The House, As Promised

Please forgive me, I'm not a great photographer. In fact I didn't even remember to take pictures until the very last day, right as my Dad was coming to pick me up.

I wanted to get action shots. Action shots of my mom and sister painting, not shots of me painting, because I didn't do any of it. Action shots of my dad doing little odd jobs, not shots of me, because I only did even jobs. Action shots of the tree trimmers and the amount of cutting they did on the trees. At one point on Friday we had painting going on, guys installing a ceiling fan, a fence guy putting up a new fence, the tree trimmers buzzin away, my dad fixing odd wires that were hanging out of walls and me trying to look busy, but really just talking on the phone to my Sweetie. I was very busy and important to all the goings on, after all, someone has to sign the checks and make the lunch run.

I know that I said I'd do 'before' shots, but I'm too lazy to go digging through my picture boxes to find the 'before' shots. And I would just get distracted by all the cute little boy pictures I'd find along the way, so who cares. But at least I got these and you can see our cute little house and all the work everyone did.

The picket fence needed to be replaced, this is just a couple sections to show you.


The Living Room, sweetie and his brother put in this fireplace years ago, when Calvin was two and I was pregnant with Dave.


My Kitchen, my DREAM kitchen. We finished it in 2005. It's purty.


The Dining Room, Sweetie added about 4 feet to the front of it and gave it bigger windows. That's my grandmother's table and chairs, we weren't able to move it with us.


The Laundry Room, which was finished after we had moved, hence the different look to it. I would not have chosen the color of paint or flooring, but it works.


The hallway leading to the bathroom & bedrooms. This hallway is narrow. We used to have a Golden Retriever who would wake us up in the morning by walking down the hall with his tail wagging and hitting each side wall with it as he went along.


THE Bathroom, the ONE and ONLY bathroom. We knew no different. This was remodeled around 2003. We parked our camping trailer in the back yard. The midnight trip to go pee was NOT FUN!


Seriously wish I could get out the old photo of when we bought this house. This was the NASTIEST room. This is a PG rated blog, so I won't tell any details, but seriously yucky things in here. But we cleaned it, cleaned it, fumigated it, painted it, re-carpeted it and prayed hard over it....then moved my three month old first born into it. This was the nursery. Then the boys room. Then it became the Master Bedroom as I decided to give the boys the big room.


This is the bedroom at the back of the house, it's the master bedroom. It was the boys bedroom for the last couple of years, but for showing purposes we made it into the master bedroom with a little seating area. This little room has four big windows in it. For being such a little house, it has GREAT windows!


The little seating area in the master bedroom.


This is the office. When we bought the house, it was our concrete patio, but after we bought our business Sweetie added this office onto the patio. I had personally painted this room twice trying to make it look better. Well, my mama and sister now agree with my husbands decision to NEVER let me play with paint brushes again. We staged this room to be a den/guestroom.

The daybed we set up in the den.


These are THE ROCKS. This is one of the reasons Sweetie wanted to buy this house. The boys were trying to climb these things before they could walk. Sweetie and his brother hung Tarzan ropes off of them. Lots of fun was had here. And no, never saw any snakes. Really.


This is the new back patio that we had put in. We loved having everyone over for BBQ's. We are standing at the slider door off the den and looking over to 'the rocks'.


This is the flower terrace that Sweetie put in, plus the flower boxes. It all really adds to the charm of this side of the house, plus helps with all that melting Southern California sunshine.


The whole property is speckled with these oak trees. But this one was always my favorite. It's just perfect.

And that's our little house. Yes, it was sad. On one day I was working, okay I was watching the others work and a lady came by to see the house. I was able to take her all over the house and property and give her all the history. She and her husband and kids fell in love with it. They were like a mirror image of Sweetie and I when we fell in love with it. The way they appreciated the trees and rocks and oldness of the house. Even though they had three kids they were ready to 'make it work'. When she left, though,I could feel it happening, the sadness. And then after everyone left the house that day I walked around in a stupor for awhile. Then I just sat down in the back bedroom and bawled my eyeballs out.

It's not that I'm going to miss the house or the purty kitchen. It's the memories that were made there. They are precious. Sweetie told me it wasn't even just the good memories, even the bad memories of hard times, were good. That whole house is such a story of God and his provisions and blessings. Our marriage, our boys, our families and friends, our church and ministries, it's all there. Our life has changed so completely for us. Even if God brought us back, and we don't see him doing that, things wouldn't be the same. The boys are different, relationships are different. God blessed us there and now he has us here and he's blessing us some more. He is so good. I'm thankful for my trip. Thankful for the comfort from God that I didn't even realize I needed. For His reassurance. I'm thankful too for all the help that my family gave to me, I seriously could not have done all that without them. You are my heroes! Love you all.

