Okay, it's July 30th and there's only been one single sweaty day this entire summer. Yep, one day when the temps hovered around 90, other than that, we're happy if things creep up to 80. Seriously, last night, I had to put a sweatshirt on to put my chickens to bed because it was 57 degrees outside at 9pm. That is just so seriously wrong. My garden is taking forever to kick in - I just had my first zucchini of the year last night for supper. Other than that, I've had 2 bean pickings, a cucumber (it was bitter tasting) and one eggplant. What the heck? Even my peas are just blossoming out now. They're supposed to be over already and instead they haven't even pea'd out yet (that sounds kind of gross, doesn't it?) After the incredibly cold winter we had you'd think we'd get a little payback by at least not having to wear a jacket in July, but no such luck.
WE is having a hard time in Basic Training, he's getting depressed and demoralized, which is the whole point of it, I guess. But I still feel bad for my little boy. He says it's not the physical part that's so bad, he was in pretty good shape going in, it's the whole mental thing that's getting him down. He says he's missing things like tasting your food before you swallow it and hygiene in general, 10 minutes for a shower and shave just doesn't cut it. He's got 3 weeks in now, so he's about 1/4 of the way through, and they say the first month is the hardest, so he'll do great. I'm sure he's looking forward to October 3rd and graduation day though.
On the flip side, his big brother is waiting for his early discharge papers so he can get out of the Marines and start on his civilian life. As soon as his discharge comes though, he's jumping into his car and heading to Miami to start school this fall. Angel #2 is also starting college this fall as well. So we'll have a kid in San Diego, Houston and Miami - looks like we'll always have a warm place to visit come winter.
My drywall sanding in the living room came to a standstill yesterday. I think I killed the hand sander. It stopped dead while I was working on the ceiling. I'm debating if I should head into town for a new one, I probably should, but then I'll just have to get back to work and frankly, sanding drywall is one of the worst, messiest constructions projects in the history of building. I can't wait for this project to get finished!
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Sunday, July 13, 2014
Our road is where all the cool kids hang out
Our little road was the place to be Friday night. It was the night of our neighbors huge fireworks extravaganza party. Rumor has it that $20,000 was spent on fireworks this year. He always has his party the same weekend every year, and it's usually full of non-local people since our neighbor doesn't actually live next door, he lives in a town about 30 miles away. His place out here is more like his big park. There were a few of us locals at the party, but not many. So, all our other neighbors also have big parties on the same night so all their friends can enjoy the fireworks as well, we were invited to one of those parties as well and I had more fun at that one since I actually knew people there. In addition to all the other parties, people from town also come out and park on the side of our road with their families so they can watch the fireworks too. I suppose if you life in town, it's not much of a novelty to be within walking distance of an event, but when you're out in the boonies like us, it's kind of cool to just walk home when everyone else is fighting to get out of the driveway.
To add to our novelty, the next day we had a parade of sorts come past our house. A big veterans group organized a drive-by of about 100 classic cars & Corvettes and about 600 motorcycles. They came by on our corner, so we grabbed our lawnchairs and set them up next to our neighbors on the other side of the house from the fireworks guy, grabbed our American flags and waved them as hundreds of vehicles went past blowing their horns. So we had a bunch of big parties, fireworks an a parade, all in the same weekend. You can't beat that with a stick.
Our living room is still a mess, but we're at the reconstruction phase now instead of the destruction part of the job, which is a whole lot more encouraging. The old wiring is out, so now our house is completely rewired with modern day materials as opposed to old ceramic knobs and cloth-wrapped electrical wires. Yay I'm sure the insurance company will appreciate that as much as they liked it when we replaced the 50 year old roof and the asbestos siding. Even if we don't get the house completely in the 21st century, we'll at least have it firmly in the 20th, which will be a massive improvement. As an added bonus, everyone LOVES our bright red roof.
To add to our novelty, the next day we had a parade of sorts come past our house. A big veterans group organized a drive-by of about 100 classic cars & Corvettes and about 600 motorcycles. They came by on our corner, so we grabbed our lawnchairs and set them up next to our neighbors on the other side of the house from the fireworks guy, grabbed our American flags and waved them as hundreds of vehicles went past blowing their horns. So we had a bunch of big parties, fireworks an a parade, all in the same weekend. You can't beat that with a stick.
