Couldn't remember my password

Here I am staining our cheap but

functional mantle.

Here are a few pictures. I just

realized that I haven't downloded

any new pictures into our computer.

This pictures shows how dirty

the light asscussions were before

we painted them. Yuk!

It's been so long since I've blogged that I just spent the last 20 minutes trying to remember by password. What a good use of time. We are spending the night at my in-laws, who have high speed Internet, so I'm trying to send a shout out to those who may still care what is happening at the "Mansion".

Between dial up Internet and an aging computer my blogging efforts have come to a stand still. Homeschooling and Mr. Fix-It's new job have also taken up a lot of time and mental energy. Unlike my dear Sister-In-Laws, writing is not a gift that comes naturally to me. It takes a lot of energy and hard work to produce a reasonable and readable article.

Anyways....We have been busily working on our house and trying to button things up before the Long Hard Winter sets in. These projects include but are not limited to, putting a French drain in our front yard, hauling wood into our basement, so not to freeze during the winter. And laying gravel in our driveways to assure our visitors that our parking area is indeed intended for parking and not for mud bogging (a very popular past time in Upstate NY).

We have made some progress on the inside as well. The kitchen / living /dining area are almost done. We have the details to finish up, but we usually like to save those projects for when we know we are selling the house. Having a For Sale sign in the front yard is a great motivator. We have also painted Isabelle's room. I'm going to post some pictures (when I download them). I hope to have a better Internet system before the end of the month. Mr. Fix-It is working out a deal that I can pay for the increase in Internet if I do some paper work for him at home. I hope I'm qualified for the job! I encourage all you are enjoying your high-speed Internet. It's not a privilege that everyone in our country gets!

Excuses

I'd like to apologize to anyone who has attempted to follow my blog for my blogosphere disappearance. Life and a sick computer have temporarily sidelined any blogging. Aside from my Internet being horribly slow, I believe my computer has a little cold that is making it sluggish. Not knowing anything about computers and not having the time to learn, Mr. Fix-It and I have patiently endured each Internet session. We bring a book to read when we know we're getting on the Internet. It gives us something to do when she is "searching". The computer is getting up in years and needs a little more time to do it's job. She's been a part our family for 5 1/2 years now and we feel she's going to have to go into the shop for a little tune up. But please keep this a secret. We don't want her to know we're sending her away and have her get mad at us and run even slower. I hear electronics and appliances have a tendency to do that sort of thing. We've already had to fix the fridge.
Important things like vacations, new jobs, and home education have been infringing on my blog time. We went on vacation in Western Mass. and had a wonderful time avoiding reality. Mr. Fix-It has a new job (Yeah!) and he has been traveling out of town to take classes in ordered to get some required licences. This is an exciting but busy time for us, so unfortunately with the speed of our computer blogging has not made it on the to do list. Writing the To Do List is still on the to do list.
On the home front; we have painted the walls in the upstairs bath and the school room. I really like the colors and I'm looking forward to getting the trim put up in the rooms putting on the finishing touches. I hoping that we will have a satellite Internet by the time those rooms are done, so I can share pictures. The contractor finished his two week job in jus under 5 weeks, so things are really starting look up. Apparently the contractor we hired only works 20 hours a week. I guess he thought the U.S. had switched to French work week. Darn, I must have missed that memo.
Since I'm sure it's mostly my in-laws who are reading this. We all say hi! and love reading your blogs!
I hope to be back soon!

