It's a nice day outside today: fifty degrees and sunny.

Mucked out the stable for a total of three wheelbarrows full of manure. There is probably just as much scattered throughout the calves little pasture, waiting to be picked up. Maybe I can pay the kids to do it this afternoon. I also added a wheelbarrow full of rabbit poo and leaves to the growing compost pile. I am letting the layers of chicken poop and straw build up in the coop, but should probably clean that out, too, before it gets too deep.

There's nothing like having your own, natural fertilizer factory. I foresee some happy vegetable plants somewhere in the future.

Grace, More Drywall Talk, and That Thing I've Wanted For Years

It comes in many forms, but the definition is the same in all instances. Grace... Unmerited favor. Being smiled upon even when. Christians, myself included, most often only see grace in big examples, like Christ on the cross, dying for the forgiveness of our sins. It has shown up in other major ways in my life. Like when I was going to marry that guy. All my reasons and arguments were piled high, sewn together with a thin thread of sheer determination, and in one moment, it felt like God pulled the thread and everything fell apart. Or when Chris and I wanted to buy that one house, and it fell through. At the time, it feels painful, not having things work out the way you wanted them to, but looking back, you can see the mess you almost had walked into, and are oh, so thankful.

With such massive instances of grace, it is easy to overlook the smaller ones. Chris bringing coffee to me in the mornings when I wake up growly and grumpy...

Grace even shows up when you are building a house. We could have had the drywall done by now, you know. If only Chris had hired someone to do it, we would be happily working away on paint and flooring. But he didn't. He kept balking, and all the while, I was getting a little put out, wondering if I should go behind his back and hire someone myself.

Then, as you know, cold weather hit, and, as we have no HVAC in the house yet, we realized that finishing drywall in cold weather was tricky. We could heat the place room by room just long enough for the mud to dry. But then our neighbor came to us with the story of another guy that has been building a house over the past few years just like we have. The fluctuation in temperature over the seasons has caused every single joint to crack, and now he has a big mess on his hands. And so there is one more mistake grace saved us from making.

In the meantime, Chris, Terry, and I are chipping away at the un-hung stacks of drywall. Saturday, after Terry helped Chris hang the top part of the vaulted ceiling upstairs, Chris and I worked on the funky, angled pieces and got one side of it done. A few more weekends, and we should have it all knocked out.

Chris has been talking to few more finishers, wondering if we could work out a deal with someone come spring to help with the finishing. Maybe we could could hire a pro to tackle the major parts, and he would cut a break if we did the mudding of the screws and less-significant tight spots. I kind of like that idea. That would give me a good excuse to buy something I've wanted since the first time I walked onto a construction site: a pair of drywall stilts.

Finley

"Do you really want to wear your hair that?" I asked when she emerged from her room on picture re-take day. Her hair was normal in the first photo she had taken at school, but somehow she managed to be bug-eyed, like she was trying to see if her eyes would fall out if she just opened her eyelids wide enough. But this day, she opted for the side-of-the-head ponytail. "I like it this way," she said. And so I let it go, wondering if she will like this photo six years from now.

Of course, most days, she doesn't want even want to brush her hair. "Brush you hair, Finley," I will order her when I see the tangled mess. "Why?" she asks. "So that you will look nice," I say. "Why do I need to look nice?" she asks. Usually I only answer that question in my head. So that no one will think I'm a negligent mother. This is where I finally understand my mother when she would exclaim to me, "People will think you're an orphan!" But, really, what does it matter? I make her brush it anyway.

Some days Most days, I am amazed at who Finley is turning out to be. It's those moments when they don't know you are watching, and you get to see who your kids really are without parental interference...

A few weeks ago, we had a little girl visit. It was Kinzee's first time at our place. She was a first-grader, younger than Joe, but Finley was excited as ever to have a friend to play with. Finley decided to give her the tour of the farm, and all the kids took off running. They hit the play-set first, swinging and climbing for just a moment. Then Finley wanted to show her the berry patch, and off they all ran again. Next came the big pond. The "nature club" (a play area under some trees) was next, but by this time, Zivah was tired and couldn't keep up. Halfway to the nature club (about 50 yards or so), she just stopped while the rest of the kids ran on to the club.