Our living room is still a mess, but we're at the reconstruction phase now instead of the destruction part of the job, which is a whole lot more encouraging. The old wiring is out, so now our house is completely rewired with modern day materials as opposed to old ceramic knobs and cloth-wrapped electrical wires. Yay I'm sure the insurance company will appreciate that as much as they liked it when we replaced the 50 year old roof and the asbestos siding. Even if we don't get the house completely in the 21st century, we'll at least have it firmly in the 20th, which will be a massive improvement. As an added bonus, everyone LOVES our bright red roof.
Wednesday, July 9, 2014
what a mess
You know someone's a great friend when not only do they bring you Chinese take-out when they find out you're overwhelmed ripping apart your living room for a remodel, but after you're done eating, she also grabs a crowbar and rips out your ceiling. There's not too many of those around and I'm incredibly thankful I've got one like her. My living room, on the other hand, I don't have any great affection for at the moment.
It started out simple enough, we were going to replace the patio door in the living room. Then we decided that there was enough room to cut out holes for 2 new additional windows on that wall. Since there wasn't much south wall left, we decided to just rip out the rest of the wall and re-drywall it. Then hubs said, let's rip off the paneling on the west wall as well and cover up that doorway. The west wall of our living room (formerly) had 2 doorways leading into the same long narrow room that hubs uses for an office. The one doorway we've always had blocked off because there just was no reason to have 2 ways to get into a small room, it's only about 6 feet wide and about 15 feet long. So we ripped off the paneling and discovered to our unending joy, lathe and plaster. YAY *not* We ripped all that off and took it all off on hubs office side as well since we had to drywall over the used-to-be doorway. Then I found out that you can live with someone in marital bliss for over 23 years and have no idea that they have in irrational hatred of painted paneling. This is a bad thing because all the walls in both hubs office and the living room are (were) painted paneling. Gone, it's all gone. All the walls in hubs office had lathe and plaster under the paneling as did 2 of the living room walls. Have you ever ripped out lathe and plaster? Don't. It's messy, dirty, heavy, dusty and a whole list of other adjectives that you don't want to know.
It was right in the middle of the destruction when my friend Connie called to see what we were up to. I told her and that's when she brought over the rescue Chinese food. Hubs decided that he also hated the ceiling in those two rooms. It's this weird cardboardy square panels that have a tongue and groove that fit together - then you staple them to the former ceiling. He wanted his out of his office. Since I didn't have the hate he did, I decided I was good with keeping the stuff up in the living room. Though it's not the most attractive stuff, I really didn't want to deal with taking it down and figured a good coat of paint would do wonders. Well, Connie & the crowbar went to work on the ceiling in hubs office. It came off rather easy, but you had to pull all the staples out when you were done, which was the difficult part.
So, between yesterday and today we got all that work done. Then, when I was sitting and chilling, I started thinking about that cardboard ceiling in the living room and I figured, you know, the house is already a disaster area, what's a little bit more mess? So I grabbed a crowbar and single handedly took out the whole living room ceiling, then pulled about a million staples out. My arms are KILLING ME. I got blisters in the weirdest places from working the pliers so long. But, it's done. Tonight, hubs & I went and picked up almost a whole ton of drywall to put up. We hired one of WE's friends to come over and help us unload it (boy, we're sure missing WE now!) The same boy is going to come over tomorrow and help hubs hang the drywall after hubs finishes doing some electrical work, there were only two outlets in our whole living room. Then there's the mudding to do, then the painting, I"m thinking lavender. I'm also going to repaint the living room floor since that's scuffed up beyond repair and was looking pretty rough before the construction even started. Eventually, we're going to put in carpet, but that's a project for another day when our bank account recovers from this latest adventure.