I've got the dial-up blues

I honestly didn't know how hard it would be to have dial up Internet. It seems to have gotten worse since we've lived here. I've tried to down load pictures on the blog in the last week and I just couldn't stay up longer than 45 minutes to wait for them to download. I really wish I was exaggerating when I say it did not download in less time than 45 minutes.
I feel like I know what the Laura Ingalls must have gone through during the Hard Winter. This dial up think is really tough. I feel like I've lost half of my brain power. I never realized how much I was on the Internet during the day, getting directions somewhere, checking the weather, looking up some interesting fact, comparing prices on anything from jackets to toilets, ordering school books, ordering anything! Now I debate if I really should connect because I might miss a call. In addition not having cable we are also are out of range for voicemail and we get little if any cell phone reception. The isolation is killing me! It's almost more timely for me to hitch up the horse and buggy and go to the library to use their computer.
Oh, it's really not that bad . Well, it is, but I'm trying to approach it with a more positive attitude. I guess I have more time to do fun things like change the ice in the coolers my food is stored in since my brand new refrigerator broke down. Good thing we kept that receipt.
To those of you with high-speed, cherish it. You don't know what you have until it's gone.

Little Bit of This Little Bit of That

On my last post I talked about having marriage therapy. Well, it turned out that our therapists needed therapy. The first guy who was supposed to help out (we'll call him Joe). Ended up needing a more supervision and help than my husband or I could offer. After taking two days and $280 dollars to make our back porch worse than it was we figured it was time to let Joe go. We both felt bad because he worked really hard to mess up the porch.
The next person who was supposed to help (let's call him Ted). Didn't show up the first day. When we called to find out why, we received a pretty reasonable explanation, so we figured we'd give him another shot. When he didn't show up the second time we received an out of this world explanation that we're sure was a complete lie, but we still figured we'd give him another chance since we're really desperate to get some work done on the house. Ted failed to show up a third time and we found out that it was because he was in jail. That explanation sounded not only reasonable but likely sowe decided just to let it be. If he does happen to show up I'm sure we can find some work for him to do.
During all of this I called a "handyman" from our local paper. Mr. Fix-it was very leery about having Handyman Ron come to the house. I told him that his two fellas had not worked out, so he should give my guy a shot. He begrudgingly agreed and it turns out I can pick a pretty good handyman. Ron was able to actaully accomplish work today. Not only did he show up on the day and time he said he would, he was able to start and finish jobs with out a parole officer by his side. It just doesn't get any better than that. We now have doors on all of the bedrooms and shelving in three of our closets! In addition to Handyman Ron (not his real name), we had another contractor and his helper come and rescue our back porch. We praying that he is the miracle we asked for. We called him on Friday and we knew it might work out when he actually called us back when he said he would. A couple of jobs have been postponed for him and he has a few weeks available. We will gladly fill up any time he needs filled. I have a railing on my back porch and he says he's coming back tomorrow. House renovation has never been so easy.

Marriage Therepy

My husband and I are seeing a marriage counselor. Our counselor uses a few different tools and techniques than the typical counselor. When he comes to do a session he brings his ladder and drill. This type of counseling is very effective for us. Actually, he's not a counselor but a contractor, but I assure you these sessions are transforming our marriage one project at a time.

We do have a couple of people coming in and doing some work for us. This is a HUGE step for my husband who is so stubborn, focused , and frugal that hiring help is against his morals on many different levels. But my own determination (and the Lord's divine intervention) has helped my husband see the light. The stress that has been relieved by this decision is immeasurable. I see the money we're spending as an investment...in our marriage.

Enjoy the updated pictures of our kitchen. It isn't done yet, but it's a lot more functional. We still have to paint and put our knobs on the cabinets. Notice our butcher block counter top on the island. It's the one from IKEA.

The Vehicle of Super Heros

My husband wears a tie to work and sits at desk for the better part of the day, but on his lunch break and after work he turns into a super hero known as Mr. Fix-It. He has a great disguise and his super hero vehicle rivals Bat-Man's car. When in super hero mode he trades in his usually ride (a Nissan Altima) for the more powerful Dodge Grand Caravan. The Caravan has amazing capabilities, it's almost like a pick-up truck in disguise. The Caravan allows Mr. Fix-It to work among his peers without his true identity being revealed. They have no idea that after work he goes home and transforms his persona and his house. Just the other day, in a little less than 1 1/2 hours, he was able to get materials to transform both our yard and our deck into a more habitable and enjoyable spaces. He did all of this and was able to return to work and save the world by selling an annuity to a retired couple. Yes, folks he really is THAT good. Enjoy the pictures that show a glimpse into my husband's secret identity.

