Fa La La (Paint the Walls)

We have been Christmas-ing and Birthday-ing and hanging out together and having a grand old time for the past week.



Christmas weekend was spent in the company of JP's sister and family, including a niece recently off the plane from Bulgaria, and a nephew soon headed to Japan. The girls, as always, enjoyed the company of their older cousins. L's favorite activity is to play with the Nativity figures



We arrived back home late on Christmas night. After a bit of a sleep in, the girls were ready to attack the pile of gifts under the tree. Mom and Dad invited us over for a Post-Christmas dinner, complete with flaming Plum Pudding with Rum Sauce.



For her 6th birthday, L wanted to visit the "Dino Museum". We spent the day at the Natural History Museum, checking out the Dinos and other exhibits, then came home for Chinese at her favorite restaurant, cake, and more gifts.





This morning, J & L helped me paint the last half of the garage. They were good helpers, and enjoyed the chance to make an enormous mess.



I have to head back to work tomorrow. I didn't get very far on the list of things to "catch up on" during break, but you know what? I don't care. It was wonderful to sleep in mornings, and spend time doing nothing more significant than being with my family. It was rejuvenating...perhaps I'll be a more well adjusted teacher in 2012!

A SNAFU or Two

Snafu #1: Even though we didn't move last weekend, the mail began forwarding there starting on Friday. I sort of forgot about that when I ordered a bunch of stuff from Amazon! JP or I have been making daily trips out there to check the mail. Luckily everything has come in without problems, including the new checks.

Snafu #2: Apparently I asked the phone company to switch our phone & DSL over when I called to get a work order for the new phone lines. Forgot about that one too...so we lost phone on Monday, and DSL by Tuesday AM. On Monday, after spending about 30 minutes on my cell phone (and completely losing it, yelling "This not acceptable!"), I was assured that it would be restored by the end of the day. On Tuesday, after the internet went out, they got it turned back on in about an hour, with only 20 minutes on the phone. As of Monday, they still had not connected the phone lines to the house, although they brought it up the hill below the power lines.

Snafu #3: The propane contact person at CGI International finally got back in touch with JP yesterday. Since he complained that our driveway was too steep on Friday, he talked to his lawyers. They advised him that having us as customers is too great of a liability to assume, and they no longer want our business. (*&&%#$%^*^*&$) Now we are scrambling to find another company without lawyers.

Snafu #4: There was a snarling raccoon in a cage trap in our driveway when I arrived today. The builder told me they caught it in the cabinets...then laughed when my eyes bugged out and said his uncle caught it up the road. Not really a snafu I guess...

The house is all painted now. Can you believe that 2 of the guys painted the ENTIRE thing BY HAND??? Kudos to M & M!!! The railings on the deck and the porch look nice.

It is darker than we expected, but as you can tell by this shot next to the garage, it is actually really close to the color of the block.

Two of the built-ins in the Great room are nearly complete. This is the entertainment center in the corner by the Library.

This will be a china cabinet in the corner by our bedroom. There will be a plant shelf across the entire wall above these cabinets, then 2 more corner shelves up by the upper windows. These are for things that will get dusted once a year...if they're lucky!

Handy Guy S was out on Monday and did some more clearing where my parents plan to build. He took down a few more trees than he intended because they were rotten...he didn't want one to fall on the house down the road sometime.

I took another load of stuff from the apartment to the house. I'm glad to see it go!

Plan C

Today, instead of preparing to move into our new house, we went strawberry picking with friends. I got over 20 pounds of luscious red beauties, but now I am procrastinating on the jam part of the equation.

The propane tank was to be installed today. This is (hopefully) a temporary feature so we can run our furnace, gas range and gas water heater until they drill for natural gas here. We drove up to the house after strawberry picking to check on the progress. No tank. I got a call a few minutes later from our contact person, who said they were unable to get up the driveway, is there another way up? (Um...by helicopter.) Apparently even though cement trucks, delivery trucks, and other folks with trailers have made it up without problems, they seem to be transportationally challenged. I referred him to JP to get things figured out!

The carpet is installed downstairs and in the Master Bedroom, with the exception of the guest room downstairs, for which we are still waiting on the carpet. Here is the Family Room...

...and the stairs.

The shower in the Master Bath is finished with the exception of the door, and looks great!