It started out simple enough, we were going to replace the patio door in the living room. Then we decided that there was enough room to cut out holes for 2 new additional windows on that wall. Since there wasn't much south wall left, we decided to just rip out the rest of the wall and re-drywall it. Then hubs said, let's rip off the paneling on the west wall as well and cover up that doorway. The west wall of our living room (formerly) had 2 doorways leading into the same long narrow room that hubs uses for an office. The one doorway we've always had blocked off because there just was no reason to have 2 ways to get into a small room, it's only about 6 feet wide and about 15 feet long. So we ripped off the paneling and discovered to our unending joy, lathe and plaster. YAY *not* We ripped all that off and took it all off on hubs office side as well since we had to drywall over the used-to-be doorway. Then I found out that you can live with someone in marital bliss for over 23 years and have no idea that they have in irrational hatred of painted paneling. This is a bad thing because all the walls in both hubs office and the living room are (were) painted paneling. Gone, it's all gone. All the walls in hubs office had lathe and plaster under the paneling as did 2 of the living room walls. Have you ever ripped out lathe and plaster? Don't. It's messy, dirty, heavy, dusty and a whole list of other adjectives that you don't want to know.
It was right in the middle of the destruction when my friend Connie called to see what we were up to. I told her and that's when she brought over the rescue Chinese food. Hubs decided that he also hated the ceiling in those two rooms. It's this weird cardboardy square panels that have a tongue and groove that fit together - then you staple them to the former ceiling. He wanted his out of his office. Since I didn't have the hate he did, I decided I was good with keeping the stuff up in the living room. Though it's not the most attractive stuff, I really didn't want to deal with taking it down and figured a good coat of paint would do wonders. Well, Connie & the crowbar went to work on the ceiling in hubs office. It came off rather easy, but you had to pull all the staples out when you were done, which was the difficult part.
So, between yesterday and today we got all that work done. Then, when I was sitting and chilling, I started thinking about that cardboard ceiling in the living room and I figured, you know, the house is already a disaster area, what's a little bit more mess? So I grabbed a crowbar and single handedly took out the whole living room ceiling, then pulled about a million staples out. My arms are KILLING ME. I got blisters in the weirdest places from working the pliers so long. But, it's done. Tonight, hubs & I went and picked up almost a whole ton of drywall to put up. We hired one of WE's friends to come over and help us unload it (boy, we're sure missing WE now!) The same boy is going to come over tomorrow and help hubs hang the drywall after hubs finishes doing some electrical work, there were only two outlets in our whole living room. Then there's the mudding to do, then the painting, I"m thinking lavender. I'm also going to repaint the living room floor since that's scuffed up beyond repair and was looking pretty rough before the construction even started. Eventually, we're going to put in carpet, but that's a project for another day when our bank account recovers from this latest adventure.
Monday, July 7, 2014
And now there's only one
Big day today. This morning we dropped WE off at the military recruiting station and he's off to basic training. I'm so proud of my boy, but it's still hard to see him go, he's my little boy, you know? He was pretty nervous, but ready to go. I handled it okay, after all, I've done this before, I know he'll do awesome and though it seems like forever for him, it's really only 3 months and we'll be seeing him again. I go much longer not seeing Angels #1&2. But WE's poor girlfriend was pretty upset...prouder than heck, but upset to see him go. The two of them spent a lot of time together this week, both at family together times after her cousin's funeral, but on a better note, her aunt's wedding was last night and they had a wonderful time.
Now Angel #4 is an only child, she's already got plans to take over WE's room as a closet, so she's looking forward to that, but she's now inherited Diesel doggy, which she's less than thrilled about. WE usually has what we refer to as 'poo patrol' which is scooping up the piles of poop the dog leaves on the lawn. Someone's gotta scoop that poo and hubs and I nominated her. She's just realized for the first time in her life that the child to parent ratio is no longer skewed in her favor. Sucks to be her. hee hee
Now Angel #4 is an only child, she's already got plans to take over WE's room as a closet, so she's looking forward to that, but she's now inherited Diesel doggy, which she's less than thrilled about. WE usually has what we refer to as 'poo patrol' which is scooping up the piles of poop the dog leaves on the lawn. Someone's gotta scoop that poo and hubs and I nominated her. She's just realized for the first time in her life that the child to parent ratio is no longer skewed in her favor. Sucks to be her. hee hee
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
starting to calm down
As much as I love having all my kids home, I was equally glad to send everyone back where they came from. Those extra bodies create an added level of chaos in my life that tends to drive me nuts over an extended period of time. I like normal sameness in my life, I'm not a very exciting person, and having an additional 2 people, sleeping on sofas, living in the living room (which is made for sitting, not living in, despite its misleading name) and keeping everyone fed and entertained is by no means close to normal sameness.