Thankful

Got this from Carol. But mine doesn't start with 'H'. Sorry.

1. Being home.

2. Reading in bed with the boys.

3. Being home.

4. Hugs from my Sweetie.

5. Being home.

6. Feeding my doggie cookies last night.

7. Being home.

8. Taking the boys to the lake today for a picnic.

9. Being home.

10. My jet-lagged nap yesterday.

What are you thankful for?

Fourth of July

I can't believe I forgot to update you on our wonderful weekend of fun. How have you managed without knowing what we've been up to?? I'm so sorry.

First it was a birthday party for a sweet little girl, she chose bowling and we love her for it. It was three families and we divided up into mixed teams and had such a blast. My sweetie won for the night, though he was still down because his score wasn't what it used to be 20 years ago. Then he tweaked his back with one of his bowls. But dang, if he didn't look cute in his bowling shoes.

The next morning was the Fourth, we started the day with playing tennis as a family. This is something that we've started doing quite frequently. We're all pretty bad at it, but we have fun. But that morning, Sweetie tweaked his back trying to hit one of my serves. I'm that good!

After that we got dressed in our finest Red, White & Blue and joined some friends for our town's Fourth of July parade. Where the people (and sometimes pets) are the parade. It was very 'Mayberry' and cute. I gave my camera to a friend, and that's why we have photos. I'm very bad at remembering to take photos.

The start of the parade.


A couple girls we kidnapped on the way.


A cutie-patootie friend in her wagon.


The cutie-patootie's mom and me.


Calvin pulling the cutie-patootie.


Another cutie-patootie and his bud.
Dave LOVES it when I call him cutie-patootie.

But I think this was my favorite part of the parade.
Don't you know what Winston is going to be doing next year.

As you can imagine Sweetie was WAY hip on doing this, but by the end of the parade I looked up and he had found a flag and stuck it in his hat. He's so cool.


Dave doing his 'nice' face.


The boys got their fingerprints and pictures taken by the police. It's for safety reasons, but I told them it was their mug shots and they were being 'booked'.


After the parade we went to a family BBQ. The kids rode 'four-wheelers' and Dave hugged a tree. Literally, crashed his bike and became VERY familiar with a tree. He's okay, but he now has some scratches that match his black eye from when Dad threw a baseball at him. (just kidding, Dad, we know you weren't aiming for the eye) Anyway the BBQ was fun and the chicken was incredible (thanks Dan) and the Mountain of Desserts was.....oh my goodness.....yummy....all of them....several times......yummy......

On Saturday we tried to re-coop. We layed around, rubbed 'Ben-Gay' on Sweetie's back, put salve on Dave's body and I served them all waffles while they laid in my bed watching their 'manly' shows. Later that evening we went to some friends house for a big party with friends and set off all sorts of fireworks. They were a whole lot illegal but oh my goodness too cool!

Sunday, after church, we crashed.....and put more bengay on Sweetie's back and salve on Dave's wounds.

Monday morning, Sweetie was ready to play tennis again. The poor thing thinks he's still twenty. I'm making him hang up the rackets for this week. But dang, if he isn't cute in his tennis shorts.

Heading Home

I'm leaving tomorrow morning at the crack of dawn to go home. I call it home because I have a home there. I call it home because it's where our families are. I call it home because it was for 33 years.

We are selling our house there and I'm going to go 'stage' it for the sale. It won't cost me a thing as I'm stealing furniture and items from my parents house. Aren't they great???

I'm going to sleep there, for several reasons: because I can, because I haven't since 2 years ago, because it will probably be my last chance, because I miss it, because it's our first home, because it's where I brought my babies home to, because it has my dream kitchen (I may just throw my sleeping bag down in front of the fridge), and because I can.

I'll only be there for three days. If anyone wants to come see me, please do, I would love to see you. I'll post before and after pictures next week. What fun!

I'm off to pack my tiny suitcase, water my drooping plants, throw some laundry in the washer and drag some very sleepy boys out of bed by their toes. It should be fun, wanna join me?

Thankful on Thursday

I actually wrote this yesterday, but Thankful on Wednesday doesn't sound right. So I waited and posted it today, expecially since I woke up on the wrong side of the bed and I'm Mrs. Grumpy-Pants today, and today's Thankful List really only says,
1. That I get to go back to bed tonight.

THE GOOD LIST

1. The first sip of coffee in the morning.

2. The view outside my quiet time chair window.

3. Reading some more with Dave.

4. A stay at home week with a little bit of nesting.

5. Walking on the treadmill while watching Rachel Ray.

6. My new slippers from Kohl's that I got for $4.00.

7. Sippin' on a diet coke while the boys had ice cream cones.

8. The boys conquered another chapter in their Math book and got an A- and B+ on their tests. Yippee!

9. My sweetie coming home and surprising me by taking me out on a date.

10. Yummy dinner at Outback and watching the movie 'Hancock', just kicking back and relaxing with my Sweetie.


Hope you're having a good day!