I watched for a minute to see what would happen. I was far enough away that I couldn't hear her, but I could tell that Z was probably crying, so I started walking over. Finley, upon arriving at the club, looked around and noticed that Z wasn't there. She finally spotted Z, then rallied Kinzee and Joe, "Come on!" she yelled, "We need to see what's wrong with Z!" And she took off running back up through the pasture. Upon inquiry, Z sobbed that she had been left behind, and then Finley put her arm around Z and they all walked down to the nature club together.

Know what else makes my heart swell? She wants a truck when she grows up, and she wants a dirt-road driveway (not even gravel) so that the mud will kick up onto the truck to get it dirty. She says trucks looks cooler that way.

[For a glimpse at one of her riding lessons, click here.]

More drywall...

I thought putting up insulation would be the most miserable thing I would do at this stage of the game, but I was wrong.

Chris finished all but two sheets of drywall on the main floor of the house over the Thanksgiving break. Our neighbor, Terry had helped hang all the ceiling and upper walls, then took a well deserved break from us to hunt and spend time with his family. All that is left downstairs is covered up by drywall that needs to go upstairs.

While Chris worked on drywall, I worked on framing out another cubby area upstairs and building temporary doors for the crawl spaces under the roof in an attempt to keep the cold wind from blowing in and sucking out all the heat. When that was finished, we decided to start on the drywall upstairs.

We figured we'd better work on some of the smaller, less convenient areas that Terry would probably not like to work in, so we slapped some drywall up in "the secret passage," then moved on to the cubby in Z's room. I'll tell you what: trying to hang drywall over your head on an over-insulated slant is enough to make a saint grumpy. Or so I tell myself.

I will spare you the details. I don't want to work myself into a bad mood remembering. I will just show you a picture of my finger with the scuffs and small, metal splinters it suffered from the day's work. I know it doesn't look all that bad, but nothing makes you want to cuss more than a drill slipping off a screw and slamming into your finger. I take that back. There are things. But it didn't feel like it at the time.

In the end, we got it finished.

The upstairs is going to take a lot longer with all its crazy corners and angles. I am just daydreaming about the time when the mud and paint is finished and I can start on flooring and trim work. That will be fun.

You know your son loves you when...

...he doesn't want you to die.

translation: Tornadoes. I want to make them go away. Tornadoes, go away. I love my home. I don't want my mom to die.

Thunderstorms are scary. I hope one does not attack my mom. Tornadoes are scary to me. It can tear houses apart. I do not want my mom to get smashed by a tornado.

Hurricanes are the most deadliest storms in the world. My mom is special to me. I do not want her to die in a hurricane. Hurricanes are scary.

















There were pages about floods and blizzards, too, but apparently, Joe's not worried about me dying in one of those.

I Think We're Getting Somewhere

 

Friday morning, in spite of the fact that all the insulation still isn't finished and there are several random things we need to do before drywall can go up in certain areas, we had the drywall delivered.

Carrying the 12 foot sheets upstairs was going to cost extra, and true to form, Chris didn't want to pay someone to do what he could do himself. But somehow, I managed to convince him to have the guys carry up at least half of what we needed.

Friday afternoon, our neighbor, Terry told Chris he was ready to get rolling on the drywall. He slapped together the little drywall lift he bought from Northern Tool, and they worked into the night getting the ceiling up in the living room.

We still hadn't decided on someone to finish the drywall, so Chris called yet another guy recommended to us by the drywall suppliers. He came out Saturday to look things over. Chris asked him to give a quote for hanging the upstairs and finishing the whole house, and he came back with a price that higher than two different Hispanic guys gave us for hanging and finishing the whole house.
So Chris asked him to give us another quote just for finishing.

I keep thinking about the Little Red Hen. I know the story of the Little Red Hen is a story about not being able to get help, but I think I'm going to rewrite it. In my version, the Little Red Hen will never be happy with either 1. they way other people will do the job that needs to be done or 2. how much it will cost Little Red Hen. Will Little Red Hen learn to let go and let others? Or, in a fatalistic end to the story, will Little Red Hen (or Rooster) pick up a mud knife and pan? We shall see.

In the mean time, Chris and Terry got a lot done this weekend...

It's beginning to look like our goal of a May/June move in date is really feasible!

Workin' Hard

Just looking at it makes me itch.