The guys are painting outside today. They finished below the deck and on the porch, and now are working on the remainder of the front of the house. The color looked a bit dark yesterday, but it appears lighter where it is not under the prow roof.

We got a free 6-pack of annuals from the greenhouse for each box of strawberries we picked today. I chose marigolds since the critters don't eat them. The girls and I planted them around the edges of our pig garden.

Next up...more garden???

Cowboy Take Me Away

This evening, the girls and I were dancing to the Dixie Chicks. This song just about sums up how I feel about living in this apartment:

I wanna walk and not run

I wanna skip and not fall

I wanna look at the horizon

And not see a building standing tall

I wanna be the only one

For miles and miles

Except for maybe you

And your simple smile

Oh it sounds so good to me

Yes is sounds so good to me...

...I said I wanna touch the earth

I wanna break it in my hands

I wanna grow something wild and unruly

Oh it sounds so good to me

I spent quite a while this afternoon, rummaging around in the garage looking for my jelly jars. I was only partially successful. I did manage to pack up one box from the apartment and deposit it in the garage: J's school stuff.

The carpet guys (more neighbors) were hard at work downstairs putting in the new carpeting.

These library bookshelves look too pretty to cover up with books (but we'll do it anyway).

Here's some of the "portobello" paint on the front of the house...lookin' good!

L picked up poison ivy somewhere...time to plant a lawn!

T - 12 Days, and Counting...

Today is the last of May. Tomorrow starts the month in which we will actually move into our new house. This is the moment that we have been dreaming about and planning and watching come to fruition for 4 years now. I am feeling relatively calm about it this morning, but those obsessive-compulsive tendencies that I'm known for are simmering just below the surface, and threatening to explode in the face of the next person that makes direct eye contact with me.

J and I have finished our last full day of Kindergarten. It makes me a bit nostalgic when I think about it a lot...that my baby is growing up, and that recent lost tooth is going to be just another day in the life after a couple of weeks. Mostly though, I am thrilled! It was tough being a teacher when I never expected to be one. Over all, I'm glad we did it, AND I'm glad we're done. Today we are celebrating by eating out at Red Lobster (her choice), and for the next 2 weeks I am planning on several outings to take our minds off the fact that there is still a lot to be done before we can move our beds in.

Meanwhile, I am trying to tie up some last minute details. I ordered drapes and 100 cabinet knobs in the past week (not quite as expensive as the light bulbs, but a close second.) I have been thinking about towel racks and curtain rods and toilet paper holders...all of those mundane necessities of life. I'm hoping that the house can be ready to live in soon after we are handed the keys.

All the while, things keep happening out at the house. Last week they finished up the kitchen/dining room ceiling, and put in the kitchen cabinets. It has a log cabin feeling in there now, and the galley-type kitchen has become quite cozy. There are several things about the cabinets that we are not thrilled with, but overall, they are great. JP is of the mindset that our "dream kitchen" should be perfect. Perhaps I should think that way, but I grew up (as did he, really) in the "make do with whatever" mode, so I am planning to do just that. This photo is taken from the dining room, looking toward the pantry. The cupboard just behind our scratch-and-dent range hood is way back in a corner. It is a bit awkward, but a difficult area to fill because of the cabinet for the wall ovens and the small space.

This shot is from the pantry out toward the dining room. We have LOTS of drawers, which will be GREAT!

L could hardly wait to show me that they have put in the doors and trim downstairs. This is her beside a door in her room.

They have begun trimming out the windows and doors in the great room with wood. The rest of the house will have white trim (less expensive), but we wanted the wood look in this room.

The tiles are laid in the Mud Room and adjacent bathroom.

They were working in the Master Bathroom as well...put in the shower floor and drain, and will likely start tiling it as well before the day is out.

The whole crew was out on a Saturday. I expect they will be putting in a lot of overtime in the next 2 weeks. In fact, the builder asked when the light bulbs are to arrive so that he can work some in the evenings. I think they should come in by Tuesday so we can light up the night.

We have also chosen an exterior paint color for the house. It is called "Portobello"...because we are a bunch of FUN-GIS (guys)!

Memorial Day Weekend Madness

Whew! We just blew through a 3 day weekend in a blink of an eye! The girls are exhausted, as am I, but we are ready to enter our last week of school...yee haw! We had several late nights and a picnic with a bunch of friends today, so I am about partied out. I need to get MC's mojito recipe...

