Had to post some of Joe's artwork from the past week. I hope the pictures will enlarge enough for you to read the words...




Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Christmastime!

It has officially arrived for the Horne family--or at least it will have arrived in about an hour when we get in the van and head to Cleveland to spend the weekend with Mom & Dad. :-) I don't really have time to post, but thought I'd stop by to say Merry Christmas and say that I have been taking blog notes (ha!), so there's plenty to write about when I get the chance! I spent five or six nights at the Monstrosity and wrote a little for the blog each night, but had no Internet and couldn't actually post anything. Whenever I get the chance (don't ask when--things don't look very favorable for the blog right now! Ha!) I will go through and edit a little bit, add some pictures, and slap several posts up here. Until then, I hope everybody has a very, very Merry Christmas! We've not been able to do the usual things that we like to do and it's not felt very much like Christmastime around here (the balmy weather followed by RAIN certainly doesn't help!!! Ha!), but we are looking forward to getting away for a few days and having a great Christmas at Grandma and Granddad's house. :-)

Revival and Progress at the Monstrosity

That's what this last weekend was made up of.

The Revival was great. Brother Werkheiser preached his heart out (doesn't he always?) and I was blessed by every message. On Friday night he preached about looking again to see what God is doing/can do/will do, like Elisha's servant who was unable to see the horses and chariots of God surrounding them and protecting them from the enemy. Saturday he preached... oh, something great, but I can't remember right now and my notes are upstairs and I'm way, way, way too tired to go get them! Sunday morning was powerful. There was so much Holy Ghost conviction present and you could tell that God was really, really working on people's hearts. There was a fearful urgency and much prayer and weeping. It was one of those times when you don't SEE the results you'd like to see, but only God knows all of the needs that were there and what may have been going on inwardly that we were unaware of. Maybe seeds planted that will be reaped later on. I trust that the mercy of God continues to extend to those who seem so slow to respond! "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." Sunday night... hhmmm. How could I be so blessed and already have forgotten it?! Ha! Because I'm EXHAUSTED, that's how. My brain shut down a few hours ago--right after my body did. That's why I can't make my aching self climb the stairs to retrieve my notes so I'd actually know what's gone on this past weekend to blog about!

As for the house...

The Monstrosity: Day Eighteen

It was a grand and glorious day, though I did discover my first blister. ("Stanley, how could you???") We moved in for the weekend, then got back to work in the master bathroom. By the end of that day I had done a first:

I PAINTED SOMETHING! With real paint! Actually, I'm not sure it qualifies as real paint. We're always schnookered into buying cheap paint, hoping to save money. It doesn't save any money to buy cheap paint because when you might have gotten by with one coat of decent paint, you have to use two coats of cheap paint, meaning it costs the same amount or more AND costs you valuable time, not to mention the physical fatigue that is already threatening to endanger our work (HA!), oh, and the frustration of it all. It's ridiculous to actually take the time to prime something with white primer, then paint over it with a cream color... and it not cover well enough to get by! One coat of primer and two coats of paint--when the colors are that similar??? Come on! That's just crazy. No more Wal-Mart paint or I quit. (James will read that... I wonder if he'll care... HA!) ANYWAY, I forget how much I got done on Friday, so I'll go ahead and add Saturday in here, too...

The Monstrosity: Day Nineteen

By the end of Saturday I had the bathroom ceiling painted as well as the door and trim and vanity (though the doors and drawers were removed weeks ago and will need to be sanded and painted, re-hinged and knobbed, and added later on) AND had hung the first five strips of wallpaper!!!! WA-HOO!!!! It was sooooo exciting to actually see PAINT and WALLPAPER coming together! And actually going ONTO a wall instead of being scraped OFF for a change. (Stanley has been feeling a little neglected the past weekend, but we'll spend lots of time together next week so I'm sure he'll forgive me.)

The Monstrosity: Day Twenty!!!

Today I finished up on the wallpaper in the bathroom. I'm DONE painting and wallpapering one whole room! Is that exciting, or what?! There's still lots to be done, of course. James went and bought light fixtures and all sorts of other goodies today. He installed the two wall sconces and then the two of us spent about an hour and a half trying to install the flush mount ceiling fixture--to no avail, mind you. Talk about a frustrating way to end an otherwise glorious day. If we had good sense we would have stopped after the first ten minutes and decided to wait until we could go purchase longer screws instead of coming to that conclusion after wasting so much time. But that's the way we roll around here. ;-)

What else? Oh, all of the fixtures we're putting in the bathroom have an "oil rubbed bronze" finish on them, so James bought some "oil rubbed bronze" spray paint. Crazy, hu? What won't they think of next. :-) We're keeping the green tile in the master bath and--believe it or not--it's actually going to look nice when it's all finished. But there were several things sticking out of the tile that were the same blah green as the tile itself--the toilet paper holder, some towel racks, a soap dish, things like that. Well, James tried the paint on the toilet paper holder this afternoon and it's amazing what a difference something like a can of spray paint can make! Everything is going to look sooooo much better. It already looks soooooo much better! I'm hoping one more day in there will find that room completely FINISHED, except for the floor. Of course, we haven't conquered that ceiling light yet... that might take another day or two all by itself. ;-)

I'm forgetting so much, I'm sure. Let's see...

Oh, Brandon and Kimmi (is it spelled that way?) Keel came and stayed with the Coxes over the weekend so they could be here for the revival. It was so great to be able to spend some more time with them! They're terrific. :-) They are such a great young couple and I just love being with them. Brother Brandon has a dry sense of humor that reminds me very much of the guys out west. And he's fun to mock. That's lots of fun for a person like me. ;-) Sister Kimmi is just sweet and fun and so pleasant to be around. I love her. :-)

Hhmmm... what else??? I know there's more, but it's just not happening tonight. I'm tired and sore and achy, even after I soaked in a nice, hot bubble bath a little while ago. It felt great at the time, but it wore off. ;-) It's back to town tomorrow, but not to work on the house (very much, if any) and we'll not be staying overnight. We'll probably do that on Wednesday night. We don't even put the suitcases away anymore. They are always in various stages of either being packed or unpacked, but never empty. I'm wondering how long I'll maintain my sanity living like this. So far it's going great, but I know me. I start to wig out after a life is chaotic for any length of time. I keep trying to remind myself to just take it ONE DAY AT A TIME. I can make it through TODAY and all of its responsibilities just fine, right??? I know that they only way I'll not go batty is to make sure I spend time with God every day, take time to read his Word, meditate on it, pray and talk to Him and stay in tune with him. And make sure to stop and enjoy my kids in the midst of the work every day, help them with school, talk with them, laugh at them. If I can manage that, along with taking time to communicate with my husband and cuddle with my poodle (which is soooooo therapeutic when things get stressful... the poodle part, not the husband part--HA!), I'm sure we'll all make it through just fine. We're still having fun working on the house so far. Amazing, isn't it? I've been running on lots of adrenaline and am banking on lots more of it in the weeks to come. :-)

Oh, wait--something else exciting! There was another first this weekend...

I took my very first Sunday afternoon nap at the Monstrosity!!! Wa-Hoo!!! It was glorious. I look forward to many, many more. :-)

Okay, just checked the camera and found some not-so-thrilling pictures I can add to the post. First off, here's our bedding situation at the Monstrosity. The kids' beds... And Charlie seems to think this is his bed. He loves tunneling through slick sleeping bags.
And James tries to act like he doesn't like the dog. Come on, everbody, "Aaaaawwwwwwwwwww!" Hahahahahaha!
I couldn't help but take a picture of this. Before James sprayed the oil rubbed bronze stuff on here, he taped it off, then we used Press 'n Seal (which is one of my favorite things in the whole wide world!) to cover a wide circle around it. It made me happy to look at it because it's HOLIDAY Press 'n Seal with colorful little stars and hearts and gingerbread men and all manner of cuteness. Ha! I thought it was great. :-)
And here is a less than flattering picture ~ahem~ that shows the very last little strip of wallpaper about to go up in our bathroom. :-) I know you can't tell in this picture, but those are little pinecones all over the wallpaper. It looks GREAT and--as was the plan--it makes it look like the tile was on purpose instead of like we bought a house with ugly green tile and couldn't afford to change it. We like playing little mental games like that. ;-) Anyway, you can also see the freshly sprayed paint on the toilet paper holder, though it looks less than beautiful with all of the overspray everywhere. It really did look good when we peeled the plastic and tape off--trust me!

Two Days at Home

~Aaaahhhh~

It was so nice. :-)

We got in from Cleveland on Monday night, got unloaded, and then I wrapped all of the little gifts we had bought for next week's Christmas party. I love wrapping presents. :-)

Tuesday we opted to just STAY HOME and have a nice, normal day. No scraping, sanding, ripping out, or fixing of anything. Just regular ole' devotions, school, and housework. I loved it! Nothing like a remodeling project to make you really enjoy and appreciate things like dishes and laundry. Ha!