We worked hard last week putting up insulation. It took about four days with the help of my mom and brother to get all the exterior walls and ceilings insulated. I'm sure a profession crew could have finished all of it in half the time (or less). But, perfectionist that I am, it took us a little longer, and we probably did a better job.

We still need to insulate the floor and some of the interior walls for sound dampening, but I couldn't handle another day of itching.

In the mean time, I've been getting my eBay store up and running again to bring in some 'extra' money. By the end of this week, I'll probably be so sick of eBay that I'll be happy to dive back into the insulation.

In other news, Chris decided that, since our neighbor offered to help, he will hang the drywall himself. I am hoping we will still find someone to finish it for us.

For kicks, I looked up how much we've spent on the house so far. I really have no idea how much it would have cost us to get to this point if we had hired out the work, but I'm convinced we've saved a butt load. (Note: I just learned that a butt is an actual unit of measurement equivalent to 2 hogsheads or 126 gallons.)

Pet Drama

Not long after we moved to The Funny Farm, I decided we needed a cat. I checked craigslist, found a listing for free kittens, and the kids and I went to pick one up. And so entered into our lives, Dragon, the coolest cat I've ever known.

One of the reasons I've liked him so much is that he's pretty laid back, as you can tell from the pictures above. The kids held him a lot when he was little, and he never really got upset or lashed out at them. In spite of his laid-back personality, he had an adventurous side, roaming all over (and outside) our property hunting for rabbits and other game.

It wasn't unusual for us not to see him for a day or two, but he always showed back up, none the worse for the wear.

This Sunday morning, however, I realized I hadn't seen Dragon in quite a few days. The last anyone had seen him was Thursday morning, throwing up on the hood of our truck. I started to worry.

Chris took the kids for a walk around the property, looking for him. More times than not, as we walk, we will start to hear some meows coming from the woods, and another minute or two Max or Dragon will appear to finish the walk with us. But this time, no Dragon. The possible scenarios started filling our minds. If he was really sick, he could have just gone off to die somewhere. He could have wandered up to the road and gotten hit by a car. A bobcat or fox might have killed him. We kept worrying. The kids and I prayed for Dragon before we went to bed that night.

It all reminded me of a story from my childhood about our dog named Mugsy. Not remembering it very well, I asked my mom about it. Here is her version of what happened:

"On a Sunday night, on our way to church we saw him lying beside the road on 108th Street. Wes (my dad) got out and looked at him and called the humane society to come get him. Mark was terribly distraught. When we came home from church he was gone. Mark prayed faithfully for him, and it was Mark who said he thought he heard Mugsy outside one night. I tried to remind him about what we had seen on Sunday night, etc. etc. but he wouldn't be dissuaded and went to look. Sure enough..... a resurrection!  And I think a strengthening of a boy's faith. I think God does things like that to build a child faith, don't you?"

 

Monday came. We still hadn't seen Dragon. There wasn't even any evidence that he was sneaking back home at night, as no extra cat food was being eaten. Monday evening at supper, Joe prayed for Dragon again.

Tuesday morning, Dragon had been missing for over four days. I went to let the chickens out and realized another duck was missing. It seemed all too likely that some predator had finally gotten him.

I wandered toward the shop, completely disheartened. Then all of a sudden, I heard an insistent meowing, and I looked up to see Dragon, trotting up the driveway with a field mouse in his jaws.

I told the kids the good news as I drove them home from school. "God must have gotten my message," said Joe.

The Kids

We've got a frost on the ground this morning, and though there is still some work to be done in the house before we start on the insulation, I am going to use the kids as an excuse to stay inside until it warms up a bit out there.

Last week the kids were on fall break, so we took a trip to the zoo. Here is a picture of Z next to a kangaroo:

Zivah is still as sweet as ever. She is really enjoying kindergarten, and wakes up every morning with a smile on her face. Okay, so that's not entirely accurate. Sometimes, when I am recalling her from somewhere deep in La-La Land, her eyes open with a "where am I now" look, but as soon as her brain kicks into consciousness, the daze turns into joyful anticipation.

The other day, Chris was sitting (slouching) on the couch, when Zivah decided to run over to give him a hug. She pulled up short before reaching him, however, and said, giggling, "I thought I was going to punch you in the balls!" It was hard to tell whether she was taken by sudden consideration or temptation.

