Thar she goes...

Having known my husband for 18 years...
Having spent countless hours there...
The memories...
The holidays...
The Sunday dinners...

I didn't feel a bit bad to see it hauled off down the road...




The other half leaves first thing in the morning.

And yes... in case you are wondering... they gave it away. Free house. All the new owner had to do was pay to move it. It's up the road a mile to the south. We can wave to it every time we drive past on our way to town.


The house was worth nothing, but the memories are priceless...

An unexpected visitor... and all that is left to do...

Yesterday afternoon, I received a phone call from according to Caller ID, my brother, and according to the voice on the other end, my niece who was here visiting from Missouri. I didn't even know she was in town! Nobody tells me anything. HA! But, I forgave her when she asked if she and her little girls could come visit me. Absolutely!

Now I hate to burst all your bubbles, but my family has cornered the market on cute little kids. I know you are all thinking, yeah right, whatever, have you seen MY kids? Seriously... my little great nieces and nephews cannot even be measured on a cute-o-meter.

Unfortunately... the middle child was in control of the camera and she accidentally turned the dial to some funky setting, so the pictures she took just didn't turn out perfect, and no amount of photoshopping could improve them. But... I still think you get the idea on just how cute they are.

If only I had video of Abbi (above) dancing in the hallway to the "Hairspray" CD, which was truly a classic...
Or of them running around the house yelling "Chase the cat! Chase the cat!" while the cat ran for her life giving me the evil stinkeye. I considered it payback for refusing to come out from under the porch last weekend!

It's just too bad that these little girls live so far away. We can only hope that someday when their daddy is done with school, they return back to the land of never ending snowdrifts and snowstorms so that we can continue to admire their cuteness.

Thanks for stopping by, Abbi and Loryn and Becca! It was a fun visit!

As far as "all that is left to do...", that happens to be referring to the house next door. Surprised? Well, guess what? It's almost done! WOOHOO! The inside anyway...

This past week they finished up the focal point eye sore, I mean, rock wall, in the living room. They (the father in law anyway, the mother in law would smite me to my death if I included her in this part of they statement) love it and that's all that matters. It looks nice enough, but "rustic" is not my style, and certainly not something I would want in my house. My cute husband built these shadow boxes for them. I just like the fact that it breaks up that rock wall a little bit. Then they framed in and installed the fireplace. Unfortunately, the fireplace installer did a sub par job and my father in law had to fix it, which required someone crawling in and under the fireplace. The boy tried, but he didn't know what he was doing once he got there.

If there is one thing we have learned in this whole house building experience, it has to be that sometimes using the cheapest guy is not always the best idea, and you can't trust the contractor friends word when he says "he's the best, you won't regret it!" Especially if you want it done right! Uh, yeah, whatever!
So the husband squeezed in... just barely. You can't see him, but trust me, he's under there! Right here....

I'm just impressed he could squeeze in there between those boards... note... I did not try for fear of being stuck in there for the rest of my existence. The boy enjoyed it a little too much and we threatened to nail the wall up around him and leave him there forever... just so I wouldn't have to hear him sing the Alvin and the chipmunks version of "Japanese Banana" ever again!

We came ------> this <------ close to making it come true!

Today, they are rocking this wall to match that other wall (minus the shadow boxes) and tiling the hearth. Once it is complete, the only last thing to do is carpet and the interior will be 99.9% finished.

There is still much to do outside before they can move in, however, the most important thing being: the old worn out barely standing leaky roofed trailer house has to vacate the property (it's going down the street a mile ... we hope it makes it that far).

The list of things to do to make this happen is long, and gets longer by the day.

It's so long, in fact, it makes my head spin just thinking about it. The only thing I have to look forward to is June 1st... that is the day my father in law has set as the "no later than" date for 100% completely done with this project, and sadly, they don't plan to move in until it is 150% finished, which also means that June 1st is quite an optimistic date. >deep breath<

It's a good thing my husband has a day job that requires him to wear a tie so I can at least say hello as he walks into to take it off and change into his grubbies. On a good day, we even get to set him a place for dinner.

It's going to be a busy six weeks...

Went for a walk today...

Today was a beautiful day, so we ventured out to visit the progress on the house next door. My mother in law was itching for pictures anyway, so I needed to get that done.

