A Christian Woman Thinks (And It's Dangerous)

Undergarments

It's a giant, isn't it? Intended to service three bathrooms and two laundry rooms, plus a kitchen that gets plenty of use.

We also have plumbing off the furnace for a second heating zone for the upstairs, and a new water pump (it's bigger than the old one, too!). You can see it sitting in the back, on the left.



Finally, a new panel was put in so we can up the amps in the house. It's big, I guess the motto for the new stuff is BIG.



Since I was in the basement, I snapped a photo of our older wood stove We've been using it here and there to help with heating, as the open unheated upstairs makes for drafts and there have been plenty of times when the heat had to be off for plumbing, etc. We would love to update with a newer, more efficient stove. But what kind? Pellet? Corn stove? Just plain wood stove? It would not be in the visible living area, so no sense splurging on something like a soapstone stove. Anyone have any ideas?



Once this old gal gets cranking she runs really hot! If you don't keep an eye out she runs RED HOT, so we're leary of using it all the time or leaving it unattended. We also don't stoke it up for the night, we let it burn down before bed time.

Well, that's the tour of our new "undergarments" for now, thanks for stopping by.

Yard Art

My daughter Natalie believes those blow-up decorations are just the coolest things. She loves this "yard art." Last year for Christmas she received a snowman as a gift... and this year, as most of our stuff is now in storage, we could not find him. I gave in and purchased a $30 snowman at Wal-Mart a few days ago, the last one, and one of the only ones I've seen that aren't $100+.

Here he is in the dark, the photo came out blurry but I've posted him just the same...



By day he becomes a puddle of nylon - when you unplug him, it's like hitting the wicked witch of the west with water. He just melts away until he joins all the other puddles of plastic and nylon in the neighborhood!



Since you can see it a bit behind the snowman, I thought I'd post an updated house photo, too. My brother has put all the windows in and is working on the siding, a nice sage green color. We will have a new cranberry colored door to match soon... Some of the windows have been added now, but are intended for future use. For example, the little one to the left of the door downstairs is now sitting BEHIND the shower of the current bathroom! Later on it will still be in the bathroom, but obviously not covered up.

New View, Skeleton Walls

Do you remember the view from our basement stairway? We used to be able to look up at the stars. I have a new view now, and I thought I'd share it:



Sure would be nice to have a stairway soon! I climbed the ladder for you, as promised, and there's not much to see yet, but here's a look at our upstairs:



That is actually my bedroom... from the stairway.

Here's what the outside is looking like... since the weather has been fair my brother has been pulling the siding off, putting all windows in where they belong if possible, and he may begin siding. It's begining to look like a colonial, no trace of the ranch  it once was...



You are all very patient... wish I was the same way!

A Look At The Roof & Windows - Plus a Mac Complaint

I have joined the ranks of Mac users, and now face an irritation previously unkown to me: the fact that lots of web sites are not compatible for viewing on a Mac. Take Homestead's blogs, for example. When I look at my blog from home now I can not see the beautiful textured background currently being used, and the soothing sage green on the right side of the blog appears khaki (no pun intended here). To get all the features in the entry editor I had to download a Windows-based browser (one of the big ones, which will remain unnamed, and which I was not happy to add to my completely Mac software). Homestead, I wish you'd remedy that for me. I thought about putting my blog elsewhere and publishing it with the awesome Apple software the comes with the computer - but I truly enjoy being on Homestead.

Anyway, complaints over. Here is a promised photo of the house from the road, with a roof completely finished. NO MORE TARPS!



The guys were also putting in windows today, which will make heating the house a bit easier.

The back side of the house sports its new windows. It really is beginning to look like home.



Maybe next time I'll take you upstairs. There's not much to see yet, still skeleton walls & a chimney.

Duct Tape, Shingles, Costumes & Catching Up

So, did I get your attention with anything in that title?