James spent the day in town running errands and doing some Christmas shopping. I know he'd been scoping out some things and was anxious to actually have a day alone to pick them up. He enjoyed it, but not nearly as much as he would have if he hadn't checked the mail first. He found an unpleasant letter from our home owners insurance company. I'm praying and trusting that it can be worked out quickly and easily.

That night I stayed up and finished the last of the Christmas cards--the ones that I didn't initially have addresses for and had sent inquiries all over the Internet for. And by "the last" of the cards, I mean all of them except the ones for the Bessemer folks and my band members. Next week for those. THEN I'll be done. Except for when we get cards from people and gasp, "We didn't send them a card!" There are always a few last minute cards like that, aren't there?!

Here are a few pictures from our nice, NORMAL time at home. First of all, Brady. He's always happy when we come home. And it's always a very happy thing to come home to a happy dog. :-)


Look at the snow on the railing! That's right, snow...


And here are the children just a few minutes prior to the last picture, mixing up the snow with a pack of "Make Your Own Snow." It's sad. So, so sad. Emilee had pictures on her blog of her kids all duded up in winter gear head to toe, running and flopping into the deep snow in their back yard... and my kids are in the kitchen mixing up a cup or two of fake white stuff to put on the railing outside so we can pretend we've got snow! HA! Then I talked to Haley yesterday and while we were on the phone her son went and kicked his sister's snowman down. I explained how sad our predicament was and how wrong it was for her to allow her son to be so unappreciative of such a glorious thing as snow. "Spank him, Haley! Go spank him for me!!!" Hahahahaha!



And here's a picture of Sam's latest Lego creation. He's building a whole little town and has it all wired up with electricity. (If you look closely you can see a light on in the far left building.) It's even got a traffic light. I love it. :-)



We spent most of the day Wednesday here at the house, too. More normal things. Nice. :-)

We left in time to stop and get books at the library and get the boys' hair cut before church. They were sooooooo long and shaggy! Of course now they're super short and they look goofy to me, so drastic is the change. Oh well. Better too short than too long on a boy, ANY day. :-)

After church last night we went to Burger King with the Coxes and the Ridlespurges. I love how much we get to fellowship here. And the kids love it even more than we do, if that's possible. ;-)

We stayed at the Monstrosity last night and the kids LOVED it. It was the fourth or fifth time for James and me, but the first for the kids. We slept on the big air mattress, Katie on the small one, and the boys on the floor--all in the master bedroom because it's the only room clean enough to sleep in. I had found our cushy sheets in the basement a few weeks ago (rummaging for the ever elusive paint swatches, no doubt) so I washed them up and took them with us to the Monstrosity. It was sooooo nice to use them again! THANK YOU AGAIN FOR THE USE OF YOUR AIR MATTRESSES, BROTHER POWELL!!! I think I may have to say that in every post from now on. It's wonderful to wake up feeling great instead of with a back screaming "Why did you DO this to me?!"

We got up this morning and hit it hard. Oh, that makes it...

The Monstrosity: Day Seventeen.

Got to keep track, you know. ;-) I did devotions with the kids in the bedroom, then stayed in there to work so I could help them with their school. I was using Stanley, of course. Did I tell you about Stanley? He's my scraper. We've spent so much time together in the past few weeks it only seemed right to give him a name. And "Stanley" is written on the handle so that made the choice pretty obvious. I don't often get attached to tools, but when remodeling a house (and in a shaky mental condition due to the fact you're remodeling a house) there are rare instances when an inanimate object seems to warrant naming. I still grieve over the loss of Maurice, may he rest in peace. He was my paint sprayer in Texas and New Mexico. He served us well and saved me untold hours (days? weeks?) of rolling and brushing, not to mention my sanity and perhaps my marriage. He gave his all and even in his death produced some beautiful dining room chairs for me, so faithful was he to the cause. Don't laugh. You never knew him. He was wonderful. ;-)

ANYWAY, I scraped and scraped... then James came in and we got to talking and decided, FORGET IT! This plan of doing the whole house at once is idiocy. Let's knock out ONE ROOM--just one little room--and then go back to the "whole house" plan. The master bathroom was the lucky winner of today's lottery. I cleaned the sheetrock dust off the walls and scrubbed the top row of tiles all around the room (the rest will get a thorough cleaning when we're done--but I needed the top clean to paint), then we removed the shower doors. I hate shower doors. They get all nasty and gunky and grimy--and there's no getting them clean down in the track. ~Bleagh~ Gunky things in kitchens and bathrooms are always gross but when it's other people's gunk--strangers' gunk--it's especially nasty and must be done away with. The doors came out easily enough, though we've spent a considerable amount of time scraping and scrubbing the scum and caulking and residue from the tiles and tub where the frame was attached.

But then a most exciting thing happened...

I got out THE PAINT TRAY!!! Wa-Hoooooo!!!!!!!! This feels like PROGRESS!!! I love to feel progress. Especially when we bought this house 48 days ago (yes, I really did just count) and haven't painted anything yet. In our silly little imaginations we had irrational hopes plinking around of being moved in to the house by now. Hahahahahaha! Is that hilarious, or what?! Hilarious for multiple reasons. First of all, because it's so irrational. Had we actually had 48 days to WORK on the house, yes, it would have been possible. In the 17 we've been able to devote to it? Not so much. Secondly, it's hilarious because things ALWAYS take longer than anticipated when you're working on a house. Way, way, way longer. And lastly, it's hilarious because we all know that God loves Brother Powell best. HA! It suddenly occurred to me last week when we were frantically trying to get tons and tons of things done at the house while the kids were away but nothing was going as planned... at all... "James, I get it. It doesn't matter if we stress out and kill ourselves trying to work, work, work to finish this house 'as soon as possible'... We can DO that, but it's not going to get done any more quickly than if we just take a deep breath, pace ourselves, RELAX, and do our best. The house isn't going to get done and we're not going to move into it until God says it's time. And that's going to be the week the Powells return from Korea!" HA! We had already discussed it and decided that even if we were able to finish the house and get moved in, we'd still divide our time between the Monstrosity and the Powells' house to help take care of things (most of all Brady, of course! :-) We love him.) until they get home. But I figure God's just going to work it out that we live there the entire year they are away--because he likes them best and seems to make their prayers priority. Hahahahaha! Sincerely, we have felt so, so, so, so, soooooo blessed to have such a beautiful place to stay this year. We have loved it and have thanked God for the rich blessing of being able--in the tiniest little way--to have a part in their missionary journey by keeping an eye on things for them while they're away. And scaring up their table... and breaking some dishes... and getting darts stuck in BOTH living room light fixtures now... and the alien is still on the ceiling in the dining room (we'd forgotten about it until Brother Dudley was here last week and asked, "What's that red thing hanging up there?!"), and who knows what all else. You know, all of those ways they are blessed to have us here. ;-) ANYWAY, the realization that every tiny detail--even the time frame of when we move into our own home--is in God's hands has caused me to relax and enjoy the ride a lot more than I was when I was trying (for some unknown reason) to work in a frenzy to GET 'ER DONE. I can say that I truly am enjoying working on this house. It's so fun to take something horrid and make it into something that you know (or at least hope!) will be beautiful. Me and Stanley. :-)

Wow. That last paragraph took a crazed path away from the PAINT TRAY it started with! So ANYWAY, I primed the ceiling and walls in the master bathroom today. YEAH!!!! It already looks and feels sooooo much better! I also scrubbed the inside of the cabinets so they'll be ready to paint. And I popped open our very first can of paint--real, true-blue PAINT!!! Wa-Hoo! Now if only it had been the right color... Ha! At Mom's house last week I took some paint samples from cans in her closet of three of the colors we'll be using. James took the Almond Tree (it's a light cream color) to Wal-Mart to have them color match it... but it's not exactly a perfect match! It's definitely darker and the tone itself seems very different to me. I'm not crazy about it, but we'll be okay to use it in the bathroom, then I'll use the rest of it up in closets. I have the actual code for Almond Tree, we'll just have to go to True Value to get it. It will be worth it to have the right color through the rest of the house. :-) Anyway, all I painted was the door trim in the bathroom, but it feels GREAT to have paint on something! Even though it will require a second coat. I was hoping one would be sufficient. Nope. Not going over that slick high gloss white! I had sanded it down a little bit, but the new paint still slides around on it a little bit. Bummer. Still, it felt great to PAINT something. :-)

We left the Monstrosity at 6:00 tonight and got home sometime after 7:00. We unloaded the van and took the suitcases upstairs. I unpacked them, then started packing them again since we'll be staying at the Monstrosity again this weekend! I personally think it would do us well to finish our closet along with the master bath. Then we could keep half of our clothes here and half of our clothes there in a finished closet. We could keep some basic toiletries at each house. And we could then stop packing and unpacking multiple times a week! Ha!

Tonight was great. James made some of his fantastical hot chocolate for all of us and built a fire, then the kids watched Garfield's Christmas, one of the very few Christmas shows that is actually worth watching. :-)

Tomorrow we'll be normal here at the Powell's house, at least until after lunch. Revival starts tomorrow night, so we'll go up, then stay at the Monstrosity for the weekend. We've been looking forward to and praying for the Revival with Brother Werkheiser! Glad it's finally here. :-)

I'm a Mom Again!

