More December

Yesterday and today have been good days. Had a good, prayerful church service yesterday morning, then a quick lunch at Bojangles with Richard Barnes who had joined us for service. Then we went back to Sister Fender's house so I could wash up all of the sheets and towels that we'd used last week and make the beds up, then on to the Monstrosity to figure out what needed to stay there and what needed to go home to the Powell's house. Evening service at 6:00, then a great time of fellowship at McAlister's with the Ridle-Hop-Wash-Hornes crowd. :-)

Last night we came home to the Powell's house--first time I'd been here in two weeks! I finally started feeling the big wind-down from all of the work we've been doing. I slept hard--and late! It was nice. :-) We had a lazy morning and let the kids just spend some time playing outside (Joe has a target he'd gotten for Christmas that he's been dying to try out!) before having Frito pie for lunch and getting into school in the afternoon. I managed to get a load and a half of laundry done. Pitiful, hu?! I just can't seem to get it in gear today. Tomorrow evening we head back into town, so I'm really hoping I have more motivation in the morning than I did all day today!

And now for the old news...

The Monstrosity: Day Twenty-One (Monday, December 19th)

I had high expectations for today. Of course, none of them came to fruition.

Today was the day that we were bested by the bathroom. It’s a sad thing. It’s such a small room. And we’ve put sooooooo many hours of work into it and it had begun to look soooooooo good. Today was the day it decided to fight back.

All we wanted to do was re-grout the tile a little bit, just to freshen it up in any discolored places. Is that too much to ask? James used the product just like the instructions said, but it didn’t “wipe off with a soft, dry cloth” at all. In fact, I’m pretty sure whoever wrote those directions was laughing like a madman as he penned the words, thinking of the poor saps like us who would spend hour upon hour scrubbing and scrubbing and scrubbing that which was supposed to “wipe off with a soft, dry cloth.” Even with a wet, scratchy sponge, Stanley the Scraper, and all the elbow grease we had to offer it was an all-day job getting rid of the excess grout and residue. Seriously, it was after 10:00pm when I got the last of it cleaned up—not including the floor.


We had silly little hopes of finishing the bathroom, or coming very, very close day, but we ended up giving all of our time and energy to the grout project. Actually, I had intended to accomplish other grand and glorious things today, but was all consumed with the grout clean-up job. So frustrating.

James decided we’d feel better if we accomplished something other than just scrubbing grout all day (!), so he set out to remove the old faucet and install the new one. Ha. If only. That’s supposed to be an easy little project, right?! He’s done this several times before and it’s not like it’s something big or difficult. Usually. ~ sigh~ We fought and wrestled and fought and wrestled some more to get everything unhooked under the sink and while we were giving it a mighty heave-ho something finally popped loose… but it wasn’t the pipe we were working on, it was the sink itself! HA! The whole sink just popped out! We were amazed—and did thank God!—that it didn’t break any of the tiles on the countertop. We put the sink upside down on the bedroom floor and were finally able to get all of the pipes loose from that angle, but then one thing led to another and in the end we’re going to have to replace the whole sink, not just the faucet. Oh, brother! So instead of having a finished bathroom at the end of the day, it looks far worse than when we started this morning! There are still no doors or drawers in the vanity, there is a hazy residue on the tiles (even after all of our hours of scrubbing), the countertop that used to hold a decent sink is now just a gaping hole, and there is a nasty old sink sitting on our bedroom floor. Not exactly what we had planned for the day. HA!

You win some, you lose some.

We lost big today.

There’s always tomorrow.


The Monstrosity: Day Twenty-Two (Tuesday, December 20th)

~whew~ It’s been a long one today! It’s been both frustrating and rewarding. James got a new sink put in this morning, but struggled with some leaks due to the cheaply made parts. I think he’s got it under control now. He’s good at stuff like that. :-)

I had primed the vanity doors and drawers and miscellaneous things in the closet, including the door itself, and managed to have all of the kids fully schooled before noon. And that with several trips to help the guy under the sink. “Turn it on… and back off… on again…” You know the routine.

