The great thing about heelers...

is their devotion.  It is the highlight of a Blue Heeler's day to make their person happy.  Crazy pups :).

Bluebonnet Pictures

I bet you can't tell form this picture that she was a lug head the whole time.  Good thing she's pretty.

In a strange turn of events, Julie was the good one today.  Is it April Fools day somehow?

 Ya, the first two are redundant, but I can't choose between them.  Bah ha ha, VICIOUS!

Blue Butt

Le Shower!

I spent the better part of the weekend tiling the shower.  All of the tile is now up.  I am going to *try* to start working on the grout this week.  Grouting is definitely best done in small patches, so it may work out ok as evening project work.

Holga Bluebonnets

Holga lenses are plastic and delightfully imperfect. I borrowed my friend's camera with her holga lens to try it out.  Ya, I'm so getting one.  

Elsa's Rope Time

Bluebonnet Pics

I drive by this tree everyday and think "wow, I need to take that picture'.  I finally stopped when we were out hunting bluebonnets for pictures.

An update to Picasa

The newest Picasa release has a few updates :-D  My current favorite is the 'cross process' option.  Check out the Iceland Poppy photo revisited:

Record Town Sign

Shower Floor

Last weekend I tiled and grouted the shower floor.  I have to admit I was a little terrified about how it would go.  It sounds kind of dumb but I wasn't sure how well cutting the tiles and laying them to have a slope would go.  Turns out (knock on wood) it really wasn't that bad.  The floor was already sloped and the tiles turned out ok.  The drain in the center is still covered by the protective tape. 

Eventually, I will work up the nerve to do the curbs then it will be old hat from there.  I hope. 

Tulips

We didn't make it over to the tulip festival in Dallas this year either.  Fortunately, the tulips on the TCU campus were exceptional.

Who are you looking at?!

Impala?

The Great Eggfly

I promise, I didn't make the name up.

Faces are Overrated

I don't generally post pictures where you can see faces for a couple of reasons.  First, some level of anonymity on the internet.  Second, I seriously can't do faces.  If you want to find out what kind of weird contortions peoples' faces make, give me a camera and ask me to photograph them.  There is a sense of timing that I'm missing so far.

Scarlet Mormon Butterfly

Hide and Go Seek Turtle Style

Ft Worth Zoo - Turtle Games 2012

Ok I made the Turtle Games part up.  Awesome zoo.

Giant Moth

This guy had to be around 6 inches across.  I deeply appreciated that they only fly at night.

Owl Butterfly

My Nemesis

It was wicked hot in the greenhouse today.  Something about 'simulating a rain forest' blah blah blah. ;)  I spent about an hour taking pictures of the butterflies.  Most of that time was attempting to get a clear photo of one of these blue guys.

Here's another:

Progress in Tiling

Backsplash for the tub.














Added a few more floor tiles in front of the toilet area. -------------->

Paper Kite

Bones

I bought the dogs new bones, brought them into the house, and promptly forgot about them.  That was two days ago. Elsa knows that they are there (clearly), but she also knows she can't have them until they are given to her.  Oh the agony!

Tree Incognito

Pictures of Happiness

Butterfly Fail

The Ft Worth Botanic Gardens has an annual display of butterflies.  On Sunday we tried to go see them, but they stop selling tickets at 4...about 10 minutes before we got there.  Instead we wandered around the gardens for a little while.  The Iceland poppies were blooming.

RedGard and Grout

RedGard is our friend.  RedGard is a paint on, waterproof membrane.  It goes on fuchsia and dries a surprisingly normal shade of red.  I spent an hour or so this afternoon caking it onto the tub area backerboard.  I'll likely tile this area tomorrow.  For now, I'm happy to have it sealed.

I was productive today in a bazillion other ways. In bloggable topics, I just took on the redgard and grouted the tile that I laid for the tub area.  Grout is kind of an interesting addition.  Grout is kindof wonderful as it helps to lower the visibility of tiling irregularities.  Take for example the tile with all of the holes for the drain etc.  Looks great right?  Well, let's just say the grout is helping to hide the fact that for the life of me I couldn't get that one to settle to a height that matched the rest of the tiles.  Actually, as I went along in that little 6x3 ft section, I noticed that there was a bit of a ridge down the middle.  I managed to hide most of that with just the tiling.  The rest is now hidden by the addition of grout.  See, grout is kind of wonderful.