And it feels great. :-) I'm not a very good "misser" and we were way too busy to have a chance to really MISS the kids this past week anyway... but it really is great to be back together now. I think we may keep them for a while. ;-)

On Sunday morning we went to church in Lebanon. I think I enjoy being at that church as much as any church I've ever been to. :-) It just feels like home to me. It's so nice and simple and unpretentious--just like the folks in it. We had a good service and I truly felt the Lord there with us. James preached on the fear of the Lord and it was very good. After service we went to that great Mexican restaurant up there with the Cooks and visited for a long, long time. We had such a nice time with them! And some delicious Chili Colorado. :-)

When we left the restaurant we headed for Cleveland, arriving just a few minutes after service had begun. The Spirit was already moving and blessing in the song service and it was such a blessing to be able to join in. Sister Cox preached a wonderful message on making your calling and election sure. Good stuff. I love it when God speaks to my heart during a sermon and when it's all over I know what to go to the altar and talk to Him about!

The kids hadn't expected us to get in until late, so they were shocked when we arrived. I slid in the pew next to Katie and I thought she was going to squeeze my guts out when she hugged me. Sam was on the other side of Katie and my Mom, but the look on his face was priceless when he glanced over and saw us. Shock and then joy all mingled into one. :-) He's the one who gripes and complains and acts like being at Grandma's house is utter misery. Alcatraz, he calls it. HA! So he was extra thrilled to see us. Joe was playing the guitar for song service, so we didn't get hugs from him until after the service was over. I don't know what my Mom did to the boys and Charlie, but ALL of their hair grew about an inch while we were away--they are in dire need of haircuts!

We went to Steak ~n~ Shake with Mom & Dad after church. YUM. :-) Frisco melt with extra dipping sauce and a peppermint chocolate chip shake.

Mom and I stayed up way too late again--after 2:00am this time, I think. Then we were going to be up and headed back to Alabama "by 9:00," my husband had told me. HA. I was up and dressed by 8:00, but it took him a little longer to get rolling! And we had library books to locate and miscellaneous kid junk to gather from all over the house. Sam had already packed up all of his clothes and Joe's clothes the day before--he was ready to blow that joint. HA! Truthfully, he loves it there. He just doesn't like being ANYWHERE without me and/or his Dad. The first day they were up there this time I talked to him on the phone and he wanted to know how he could trust me that we wouldn't send them away again--we'd done it twice recently, you know. "How can I trust you, Mom???" Ha! Cracks me up. He griped at Grandma Vicki all week long (all in good humor--I think!) about being a prisoner there. :-)

Anyway, we stopped in Chattanooga and stopped by another salvage type store in search of great deals. We found a giant mirror for one of the upstairs bathrooms that's going to work perfect, I think--and it was way, way cheaper than we would have found anywhere else. Then it was Fazoli's for lunch before we headed back to Alabama.

When we got closer to home we had a whole serious of stops:

Guitar Center -- Joe played around on a 12 string guitar that he loves there and his Dad bought him some thumb picks since Jimmy Cox had let him borrow one and he thought it was the coolest thing ever.

Lifeway Christian Stores -- I can't remember what... but it was nice to look around!

Christmas Tree Shops -- Wrapping paper and lots of gifts for the Christmas party next week.

Carino's -- To enjoy Monday Night 1/2 price family platters... but we drove up and saw that it closed down last week. We knew it was just a matter of time. Sometimes we were the ONLY people in there and you just can't keep a business going like that. I'm sure it's because they were so stingy with their Italian sodas. ;-)

Jim `n Nicks was the Plan B--and it was a terrific one. :-)

Hobby Lobby -- For the kids to pick out their annual ornaments, which cracks me up. We're not having a Christmas tree this year, but we'll have new ornaments! Ha! Katie picked a Coca-Cola ornament, Joe got a bear on skis holding a gift, and Sam got a cowboy boot.

And then we FINALLY made it back home at about 7:30 tonight! ~whew~ It was a long day, but sort of nice to just dink around a bit and not worry about the Monstrosity OR things to be done at the Powell's house. It's been a great weekend. :-)

Monstrosity & ABM

We spent Wednesday morning at home trying to get caught up on things again. It's amazing how enjoyable the NORMAL things are when you're involved in a big remodeling project. I love it that our house is a WRECK and we can go and work and work and work... then come home to a house that ISN'T all torn up and just do normal things like paperwork and laundry. We're so blessed. :-)

We finally got to the Monstrosity at about 2:00. I tied a bandanna around my head to try to keep the dust out of my hair as I sanded (my hair was WAY more gray than usual the day before--ha!) and got some more work done on the kitchen cabinets. I've been working with a coarse "paint stripping" sandpaper, then moving to a smoother "leveling" paper to finish up with. It's making for lots more work, but the cabinets will look soooooo much nicer when it's all said and done.

I took the five big drawers out of the kitchen and sanded them down too, then got them cleaned and got all excited and primed them. :-) We had stopped at Lowe's before going to the house that day and picked up a 5 gallon bucket of primer and had it tinted gray since it will be going under all of the dark colors I'll be using all over the house. It felt sooooo good to pick up a paint brush and prime something. Those drawers already look and feel so much cleaner! I had to laugh when I realized how excited I was to PAINT something, even just with primer. It made me think...

There was a time in my life when I was FINISHED painting--forever! Ha! My Mom & Dad and Grandmother & Granddad had some arrangement worked out to invest in a giant house just up the hill from our house in the mountains of Colorado. They got it cheap and we all worked to get it cleaned up, fixed up, and freshly painted, then sold it. I was one of the primary painters. If my mind isn't playing tricks on me, it had seven bedrooms and three full stories. We painted and painted and painted... and painted... and painted........... and painted... HA! I remember thinking, "I'm DONE--I don't ever want to see a paint brush or roller again as long as I live!" I had probably painted more in one week's time than most people do in a lifetime. I don't know how long it took us to work on the house, but I'm sure it was weeks and weeks--at least. And by the end I was soooooo sick of painting and never, ever wanted to do it again.

And now I'm in another GIANT house... and I can't wait to START painting! Crazy. I have no doubt that the former feeling about "The Big House" (that's what we called it) will settle in soon enough once we get started painting. But for now, I'm going to enjoy the anticipation of painting and making things nice and fresh and clean and new. :-)

Kody and Michael came to the house to work again that day. They spent quite a while crawling all over the "new" kitchen floor (where they had ripped out two more layers the day before) and hammered the staples flat. There were tons and tons and tons of them. Michael actually counted as he went and he made it to 900 before he lost count. Ha! So they were beating the floor with hammers, I was using the electric sander, and James--of course--had the Christmas station cranked up on the radio. The boys went home and told their grandparents about how noisy it was there all day long. They said it was: WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! -- BBBZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!! "HERE COMES SANTA CLAUSE! HERE COMES SANTA CLAUSE..." Ha!

We had CPMA service that night and closed by coming to the altar and praying for our upcoming Revival this next week. We went to Taco Bell afterwards and the Washburns joined us but only for fellowship, not food, since Brother Mike ended up in the ER last time he ate Taco Bell!

Then James and I went back to the Monstrosity and slept MUCH, MUCH, MUCH better since Brother Powell e-mailed and said to dig around in the bathroom closet and find the air mattresses to take with us up there. THANK YOU, BROTHER POWELL!!! :-)

Brother Hopkins showed up bright and early Thursday morning with a Spanish guy he'd hired to sand all of the sheetrock mud he's been slapping all over the house. It wasn't too long after that when Brother & Sister Cogburn and Sister Bishop showed up. They'd all come to help with the house, too! Wow!

I was still working on the kitchen cabinets, so we set up a bit of an assembly line. I sanded, Sister Cogburn wiped the dust off with a dry cloth, then Sister Bishop wiped them down with a soapy sponge. Before long we had all of the doors READY TO BE PRIMED! We never made it far enough to get the primer out that day, but it's exciting to know the doors are READY. :-)


Brother Cogburn is an electrician and he did lots of wonderful things all over the house that day. :-) Most importantly, he put a light in the living room where previously there was none. It makes me very, very happy to have a light in my living room. :-) As you can see, it required a few new holes in the sheetrock that Brother Hopkins has been working so hard to make pretty! Ha! Wouldn't you know it.


He also put in a receptacle in the odd location I had requested :-), put in boxes for ceiling fans in all of the bedrooms, removed the fluorescent lights from the kitchen, replaced them with a normal like, added four additional lights (after I FINALLY settled on four instead of five--that was an all day decision in the works!), and fixed three lights in the house that didn't work at all. Wa-Hoo!!! What progress.

The ladies also did another marvellous thing. They brought lunch! Nice, hot, home cooked lunch! Stew and beans and cornbread and apple cake and some sort of checkered chocolate/vanilla cake. It was all soooooo good. And fun to have company at my house for a meal again. HA! Well, sort of...