Once the sink was installed it was time to hang the mirror. The mirror!!! We’re going to have a bathroom with a mirror! Downstairs! That’s not covered in sheetrock dust!!! You can’t possibly understand how exciting that is. :-) We had found a mirror that will match just right at Home Depot the other day, so we used a gift card from some dear friends and bought it and the other remaining items needed to complete the bathroom. I’ll have to send them a thank you card informing them that THEY finished our bathroom for us and I love them dearly for it. :-) Anyway, James had picked up some wicked looking hook thingies that would be strong enough to hold a heavy mirror to a wall and we knew we had one shot to get it right so I measured and measured and measured again—the mirror itself, the space on the wall, from the bottom of the mirror up to the hooks, from one hook to the other, from the tooth end of the hanging hook to the hanging end of it, etc. James had a headache and wouldn’t even attempt to help out with the brainwork, he just sat on the edge of the tub and watched… and watched… and watched. Ha! It probably took me 20 minutes or better to feel confident enough to actually set the first hook in the wall. But apparently it was worth it because the mirror is spaced just right and is perfectly level—on the very first shot! I didn’t know that was even possible, except for on TV! It looks GREAT and goes so nicely with the wall sconces and the faucet and all of the stuff James is spraying “oil rubbed bronze.” I love it. :-)

Then it was time to caulk. That’s when things went south. I would love to blame the caulk itself since it’s different than what I’ve used in the past, but I don’t KNOW that it’s the caulk instead of the caulker that caused the problem. I just know that my first attempt was horrific. So bad that I went back to the bathroom about 20 minutes later with a razor blade and some Goo Gone and spent the next 30 minutes scraping and scrubbing to get as much of the caulk off as possible so I could try again! Take 2 wasn’t much better and I wiped it off while it was still wet. I’m not sure Take 3 was much of an improvement either, but if you’ve given it your best three times in a row you’ve just got to be able to walk away—you’re obviously not going to be able to do any better the next time! Things went okay around the tub, just not the sink. You know, the really obvious location.

James left this afternoon to do some shopping, then go back to Brierfield to take care of Brady and bring back some extra clothes for the rest of us since we’ll be staying again. He’ll spend the night there, then come back in the morning. The accomplishments since he left don’t sound impressive, but they sure took a lot of time! I got the bathroom all cleaned up and ready for the next step, whatever that is. I also painted the ceiling in the closet as well as the shelves and trim. Then I painted all of the doors and drawers for the bathroom that I had primed this morning. Before calling it quits at 11:00pm I also put some wallpaper in the bottom of the bathroom drawers and cabinets. It just feels so much cleaner that way—and when you can buy wallpaper for $1 per roll you just can’t lose!

I let the kids veg out a little bit tonight. James was gone, so we ate left-over Little Caesar’s pizza and watched Christmas shows on the laptop. Well, they watched and I listened while I painted in the closet. Tomorrow is our last day to work until after Christmas. I’m excited to see what we can get done… and then I’m excited to think of taking a break from all of it for a few days!


The Monstrosity: Day Twenty-Three (Wednesday, December 21st)

Today was a day of great triumph! After being beaten by the bathroom yesterday, I made the strategic move to transfer my energies to a different room and just pretend like the bathroom doesn’t exist. And I got it FINISHED! Did you hear that??? I FINISHED OUR VERY FIRST ROOM TODAY!!!

It was the master closet. ;-)

But it still feels like a glorious thing to have completed SOMETHING at that crazy house! Ha! After having completed all of the painting last night I was ready to wallpaper bright and early this morning. I had it papered by about 3:00 this afternoon. WA-HOO!!! I know it’s crazy to take time to wallpaper a closet of all things (!), but it really does feel so nice and fresh and clean in there. Wallpaper in closets may be weird, but it’s just so, so, so nice. Especially when your closet doubles as your devotion location. It’s great to have some place fresh and clean and even cute to go to be alone! :-)

I realize that even the "after" picture isn't all the impressive here, but for the record...

I know you can't tell from the picture, but the wallpaper is a little splotchy (creams and browns) with a little cabin and a whispy little tree standing next to it. It cost a total of $6 or $7 to complete this room, paint, paper and all. I wish that would be the case with all of the rooms! Hahahahaha! If only...

Those are the freshly painted doors and drawers for the bathroom resting on the floor in the closet to dry, just so you know.

