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. :-)