I have a lot of catching up to do. Let's start with a look back at last week - Halloween. My gals dressed up and we headed to the party at our church. If you check my friends list to the right, you can click on Sharps and see some great costumes. My friend who attends the same church also posted pics of her little ones in costume, and they took home a prize. My gals dressed as: Super Sonny (Sonny is our pastor's name) - the Sonny mask was added at church - and as a tiger. Super Sonny won a prize during the costume judging. After the costume contest the kids go outside with flashlights to find candy hidden all over the church property. It is EVERYWHERE. There is so much we were able to find undiscovered candy the next evening during band practice. There was also a hay maze to do - you crawl through it in the dark. I confess I did NOT do this activity.

Here's Joy in the Super Sonny suit:

And here's my cute tiger:

My tiger is also enjoying (still) the neat software in our new computer (Photobooth for Mac), so here's a psychadelic photo for you:

I don't have any new house photos tonight - but after much fretting with every rain storm, my brother finished the roofing/shingles as tonight's sprinkles began. It was dark out so no photo available.
A week and a half or so ago the roof was plywooded but not shingled, and we were expecting a BIG rain & wind storm. My brother tarped, as usual, but with the wind we expected the tarps would not last. He had a stroke of genius (or was it madness?). He duct taped every seem in the plywood roof, then tarped, then double-tarped where there were openings (in the peak for the ridge vent, in the space for the chimney). By morning part of the tarp had already blown away, but the duct tape held fast. Is it duck tape, or duct tape? Anyway! It stayed up until all the shingles were done and did magnificent things. I highly recommend it.
This week I suppose we will begin to see the windows put in, and work done inside.

Other than all of the things are busy with day-to-day activities: homework, laundry, running the kids to their activities, etc. Still no eBay postings yet as we have not been able to hook up with our "source" for items. Hoping to do it this week!

Looking forward to the holidays! And I hope to post again sooner next time. Here's a cute cartoon for you before I go... this is how we feel when we get so busy we can't think!

Roof!!!!!!!

Consider this another wordless essay - the crane came today and put up our roof trusses. It took about four hours to put them up there in place, compared to a couple of days or more it would take to make them by hand and place them one by one. These came pre-made and ready to put up.....

(Bright and early - check out the frost on the ground! Trusses in a pile to the left)

That crane really extends quite a ways!

Up goes the first one....

Now you TRULY can see what the house will look like. It's amazing.

By the way, Jennifer, thanks for the condolences about the rain - you will see us Tuesday night.

Water, Water, Everywhere, And Not A Drop To Drink

Howdy, all, it's been busy at our house.

To say it rained on Wednesday night would be an understatement.

Take a peek at the recent house photos. No roof yet, right?

So the house was tarped up, ready for the rain Wednesday night. It would have been fine, maybe a few drips, if we actually had rain then.

Instead we had BUCKETS OF WATER pour down from the heavens.

The drips started finding their way in about 11 p.m. We positioned some buckets around the door frame (back door, which is a big sliding door) and settled in to listen for other drips.

Then I heard something worse than a drip. I heard a thump. And what sounded like a wave crashing. And the sound of water dribbling everywhere.

I found the source - one end of the tarp had let go, letting in a pool of water which cascaded across the floor and down into the open cellarway. It crashed into the basement and also into the bathroom through the wall on the other side of the cellarway. It seeped in through the light fixture, so as I was trying to mop up the inch or more water on the bathroom floor the lights went out! And then the leaks began everywhere else. The water found its way into every nook and cranny - every light fixture opening. Every window casing. Every room had some kind of leak. And still the rains poured down.

At about 4 a.m. the rain let up - DH and brother Alan were up there some four hours, retarping, unloading pockets of water in the tarp, wet vacuuming the puddles left upstairs, pushing water over the side with a push broom - it was a water nightmare. Everyone was up. Therefore, no one went to work or school yesterday! Thankfully it was mild and dry yesterday to help start the drying out.

Meantime, the roof trusses arrived yesterday morning - ironic, isn't it? But they can not go up until Monday when we are able to rent a crane to put them up on the rooftop. So it will be at least another week without a roof.

Pray for us, friends!

While they were home yesterday, the kids enjoyed playing in the leaves.... anyone have fall leaf photos to share?

Micellaneous: Doll Photos, Another Wall!

We now have four walls upstairs. I captured the raising of the third one for your viewing pleasure! It would be more fun to have it presented as a slide show, but since we can't do that - here is a step by step photo view:

The wall awaits its awakening...