Having COMPLETED MY VERY FIRST ROOM (did I mention that already?), I started cleaning and sorting and trying to get all of our things gathered up or put away. The kids and I had spent the previous 5 nights at the house so we had plenty of stuff to sort through and repack. We brought home a MASSIVE bag of dirty clothes to be tended to along with three suitcases, two overnight bags, a duffle bag, a bag full of Christmas DVD’s, four laptops, some hanging clothes, a bag full of Christmas presents to be wrapped, a guitar, a giant fruit basket, a popcorn tin, a bag full of other food items, dog food, dishes and leash, and who knows what else. Aside from the fruit basket, popcorn and presents, that’s the regular list of what we haul back and forth from one house to the other every few days. Crazy, hu?!

We did have a water issue today. James discovered that the basement was flooded this evening. Not totally flooded, but there was water on the floor in a whole lot of places. The Ridlespurges came and helped us mop it all up because that's just the kind of people they are. :-) We're not sure what caused the problem, but we know it has to be in connection with the fact that we're showering at the house now. We've used minimal water up to this point (sinks and toilets) but now we've got a bathroom in shape and took four showers in a row before heading to church... Things are backing up through the toilet in the basement. It sort of put a damper on an otherwise very exciting and productive day (having FINISHED the closet and all!), but that's okay. I'm sure we'll get it all worked out.


Thursday, December 22nd

Was spent at home in Brierfield, doing laundry and packing for our Christmas weekend. James took the kids away for a little while so I could wrap presents that were still hidden in bags around the house. I always enjoyed it, but it was hard to feel very Christmassy and festive when it's RAINING outside! Alabama doesn't know how to do Christmas--that's for sure! Ha! James bought the Muppet Christmas Carol while they were out and I sat down with the kids and watched it that afternoon. I think it's one of the very best versions of A Christmas Carol ever and I love the amazing human/puppet choreography and filming. Amazing.

Joe decided that he was going to start publishing a family newspaper. Here's the first edition...

Friday, December 23rd

Let Christmas begin! Though it never really felt like Christmas to me this year. Just too distracted with our crazy lives, I guess. Christmassy or not, it DID feel like a wonderful little vacation away from it all and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it.

We got to Mom & Dad’s house at about 3:00, I think. Shortly after we unloaded, Mom and I hopped in the car to go do some shopping. I had had NO opportunity to shop for James at all. I’m with him everywhere I go, especially these days (!), and I spend most of my time at the Monstrosity now (where there is no Internet) so shopping online is out. Anyway, we ended up with a few great buys for James after all. HA! Not really, but at least one of them was really fun to give him. :-) The only thing I KNEW I wanted to get for him were some new Rook cards—it’s what you use to play I Buy with. Ours have been in bad shape for a long time and are too sticky to shuffle or deal without great effort. They were out of Rook cards at Wal-Mart. So we tried Target. They were out, too. Kohl’s didn’t carry Rook cards, and Walgreens was sold out like the other stores. Crazy! Who knew they were such a hot item? It was frustrating to have the ONE item I knew I wanted to buy unavailable.

I can’t remember what else we did that night. I remember that James was very gracious when Dad and the kids watched The Rifleman instead of a Christmas show. Ha! In our crazy world there has been a remarkable lack of Christmas shows viewed this season. James usually watches them ALL—at least once—and he just hasn’t had a chance this year.

Saturday was Christmas Eve. Mom and I spent the day cooking and baking for the evening’s festivities and for our Christmas dinner the next day.

That night we had a Christmas Eve service there at the house. I think there were 20 present and it was just so nice. I LOVE Christmas Eve services. If we’re at our own house for Christmas next year we’ll be sure to have one of our own! I loved singing the Christmas carols and the fun little Christmas trivia games and the Christmas mini-sermon—oh, just everything. Then there’s the food and fellowship. :-) There was sooooo much food there! Everything was so pretty and festive and tasty.