This is WE's last week home before being shipped off to the Marines on Sunday. He's trying to get all the sleep, food and fun he can fit into this week over with in anticipation of having very little of any of those three in the next three months. There was an upset in his plans on Saturday, when during his girlfriend's graduation party, her family got the tragic news that her 12 year old cousin was found dead in her bedroom of unknown cause. He's now at the funeral home and will be spending tomorrow morning at her funeral. His poor girlfriend has been struggling for almost a year with the death of her father and to have this happen 2 weeks before the 1st anniversary of his death, along with knowing WE's going to be leaving soon has got to be a huge emotional blow to her, though she's dealing with things rather well, considering. Angel #4 and I will be going to the wake at the funeral home tonight to pay our respects - her family lives right down the road from us and in the country, living within 5 miles of someone makes you neighbors. Besides, though I didn't see much of the deceased girl at school, I saw and spoke to her little brother every day and if I saw her dad someplace, we always took a few minutes to chat, as well as totally adoring the rest of WE's girlfriend's extended family.
Other than that, it's been the same old summer stuff, gardening, baby chickens, mosquitoes, etc Just the way I like it, other than the mosquitoes
This is WE's last week home before being shipped off to the Marines on Sunday. He's trying to get all the sleep, food and fun he can fit into this week over with in anticipation of having very little of any of those three in the next three months. There was an upset in his plans on Saturday, when during his girlfriend's graduation party, her family got the tragic news that her 12 year old cousin was found dead in her bedroom of unknown cause. He's now at the funeral home and will be spending tomorrow morning at her funeral. His poor girlfriend has been struggling for almost a year with the death of her father and to have this happen 2 weeks before the 1st anniversary of his death, along with knowing WE's going to be leaving soon has got to be a huge emotional blow to her, though she's dealing with things rather well, considering. Angel #4 and I will be going to the wake at the funeral home tonight to pay our respects - her family lives right down the road from us and in the country, living within 5 miles of someone makes you neighbors. Besides, though I didn't see much of the deceased girl at school, I saw and spoke to her little brother every day and if I saw her dad someplace, we always took a few minutes to chat, as well as totally adoring the rest of WE's girlfriend's extended family.
Other than that, it's been the same old summer stuff, gardening, baby chickens, mosquitoes, etc Just the way I like it, other than the mosquitoes
Monday, June 16, 2014
ZOOM!!!
It's been over two weeks since I showed up here, wow, things happen fast around here.
All four of my angels have been home for the last week and it's been great, if not a bit chaotic. We're just not used to, or set up for, having 6 people living here, so there's stuff and people all over the place. Add that to getting ready for WE;s graduation party and things got downright loopy around here.
WE's party was on Saturday, we had it in conjunction with his friend Casey, who's also going into the Marines at the same time. It was a great turnout with lots of people, some friends came over who I hadn't seen in 3 years, their kids had all gotten so bit and one the them I'd never even seen before and will be turning 2 in August. To think we used to spend just about every weekend with them back in the old days, it's hard to believe things have changed so much. But they live a 3 hours drive away and have 4 little kids, so it's hard for them to get out and we've just got so much stuff going on in our own lives that it's hard for us to make the trip as well, though hubs has been out there a few times on jobs, but I didn't make it out there with him. Anyway, it was nice to play catch-up, though I didn't have a whole lot of time since I had to run around being a hostess. We had a ton of leftover food and we'll be eating party food for the next couple days, thank goodness I've got the extra kids here to help us eat all this stuff.
Yesterday, we took the kids on what may be one of our last whole family vacations. It was just a short jaunt- out to House on the Rock, about a 3 1/2 hour drive from here. If you've never experienced House on the Rock, I highly recommend it. It's absolutely crazy and random, perfect for our family. I was a little worried about hauling the whole group out there then have someone whining about being bored or something, but that never happened. Though everyone wasn't interested in everything, everyone found lots of stuff to be interested in. We also brought WE's girlfriend along, which was a great move. Not only did she enjoy it as much as our kids, but this was her first Father's Day without her dad and she was worried about how she was going to handle it. Fortunately for her, we're not a Hallmark Holiday kind of family and Father's Day didn't even really come up other than once when we were wondering why there were so many full parking lots in front of restaurants.
