Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch...

This is a guest post, by Mr. Graff.

So.

Before we road-tripped down to Grandma's house (no, not that Grandma.  Or that one, either! This is the other Grandma…) Icie and I scrambled to finish all of the big projects around the house and then pack what we needed for a few days at the beach and what Icie and the boys needed for a few weeks at Grandma's (yes, the other, other Grandma this time).

I only had so many hours of leave I could use, so I drove home on Wednesday morning.  (Icie and the boys flew out late Thursday evening.)  I got home and got to work on a lot of the smaller projects around the house.  I didn't even think to unpack until much later.

My favorite of the smaller projects would probably be the yard work.  I raked, mulched, weeded and planted.  I won't have time to set up a real garden (and it probably wouldn't be a good selling point, and I wouldn't be around to harvest anything), but the realtor suggested a little container garden for a splash of color, so I went and bought some flower pots, soil, and flowers.  Here I have a calladium and some impatiens.  And a potato.  (Apparently a little piece from last year survived the winter and is pushing up again.  It's growing so nicely!  I'll probably have to pull it up, though, so the garden looks more presentable.  *Sigh*)

My garden

I've installed toe-kicks, caulked, cleaned up outside, patched and painted walls, shampooed carpets, straightened and cleaned everywhere, and made sure the bed was always made and the dishes were always clean (or, at least, out of sight).  And last night, I put in carpet transitions.

If you wanted to make a pretty scrapbook out of flooring materials, carpet transitions would be the metal ribbon you'd use along the edges of the carpet.  It holds everything down and makes a neat edge that people won't trip over.  We've known that we needed to put in new carpet transitions since we re-did the tile in the entryway, kitchen, and bathroom.  It's pretty straightforward to install, too.  You just nail or screw it in place, then there are hooks along the bottom to hold the carpet in place and a metal lip that bends down.

A carpet transition, end view

We still ran into a couple problems.  The first problem is that our sub-floor is concrete.  The second is that the type of carpet transition we were using is somehow obscure enough to not have any kind of tutorials online or in any book that I've been able to find.  I got concrete nails, then a bigger hammer, then concrete patch, then three or four different kinds of concrete screws and new bits for our power drill.  I talked to experts at home improvement stores and handymen at church and the project just kept getting stalled.  Finally, I went out and rented the big artillery: an impact drill!  (And yet another variety of concrete screw, to match the drill bit.)  

The impact drill worked just fine on our concrete floor.  I marked and pre-drilled the holes, then used a regular screwdriver to screw down the carpet transitions.  Once I realized how little time I had before the drill had to be returned (I rented it for four hours, but the store closed sooner than that!), I started scrambling.  I went just far enough to know that I'd drilled the holes correctly and the carpet transitions would go in all right and then skip ahead to the next one.  I got the drill back just in time, then stayed up late finishing the process and cleaning everything up.  It is kind of nice that the last step in the process is pounding on the transitions with a rubber mallet.  (Hey, you have to make sure the metal lip is smooth and flush.  Really sure.)

Ruff ruff, man-grunt.

Icie thought I'd cook a ton of weird food while she was gone.  Maybe I would have, if I'd had more time to cook and less need to clean the kitchen immediately.  Really, I haven't cooked much at all.  Today was Rae's birthday though, and I needed something to celebrate.  I'd been wanting to try British steamed pudding for a while (it's basically a cake that's steamed instead of baked), and not only did I find a recipe with apples and raisins (Rae's favorites!), I found a way to steam the pudding in a slow-cooker instead of in a pot on the stove.  I spent just a couple minutes mixing things last night, and woke to a nice, spiced pudding for breakfast.  I topped it with some caramel ice cream because why not!  The flavor went well with the pudding, and cake and ice cream is traditional for birthdays, and this is a birthday party!  Think of the children.  In…Colorado…

Coming out of the slow cooker

All dished up.  I think I'll skip the apple butter next time.