When the crowd left we watched It’s a Wonderful Life, our Christmas Eve tradition. It’s also traditional to have clam chowder that day—we did that at lunch time and it was delicious. Though there was probably enough chili we wouldn’t have had to make the soup, right Mom??? HA! When we arrived there the day before Mom was in the kitchen making the hugest pot (gigantic roasting pan, plus overfill in a separate big pot) of chili I’ve ever seen in my life. The recipe was to feed 20, but I think they left off a zero! There were probably 25 quarts of chili by the time she was done!!! Hahahahahaha! It was quite tasty, but who can eat that much chili?! She was really hoping Dad had come through with the pressure canner she had asked for so she could “put up” several quarts of it for a later date. (He did. It was the beautifully "wrapped" gift in the big blue bag.)

Katie was actually the early riser on Christmas morning this year, something more remarkable than most people could imagine. (She is NOT a morning person!) She was going from room to room waking up the rest of the household (except Dad, of course—who knows how long he’d been up!) at 6:30. We piled into the living room for the action to begin. We are so blessed. Christmas always seems overwhelming to me. We already have so much more than we need— so, so, so abundantly blessed—and then on Christmas we receive even more! I don’t want to be materialistic and have to have more and more STUFF, but I don’t want to take for granted how marvelously God has blessed our family. I want to always be grateful. And I must say that the kids showed lots of gratitude over every single gift they received this year—lots of, “WOW!!! THANKS, DAD!” happening. :-)

Here's a picture of the Charles sleeping with the gifts before all the action began.

The boys were sooooo excited about the stick-on mustaches they found in their stockings. I love those things. :-)
Sam got Legos and more Legos for Christmas this year. And batteries. And a battery charger. He was ecstatic.
Katie Rue... She got lots of nice goodies--an art set, a polka dot bedspread for her new room at the Monstrosity (whenever we finish it!), a nightgown and cap made by her Grandma, and I can't remember what all.
Joe's most exciting gift was a mandolin. He's been a-pickin' and a-grinnin' ever since. ;-) It amazes me how quickly he catches on to all things stringed. He's loving the new instrument and is still trying to think up a proper name for "her."
Here's Dad with a framed picture of Joe and the catfish he caught in Dad's pond a few months back.
And James with his oh-so-thoughtful gift from me: PLUNGERS! Don't laugh--he's already used them several times at the Monstrosity while our water problems continue! (Still no end in sight...)


I don't have any pictures of myself, of course, but my wonderful husband got me a new laptop for Christmas! My old one had been hobbling along for a long, long time and we were worried about a crash any day now, so I was sooooo excited about that gift. And I LOVE it. It's so much nicer than the last one. :-) He also got me some fantastic silky pajamas (red with black polka dots--I LOVE THEM!) and new slippers. Mom got us some nice bath towels for our nearly completed bathroom and some Moody Science videos.

After opening all of the gifts we cleaned up the living room, then Mom and I headed to the kitchen again. She made a couple of pies and started the rolls while I made corn pudding and something else I can’t remember. Here's Mama, working away...


And Sam fast asleep by 9:00! Ha!


Then it was time to get everybody ready to go to church at Southside. They had a service from 11:00 to 12:00 and it was wonderful! We always enjoy being with Brother Ammons and he had lots of good things to share. Again, I enjoyed the Christmas songs and there was just such a sweet and worshipful spirit there. I LOVED having church on Christmas Day! It was a little more difficult to plan out the day (only because you’re used to staying home all day), but what a wonderful blessing to take time to go to the house of God and spend some time focusing on what we REALLY have to be thankful for rather than just the festivities at home. I would love to have church on EVERY Christmas, whether it’s on a Sunday or not!

By the time we got home we were a little behind schedule for our 2:00 Christmas dinner. Brother Oscar and his family came to join us and in the end we had a wonderful meal (everything turned out so good!) and great fellowship. I almost fell asleep at the table there at the end (our “vacation” had been filled with late nights, early mornings, and plenty of cooking and baking and shopping in between!), but got my second wind before long. Most of the crowd enjoyed the very non-Christmassy weather outside for an hour or two. I love the bounding Charlie-blur in this picture.

Sam's turn on the pogo stick. He's starting to catch on but for now Joe is still the expert. Last time we were in Cleveland he wanted to show us how well he could do. He jumped 99 times, then lost control before hitting 100! Ha!
The Pimentel girls are scared of dogs, but trying to work through it. In the end, they got used to the big dogs, but were still afraid of Charlie. HA! Dad loves the neighbors' dog Ralphie--the one being petting. He and his mom Maxie come to visit all the time. If Dad can't have a dog of his own I'm happy that he can enjoy the neighbors' dogs on a regular basis! He likes dogs and they are so therapudic.