After we were finished with the cabinet doors I spent the afternoon sweeping sheetrock dust off the walls while the other ladies used the shop vac to clean the dust from the floors and stairs. Sister Bishop just wouldn't quit--it's tough to make that lady sit down and take a break!


In the meantime, the boys were outside raking up 30+ bags of pine needles again. Those boys are SUCH good workers. Hard and steady the whole way, never taking a break. They've done such a great job on everything they've been asked to do!


The crowd all left at about 6:00, I think. James and I had to run by the bank, get a bite to eat, and check our e-mail. We opted for MacAlister's since they have free Wi-Fi. Well, in theory they have free Wi-Fi. ;-) It wouldn't work, so we stopped by the Ridlespurges house to use their free Wi-Fi. We were still covered in sheetrock dust though and Sister Ridlespurge wouldn't let us sit on her couch before she spread a blanket out on it. Hahahahaha! Okay, so that's not exactly how it went, I just thought she'd enjoy seeing that on here should she happen to read this. ;-)

We went back to the Monstrosity and did some clean up, then called it a night--on that great air mattress! :-)

The next morning we got up and did minimal things around the house, then headed back to Brierfield. We stopped in Alabaster to do some grocery shopping (we were in serious need!), then had ham sandwiches that were delicious but WAY over priced at the Honeybaked Ham Store. Got home, unloaded the van, unpacked... and crashed in the chair with my computer for about an hour just because I could! It was great.

Then I got busy cooking and cleaning for company. Wa-Hoo!!! Things didn't start out very well though. I mixed up some gingerbread, put it in the cake, then sat down to copy the recipe over for Sister Dudley because she had asked for it. I got to nearly the last ingredient before I read "salt." ~GASP!~ Salt?! I didn't put any salt in! So I ran and grabbed the pan out of the oven, put the salt on top, stirred it up, and shoved it back in. Then when the timer went off nearly an hour later... it was still batter, though somewhat stiff. The oven had somehow gotten turned off! HA! I had to ad lib from there with the bake time, but it somehow turned out okay anyway.

The Washburns and all the Dudleys were coming for dinner and I was scared to death that I wouldn't have enough food! I have NO IDEA how to cook for that troop of Dudley boys! There are the three brothers as well as a Dudley cousin living with them now. I made two poppy seed chicken casseroles and the biggest pot of chicken and noodles I could manage, the pan of gingerbread and two pineapple upside-down cakes. Sister Dudley brought cornbread and a FANTASTIC "Death by Chocolate" dessert. Everything turned out great and in the end, there was just the tiniest bit of food left-over. I feel a very rewarding sense of accomplishment having cooked for the Dudley crowd and actually having left-overs at the end of the night! HA! And a whole new appreciation for Sister Dudley. I've always known she was amazing, but I have NO IDEA how it is humanly possible to cook that much food on a regular basis!!!

After dinner we moved to the living room to visit and ended up playing Catchphrase--which was hilarious. We had lots and lots of fun--I can't believe we've failed to have everybody over for dinner up until this point!



(Jonathan can't help but strike a pose when he sees a camera!)

It was a GREAT night. :-)

~whew~ I'm fading fast--I'll have to cut this short!

We got up at 4:30 this morning and drove to Moulton for the ABM workshop. Brother & Sister Zimmerman had come and she taught most of the classes. There was lots and lots of good information shared and I felt encouraged to be a much better Band Leader. :-) We enjoyed great fellowship and way, way, way too much food. :-)

We are now in a FANTASTIC motel in Gadsden. They were out of regular rooms, so upgraded us to a king suite at no extra charge. It's BEAUTIFUL. And nice and cozy. But I'm bushed. Tomorrow we visit the church in Lebanon, then hopefully Collinsville tomorrow night. Then on to Cleveland to pick up our children and go back home on Monday!

Oops. I didn't categorize. Wednesday and Thursday were Days Fifteen & Sixteen. :-)

Am Not!

That's directed at anyone who may think I've been neglecting my blog. The dial-up connection in Pennsylvania is wa-a-a-a-ay too slow to blog. And I was buried in Christmas cards and didn't have time. The night I was at my folks' house I couldn't blog because... well, because I'd rather stay up late talking to Mom than blog. :-) The night we got home we didn't get to bed until way past midnight and last night we stayed at the Monstrosity--where there is no Internet connection. But I'm mentally blogging all the time. ;-)

Okay, let's pick up where we left off last week...

After going to bed at 1:30am, being awakened by the dog at 2:00am, then getting up at 6:00am to load the luggage into the van, clean the house a bit, make a green bean casserole and pull together all of the loose ends, we actually left on time for church yesterday morning! Wa-Hoo! We had planned to leave 15 minutes early and that effectively maneuvered us into leaving at the regular time--which worked out fine. Got to play those mind games with yourself every now and then if you have any chance of succeeding.

I enjoyed teaching Zack and Devon in Sunday School. Sam is now eight. That's old enough to go to the other class, though Brother Washburn said he could stay in the younger class if he wanted to. He thought he'd give it a shot over with the older kids and I assume he did okay. I was astounded to hear that he actually read the key verse aloud (can that be true?!) and I never heard from Brother Will that he caused any problems, so I can only assume that all was well over there.

Brother Hopkins preached on "A Thankful Heart" and I felt great freedom and fervency in worship. Love services like that. :-) After service we all headed to the back to enjoy our Thanksgiving pot-luck. There was sooooooo much food and it was all sooooooo good. Great food and fellowship. We sat with Brother & Sister Dudley and had a wonderful time visiting with them.

We left earlier than we would have liked, but we really needed to get on the road. We arrived about 40 minutes late for service at Zion Hill. As soon as we walked in the door I could feel the presence of the Lord, there was such a beautiful spirit. We slipped in the door and took a seat near the back, hoping not to be too big of a distraction. They were having communion and feet washing and I was so, so, so blessed! Folks don't seem to do that as often out here as they do out west and I do miss it. I'm so thankful that Jesus set that "as oft as ye do it" thing in place so that all of these years later we can take part in such a beautiful and sacred service. It reminds us of the awful price He paid for us and of our responsibility to truly partake of Him--in suffering and self-sacrifice and service. I love being reminded of those things through communion service.

We went to Fazoli's afterward with Mom & Dad and the Pimentels and had a great time visiting--and trying out the fancy new Coke machine that will mix 100's of different flavors! Well, I WOULD have enjoyed it if Mom hadn't busted it just before my turn. ;-) We had a lot of fun with Brother Oscar and Sister Amanda. They are such great people and we loved being able to visit with them--and learn that Sister Amanda's nickname is "The Hammer." HA! Kind of makes you wonder, doesn't it? ;-)


We went back to the house and got the kids bedded down, then Mom and I stayed up talking until way, way too late. But it was great. :-)

The next morning we drove the hour and a half up to Knoxville to go to this place where they sell wallpaper really, really cheap. Did you know that a roll of wallpaper can retail for upwards of $30? Way upwards of that in some cases! CRAZY. I've always considered paint the cheap and easy fix--and we'll be using lots and lots and lots of it at the Monstrosity one of these days. But the wallpaper at this junkyard of wallpapers (it's a salvage store, full and random and filthy, that sells just about everything--trim, faucets, doors, mirrors, light fixtures, knick-knacks...) you pay a whoppin' .99 cents for a double roll of wallpaper! WHOA! I'd never heard of such a thing! Naturally, most of the papers there are dog ugly. But some are not quite as horrid, some are decent, some are actually really nice. It was a battle not for the faint of heart, but after about two hours of looking and thinking and looking and thinking and looking and thinking we finally took our booty to the check-out table. The kids were soooooo miserable. I know they were bored out of their minds, but we really needed to do this. They were troopers right up until the end. That's when the whining intensified considerably and you could find Joe banging his head on the shelf saying, "Mom... just... paint!!!" Ha! At the end of the venture, we walked out with 32 rolls of wallpaper... for $32!!! WOW! I still can't get over it. Do the math. If you were the kind of crazy person who would actually pay retail prices for wallpaper throughout your entire house (do people like that really exist? I'm not sure I know any of them), it would add up to over $1,000 worth of paper--for $32. I've thanked God for it many, many times today. We're really needing to cut some corners and save everywhere we can on the Monstrosity and this ended up being way, way, way cheaper than paint. Of course, after those two hours of racking my brain trying to make decisions on what to buy, I can't remember anything that we got! I'm hoping that when we get home we'll still be happy with the decisions and not look at it and say, "Who picked THAT out--that's horrible!" Ha! But even if it is... it was CHEAP. And NOTHING has peacocks on it. Or pheasants. :-)

