The house is done! On second thought, that's a little small

I got a new exercise machine last week — I got sick of not being able to get any exercise when the weather is bad, which is more often than not lately — and after Dave put it together (and carried all 150 pounds of it into the house, with his broken rib! I feel a little guilty about that) we had all sorts of left over cardboard odds and ends. Sofia and I decided we would build a house with it. So, on Friday after lunch, while Erik was sleeping, we got it all put together.

There's a sleeping loft, a table and three stools, a couch and a TV, a kitchen counter and shelf, stairs, a door and a window. We finished this house in an hour and a half -- I don't know what's taking Dave so long! (Well, OK, our house should have a bathroom, and electricity. And a roof, come to think of it.)

JAN. 24 UPDATE: A word from Dave

We had nice bright sun dogs (as well as a wind chill advisory) to greet us on Friday morning.

Well, according to the internet it is -19 outside right now, with today's high temperature forecast at 2 degrees. So I figure that is a pretty good excuse to stay in help out with the recently neglected blog for a while.

We are still working on the wiring. It is actually quite close to being done. I need to run cable for the smoke alarm circuit and the baseboard heaters and finish up all the connections on a couple of lighting circuits. It shouldn't take more than a day. Most of the outlet circuits have been tested and there weren't any surprises — everything worked.

The cold weather has really slowed down the work in the granary. The woodstove can get the temperature quite comfortable out there, but it takes several hours so it doesn't work that well to just put in an hour or two after the kids are in bed. The weather also causes a lot of other projects to take priority, mainly keeping the tractor running so we can clear snow, clearing snow, and keeping all the cars out of the ditches and starting.

The ditches are full of snow, so drifts can wind up covering the roads even if we just get a little wind without any new snow. We figured out during the last cold snap that the block heater on the tractor wasn't really working and needed a new cord. Fortunately we could replace it from the outside so we didn't have to drain the block to get at it. It has been nice to be able to work with John on the old tractors and other things around here. Most of the machinery here is older than I am and has a lot of little quirks that he knows all about. Generally when something around here is broken he knows better than I do what needs to be done to fix it, but he sometimes doesn't have the eyesight or hand strength to do it (although it is pretty amazing what he is able to do at 86). So when he works in management and I provide the labor we are able to get most of our problems solved.

We have also been dawdling a bit on finishing the wiring because we have to make some decisions about whether to have bath and kitchen fans. I had been planning on a pretty conventional building plan, with fiberglass insulation and poly vapor barrier and kitchen and bath fans venting both to the outside. Heidi went and called a passive building architect from Minneapolis and he made things complicated. In the buildings he designs he tries to control all of the air coming in and out. He recommends using spray foam insulation and then installing a heat exchanging ventilation system. It is a ducted system that brings in fresh outside air but passes it past the air that is going out in a heat exchanger. The system he recommends won't work in our house because we really don't have anywhere to run large ducts. However, they do make a similar thing that is just like a wall or window mounted air conditioner. This architect was also very much against fiberglass insulation with the poly barrier. He says it winds up trapping too much moisture inside the wall and causing problems later. He admits that plenty of people, including most of the local builders around here, do build that way though. If I was building from scratch I think his ideas would be great, but I don't know how well they would work in a retrofit especially since he uses triple-pane windows and more outside insulation, which we didn't use and can't change now.

We are thinking about doing the spray-foam downstairs but not in the addition. I'm leaning toward installing a bath fan that vents out but just a fan with a filter over the stove — especially since I'd have to cut a stud and put in a header to vent the stove out.

I have a little time to think about it since I broke a rib playing basketball last Sunday. I just thought it was going to bruise, but it started to get kind of painful especially after I spent Tuesday afternoon digging my car out of a snow drift (with some much appreciated help from our neighbor Lauren Witte and his tractor). So I went to the doctor on Wednesday and he said it was broken. I don't have to do much as far as treatment because the bone is held in the right place to heal by the muscle and cartilidge. I just have to avoid being hit in the side again (no basketball) for two weeks. I can work as much as I feel up to, but I think it will be a few days until I want to work on things where I have to stretch my arms over my head much.

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Lots of updates

I hope everyone is happy to have ushered in a new year! 2009 should be a good year for the Marttila/Losure clan -- we're still hoping to get into the new house by spring (though spring does technically go until June, the calendar says), we should have a little more time for a garden this year, and there will be another cousin for Sofia and Erik to play with sometime in May -- I'm looking forward to a lot this year!