We watched The Nativity Story that night and it was very good and very thought provoking. Of course there were some fictional things added in to “fill the gaps,” but it helps you to view everyone as real PEOPLE rather than characters in a story. I really enjoyed it.

We then went to church in Aurora with my brother. :-) Via live webfeed, that is. They had a nice little Christmas service and we enjoyed joining them, then seeing lots of the folks wave at the camera for us afterward. I especially enjoyed seeing a very pregnant Haley! Due any time now. How exciting. :-) UPDATE--Joshua was born on December 28th, happy and healthy! :-)

I played a couple of rounds of Bananagrams with Mom and Katie while James transferred all of my programs and files from my old laptop onto my new one (wa-hoo!), then we put the kids to bed and Mom and James and I played a game of I Buy with MY new Rook cards that James had bought for ME! Ha! Then I started on my new puzzle—a Noah’s Ark puzzle this year.

James had wanted to leave first thing in the morning on Monday, but after seeing how the weekend really wasn’t all that relaxing for us ladies who were working through most of it (that’s the story of all holidays, isn’t it?!) he was gracious enough to let us hang around throughout the day so I could just RELAX. I packed everything up in the morning, then Mom and I worked on the puzzle while watching The Star of Christmas. I love that show. :-) Then we put on The Lemon Drop Kid and worked the puzzle through that one, too. It was GREAT.

I think it was nearly 5:00 by the time we left. With the time change we were able to make it home to Brierfield by 8:00. We got all unloaded… just in time for the power to go out! I had taken a nap on the drive home and wasn’t nearly tired enough to go to bed, so I sat at the kitchen table and built Sam’s new lego kit by lantern light. It was so fun! I’m not creative enough to take Legos and make anything grand, but I LOVE having the instruction sheets and putting cool stuff together piece by piece. :-)

Tuesday morning we unpacked and had devotions and did school, then repacked. It’s Monstrosity time again, you know! We left after noon sometime and stopped at the Olive Garden in Alabaster to use up a gift card or two. It was sooooo good! Then James went to Great Clips for a haircut and I went to Christopher & Banks. The good news is that I got 3 shirts and a skirt for $20. The bad news is that I got them for that price because the store is going out of business—along with over 100 others! I hate that!!!

Then it was on to Hoover. First stop: Barnes & Noble to pick up a 2012 calendar at 50% off. Found a cute one, so I’m happy. Then it was to Sears to shop for appliances. We’re needing EVERYTHING and thought the post-Christmas sales might help us out a little bit, even though we’re still far from being ready to actually put anything in our new kitchen. Then it was on to HH Gregg, a store I’d never heard of before. They sell appliances, mattresses, and electronics and it is a GREAT store with tons of friendly and helpful employees and very competitive prices. I talked to a salesman and asked what kind of super-duper discount they give if people come in and buy every appliance in the book. :-) We need a washer, dryer, stove, refrigerator, dishwasher, and microwave. ~whew~ It almost makes me nauseous to think of having to buy all of that stuff at once! Anyway, we went around and picked out one of each of the six items I just listed. They have better prices to begin with on most things, but they look up each item individually and if there is another store in town that sells it for less they will drop their own price lower than the other guy. Nice. The price he quoted us is still a pretty chunk of dough (!), but less than what we’d been bracing ourselves for. We want to check out a few other appliance stores, but I don’t know that we could beat what we found tonight. We'll see. The kids hate this kind of shopping. This is what the boys looked like LONG before the end of the night. Ha!



We then went to Payless to get some new play shoes for Joe. He had three toes hanging out of the other shoes before we even knew they were getting worn out. Why doesn’t he just TELL us when they start to fall apart?! Then it was to 2nd & Charles for Katie to blow the $15 gift card she had received for Christmas. She was kind enough to buy a book for each of the boys along with what she got for herself. What a gal. :-) Then we went to Lifeway and found a few good bargains, then to the Payless in Bessemer. James had found some boots for Katie at the first Payless, but since they didn’t have them in her size they gave a $4 off coupon and told us they had the boots in Bessemer—and then when you tack on the AAA discount he paid all of $7 for them! Happy Katie, happy Dad. Then it was finally time to go to the Monstrosity. I moved us in to the closet and made up the beds with fresh sheets. ~Aaahhh~

That's probably enough for tonight, but here's one last picture before I go. This is Sam, modeling Charlie's new Santa hat and jingle bell collar in an effort to convince him that they're really not that bad and he really ought to keep them on. HA! (Charlie wasn't impressed.)