When we FINALLY left that joint we drove on to Pigeon Forge to tour the Titanic museum that James has been dying to go see. It was really, really, really neat. Definitely worth visiting. It takes the information you know about the Titanic and changes it from a historical event into a heartbreaking tragedy that happened to real, live people. You learn so much about some of the individuals on board--you're even given the identity of one of them at the beginning and learn a little about them, then at the end you learn if "you" lived or died. My name was Alice Johnson, I was 26 years old from Illinois, and I was on board with my four year old son, Harold, and my 18 month old daughter. That's as far as I read on my card before the tears came to my eyes! Can you imagine being on that boat with your two children at that age? Joe was also from Illinois, James and Katie were from England, and Sam was from Poland or someplace. There were little platforms to climb on that resemble the deck and railing of the ship tilted at different angles--so you can try to hang on and keep from sliding off, as the passengers were trying to do as the ship tilted more and more before going down. To kids it's like a playground, but when you're thinking about the REALITY of it all it's scary to imagine. At another place you are in the dark surrounded by cold air and even a huge chunk of "iceberg" that you can touch. Then you can lean over the railing and put your hand into the icy water, the same temperature as the water was on the night the Titanic sank. I held my hand in for as long as I could stand it, which wasn't long--it is sooooo painful. I just cried as I thought about what a horrible death it was for all of those people. Everything was just so touching, as lame as that sounds. There were wonderful stories of heroism and it's difficult to imagine in our day and age that it was the common thing for men young and old to willingly and instinctively lay their lives down with the motto of "women and children first." The founder of Macy's department store was on board, along with his wife and her maid. Before the ship went down he tried to put his wife on one of the lifeboats. She took her coat off, put it on her maid and told her to get on the lifeboat, then went and rejoined her husband on the deck and said, "We've been together all these years. Where you go, I go." They were last seen sitting in chairs on the deck, holding hands. There was the story of Reverend Harper who was last seen leaning on the railing, pleading with a young man to give his heart to God. He finally took his life jacket off and tossed it to the young man before the ship went down. It just makes you think about all of those people and what they truly experienced. How many were saved and how many were not? How many perhaps gave their hearts to the Lord in those last moments as the band continued to play "Nearer My God, to Thee"? It's just so thought provoking and it led to lots of discussion with the kids. What if a man had been a hardened sinner all his life, but cried out to God and found His mercy in the last few minutes of his life before freezing to death in the sea? How blessed he would be to die such an awful death but then go to heaven--far better than surviving, then living to a ripe old age and dying and going to hell. Anyway, it's an amazing experience, though much more sobering and solemn then your usual museum! In fact, after experiencing everything there was to experience I was almost offended at the gift shop. After feeling just a tiny bit of what those poor people experienced, it seems so distasteful (to say the least!) to have a gift shop full of key chains and mugs and t-shirts that say "I got hit by an iceberg!" It was nearly disgusting to me. In any case, we thoroughly enjoyed the experience and are very glad that we went. For the record, James is the only one who didn't survive. The rest of us survived, which goes way against the percentages.

You're not allowed to take pictures inside the museum (something about copyright privileges), so here are a couple from the outside.





When we left the museum we went walked around some gigantic Christmas village place, then went to the Old Mill for dinner. Here's Sam with a giant nutcracker. He's always thought they were so cool.



Honestly, I was still feeling too solemn and reflective after the Titanic experience to feel very much like looking at gay and sparkly Christmas decor or eating at a beautiful restaurant! In the big scheme of things, eternity is all that matters. The "extras" that we enjoy are nice and I don't want to take them for granted, but they're not necessary.

We stopped at a Christian bookstore outlet and enjoyed looking around there for a little while before stopping at our motel for the night.

We spent the next day driving north to Pennsylvania and arrived at James' folks' house just after 7:00pm, I think. Can't remember much about that night, but I remember that I spent most of the next day working on Christmas cards! That was my job while we were there. I had to get that all taken care of while we were away and unable to work on the Monstrosity! It's amazing how FUN it used to be to send out Christmas cards... and how much WORK it is now! Ha! It's just become too overwhelming and not nearly as personal as I would like.

I did make a run to Peight's with James one the morning. I love that little Amish store. :-) Got stocked up on poppy seeds, Christmas sprinkles and a few other odds and ends. It was dreary and rainy in Pennsylvania, so the kids weren't able to play outside much like they usually do. They still had fun playing with all the stuff Grandma keeps for them. And watching way too much Bonanza.

We had a really nice Thanksgiving dinner. Everything turned out fantastic and James and I especially enjoyed his Mom’s homemade stuffing. I had her teach me how to make it so I can make it myself sometime. As if I’ll remember how. ;-) I didn’t really miss anything DURING dinner, but a few hours later when I strolled into the kitchen to grab something to eat I REALLY missed having hot rolls and pea salad—the two left-overs that I snack on for days after a holiday meal!

Most of us hadn’t finished eating Thanksgiving dinner before Katie and Sam cleared their plates, ran to the bedroom, then quickly reappeared wearing their Christmas shirts and singing "Jingle Bells." Ha! I keep trying to teach them to enjoy and appreciate Thanksgiving instead of jumping into Christmas mode ahead of time, but Thanksgiving is still just an interruption—a speed bump of sorts—to their Christmas celebration! Joe joined in after dinner (at least he waited until we were finished!) and played Christmas music on his guitar, then helped Katie and Sam make decorations out of construction paper to hang on the window. I love seeing them so excited and having so much fun.

James spent a lot of time down in the basement while we were in Pennsylvania. He gathered up some of his heathenistic Thundercats toys (can you believe our parents let us watch that stuff?!) because they are apparently quite the collector’s items and he’s found some buyers for them. Then he set up the Christmas village with tons of lighted houses. It looks great, but you have to go to the basement to see it because there’s no room upstairs! Ha! In the evening he hauled out the Christmas tree and all of his Mom’s decorations and got busy—with willing helpers in Katie and Sam. I spent most of my day working on Christmas cards and it did help me get a little more into the spirit when the kids cranked up the Christmas music. I do love Christmas music. :-)

Though I am an anti-Black Friday shopper who thinks people are out of their gourd to get up at ungodly hours to go stand in the cold in the middle of a maniacal mob of people who rush into stores to fight over STUFF... James did take me to town to do some shopping that day. We went to the Wallpaper Barn. Ha! We were, of course, the only ones there. :-) We finally found the perfect border for Joe's room--and it was on a 20% off Black Friday sale. Joe LOVED it.

When we got home I worked and worked and worked some more and finally finished up on the Christmas cards. Way, way, way too many Christmas cards.

We left the next morning at about 8:00am and drove to Cleveland. There were a few accidents just before Knoxville and it took FOREVER to get through there. It slowed us down by an hour and a half or more, so we didn't get to Mom & Dad's house until just after 8:00pm. But when we got there the house was all lit up with Christmas lights that were reflecting in the pond and it was sooooo pretty! I was shocked to walk in and find that Mom had the whole house all decorated and looking GREAT for Christmas. WOW! I wasn't surprised by the deer steaks that were waiting for us. I had requested that. ;-) They were soooooo good. And there was left-over pea salad and hot rolls from Thanksgiving! Wa-Hoo!!! And cherry pie! I was too full to have any pie that night, so I had a piece for breakfast the next morning. :-)

Mom and I stayed up way too late talking, but that's what we do. I love it. :-) James and I drove to Geraldine for service in the morning. Brother Grimes was there to do his CPMA boost and I was so blessed by it! It was wonderful. He preached about the rich young ruler who lacked "one thing." It wasn't anything sinful in his life, just something he was unwilling to give up when the Lord asked him to. Brother Grimes brought in the Advice to Members and how God--through His government--has asked us to give up some things through those advices. And it's not always a matter of whether or not something is a SIN. Are you willing to give it up just because Jesus asks you to, or not? And of course, there are reasons--solid, biblical reasons--for each piece of advice. Anyway, it was so good and thought provoking.

We enjoyed a dinner in the fellowship hall after service--that I think Sister Carr put on all by herself! It was great and we enjoyed the fellowship.

We drove back to Bessemer, stopped in at the Monstrosity for a few minutes, then went on to church. The Washburns' niece, Angie, who got saved a few weeks ago was baptized that night and it was such a blessing! It was a beautiful service.

We didn't home until very late that night. It was raining so we didn't unload everything from the van, just what we needed. We got to bed very late that night, then headed to the Monstrosity the next morning. That means...

The Monstrosity: Day Thirteen

It seems crazy to me that it's only been thirteen days of work. It feels like we've been there non-stop in the five weeks since we bought that house! Anyway, my day started like they all do. With scraping. That's who I am. That's what I do. I am a scraper. I scrape. I was working on the kitchen cabinets this time though, so it made it feel new and exciting. The impromptu decision was made as we were in the tool aisle at Wal-Mart mid-morning to buy an electric palm sander. It is my new best friend. :-) The painting in this house is horrendous. Just blobs and globs and streaks and runs and drips EVERYWHERE--and most of it is in gunky high gloss white. ~Bleagh~ I spent the rest of the afternoon working on the cabinets with the sander, first with some "paint stripping" sandpaper, then some "leveling" sand paper. It worked GREAT and the cabinets will paint up sooooo much nicer now!