Holding Pattern

I am a bit (no I am extremely) frusterated at our lack of progress. It's not that we haven't been doing things on this house. It's that we haven't been doing things that can be seen. I am so tired of having my toaster in my living room, and not having a toilet downstairs, and not having a sink upstairs, and having frogs in my pool (yes I am still working on the whole pool thing).
Mr. Fix-It spent this weekend and the first two days of this week putting up gutters in the front of the house. I realize gutters are very important to keep moisture away from the basement, but they don't improve my quality of life. I want shelving. I want paint. I want knobs on my kitchen cabinets. I want a TOILET!
Well, I will stop complaining and go help my spouse put up some shelves in a made shift pantry. Sorry about my rant. I just had to get a few things off my chest. I promise my next post will be more uplifting. It may be a few months before I write one, but it WILL BE more uplifting. I hope you are enjoying a dry basement. I pray I will be in a few weeks.

Family Time With the Murches

I just wanted to share how we do family time in case any of you are thinking of taking on an enormous home improvement project you might want to think about things like this. Here is panoramic snapshot of our "Friday night family time".
Our big project this weekend was gutters (more on this later). In order to start the project we needed materials and what better way to kill two birds with one stone (or two parents with one trip) than to combine family time with a trip to a home improvement store (store shall remain unnamed because it is NOT Lowes and I do not like it very much). In order to make the trip extra fun and keep the children somewhat calm, we first stopped at Wal-Mart to get a giant bag of popcorn and paper bags lunch bags in which to give each child their individual serving of popcorn. I thought this was a great idea, but apparently my middle born was not very happy because the popcorn was not accompanied by pink lemonade.
We somehow managed to walk to the store from the car only having to yell at a child one time for not listening and running out into the parking lot and almost getting hit. So far the trip was really turning out to be a smashing success. We made it into the store when all three children started to whine and cry saying they didn't want to be there. Oh, I forgot to mention that my oldest wanted to stay in the car because there was a radio program on that she wanted to listen to. Of course we had to tell her no since we were all going into the store together to enjoy some quality time as a family.
I won't bore you with all of the details of the trip. The highlights I would like to give are that home improvement stores are great places to go shopping with kids. We've picked up a few tips in our many travels there. The aisle are great, so much better than a dept. store or Wal-Mart. They are wide enough, so that when a child is throwing a temper tantrum on the floor there is plenty of space for other customers to walk around your child. You don't feel like you have to apologise for taking up the whole area. These big improvement stores also have great industrial shelving. It is almost like having monkey bars, only there are usually very heavy and dangerous merchandise on these shelves that could injure your child. We have found a few safe place to let them hang and swing on them. The insulation aisle is good place to start. During the spring and summer months the kids like to go into the garden department and pretend it's a jungle. I see this as a cultural field trip of sorts. It's as close to the jungle as we'll get for a long time.
So you can see there are plenty of opportunites to turn you potentially boring trip to a home improvement store into an exciting family event to be enjoyed by everyone. We had so much fun doing it I don't know if I can handle that much excitement again for a very, very, very, very long time. I hope you enjoy your next family time as much as we enjoyed ours.
I'm looking forward to writing about the gutters. We're just hoping it stops raining long enought to have time to put them up. Oh the irony of it all.

A little Riddle...

What is green,

Looks like a pond,

Smells like a pond

But is not a pond?

.....The Murch's Pool.

I was so excited when we looked at this house and saw there was a pool. The conversations went something like this.

Mr. Fix-It: Oh, there's a pool. We'll have to tear it down

Me: TEAR IT DOWN? WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?

MR. Fix-it: It will be so much work and we could use the yard space for the kids to play in.

Me: I've always wanted a pool. It will be so much fun. We can have friends over to play. WE ARE NOT TEARING DOWN THE POOL.