Remember Me???

I knew it had been a long, long time since I'd blogged, but I didn't realize it had been nearly a month since I'd blogged any more than a blip! WHOA. I'll give you the general excuse now, then make up for it later. ;-) I spend lots more time at the Monstosity now than at the Powell's house (where there is Internet) and when I am at the Powell's house I'm so busy playing catch up that I haven't had time to blog! We went to Mom & Dad's house for three nights over the Christmas weekend, came home on Monday, went to the Monstrosity the next day... and I've not been home since then! That's means I've been at the Powell's house (with Internet) one night out of the past fifteen. James goes down every few days to take care of Brady and check on things, but I've been working sooooo hard at the Monstrosity preparing for Mom to come and then working with Mom this past week, I just didn't have time to go! Anyway, I've been blogging most nights, just without Internet (ha!), so I'll start going through what I've written and adding pictures as I have time. Not sure how long it will take me to get all caught up, but I'll start tonight. We've got to back up quite a bit to start with, but here we go!

December 13-18th:

Tuesday was a profitable day, but not exactly a work day at the Monstrosity, so we won’t count it. James had found a really pretty white bedroom set on Craigslist that we thought might work nicely for Katie’s room, so we drove to Inverness today to take a look at it. I knew before we ever got to the house that we’d be buying it, simply because of the neighborhood. It was NICE. The kind where people spend a lot of money on good quality furniture. The set is really heavy and solid and will be PERFECT for Katie’s room. It’s a sleigh bed (I’ve always loved those, but never had one!), a large dresser, and a highboy.

The other news of the day is that we went to the Foundry in search of pants for Sam, who has apparently had a huge growth spurt since ALL of his pants are humorously too short and just scream DORK. James never finds those things humorous though. ;-) We only found one pair of slacks, but it’s better than nothing.

The kids had play practice that night, then we headed home.

On Wednesday I managed to get the kids schooled, get caught up on ALL of the laundry and ironing (there was a BUNCH), make some Holiday Cream Cheese Bars (“they look so much cuter in the picture!”), a double batch of mint chocolate chunk cookies, and some nacho dip (that I later scorched while reheating). It was time for our church Christmas party!

The kids put on a nice little play—a living nativity sort of thing. All of the girls were dressed up as angels (which isn’t exactly biblical, but they can’t very well be wise men—ha!) and did Silent Night in sign language. Katie sang What Child is This while Joe played the guitar. Sam was Joseph. He behaved. ~whew~ :-)




After the service we went to the back and filled up on TONS of great little finger foods and desserts. Then we played Dirty Santa or Hallelujah Hand Over, depending on who you ask. Ha! When it’s your turn you can either take a gift from the pile, or steal something that somebody else already opened. But once an item has been stolen three times it’s “dead” and can’t be taken anymore. It was fun. Until Kody stole my knife. Ha! I was thrilled to have gotten something so practical, especially during this phase of our lives! But he took it, the little creep. ;-) So I got to choose a new gift and, lo and behold, it was another knife! HA! Kody stole that one, too. Jerk. HA! (Somebody had stolen the first one from him, so he took my second one.) It all ended well though because Joe’s turn came and he stole the knife from Kody. :-) Some other creep stole my flashlights after that. I finally ended up with a pack of Bendaroos—which gave me inspiration for my Band Meeting two days later.

Thursday I cleaned house, schooled kids, worked on ABM service stuff, and actually made a home cooked dinner (so rare!) of Chicken Parmesan. Then James came home and cut down a scraggly tree from the side of the hill, made a tree stand for it, and set it up in the living room. Katie strung a whole foot and a half of popcorn before giving out (ha!) and Sam made a great paper chain for it—though toward the end he got tired of linking the pieces of construction paper and just started taping the strips end to end. Add some lights, candy canes, candy CORN and who knows what else (whatever they could find!) and it made for the most hilarious Christmas tree ever! I thought it was sooooooo cute, but James was all weird about it and said I’m not allowed to post pictures of it. What a scrooge. Ha!