There must be something about second grade that turns kids into grumpy, little, monsters in the morning. Finley was pretty hard to deal with in the mornings in grades two and three. Thankfully, she is doing better this year, since Joe is taking his turn at being difficult. He gets upset if I try to help him, and he gets upset if I try to leave him alone to do things in his own time. What really gets me is that his grouchy mood starts to lift about halfway through the car ride to school.

In spite of the fits he's been giving me, I have to admit the kid is smart. Take the other day for example. I don't remember what was happening, but Joe wasn't exactly being a model son. I asked him to come to me so we could have a chat. "No," he told me defiantly. I could feel that last straw breaking. "Don't tell me 'no'," I said. "Do you want a spank?" At which point he burst out laughing. Instantly realizing my semantical error, I had to laugh, too. The little punk...

At least he is holding onto some innocence. He asked us the other day what the "s" word was. "What do you think it is?" we returned. "Either 'stupid' or 'shut up'," he guessed.

I have to admire Joe's determination and focus. The kids have a little area they call "The Nature Club." On nice days, they spend time sweeping the rocks clear of leaves and dirt and picking up sticks. They decided that a nearly-dead cedar tree had to go, so they got a little (dull) hatchet from the shop and Joe set to work. I took a few hours over a period of two days, but he did it. He chopped down the 2-3" diameter scrub tree, then proudly dragged it up to the house to show me.

It appears some of the talks I've had with Finley are starting to pay off. We've discussed how owning animals (horses in particular) can be a lot of work, and that we need to know that she will be willing to do the work necessary if she is to own one. Yesterday, Finley and Joe took it upon themselves to muck out the stable where the calves sleep at night.

It is pretty obvious Finley's desire for a horse is not waning. She wants to start accumulating the things she'll need for a horse, so bought a grooming brush last week. Since then, she has groomed whatever animal she can get her hands on: one neighbor's donkeys, another neighbor's horses, and our calves. Here is pic from her lesson last week, where the focus was on communication with the horse from the ground.

I could ramble on about how Joe started selling his toys to his sisters and I had to step in so he wouldn't rip them off, or how Finley offered to pay for Joe's pack of gum, or how Z remembers to pray for Joe whenever he's hurt, but I'd better lay off for now and get to work.

Drywall Estimates

Estimate #1:

Guy #1 has been contracted to do the drywall work on some of the jobs where Chris has been working. He lives in Kentucky, but his crews live in Nashville. He has one crew that hangs the drywall, and another that finishes. He says he is picky and likes to shine a light down the walls to see how smooth the work is.

A white man in his forties, sporting a nice gut and mustache, he shows up in his nice, full-size truck, and proceeds to the house with tape measure and clip board in hand.

Half an hour later, he tells Chris he will call in a day or two with the estimate.

Estimate #2:

I found Guy #2 in the telephone listings online. He and his crew are currently working on a subdivision being built in Columbia.

A Hispanic man in his forties or fifties, sporting a modest gut and nice mustache, he pulls up in a 20 year old minivan. He proceeds to the house empty-handed. Chris offers him a tape measure. "I don't need it," he says. "Do you have a piece of paper?" Looking at the sheets of subfloor, he starts counting to himself in Spanish.

Five minutes later, he has written a materials list on the piece of paper Chris gave him.

Estimate #1: about 270 sheets of drywall, $9500 total.
Estimate #2: about 200 sheets of drywall, we buy material, he charges $16/sheet, total cost about $6500.

Chris and I hadn't bothered to figure up how much drywall it would take, and we were a bit shocked by the difference in estimates. We decided we would each do our own estimate to see who we thought was most accurate. Chris used his own method of measuring and counting, while I took my print, calculated the square footage of the walls and ceilings and divided it by the square footage of a sheet of drywall. What did we each come up with? About 200 sheets.

Who would you hire?

Burn Out

We have started year four of our house building project, and I think Chris and I are starting to suffer from burn-out.

Several months ago, I had decided that I would like to hire out the drywall work. After having seen Chris's drywall work (I have picture proof of the excessive sanding he has to do for his way of mudding the walls), it seemed this would be a wise thing to do. Besides, if we were close enough to finishing the house to be putting up drywall, it would be extra painful to have the drywall take forever. "It would cost a lot of money," Chris argued, "and I can do it myself." "I don't care," I argued back. "I am done with the goal of building debt-free, and think a small loan would be a small price to pay for the benefit of finally getting to move out of our trailer into the house. Let's at least get an estimate." He agreed.

