Promised Land Homestead

Finished Product

I finished the bookcase last night and brought it in.  Here is the finished product.  Turned out pretty well I think.

New Desk

I started building a desk to go in our old dining room which has become our new schooling area.  It will have two places for a computer for the kids to study at. 

I bought these cabinets at Home Depot and stained them. 

This is me attaching the desktop I built.

This is the finished product.

Next week I'm going to start on a matching bookcase to go above the desk.

Doors and Floors

I finished installing the door in the space the window used to occupy in the girls' room.

I've already added trim to the inside of the current girls' room but I'm waiting until the laminate wood floors are down to put it in on the brick side.  There was an electric line running under the window so I had to cut it, add some extra wiring and run it over the top of the door.  It runs the outlets in the girls' room on the other side of the wall.

Next I started putting down the laminate wood floors.  I finished the dining room and add-on to the girls' room.  I got about halfway done with the room on the other side of the dining room.  We're just calling it the "maroon room" for now since that's the color it's painted.  We envision it some day becoming a quiet study place for the kids, but who knows.

Here's what the floor looked like before we put down the new floor.  It used to be a game room and had a football field painted onto the concrete.  This picture is from Thanksgiving when we were building the walls.

Taking a break to put clothes on Kyleigh's baby doll.

The finished dining room.  Oh!  It looks so nice!  I still have to put baseboards and trim down, but the hard part is done.

Turning a window into a doorway

Step one was removing the bricks underneath.  I didn't feel like taking some of the bricks on the side out, cutting them, and then putting them back in, so I used the masonry blade on my circular saw to just cut the bricks and remove the parts under the window.  It doesn't look as elegant but I'm going to cover the inside edges of the brick with trim anyway so I don't really care.

This window looks into the current girls' room.  The room I'm standing in will be connected to the girl's room through this doorway and will add extra space for them.

Renovations Continue

The drywall guy finished texturing our new walls and entryway last night, so we can start moving ahead again.  DW is starting to get excited seeing things take shape, especially now that she gets an active role in decorating.  She already had me pick up paint so she could start that process.  There's no rush to paint, as we hadn't planned on putting floors in until after Christmas anyway. 

Here's the things I want to accomplish during my 1 month leave from the Air Force (I get to use up my month's worth of leave before I join the Air National Guard full time in Feb):

- Put the doors in the new rooms

- Paint the new rooms

- Turn the window in the girls' room into a doorway.  It currently looks into one of the new rooms that will become an extension of the girls' room.

- Put down wood floors

- Build a desk and bookshelves for the new "homeschool area" that will be where our current kitchen table sits.

That last one may be a bit ambitious, but I would really like to get that done before spring planting starts.  Once we start planting the garden and the new calf hits the ground, there won't be a lot of time for inside projects.

December 7th, 1941

I'm a war history buff, and this date always makes me stop and think about the terrible cost of war.  Today, 68 years ago, Pearl Harbor in Hawaii was bombed by the Japanese.  2,402 people were killed, less than the Sept. 11th attacks, but the horror to come was on a scale that few of us think about, and when we do think about it, you literally can't wrap your mind around it.  It is important to try, though, because those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it, and those who choose to wage war should know what the past has wrought.

The world had already been at war for a full 4 years before the United States entered the fight.  Four years later, with Japan and Germany crushed, this was the price to humanity:

- Total People Killed:  60-78 million (that's an +/- factor of 18 million people!)

- Total American Soldiers Killed:  416,800

- Total British Soldiers Killed:  382,700

- Total Russian Soldiers Killed:  8.8 - 10.7 million

- Total Russian Civilians Killed:  12.2-14.1 million  *Those two figures combined made up over 14% of the total Russian population*

- Poland lost more than 16% of its population, mostly to the Holocaust

- Total Japanese Soldiers Killed:  2.1 million

- Total Japanese Civilians Killed:  580,000 *Combined, about 3% of their population at the time*

- Total German Soldiers Killed:  5.5 million

- Total German Civilians Killed:  840,000 to 2.8 million  *Combined, almost 10% of their population*

- Total Chinese Soldiers Killed:  3-4 million

- Total Chinese Civilians Killed:  7-16 million

Those kind of numbers can't even be imagined practically.  The shear amount of human loss is staggering.  It is a somber reminder of what the will of just a few people in a few countries can do by plunging the world into war for their own grand ambitions.