A happy Christmas was had by all, I'd say. I thought I'd just post a few pictures of our gatherings.

(Except the first Christmas party, at the Marttila farm on Dec. 23 -- for some reason we didn't get our cameras out. Maybe because we had a hectic schedule, with the eating, the churchgoing, the present opening, and work the next day for several of us, along with the Losure clan's departure for points east and south the next day.)

Our Christmas Eve stop was the Losures' in St. Paul, where we entered a neat, cozy home and within a day had created this:

It wasn't quite that bad the whole time we were there -- this was the scene of a seat-cushion "doghouse." But we were pretty good at bringing a little bit Christmas chaos with us as we traveled!

Erik got to meet his Great-Aunt Karen (as well as Great-Uncle Walt, and Uncle Michael). Isn't it awful that it skips right to "great" on the aunts and uncles -- they don't get to be "grand" first? It makes them sound old before their time. If it would do any good, I'd start a protest.


Sofia stayed busy with many activities, including Nerf ball "hunting" in the basement, playing on her new (toy) laptop, reading books, playing on the neighbors' swings, and tea parties with pirates and monsters.


On Sunday morning, we headed down to the Losure farm in Iowa for yet another Christmas gathering. There were several hits of Christmas, including this little combo mirror/brush compact, which, for Sofi, also served as a phone -- she and Great-Uncle Dave made many "phone calls" to each other.

This zebra hat got a lot of attention as well (as you might guess from looking at it). Great-Uncle Dave got himself a funky hat too, and little Erik got one also -- a black hat with orange spikes, including a spiky tail.


There's music everywhere the Losures gather, and Sofia did a little dancing ...

... and a little playing, on her bongo drums.

A snow bunny -- or snowman with bunny ears, depending on whom you ask -- was built also. It didn't stay long, however -- the weather was too nice for just sitting in the sunshine!

One last gift was waiting for Dave when we got home. It's got a bit of a story behind it: Ever since Dave got his master's degree in the spring of 2006, he's been complaining (in jest) that he never got his "Master of Science" T-shirt. (There's a hokey radio skit about a master of science on public radio sometimes, if you've ever heard it. The phrase also has a "He-Man: Master of the Universe" ring to it.)

So, this Christmas, I thought I'd get him something he'd actually asked for. I had it printed by a seller on Etsy, the site where Mom has her shop:

Dave's worn his new T-shirt proudly already. (Though not to work -- he thought that might be a little obnoxious, since no one else there has a master's degree and they might not get the joke.) The peach-colored thing in the middle is a fist, in case you can't tell. I should have make that a little clearer in the design, but it still works, I think. The plant is crown vetch, the invasive species that Dave spent two years of his life studying.

Now to sell a few of these on eBay (for all those other satirical masters of science who studied crown vetch -- it's got to be an underserved market).


And THIS is a picture of a young man who just ROLLED OVER! (For the second time -- it took me a minute to get the camera, so I missed the first one.) He looks a little concerned in this photo, but in general once he gets on his tummy, he's quite pleased with himself.

Mom wrote in her Christmas letter that Erik seems to develop before our eyes, and that seems especially true in the last few days. Erik had two teeth show up on the night before his five-month birthday (Dec. 28). And on New Year's Eve, he rolled over for the first time; sat up in his swing trying to get the little stuffed animals hanging above him (Mommy's got to remember to buckle him in that from now on!); and played for about half an hour in his exersaucer (which is far longer than he's been able to stand up till now), just entertaining himself with the attached toys while we got ready to go to my sister's for an informal New Year's Eve. Today, he showed he is a little man with ambitions -- Dave watched him as he lay on the floor, eyeing the garbage can nearby; then he rolled over so he was within reach of the garbage can, grabbed it and tipped it over! (Then Daddy picked him up and spoiled his fun.) Also new today, he's also standing nearly on his own strength -- Mom and I both noticed that we have to hold him mostly just to help him keep his balance.

It's exciting watching him -- but there's also a fear starting to nag at me as I look at this old crowded farmhouse, summed up in two words: BABY PROOFING ...

Sigh. I'd better get started on that soon -- Erik's growing as we speak!