Three brave men - DH John at left, brother Alan, and hard-working friend Mike - start heaving! (can you believe it only took three of them?)

At midpoint the guys must switch from lifting upwards to pushing up - that means a switch of the hands, one by one...

Almost there!

It stands up in place almost like a building block, or Lego (did I spell that right?)

I also promised a photo of Natalie's recovered doll... she had surgery to re-attach her arm and is doing great. Joy also has a new doll, they are both cute little things.

I am going to have wallet-sized photos made of these "doll and friend" photos for the kids to use as their school picture. Call me weird, but I can't stomach shelling out $30 or better per kid for the photos they have done at school...

By the way, these doll friends were found on eBay. You can find similar ones, I'm sure. There are some great designers and crafters on eBay. Just a plug for eBay!!!

Phew! I have posted enough photos for tonight - three entries, all with photos for you. Time for bed, friends!

New View

Presenting, for the very first time, the view of the back yard from our future upstairs office window...

Brought to you from the BRAND NEW BACK WALL of our house, put up on October 3, 2006 (that's daughter Joy in the back yard, in the photo above)...

Both the back and front walls were put up today... how exciting, because now you can really get a sense of how the house will look instead of just staring at a flat single-story house.

I actually saved face and climbed up that ladder you see to the left in the photo above, so I could for the first time get a look at the VIEW FROM THE TOP. It was neat. So here's a photo of our second floor, as it is right now! A little lacking in details for now, but those should be filled in as time goes by.

Of course that hole in the floor is our future stairway, and the place where we now open up the basement door from the first floor and see the stars at night/the blue sky by day.

I want to get this posted ASAP - we have a new computer at home, a Mac, and when I tried to post from home I don't have the editing buttons on the blog to add photos (weird). Anyone have Mac experience? I also can't see graphics on my blog from the Mac. I like the computer but it has been difficult to adjust from a PC to a Mac. Comments welcome from any other "switchers."

Blessed

To everyone who's hurting, to those who've had enough; To all the undeserving, that should cover all of us.

Please do not let go. I promise there is hope -

Hold fast, help is on the way. Hold fast, He's come to save the day. What I've learned in my life, one thing greater than my strife, is His grasp, so hold fast.

Hold Fast by MercyMe

What does a friend look like?

It was the bottom of the ninth.... or, more truthfully, it was day three of packing/moving/emptying out our house. Our closing was two days away.

It looked like we'd never finish.

How do you accumulate so much stuff in eight years of being planted in one place? How I longed for a dumpster to just throw it all in.

Late afternoon found us with several hours worth of packing & moving left to do. I despaired. What could I do?

I swallowed my pride. I made a call.

My friend Ken said, "how much do you have left to do?"

In typical girl fashion, I wailed, "I don't know!"

This was at 3:30.

At 5:30 Ken pulled up in his pickup. He brought along son Andrew and another friend Nick, who came with his capped pickup (did I mention it was cloudy and rain was expected?). They got out and sat on Nick's tailgate, smiling, ready to work. I thought, this is good, they can take a few boxes and some trash for the town dump.

Shortly after that Ryan pulled up in his pickup. He had with him his wife, Melissa, and son, Seth.

Then Jeff pulled up, with his daughter Lauren. Then Todd came with his pickup, which had a cover. And Shawn came with his van, and his wife Karen & son Nick. And Harry came with his van and son Daniel.

You know, pretty soon there wasn't enough for everyone to do. The trucks were loaded. The house was empty. The caravan headed for our new home, in the rain, at about 7 p.m.

At the halfway point we found Dean, who had missed the group at our house. He followed us to the new home to help unpack.

How many friends was that, mobilized with one phone call and put into action in the space of two hours?

Let me not forget to mention previous help we received from Al & Debbie, who came on the first day and spent several hours helping, and my father-in-law, Richard, who came for the first two days and filled his truck both times with either stuff to store at his house, or just plain GARBAGE to put out this week. And my brother, Alan, who loaned us his large dump truck for a run on Monday.

The blessings of all this help are immeasurable. The witness to others is amazing. And people noticed, believe me, with all this coming and going, just like they did when about 25 guys from church came to put a new roof on our house two years ago.