Today, let's remember and gain some perspective on our own lives.  Sixty million dead?  Suddenly our petty problems don't seem to be so important anymore.

Thanksgiving Renovations

This year we had my parents and in-laws over for Thanksgiving and I took the opportunity to have my FIL help me with some construction projects.  He's a contractor and extremely knowledgeable about this sort of thing.  He also gets bored sitting around and always wants some project to keep him occupied while he's here.  All I wanted to do was install some french doors and frame out two interior walls.  We got SOOOO much more than that done.

By 10 a.m. Thursday, we had the french doors in and the first wall was framed out by lunch.

By about 3 p.m. we had the second wall framed and were putting up drywall.

Putting up insulation.

By 10 a.m. the next morning, we had finished the drywall, had put up trim around the french doors and had cleaned up.  That presented a problem, since my FIL still had Saturday and Sunday with no projects.  He started trying to talk me into ripping brick down.  We have a wall between the original house and the room that will become the dining room when it's done.  I've been wanting to rip the wall out so we have a nice big entryway between the dining room and the rest of the house.  I hadn't planned on doing that for a while, but my FIL wanted to rip down the brick to see what the studding in the wall looked like. 

So Friday afternoon we began removing brick.

Saturday was our Thanksgiving meal since my parents couldn't make it to town until then.  As a special treat, they brought my grandmother (my father's mother) with them.  She's the only surviving grandparent for me and my wife.  It was an excellent meal cooked by my wife, with help from my mother and MIL.

The 14 lb turkey we raised this year.

DW's pretty chocolate cream pie.

My grandmother with us and the kids.

Saturday afternoon we went and saw the new "A Christmas Carol"  movie, which was excellent but a little too scary for the kids.  My FIL convinced me to knock out the wall on Sunday, so I picked up some lumber on our way home.  Sunday morning we braced the ceiling up, took the window and door out and started ripping out studs.

By 5 p.m. the opening was finished, drywalled, and the mess was cleaned up.  It is unbelievable the amount of sunlight the new opening lets through.  It makes the whole kitchen area feel different.  I love it.

Next week we'll have the drywall guy come back out to finish and texture the drywall.  Then we can put doors into the new rooms.

Renovation Update - A/C

The A/C guy just installed our new ductless A/C in the back rooms yesterday.  That was, by far, the most expensive part of the whole process.  It was completely necessary, as you can't use those rooms in the summer/winter without it.  They are pretty nifty.

In case you don't know what a ductless air conditioner is, it is one that does not use ducting running through your attic to transfer cold air to your rooms.  With a normal air conditioner, you have an air compressor that sits outside, and then an air handler that sits in a closet somewhere in your home.  The air handler blows the cold (or warm) air into ducts that run through your attic and out through vents in each room.  This back room was an add on and has no attic space or access.  It was impossible to run ducting through it as there wasn't enough room. 

The ductless A/C has a compressor outside that powers the whole system.

Refrigerant lines and power lines (underneath this cover) run to small air handlers in each room.

The air handlers work just like the one large air handler in a central A/C system in that they blow the cold or warm air into the room.  They're set up on the wall and controlled by remote. 

The cool thing about a ductless system is that each room is customizable.  That means that you can set each room to a different temperature.  All the air handlers must be on "Cool" or "Heat" at the same time, but you can set one room to 85 degrees and another room to 65 degrees if you wanted to.  In a central system, the whole house has to be set to one temperature.  Not only that, but not all the rooms get adequate heat or cooling because the thermostat is in only one place so while it might read that the temp near it is 70 degrees and shut off, the room down the hall might still be 75 degrees.  With a ductless system each room is heated and cooled individually.  That means more efficiency and comfort.

