Step 5.9999: Floor Trusses Have Been Delivered

This is just a little preview for you of what the next step in the house building project will be.

To be honest, things have been moving pretty slowly. All of the rain and flooding pushed us back a couple of weeks, and so the framers just started yesterday! Now that they are starting, I hope to see (and share with you) lots of progress!

FOOOOOOD!!!

And because I think about food 23 out of 24 hours of every day, here is some food porn for your viewing pleasure!

I made homemade marinara sauce with the last of last season's tomatoes that I had in the freezer. I basically just cooked the tomatoes down for several hours (probably about 8), added a couple of generous handfuls of fresh basil, 3-4 cloves of minced garlic, salt, sugar, and a little white wine, and continued to cook for anther couple of hours. I bet when it was all done, it had reduced almost by half. YUM.

I added some of Steve's family's homemade Italian sausage to the sauce, then I cooked up some cheese tortellini.

To make it extra special, I drizzled the 18 year aged balsamic vinegar that Stephanie bought me for my birthday, and then loaded the bowls with the pasta and sauce.

TO.DIE.FOR.

It was so good. I could eat it every week for the rest of my life. Maybe I will.

Step 5: Pouring the Concrete Floor

I know, I know - I have been seriously slacking on updating the blog! Steve even took pity on me and bought me a new MacBook Air since my laptop was broken, and here I am still using my phone to post. I'm spoiled rotten!

Anyway, I'm trying to play catch-up so here goes! This is the guys pouring concrete over the in-floor heat tubes, the finished project, and (...can I get an AWWWWWWWW...) our names carved in it. The cool part is that this area is going to be a storage spot under the entry way, so the concrete won't get covered up and we'll still be able to see it when you go in to get Christmas decorations out!

Chick Food

I remember a conversation I had with my Mom shortly after Steve and I decided to build an addition instead of just buying a different house. She was telling me about her experience building, and told me that when her and my Dad were building their house, she lost a bunch of weight (due to manual labor, long hours, no time to cook, late nights, etc.). So I thought, "BONUS! New house AND bikini body!" All of that stress and hard work has to pay off somehow, right???

Unfortunately, my reality seems to be a bit different so far. I blame it on the Man Food. I mean, there is something wrong with serving a bunch of dirty, sweaty, tired men-folk a chicken cashew stir-fry or a shrimp and avocado salad. So...that means I've been serving things like brats and burgers and pizza and chips and granola bars and beer to the brave folk who have been helping. Man Food.

Man Food does not equal bikini body.

So last night I decided I'd had enough, and cooked me up some Chick Food. Asian Noodle Salad with tons and tons of veggies - cucumbers and peppers and spinach and cabbage and bean sprouts etc. with a soy-ginger-lime-jalapeño dressing. YUM. I used some of the dressing to marinade the chicken, grilled it up, and voila! Chick Food. I think that even Steve was ready for a change of pace.

Of course, since it was clearly a healthy dinner, that means that was ok to have that extra glass of wine.......right? Bikini body here I come. He he he.

The end.

http://ssandjb.blogspot.com/2010/12/asian-noodle-salad-adapted-from-pioneer.html?m=0

Step 4: Pouring Concrete Into The Walls

And here we are pouring concrete into the basement walls. By 'we' I mean Steve and his dad and one of his brothers, along with a few of his friends. I am the head supervisor. My job duties include making sure there is cold beer and delicious man-food available when they are done working. I also excel in staying the hell out of the way. Though this is going to change, because I got promoted! Steve is insisting that he is putting me to work this weekend (real work). Like I haven't been working hard enough! Ha! Check out the setup that we having going on to get the concrete into the walls. I had to take several pictures just to capture the whole scene! The concrete truck dumps fresh concrete into a fun little cup, then the cup rides up to the top of a track-thingy, where it is dumped onto a conveyor belt type doohickey, and the after a ride on the conveyor belt it plops into a sleeve and is funneled down the sleeve and into the wall! It's all very technical.

Step 3: Building the Basement Walls

WHOA. I just realized that I didn't post pictures of the basement walls being built or poured! I'm all like, "we haven't been able to do anything with the house because of the rain", and here I'm a week behind on posting. Duh.

ANYWAY - here are some pics of the house during Step 3. The last pic is pretty cool because you can kinda get an idea of the scope of the project. MAJOR addition.

And my apologies if the text of the post sometimes comes after the pictures, and if the captions of the pictures don't always show up...I have been posting from my iPhone or iPad lately because my laptop sucks and because my house is getting torn apart and my Internet is patchy at best. Not ideal for blogging. Please bear with me!

Rain Rain Go Away!!

Unfortunately, Duluth has been completely pummeled by storms the last week, so I don't really have anything new to post with the house. Steve was able to do a few smaller things like put in the drain tile and the sump pit, and pour the concrete for the kids' egress window wells - but nothing big to be able to photograph and post!

Instead, here are some pictures of the St. Louis River near Jay Cooke State Park that we took on Monday afternoon. Holy rushing river, batman! It was gorgeous (and kinda scary). Enjoy!