The first time we did this we were out about 4 hours, and probably looked at ... I don't know, 7 or 8 houses. None of them really sparked our interest. That's not too disturbing, I remember from house-hunting days of yore how difficult it can be, especially when your needs and/or wishes are very specific.
Today was better - we saw two we're really interested in.
We still have no money, but I've decided, for now at least, to not let that trival nuisance disturb me. I'm going to operate on the assumption that when we find the perfect house, things will just fall into place. Faith? Gullibility? Recipe for depression? Who knows.
There was one house that was built in 1903 (love those big older homes). It's within the city limits of a town next-door to the one I currently live in, but it's on a quiet side street, on a corner, with only one neighbor. On the other side is an alley, and then a business of some sort (but there's quite a distance between there and the house), and across the street is the grounds of the city's historical society. So, very quiet and nice. It had two beautiful rooms, one on the ground floor and an identical one above it, in which the walls were all window. I can envision my hobby / sewing room / library in one of those, easily.
The second house is my favorite, though. We actually looked at this house several years ago, when we weren't actually looking for houses, but the Dread Reverend was really interested in it when he heard through a friend that the owner was thinking of selling it. On that initial inspection I rejected it out of hand, because it didn't appear to have any back yard at all. It's on a steep hill, and so the front of the house looks like one story, but in the back it's two stories (at least) with a sheer drop-off to a creek. No yard.
It's still for sale, though, and we went back today to take a closer look. Turns out that across the creek is a pretty decent sized lawn that also goes with this property, and the cool thing is, that lawn runs into the lawn for the property that surrounds most of this one - and it's a convent. What better neighbors could you want? And the house, at the back, is gorgeous ... two large decks (upper and lower) overlooking this beautiful little creek. We already decided that it would be relatively easy (and fun) to build a little bridge across the creek, so the Poo and the kids have access to the lawn beyond it.
I'm pretty much a goner for that place, and will surely become deeply depressed when I mean if it turns out we can't get it.
As for project work though, here's what I've been doing this weekend. I've wanted my own set of runestones for years, but for some strange reason never got any. I guess I just never found quite what I was looking for. I recently became re-interested in them, though, and decided to make my own. On a foray to the craft store yesterday, I was able to buy a huge amount of polished riverstones for $3.00, and out of that cornucopia was able to find 25 of a size and shape suitable for runes.
I began engraving them with my Dremel tool, and then filling in the engraving with a bit of metallic gray paint. I've only got 11 done so far, as it takes a bit of time, and using the Dremel can make my right hand and arm a little uncomfortable after too long at one sitting.
It's harder than I thought to engrave in these stones, to get the engraving marks deep enough. I didn't do as good a job as I'd like on a few of them, but no biggie ... if they really bug me, I can always go back and deepen the marks, then repaint them. So far I'm really, really happy with how they're turning out. I will probably finish the set in the next few days.
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