The suggested time for each portion of House on the Rock is 1 hour each, for a total of about 3 hours to walk the whole place (it's about a 2.5 mile walk through the whole thing). We were enjoying it so much it took us over 5 hours to go through it and each of us said we would have loved to spend more time examining some of the displays. The girls and I all oohed and ahhed over the dollhouse room the the replica crown jewels, each of us picking out which crown we'd like the best. The boys and hubs spent a lot of time examining the guns, armor, the tiny circus dioramas and WE was absolutely fascinated by the scrimshaw works. Overall, I would call it a complete success and it was great spending an enjoyable day with my kids.
All four of my angels have been home for the last week and it's been great, if not a bit chaotic. We're just not used to, or set up for, having 6 people living here, so there's stuff and people all over the place. Add that to getting ready for WE;s graduation party and things got downright loopy around here.
WE's party was on Saturday, we had it in conjunction with his friend Casey, who's also going into the Marines at the same time. It was a great turnout with lots of people, some friends came over who I hadn't seen in 3 years, their kids had all gotten so bit and one the them I'd never even seen before and will be turning 2 in August. To think we used to spend just about every weekend with them back in the old days, it's hard to believe things have changed so much. But they live a 3 hours drive away and have 4 little kids, so it's hard for them to get out and we've just got so much stuff going on in our own lives that it's hard for us to make the trip as well, though hubs has been out there a few times on jobs, but I didn't make it out there with him. Anyway, it was nice to play catch-up, though I didn't have a whole lot of time since I had to run around being a hostess. We had a ton of leftover food and we'll be eating party food for the next couple days, thank goodness I've got the extra kids here to help us eat all this stuff.
Yesterday, we took the kids on what may be one of our last whole family vacations. It was just a short jaunt- out to House on the Rock, about a 3 1/2 hour drive from here. If you've never experienced House on the Rock, I highly recommend it. It's absolutely crazy and random, perfect for our family. I was a little worried about hauling the whole group out there then have someone whining about being bored or something, but that never happened. Though everyone wasn't interested in everything, everyone found lots of stuff to be interested in. We also brought WE's girlfriend along, which was a great move. Not only did she enjoy it as much as our kids, but this was her first Father's Day without her dad and she was worried about how she was going to handle it. Fortunately for her, we're not a Hallmark Holiday kind of family and Father's Day didn't even really come up other than once when we were wondering why there were so many full parking lots in front of restaurants.
The suggested time for each portion of House on the Rock is 1 hour each, for a total of about 3 hours to walk the whole place (it's about a 2.5 mile walk through the whole thing). We were enjoying it so much it took us over 5 hours to go through it and each of us said we would have loved to spend more time examining some of the displays. The girls and I all oohed and ahhed over the dollhouse room the the replica crown jewels, each of us picking out which crown we'd like the best. The boys and hubs spent a lot of time examining the guns, armor, the tiny circus dioramas and WE was absolutely fascinated by the scrimshaw works. Overall, I would call it a complete success and it was great spending an enjoyable day with my kids.
Saturday, May 31, 2014
Dare I say it without jinxing things? Summer's here!!
The weather's finally been beautiful and it's time for fun in the sun! YAY!
We finally got the garden in today, which is a load off. I don't like getting it in so late, it should have been planted a week ago, but we finally got someone to plow it up real good on Friday. The same guy also sold us a tiller, so yay for that. I've been gardening by hand forever, so it'll be a real treat to have a tiller to do the rough stuff for me this summer. I still have to put in the potatoes and tomatoes, but everything else is in. I haven't gotten around to buying seed potatoes yet and I only want to put in a few this year since I don't have much luck with them - our land is too clay-ee or limey or something and they always end up small and not worth the effort it takes to plant, weed, pick potato bugs and dig the up. I'll just buy a big 50 lb bag from someone this fall. I screwed up buying tomato plants and accidentally bought cherry tomatoes instead of real ones. I hate cherry tomatoes, hubs is the only one who likes raw tomatoes, so he's the only one to eat them and to pick all those stupid little things to can them is a pain in the butt. I'm going to pitch the plants I got by accident and pick up some good ones and get those in the ground asap. I've still got tons of canned tomatoes from last year, but it just doesn't seem like a real garden without a few tomato plants out there. Besides, I love eating the green ones fried up and that's something you can't store for winter eating. Some treats are meant for summertime only.
