Ages ago, I dug the outline of the path to our front door. Since then, the path/pit has served as de facto reservoir during rainstorms and nursery for weeds during dry times.  Well, no more! The front path is finally becoming a real, usable walkway. Two weekends ago we spread and tamped a layer of gravel for its base. This weekend, we added a layer of concrete. Marc mixed and shoveled the concrete while I screeded, and--this is sort of a novelty--we finished the pour in less time than we expected. We wrapped things up, took a nice little break, and prepared for laying brick the next day. (Remember the chimneys? They're back, now in decorative horizontal form!)
 The next day turned out to be rainy. And though our to-do list for the house contains about a billion items, I thought, Well, if it's rainy and nasty out, we can't do the path, so we might as well do something else, like go to a movie or something people without houses get to do on weekends. But then my parents pointed out that we had this rainproof canopy, and so we set it up and got to work. I was a little grouchy--I had begun to taste freedom--but it turned out to be cozy and dry underneath the canopy, and I got used to it.
 It turns out that laying brick is not super easy, but that Marc is good at it. I tried a few bricks and got frustrated; the mortar slides around and it's hard to keep things level. But Marc was persistent, and by the end of the day had almost finished one side of the path. So this step is taking a little longer than expected.
In other news, the inside of the house has been stalled by window stuffs. To do insulation and drywall, we really need to have windows in. Our windows were supposed to arrive and be installed a few weeks ago, but the window company had a "cash-flow problem" and didn't order them until they had the funds. This might have been okay, but the staff kept playing dumb when we'd call, saying they'd be in any day now, until my dad finally talked to the owner, who fessed up. It looks like a few of the windows will arrive this week, and the rest will arrive... when they arrive. In the meantime, I suppose we have plenty to do.
 For a few aesthetically pitiful months, the northeast corner of our classic home has sported the following: - Boarded-up window
- Exposed foundation
- Uncovered house wrap (the black stuff on the lower story)
- Garbage-bag-like piece of plastic covering the side porch
With each gust of wind (and there have been plenty), this giant garbage bag billowed magnificently, then promptly blew down. The plastic was there to protect the new basement from leaks; we were just waiting for a sunny weekend to work on the porch structure.
 That sunny weekend finally showed up, and Marc and my dad spent both days fashioning lovely new walls. The plan is to replace that bedroom window (the one at the end of the porch) with a door, and then to cover the porch with cool-looking potted plants. The hope is that when you look out the enormous living room window, you'll see not the neighbor's garage, but a tropical wonderland (or the Portland approximation thereof).
 While my dad and Marc mulled over calculations, fit pieces together, and adjusted levels, I dug. While they screwed pieces onto the porch, I dug. While they glued, jigsawed, and clamped, I dug. The sun shifted from east to west, and I dug. Eight hours later, we had a hole perfectly shaped for a front walk. Now we just have to add gravel, then a couple inches of concrete, then bricks along the sides, then a couple more inches of concrete... It is going to be one heck of a path, let me tell you.
 Meanwhile, Oliver helped by lying in his bed and looking cute.
The past couple of weeks have been productive, at least as far as the house is concerned (the blog, not so much). We framed most of the downstairs bedroom, including its closet; we got our in-floor radiant heating going (lovely!); and we cut some holes in upstairs walls so that the plumber can vent the system and prevent our untimely sewer-gas-related deaths. All in all: progress.  That's not what I took pictures of, though. No, I took pictures of the nascent front yard, which now has a teensy hedge, a teensy pear tree, and a teensy bit of mud (goodbye, wettest March on record!).
 This afternoon I'm going to plant this ridiculously beautiful bleeding-heart beneath that teensy pear tree.
Next: more walls! More plants!
 For the past month, we've been working with a wonderful landscape designer at Portland Nursery. And this week, in the middle of monsoon season, I picked up the landscape plan for our front yard. It's beautiful: pear trees, roses, lavender, bulbs, and a ton of plants I've never heard of. I was so excited to start planting that I bought a bunch of the plants right then and there. With 17 viburna, three Elfin thymes (Elfin!), and ten “George Davidson” Crocosmia (plant names are the best!), I drove home through the deluge with visions of putting them all in the ground right away. I even mentally located the headlamp so I could keep planting late into the evening.
 But then there was the rain. Anyone who knows me knows that I wouldn't let a little torrential downpour get in the way of yardwork. The issue is that apparently you're not supposed to dig in sopping wet soil--it damages the soil structure--and our yard is covered in standing water. The Seattle Tilth website suggests that you dry out the soil for "a few weeks" (a few weeks!) after rain. If I followed their advice, I could probably plant in late July.
 I'm not the most patient person in the world. I wanted a sugary snack the other night, so I took some macarons out of the freezer. The box said to let them thaw for 30 minutes. You know where this is going. I managed to wait two minutes before crunching into one. So... if it's not pouring this afternoon, I'll probably be out there, shovel in hand, stepping in puddles and digging in.
 Compost! A week ago, a big truck dumped this steaming pile of (mostly) decomposed horse manure on our sidewalk and street. I'm a little disappointed at how small the pile looks in this photo; I swear it was seven yards of compost, which is A Lot of Dirt and A Lot of Shoveling.
 After spreading the compost, we created straw paths to keep the mud down, which actually works really well and has the added benefit of making you feel like you're walking around on a farm.
 To fix the side porch, we had to remove part of the front porch. When Marc and I finally stopped demolition for the day, we turned to look back at our work. We were pretty quiet for a moment, and then I said, "Should we just leave that off?"
Marc said, "I was about to ask the same thing." We reckon the front door will look much better without those porch sides, and we'll get more garden space besides.
I'll post better pictures after we take off the other side.
 The front yard was pretty much obliterated, which is both sad (goodbye, ancient roses!) and exciting (goodbye, highly allergenic lawn!). Last week we met with a landscape designer from a local nursery to create a coherent plan for the mud pit. In the meantime, the snowdrops have come back. Apparently they don't mind being driven over by heavy machinery, covered in gravel, and cut by shovels. It seems to me that they've earned an honored place in the upcoming design.
 Inside the house, we've been framing walls with tons of help from our amazingly generous friends Maggie and James. In this photo, Marc is standing pretty much in the bathroom wall, near where the tub will be.
 This back wall, along the northern edge of the house, was the easiest to frame because it's the only one without windows.
 The side porch, which had always been a little bit leaky, started being a lot leaky, and was soaking the new basement. We took off the decking and are putting on new plywood, which a pro roofer will cover with a heat-sealed material that will hopefully make it all delightfully waterproof.
Coming soon: delightfully waterproof porch, new electrical panel, window readjustment. Try to contain your excitement!
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