A few weeks ago, I noticed a shift. Chris wanted to figure out the cost of everything from insulation to HVAC to carpet to see just how much of a loan we would need to finish the house. I asked him about it one afternoon. He said one Saturday morning , he was making yet another Home Depot run when he drove past a group of people in a park. It hit him that, if it wasn't for the house, he could be spending some real time with the family. If we got to the point of moving in, he didn't want a half-dozen major projects still hanging over his head. He wanted to be done and have the freedom of getting to shoot BB guns with the kids all day or something if he wanted.

So we have gotten estimates for insulation and drywall, still trying to be mindful of the financial cost while weighing in the cost of time and effort.

Some days, it seems like a move-in date could be near, and other days, such as the day and a half spent wrestling with the pipes leading into the septic tank, the road seems unbearably long.

Green Light Means Go

We just passed our electrical rough-in and are officially cleared for insulation and drywall.

Woo-hoo!!!

2013 Chapel Hill Homecoming Parade

Today was the homecoming parade in Chapel Hill. 

The kindergartners always have (in my opinion) the coolest floats. This year was a pirate theme.

 Second grade:

And 4th grade:

 (Not pictured are all the other floats that my kids weren't on. Sorry.)

It's (Another) Busy Week

It's Homecoming week in Chapel Hill again, so things are a little busy around here. The kids have been dressing up nearly every day. The first day was Duck Dynasty day, and since we do not own and DD paraphernalia, only Finley was able to pull some camouflage accessories together to participate. Tuesday was Duct Tape day. I went overboard last year with vests and ties and shoes and hats. Knowing there was no way I could top last year's outfit for three kids, I lowered their expectations and we managed to come up with some fun duct tape things to wear to school.

 Finley hadn't slept well, and was a bit mopey in the morning, even donning her duct tape hat.

 In between school outfits, helping with the 4th grade homecoming float, and laundry, I've been working on the electrical in the house. If it weren't for these push-in wire connectors, I am sure I would be cussing and crying and beating my head against the unfinished walls.

 They make wiring up messes like this so much easier, I am overwhelmed with gratitude for whomever invented the gems.

 I also wanted to post a picture of a pumpkin that Zivah drew in school, but it refused to load correctly, and so it will have to wait. My goal, is to have everything ready for a rough-in inspection next week, and so I am going to get back to work instead of fighting with this dad-blamed computer. Until next time...

A Rant on Toy Clutter

Zivah has lost a shoe. How one loses a shoe in a trailer is baffling. Completely baffling. That is, until you wander into the kid section of the trailer and wonder how it doesn't sink into the earth from the sheer amount of toys jammed into that end. But as you dig among the plethora of toys under one bed, it occurs to you that most of the toys are just cheap, lightweight, China toys and so it's obvious why the floor hasn't collapsed.

I satisfied some of my frustration by chucking handfuls of random plastic things into the trash. Yes, it is sickening to think of all that stuff ending up in a landfill, but better there where a pile of dirt and some grass will eventually hide it from my sight than here where it pollutes my soul.

The other thing that completely baffles me as I continue my search for the shoe is the fact that the kids rarely are willing to part with these crappy pieces of plastic. Even if it is just a toy ring that topped a cupcake and is never worn.

What do the kids play with, you ask. Well. I frequently find the tinker toys scattered about. This morning, I found them shoved in between the frame and futon mattress of the bed in Re's room. They also love to play with the tea set and set of 'math cubes' that link together. These are used in the kids' version of Master Chef. The set of 100 linking cubes has slowly dwindled from 100 to 99 to some other number based on the random cubes I find in the dress-up or car or Lego bin or under someone's dresser. Legos are a big hit lately. They all play with their little stuffed hamsters, Joe with the NASCAR cars (while the Cars cars started collecting dust over a year ago), Zivah with one or two stuffed animals, and Finley with her horses.

That leaves at least 75% of their toys that remain untouched for the most part. Perhaps I exaggerate, but it would be a whole lot easier to find that shoe with that 75% gone.