Brother Hopkins came to do some more mud work, so that's exciting too. We're getting closer to paint every day! Although we have come to a sad realization. We're never going to have everything ready to paint in this house. It's just not humanly possible. There is always more and more and more and more to do. We're just going to have to QUIT one of these days, call it "good enough" and start painting. Maybe soon. Maybe not. Time will tell!

We had to quit working and clean up a bit to meet the Ridlespurges at the church at 6:00pm so we could spend a couple of hours searching through the state files for information that they'll be needing at the committee meetings in Moulton this weekend. It was a miserable job (!), but at least we had good company to make it bearable! Then we had good Mexican food with the good company. :-) Then we went back to the Monstrosity to sleep on the hard floor again. I doesn't make for a very good night's sleep, but it's doable every now and again.

The Monstrosity: Day Fourteen

I spent most of the morning CLEANING. The kitchen counters were covered in clutter and trash and supplies that all needed sorted out, as did the cabinet and drawers where we're keeping all the tools. We can't find ANYTHING and it's a royal pain to have to go searching for something in a house this large! Ha! So I thought it would help if we got it all cleaned up and sorted. It felt GREAT to get that done. We ended up at Sherwin Williams and then Lowe's--which took way too long. And in the end we spent nearly $300 and had forgotten the thing that was our REASON for going in the first place! ~sigh~ Remodeling is tough! Ha!

We got back to the house and I spent the rest of the afternoon sanding 24 cabinet doors and three drawers. Kody and Michael came over and ripped up the kitchen floor. Again. They already did that once, you know. The first time it was a layer of cushy, padded linolium. Today we had them bust up and remove the next two layers--another linolium that was glued down to a wood floor. There are two more layers of linolium (that's right--there were five layers of flooring in there), but we're not removing them. With the other layers gone it is now perfectly level with the dining room floor, meaning we can now have a continuous floor from one room into the next instead of having a divider and a higher and lower floor. Makes me very happy. :-)

Here's a picture of the "new" floor after the other was removed by hard working Kody and Michael. They have yet to wham the hundreds and hundreds of staples flat though. That's a job for another day. ;-)



And here's my new favorite toy. :-)



We came home tonight, unpacked (we pack and unpack every other day now, it seems), I took a hot shower, started a load of laundry, then sat down at my computer with some hot peppermint tea and a handfull of chocolate chips. Because it's what I needed. :-) Life is good and I'm still having fun working on this crazy house of ours. Most days. I sometimes think, "Who's the moron who prayed for this house?! This is insane!!!" And I regularly look forward to the day when we can downsize and get something smaller and more... us. But I believe that God opened the doors for us to have this house and I am so thankful for it. Someday... some glorious day... we'll be finished with it and it will be a GREAT house to live in. I really do love it, extra spaces and all. And it's fun to work hard on something and know that you're improving it and making a good investment. We're not just making it nice so we'll enjoy living in it, we're making improvements and increasing the value of the home. And it just feels good and "wise" or something like that. I get the same kind of feel-good rush that I used to get hauling firewood when I was a teenager. It just feels good and old fashioned and wholesome and invigorating. Love it.

Of course, next time I blog I will probably be back in "WHY DID WE BUY SUCH A HUGE HOUSE THAT NEEDS SO MUCH WORK?!" gear. ;-)

We are home tonight, but will be spending tomorrow and Thursday night back at the Monstrosity. So no blogging. It's not my fault.

By the way, did I fail to mention that my children are gone again?! We left them with Mom & Dad on Sunday. We'll pick them up this coming Sunday. Katie and Joe were thrilled. Sam was miserable. Ha! He doesn't much care for being away from his Mom and Dad, but it's good for him. They all seem to be having a great time--and I'm so thankful that they're able to spend time up there with their grandparents. It's wonderful. Of course, I have to fight off the waves of guilt over having left them for the second time in just a few weeks! We're trying to work, work, work at the Monstrosity this week while we know they're getting attention from Grandma. We've been too busy to really miss them, but I saw the picture of them on my screen earlier and thought, "Aw... those are my kids! Look how cute they are. I love 'em. When are they coming home?" :-)

One more thing... James got an e-mail from the collector dude and he's going to pay $150 for those Thundercats toys. Can you imagine?! James has a few more pieces and he's going to inquire as to how much the guy might pay for them, too. So with that little burst of extra $$$ and a few other agreements, I was able to sweettalk my husband into re-flooring the foyer area of the house where the hideous slate floor is! AND he found a flea market where he can buy trim super cheap so he has also agreed to buy chair rail and door trim for the kitchen. WA-HOO!!! Those were two HUGE accomplishments for Day Fourteen. :-)

A few random pictures of Charlie before I go. He "bites" at air. With his head out the window, at a blow dryer, standing over a heater vent--whatever. It's GREAT. :-)



Katie must have taken this picture. I just found it on my camera card tonight. Almost makes me miss the dog, too. Yes, my mom was crazy enough to DOG SIT again, too! Hahahahahaha!

HELP!

I've fallen behind and I can't get caught up!!!

But it's my duty to try.

The Monstrosity: Day Eight

According to my notes (which is the only reason I have ANYTHING to blog), Day Eight was much more productive than Day Seven. Day Seven was one of those days when I wandered from room to room, scraping my life away but only seeing more and more things that needed scraped. I didn’t conquer a single thing.

Somehow from the time we arrived on Day Eight things looked a little brighter. I went upstairs to begin scraping and sanding some more and as I walked from room to room taking inventory of what needed done I began to think, “Hey… there’s really not all that much left to do up here!” To be clear, there are TONS of things to do up there, but there’s not so much left to do to get us ready to PAINT, which is my #1 goal in life right now, right after serving God, being a good wife, and being a good mom. I guess that makes it my #4 goal in life right now. I’ll love it when we’re finished and I no longer have to have goals that involve silly, temporal things such as paint. :-)

Kody and Michael came back to work some more that day. I got them busy scraping peel and stick tiles out of the drawers and cabinets of the upstairs bathrooms. Ah, yes. Remember all of those people who should be shot for wallpapering a fourth layer on top of the others? They should only be shot AFTER all of the people who affix peel and stick tiles to the inside of drawers and cabinets have been shot. I’m all about proper priorities. ;-)

I’ve got minimal scraping left to do upstairs, a little bit of sanding, and then I just need to CLEAN everything. And we’ll be ready to paint!!! How exciting is that?! Of course, then there’s the downstairs… But really, we can’t be very far away from being ready to paint there either. I’m thinking just another few days of work and we’ll be all set to go. WOW. That would be amazing.

The boys had done all they could do with the drawers and cabinets, so James got them busy pulling up carpet. Two of the upstairs rooms were de-carpeted by the end of the day. Wa-Hoo! That nasty, smelly stuff is gone and it makes me sooooo happy! Someday we will install fresh, new, non-smelly carpet. Oh, happy day!

The Ridlespurges hadn't seen the house since Day Two, I think, so they stopped in that night to check out the progress. They insist they see some. They are too kind. HA! Anyway, we were able to convince them to stay and join us for dinner. Look!!! Our first dinner guests!!! How exciting is that?!

Ha! Okay, so maybe it's a little pitiful. But at least we've got a table there now and don't have to sit on the floor to eat anymore. And we fed them Little Caesar's pizza. Talk about pitiful! HA! It was fun anyway. :-)

The big news of Day Eight was the HUGE money we spent that we were really hoping to NOT have to spend. The furnace and AC units were very, very old. We knew that. We were just hoping that they would tough it out for another year or two or three. Nope. One unit HAD to be replaced and the others were going to need it in the very near future anyway, so we just thanked God that we had the money to take care of it all right now and had it done. And tried real hard not to think about the fact that we just spent about half of our remodeling budget in one swift move. Ha! I’ve been trying to mentally make the adjustment and see what we can live with that we didn’t used to think we could live with. ;-)

Anyway, though it was a huge chunk of money to dish out in one day (OUCH), it does feel good to know that we’ve got brand new units under warranty and no longer have to wonder (as we already have been), “Hhmmm… I wonder when these things are going to go out on us?” It’s almost relieving to just have that upgrade done with. So far the only time we actually SEE improvement at the house is when we pay other people large sums of money. The come, they rip out old stuff and slap shiny new stuff in it’s place, and they’re DONE. Boy, I wish I could do that!

The Monstrosity: Day Nine

That was last Wednesday. We got there to find Brother Hopkins and two Mexican guys slapping sheetrock up all over the house. Actually, the other guys slapped it up and Brother Hopkins followed behind them to do the finishing work. He is sooooo fun to watch. Before long the heat and air dude was back to finish hooking up the heat pumps and whatnot to the new systems. Then Kody and Michael showed up to start ripping out carpet with James again. With everybody zipping this way and that all through the house I felt like I was in the way wherever I went, so I just went to the bedroom and pulled out the kids’ computers. I sat there and graded and checked all of the schoolwork I’d not been staying on top of for the past two weeks or so. That took a while! But it felt good to have it done and get the kids’ work all sorted out again.