Mr. Fix-It: Okay, but YOU have to work on getting it ready.

And that is why the pool is still green. Actually, this shade of green is a great improvement on the brown that it was a few days ago. With MR. Fix-It's help I have been working on vacuuming, chlorinating , and filtering the pool over the past few days. Leaves and gross stuff are coming out at an alarming rate. I am also learning a lot about pool maintenance, so if anyone needs any help next summer....

Have a swimmingly good day today. I"m off to vacuum more gunk off my pool floor.

So Much To Say.

Where do I start? I'm asking that question both for my blog and my life in general. We stayed our first night in our house last Sunday! Woo hoo. It was not a lot of fun trying to find clothes and bedding, but we reached a huge mile stone by staying here and being able to walk on those blasted floors.
I cooked our first meal of pasta on Sunday. It really was pretty comical. Step 1: move box full of knick knacks from stove top. Step 2: find pasta (what box was it in?) Step 3: move box from floor so not trip over it AGAIN! Well, I'm sure you can see how the whole meal process went. We did make it through Sunday and started off the week with our Church's week long summer Vacation Bible School. I love doing VBS, but getting us all out of the house in matching clothes every day before 8:15 was nothing less than a miracle. We did it though and the kids and I had a blast.
We started to feel like we were making some progress for the first time today. We mowed and weed wacked our 1.4 acres with a push mower and a weed wacker. I helped out for about an hour and it took Dan a total of 4 hours to finish the whole lawn. If anyone sees a deal for a riding lawnmower please let us know. I feel it would be a worth while investment. We have started working on our pool for the second time. After three calls to our local pool and spa specialty store we think we might have a chance at swimming before labor day but we're not holding our breath.
Our day has not been without it's challenges though. While filling the pool Dan noticed that our water pump was turning on and off, so he pushed a button to put it on automatic. He says he has done this before. Well, this time when he did it is shut off our water. We currently have no water (aside from the algae infested pool water we are attempting to clean.) I am just looking at this situation as a great opportunity to practice being a patient and loving wife and not asking why he had to go and push that button WHEN IT REALLY WASN'T NECESSARY! Hmmm ...what else did we do today. We put together a dresser from Ikea. It wasn't exactly fun, but it did all come together and now Dan's clothes are not in various boxes and laundry hampers. All in all (except for the whole water incident) it has been a productive day. We are looking forward to having a break tomorrow and coming back at the house full force next week. I hope to get some more pictures posted, but it might be a few days. We have dial up internet service after having high speed Internet for five year. I didn't think something like this would upset me, but I am a little embarrassed to admit that it has. I guess it is just another opportunity to learn patience. Hope everyone is having as much fun as we are!

Home

It's a bit ironic that we own two houses and I feel homeless. I've been thinking a lot about what makes a house a home because right now neither of the houses are my home. Our "old" house is not my home anymore. My kids swing set isn't there, the toys are all gone,and I can no longer cook in the kitchen. I own it but it is not home. My new house does have ALL of my belonging in it and my kids' swing set is sitting unassembled on the side yard, but it is still not home yet. I walk into the house and I want to turn around and walk right out. If you glanced at my last entry I'm sure you can understand why. So what is it that makes a house a home? While I love decorating and having a "nice" house, I can live in a bit of upheaval for a time. I believe my previous pictures can attest to that. Home for me is a place where I can follow my routine. A place where I have the freedom to leave my coffee cup on the counter without fear of it being swept into the dishwasher, or deciding that Monday is pajama day without fear of judgement or ridicule. Home is where I can be myself, really be myself. Following that definition I believe I have made myself at home in many of your houses. If your place is one of them, thank-you for waiting for me to drink my coffee before you put my mug in the dishwasher.

I should be heading to our newest place of residence in the next few days I'll let you know when it becomes home.