Friday was a busy, busy day, ending in our very first Youth Band Meeting. The whole crowd showed up: Laura, Kody, Katie, Michael, Dalton… and then SIX—count ‘em—SIX Dudley boys. ~whew~ Talk about a handful! Ha! I was soooooo excited that they all came. It is difficult to maintain order all the time with all those boys and though I try pretend like I’m in control of things (ha!) on the inside I couldn’t help but think about when I was their age. Jon & Johnny and all of their shenanigans and goofing off and constant talking and making a joke out of everything would finally push our teacher or youth leader—always a woman—to the limit and I recall more than one occasion when they (at least two different ladies come to mind) would burst into tears of frustration or throw their notes into the air and let them scatter across the room in surrender. HA! I loved being a teenager and now I love being old enough to have a chance to work with teenagers. It’s just so much fun. :-) Anyway, I feel like our band meeting went very, very well, all things considered. I started by having everybody use Benderoos to fashion the likeness of some special Christmas gift they received sometime in their life. Then we went around the circle and shared what we had made and why.




Joshua didn't even know what his creation represented, so don't ask. Ha!

Then we talked about the greatest gift we could ever receive, the obvious “for God so loved… HE GAVE.” We read from 1 Corinthians about all of the people who will NOT inherit the kingdom of God (adulterers, fornicators, liars, thieves, idolaters, etc.), then Paul said, “and such were some of you, but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified…” Those evil, horrible people are the ones that God saved and transformed into pure, holy, sanctified Church of God members. “For when we were yet sinners… Christ died for us.” Then I passed out little gifts addressed to each of them with little cards inserted that said, “For the wages of sin is death, but THE GIFT OF GOD…” I really felt the Lord there during the devotion and I’m pretty sure I felt some conviction at work. I’m so thankful.

When we were finished with our devotional we broke out the chips, pop, and cookies. We just hung out for a little while, then I split them into two teams and we played some Christmas trivia for a little while. After that we played a game I remember playing when I was a teenager. We all sat in a circle around the table and took turns rolling a die, then quickly passing it to the next person. If someone rolled a six they had to jump up and run to the end of the table, put on a hat, scarf, and gloves, open a Hershey bar (a difficult task while wearing gloves), cut it with a plastic knife and take a bite of it with the fork. While they are endeavoring to do all of that, the die is continuously being passed around the table and if somebody else rolls a six, the first guy sits down and the new guy that rolled six has to start putting on all the stuff and working toward a bite of the chocolate bar. It was great to watch.


And we have a winner!



We had lots of fun. Well, I did. I hope the kids did, too! :-) I’m so excited about having our very first band meeting and I’m already looking forward to the next one. I will love it extra once our house is finished and we can start having our band meetings there. Oh, happy day. :-)

While we were having band meeting, James had our three kids and Madison at the house. Brother Will and Sister Kristal were out doing some shopping and Katie was soooooooooooo excited about being able to have Madison over to hang out for a while. When band meeting was over I took Dalton back with me to hang out at our house until their parents were ready to come pick them up. I’d told Sister Kristal to take their time and stay out as late as they wanted—our kids have had very few opportunities to just hang out and have fun together. I’m so glad it worked out the way it did! When Dalton and I got home everybody else—including James—was playing “Monstrosity Hide & Seek.” HA! Even without any furniture to hide behind or under, the house is so big that it’s a terrific place to play Hide & Seek. We joined in and played for a while, then the kids played football until Dalton and Madison had to go home. It was so much fun.

