Monday, April 11, 2011

Weekends 10 and 11

Hey There! 
I hope everyone has been enjoying the absolutely amazing weather!

The past couple of weeks have been fairly productive, not only on the house we are remodeling, but also on the house that is for sale!  In fact, weekend 10 was completely dedicated to whipping our yard into shape for showing, as it is now on the market :)  I've never mulched more in my life!  I must say, it was rather enjoyable, except for the ridiculous barking of the dog that lives in the yard caddy corner to ours.  It barked for several hours straight.  Grrrr!  I was so annoyed.  Seriously...annoyed.  I came to the conclusion that animals have the tendency to make me very irritable.  I truly wish I were an animal lover, and I do think I'm getting much, much better (Thank you better behaved Dixie dog and Michelle-loving Piper).  However, the truth remains, I most definitely am not.

After all of that yard whipping, our house was looking pretty snazzy, but one sad fact is that grass grows.  We had another showing today.  I got the call around 11, and realized our lovely yard hadn't been mowed since last weekend!  I almost broke a vow that I made to myself to never mow the lawn (because the hubby was at work).  I changed my clothes, got out the lawn mower, put some gas in it, and tried to get it going.  Then, I realized how much of a pansy I really am.  I could not start the thing!  I had 2 issues.  1.  I'm not strong enough, and 2.  I really don't think I'm long enough.  I had to change positions to get the stringy-starter-ma-bob completely out...and my arm had to move at an angle that is not so strong.  Oh, how being short (and delicate...haha) complicates things!  Did you know I can't even effectively stir things, or use a rolling pin at the counter top level without a step-stool?  It's really quite frustrating.  Hmmm...that gets me thinking...maybe I should have used a step stool to try to start the lawn mower.   ...Nah!

Although our yard is not the yard of my dreams, it has a couple of things going for it.  Three seasons of the year, I can have fresh flowers in my house!  (Below are the tulips I planted in February.  That's right all you who said they wouldn't grow!  Booyah!)  I hope that will be a pleasant suprise to whoever lives in our house next because it has really been enjoyable for me!



During the 10th weekend of our house renovation, we also had the ground breaking ceremony for a new childrens' wing at church.  It is much needed for our growing children's ministries!  God has really been moving at Seminole Baptist Temple, and all of the childrens' classes need more space!  Our high school class has actually been one person shy of the fire code!  We are all so excited about the new building and are praising God for all He does!

Everyone was supposed to bring shovels to help break the ground!  Once again, here are my cutie pie nephews going after it!


It was such a fun time!


Zane learned a valuable shovelling lesson...use your foot for more POWER!

And...I just really liked the picture below, so I added it :)


After week 10, I spent a lot of time price shopping and solidifying our budget for plumbing fixtures, lighting, and hardware for the house.  One tip for those of you needing to price shop for things of this nature:  take a camera with you!!!  Most of the time, the price is near the product, so when you look at the picture, not only do you remember the price, but also what the product looked like!  I took pictures at several stores, and Wes and I made our decisions at home (so he didn't even have to go shopping).  It also allowed us to put products from various stores side by side, so we could make sure they coordinated. 


The roofers also started their work.  They are almost finished.  The new shingles look sooooo much better than the shake roof (that was in terrible condition, I might add).


Sadly, especially for our neighbors, the roofing supplies are still in our yard until they finish (I don't know when they are finishing it, as they are on a commercial job right now.  However, I do believe Wes knows!)


During weekend 11, Wes started framing the tub skirt.  We have a fantastic idea.  It's going to be very spa-esque!  I'm pumped!


He also moved a doorway to one of the bedrooms in the basement.  Because the bedroom has a door to the john deere room, we would prefer to use it as a workout room or play room unless we absolutely need it as a bedroom.  At this point, we most definitely do not!  Because of that, we decided to add french doors.  The space to the right that is still open is where the old door used to be.  It still needs to be drywalled, but you get the idea.  The reason we  moved the door instead of just widening it was because we did not like how the soffit cut into the trim.  I love trim, so that just would not do!  Also, the french doors will (hopefully) be rather centered behind the couch, adding some architectural interest.  I think it will be lovely!  I also like the fact that the window is now visible from many points in the living room.  It adds a lot of light and opens up the space.  I don't have a before picture at this angle because that big brick wall was in the way!


Last weekend we also had another SWITCH event for our high school and middle school kids.  If you are unfamiliar with SWITCH, it is an outreach event that our church does for our youth.  The wonderful youth pastors coordinate some super fun event (this month was the Skinny Improv), kids invite their unsaved friends, and they are presented with the gospel!  6 kids got saved!  It is amazing how many people are so hungry for the word of God, and all they need is to be told about it!  We are excitedly praising God for all He has done through the SWITCH events.  I've never seen life changes like I've seen the past year and a half!  It's beautiful!


This week, we are having some work done on our HVAC and the drywall finishers are coming!  I will be gone for the weekend, so I am excited to see what it looks like when I return!  Also, there has been a lot of movement and "whatnot" on our house!  I was quite surprised that people are actually coming to look at it because our realtor said after the first week the number of views online were really low.  In fact, she said that there were only 9 views from non-realtors online.  I was sad to inform her that I had probably looked at our listing 8 times, and I think Tiffany looked at it once!  Baha!  I don't know how the online viewing is going now, but we have had a handful of showings the past couple of weeks, so it proves there are buyers out there!  It's shaping up to be a fan-tastic week!  I am so incredibly blessed!

Have a lovely evening!

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