There are more projects coming, I promise!

This week I got to go fabric shopping in New York City with celebrity sewing blogger Peter Lappin from Male Pattern Boldness. I had an amazing time, and Peter post all about it on his blog. Peter kindly include a link to my my blog, which I haven't updated since last fall. How embarrassing! It's time to dust this poor blog off!

Good thing I have some projects in the works to share in addition to my plans to sew up my amazing fabric from NYC.

I'm having my big green sofa reupholstered. Here's an older, particularly flattering photo of it:

I decided not to reupholster the sofa myself, since it needs new springs and legs and complicated stuff like that. I don't plan on reupholstering a lot of sofas any time soon, so it doesn't make sense to investing in learning those skills and buying new tools. I do, however, posses all the necessary knowledge and equipment to sew some new throw pillows. Especially since I bought the pillow forms a year and a half ago. The blue pillows in the photo above are really old and dusty and disgusting. They're so bad that I drag pillows out of the guest room and throw these pillows on the floor.

I don't really enjoy home dec sewing for some reason. If it's not something for me to wear I'm just not that interested. But really, when you're at a point where you don't want to touch your own throw pillows, something should be done.

I'm also going to need to sew some curtains for the bedroom we use as a home office. Sean and I are having 2 large trees removed in our front yard and people will be able to see that window from the street for the first time. The office is the only room left in the house that I haven't remolded or changed. I guess curtains are as good place as any to start.

I'm also going to need to seriously landscape my front yard. Here's what it looks like today:

While I was in New York the power company was trimming trees near the power lines in the neighborhood. My husband told them they didn't need to do anything since we were planning on removing the trees, so they did exactly what you see there. Thanks Xcel Energy! That makes perfect sense!

Anyway, stay tuned for some photos of my NYC fabric haul!

Completed bridesmaid dress top

As promised, here's the bridesmaid's dress top. I was quite pleased I got the stubborn polyester satin to obey my will.

And here's the back:

Covered buttons are so fun! I can't believe I've never made covered buttons before. You cut out little circles of fabric and punch the button with the little tool.

I'm starting on the skirt next, which should go quickly compared to the top.

Back to the 90s

I'm going to be a bridesmaid in my cousin's wedding in a few weeks. Way back last winter, we went bridesmaid dress shopping. She wanted her 7 bridesmaids to wear different styles of knee length dresses in the same color. This was harder to find that it seems like it should be, but we finally tracked down a line that had a good selection of knee length dresses is a color she liked. The only downside (for me at least) was that all of the dresses were strapless or halter style. In fact, just about all the bridesmaid dresses I saw anywhere were strapless or halter style. I don't know what's wrong with me, but I need to wear a regular bra or I'm miserable. I'm very sensitive. Don't even get me started on Spanx!

So, I asked the bridal salon if they sold matching fabric by the yard. And they did! For $40 a yard. For polyester satin. But $120 for fabric was less than a dress, and I knew that if I ordered a dress I'd spend many frustrating hours altering it to fit me properly. So even if it took me longer to sew a dress from starch I'd still be saving myself a considerable amount of rage.

The next step was finding a pattern. Flattering, comfortable formal wear must be totally out of style right now, because I couldn't find anything I liked that I could wear a regular bra with and didn't have an empire waist. So I turned to Etsy and the fabulous selection of old patterns they have listed and found this gem from 1995. The pleated skirt was a bonus, since a dress a few of the other girls will be wearing has a pleated skirt, too.

This pattern only goes up to a size 16 (which translates into about a size 10 at the Gap, according to their online size chart), which is the perfect place for me to start with for a top but nowhere near close to fitting my hips. So I'm going to use the pleated skirt from the 2/11 issue of Ottobre Women Magazine. I'm going to tame down the waistband a bit, because I don't want any extra bulk under the top.

So far I'm almost done with the top. All it needs is buttons. I spent a lot of time fitting the pattern. I'm much less experienced making tailored bodices for myself, since I don't really need to wear those very often, but I'm happy that I invested time in getting the fit just right. The skirt is cut out and ready to go, which should be pretty simple. Photos of actual hot pink polyester satin to come!

Recipe: Canning homemade salsa

Late summer/early fall is my favorite time of year. Social calendars begin to free up, the weather is beautiful, the fall issue of Ottobre Woman Magazine arrives in my mail box, and it's time to can salsa.