Words Cannot Express

The Family Room
The Family Room Take 2

The Kitchen (notice the hardwood floors)
Littlest Little One's room AKA The tool room

Room with a view

I hope you enjoyed the tour. As you can see I have a random sense of decorating and I enjoy using cardboard to bring in a different element into my color scheme. Moving is so much fun!

After Pictures Continued

I realized that many of my before pictures are somewhere on my computer. I just don't know how to locate and retrieve them. Enjoy the after pictures 'cause that's all I got.

Before and After

Here are some before and after pictures of the bathrooms. The top picture in the downstairs bathroom before. The middle two pictures are the upstairs bath before. The bottom two pictures are the downstairs bathroom after. That is all the pictures I was able to get on one post. There will be more to come.

Focus!

I wrote focus in the title in order to remind myself to do just that. Focus! Dan and I have both had trouble with staying in one direction since our flooring debacle. We tried to refocus our efforts on moving after we realized we would not get the floors done. With the help of some wonderful friends and their family we were able to move most everything on Friday night and Saturday morning. Everything had to go into the upstairs of the house since we weren't able to finish the floors. Dan, who has more perseverance in a day than I have had in my entire lifetime, returned to the house on Sunday to begin the process of polyurethaning. He had secretly hoped to finish it all on Sunday but in order to be consistent we deciding to add yet another day to the floor finishing process. In the end we figured it would make the story more dramatic.

Monday night at 8:00pm the floor was officially finished! Yee Haw! Now we just need to get some lighting installed, so we can see what it looks like. Tuesday we decided it would be best if we took the evening off. I don't think I've ever enjoyed a Tuesday evening so much in my entire life. Wens. night we took a few more miscellaneous items up to the house and met with someone to discuss options to take care of the sulfur problem with our water. Another thing I've learned during this whole process is that "options" are always expensive, no matter how many of them there are.

Tonight Dan is trying to prioritize what is the most important thing to work on in order to get us into the house faster. If anyone has any suggestions please feel free to offer them in the comments section. I'll give a brief overview of some of the things that need to be done before we can move in

1. We have no working overhead lights in the entire downstairs. Dan, assures me that this is not a big deal and he can have lights working in little or no time. I would feel pretty good about his assurances if there wasn't a list of 20 things that all are going to take little to no time to complete.

2. We have no working electrical outlet for the appliances. This also is not a big deal as we have no appliances as of yet to plug in.

3. We have a sink that needs to be installed, but we have no counter top on which to install it.

4. Only the sink works in the downstairs bathroom

5. Only the toilet works in the upstairs bathroom. If you notice, neither bathroom has a working tub or shower.

I could continue this list but I feel a panic attack coming on. This is something I can focus on. I think I should end this post for health reasons. I pray you are having a great day. I hope to return with news of progress and working appliances!

The Tale of The Hardwood Floors

No matter what anyone says, always install prefinished hardwood floors. In addition, make sure you buy the installation package regardless of the cost. It will by far be the cheaper option. I am speaking from experience. Dan and I chose to lay unfinished floors, since it was such a great deal. Well, this great deal has turned into a 6 week nightmare.
We thought we might just have them done in time to move our things in this weekend. Well, come to find out, you need to wipe off the excess stain no matter how dark you want it to be. Instead of applying polyurethane this week, we will be wiping off excess stain, letting it dry for 48 hours, and lay down protective paper. We will then move all of our furniture upstairs, so we can polyurethane next week. Ahhhh! I'm a little upset.
I love learning these little lessons. I hope to be giving better news on my next post. Have a great day.

Behind the scenes

I really wanted to have some progress pictures to show you, but alas the progress we are making is the invisible kind. Dan has been working hard and we've had friends come and help, but the kind of work that is being done is behind the scenes work. I have no patience for this kind of work. I don't see electrical wires or interior wall framing so they REALLY can't make a big difference, can they? Dan assures me that all of the work is very important and needs to be done and done well. I still don't see how it compares to say, paint color, hanging up curtains, planting flowers, or making sure that the appliances are installed

Because of our outlook on things we make a pretty good team. Dan pays attention to what he thinks is important and I pay attention to what I think is important. After we survive all the fights and the project is done, we look at each other and say "that wasn't too bad, lets do this again!" (that's also how we ended up with three children.) I'm trying not to get frusterated that Dan can spend 4 hours sanding walls and nothing looks much different. I AM very goal oriented and I AM NOT very patient.