Electrical Rough-In

Over the weekend, in spite of sick kids and a lack of sleep and my own failing immune system, we (mostly) finished up the wiring on the house. Today I called to have the inspector come out. I didn't really expect that he would come out today, but although he has 'a lot of inspections today' he is supposed to be here before lunch. I am nervous.

Some inspectors are known to give you a hard time. However, I have the feeling that it is usually due to the fact that most men have a hard time acknowledging that this particular person has a certain amount of power over them and refuse to be respectful. ("Quien es mas macho?" as Judge Marilyn says.) When I worked in construction, even GCs I was warned were difficult usually ended up being nice and helpful to me because I went out of my way to let them know I wasn't there to be a pain in the ass. All that to say, since I am sure not everything is perfect, I hope he doesn't feel like we're wasting his time. It's good to get on an inspector's good side.

Sloppy map of electrical circuits.

.

Momentum Killers

Tuesday was a really good day. After feeling like I was coming down with a cold over the weekend, I had shored up my immune system with vitamin C, and felt pretty good. After dropping the kids off in the morning, I set to work running electrical lines in the house. By 1 p.m. I had finished a good chunk, and was off to the grocery store before picking the kids up from school. At the rate I was going, I thought I would have all the electrical lines run by the end of the week and be ready to start wiring up the panels.

Then Wednesday hit. Joe was sick and had to stay home from school. A trip to the doctor's office killed most of the day. Wednesday night was interrupted by lots of coughing and high fever. Wednesday, tired mom I was, I  spent the day playing wii sports with my sick son and lounging around, hoping that Friday would look better. Thursday night, Zivah woke up with the same croupy-sounding cough that Joe had. And in the early morning hours, my throat started to protest, my nose offering up extra snot in support of the protest.

Dragging out of bed this morning at 6:30, I hoped that the Benadryl stupor would wear off enough for me to get Finley to school safely. So much for finishing up the electrical this week.

The Campaign Continues

Found some more propaganda this morning.
Finley has yet to actually talk to me about wanting a miniature horse. (Probably because she knows how I hate being hassled.)
Clever, that one. I can feel her strategy working.

Minis Are Fun Palls

When I went to wake Finley up this morning, I found a paper sticking out from her door frame. Written on it was a list of "important facts" that "mom mite like" regarding miniature horses.

 

After perusing her propaganda, I can't say that I am entirely convinced that we should get one, although it's hard to argue against all those hearts and exclamation points.

Checking Things Off the List

It was good to have Chris home for a long weekend of work on the house. Thursday we made a punch list of things we need to get done on the house.

One of the items on the list was installing the permanent stairs. Our friend, Doyle, thankfully came out to help. I am sure the steps wouldn't look as good as they do if Chris and I had been left to our own devices.

 Yesterday, my brothers came out to help. Mike and I worked on framing out the dreaded vaulted ceiling upstairs. True to form, I had been overthinking the angles, and Mike was able to figure out how cut the ceiling joists in just a few minutes. While we worked on the house, my mother (who was trying to get over a cold) and sister-in-law watched all the kids over at my folks house and fixed everybody lunch. They deserve gold stars and cookies.

This is what our punch list looked like at the end of the weekend. Chris used a highlighter to cross things off so we could still read all the things we've gotten accomplished. Sometimes, when the 'to do' list seems overwhelming, it's nice to look at the 'done' list and see that you're actually getting somewhere.

I Am Woman...

Today, I've been working on building headers and framing out the spots where the built-in dressers are going in the kids' rooms.

I was thinking about how much I've learned in this process, and someday, after this house is long finished, it would be fun to keep building things. I have ideas for another chicken coop, among other things, but I also would really like to use what I can do to help other people. Maybe get involved with Habitat for Humanity, I thought, and as I thought it, that memory came back to ruffle my feathers again...

See, I used to work for a guy that had/has his own business in the AV world. There wasn't always work to keep us busy, so we'd do other things. His uncle was very involved in Habitat, and it happened that they were in the middle of a build one of those times we didn't have much to do, so we went to help one day. As I remember it, when we arrived on site, we found the guy in charge of the build, explained to him that we were there to help, and almost immediately, he turned to me and asked if I could go get everybody some drinks. If there was ever a time when I wanted to give someone the birdie, this was probably it. It is true, mind you, that I knew nothing about building houses at the time, and the most helpful thing I really could have done was get refreshments, but he didn't know that. I could have been a highly-skilled carpenter, but all he saw was a little girl and made an assumption.

