Roofing - Day 1

Goodmorning! The Martinsen household are early birds and it WASN'T raining. I made him wait till 8am to start making noise, so at 7 am he was up there prepping the roof and tearing off this skylight. He patched it all up and completely got rid of it. It was placed in a valley on our roof its leak was impossible to get rid off, so we just decided to board it up. Really bad design in the first place, putting a a skylight where water can stand. Anyways by 8am I am loving this hole in my ceiling... This definately made me cringe! But to my wonderful surprise, he came in and cleaned it all up before I even managed to get there. Sweet!
The before picture. He's patching that skylight.

Another before picture. Goodbye old roof! By this point I am also participating on the roof. I have to say it was my first time up on a roof and it took some getting used to. My job was to open the shingles and set them up for him so he just had to nail them down. We cruised pretty fast once we got started!

This is the normal skylight. (above the bathroom) We were almost done flashing and laying shingles here. I am learning so much about roofing!

And the after picture. All in a days work! I must say, we work as a great team!

Tomorrow we begin by "capping" this section of the roof and beginning on the other section. Hopefully the weather holds out and we can complete the other section in a day as well!

Gardening

"The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control." ~ Galatians 5:22

These are my strawberry plants growing strong. We are starting to have lots of little berries on them, sometime soon they will explode with fruit! This is the very first berry and the only one that is now almost ripe. I am so excited!


My green onions. Still a long way to go, but they are getting big.

Lettuce, spinach and carrots

My garden.

I surround it with smashed eggshells. This prevents slugs & snails from entering.

Jalapeno plant. I am praying it will live so Steve can have at least one pepper. That is all he wanted!

One of the clusters of radishes. They should be the first crop that I can enjoy. Steve built this gate for me this weekend. I love it! It keeps my beagle from seeing out front and barking all the time and it allows me more privacy when I'm out in the garden. He is so talented!

I planted these out front. They are the only flowers I have this year. Maybe I will plant more... Ive been so focused on my vegetables that I havent cared too much about flowers.

Well my garden - and gardening skills - have come a long way so far! It is so relaxing to work in the garden, especially in the early morning or evening. I completely understand now why Jesus liked to pray in a garden! The solitude is peaceful. If all vegetables fail, it is still worth it. More pictures to come later!

Pizza Night

First off, I LOVE MY KITCHENAID MIXER!! It makes the best bread.

Now that my hubby is home, I am happy to be back in my kitchen. The other night I made homemade a pizza. It was amazing!

Dough:

1 pgk. active dry yeast

1 c. warm water (105-115)

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp olive oil

2 1/2 - 3 1/2 c. flour

1 TBL cornmeal

1. Disolve yeast in warm water in warmed mixing bowl. Add oil, salt an 2 1/2 c. flour. Attach dough hook and bowl to mixer. Turn to speed 2 and mix for 1 min.

2. Continuing on speed 2, add remaing flour 1/2 c. at a time and mix until dough clings to hook and cleans sides of the bowl about 2 min. Knead 2 min longer.

3. Place dough in greased bowl and turn over (grease all dough). Cover and let rise in warm place 1 hour or until double in size. Punch down dough.

4. Spread cornmeal on pizza pan or cookie sheet. Spread dough out, leaving an edge around sides. Add toppings. Bake at 450* for 15-20 min... YUM!

As you can see, Steve chose pepperoni and I like bell pepper, onions and mushrooms. This was Steve's opinion. :o)

And just for fun...my beagle tangled himself in my curtains. I had to laugh at him and take a picture before I rescued him. Silly boy.