I know that the inside is really what is important both in the house and in our personal lives. I am praying that I grow in patience and continue building a firm foundation for both the house and my personal life. This is a difficult process for me, but the house is a good metaphor to look at. The paint and curtains won't make a big difference in the end, if all of the walls are crooked, the electric doesn't reach all those pretty light fixtures I picked out, or the heat doesn't reach the right rooms. I'm glad Dan is taking the time to work on the inside. I think I might spend some time working on it too. I hope each of you has a successful building day today whatever your project may be.

Destination Procrastination

One would think that in the middle of a renovation, move, and end of a home school year, the mother figure of the family would be entrenched in packing, teaching, and wielding a paint brush. One would think....The reality in this family is the mother figure has been pursuing the art of procrastination. If anyone would like lessons in this art I would love to share my talent. I am a TRUE professional! In the past week I have shopped for curtains (not all together wasting time), visited a friend, and attended the Women of Faith Conference. I have to say that attending the conference was a time of renewal and I pray that God's Grace descends upon me to enable me to tackle the next two weeks.
Things I should have been doing goes as follows:

1. Write a list of what needs to be done.
2. Post on my blog (Look I'm already getting things done!)
3. Place add in newspaper for garage sale
4. find things in house to sell at garage sale
5. find a place in the house to place things to sell until they are sold!
6. Bake cookies to sell at the garage sale. ( I promised the girls about a year ago that they could do this)
7. Go grocery shopping for baking ingredients
8. Pack
9. Get boxes and tape so I can pack
10. Take kids on end of the school year picnic
11. Think about Father's Day
12. Think about our 10 year anniversary
13. When I'm done thinking, plan and execute card making and gift giving. ( We have already rescheduled mother's day, so this is an option for both Father's Day and our anniversary)
14. Paint SOMETHING in the new house
15. Find out what our phone # is in our new house. Apparently it's been hooked up, but I deleted the information that had the phone # in it.
16. arrange for propane to be hooked up at house, so the stove and dryer will work
17. Get stove, refrigerator, and dishwasher delivered
18. Remove the frogs from the pool
19. Remove algae from pool
20. Find out how you remove frogs and algae from pool
21. Stop thinking about EVERYTHING that needs to be done
22. Take it one step at a time
23. Check myself into the closest psychiatric ward.

I started this list a little tongue in cheek and sometime between the start of my post and now my heart rate has rapidly increased. I must be off so I can start crossing things off my list. I do want to thank all of you who have read my ramblings and have prayed for us as we make another transition. We really have great group of supportive friends and we are so appreciative. Have a great day. Hopefully we'll have some new pictures in the next few days.

Progress

We are making progress! It was a long week, but our contractor pulled through for us on Saturday. I'm posting pictures. It may not look like much to any of you, but to me it's the start of something beautiful.

Bad News.

Aghh! I just got a call from the contractor who is supposed to be helping us Friday and Saturday to put in our kitchen. Dan went to bed early tonight, so tomorrow moring I have to tell him that he will not be showing up until Sat. morning. Let's hope I have a kitchen before we move in. Enjoy some of the before pictures they may end up being better than the after pictures. I'll let you know how things turn out.

I must be crazy.