So as I've been working, I've been daydreaming about pulling up to a Habitat build in the truck some day, and if some guy asked me to get them a drink, I could hand him one from the cooler I brought, and say something like, "There you go. Now, would you like me to build some headers and frame up for the windows going in over there?" with a look that says something else.

The Kids

Well, school is in full swing, complete with daily homework struggles.

I have come to the conclusion that Finley has a built-in resistance to the memorization of math facts. My heart sank when a letter came home the first few days of school from the math teacher, stating that it was very important that the kids know all their math facts and be able to recall them instantly. I am sure that this is due to the pressure teachers are under to make sure that standardized testing scores are good.

Don't get me wrong. As a college graduate that minored in math, I am well aware that the instant recollection of math facts is incredibly useful and makes doing math infinitely easier. But trying to explain that to a nine year old doesn't always work, so sometimes, you have to be sneaky in helping your stubborn kid memorize things instead of shoving the memorization down her throat. I fully believe that if Finley could take her time and do math problems by recalling skip-counting songs, eventually she would remember them (and maybe even enjoy math). But standardized testing has no patience for those sorts of things. So we struggle.

In other news, I noticed a dove out in the yard a week or so ago. I watched it for a minute before I realized something wasn't quite right. It was obviously injured, most likely resulting from a tussle with one of the cats. Chris caught it, and we put it in a cage on the porch. When the kids walked out on the porch for supper a little later, Finley saw it and exclaimed, "Who's this?!" Such a typical response from my math-resistant daughter, instantly recognizing and valuing the little life form. She fed and doted upon it until the next day, when we thought we'd try to release it in a safe location.She was in tears when she saw it wasn't any better and insisted that we try to keep it until it was well. It died that night.

Joe, with whom I had no problems last year, has taken to groaning about his homework and doing what he can to avoid it, including lying. What happened to the kid that would come home and immediately finish his homework so that he could play? Apparently he is more interested in (literally)climbing the walls in training to be a future American Ninja Warrior.

 

Zivah completed her first full week of school last week, everyday telling us, "We got to sleep in school again today!" Rest time is such a novel thing for a kid who hasn't napped since the age of two. She got in trouble one day for not following directions and didn't get a smiley face sticker on her behavior chart. The benefits of being the baby of the family who can slide under the radar and not really do what she's told are slowly being peeled back a bit. Thankfully, she's loves kindergarten, so hopefully I won't have any drama from at least one kid this school year.



Kitchen Lighting: Any Advice?

I've been working out in the house this morning, trying to finish up the reinstallation of the electrical lines... And looking at our lighting plan for the kitchen, have realized that I'm not entirely satisfied that it is a good plan. So I would like some input...

 

This first drawing shows the current plan. Orange dots indicate the lights I am sure about. The three in a row will be pendant or fancy recessed lights over the dining table. The orange light over the sink is (obviously) task lighting for the sink. We are also very sure that we will put under-cabinet lights that light up the counter tops. The blue dot is a potential fan &/or task light, and the green dots are recessed lights... A window over the sink and the sliding glass door provide a lot of light. The corner where the fridge is will probably the darkest part of the room.

 

My worry is that, although I imagine we will mostly use the cabinet and sink lights, those two recessed lights won't be enough if, for whatever reason, I really want to light up the whole room.

Would it be better to install some like this?

Or will I want a couple of lights over the island? The potential  fan might kill task lighting for the island, as the blades might interfere with them, and the idea of using a fan light as a task light sounds silly, so should we just scrap the fan? We could put a couple lights over the island and have them on their own switch. Or would two good lights (or one big light) over the island be enough for the whole kitchen??? We also don't want to spend a lot of money on lighting that we won't use.

I am in the turmoil of indecision, and need to get it figured out soon. hellllllp meeeeee.......

Mid-week Update

It's 7:37 a.m. The kids have been dropped off at school. And here I sit with a cup of coffee on the covered porch while the rain rattles the tin of the roof. So lovely.