The last cool feature (no pun intented) is that in a ductless system (or at least the one we got), if you are only using the air handlers in two rooms, and the rest are off, the compressor only uses enough power to heat/cool those two rooms.  It saves power by not running refrigerant to the unused rooms.  You can't do that with a central system.  It's all or nothing.

Ductless systems are too expensive (in my opinion) to heat/cool an entire house, but for the type of need we had, it fit perfectly.

NEXT STEP.....

Putting up new walls with my FIL over Thanksgiving holiday.  By next weekend, those two back rooms will be divided into four rooms.  My goal is to have the walls framed out before he leaves, but if we can get dry wall hung, all the better.

DHS Advice

At work today, we received a document from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that tells you how to deal with an "active shooter".  Here are some of my favorite excerpts:

"Because active shooter situations are often over within 10 to 15 minutes, before law enforcement arrives on the scene, individuals must be prepared to both mentally and physically deal with an active shooter situation."

So what you're basically telling me is that I'm on my own.  Got it.  So then what?

"If you are able, attempt to evacuate the premises.  If evacuation is not possible, find a place to hide where the active shooter is less likely to find you.  Get into a room and barricade the door."

So what if that doesn't work or you can't find a place to hide fast enough?

"As a last resort, and only when your life is in imminent danger, attempt to disrupt and/or incapacitate the active shooter by:

- Acting as aggressively as possible against him/her

- Throwing items and improvised weapons

- Yelling

- Committing to your actions"

Maybe it's just me, but having a handgun that can throw bullets faster than the speed of sound would be "as aggressive as possilbe."  I'm not suggesting you try to be James Bond out there blasting away at the guy and putting other people in danger, but the fact that federal law prohibits me from carrying a weapon in my workplace takes away the most effective means of defending my life.

A Letter To My Congressmen

After seeing the carnage at Fort Hood this week, I drafted a letter to senators Hutchison and Cornyn, and one to my representitive, Mike Conaway.  Here is one of them.  They're all the same accept for the name changes.

Dear Senator Hutchison

            As an American and service member, I was deeply shocked and saddened by the massacre that took place at Fort Hood on 5 November.  It was horrifying to see the level of damage and destruction one crazed gunman can do with just a couple of pistols against a building of unarmed soldiers.  I can’t help but think that had those soldiers had a more effective means of defending themselves, this gunman could have been stopped much sooner.  The military and civilian police forces performed bravely and promptly at the scene to stop the shooter, but even at their best, their fastest response to the scene took almost 3 minutes.  That is a lifetime to those in that building, desperately trying to survive the encounter, and with no way to adequately defend themselves.

            Federal law, under U.S. Code 18930, currently prohibits anyone from possessing a firearm on federal property.  This law clearly would not stop a crazed gunman, and did not stop the gunman at Fort Hood.  What it does do is take away a citizen’s constitutional right to defend their life, by forbidding them to carry a weapon in self defense.  As a Texas concealed handgun licensee, and trained military shooter, it is appalling to me that one of the few places I can not currently carry my handgun for self-defense is the very place I spend almost all my time…my workplace.  Although the federal government has trusted me with a TOP SECRET security clearance and has trained me to be a weapon of war against the enemies of the nation, I can not be trusted to carry a firearm on Goodfellow AFB, or any federal property, for my self defense and defense of my fellow service men and women.

            I implore to you help bring a bill to the Senate floor that would allow federal employees, who are licensed by their state, to carry concealed firearms for self defense on federal property.  A concealed handgun in the hands of a trained and licensed soldier could have easily stopped the violence at Fort Hood much sooner.  Please help give me, and every soldier, the ability to defend ourselves at our workplace.  I would think someone willing to sacrifice their life in the defense of their country could be trusted with at least that much. 