I learned to can from my mom, who learned from my grandma. My mom canned salsa every year, because salsa is delicious, and that makes it a great thing to stockpile. Once I got my own house and garden, I started canning too, because it's just what you do. Now canning is making a comeback and I'm regularly asked for my salsa recipe- so here it is!

A word about peppers: I always use whatever peppers I have handy, which makes every batch a little different. Some years I have more hot peppers or the peppers are hotter, and I have hotter salsa. Other years things are more mild. For this recipe you want almost as much peppers as tomatoes once everything is chopped up. I'd include at least 5 hot peppers like habanero, jalapeno or serrano per batch for milder salsa, and more if you like hot salsa.

To peel the tomatoes, I blanch them in boiling water for 30-60 seconds (the more ripe the tomato is, the less time it needs). The skins come right off.

Ingredients
3 lbs tomatoes, peeled

2.5-3 cups peppers, seeded and very coarsely chopped

1 large sweet yellow onion
4 gloves garlic
1/2 cup cilantro
1/2 tablespoon Mexican oregano
1 tsp salt (or to taste)

1 6 oz can tomato paste

½ teaspoon ground mustard

1 cup vinegar

Directions
1. Chop up the tomatoes, peppers, onion, garlic and cilantro with a food processor to your preferred chunkiness and put it in a big pot. Add the oregano and salt and simmer for about 20 minutes, until the salsa is thoroughly cooked and reduces a little bit so it's less soupy.

Before cooking...

...after cooking.

2. Add the tomato paste and ground mustard. Once the tomato paste is thoroughly mixed in, add the vinegar and turn off the heat.

3. Ladle into sterilized jars, and put sterilized rims and lids on the jars. Boil the jars in a hot water bath for 25 minutes.

This recipe makes about 8 cups. I often double or triple it.

Vinyl Oil Cloth Tablecloth

Back about 8 years ago, shortly after Sean and I bought our first house, we bought an ugly but sturdy octagon oak table at a garage sale. The finish was in bad shape, but it was always a temporary solution. Because it was temporary, we never really took any precautions prevent it from becoming more dinged up or stained, so it got even uglier. Someday I'd like to have a great mid-century modern dining set, but it's probably not going to be any time soon. I need to finally face the fact that this table is not a temporary solution.

A tablecloth is the obvious solution to this problem. Because I'm a slob and I hate doing laundry, it needed to be something durable that could be easily wiped down after meals.

I ordered vinyl oilcloth fabric from Fabric.com. It comes in some really fun retro style prints. The fabric was only a couple of inches wider than my table, so I sewed 6" strips along each side and cut it all 12" longer than the table. The oilcloth was surprisingly easy to sew. I used binder clips to hold it together to avoid making holes with pins, but otherwise it sewed up like any other fabric. It is heavy and stiff, so it was a bit awkward to maneuver such a large piece around. I cut radius corners using a large pot lit as a guide and sewed packaged extra wide bias tape on as a trim. The fabric won't fray, but I like the finished look of the bias tape.

Now we'll get many more happy years out of our cheap garage sale table!

Jalie Scarf-Collar Top

This top is another solution to my "what to wear for dinner on the patio" problem. And it performed splendidly for both lunch and dinner on patios last Friday. It's the Jalie Scarf-Collar Top. It's a little hard to see the scarf in the photo with all the paisley going on.

I made this top with a synthetic (polyester?) jersey that I orders from Gorgeous Fabrics like 4 years ago. I had always wanted to make a scarf tie top out of it, and thankfully Jalie came out with the right pattern. I like that it's got a little 70s career wear look going on. This is a pretty simple top. I don't remember which size I traced, but I know I tapered out to a larger size at the bust. I also added a lot of length, maybe 4". I had previously made a 3/4 length sleeve version of this top, which ended up being a short sleeved version because the sleeves were too tight. The sleeveless version let me put off fixing that problem for another time.

This will probably conclude my very short summer wardrobe sewing season. I have a backlog of other projects, including some home dec sewing for the kitchen, gifts I owe people, and a bridesmaid dress I need to make myself. And then I'll get started on fall/winter sewing!

The rewired pull down fixutre, plus other bonus lights

Today was an exciting day in my kitchen. My pull down light fixture is finally up!