Shower Progress

It's been a long week.  I got a quote from my tile people to do the hardiebacker (cement board) and shower pan cement last wednesday.  I told them yes and they called me after lunch on friday to say that they had a team free.

Now, let's rewind a few hours.  At about 8AM I got up and started working on the bathroom.  I dry spaced all of the tiles over to the tub area.  In theory, this should make the remainder of the floor mesh seamlessly with the toilet area.  We'll see. I took my time and measured tiles and cut about half a dozen.  I had to cut the kooky tile that goes around the tub drain pipe and the supply lines.  This took me until about 11 due to a run to Home Depot for a tile hole bit.

At about 11, I mixed up my thinset and got to work.  It took me about an hour to set down the tiles.  I am not the fastest tiler in the world; but I work cheap!  A few minutes after noon, I got the call about the team being available.  DRAT!  I had just laid tile.  They recommended just pulling the tile back up and washing it off.  Only an hour wasted, not too bad.  So that's exactly what I did.  I pulled the tile back up and cleaned it with a hose.  Turns out this is much more labor intensive than it sounds.  That darn thinset is like quicksand for tile.

Long story short after about 45 minutes of hustling I had the tile up and the area scraped free of damp thinset.  This worked out pretty well since about that time the team showed up.  They came in and laid down paper and started carrying in their goods. Aaaaaannnnnnndddddd, the shower liner had a leak and they couldn't work and all of that was for NOTHING!  Sigh.  I called it a day. Well, I called it a day after I got the plumber out to seal off the minor leak.  Still.  Poo.

This brings us to monday.  I touched base with my peeps and they said they could have some one out in the morning.  Nifty.  Turns out this time I got a family not the crew.  I have to admit, I was a little worried at first.  I shouldn't have worried though, they had the hardiebacker up in an hour or so and then set to work on the shower pan and niche.  Yes, it's true: my shower will actually have somewhere to store the shampoo now.  WEEE!

Grouting

Finally, the grouting picture that I promised.  Since Tuesday, Lowes received a shipment of grout and apparently even some in my color.

I mixed up a few cups of grout.  Apparently, I made the grout a little soupier than normal.  This may have been a happy mistake.  The grout flowed a lot more easily into the between tile spaces.  In addition, the grout was easier to form and smooth.  On the other hand, if the water to mix ratio is off the result may not dry correctly so the verdict is still out on this one.

I noticed in the last tiling project that grout not removed from the surfaces of the tiles while wet will never be removed.  I spent a lot more effort this time around cleaning the surface of the tiles.  A two stage cleaning works pretty well.  Lots of fresh water is needed but the sponge should be damp not dripping.  Too much water will mess up the grout you'd like to keep.

Spring Pups: Julie

Plumbing (An Interlude)

Well, so much for that grout picture I promised a few days ago.  Turns out #1 I didn't have any grout and  #2 neither did Lowes/my tile peeps (well of the correct color/brand).

Instead, you will get a story of plumbing.  After taking on the plumbing in the hall bath, we decided that this plumbing job (significantly bigger) needed a professional.  We pulled all of the crud out and made appointments with several plumbers to have quotes done.  Out of the 5 plumbers we called for quotes, only one came when he said and didn't no call/no show.  Off to a great start, right?  Well, the plumber that we chose has excellent reviews no matter where you check so we feel pretty confident in our choice.  Our friendly plumber came out and quoted the fix...with only one snafu.  Turns out the drain pipe to the old shower was broken down below the surface of the ground.  Not-o so much-o cheap-o to fix-o, fyi.

Regardless, we are currently tackling the plumbing fix and today I picked up the claw foot tub.  The plumbers built a sill frame for the shower base pan.  By the way, if anyone else in the DFW area is looking for a plumber, I would way hire these guys again.

Oh right the tub.   Here is our before shot.  Don't judge Tub-y yet.  She will be primped and preened this weekend and be lovely and new-ish looking by the time we are ready to place her in her new home.

Spring Pups: Elsa