                                                                                    Sincerely,

                                                                                    DEREK S. WOODLEY, Capt, USAF

Renovation Updates

Here's what the bathroom is looking like currently.  We removed the toilet and sink, we will paint, and then add new ones.  I had to literally smash the toilet with a sledge hammer to get it out.  The people who put tile in this bathroom tiled AROUND the toilet!  Who does that?  Do you think you're never going to replace the toilet?  They grouted the toilet to the floor, so it was impossible to pull up.  Now I have to set the new toilet over this gaping hole in the tile.  The same thing happened in the girls' bathroom.  The new toilet didn't cover the entire hole so I had to caulk it and put a rug over it.  Annoying.  If you're going to tile a bathroom, do it right!

We sprayed texture over the places I had to fill with spackle, so now it's ready to be painted.  Some of that will take place this weekend, but we have my students coming over, so most of Saturday will be getting ready for that.

We've also mostly finished the area around the windows in the back room.  The drywall contractor is finished.  He put up drywall around the windows, taped and floated it, and then put the texture on.  Now I just have to add the window sills.  I put the paneling back up in the back bedroom and made a window sill for it.  That room is done.

The next step in here is having the air conditioner guys come install an AC/Heater in these back rooms.  That will happen before Christmas.  Over Thanksgiving holiday my FIL is going to help me frame out the walls for the new rooms.  If we get lucky we might even have time to hang the drywall.

It's moving along quicker than we expected because we were waiting on some things that we didn't have the money for.  Now that we have it, we feel comfortable accelerating things a bit.

Jo Jo and Jon Jon

We had a couple of deformed chickens in our last batch of hatchlings that may have been a product of inbreeding.  We're starting to run into some issues with our roosters breeding their daughters, so these deformaties might be caused by that.  We're in the process of deepening our gene pool.  Anyway, the deformaties were either in their legs or back and caused these two chickens to waddle around like ducks.  They were still able to forage just fine and fend for themselves, but we didn't want to keep them around since they weren't productive.  We named them Jo Jo and Jon Jon.

We learned last night that we shouldn't have named them or constantly commented to the kids about how cute they were when they would waddle around.  Last night was the slated night to process these two.  They didn't have much meat on them, but it's still something.  None of the kids really had a problem with it except Sean.  He has an extremely soft heart when it comes to animals.  I don't think that boy will ever be a hunter.  He'd rather work in a zoo and pet the animals all day.

When I finally hung them up and killed them he burst into tears and began condemning the killing of any animals for meat.  I tried to explain to him that people have been eating animals since the dawn of time and that it was just the way God had designed it.  As long as we kill them in the most humane way possible, that's what's important.  He was still indignant so I sent him inside to talk to his mother, who is a bit gentler with these things than Dad, and relates to Sean better since they're so alike.

After going round and round with him he finally declared he would never eat meat again.  Here's how the rest of the conversation went:

Mom:  "Ok, but you're going to miss out on hamburgers, turkey meatballs, and breakfast sausage.  That's fine though."

Sean: ..thinking on it for a few seconds..."Well, I'm just never going to eat chicken again.  I'll eat other animals."

Mom:  "That's fine.  By the way, we're having cheese chicken tonight (his favorite), but you don't have to eat it."

Sean:  ...thinking about it for a few minutes, then returned with:  "I decided I will eat cheese chicken."

It looks like his taste buds overruled his convictions this time.

New Windows

We had the window installer come install the new windows in the back room last week.  I thought it would take them more time, but they were finished by about 6:30.  I knew it would make a big difference in how those rooms looked, but it's amazing how much light they let in and how more open the rooms feel.  Here are some before and after pictures.

The next step is getting a drywall contractor out to hang and finish the drywall around the windows.  He's coming next Friday.  I had planned on knocking down the walls on either side of our fireplace after Thanksgiving.  However, we have the money to do some more projects in this back room, so I'm going to postpone the fireplace project until later.  It's more of an aesthetic than functional remodel anyway.  After the drywall guy is finished, I'm going to start putting up the two walls in the back room that will seperate it into three:  a bedroom, office, and dining room. 