The house is now entirely painted on the interior. I intended to paint the Master Bath in left-over paint from our last house, but apparently it froze in the garage this winter. It was solid in the can. After a quick trip to Lowe's (I am getting utterly tired of quick trips to Lowe's), I got paint and covered the walls on Sunday.

Then returned this afternoon to do a faux treatment in a ragging technique. It took a long time, but looks nice. I did it in our last bathroom, which was much smaller and consequently did not take nearly as long to complete!

We were pleasantly surprised to see the crew out on a holiday up on the scaffolding.

They have finished the ceilings in the Great Room. Isn't it gorgeous? Now we just need our chandelier. The crew were offering me various stuffed and mounted animal heads to put on the walls...a very kind gesture, but I think I'll pass.

The girls' walls are quite bright. I'm hoping they are able to sleep in this room!

The yellow looks good in the Mud Room and Bathrooms.

Siding is up above the hip roof on the entrance side of the house...

...around the breezeway door and under the garage eaves in front.

The kitchen cabinets are scheduled for delivery on Wednesday, and they plan to start putting in some of the lighting this week.

Perhaps a Prescription?

I've gone from getting extremely anxious to getting seriously spastic every time I visit the house these days. Things are getting SO close to being done, and I am SO tired of living in this apartment (and while we are on the subject of being SO tired of things, I'll mention that I'm SO tired of being J's cyber school teacher...she's tired of me too). I pace. I jump around. I growl. For some reason, none of these things seem to make things happen any faster. We have 5 more days of school, and 3 more weeks of apartment living. I wonder if JP could put me in a medically induced coma until then?

Lots of guys working out at the house today!

Today they are priming the walls. The primer is tinted, so the colors are similar to the final thing. Our "weeping willow" is very nice, although lighter than I anticipated. They didn't have the girl's room primed yet, so I still don't know what the "lemon mint" will look like. Through some miscommunication, the builder thought I wanted the mud/utility/T's Own Private Room to be "butter". After I thought about it, I thought it might be quite stimulating, so we're going with it! This is a shot...sorry it's so dark...of the green color in the library.

They have nearly finished the siding on the entrance side of the house, including soffit over the door. There should still be some cedar detailing over the front door.

The last green door for the breezeway is in. There will be one more door on the other side of the breezeway, and then the house will be closed up!

Here is the cork flooring that we picked up in Pittsburgh yesterday. It will go in the library. I love the way it looks!

The well man finished putting in the rain water cistern. It's not exactly what we were anticipating, but he hit bedrock one foot too shallow, and we told him not to jack-hammer. He also found another spring, which is why the hole was full of water in my last post.

I counted nearly 100 light bulbs that we will need for the house. That's a small fortune when you are considering compact fluorescent bulbs throughout. Anyone know where you can buy light bulbs in bulk?

Another Big Hole

We drive out to Poplar Ridge quite frequently these days. When the weather is nice, it is so lovely to get away from our close apartment quarters and roam free! The other day L said "I want to stay here AND go home!" Soon, very soon, that will be the case!

It is interesting how my 2 princesses can go from this

to this in a matter of minutes. Here they are digging into an ant hole.

The water man was out this weekend to dig an 8 foot deep hole between the house and the well. This will be for our 2000 gallon cistern from the well. Once he has the well hooked up, we will need to get it tested to be sure it is safe to use. Then he will put a smaller cistern on the other side of the house to hold rain water. We will use this for watering the garden, washing cars, etc. We wanted to have lots of water on hand since we are so far from the Fire Department and any hydrants.

The dry wall is all up. This week they will work on finishing it. I hope that 100 gallons of joint compound is sufficient!

We finally settled on a paint color. I can't believe how difficult this task was! Although paint is easy enough to change, we wanted to get just the right color for most of the house. Our builder prefers not to use too many different colors. The paint board samples at Lowe's did not translate well into the big picture. I had to buy 4 different samples before we found what we were looking for.

This one is called "Weeping Willow". That seems appropriate given that our huge willow is just about the only thing we will miss from our old house.

The girls have picked a bright yellow-green called "Lemon Mint" for their rooms, and their bathroom and the one upstairs will be a soft yellow "Butter". I will do our Master Bathroom in light blue "Blue Thistle" and "Stratosphere" just like before...still have the paint.

That just about covers it for this week!