Saturday was a grand and glorious day. We had picked up a rental truck and met at the storage unit with Brother Ridlespurge, Kody and Michael (who had come with another trailer) and the four Dudley boys (one of the Dudley cousins is living with the rest of them right now) and loaded up a-a-a-a-a-all of our stuff to move up to the Monstrosity! :-) Wa-Hoo!!! It took two or three hours (including James & Brother Ridlespurge taking one full load on the trailer and unloading at the house, then coming back) to get everything all loaded up. The second trailer load, along with the moving truck, the back of Brother Powell’s truck, and the back of the van were all packed to the brim by about noon. The Dudley boys had to get back to work, so the rest of us drove the four vehicles up to the Monstrosity and spent the rest of the afternoon unloading everything into the two car garage. It’s amazing how EXCITING it was to move all of our stuff… into the garage! HA! It just feels so good to get it out of storage (and stop paying to keep it there!) and have it in our very own home, even if it is just in the garage. It just felt so, so, so good and even relieving somehow. It’s one more step closer to getting moved in to our very own place again. We’ve been trying to get moved to Alabama for almost a year and a half now and I’m so tired of “still moving.” It feels so good to actually OWN a home and actually have our STUFF there, even if we’re still a long, long way from being ready to move in. We’re closer now than we’ve ever been before and that is sooooo exciting! It just almost makes me feel all giddy.

It was a great day for me because we got all of my stuff moved to my house. It was a great day for Sam because he got to play with the Dudley boys all morning. It was one form of roughhousing to another. Sam was in the box and the boys would knock it one way, then lift it back up and throw it the other way--Sam loving every bit of it.


Let's see, looks like Thomas has got Sam's wrists and ankles bound with packing tape in this one...
The best part of the day was when we had everything all loaded up and were about to haul everything to the Monstrosity. We started counting heads and came up one short. Sam. Where's Sam? Sa-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-am!!! We looked for a minute or two and finally a box on the trailer started jiggling. The Dudley boys had packed Sam up in it, loaded it onto the trailer (with Brother Ridlespurge's help, though he was oblivious to the contents!) and packed several things in behind it. And Sam was just as still and quiet as could be the whole time! HA! Here he is being unpacked and lifted to freedom once more.



After getting everything all unloaded we showed the Ridlespurges our half-way remodeled master bathroom and they were courteous enough to act impressed. Ha! I’m so anxious to get a mirror up in there and finish up on the cabinet doors and drawers and the few other odds and ends in there. It’s going to be GREAT to have a nice, neat, fresh, clean COMPLETED room—especially a bathroom.

That night we watched old Christmas shows on the laptop—Andy Griffith, I Love Lucy, and Honeymooners Christmas episodes. Our kids love those and it was a nice way to unwind after a long day of heavy lifting. I’m so, so, so thankful for the help of good church folks on days like today. We had been putting this off for a long time because things have been so busy and we finally just made it happen. I’m so glad we did.

Sunday morning we went to service in Bessemer, then lunch, then shopping for Dirty Santa, Round 2. ;-) They play the same game in Canaan and we were scheduled to visit that church and join them for their Christmas banquet. We had a nice little abbreviated service and James preached a mini-Christmas message. There was a good spirit there. Afterward we all headed downstairs and enjoyed some good, southern cookin’. There was ham and chicken and all manner of fixin’s, along with plenty of dessert. James tried something that had coconut on top and later learned that it was a buttermilk pie. We’d never heard of such a thing (must be a southern thing!) and he never would have tried it had he known what it was, but he loved it. We had to sit at a table up at the front, away from everybody else. That was weird. James says it’s because they are of the old fashioned mindset to show lots of honor and respect to leadership in the Church. It just makes me feel like a freak. HA! As soon as we were done eating we migrated to the tables where everybody else was sitting.

The Hallelujah Hand Over turned out well for us. I didn’t get a knife, but Joe did—again! He’s just rackin’ up on ‘em! Makes a mother proud. :-) James got some little candle thing (ha!), I made out with a nice, soft plaid (I love plaid) throw blanket, Katie got a black photo frame that will actually look nice in her Coca-Cola room, and Sam walked away with a wallet—that received a $10 donation by the end of the night! Brother Flippo (the elder) said it was sad to have a wallet with no money, so he filled it up. Then he said it was unfair for Katie and Joe, so they each got $10 as well! I tried to talk him out of it, but there’s no talking to old people who are bent on spoiling kids. Ha! We had a good time and were thankful to be able to join them. James had been to Canaan before, but it was a first for the kids and me. They gave us a beautiful fruit basket and lots of candy and popcorn and other goodies. They were so, so generous. What a blessing!!
More next time. :-)

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. :-)