misha’s visit part 2

just to prove we do more than work on the house when misha visits, i finally downloaded photos from my camera!

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here we are at the betabrand store. misha and mathew are posing with a creepy mannequin and his silver dog (in mathew’s lap.)

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the cats insist on going outside every evening. (left) bella checking out the poppies and bumble bees. (right) arwen hanging out with the nasturtiams

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i can’t remember what we were doing when these photos were taken. i think we’d just had dinner at cha-ya and come home for tea. mathew is also taking funny self portraits, none of which i have posted. perhaps they will become an animation..?

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another outside visit. (left) arwen investigating the new compost tumbler. (right) bella showing off her balancing skills, spying on birds in the tree. she almost caught a bird recently when climbing in the tree, luckily the bird got away!

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mathew and misha painting and then reviewing their work.

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(left) we went for a walk into bernal heights with misha and daniel and made a new feline friend. (right) we also found quirky water features advertising a business outside someone’s home: watercontraptions.com

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misha looking out over our beautiful city on a beautiful day. 🙂

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three bittleston men having a chat on a bench.

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arwen has gotten adventurous again. she’s figured out how to jump onto the other neighbor’s house. i love how casual she is; she has no idea how freaky this is for us!

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when she’d decided she’d had enough, she finally came back to the place she’d originally jumped from and it didn’t seem so fun coming back. she was more than happy to run to the bathroom window where i pulled off the screen and let her in.

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and when they’re not getting into trouble, they spend a lot of time lying around being cute…

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and before i forget, HAPPY FATHER’S DAY to our dads! we love you both!

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mathew is currently in new orleans. he had a 3-day master camp training and a belt test that he’s been preparing for for months. HE PASSED!! he’s now a third degree black belt in shotokan karate. (above: bella helping mathew study.)

finally: Paint!

My brother comes to visit for a few days and what do I make him do? Work on the house, of course!
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First, I had to fill all the dents and cracks with Bondo. This was the second pass with filler (first time was before I primed everything). As soon as it’s painted, all the missed dents and unfilled holes show up.

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Then we had to caulk all the joints between windows and siding, and vertical joints between the trim and the siding. We have to be a bit careful when caulking: Mustn’t fill any joints that water trapped behind the siding might need to drain out of (ie, none of the horizontal joints in the siding, or the bottom of the window sill, etc).

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Actually, painting the color on is fun. It’s the most rewarding part, makes everything look finished, and goes quite fast.

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Well, as long as you are not working with the world’s pickiest Turtle. Here I’m painting the underside of the eave with a sky-blue color.

We’ve always had wasps nesting in the eaves on the back here. While I appreciate that they are part of our environment, and help with (other) pest control, I don’t particularly want them on my eaves. So, a bit of internet research led us to a Southern tradition that we noticed in New Orleans: Painting the underside of eaves with a sky-blue (the actual color varies by region, but it’s often called “Haint” blue) supposedly makes them less likely to nest. Worth a try, and it has a cool story to go with it.

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Above left, Mole gritting her teeth waiting for super slow Turtle photographer.

So, here it is, the outside of the laundry room is painted — now on to the roof, the stairs, the inside…

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Oh, and I’ve still got to paint that pipe.