Yes, kids, it's the blog that keeps on slackin', just to make you look good. You know we love you!
May was mostly about the end of school; studying for finals and taking said finals and kicking back and relaxing after said finals were finalized. And then we (well, OK, Lionel) had buyback to deal with, and blah blah blah. Don't push it, man, we have perfectly good reasons for slacking.
Our biggest house related project has undoubtedly been the creation of our own little minion to do our housework for us:
According to recent esitmates, our little helper won't actually be interactive until January, and according to coworkers he/she may not actually be productive for many years thereafter, but once he/she is fully grown we should get years and years of free housework out of them all for a little well-invested guilt. Seems like a worthwhile investment to us! Keep your fingers crossed!
Housewise, the biggest change recently is the addition of many blinds and a couple of screen doors. We've started a summer movie event (Cowboys in Space, a weekly Monday night showing of Cowboy Bebop and Firefly episodes), and after a wretchedly miserable night last weekend when we had six people in the living room with the doors closed and the window barely cracked so the cats couldn't get out on the first really hot, muggy night of Summer, we finally got off our asses and installed the screen doors we bought way back in December.
We had been using sheer curtains on most of the windows that were semi-transparent from the inside during the day but opaque from the exterior (though visibility was reversed at night if the interior was brighter than the exterior). But it became apparent that these were letting in more light than we desired during the spring and summer months, and we decided on some bamboo blinds that do much the same thing in terms of visibility, but really cut down on the ambient light during the day. Because they're blinds, they can easily be pulled up during overcast of winter days to let more light in when desired.
Night (left) and day (right).
The blinds helped make the rooms look cooler, but the real key to making the rooms actually cooler was to add the screen doors so we could open the place up.
The screen door for the back door (not shown) is still unfinished pine, we haven't decided if we're going to stain it or paint it. The front door screen we painted red, to match the front door itself and the mailbox we added a couple months ago. Attaching it was a bitch--the dimensions I gave were a little too precise, I didn't leave myself any wiggle room, and as a result I had to spend a lot of time with the sander sanding down the edges until it fit nicely.