My dad finished rewiring and rebuilding it, and he came over today and helped me put it up. I'm so thrilled with it! It makes my kitchen seem much more actually done and not just basically done.

He ended up using heavy duty industrial cord. My brother, who's a mechanical engineer, found it in the scrap bin at work. He was going to order us more, but the scrap turned out to be the perfect length. The light goes up and down just as designed!

My dad discovered that the light has a little switch on the bottom that lets you turn on just the top light blubs, just the bottom light bulbs, or both. It's such a neat light!

While my dad was over he also helped me put up the new entry and living room lights. I wanted his help because my house is wired in a non-standard and sometimes dangerous way, and both of those lights were no exception. It helps to have an electrical engineer available in situations like that.

 

I'm really happy with them. They make the space seem so much cleaner and brighter. These are the acyrlic globe lights from Love It Lighting. They're made in the United States and say that, plus the date they were manufactured on the underside of the canopy, just like the pull down fixture.

Sean and I were so happy with our new lights that we wasted a bunch of electricity and left them on all evening. Now our house is ugly light fixture free!

Walleye Recipe: Seafood sauteed in butter with white wine and garlic

We were discouraged from cooking inside the cabin at the fishing camp, because if the bears smell fish they try to get into your cabin. So that left us with 2 cooking methods outside - the charcoal grill and a propane fryer. This is what the fryer looked like:

That's a cast iron pan on top.

It was heavy duty and very hot, but didn't need any lead time like the charcoal grill. So I adapted my basic sauteed seafood recipe to make a quick shore lunch.

Ingredients

• 1 stick butter (you probably won't need it all, but keep it handy)
• 6 large walleye fillets (or other firm white fish or seafood like shrimp or scallops)
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• ½ cup dry white wine

1. Melt a coupe of tablespoons of butter over medium heat in a large heavy skillet. 

2. Add the garlic, fish and white wine

3.Saute the fish, occasionally turning them over. Add more butter as needed (you might not need to if you're not cooking on a crazy hot propane fryer). The fish are done when they start to fall apart.

Walleye Recipe: Fish with Oriental Sauce

I don't have a picture of this one. I guess I was just really hungry. This is based on a Sea Bass with Oriental Sauce recipe from Epicurious. The sauce is what makes this recipe delicious. Even if you make less fish, you'll probably still want to make the still make the full recipe of sauce.

Ingredients:

• 6-8 large walleye fillets, cut into 3" pieces (or other firm, white fish like mahimahi, red snapper, sea bass, etc.)
• 1 large sweet yellow onion, cut vertically into wedges
• 2 red peppers, cut into strips
• 2 medium zucchini, sliced
• 2 tablespoons peanut oil, plus more for tossing
• 2 tablespoons minced peeled fresh ginger
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• ½ cup light soy sauce
• ½ cup rice wine vinegar
• ½ cup chopped fresh cilantro
• 1 teaspoon oriental hot sesame oil

Accompaniment: rice

1. Lay out two large sheets of aluminum foil. Toss the fish with just enough peanut oil to coat. Spread the fish evenly across the center of each piece of foil.

2. Toss the onion, peppers and zucchini in just enough oil to coat. Distribute them evenly on top of each section of fish. Drizzle each foil packet with 2 teaspoons of the vinegar. (See this recipe for more on making the packets.)

3. Take the long sides of the foil packets and wrap them together, then fold in the the short sides. Grill each packet over a charcoal grill for 5 minutes with the fish side down, then flip the packet over and grill vegetable side down. When the packet is done, it will puff up. If you are using a gas grill, cook the packet for a few more minutes on each side. Alternately, you could cook the packets in the oven at 450 for about 20 minutes.

4. While the fish is cooking, make the sauce. Heat 2 tablespoons of peanut oil in a medium sauce pan. Add the garlic and ginger and cook for 1-2 minutes until fragrant. And the soy sauce and vinegar and cook until heated. Remove from heat and add the cilantro and the hot sesame oil.

5. Transfer the fish from the packets into a serving dish. Serve the fish over rice and top generously with the sauce.

Serves 5 very hungry anglers.

Walleye Recipe: Fish with onions, tomatoes and olives

This recipe is based on a recipe from Epicurious -  Mahimahi with Charred Onion, Tomatoes, and Tapenade Vinaigrette. I adapted it to easily prepare on the grill.