Yesterday we went to watch the track and field team compete at sectionals. WE didn't do, real great on the long jump, well, he did all right for what he usually does, but the winners were jumping at over 20 feet and WE's goal was to get over 19 this year. One of our girl disc throwers broke our school's record, so she was pretty excited, she's going on to the state competition as is one of our girl hurdlers who took first in both the 100 and 300 meter hurdles and our girls high jumper took a 2nd, so we've got 3 girls going on to state in 4 different events. WE's buddy Grant is going on for the 800 meter - Grant is also the kid who took a first in state in wrestling this year, he's a bit of a go-getter. In a surprise move, WE ended up running in the 4X400 relay as well. He didn't run that race at regionals, it was run by an alternate, but the coach decided that WE should run it at sectionals. The boys did awesome and managed to take 5th place, not good enough for state, but good nonetheless. The race was run in two heats, WE's group taking 1st in the 1st, and slower heat. The 7 faster teams ran in the 2nd heat, but in a heartbreaking development, the teams battling it out for 2nd & 3rd place bumped or something, sending one of the kids toppling to the ground hurt and the other team, I believe, was disqualified. It was those two teams dropping out of the race that sent our guys up to #5. It's so sad to see something like that happen when you know those kids worked so hard to get there. There were a couple of injuries yesterday. When you get to finals, those kids remaining push themselves so hard that injuries are just going to happen. I'm glad our team all came out of things in one piece.
We finally got the garden in today, which is a load off. I don't like getting it in so late, it should have been planted a week ago, but we finally got someone to plow it up real good on Friday. The same guy also sold us a tiller, so yay for that. I've been gardening by hand forever, so it'll be a real treat to have a tiller to do the rough stuff for me this summer. I still have to put in the potatoes and tomatoes, but everything else is in. I haven't gotten around to buying seed potatoes yet and I only want to put in a few this year since I don't have much luck with them - our land is too clay-ee or limey or something and they always end up small and not worth the effort it takes to plant, weed, pick potato bugs and dig the up. I'll just buy a big 50 lb bag from someone this fall. I screwed up buying tomato plants and accidentally bought cherry tomatoes instead of real ones. I hate cherry tomatoes, hubs is the only one who likes raw tomatoes, so he's the only one to eat them and to pick all those stupid little things to can them is a pain in the butt. I'm going to pitch the plants I got by accident and pick up some good ones and get those in the ground asap. I've still got tons of canned tomatoes from last year, but it just doesn't seem like a real garden without a few tomato plants out there. Besides, I love eating the green ones fried up and that's something you can't store for winter eating. Some treats are meant for summertime only.
Yesterday we went to watch the track and field team compete at sectionals. WE didn't do, real great on the long jump, well, he did all right for what he usually does, but the winners were jumping at over 20 feet and WE's goal was to get over 19 this year. One of our girl disc throwers broke our school's record, so she was pretty excited, she's going on to the state competition as is one of our girl hurdlers who took first in both the 100 and 300 meter hurdles and our girls high jumper took a 2nd, so we've got 3 girls going on to state in 4 different events. WE's buddy Grant is going on for the 800 meter - Grant is also the kid who took a first in state in wrestling this year, he's a bit of a go-getter. In a surprise move, WE ended up running in the 4X400 relay as well. He didn't run that race at regionals, it was run by an alternate, but the coach decided that WE should run it at sectionals. The boys did awesome and managed to take 5th place, not good enough for state, but good nonetheless. The race was run in two heats, WE's group taking 1st in the 1st, and slower heat. The 7 faster teams ran in the 2nd heat, but in a heartbreaking development, the teams battling it out for 2nd & 3rd place bumped or something, sending one of the kids toppling to the ground hurt and the other team, I believe, was disqualified. It was those two teams dropping out of the race that sent our guys up to #5. It's so sad to see something like that happen when you know those kids worked so hard to get there. There were a couple of injuries yesterday. When you get to finals, those kids remaining push themselves so hard that injuries are just going to happen. I'm glad our team all came out of things in one piece.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)