This past weekend was a good one. Just after we had gotten the last of the reinforcing joists up Sunday morning, my brother, Mike, and his family showed up to help. He and Chris started adding the blocking between joists while I worked on reinstalling the electrical lines. As a result, we got a whole lot more done that we had thought possible. A few more hours of work on the electrical, and our snafu will officially be behind us.

Monday, Zivah's first day to Kindergarten, I cleaned the trailer like I mad woman. My goal was to get the bathrooms to a state that I wouldn't be terribly embarrassed if anyone needed to use them. I was sure somebody would, because I was having company that afternoon. I was having such a fun visit with my long-time-no-see friend and her significant other, that I had to be reminded to go pick up the kids form school!

Tuesday was a desperately needed trip to the grocery store, and some lawn mowing. In the middle of all this activity, I still manage to do some worthless, self-indulgent things, such as ride up to the mailbox on the riding mower when I could very well wait until I an in the van picking up the kids.

Also, I took the time to record a video of the turtles, then edit it into a nice little movie. It's completely pointless, but strikes me as funny. If it doesn't make you laugh, well, I guess your sense of humor isn't as refined as mine.

Now, I must go. For the past five minutes, I can hear a constant bellowing coming from the stand of trees in the neighbors' pasture. A steer in distress? I must find out.

We Do It Right...

'Cause We Do It Twice.

 

 

I laughed the first time I heard it. A co-worker of mine was joking that it should be the slogan for the company we worked for. These days, it sounds like a good motto for Chris and me, although for us, it could take three or four tries before we get things right.

 

Most of the time, after discovering some little goof, one of us will quote our motto, and we laugh and fix the problem. But when the inspector comes out and points out a major mistake in the framing that both we and another inspector missed- well, it doesn't seem funny at all. Just appropriate.

 

Turns out the lumber we used for our ceiling joists was a little too small. The 2x10s we installed were spanning nearly 18 feet across the living room and kitchen, when they should span only 15 feet. We should have used 2x12s. Oops.

 

The inspector told us not to lose sleep over it. All we needed to do was sister another 2x10 joist to every other joist. I glanced up at the ceiling:

All those electrical lines and light fixtures, the blocking nailed in to stiffen things up, it all needed to come out. All that work...

 

Instead of letting it get us down too much, we took the bull by the horns. Yesterday, I picked up the lumber we needed, and today, we threw ourselves at the task of fixing our mistake. We started off carefully prying up the staples holding the electrical lines down, taking out wires, and hammering out the blocking. (There's nothing better than getting frustration out with a big hammer and some demolition work.) Then, we started in on the joists.

 

First, we would bevel one corner of the board so that it wouldn't catch too much when we flipped the board up into place. When the board was ready, I would apply construction adhesive to the existing joist, then Chris would lift one end of the new joist up onto one wall, then go back for the other end. With each of us on ladders at the ends, we would next flip the board up almost into place, then, using hammers and clamps, force them into place. Clamps every five feet or so ensured that the boards were tight to each other while Chris nailed them together.

 

I have to admit, it went more smoothly than I expected. We got ten joists done today, and have five or six more to do tomorrow. Maybe, just maybe, we'll have the electrical rough-in done by October, like I was hoping, and be ready for insulation. Maybe...

Art Table Clean-Up

Before.

After.

So much better. And it only took me three hours. At this rate, I'll have the trailer all nice and clean in about a month.

Back To School !!! - among other things

With the kids fighting a cold, and the hot, sticky weather outside, the kids spent a lot of time last week on Lego creations. Finley likes to build houses, carefully striping them or limiting the block colors. Joe builds symmetrical, Star Wars inspired ships with hidden guns. Zivah builds things like this:

Cold sometimes lead to ear infections, so I found a rarely napping Z out for the count in Daddy's chair.

 In the garden, that is suffering from severe neglect, I found a big watermelon hidden in the weeds. It was a whopping 20 lbs. I checked the 'spoon' leaf and tendril and they were both dried up, so I assumed that it was ripe.

 I was wrong. Apparently, thump tests are necessary to determine ripeness, as well. At least the chickens enjoyed a treat.

 And today, I got to drop the older two off for their first full day at school. (Zivah starts next week.) Finley is sporting quite a few stripes along with her ear-infected-induced, fake smile.

My smile is real, however, as I anticipate an opportunity to get some serious house cleaning done.