Our church is strong in its ministries like this. Our members make things happen.

We do have weaknesses, but this is not the space to list them - so thank you so much, to all, you made my life (and DH's life) so much easier. Today I can relax and tomorrow we can close on the house, no worries.

Sending my love to you all.

Moving Forward

When we open our basement door, we can look out and up at the full moon this week....

That's because work has begun, and most of the roof of the house is gone!

This week, almost the second the rain let up, my brother drove his pay loader up to the house (this photo is for kids & grownups who like pictures of construction equipment)....

...and he & dh began to take the shingles off the roof....

(Alan)

(DH)

Next came the plywood and then the trusses, which made way for the giant floor beams to be put up....

As of today, the house is about two-thirds stripped of its roof and the floor beams are still being put up. The chimney has been stripped down to be rebuilt and extended. We are praying for lots of sunshine! Next comes the walls, and the electric & heating/plumbing/AC ducts need to go in the walls and floors.

Joy watched the progress from the safety of a nearby tree... it was crazy out there for a while, with big trusses and pieces of ply wood raining down from above. Pretty soon the leaves won't offer her any cover - they are beginning to change and fall.

It has been chilly at night, and there is no sense in running the heat because, after all, we live in New England and we generally hold off running the heat until late October/November, if possible, plus there are too many openings in the house to hold the heat in. The temps are holding steady in the low 60s at night. Luckily they are reaching the low 80s during the daytime the next few days.

Things are changing fast, so I'll try to keep you up to date with photos.....

Tarpe Diem or Carpe Tarpe and School Daze

All I can say is, tarpe diem - sieze the tarp! Or is carpe tarpe more proper? Isn't diem the word for day? At any rate, we are experiencing the rains & winds of Ernesto here in the northeast (New England) today, and since we have a lot of holes in the roof, they are all tarped...

This is one giant hole from the ceiling top to the rooftop rafters, all open... and there are also holes in other parts of the roof where giant floor beams were hoisted up this week & put into place...

Actually, there are loads of places to see the stars from inside. This is a photo of the basement stairway. The back wall, which is partially gone, was the side of a closet now being demolished so a stairway up can be put in over the existing basement stairs. Any blue spots you see (minus the electrical box there) are holes currently tarped.

The yard is full of beams & floor board, we just need some good weather...

Meanwhile, the girls have completed their first few days of school. They were a daze.. lots of changes, but I believe they're all good ones. As promised, here they are in their 80s garb (leggings & mini skirts). Here's Natalie showing off her funky sneakers....

We actually found a pair for each gal, and they both wanted them, so here's Joy in her outfit & sneaks:

She is looking & acting so old this week.. fifth grade! In fifth grade, each child carries around a binder with an agenda the school gives out, and as a parent I have to sign that agenda each night to say Joy did her homework, which she writes down in the agenda...

That's about it here today. We are expecting my brother from CA in tomorrow night, that will be fun - I have two brothers, both younger, one in CA and one here (the one doing the work on the house).

I have been reading posts from friends - please check out Darcy's post about celebrating her anniversary & her hubby's birthday this weekend. Also, kenyachick took some African friends shopping for flip flops & shirts. Momof2 weathered Ernesto & some home renovations, and surfercajun offers thoughts on Katrina, one year later. I read all of your posts regularly, dear friends, even if I did not comment here.. I always hit the friends button to see what you're up to.

Thanks for stopping by, enjoy the long weekend!

Bathroom Wall Update!

DH has been busy, busy, busy. Remember this wall?

Here it is today, he finished right before leaving for work (guess who cleaned up this time?)

That's all the excitement today. I had a tooth pulled, I'm supposed to eat only cold/cool things. Let me translate that: ICE CREAM would be good... or I can eat supper tonight at room temperature. Or yogurt, something like that...

No hot .

Hmmmm... while I sort that out, gotta go pack a few more boxes. Thanks for stopping by today!

Finally, Some Work On The "New" Place

Hi, all, as promised, I was working around my mom's house and took some photos of my brother actually doing the beginning work for putting a second floor on the house....

For posterity, here's a pic of the house as is, it won't stay that way for long....