Ingredients

• 6-8 large walleye fillets cut into 3" pieces (or other firm, white fish like mahimahi, red snapper, whitefish, etc.)
• 1 large red onion, cut lengthwise into wedges
• 20 oz cherry tomatoes, halved
• ¾ cup pitted kalamata olives, cut into quarters
• Olive oil for tossing
• 4 teaspoons red wine vinegar
• salt and pepper

Accompaniment: couscous (I prefer the Israeli/pearl variety)

1. Lay out two large sheets of aluminum foil. Toss the fish with just enough olive oil to coat. Spread the fish evenly across the center of each piece of foil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

2. Toss the onion, tomatoes and olives in just enough oil to coat. Distribute them evenly on top of each section of fish. Drizzle each foil packet with 2 teaspoons of the vinegar. The packets should look like this at this stage:

3. Take the long sides of the foil packets and wrap them together, then fold in the the short sides. The packets will look like this:

4. Grill each packet over a charcoal grill for 5 minutes with the fish side down, then flip the packet over and grill vegetable side down. When the packet is done, it will puff up like this:

If you are using a gas grill, cook the packet for a few more minutes on each side. Alternately, you could cook the packets in the oven at 450 for about 20 minutes.

5. Open up the packets and transfer the contents, including juices, to a serving dish. Serve over the couscous.

Feeds 5 very hungry anglers.

HotPatterns Weekender Sunshine Top

Last night I went back down to the sewing room, thinking I would just clean it up. I haven't sewn anything since March besides a few emergency alterations for family members, and the lack of sewing has really been getting me down. Just about everything I wear is made by me, so my wardrobe isn't very big to begin with, and the lack of summer clothes has really been a drag. Plus, sewing makes me happy. Not sewing makes me kind of twitchy.

After I had things tidied up, I decided I pull out my HotPatterns Weekender Sunshine Top pattern. I've made 2 of these with short sleeves in rayon/lycra jersey, and both get tons of wear. I've discovered that I don't have any tank tops besides the racer back ones I wear to the gym, so I tried the sleeveless version. And now tonight I have a new top!

Sorry for the headless shot. I've decided that if I'm going to blog about my sewing projects, I need to photograph them right when I finish them or I never will. So bad camera timer photos it is! (I made the capri jeans, too. They're Jalie 2908.)

I'm really happy with how this turned out. It made it out of a cottony jersey that I don't think contains any lycra, so it fits a little more snugly than my other versions, but I think it's still okay. I had a little scare when I was cutting it out. The fabric must have shrunk a bunch when I washed it, because after I cut out the back and one set of neck bands I didn't have enough fabric left to cut the front on the fold! The front is wide because of all those gathers, but still! So there's a center front seam, but thankfully with the print and the gathers you can't really tell. That's really the only change I made. I cut a 10 through the neck shoulders and a 12 everywhere else. I got some extra length by using the longer length but still attaching the bottom band.

So, yay for sewing again! And don't worry, I 'm still going to post the rest of those walleye recipes.

Walleye Recipe: Fish Tacos

This seemed like the obvious choice when there were lots of fresh fish around. You can make fish tacos with pretty much any fish, but firm, mild white fish will work well with this recipe, like red snapper, mahi-mahi, orange roughy, etc.

The amount of ingredients you'll need depends on how much you're making and how you like your tacos. This recipe is really more like an outline.

• Fish
• Beer
• Salt
• Pepper
• Garlic powder
• Flour
• Fresh salsa
• Plain yogurt
• Mayo
• Shredded Cabbage
• Tortillas
• Lime wedges for squeezing

1. The fish:
Mix one part beer and one part flour. I used 1 cup of beer and 1 cup of flour for about 6 walleye fillets. Add a dash of salt and pepper and a half tsp of garlic powder.

If the fillets are large, cut them in to 2 or 3 pieces. Pat the fish dry and dunk in the beer batter. Let it sit out on wax paper for 20 minutes or so.

Fry the fish in 2" of vegetable oil until they are golden. You really need to use the full 2" of oil or else the breading will stick to the bottom of the pan and burn and you will be sad.

2. The salsa:
You can purchase fresh salsa, but it's easy to make your own. I used 8 medium tomatoes, 2 small onions, 2 very spicy serrano chilies and a half cup of cilantro. That made kind of a lot of salsa, but my family really likes salsa.

