To the Batcave, Robin!

After much gnashing of teeth from Aunty Carol, here are some pictures of the (now warmer) basement. Mom and Dad have set up a little heater between the couches and as long as the door to the upstairs is close it can actually be quite toasty.The main room. Jessie has a futon just to the left outside of the picture that she sleeps on when she's home. The infamous dirt room is behind that door and Monty's bachelor pad is right in front of the sliding door so that he can guard the house against the neighborhood cats.

The doorway into Hannahland, you must be this tall to enter. Epic, no?

The land of make-believe. This is where all that crafty magic happens, more or less (really that magic happens all over the house... a needle in the arm of this chair, a wad of yarn on this table, some fabric in the kitchen. It's all good.) Oh, and you can see the little shelf Dad built for all of my books along the ceiling there. I think that's my favorite thing in the whole room!

The place for to be sleeping and snuggling (Monty is banned).

More crafty action happening this corner too. There are little things tucked into every feasible cranny and bits of thread clinging to everything else. Anyway, that's the tour of the downstairs.

It Snowed Again.

We decided to try and escape today. Dad and I went out at about 10 and started shoveling. And shoveling... and shoveling. I finished a bit from the garage to the front door only to turn around and see two fresh inches of snow covering up everything I'd just done. I cleared out part of the driveway before Dad got the tractor out. The tractor, unfortunately, had water in the bucket before the snow and now it had a block of concrete from somewhere, some rocks AND ice all piled up.After hacking at it for a while everything came out and some of the snow could be pushed around.

Enough to let us get some chains on the subaru and make it out to Sandy for more food. The crazy part is that when we went to get into the subaru we had to push almost two feet of snow off of everything and then up to two inches of ice off of all the important bits, like doors. Dad and I went to the store and after a crazy bit we got back in one piece.

(I found this wine at the store and I thought it was pretty funny. Funny enough to take a picture and then spend some time posting it. So there.)Sandy was a mess, there was about 8 inches of packed snow on the plowed roads and for a while we had to snow plow our way out of our road. Jessie spent some time sleeping, and playing tetris, and watching tv. Mom shoveled snow off of the back deck TWICE today (there was about a foot of snow on it the first time and about four or five the second time). Now, after spending a good chunk of the day shoveling things here and there I'm making some of this pretty bread and Jessie's making some sugar cookies. I've been baking and baking and baking some more!

The Evidence

Why are we still trapped in this house? This is why.

I think there were some cars under that snow. Anyway, last night we were eating dinner and trying to invent some things we could make with what food we have (we're down to two eggs and 1/4 gallon milk so I've been making this AMAZING vegan cookies and everyone's stayed happy... so far) when mom started trying to figure out when we last left the house. "Tuesday," I said, because that's the day I tried to go to Twelve Mile Market and it was closed. "Nooo... I think it was Wednesday, because that's the day I went to the store. I think. Maybe," Mom thought. We all thought about this for a while and then decided that it's been too long if you can't remember the last time you left.

It's been 6 days since I've left the house for sure. SIX DAYS. I've got plenty of yarn and fabric to mess about with but Jessie is going mad. After spending the last couple of days on the couch playing Tetris she surfaced upstairs lastnight at 8 and wanted to build a snow fort. Since she couldn't hang out with her friends in Gresham they wanted to try to do the exact same thing at the same time. That thing: build a snow fort. I'm always game for things like that so we got into our snow pants and dug a pit in the snow. Not so much a fort as it is an ice crater because when we tried to get to a good place to build it we had to punch our way through 6 inches of snow, down to a thick layer of ice and past it to another foot of snow with each step. It was a lot of effort, in the dark, in the snow, in 21 degrees. Plus the snow was all loose and powdery and no amount of hitting it could make it stick together. So, we have an ice crater in our yard.

It's Getting Deeper and Cuter

Now, the snow is taller than Monty. Can you guess what I did?

Yep, I tossed him right out into the middle and watched him schoon around.

Walkies

We all went for a walk this afternoon to see how the road looked. Turns out it's pretty icy/snowy. Just in our yard the snow is almost up to our knees in places.

Willow keeps darting through the deep snow (it's up to her chest) and then coming back all bleedy. She's fine, it just looks terrible. I think she's hitting some sticks at supersonic dog speed and getting a little banged up. It's not stopping her at all.

The Only Thing Cuter than Regular Monty

A snow-covered Monty!The snow turned into these BB gun pellets the second I decided to take himself out for a walk. Right now we've got about four inches of snow and it's still snowing pretty steadily. Monty's shortness was having trouble negotiating the deeper pockets.

Monty, on high alert.

I thought he looked awfully cute dipped in snow with his little rugged shoulders, as mummy likes to describe them.