The master bathroom vanity... I'm standing in the shower, and if you look behind the boy there, you will be able to see the kitchen. We tease my mother in law that she can shower and cook something at the same time... since she is notorious for cooking from the other room anyway.

The beautiful shower and tub area... dh's cousin Jake did the tile work and he did a beautiful job! The accent tile matches the floor in the kitchen.

The kitchen... 20' of cabinets along the wall, an 8' island... double ovens...

plus the other wall where the fridge will live... she will never lack for cabinet space. Not to mention, the doorless doorway in the top picture, that's to a huge 8x10 pantry! The door in the bottom is to the garage, and the hallway leading to the laundryroom.

AND the laundry room... all it needs is the pedestals for the front loading washer and dryer!

On the way home, the girls walked through the yard instead of around... it's hard to keep your footing out there!

Quite possibly the only good...

The only good things besides getting the inlaws one step closer to living in their dream house...

Painting each other.... like grandma's back side ...
Permanent 13 year old handprints... And this... was purely and accident... really... he was just... there... and the roller slipped... I swear... I would never intentionally paint a skunk stripe on my favorite sons head... really...

A little bit of this, and a little bit of that...

Without anything profound to blog about, instead, I am stuck blogging mindlessly today. So here goes!


The fish that my neighbor gave me died within 24 hours. We were all sad, especially Monkey girl who had named the biggest one Gregory. I had to pick up a new heater for the tank, so while in the pet department, GM and I also picked up a couple of fish. Nothing exciting, just an algae eater and some funky little shrimp.

The cat found them all rather boring as did GM. Nothing like looking across the room at the fish tank to see... nothing.

Well, Tuesday, it was colder than an old whores heart here, just above 20 below zero... not too bad really. Needless to say, school was cancelled. So we used the time after GM came home from work to go to the pet store and pick up a couple more fish. A severe shortage of calico nightmares around here found us coming home with this snazzy little calico goldfish the kids promptly named Googles... after the search engine and his oogly googly eyes. It's quite an entertaining little creature that swims for it's life pretty much non stop, because when it stops, it floats to the top of the tank. I don't know how it stays so fat.

We also got a silver molly named Ice and a red molly that Ishee named... ajacajacal. No B's... apparently I say it just as wrong as I spell it. Duly noted!

But that was not all. GM decided we also needed a bigger fish tank in which to display our new pets. Not to mention that if we want MORE fish, we would need a bigger tank anyhow. He's always had a secret thing for fish, as have I, so I didn't argue when he picked out a nice bowfront 28 gallon fish tank. I spent a good hour yesterday moving the other fish tank onto the kitchen counter and setting up the new tank in it's place in the living room which just annoys the whale out of the cat as she can't see the fish from the floor and her mean owner refuses to let her climb on the kitchen counter. Poor puddy pat.


In other news... my inlaws have reached a point in their house when all that is left is inside finish work! Yippee kie aye! Finish work is to be done by all of us. Yippee kie aye!

They have a giant, loud, and very warm heater in their house, since the furnace is not actually installed, and in case you already forgot, it has been in the below zero digits around here. It is well insulated, though and this large heater keeps it nice and warm.




(looking in to the master bathroom/closet from the bedroom)
The tub has been installed and they hired GM's cousin Jake to come and do the tile in the showers, so that's one less thing we have to help with. They are however, tiling the floors of all three bathrooms and roughly 800 square feet in the kitchen/laundry area, plus the backsplash.

The cabinet maker has yet to show his face and my inlaws seem confident that despite the miles of cabinets they will require in their kitchen, he can have them built in a few short days. I keep telling them they know more than one cabinet maker (including my most excellent cabinet maker brother in law), but they have confidence in this guy they talked to on the phone one day.

Thus, we are left with only two things to do... work on the siding outside (it's too cold) and ... paint. And guess who they hired and are paying with very much un-needed experience? Me.


Turns out I'm the ONLY person in the family that has held a real paint roller in my hands.
My father in law bought $1500 worth of cream colored paint (to be painted on every wall and ceiling throughout, including the garage), and a boat load of rollers... one for each of us, including four year old niece girl next door.

I just hope we don't kill each other before this whole process is completed and I hope it doesn't take too long as I do have a life that does not include their house... hard to believe, isn't it?


The week also includes lunch at the Olive Garden, really bad Wii bowling scores, a not so great parent teacher conference visit and a much better than last time parent teacher conference visit. But that's another post for another day. Peace out, people!