Those of you who know me know I love to shop, not only shop but get a good deal. For me that is part of the fun of fixing up houses. I get to shop for new paint colors and other necessary fixings for a house. In this house we are redoing our kitchen, and for the first time having a kitchen island. My desire is to have butcher block counter top. If anyone has looked at one of these they know they are expensive. Thanks to my untiring research I know that one of my favorite stores, Ikea, has butcher block counter tops for less than half the price of my "other favorites store". The only problem is that Ikea is 31/2 hrs. away (if you don't take the wrong exit). I probably could have looked into ordering the butcher block online and having it delivered, but really how much fun would that be. Instead, I went with the much more reasonable option of packing up my three children (ages 7, 5, and 2), my mother to join me on what I was sure would be a fun road trip, and making sure I had the car adapter for my portable dvd player . We loaded up and headed for Ikea Conshohocken.

I'm sure some of you have already thought about the gas prices and are wondering how much of a deal this butcher block really is. I did think about gas prices momentarily, and through some very creative math I managed to work out a significant amount of savings even with our bankrupting gas prices. So twenty minutes behind schedule we left our driveway for our little adventure. This is where I made my mistake. I decided against stopping to get some healthy treats at Wegman's (the world's best grocery store). If you read my previous entry you know how important snacks are to my children. I did bring a few things, but they were neither healthy nor filling. It took a full 1 1/2 to deplete our snack bin. This was not a good thing. Having to make this a money making trip there was not room in the budget for convenience store snacks.

After taking the wrong the exit we ended up getting to the store a little later than we first planned. My girls managed to make it without starving to death, but we did have to eat at the cafeteria as soon as we got there. The whole eating experience was so confusing and unsettling I don't remember much of it. I do remember trying to get Olivia to eat her food. Forget that she had been complaining about her tummy hurting her since breakfast that morning. I'm sure some of you already know where this story is going. Yes, she threw up right in the children's section of the store. Luckily, I moved quickly enough so she avoided all of our clothing and retail items in the store. If it had to happen it couldn't have happened in a better place.

I had planned on meeting my friend Shelby at the store. We have a long shopping history together, and she is also an interior decorator. I was happy to be able to bounce some design ideas off of her. We had such a good time looking around and going on a bit of a shopping blitz.

For those of you who have never been to Ikea it is definitely more of an experience than your normal shopping trip. If you want to buy a couch. You get a cart and put your couch on the cart and walk out of the store with it. It's not a store for everyone, but if your looking for fun affordable furniture it is a good place to check out.

We survived the experience and made it home in one piece. Olivia is doing much better and I'm so glad to have a "you threw up in a store" story to tell her when she gets a little bit older.

Trying to Help

"Can I help sand the floor Daddy?" "Can I ride on the sander?" "No, Daddy turn it off It too woud (loud)." These questions/comments were fired off as Dan attempted to start sanding the hardwood floor. When we were considering buying this house, my husband and I talked about how easy it would to do the work together while the kids played. I don't recall drinking or taking any drugs during this conversation, but my mind must have been somewhat altered to have had such absurd thoughts.

I have attempted on several occasions in the past few weeks to take the girls up and help Dan. some times have worked out better than others. Today was not one of the better times. There is something about this house that stirs up my daughters' voracious appetites. It doesn't matter that I fed them a snack and a meal before we left our house, as soon as we walked in the door my oldest immediately asked for a snack. She does this often and I tell myself not to get upset, she isn't doing it to annoy me. Maybe she really is hungry? Instead I yell "I just fed you 10 minutes ago, no you may not have a snack." I dropped out of the "Mother of the Year" competition last week, so I figured I had nothing to lose.

