Life Transplanet

The moment you’ve all been waiting for…well, at least that we’ve been waiting for… the completion (nearly so) of our latest rental project. So, I love to look and compare all the work we put in since we bought it. When you are in the midst of it all, you never think it will look good, but somehow it does! I love these before and after pictures…And, we made our deadline of finishing up by September 1! Now…we just need a tenant…

Kitchen Before

Kitchen After -the fridge and stove will be delivered from Hispano Appliances tomorrow probably

Bedroom before

Bedroom after-I love nice wood floors!

Bathroom before -green and yellow? Really?

I think the bathroom is the most dramatic change

Cassie and a real crash “dummy”

Britton and I stopped by Tailgate the Safety Way in Greeley at Greeely West High School today in the midst of finishing up the rental work. It is an event they do every year to increase people’s awareness about safe driving among other things. It was ok.

I thought there would be a lot more going on, but we just kind of milled around and looked at the crashed cars and watched the so-called “celebrity” drivers go really, really, slow with “beer goggles” on. We also watched a helicopter (Medivac) land. But it was free and we appreciate all the work people did to put the event on (including people I work with). Plus, we got free food, which is always a good thing. And it’s not every day you get your picture taken with Larry the Crash Test Dummy. Which of course reminded me of the Crash Test Dummies from the early 90s.

That’s what I call a smashed up car!

Because of how incredibly busy and emotionally drained we’ve been these last few weeks, we simply did not have time to tend the garden or greenhouse. So we finally went out and assessed the damage. Upon opening the greenhouse door, we were hit with a wall of tomato plants that were so thick we could hardly walk through it. Still everything seems to have been thriving even without our attention, if somewhat out of control and weedy. We also have a few peppers, lots of basil, sage, and thyme.

Wall of Tomatoes

Welcome to the jungle

Handful of tomatoes

The bounty

So it looks like the government needs to step in and protect us from eggs now.  From CNN:

“The fresh eggs from the recalled firms are being diverted to USDA-approved facilities for pasteurization,” Food and Drug Administration spokeswoman Patricia El-Hinnawy said Wednesday.

Well honestly, that is about the expected result.  Instead of fixing the problem (large scale centralized food production) we come up with another quick fix.

I just find it amusing (especially after raising a few hens in our backyard) that there is all this hoorah about some eggs.  People really should just take matters into their own hands and raise a few themselves.  But as we’ve seen, the government does NOT want that. 

I mean just think.  People could be responsible for themselves and there wouldn’t be a need for a .gov agency to oversee EVERY single egg this country produces and consumes.  It really is laughable the lengths we Americans go to in order to feel safe.

Show me your papers

The Memorial Service for Dad was very nice. Lots of people came, many memories were shared, and I think the slide show video we made was extra special. Here are a few images from the day. Thanks to everyone who came, or was there in spirit.

Father Brian from my mom’s church officiated. Also in picture are my brother, mom and Justin’s girlfriend

Quite a few people came out

Britton is my rock and did great on the technical aspects of the day

I thought this was such a great flower bouquet for Dad

We sang Amazing Grace and the Honor Guard presented Mom with a flag

Afterward we went out to dinner

It was a tough day, but we got through it. I think we did a great job of honoring Dad. Thanks again to everyone who has helped us through this.