Here's my brother, Alan, setting up his ladder for some fun...

See that huge lilac bush? My mom asked me to move it... but it's so big, I think Alan will hack most of it down and we'll pull some shoots from the bottom and move them. This bush comes from a bush that was my grandmother's... there are bits of her all over the place. I moved a Victorian-era snowball bush from the back of the house today, I hope it takes/lives. I guess it predates my grandmother and was in her yard.

Here's Alan up on his ladder pecking away at the flashing/siding/side of the house!

Sorry, seems I just have photos with Alan's behind in them... So after day was done for him (he had to go back to work tonight, his "real" job at a Home Depot)... he had poked holes like this in both sides of the house!

Funny looking, eh? Alan tells me he will now work to collect any insulation up in the attic, bag it up, and reuse it in the new attic...after that, he's ready to get some help and rip most of the roof off. We need a mason to come in and extend the chimney and I'm not sure what comes after that.

Other news: Also today, I registered the girls at their new schools. They are very excited. School starts in two weeks, with open houses the day before. So we plan to be sleeping/living here (the house in the photos) by then... busy, busy, busy!

Meanwhile, back at our house, we have a house showing on Saturday and an open house on Sunday. Hubby is still feverishly working on the bathroom (see the DIF posting from earlier)... I think it will make a BIG difference. We hope for a good offer. By the way, the mortgage guy who could not get the financing for the previous potential buyers called to say he had something that might work out - but how can we trust him now? We tied up the house for over a month while he tried three different banks, only to have it fail for lack of some pieces of paper the buyers could not provide. We didn't even get the deposit from that deal...

Your continued prayers are appreciated. An old friend of mine posted a comment on my last blog entry - so hello to Kristen (Melon) - it was nice to hear from you!

P.S. Friends, I was reading up on chickens and portable tractors. Anyone use one of them? From reading it seems it allows you to keep a few chickens (for eggs, possibly) while keeping them safe from the neighbors... and reaping the benefits of having the chickens take care of the soil and bugs in your yard.

Viva La DIF-ference

One of the reasons we were so happy about the previous potential buyers for our house was that they wanted it "as is." We have a bathroom project that turned out to be more than just stripping the wallpaper and painting - it turned out to be kind of a nightmare. The wallpaper is so old when you take off the paper (IF you can get it off - you have to use gobs of DIF, that stuff that takes it off) you go right down to the dry wall. Any paint left there begins to peel, no matter how much you sand it. Here, see for yourself how awful these walls are:

We should have known, we went through this taking wallpaper off the living room walls a few years back. Anyway, we didn't want to keep working on it and since the other potential buyers said don't bother, we didn't.

Well, now we are showing the house again and have another open house in a week. So we're back to DIF-ing the walls. DH actually finished one wall and painted it, you can see the color somewhat here:

I know, the photo isn't that appealing. The color is called weathered timber, kind of a taupie brown with a bit of pinkish, almost purplish hue... I like it, actually. The walls are still pretty rough but it beats having to replace all the sheet rock.

Tonight DH was DIF-ing over the tub, a really bad area. The sheet rock is actually kind of rotting there - YUK. He made a mess in the bathroom...

If you've never used DIF before, it stinks. It's just this spray you put on, leave for a while, then you have to come and scrape off the remaining paper and you have these sticky bits of paper all over the place. Phew. The house is 29 years old, this paper has been there for who knows how long.... but the previous owners liked wallpaper and it was all over the house. Well, after getting a glimpse of these walls, maybe that's why they put paper over them. It would have been easier than making these walls smooth again. I think there's some kind of large tape you can put on to make large areas smooth, but I don't know what it is. So here we are...

That's what we're up to this week.

For Jennifer - Part of Our Story

I was asked how we came to be in the situation we are in now, selling our house & building with my mom to live together... so I thought I'd share a bit here.

My mom has long been concerned about our school system here. She has also disliked our house mainly, I think, because it's small, needs a bit of work, and is about a half hour from her house. My younger brother lives about a half mile from her house, and I think she kind of likes that.

