think about, though it's fun and exciting at the same time. I (Kayo) had to work all weekend and only spent a couple of hours on Saturday evening at our new house. I peeled off all the sticky shelving paper from the kitchen cabinet for a starter. Joe on the other hand spent lots more time in our new house. He first ripped the thin blue carpeting in his toy room (downstairs), then finished ripping the PURPLE shag in our bedroom by the end of Saturday. You've got to see the purple room! Joe said it was like they killed Barney and put in the blender and smeared it all over.There's no other way to describe it, really. But that Barney purple carpet is all gone, except for a small chunk about a foot square for our keepsake! And Joe got rid of the ugly linoleum too, only revealing pine wood planks. Joe was very ambitious to even start ripping another big shagged room- the upstair bathroom, a big one. Not purple, but orange. You know I love orange, but not that much in shag, in bathroom. So, this week we continue ripping!!

Happy Anniversary!

Three years!! Yesterday was our wedding anniversary. It's amazing how quickly time passes, and at the same time how it feels like forever... like we've always been together. To make it a special 5th, we both had a day off from work and planned a day trip to Munising to see some waterfalls and to check on wild morel mushrooms in the area. We got to Munising, browsed a used book store and had ice cream... then our plans got changed, not for worse.
Earlier in the day we learned the fact that we will be home owners this Friday, only in three days!!! A house is our three-year anniversary present! We'd been anticipating the progress of our home buying for about a month now, but every step is a new and greater adventure for us. And quite frankly, everything's been going pretty fast!

Anyway, we had to turn around and drive back home (oh, about 45 minutes) to take care of an important matter. After all was done, we had our P.B.J. sandwich lunch at home and decided to go fishing Joe's usual stream. First, we found trout lilies and bloodroots (photo) in bloom. Then Joe spotted some suckers (carp like fish who swim upstream to spawn just like steelhead) in the water. When we got to Frowling Falls, we could see lots and lots of suckers in the deep pool, trying to swim up the falls in vain.

And look! Kayo caught a sucker!! Even though it wasn't a trout, catching a fish was very exciting. Joe released the fish, and Kayo was relieved because she doesn't like the sucker's toothless round mouth. It wasn't the only excitement. On our hike back we saw a steelhead couple getting ready to spawn. The female did her dance (photo) to dig the gravel; the male chased away small fish that hung around waiting to eat the fresh eggs. What a picture of their survival. Anyway, Joe casted a lure that resembled one of those small fish at the steelheads, hoping one of them would chase and bite it. Well, it instead spooked the male into his hiding spot... a smart guy. As for the female, despite everything Joe tried, she made very little notice. Even when a lure bounced right on her head, she just dodged and minded her own business. Joe just couldn't believe all this. Finally one last cast got her attention, and Joe felt her on. The next moment Kayo almost got snagged when Joe set the hook and the lure went zinging past Kayo's head because the fish spit out the lure(hook). A very smart fish. Indeed. To top our evening off we went to the Brownstone Inn for dinner. We were hoping to have ribs but our luck was holding true because they only serve ribs on the weekend. So we had burgers and beer for dinner. How romantic. But it was a very fitting end to our day. Joe is wondering how he is going to top a house as an anniversary gift next year.

Wild Things!

Yesterday we unexpectedly had a fresh fish to add for dinner (thanks to Joe's dad). Joe wanted to do it up right, so he even washed some wild leeks from the woods (a photo below). A wild trout with wild leeks certainly was a taste of spring!! As always Kayo enjoyed eating the fish to the bones, while Joe watched her eat and picked its cheek meat for him to savor. *The original dinner menu was Mexican pork stew (Posole) + Margarita!
And today we picked up Shark steak from the grocery store... Kayo got really lucky to have fish for dinner three days in a row: Friday she ran to Thill's (our local fish house) for a QUICK pick of the fish for dinner. Joe doesn't seem to mind eating Shark for some strange reason. He is in fact almost done grilling right now!!! Shark steak kabab and grilled mixed veggies over jasmine rice for dinner. Ummm... it's smelling goooood!

Fish in the Fridge!

I (Kayo) had to work for a few hours today, so Joe and his dad left before 8 a.m. for fishing their favorite Apple Creek. This being their first attempt this year, Joe had to clear the trail with his proud machete... he just loves swinging that thing like he were Indiana Jones in jungle (without his hat)!

Anyway, when I came home from work, he was gone to see a scary (not for Kayo) movie. In fact, I'm updating this fishing blog without him, wishing he would have taken some photos of actual fishermen in action. There was a note on the kitchen table telling me to look inside the fridge. There I found a nice 14" German Brown (one kind of trout) that Joe's dad had caught!! I guess that's a good enough proof of their fishing adventure... I wish I had been there... but then they might say I (Kayo) am the bad luck charm!