3. The white sauce:
Mix 1 part mayo with 1 part plain yogurt. Super easy!

4. Eat Tacos:
Take steps 1-3, plus the cabbage and put on a tortilla. Squeeze the lime juice and enjoy!

Gone Fishin'

It's been a while since I've posted. I haven't been working on my kitchen because I've been fishing! I spend at week with my family at Lac Seul in Ontario, Canada. I'm not really the type of person who goes on fishing excursions to the middle of nowhere, but my mom promised there would be flush toilets so I went along.

I don't think they get a lot of people like me up there, because if they expected women there would have been a curtain on the bathroom window and if they expected foodies they would have provided measuring cups and spoons. But I survived!

When go on on a trip like this, you eat a lot of fish. You need to eat fish so you can go out and catch even more fish, but it's okay because when else do you get to prepare and eat so much fresh delicious seafood? Before I left on my trip, I searched for walleye recipes. It seems that every walleye recipe ever recorded involves breading and frying it. Who can eat fried fish twice a day for 5 days? Not me, especially after I got a grease burn on day 2. So I had to get creative and come up with some more interesting recipes that could be made outdoors. Because if you cook fish in your cabin the bears smell it and try to come in. By the end of the trip my family was grateful I'd come along, even though I whine about the lack of sofas in the wilderness.

I'm going to try to post my creative walleye recipes soon, just in case some other foodie finds themselves on a fishing excursion and doesn't want to eat fried fish every day either.

Basically Done

I'm calling my kitchen Officially Basically Done. It's not totally done (especially related to lighting), but everything is put away and fully functioning and the remaining tasks are pretty minor.

Here's what it currently looks like:

The project took about two and a half months, April 16-July 2. Not bad, considering. My favorite part is definitely the floor. It was the worst part of the kitchen before, and it was the most expensive part of the project and the most work. But now every morning I think to myself, "Holy crap! I love this floor!" My second favorite part is the cabinets. The color makes me so happy. At night, when the only light on is the recessed light in the soffit, the kitchen has this wonderful aqua glow.

Here's my working to-do list to get everything finished:

• Touch up cabinet paint
• Paint and reattach recessed light covers
• Put up the dining room light (my dad is still working on getting it rewired)
• Sink a few nails in the trim and touch up the trim
• Adjust the closet door knob
• Attach door stops

Plus there are other decorating related things I want to do. Like I'm still waiting on my custom ordered window treatments from JC Penny and I need artwork for the big wall that now has nothing on it. But generally, that's pretty much done!

Last weekend, a very kind friend help me get everything organized and put away. She accompanied me to the Container Store and then I pressed her into several hours of hard labor. Everything is SO organized!

My favorite find was this pull out drawer that you can bolt onto cabinet shelves. My pantry cabinet is obnoxiously deep and things in the back get lost and goes bad or I end up with 3 bags of rice. Major problem solved!

I'm waiting until I get things completely done before I do the official before and after photos, but here's a little teaser.

Not doing plumbing: Priceless

The plumber finished up yesterday as promised. A miracle was performed under the sink!

Everything under the sink was replaced. I can now tell what everything is and where it goes, and I can easily shut off the water to any water using thing in the kitchen without fear of a great flood. This was more expensive than I had originally thought, but it's done and I can change easily change out the sink and faucet myself in the future if the need arises.

As an added bonus, I can now put the garbage and the recycling under the sink. Neither one used to fit, so this a huge win. It's like the plumber magically created extra-dimensional space under the sink.

I'm really happy with the sink and faucet, too. It looks so clean and fresh.

Everything But the Kitchen Sink

Today was one of Those Days. I just couldn't win.

The plumber came today, and the sink situation was even worse than I thought. Not only did the supply lines and shut off valves need to be replaced, but the reverse osmosis system wasn't connected correctly. Not only was the RO system supplying water to it's own separate little tap, it was also supplying the cold water in the regular faucet. Which is just wrong, wrong, wrong! It also explains why I was so confused by everything under there, why I flooded the kitchen trying to turn off the refrigerator supply, and why my kitchen faucet had annoyingly low water pressure. So everything under the sink except the RO tank and filter had to be replaced. And all that is a bit pricier than anticipated.