Itch

So I'm sitting here FINALLY adding comments to my most favorite blogs when I feel an itch. I'm a random scratcher. Mostly of my arms and upper back. I'll catch myself in church getting all twisty just trying to scratch. Not very classy, but then I'm not a very classy girl. Anyway, this itch was real and it was on my upper arm, so I scratch and feel a bump, that I thought was one of those pimply things that us humans sometimes get on our arms, so I scratch it off, just before I flick it to the ground I look at it, because, let's face it that's what we do, isn't it??? Anyway, it was NOT a pimply thing......it was a TICK! So of course now I'm itchy all over. I realize it's tick season, just picked one off a friend the other day, but seriously people, haven't even been outside yet today....does that mean they are inside???? Anyone wanna come for a stay at the tick motel????

Projects Around the House

If you're a blogger like I am, I'm wondering, do you go around your day and think in blog story mode? Where everything you do, goes through the 'would this be a good post' filter? That's what I do. I cannot help myself. But I need to start carrying a notebook with me or one of those handy dandy voice recorders....because I can never remember anything when I come to sit at my computer. So today I'll just give you an update of projects that we've done around the place lately. I know, quite exciting. :o)

First, this is what my sweetie's did for me for Mother's Day. We had to do something to keep the rain washing the rocks and debris into the lawn. Very professional looking, yes? They did this while I was out shopping with a friend one Saturday.




Also, this is what Sweetie hung for me this past weekend. After much frustration with my shortage of kitchen cabinets, we came up with this genius idea. And after getting 'go for it' advice from my bro-in-law and 'just wait' advice from my sister, I, of course, went with the former and bought the thing. We love it. I love it. I think it makes me look like a real chef and I've started talking and explaining while cooking. Next blog post just might be a video of me cooking meatloaf for dinner.



This is the other project. Yes, it's a magnifying mirror. I realize these are something that grandma's have in their bathrooms. I realize that it's suppose to be used for putting on your makeup. But I needed it because Sweetie was getting embarrassed of me in the car plucking my whiskers while waiting in traffic. I seriously think I'm part man with all the whiskers I've got going on. Taking up donations for my laser hair removal treatment, please send checks as the boys keep stealing my cash.





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On a completely different note. Calvin made it through his Jr. High Camp. And so did I. I sent him a card everyday. Took him cookies mid-way through the week. Didn't cry, but maybe just a little bit. Had to keep the Dave completely entertained and distracted. At one point we called Dad at work and gave him an ultimatum....either build us a pool or get us a membership at the local YMCA so we can cool off! So after that.....we are thoroughly enjoying our $20 Slip-N-Slide. Dad said it was that or start digging a hole he'd fill it up later with the hose.

Dave and I started each morning with reading in bed. He's totally addicted to the Hardy Boys books and is on book 8. So I started to read again. Christian fiction. I love to read, it's completely relaxing but I'd gotten out of the habit. So we'd lay in bed after Sweetie left for work and read away. Ah, summer vacation. The kid is very competitive. Every 5 minutes he'd ask me what page I was on. He's a pain.


This is his 'faux-hawk', he's channeling David Cook from American Idol


Calvin enjoyed camp. Got a little homesick, but overall had a great time. He made friends, spent all his money at the snack shack, lost his voice, brushed his teeth once, wore the same outfit for most of the week, got 48 bug bites, was grossed out by the bathroom and even took pictures for me of the filth, was named camp photographer and annoyed everyone with taking too many pictures, missed his mama, was nice to the girls, caught a fish, won the rowing contest in his own canoe, said he didn't learn anything new, was peer pressured into jumping off the high dive, slept in the girls cabin (for the record, it became a boys cabin for this camp, but in the past it's been a girls cabin), and sent his family ONE postcard that said, 'thanks for dumping me at this place'. He'll be dumped there again next year.


A self-portrait in front of his cabin at camp.

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We do year round school here, only because the teacher is a bit lazy, we take too many breaks and need to make it up at some point. So we're back into schooling this week. As you can imagine, with the rest of the world on summer vacation, and one of them just getting back from camp, it's going really well. Even giving them my berry cobbler for breakfast on Monday morning didn't change their sour faces. So I'm nazi mom this week, cracking the whip and trying to get the school back into shape. Please send money for private Christian school.

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I'm off to wash the dog. There is a strange foul odor that seems to be seeping from his pores. I don't even want to think about what it's from. I was thinking about staking him in the yard and taking the power washer to him, but with him weighing so little, I'm thinking it would blow him to the neighbor's yard. My bathtub will have to do.

Hope y'all are having a good week.