Snow Does Funny Things

It's snowing here... again. It all melted yesterday so I thought I was safe when I told Star and Ben I could come meet them downtown for some shoppin' today. WRONG. I woke up this morning and it was snowing and had been snowing for a while. "Awww... I'm still good!" I thought. DOUBLE wrong. I got in the shower and by the time I got out it had gone to full scale blizzard. Still thinking I could manage, I got all bundled up and headed out the front door. It wasn't until I listened to my tires spinning uselessly in the snow that I realized I was trapped. I tried to back out three different ways, Dad tried to back it out, and all we were left with was my car blocking the Subaru, the only useful car in snow. I called Star and Ben to tell them I couldn't come and then waited while Dad tried to rearrange my car so that it wasn't such a problem. While I waited, this happened:

Ohhhh Jessie, in your shorts, in the snow. Of course I'm going to throw snowballs at your naked legs. Duh! Sucka...

Even the tree is wearing more clothes than Jessie. Sheesh.

All snowed in!

After it stopped snowing I decided to clear off the driveway to see if that helped with the cars. Who would use a shovel to clear a driveway when you can make a perfectly AWESOME snowman? Mr. Snowman can watch you all of the time, he has eyes on both sides of his head. Creepy thing.
If you were of a mind, you could probably find more pictures of snow and housy things here, at Dad's blog.

Buns in the Snow

I had a sneaking suspicion that Monty would love snow. I don't think we really had any last year so I didn't get to test my theory out. This year is a different story. I took Monty out this morning and away he went!

When he hops around his ears fly up, he's just coming down from an especially good hop in this picture. I wish he could yell "Huzzah!" when he does that, instead all he does is a little "montmontmontmont" motoring sound.

Monty rumpling through the snow.

The frozen bits didn't stop him from digging around in his usual spots either.

Apparently the snow turns him into survival bunny. Usually he won't eat anything outside but today he was eating every dried up bit of leaf he could find, some of them he carried to a corner of the house and stashed, probably for later. Silly guy.

And, video evidence of his eatery abilities.

Huzzah!

And then Willow decided to stand at the door waiting for Mom and Jessie to let her back in. Soooo pitiful.

Good Morning Mountain

Mt. Hood in the wee morning a couple of days ago, looking oh so pretty!

Here's a video tour of the new house!

And here's the view out the back right now.

Pretties.

The Day of Days

We're moving! 9 a.m. the moving guys come and help us with the big stuff and then the house is ours! Mostly. It's still not really done, but it's done enough!

(this is the after!)

(this is before)

Wednesday is the Day

We're moving!

It's official.

The floor is done, the walls are painted but there is still work to be done. We've taken the first load of schmooze over today and tomorrow will be rife with it's own little... "joys".

Tonight, I am pooped. Tomorrow I'm tired and Wednesday I'll be relieved! I'll post lots of pictures Thursday-ish. You can see some early things here, at Dad's blog, but for now I'm content to be achy and sleepy and stressed.

It's Too Early to Tell...

Whether this was a genius idea hidden behind a terrible idea.... or just a terrible idea. I wanted to paint just one of my walls and after about fifteen minutes of debating and a little input from mummy, I chose this green color (grape green to be exact) and I went at that wall with a bit of gusto. I'd had my first twinge of doubt when the paint guy at Home Despot popped open the lid to make his little color dot and I was blinded by what looked like highlighter vomit. I got home and put the first coat on and I was willing to go along with it because it was the first coat and you could still see a little white through it, so it was probably going to wind up being darker.... right? So I waited, paint dried, and then I repainted. Tip to those who have never painted a room before, USE A ROLLER. I was busted for using a paintbrush.... it looked better when I was putting it on with the brush than with the roller. Gimme a break! Anyway, the wall is complete and I'm still a little worried about it. Today is the day of decision though because it'll have dried, I'll have slept on it and really, it's not as yellow as this picture makes it out to be.... I think.

I'm glad it's only the one wall.

You May Ask Yourself...

WHAT exactly has Hannah been doing? I mean, if there's no school or job and only a few hours of crafting in evidence, what else is there?!

Well, the short answer is that the new house we were supposed to have moved into by October 1st is still not done. And, in case you haven't noticed the 1st is a quickly fading memory. I know I've spent a lot of time at the new house doing odd jobs, but my parents have spent and obscene number of hours there. Today was no exception (or yesterday, really). It might as well be a part time job. Today we laid flooring. We've finished the entire downstairs which will, soon enough, be Hannah + Monty land. You can see all the things we've done (and have yet to do) at the blog my Dad's been updating as they've been going.

Willow "helping" with the floors. She really just gets in the way with her worrying and winds up wrapped in a blankie out in the car while we work. Here, in a desperate attempt to keep her off the floors and out from under our feet, we've donated all our jackets and wrapped her in them on her blankie on a section of floor that's already been finished. Sadly it didn't work. She was up and following us around and bumping into our shins ten seconds later

The Vision

This is how mummy and dad want the new house to look like in the end. Mom wants me to post this so that people don't think they're crazy.

You don't think they're crazy.... right?