We tinkered with the idea of somehow living together for quite a while - selling both our houses & buying a bigger place, putting an addition on her house, etc. The best idea we could come up with was putting an entire second floor on  her ranch home and living together there. The second floor would be for our bedrooms, office, bathrooms, and laundry area. We would share part of the downstairs - the kitchen & living room - and the rest of the downstairs would be hers for a bedroom, a living room area, a bathroom, and a laundry area.

Hopefully this helps us all out - my mom can use some help with simple things like putting out the trash, bringing in the groceries, etc. She has a problem walking as she needs a surgery and is in pain often. By moving it also helps us - we get a bigger place, the kids attend a school we are familiar and comfortable with (I attended these schools), and hopefully there is enough space so everyone is happy and out of each other's hair when needed!

My mom has already refinanced her home to start building the second floor. We need to sell, put our money away and buy the house from her when it's done. We are hoping to make enough so that when we buy we can put a lot down & keep our payments at ALMOST what we pay now - maybe a little higher. We should have a home that's worth $250,000 to $300,000 or better in today's market for less than half of that amount. We could never purchase this amount of home on our own. This is a gift from my mother, in that she is giving up her home and privacy so we can do this! In return, we have to promise never to put her in a nursing home, heh heh.

My younger brother is the general contractor. He is a great penny pincher, and will probably be doing a lot of the work himself. Otherwise, what we want done could not get done on the $100,000 budget we have. This is another gift. I don't think I could babysit enough to make up for this gift.

It wouldn't make sense to pass up this opportunity. We will be able to sell our house for almost double what we paid - there won't be a better time than now, we think. And as our older daughter, Joy, enters middle school, we don't have to worry about her attending a school where you can get condoms from the nurse.... (this is the middle school, friends). By the way, if the condoms don't work, when you hit high school here there's a nursery/day care for your kids so you can keep attending.

I don't mean to make it sound like this is the only area where this is a problem in the schools - there are other issues here, too. I work out of the home, and do not homeschool. We need to find a good school for our kids.

So, friends, thanks for listening, that's where we are right now. We had hoped to move before school started to get the kids enrolled in the new school system. We are still hoping to move this month, and to have another offer on our house. Please remember our project in your prayers!

And Jennifer, thanks for sharing about your project. What a blessing from your father in law! Is the addition almost done? Do you have photos to share?

Plans & The Jungle Outside

Well, here's a photo of our house plans... the first is the front view, outside, of course. We've added a small window kind of above the doorway, in the inside stairway....

It's pretty big to me.... definitely the biggest on the street when we're done!

Here's our second floor plan, which has a master suite for us, laundry area, & bedrooms plus bathroom for the two girls:

And here's the revamped downstairs, the dotted lines are things that are there now that will be changed....

It's so cool to see it on paper.

I also wanted to share with you the jungle that is our back yard. With all the hot, humid weather, the grass and hedges/trees have gone wild, and with temps over 100 degrees no one has bothered to mow yet! Here's my younger daughter, Natalie, on her swing out in the wilds of our back yard...

New England is incredibly green during the summers.... see how tall that grass is? It's going to be a pain to mow again.

Finally, I wanted to share a pic of a really unique tree in our yard. Not sure what it is, it's some kind of evergreen with long needles. There are no others like it in the neighborhood... this was one of the trees we thought we'd lose with the sale of the house.

Just a peek into our green world.....

Bad News

We received  bad news today. While we SHOULD be in the midst of flying the coop, it seems the buyers could not meet a condition for their mortgage company - something about verifying income from a past employer. There will be no closing next week. We will have to start over and find a new buyer.

This is quite a setback for us. We think summer is the best time for sales, and it is now drawing to a close. John (hubby) is in good spirits, he just believes God has another plan for THIS house. We are thinking we should still enroll the kids in the new school and move over there sometime this month anyway, so we'll keep emptying this house.

On a positive note, my brother, who is the general contractor for our project, pulled the permit for the new house and can start at any time after today. That is good news.

We are all on vacation next week, as we had planned to be moving. No plans as of this point except to carry on!

I would like to share our house plans with you, friends. I will try to take a picture of the plans and post them here soon.

This IS good news for my landscaping, though, isn't it? Heh heh (please see my prior posts if you don't understand this line -).

Thanks for all your continued help & prayers....