As if all that wasn't enough fun, it turned out that my new faucet was damaged and needs to be returned. So after all that I still don't have a sink. I was able to find a replacement faucet at Home Depot, (the original was a special order from Lowe's) but it came with a soap dispenser that I don't have room for and it cost more. Of course.

And then, to top it all off, the floor drain in the basement is clogged! When I took the plumber down to the laundry room to show him where the water shut off was we discovered a huge puddle around the floor drain. I mean, I guess it's nice that the drain waited to get clogged up until the plumber was there, but really?

So yeah. One of Those Days.

The plumber will be back tomorrow to finish the sink and deal with the floor drain. Here's hoping for better luck tomorrow!

The countertops have landed!

I have countertops! They look fantastic. I'll let the pics speak for themselves. The blue tape is there to support the glued things until the glue drys, but you get the idea.

I love the island so much! The brackets are Capita from Ikea. The raised counter on the island is really fabulous. I feel like it really helps delineate the kitchen space from the dining room space.

And now I finally feel like I'm in the home stretch. Just a few more little things to put together...

Countertop Eve

So, the countertops weren't installed today. The guy called me last night asking to come on Sunday instead, because he had made plans with his girlfriend on Saturday. So I begrudgingly agreed to change the day. I don't want to be causing relationship drama for my tradesman, now do I?

It was probably a good thing, because disconnecting the sink was more challenging than I had anticipated. I think the cold water shut off under the sink may need to be replaced. It was dripping pretty badly, so I shut off the water for the whole house, disconnected the faucet and then reconnected it and set it under the sink so I could turn the water back on. I actually have a professional plumber booked for the first thing Monday morning. I decided it was worth it to get the sink connected right away and to not have to spend the 4th of July holiday weekend dealing with that mess.

 

All the small things...

For the last week I've been focused on all the little details of the kitchen remodel.
For example, we have some light shades!

 

Turns out it's really hard to photograph a light shade when the light is on, but you get the idea.

My dad wired up the outlet in the island:

It's on it's own 20 amp breaker. Dad says I can plug 6 crockpots into it at once if I want. That's an important feature in any kitchen.

Finally, my mom has been helping me with trim. I really dislike trim because it's so nitpicky and you don't technically need it to have a functional space. But it does make things look better.

Also, here's the door with trim and a knob:

It's slightly taller than the door next to it. That's just the way it's framed. Crazy house.

In countertop related news, my countertops were delivered today! They're being installed Saturday. This is the last major step in this project, and I'm so excited to be done with it. So watch this space Saturday for countertop awesomeness.

A gardening interlude...

First, a quick kitchen update: For the last week I've been focused on all those little annoying details. Shades for light fixtures. Trim. Outlets. Those things that aren't critical to having a fully functioning kitchen but you still feel like you're living in a construction zone without them. It's so easy to put them off and move on with your life, so I'm really focusing on making an effort to get them done in a timely manner. I'll post progress pics soon, I promise.

But today, let's talk about gardening! This is my vegetable garden:

My neighborhood could definitely be described as "leafy."  Which is nice, but all the shade makes it really hard to find a spot for a garden. My garden is on the south side of my house, wedged on a little strip of earth between the house and the edge of my property. It doesn't get an ideal amount of sun, but it's the best I can do and I make it work.

Growing your own herbs and veggies has gotten really popular lately, but I've always gardened because that's just what you do. My parents garden and my grandparents gardened and I can't imagine not gardening. I'm not a fancy organic gardener or anything like that. I buy plants at places like the Walmart garden center and stick them in the ground and put Miracle Grow on them. It's always worked for me and I'm way to lazy to do anything more sophisticated.

This year I'm growing tomatoes, tomatillos, eggplants, various peppers and herbs. I like to can salsa and stewed tomatoes at the end of the summer, so that drives most of my garden choices. I don't tend to grow things like squash and zucchini and cucumbers because they tend to take up too much valuable real estate. Plus, I really love tomato based food items.

This past weekend I planted some annuals in containers in the front of my house:

Just some little baby seedlings in the window boxes and pots. Also, you can see my cottonwood problem in that picture. The people across the street have a cottonwood forest in their front yard (Like, about 15 trees!) and it gets everywhere this time of year. Gross.

It's occurred to me that I haven't posted pictures of the outside of my house on this blog, so here are a few more house pictures: