The Monstrosity, Day 487

Or something like that. ;-) I used to have a perfect record of just how many days' work we had put into this joint but that program fell apart quite some time ago. Things are looking better around here all the time and I think the next week or two is going to be really exciting... but only on the main floor. Then we'll have to start going upstairs again. As it is, I never go there. In fact, I quit going upstairs a couple of months ago. Someday I'll have to start going there again. Bummer. Ha!

I'm way behind on the blog again. I was going to try to upload pictures tonight, but if I do I know it'll take FOREVER and I really need to get to bed at a decent hour for a change. So I'll just tell you what we've been up to, then some other time perhaps I'll be able to show you.

So backing up two and a half weeks to Friday, March 2nd... According to my notes it was a very low-performance day. The whole family had been through whatever sickness has been going around and were just feeling pretty ~bleagh~ all day. I would work for about 20 minutes, then take a break for about an hour. Ha! Pitiful.

James and Sam left for Phenix City that night while I stayed home with sick-o Joe who was deemed too unhealthy to attend the District Convention down there. That means he and I stayed home "alone" that night. (Katie was still staying with my Mom & Dad in Cleveland.)

Saturday, the 3rd -- I painted the dining room red… AGAIN. Joe was feeling pretty well and helped me stain the 100+ pieces of bead board for the dining room, then I also stained the counter tops and the bead board for the backsplash as well as all of the trim that we had. It was the first day in over a week that I had felt back to full energy and I just worked and worked and worked, thinking all day long of how proud my husband would be of me and how excited he would be to see a-a-a-a-a-a-all of the work that had been accomplished. He walked in that night and asked, "Did you stain all of the wood???" I happily replied, "Yes, I did!!!," beaming with pride in anticipation of his surprise and appreciation. He then said, "Even the extra piece we got, but could've taken back if we didn't need it??? That's $28, Bec!" HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! It wasn't very funny at the time, but we've had some good laughs over it since then. There are times when I think we could really use some marriage counseling--me with my silly expectations and him with his complete unawareness of my feelings. ;-)

Sunday, March 4th -- A regular Sunday, it looks like. Except that I spent all afternoon working on Katie's schoolwork. She's really been struggling in school lately, but I didn't know it. I've not stayed on top of checking her work like I should since being all tied up with house stuff, and she didn't tell me she was having a hard time. So I had to go through several weeks of work and find exactly what she's struggling with, reassign tons of stuff, and I even took several pages of notes of things for her to study that will hopefully help her out. It took HOURS, but it really needed done. And I've learned my lesson (I hope!) about not making time--no matter how busy we get--to stay on top of their school stuff. It makes lots more work for them AND for me! In fact, when we got home from church that night I was up until after 1:00am still sorting through it all to get us back to where we needed to be.

Monday, March 5th – It was house cleaning day because I had company coming! Ha! It's crazy to "clean" a house that's in the throes of remodeling, but it still had to be done. Mom got in that evening and had asked if the Ridlespurges could come over because she needed Brother Ridlespurge's help with the slide presentation she'd be giving at church on Wednesday. When they were finished getting all of that stuff worked out she pulled up the clip of Dad reading his “book” from Couples' Retreat this year. I'd already seen it, but it's sooooo great. :-) Later that night we wrote down our agenda for the week. It’s fun to do that. It’s the first step to the thrilling little game of seeing just how differently your week can pan out from what you planned. Late, late that night, just before bed, James found a double oven on Craigslist for $300. Whoa!

Tuesday, March 6th -- First thing that morning I called on the oven and set an appointment to go look at it at 1:00. In the next few hours I managed to accomplish nothing. I talked to a repairman about the possibilities with the used stove (worse case scenario questions), I helped children with school, and I gave a tour of the house to Brother Hawkins who had shown up to return our week whacker. The only thing I actually accomplished at the house was getting the foyer (also the room where we store—meaning DUMP—aaaaaaaaall of the tools and paint supplies and vacuum attachments and stain, etc., cleaned up a little bit.

James and I left the kids at the house with Mom and went to check out the oven. It's only about three years old and seemed to be in good shape over-all. Going with what the repair guy told me, we deemed that it would definitely be worth the money to take a shot on it. ~scary~ We stopped by HHGregg on the way home and found a little fridge that I loved. The set up was GREAT, but it was only 18.2 cubic feet instead of 21 or whatever the slightly bigger ones are. It needed some thought. By the time we got home from those stops (along with a few others including Schlotzky's for lunch--after all, we were within 10 miles of it... HA!) Mom had accomplished lots at the house. She had stained the ceiling boards for the kitchen, fixed a spot in the bedroom (paint touch-up), primed foyer spots and the door, polyed kitchen cabinets—one or two coats, I can't remember which--did the blue paint trim in the foyer, coated the dining room with red… AGAIN. Has anybody been counting how many coats of red paint have been applied in there?

When we got home I put yet ANOTHER coat of red in the dining room (do we have a full inch of paint on the walls in there yet?) and then I started painting the foyer blue. Dark, dark blue. I LOOOOOOOOOVE IT!!! :-)

We also spent a considerable about of time trying to THINK. There were still some big decisions to be made, particularly in the dining room. None of the options seemed good at ALL until very late that night. We finally came up with one that was better than the rest, so we settled on it. Then at the last minute James pitched in an additional thought that fixed the problem entirely and now I LOVE what we’ve come up with! (We hadn’t actually done anything yet, but I loved what we were going to do.) So the evening ended with Mom and I prying all of the baseboard trim loose from the walls in there. That was a little tougher than expected and resulted in multiple holes in the wall. Each time the crowbar plunged through the sheetrock it caused us to laugh a little harder than the last. I love working with my Mom. Things never go right, but it’s okay. Everything can be worked through, and we just enjoy the ride. That’s the way work should be. :-)

That wasn’t really the end of the evening. We then sat with our computers and visited until nearly 1:00. That was dumb. Then we went into the kitchen to look at one more thing, got all excited about the handles and knobs that had arrived that day and had to screw the knobs into the five big drawers in there. It's sooooo cute!

Wednesday, March 7th -- I put the second coat of poly on the planks for the kitchen ceiling before we got into the BIG job of the day. We hadn't gotten all of the things done that "needed" to be done first but it was time to forsake all and start laying floor!!! Mom taught me how to install the laminate flooring and we managed to get about ¾ of the dining room done before we stopped to get ready for church. Except for being extremely painful for people with bony knees (!), I really enjoy that job. It's fun to do and is very rewarding. Mom calls it "instant gratification." Whatever it is, I like it a whole lot. And James is thrilled that I have acquired this new skill so he'll never have to pay anybody to do it again. Ha!

That night Mom gave her slide presentation about their trip to Israel, Turkey, and India. I think everybody really enjoyed it. I did, and I'd already seen most of it before. :-) We visited after church for a while, then the crowd ended up at Zaxby’s--a chicken place kind of like Chick-Fil-A that my family just sort of discovered and decided they like.

It was fun to come home that night and ooh and ahh over the new floor. As much of it as was there at that point, that is.

Thursday, March 8th – James was gone most of the day shopping for dishwashers. We had to install the dishwasher before we reached that area of the kitchen with the new floor so he finally HAD to buy one. (We've looked at sooooooo many appliances, but never seem to buy any until we're forced into it!) I worked on school with the kids that day and discovered that I have a cheater child. It required some unpleasant consequences and extra schoolwork assigned. Sam had been cheating for several days but was pretty slick about it and I didn't catch him right off. Once confronted with it he confessed and broke down and started crying. He told me how sorry he was and said that he hadn't been able to sleep at night because he just felt so crummy. I hate it when the kids do bad things... but I love it when they learn the lessons and discover how conviction and repentance work. Sam came to me the next day and said he slept GREAT. :-) Anyway, while I was dealing with school and kid stuff, Mom stained wood. It was afternoon before we FINALLY started installing floor again! It took FOREVER to lay very little floor that day. We had lots of hokey little cuts to make and it slows things wa-a-a-a-ay down. We stopped at 8:00 to play a couple of games with kids, got them to bed, then worked another hour or so.

Friday, March 9th – Mom did lots of miscellaneous paint projects that day, James put up trim and bead board in the dining room, and I finished laying the floor in the kitchen!!! Wa-Hoo!!! Mom needed Brother Ridlespurge again (to transfer files or something?), so we called and asked them to bring us dinner! HA! How rude is that?! I was sooooo excited about having just finished the dining room/kitchen floor that I went out into the garage and did some pretty impressive maneuvering to get to our dining table. It would take too long to describe where the table was in the heap of belongings that is packed tightly into the garage, much less what was involved in getting it OUT, but the most important part is that I managed it! And we now have a TABLE!!! In my dining room!!! I even wrestled the rug out of the garage, so our table sits on it's rug in my dining room. I was soooooo excited. The guys put the legs on the table, rolled out the rug and positioned the table on top of it, I stood back and looked and thought, "...They look so TINY!" Ha! The big dining room really dwarfs what I always thought was a nice sized table. No matter--I love it and I'm soooo thankful to have a dining table! Though we could only get to one chair. Everything in it's time, I guess. Still, it was exciting to have company and be able to eat in our dining room on our dining table. :-)

Saturday, March 10th – Mom poly-ed trim, then I poly bead board while Mom put the first coat of red on the back door. She then packed up and we took her to Chow Town for lunch before sending her home to Cleveland with a thousand thanks for yet another week of hard labor at the Monstrosity. She is the best--and most talented--Mom EVER. Not to mention how amazing she is to put up with James through it all. HA! We had such a great time with her.

Once bidding Mom adiou, we drove up to Lewie’s Used Appliances, still in search of the perfect refrigerator. In the end we decided to go back and buy that little fridge I had really liked a few days before. It's smaller than I wanted, but has split shelves (more versatile—better use of space) and was MUCH cheaper than any of the others we were considering. I was hoping to talk James into buying a microwave too, but we didn't want to pay as much as we would have had to pay there at HHGregg. So we stopped at Target to look at microwaves there on our way home (it was one of the few places we hadn’t already looked), but the one we would have considered wasn’t in stock. Story of our lives. ;-)

That night I cleaned up the house a little after our week of wrecking it again. I even made the kids haul some of their junk down to the basement. There's just too much STUFF accumulating in the living room and it's always a mess because there's no place to keep it all. The only other news of the day is that Sam found two ticks while he was showering. ~Bleagh~ Here we go again.

Sunday, March 11th – I hate Daylight Savings. ;-) After morning service we came home and I put on my work clothes and extended the kitchen floor about four feet to make James happy (he hated where we had ended the laminate before) and I still had enough time to sleep for 2 hours! Then I got up and had a few minutes to “plot evil” as Katie kept saying. We came up with a couple of great ideas to have some folks do at “Talent Night” at church that night, but when we got there we found out that we were going to keep things a little more “churchy” and not goofy this time. That threw our plans right out the window—we didn’t have anything churchy planned! Ha! So it wasn’t quite as fun this time as last time, but it still raised over $200 for Missions and that was the purpose of it all.

Monday, March 12th -- I felt like being in bed all day long. Sooooooo tired. But things started off all happy and joyful because our refrigerator was delivered!!! The kids were ecstatic. James left directly to run some errands and when he returned he had ham and bologna and cheese and milk and several kinds of juice. The whole family helped unload it all into the shiny new fridge so we could get it back out immediately and have lunch. :-)

I helped James put the ceiling in the kitchen (it is soooooo pretty!), then took the kids to the library. Got home and found James putting the very last light in the kitchen. I LOVE MY KITCHEN!!! I can’t wait to have the countertops finished and be fully functional in there. It just gets prettier all the time. And now it’s BRIGHT and pretty. :-) James says it’s too bright, but he doesn’t know anything about such things. It’s PERFECT. We then hung the light over the dining room table. Oh, happy day! I love light. We’ve had a lone painter’s light dangling from wires in each room for months now and it’s so exciting to see real fixtures—and more light—in these rooms!

James went to get his hair cut that night while the kids and I had sandwiches again--from our very own refrigerator!!! :-) Somehow the weariness I’d been feeling throughout the day transformed into ~bleagh~ and I began feeling very sick while we were eating. I wasn’t even able to finish my sandwich—I told the kids to get everything cleaned up when they were done and I headed to the bedroom and went straight to bed, intending to just lay down until I got to feeling better. Next thing I knew it was morning and I had slept a full 13 hours!!! Whoa! Apparently Katie had started feeling rather sick, too, and was up most of the night making trips to the bathroom. I’m glad I was able to sleep my problems away—I woke up feeling GREAT the next day. Thank the Lord! I didn’t get any of the things done on Monday that I had planned on/needed to and had LOTS to do on Tuesday!

I didn’t get most of it done, of course.

Tuesday, March 13th -- I ran some laundry. Helped kids with school. And then assisted James with installing the countertops. Now they need lots and lots of love. It’s going to take some staining, lots and lots of sanding, maybe some waxing, and then several coats of sealant.

And I started ironing!!! Wa-hoo!!! First time I've done that (other than a solo piece here and there) in weeks and weeks. Of course, I didn't put much of a dent in the pile that night and I haven't done it again since then so... ;-)

Wednesday, March 14th -- I spent most all of the day working with Katie on her school. She's starting to get things rolling the right direction now, so we're both much happier. :-) I painted blue in the foyer again. Not done yet. We had the Body of Christ, chapter 6, at church that night. The kids had been in Children's Church for quite a while when Sam returned to the sanctuary sporting a sign that said “Sam is NOT in trouble! We just finished up back here” or something like that. Ha! Sister Washburn wanted to make sure Sam wouldn't have to sit under condemnation for the rest of the service from parents who would never believe that he wasn't sent out of Children's Church for being bad. :-)

Thursday, March 15th -- Sister Bishop called bright at early that morning and said she was putting her work clothes on and heading to Bessemer. Surprise!!! :-) She knows we know NOTHING abut what to do with all of the incredibly overgrown vegetation we inherited with this house and she had offered to come help us with it--she's so good at things like that and amazingly knowledgeable. We quickly got everybody ready and ran some necessary errands, then got home about an hour before Sister Bishop showed up. For the rest of the afternoon she had James and all of the gang outside working with her, hacking down shrubbery right and left. I managed to stay indoors, staining countertops again to darken them, staining some other boards, then poly the beadboard for the backsplash. Sister Fender showed up after a while, then Sister Bishop ran to pick up some dinner for everybody. She brought home some rotisserie chickens and all sorts of fixin's to go with them. It was a wonderful dinner. I fixed my plate and sat down, then asked James what time it was. "6:50," he said. We had Ladies' Bible Study/Prayer Meeting at 7:00! Ha! So I scarfed down my chicken and fixins, then grabbed my bowl of salad and ate it as I drove to the church. Sister Ridlespurge had put sooooo much into fixing up a room nice and cozy like for our meeting. It was really nice and I'm really looking forward to these meetings--it's going to be such a blessing. I loved visiting with the ladies that night and we're looking forward to perhaps going through a book together or something like that. I just wish we could have these meetings twice a month instead of just once. ;-) I got home after 10:00 that night sooooo tired, but it was time to proof the Evening Light. I did my best. I'm afraid it wasn't very good! Ha!

Friday, March 16th – We worked outside all day that day. I enjoyed driving James' new tractor/mower thingie, hauling branches and debris down to the edge of the property and dumping it in a big pile--and the kids loved taking turns driving it, too. With Sister Bishop as our coach we got the whole front yard all cleaned up and squared away. Things look soooooo much better than they did. Not to say things look good... In fact, they look pretty bad right now--but it's still so much better than before! This place had been so neglected and all of the trees and bushes were completely out of control. After being trimed back to proper size there is now no green left on anything--just bare branches and trunks. I can't help but imagine that all of our shrubbery is embarrased and feeling rather naked right now. Ha! Still, it just looks soooooo much cleaner than it did before and Sister Bishop assures us that things will grow back and start filling in, but be in proper dimensions and the right size for a change.

The Rickers showed up that afternoon and visited with us while we worked, then we cleaned up and went to Cracker Barrel to celebrate Sister Ricker's birthday, Sister Bishop's birthday, and the Rickers' anniversary, all of which had taken place in the past two weeks.

Saturday, March 17th – We had District Convention in Bessemer and it was excellent. It was all excellent, but James’ message especially good, I thought. I enjoyed the fellowship after Convention, but was sooooooo tired. We came home and I worked some more on my VLB service for the next night.

Sunday, March 18th – I didn't teach Sunday School. I had asked Sister Dudley if she'd fill in for me because I knew I wouldn't be able to spend as much time prepping for it as I needed to. She was happy to help out (which makes it so much easier to ask her!) and I was so blessed to be in the big people class. :-) The Powells' daughter and her husband were at church and we really enjoyed having them in class with us. They had lots of input and it was great. After service we went out for Chinese with the crowd, including Richard Barnes who had joined us for service that morning. We came home and I spent the rest of the afternoon finishing up on my notes and slide show for service that night. I felt like it went okay that night, but it was too long. The last 10 or 15 minutes were pushing it. I should've skipped some of the stuff in the middle. I hate it when you realize it too late! Anyway, I didn't realize it was a downer of a lesson, but I had two guys approach me after service with some interesting remarks. The first said, "Is this sort of what Ladies' Retreat is like? Because I feel like dirt!" (That won't make sense to most of you--one of our ladies this last year wanted to know why she paid good money to go to Retreat so she could be made to "feel like dirt," though I think she just meant convicted ;-) -- HA!) The other guy came and said he didn't feel like dirt. He felt like stubble. I had talked about the quality of building materials and what we contribute to The Church of God: gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble. I couldn't figure out why everybody seemed to only hear the bad stuff (James said some people looked kind of stone faced after service, too), but the next day I was talking to Mom about what all I addressed in the lesson and hearing it all in list fashion made me realize that perhaps it was a little much. Maybe I did give ‘em both barrels! HA! I had no idea. I hope it was all received well. :-)

Monday, March 19th -- We had a carpet measurer guy come out (that's so exciting!), I helped kids with school, sanded my countertops (a new step--wa-hoo!), then stained them one more time.

Tuesday, March 20th – Helped kids with school, helped James with bathroom fan (what a relief to finally have THAT in!), sanded and polyed bead board for backsplash again, then sanded and polyed all of the beadboard in the dining room a second time. That took a while. I had some Fiddler on the Roof songs stuck in my head, so I had Katie look it up on YouTube. The kids had never seen it before and actually showed interest in it so I told them they could watch it. You learn so much about Jewish culture and it really is interesting. But then you spend the next several days suddenly throwing your arms in the air, snapping your fingers, stomping as you walk and singing, "If I were a rich man...!" :-) I enjoyed listening to it as I worked.

That night we all loaded up and stoped by the auction, but there was nothing much of interest. We walked next door to the Foundry and I found a jean skirt for $1.25 as well as a black dress skirt and a dressy top that fit better than most things do nowadays. ;-) We went to Wal-Mart for paint thinner, only to come home and discover that I hadn't been out like I thought--we still had some paint thinner here. Oh well. Can't have too much paint thinner. :-) I put the first coat of Poly on the countertops before bed and they already look GORGEOUS!!! I just love’ em. This is going to be the bestest kitchen ever. :-) And so cheaply remodeled. I love that, too. :-)

Wedensday, March 21st – That's today. This mean's I'm caught up again! Wa-hoo!

Today we got the vent hood installed for above the oven, James started installing the beadboard backsplash, we had a different carpet guy out to look things over and have now decided to buy the carpet from Home Depot but have this guy install it, called Home Depot several times and spent a considerable amount of time on hold before finally speaking with somebody competent--but he didn't call back tonight like he said he would. ~sigh~ In happier news, for lunch today we had pizza bites and frozen buritos--heated in our NEW MICROWAVE! I failed to mention that when we went to buy paint thinner last night we came home with a microwave. It was super cheap so we decided it must be the one. ;-) We had already bought frozen foods in anticipation of one day having a microwave (ha!) so we enjoyed christening it for lunch today. Right now the microwave sits on the floor in the kitchen because the countertops aren't finished, but soon it will be in it's rightful place. I also called an appliance repair guy and made arrangements for him to come and install my "new" double oven and fix the ignitor tomorrow. I then spent an hour or two scrubbing the oven inside and out and getting it looking nice and clean and shiny and ready to go into my very own kitchen. We brought it in the house and slid it into it's rightful place even though it will have to come out in the morning when the guy gets here to work on it. I just wanted to see it there. And it makes me sooooooo happy!!! I have squealed all afternoon over it! I'm just overwhelmed that God actually answered that prayer. Double ovens are soooooo expensive and James told me early on that if I wanted one I'd better really pray because we just couldn't afford it. Well, I didn't spend lots of time on it (!), but I did mention it to the Lord a time or two. And He DID it! It just AMAZES me that God loves us sooooo much and answers soooooo many prayers--even for things that are unimportant in the big scheme of things, and things that are more "wants" than "needs." I feel overwhelmed. The stove cleaned up so nice (looks almost brand new!) and even after paying the repair guy we will have about the same amount (or less?) invested in this stove than we would have paid for a single oven. ~sigh~ I'm sooooo excited!!!

Okay that's about it. Got to get to bed. But I made it. CAUGHT UP. ~aaaahhhhh~