The most thrilling news of the day can be contained in one word (though you know it won’t be): FOXTAIL!!! I finally talked to Robert. He’s the mountain man who owns the True Value Hardware in the little town where we lived in New Mexico. I told him that I used to call once or twice a year (though not in the past two years at least!) to have him mix up paint for me, that I had tried everything I could think of to locate the colors (though I spared him all the gory details) and was wondering if perhaps he could help me—and that the main color I was concerned with was a dark red we called Foxtail. He remembered. :-) After a few minutes he called me back and said he had found my old code for Foxtail!!!! Wa-Hoo!!!! “Thank you sooooooooooo much! I can’t tell you how much this means to me! I LOVE YOU, ROBERT!!!” Red is the absolute scariest color to choose—it’s sooooo easy to pick a horrible one when you think you’ve found something beautiful—so I was THRILLED to have the code for a red that I already know I like instead of spending money on several shades that end up being hideous. If Robert would have been nearby I probably would have kissed him on his big white bushy beard. Ha! No... probably not.

So Day Nine was a good day. By the end of the day we had our new heat and air units fully functional, lots of nasty carpet removed (though we’ll be able to re-use some of the pad and save some money—thank the Lord!), we had ALL of the sheetrock installed in the necessary places all over the house (the peacocks or pheasants or WHATEVER they were are GONE!), and FOXTAIL—we have Foxtail! And all I did was sit with a computer or a phone all day long. I really think I’m seeing a pattern develop here. ;-)

When we got home that night I had lots of cleaning, baking, studying, and laundry to do. There was more of the same to be done Thursday morning. James and I drove to Cleveland that afternoon and arrived about dinner time. We were very happy to see our children and I think they were happy to see us, too. Charlie sure acted happy to see me anyway. :-) Dad was still away on his hunting trip to Colorado so we didn't get to see him, but Sister Bishop and Sister Fender were there. Sister Bishop, being the coolest old lady in the world, had acquired quite a shiner while playing with the kids. We'll just say she pulled a Matt Barnes.




We had a good time visiting that night and helping Mom with a few last minute details for the Ladies’ Retreat, though she had things pretty much under control by the time we arrived.

James and the kids spent the weekend at Mom & Dad's house--and Dad arrived sometime on Friday so the kids were thrilled to be able to see him at last after having been at his house for over a week! James and the kids went to Fields of the Wood on Friday and it sounds like they had a good and memorable trip. That makes me happy.

We ladies had a FANTASTIC Retreat. It was just so, so, so, so, so good! I LOVED being there and was so blessed by so many things. It's just incredible how God tailors each Retreat according to the ladies and specific needs that will be there. This one was sooooo different from the Retreat we had in Alabama a few weeks ago, but both were so beautiful. There seemed to be an unexpected theme of divine healing--physical healing, spiritual healing, mental healing--throughout the weekend and I was overwhelmed with how blessed we are to serve such a loving and powerful God. (I say unexpected simply because it was never taught or preached about--just experienced.) Sister Bishop was the guest speaker and was a wonderful blessing, as always. Melanie Hogan did the devotions and music and had baskets full of rotten, smelly, fly infested fruit (with the cutest little homemade flies you ever saw), then an empty basket finally rid of the nastiness, and at last a basket full of bright, shiny, ripe fruit--ALWAYS ABOUNDING being our theme for the weekend. Allene Cox taught a GREAT class on intercessory prayer and I taught a class on Jekyll and Hyde. Okay, so the class was actually on hypocrisy, but I LOVE Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and all of the fantastic spiritual parallels that are to be found in it, so it was the main illustration used. We had lots of good fun and fellowship, as any self respecting Ladies' Retreat does, and I was privileged to get to know some girls a little better than I did before. And I fell in love with Mary Shelton--she is the neatest lady ever! Ha! I've never really been around her before, but I think she is just fantastic. One in a million. :-) I found these pictures on my camera when we got home. It's that crazy game where everybody stands in a circle and then reaches into the middle and grabs hands with other people from the other side of the circle--then you're supposed to untangle yourselves without letting go. Riiiiiiiight.




I'm sure there are a whole bunch of things I'm forgetting, but that seems to be what I do of late--forget. More than usual. Scary.

We got back to Mom's house Sunday afternoon. It was nice to see Dad for a few minutes before we loaded up and headed back to Alabama. He had shot a real nice buck while in Colorado and insists that he's mounting the antlers. Mom insists they are not going in her house. I am definitely with Dad on this one! I wouldn't want to have dead creatures hanging all over my walls, but one set of antlers wouldn't hurt anything. And look how big and broad they are--she ought to let her man show off his trophy, don't you think??? :-)



When we got home late that night Sam was finally able to open his other birthday present: a remote controlled helicopter. He went through two of them last Christmas and though they both broke almost immediately upon revving them up (we were able to return them and get our money back), he just can't help but love them. He was soooooo excited.




This chopper is a lot better quality than the one he had last year (it was 70% off and cost the same amount as the cheaper one) and it has been a BLAST! Sam is getting the hang of flying it, though he crouches and ducks and sways the whole time. HA! James plays with it quite often, too. "It's my turn!!!" he keeps telling Sam. He flew it into the back of Katie's hair today. That was a royal mess! It got all tangled up there and it took me a while to dislodge it, then remove the loose hairs that were tightly woven around the blades. I really should have taken a picture while it was still stuck to the back of Kate's head. HA!

The Monstrosity: Day Ten

We stumbled upon a wallpaper store in Alabaser that we'd never noticed before, so we stopped there on our way to the Monstrosity Monday morning. We spent a very long time there thinking and pondering and re-pondering and doing some math--and finally left with two wallpapers and some fresh ideas. We worked at the house the rest of the day but at the end it was another one of those “What have we accomplished today?” days. At least we had wallpaper.

The Monstrosity: Day Ten and a Half

We only worked in the morning. I scraped and scrubbed in Sam’s room. An idea is growing in my mind of what I’d like to do in there, but it sounds NUTS and I’m not saying it out loud. Or maybe ever. If I get guts enough to try it I’ll just take pictures when it’s all over with. But only if it turns out well. ;-) Anyway, all of the trim and baseboards and walls have been wiped or scrubbed or scraped (or all of the above) and are now ready for whatever future awaits them.

We left at noon-ish, went to the church to clean up and change clothes, then headed east. We stopped at Bass Pro Shops and enjoyed all sorts of free stuff (duck shoot, toy train, remote controlled trucks, laser shooting gallery, etc.) that they have set up because it's Christmastime. It was GREAT.

We got to Sister Bishop's house and brought our things in, then went to the Revival with her that night. Brother Ammons was preaching in Anniston this past week and we enjoyed going to be with them for the service. Just after the dismissal prayer the Washburns arrived. Ha! They thought service started at 7:00 and they'd only be 30 minutes late. It started at 6:00. Sister Bishop invited them over to the house along with the Cogburns and Brother Ammons. We enjoyed some sandwiches and some DELICIOUS soup (was it delicious because I haven't been cooking because we're always at the Monstrosity and I'm starved for some home cooked food, or because Sister Bishop is just a fantastic cook??? Probably BOTH!), and then enjoyed lots of stories and singing--until after midnight. I was soooooo tired, but certainly enjoyed the fellowship.

I discovered that I didn't have my bathroom bag with me--the one with my shampoo and brush and all manner of necessary things. Sister Bishop had an extra toothbrush (a new one, to be clear!) and I soaked my contacts in a cup of water overnight, but everything else just had to wait. ~Bleagh~ I had left my bag at the church in Bessemer when we changed there. Dumb.

Sister Bishop cooked us a wonderful breakfast, after which we intended to leave. But we couldn’t leave because of a tornado (the week before Thanksgiving?!) in the area. We finally got back to the Monstrosity just after lunchtime--and Sam and I scraped his bedroom door entirely. I didn't know it was possible, but we got it done--and I feel so much better. People who don't care enough to paint RIGHT shouldn't paint at all.

We were only there for a few hours, so we’ll call that Day Eleven with the half a day left over from before. ;-) Brother Hopkins also came and slapped mud all over the walls again. It's lookin’ good!

I had proofread some of the Evening Light on our way home from Anniston, but my computer ran out of juice (I couldn't print it out and had to just do it on the screen) so I only made it to page six. I hate it that I failed to do my job this month! It is a joy and a privilege to be able to do anything for the Church and I usually try to set all else aside when Evening Light time comes, but I just couldn't get it done this time. We didn't get to bed until about midnight that night--and I was soooooo tired I knew I wouldn't be any good even if I did try to stay up and read the rest of the paper. After that it was too late to get the corrections in.

The plan was solid for the next morning: SLEEP IN. I could almost feel a crash coming on and felt like my body was warning me--"Get me some rest, or else." The bed felt so, so good. ~Aaahhhh~

When we finally got the day rolling we did devotions and school, just like what "normal" used to be for us. The kids were so happy to have a regular day. Even Charlie seemed happy to just be home and was so much more playful. Sam made tomato soup for lunch, the kids swept and mopped the floors, I ironed and packed again. We tried to go to Revival in Anniston again that night, but there was an accident and we weren't able to get through. I hate getting everybody looking and smelling pretty and all loaded up--for nothing! Ha!