I asked Dan what I could do to help and he suggested I go outside and use the weed wacker to subdue the jungle that we are calling our front yard. The girls wanted to watch me, but it's too lound for them. They asked me if I can weed wack with the weed wacker off? I tell them no and a few tears are shed. They are plied away from the excitement of the weed wacker with the promise that they can watch Dad sand the floor. This machine is also too loud for my youngest, so she is upstairs coloring with my mom who stopped by for a few hours to help. My middle daughter is excited because she gets to ride on the sander. My oldest daughter is a little upset because she doesn't get to "drive" it. The excitement of the sander lasts for about 10 minutes and then we all shut down work because grandma is leaving and they're all in a dire need of a snack (by now it's been almost 45 minutes since they've eaten.) I get them a snack and let them watch a DVD on our portable player. They argue and cry about what movie to watch. The youngest one wins out because she is yelling louder than the other two " I want to watch the Princess and the Pauper. NO, I want to watch the Princess and the Pauper!" (which brings me to my greatest parenting tip. Give in to the one who is yelling the loudest) --just joking, well kind of. The little one ends up watching the video while the other two go out and play Hide and Seek. I had to break up two fights, help find my middle one who was hiding in the drainage ditch, and locate the first aid kit for a bandaid and itching cream. We may have discovered poison ivy.

So needless to say I was not much of a help to my husband. He ended up having to come home early in order to help me put the kids to bed. I gotten really tired and hadn't gotten any snacksd and was having meltdown. Maybe tomorrow will be better. I'm going to try and go up first thing in the morning. They usually do much better in the morning.....

Where to begin?

It's hard to talk about our country house as "the new house" when we've only been in our current house for one year. The home we are in now is technically a "new" house. New is a relative term to my husband and I. The longest we've ever been in a home is 28 months. My oldest daughter is 7 and our country home will ber her 6th house. Yes, we've already started her therepy fund.

I guess my husband and I have found a passion for this house redo thing. It came about as an accident and It's slowly becoming more purposeful with each project.

In order to give you some perspective on what and accomplishment this is for us, I'll give you a little history on our fixer upper know how. I am the one who brought the tools into our relationship and those tools were a butter knife and a hammer. I don't know how I ended up with a hammer since my mom taught me how to pound nails in with her high heel shoes. (I am NOT joking). My mother is an extremely resourceful woman. Our first real project was building a shelf to put a computer printer on in our 1 bdrm condo. It took my hubby 3 hours (again I am NOT joking) to screw 2 brackets on a piece of plywood and then place said bracket and plywood into the wall. When the project was finished we called it done, but we did not call it good!. We have found ourselves getting into bigger and bigger projects ever since. My husband, being very diligent, has poured himself into learning the tricks of the trade. It also hasn't hurt that he has a brother who is an incredible contractor and has talked Dan through many projects.

When we looked at our country home (maybe I'll start referring to it as an estate, it does have a run down out building in the back yard) we thought oh, we'll put down some flooring and paint the walls. It will look great! The kitchen had only been put in 5 years ago and was solid even if it wasn't our style. My husband has a thing about opening up walls and creating an open space. He's done it in our last two houses and he was determined to do it in this one even if it wasn't really in the budget. After all won't we really be saving money after we put in all of those energy efficient appliances.

So tonight instead of just freshening up the paint in the kitchen he is finishing installing the new lighting with friend who is graciously helping us out. I'm posting some before and during pics. I look forward to showing you the after ones .

My First Story

So this is my first story on my first blog. I'm writing mostly to keep my family and friends (you are out there aren't you?) informed on our newest adventure. We have now moved so many times that we've actually lost count. Seriously we are on our 7th house, (6th that we've lived in). I will be posting pictures and writing about our adventure. In all honesty my husband is doing most of the work and I'm picking out the colors.

For those of you who don't know we have bought a house in the country. Dan is at this very moment trying to make the walls square in order to place the electrical, in order to put in the drywall, in order to hang the kitchen cabinetry before next friday. Making the walls square is not really the big story. The big story is the 1100 square feet that Dan and I (and two of our girls) laid down over the period of 3 weeks. " 3 weeks, that's not too bad" you may be saying to yourselves. Most likely it's probably not bad, except for the fact that we scheduled 1 week to have the entire floor installed, sanded, stained, and polyurethaned. Being two weeks behind schedule is really, really bad. The really, really good thing is that we now know how to put down a hardwood floor. My husband now really thinks that shag carpet and paneling are actually really smart and efficient decorating solutions. Pleas enjoy the pictures and come back for the full story of how we ended up here.