Shooting Practice

DW doesn't like to practice with her gun because it's so small it hurts her hand to shoot it more than 10 rounds or so.  I was able to get her practice more by agreeing that she didn't have to shoot more than 25 rounds, as long as she practiced more often.  A few weeks ago we went out to the empty stock tank on our land and did some practice.  I thought I'd post some pictures.  The first shot is with her carry gun, a Kel-Tec .380 pistol.  It's very small and concealable, but not very fun to shoot.

This is her shooting my Glock 27.  One of her conditions in agreeing to practice more is that she get to shoot my gun.  I happily agreed.  She loves shooting it, but thinks it too big to carry concealed.  She's a good shot with it too.

My New Toy

Last night the main sewer line in our house backed up AGAIN, for the fourth time in less than 3 years living here.  The genius that installed our septic tank had the sewer line do a little 45 degree turn just before it enters the tank, instead of it being a straight shot.  For some reason it is a prime place for clogs.  Of course  the sewage backed up into the showers in the kids' rooms, like it always does, and this time Murphy's Law was doing double duty.  The kids, my oldes specifically, had decided it would be fun to fill the shower with pillows (this was before sewage was in there), although they've been told repeatedly not to put things in the showers.  We had to throw away two couch throw pillows, and wash about 4 kid pillows.  Great stuff!

After watching the plumber clean out the main sewer line the last three times, at $120 a pop, I finally asked the guy where I could buy one of those nifty electric drain snakes.  I had tried to get the clog out with my hand held manual drain snake, but it was just too small to clear a large sewer line.  He told me that the one he was using ran about $3500, but that Harbor Freight sells a smaller home version for $250.00. 

I had finally had it last night, seeing as how the plumber was just out here not 6 weeks ago to clear the last clog.  Plus, it always takes the plumber at least 18 hours to get to the house (why do these things always happen at night or on the weekends?).  A large family living in a stinky house with no working toilets is just a nightmare.  So, I trucked it on down to Harbor Freight last night (thank God they don't close until 8 pm) and bought me an electric drain cleaner.  God must have felt sorry for us because it was on sale for $199.99 instead of the regular price of $250.00.  I brought it home and had the clog cleared in 5 minutes. 

So, if you subtract the $120 we would have had to spend on a plumber, it really only cost us $80.  If the sewer line clogs even one more time, it will have not only paid for itself, but will have started saving us money.  I'm all about practical purchases.

The Defeat of Houdini Dog

Well, "Houdini Dog" was defeated last night.  I made the changes I mentioned in my last post, and after an hour and a half in the pen, she failed to escape.  That's pretty good considering there was a thunderstorm coming (T-storms make her frantic), and she hadn't taken any longer thatn 10-15 minutes to escape before.

I'm still not convinced she couldn't escape given enough time.  We'll be gone to Sea World this weekend which will give her plenty of time to plot.  If she's still in the pen when we return I will have considered it a true victory.

Meet "Houdini Dog"

I have set out to build a dog pen for our dogs to stay in while we're away.  We can't leave them in the house for extended periods, and they tend to wander the neigborhood onto other people's land while we're away.  However, I have met my match in "Houdini Dog", pictured below.

This dog can escape from anywhere.  I think we should rent her out to the state when they build new prisons.  If there's a way to escape, she can find it for them.  She has literally found every tiny weakness in the dog pen I built and exploited it to get out.  She's relentless.  I'm not mad at her.  It has actually been interesting trying to outsmart her.  So far it's not looking too good for me.  Here's a rundown of how my week went:

Monday:  Finished dog pen and put dog in for first trial run.  RESULT:  She digs under the gate.

Tuesday:  Put rocks under gate so she can't dig under it.  RESULT:  She digs up rocks, moves them, and slides under gate.