The Monstrosity: Day Twelve

I got Sam’s room FINISHED and Katie’s room FINISHED. (That just means they're ready now for paint or wallpaper or whatever.) I found a surprise in Katie's room. More wallpaper! I had taken a border off of the top of the walls there already, but there was another border that had been painted over. At least it was just on one wall. And it wasn't nearly as disturbing as the surprise that we found in Sam's room: a floor vent full of Cap'n Crunch. GROSS.

After finishing those two rooms I cleaned the upstairs bath enough that we'll be able to use it to get ready for church and such (it's the only bathroom with a mirror at this point). We were able to make it to Anniston for revival and were blessed to be there. After service we went to Wendy’s for Frostys with Sister Bishop, then drove on home--after picking up the suit jacket James had left and the chorus book I had left the other night. We are soooooo not with it right now!

That brings us up to today. I had sooooo much to do, but it was sooooo nice to be home! So nice that it was hard to get motivated. James and Joe went to run errands and were gone for a few hours. Katie and Sam wondered over to the other side of the mountain and met neighbors (and were in HUGE trouble when we found out they’d actually gone into the people’s HOUSE. What were they thinking?! We don’t even know who these people are!!!), I made lots of deviled eggs that really didn’t turn out all that great, two pumpkin pies that look terrific (all for the Thanksgiving pot-luck tomorrow), spaghetti and Emilee’s cheese bread (James is addicted) for dinner, did laundry, ironing, prepared our family Christmas letter (so hard to get into the spirit of that!) and labels, gathered the cards and other supplies, cleaned, packed, got ready for Sunday School... and that's all I can remember.

Just to give you a heads up, I probably won't be able to do much blogging this next week either. We will be going to church in Bessemer in the morning, then after the pot-luck we'll head to Cleveland--maybe going to one of our Alabama churches on the way. We'll stay at my parents' house, then go to Knoxville and do some shopping, then on to Pigeon Forge so James can FINALLY go to the Titanic museum. We'll get to Pennsylvania late Tuesday night. We'll leave there Saturday morning and get home late, late that night. I'm REALLY looking forward to this trip, though I'm so tired I don't know that I'll be much help driving. I had to laugh when we were talking about the 13 hour drive earlier today. Sam said, "Finally!!! A real trip. It's been way too long, Mom!" Ha! You can tell he was raised out west, for sure!

The Monstrosity: Day Seven

Was a total bust. I completed nothing. I can't even tell you what I DID all day. I know I was busy working all day, but I can't think of a single thing that actually GOT DONE. I keep thinking one of these days we're going to make it over the hump and actually start SEEING some progress. As of now, it's still looking pretty bleak. And then I look at my blog title. This is only the seventh day we've worked on this giant house! It's unreasonable to actually think that we should be farther along. We just WANT to be farther along. Right now there are lots of door knobs to be removed, dried paint drips to be scraped and sanded, trim to be re-affixed, surfaces to be cleaned and scrubbed--all of the things that make up the pre-paint stage. It's a very unpleasant stage. Painting will be lots of work in a house this size, but at least it's rewarding to look behind you and see progress. I have yet to do that!

I really don't have time to blog but I thought I'd write for a few minutes while I wait for the dryer to finish so I can fold the clothes. I'm sooooo tired and my throat is scratchy and I just want to go to bed, but I need to finish up the laundry and work on my class for this weekend. I'm on my second cup of hot peppermint tea. Can't tell if it's helping my throat, but it tastes delightful. It feels weird to use that word (too sissy-ish for me?!) but it seems the most accurate.

More important than any of the goings on with the house...

We had a WONDERFUL Youth Retreat! :-) I loved it. It was just so, so, so good. I was so blessed by our guest speaker, Brandon Allen. He has an amazing testimony about what God has delivered him from--and it makes his ministry so affective. He knows firsthand the difference between darkness and light and he is so passionate about serving God and so repulsed by worldliness. It's beautiful and God used him mightily to speak to our young people about their music and clothing and entertainments, etc. The Sunday morning service was especially powerful and I know God was really speaking us and working in our hearts. I love to feel conviction and I love that God cares so much about us that He continues to send it so that we can take the next step and grow closer and closer to Him, more and more like Him. It's so exciting to see what God is doing in these young people and I am so thrilled and so blessed to be able to be here to watch them grow in the Lord!

We had lots of fun at Retreat, too. The campground was fantastic. I didn't get to stay with the girls (so sad) but the room James and I were in had a double bed, a twin bed, a couch, a closet, a lamp, and a ceiling fan. Wow! I was SO thankful for the ceiling fan. Brother Grimes stayed in the same building and he had the heat cranked up to 70-something (I know, I know--that's normal for most people; I'm the weird-o here) and I was about to die! I opened our window and turned the fan on high and it got nice and cool in our room. ~Aaaaahhhh~ I was happy, Brother Grimes was happy. :-)

The campground had lots of great stuff to do--a pool table, ping pong, air hockey, Foosball, horseshoes, volleyball, even an 18 hole putt-putt course! It was GREAT. We played mini-golf with the Washburns two or three times and learned that Sister Tammy is fantastic in the dark. She got a hole in one FOUR TIMES when we played after church one night. We're thinking her crooked putter helped her out, too. She didn't do nearly as well with a straight putter in the daylight. Ha! It was great fun.

My sport of choice ended up being ping pong, which surprised me. I thought I liked pool better. I was wrong--I definitely prefer ping pong. Faster is funner. :-) I loved playing with Brother Washburn and Brother Will because they seem to be about as competitive as I am. But I probably loved it most because I beat them both. :-) Poor Brother Washburn. My son de-throned him as the checkers king and now he's lost to a girl (four times ~ahem~) at ping pong. Tsk, tsk. What a shame. Hahahahaha! He was worried about me blogging about my wins and his losses and was all concerned that I would embellish the truth and or something. I told him that if he wants to tell it his way he'll have to get his own blog. Around here, I get to tell the stories. (And the honest truth is that he won two games, I won four. Which means I'm the WINNER and he's the LOSER. Don't you just love TRUTH??? I do. This time. Ha!) Anyway, I loved playing and if we ever finish this crazy house I am definitely going to be searching Craigslist for a ping pong table to put in our basement. :-)

Let's see, what else... We played Apples to Apples on Saturday night with about 15 people. That was a little crazy. By the time you finished reading through all of the red cards you'd forgotten what the green card was! It was fun anyway, though the only thing I can really remember about the game is how many times "dead fish" resurfaced!

We left Retreat and made it home at about 3:00 yesterday afternoon. We brought our suitcases in and unpacked/repacked, then went to Alabaster to dig through the storage units before church. We were in search of--what else--paint swatches. ~sigh~ Still no luck. We keep getting this nagging feeling that they are somewhere at the Powell's house, not in storage. Even James says he thinks he remembers us having them here. I try not to talk about it though because then I get the lecture. "Why didn't you just give them to me? I would have taken them and filed them and we'd HAVE them now that we need them..." And it just cracks me up. Who in the world (other than James, of course) would ever think of FILING paint swatches?! HA! Actually, he's been really good to not nag too much. He just gives me that look. The one that says, "I can't believe you lost the paint swatches, you ninny." That look. And I can live with the look better than if he actually speaks the words aloud, so we're good here. :-)

We had a good service last night in Bessemer, followed by a nice time of fellowship in honor of Sister Hopkin's 26th birthday... or something like that. Afterwards we drove 3 minutes instead of the usual 50 minutes (what a change!) and spent our very first night at the Monstrosity. We still had our pillows and sleeping bags from Retreat and we'd thrown in a memory foam mattress topper as well. I vacuumed the bedroom floor and we made our "bed" and slept... horribly. Ha! James didn't have any complaints, but I discovered that sleeping on the floor (even with a mattress topper) is not nearly as fun as it used to be. I woke up sore and rolled over dozens of times throughout the night. It was a relief to get up this morning! Ha!

Then we got to work but, as I said, I don't know what I did. Can't tell any change after today's labor at all. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

We left at 4:00 this afternoon so we could get home early. Riiiiiight. We went to the Post Office, then Sam's Club, then dinner at Carino's (Monday = half-priced appetizers, half-priced family platters, and half-priced beverages--which means I got three raspberry cream Italian sodas for the price of one and a half! HA!), then it was off to Home Depot, then Hobby Lobby, and finally home at nearly 9:00.

I picked up paint swatches at Home Depot. Dozens and dozens of them. It makes me sick to look at them. Some colors are so nice and I'm just sure that they'll work beautifully. Except that I've been through this before and I know that those little cards are liars. I hate them all.

I don't think I'll have time to blog again this week. We'll be working on the Monstrostity by day and I'll be working on my Ladies' Retreat class by night. I may be able to drop by sometime... but don't count on it. ;-)