Today we proved that it is possible, if somewhat impractical, to fit two cars into our two-car garage. It may be too difficult to get in and out of the vehicles for us to do this on a regular basis, but this was the first time we actually managed to get both cars in there.

If you look closely at the picture, you will see the technology that made this amazing feat possible – shelves! Julie’s parents once again sacrificed a Saturday for us, and Julie’s dad built us some wonderful shelves so that we could get stuff off the ground and into the air. There are also some shelves on the side of the garage nearest the door to the house – we’re going to use those shelves as a pantry, primarily for bulky Costco groceries.

Special thanks again to Julie’s parents – we’re really excited to have so much more room in the garage.

Anyone that has been to our house will remember the field behind our property, with the 100-year-old barn, the tall concrete silo, and the grazing cows.

Well, they are no more. The field is still there, but it is now filled with the rubbish left behind when a barn and silo are destroyed. Not nearly as nice a view, I’m afraid, though perhaps we’ll have fewer flies.

The local Lions club owns the property, and they are apparently planning to build a community center of some sort. Not as nice as a park, but certainly nicer than a trailer park, so I am trying to withhold both optimism and pessimism and merely wait to see what happens.

In the unlikely event that anyone is still checking this space, I should let you know that we're all moved in. If I have any excuse at all for being silent these last three months, it is because we've been house hunting, finding, buying, selling, cleaning, moving out, and moving in.

The purchase of our new home in Everson, Washington, closed last week Friday, so we spent last weekend moving all of our stuff up here from Mount Vernon, with the amazing help of many of our generous friends. This past week has been spent unpacking, and we've still got a good way to go. The sale of our house in Mount Vernon should close this coming week, which will free me from figuring out how to pay off three home loans (new home, old loan, bridge loan) and help us all to feel settled and ready to see what our new life circumstances will bring.

Hopefully you'll hear from me again before another three months have passed, so stay tuned. (Feel free to leave me a note if you're still here; a simple “I'm still reading!” message will suffice. No sense in writing if nobody is reading... Thanks!)

We’ve been saving for living room furniture for a little while now; in the last few weeks, we finally made some purchases! We did considerable hunting for a couch, figured out what we were basically looking for, and ended up finding what we wanted – at Costco! It was too much like what we were looking for and too much cheaper than what we’d found thus far to pass up. It also happens to be a sleeper sofa, which will hopefully come in handy some day.

With the money that we saved, we followed up that purchase with a trip to Ikea this past weekend, where we found a nice new coffee table and end table that better match the couch and the other furniture in the living room. With a new paint job and new curtains to follow, we’re definitely snazzing up our living room a bit! All credit goes to Julie, of course, for all of her planning and dreaming and doing; any blame goes to me, for sometimes being too conservative to really let her creative juices flow.

The living room is definitely coming together. If you ever stop by, be sure to give your compliments to the designer.

The only joy in plumbing is the knowledge that you’re not paying an exorbitant fee to a plumber, and even then, you wonder. Still, I decided that I should at least try to clear our clogged bathroom sink drain, so I went to our brand new Home Depot (my shadow will never grace Lowe’s again) and bought a $10 “drain cleaning tool” – that is, a snake.

It ultimately took all 25 feet of that snake – probably because our bathroom is on the second floor – but the sink is now draining freely. Sometimes it pays to plumb.

This past Saturday, we spent the day upgrading our three upstairs bedroom windows that face the backyard from single-pane aluminum to low-E double-pane vinyl. Our bedroom window was especially bad, so we’re really pleased to have it replaced. We also installed baseboard in our newly painted office, so it was a busy day! It feels great to have it done.

Our sincere thanks go to Julie’s parents, who once again sacrificed a Saturday to help us improve our home.

This past Saturday, we had the opportunity to clean up the disaster in our garage! We spent much of the day putting away and throwing away; by the end of the afternoon, the van was happily parked in an organized garage. Now to keep it that way! (Note to self: Put tools back where you found them when you are done with them!)

I'm really enjoying our new dishwasher. (And lest you snicker, know that I do more than my fair share of dishes around here.) The coolest feature is the delay button, which automatically starts the dishwasher in two, four, or six hours. Maybe this feature has been standard on dishwashers for years, but I've never had it.

Why is this feature cool? Well, the salesman said that the primary benefit is for areas where electricity is cheaper in the middle of the night, so people could delay the dishwashing until then. Our electricity costs the same all day, but it's still a cool feature. For one thing, even though it is a much quieter dishwasher than our old one, it's still nice to delay the noise until after we've gone to bed. My favorite part, however, is the fact that I can set the dishwasher when I'm done with the dishes, and if I inadvertently missed any dishes – a pot on the stove, perhaps, or a glass in the family room – I can add it without stopping the process.

(Hey, this is my blog, so I can talk about whatever I want!)

Last year (that is, three weeks ago), we found ourselves without a working dishwasher. Old Faithful, which we had inherited from the previous owners of our house, finally wore out, suffering irreparable damage to the controls inside the door.

So, we went to Anderson Appliance, our friendly neighborhood appliance store, to look for a new dishwasher. A friendly salesperson (who also happened to be Mr. Anderson himself) helped us find the perfect dishwasher -- the cheapest of the quieter dishwashers, which also happened to be on clearance. So we bought it, I picked it up the next day, and I proceeded to install it.

That's right, I installed the dishwasher. Mr. Anderson insisted that if he could do it, I could do it, and I wasn't about to pay $100+ for the privilege of one of their esteemed employees to do it for me. I'm more than willing to pay for services, but how hard could it be to replace a dishwasher?

As it turned out, not that hard. In fact, I had the dishwasher running by the end of the evening, late though it was. Except, of course, the plumbing leaked. Pressurized water pipes and I have a history -- I do my best, but my connections always leak. Perhaps with enough practice...

In any case, the connection under the dishwasher leaked, as well as the valve under the sink, once I touched it. But, they were slow leaks, so I put a pan under one and a towel under the other and we continued life as usual, changing the pan at least once a day. A good short-term solution, but no good for the long-term. So, I decided to call an expert -- a plumber. Only, my timing wasn't great, because that was about the same time as Winter Storm 2004, and all the world's plumbers were busy fixing the frozen pipes of homeowners in Western Washington.

So, I waited a week, and finally found a plumber that would stop by, through Bert Plumbing. I stayed home from work on Wednesday morning to take the dishwasher back out and watch him do his handywork. The bill will be less than $100, and it was worth every penny. He replaced the valve under the sink, connected the dishwasher with a flexible pipe (instead of the fragile copper pipe that was there before), and even fixed a slight leak in the toilet valve in the downstairs bathroom. He used all manner of tools and techniques that I would never dare attempt myself, so I was happy.

And now, the dishwasher is installed. I even screwed the access panels on this evening, so the story of the dishwasher is over. Well, except that I still have to take the old one to the dump...