Wednesday Trial 1:  Put bigger rocks she can't possibly move under gate.  RESULT:  She finds another corner of the pen (this side I used cattle fencing on because it's part of the existing pig pen) with gap between the bottom of the fence and the ground.  Digs under fence and escapes.

Wednesday Trial 2:  Dug trench under exposed portion of fence.  Attach and bury small section of chainlink, so she hits it when she tries to dig under.  RESULT:  She digs up chainlink, pulls it up, and slides under it and escapes.

Wednesday Trial 3:  Stack pile of fence posts and a roll of chainlink fencing against existing fence  (i.e. - big pile of junk covering exposed fencing.  RESULT:  She digs under fence pile of fence posts, under fence, and escapes.

Wednesday Trial 4 (me becoming increasingly desperate):  Bury large rocks underneath pile of fenceposts so she can't dig under them.  RESULT:  She stands on pile of fence posts and wiggles her way through a large square of the cattle fencing I used to compromise that part of the pen.

Thursday:  Removed pile of junk and dug a trench next to existing cattle fencing.  Tonight I will put up a 4 foot high section of chainlink (which she hopefully can't climb), attach it to the existing cattle fencing, and bury it about 6 inches underground so she can't dig under it.  RESULT:  We'll see tonight. 

Egg On My Face

My wife ususally packs me a couple of hard-boiled eggs for breakfast each morning.  It helps reduce our egg inventory, which can be overwhelming at times.  Plus, I love hard-boiled eggs.  Actually, I love eggs in almost any configuration.

So she thought she's be funny this morning and pack me raw eggs instead.  I'm sure you can imagine what happened when I cracked the first one on my desk.  She's lucky none got on my uniform.  I was actually surprised to see that all three eggs were raw.  DW hates waste.

I thought it was pretty funny, so I called to congratulate her on a well played prank.  Of course, you know...

THIS MEANS WAR!!!

Wisdom of Yoda

I noticed the other day that we (or I should say mostly I) quote Star Wars a lot in our house.  It's a funny way to drive home a point.  Like when the kids get impatient about something I say:

"Patience, my young Patawan."  To which they must reply:  "Yes, Master."  They get a kick out of it. 

But I also noticed that most of my Star Wars quotes come from Yoda in "The Empire Strikes Back".  There's all kinds of good quotes in there that can be used in everyday life.  Click on the links to hear the quote from the master himself:

When the kids get restless and want something fun to do:  Adventure

When the kids tell me they'll try to do something or the always annoying "I'm trying!" when they can't figure something out:  Try not

When the kids want to know if they're old enough to do something new:  Too old

When the kids don't think they're big enough to accomplish something:  Size Matters Not

When they give the ever annoying excuse of "I CAN'T!":  Can Not Be Done

When I'm trying to get them to be serious and commit themselves to something:  Commitment

When they drop something or fall down:  Control

When they won't pay attention:  Looked Away

When they think they knew something that turned out to be wrong:  Unlearn

And then some funny ones we like:

War

No!

Mine! - If you've ever watched the Muppets, you can tell in this one that it's the same actor that does Miss Piggy's voice.

Renovations Beginning!

I started on the boys' bathroom today because DW wants it done before Thanksgiving.  Normally we would probably wait as we still have plenty to do around here until the first freeze.  However, the boys' toilet has been notorious for clogging, and we don't want our guests having to mess with it, so we're replacing it along with everything else.

This is a picture I took just after I tore down all the blue paneling.  I forgot to take a "before picture". 

I'm in the process of scraping all the old glue off the walls so we can paint them.  Then I'll replace the sink, toilet and towel/toilet paper holders.  I also bought a new light fixture to put above the sink.  After Thanksgiving I'll tackle the walls on either side of the fireplace.

We've also scheduled to have the window installer come install windows in the back room.  He won't be able to get to it for another 3 weeks or so, but that will be a big step.  It has always bothered me that there are no windows back there.