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.)