Thanksgiving!

Baloons bound for Heaven

We all celebrated Thanksgiving this week.  It was a fun week and a good holiday, but rather odd and interesting at the same time.  Went over to my Moms new house for the holiday.  Stayed in a hotel which was nice, but odd.  Emotions for all of us were right below the surface and we could all cry at the thought of a hat being dropped.  Missing my Dad intensly.  Seems as we are hitting these major landmarks it is just hard.  Last year at Thanksgiving we were all reeling in shock and were at our other parents for Thanksgiving because Christmas was already planned with my folks.  But by Christmas Dad was using a walker and now he has been gone for 7 months.  Seems so hard to beleive.  We sent him Christmas and Thanksgiving baloon notes.  Mom had liked our idea for Dads birthday.  This time there were more of us and more baloons.  We let them go at the park and I am sure they found thier way.  It is just such a hard reality that I cant see him again.  Or until I get to heaven.  I still find myself wanting to call or expecting him to drive up and then reality hits again.  Raw reality and Raw emotions.  But we saw a sign while at my Moms on a church billboard that was so good.  It said - "Get Rich Quick - Count Your BLESSINGS!"  It was so true.  Good reality check.  We really are so very blessed.  I have a family who is loving and supportive.  A Church family who are loving and supportive.  Friends.  A wonderful new place that has lots of work built into it, but lots of potential.  A God who loves me.  A warm house.  Three meals a day.  A car.  And a huge deposit in heaven that while I never would have made that deposit now, he is there and I know it.

New Pictures

 I realized that I have not updated picture for a while. Things have been changing rapidly.  We have sided and put the porches on.  There is not decking down yet, but we are working on that.  We have it there now.  So that is a good start.  All the siding on the sides except for the west is all on and mostly caulked as well.  We have the board and batten look.  It looks really good but it a lot of work for starters.  I have caulked a lot of seams.  But am using the BIG STRETCH caulk.  It is stretchy and interesting to work with, but goes on well.  A bit messy.  But O well.  All plumbing is roughed in.  We passed our electrical inspection on the first go around!  Yeah!  I guess we are pretty good electricians.  The HVAC guys finally got their stuff done and that was nice.  They did a good job and we should have

a nice warm house.  I am excited to have insulation in as well and we should be sheet rocking this week and mudding and taping and texture.  I hope to paint the inside this coming weekend.  The outside should be painted this week sometime and so that

 will look good as well.  I think the whole house will fit more when it is all painted.  We are
 painting it a color called "straw hat".  Kind of matches the dirt colors.  We have been very

blessed to have many people helping us on this big project.  Some with good advice and some with labor.   The other day my Mom told me to be sure to insulate my bathrooms.  This would keep the sounds down from inside and outside them to not feel like you were in a public restroom.  We thought this was great advice and took our extra bits of foam insulation and put them between all the studs around the bathroom.  I am sure we will like the effects of that wisdom for years to come.  We are actually starting to get excited about this house.  We are feeling like there is a light at the end of the tunnel and we will finish.  I am pushing for a pre- Christmas move in.  I am planning to set my tree up over there.  One of our framers, who used to be a custom home builder by trade has offered to take some days off from his company to come help us on our house.  He is a get it done guy and I am sure if we had him for a week, we would get a lot of stuff done! What a blessing!

Pushing . . . Waithing . . . . Pulling . . . .

We decided that we could save a lot of money by pulling our own wires for our house.  While I think having a good electrician, and up to code electricity is a very good thing, lets face it pulling wire is a truly grunt work and at $65/hour I can work a little slower and get the job done.  I am not the one getting paid that wage, my electrician is.  I spent lots of time crawling around under my house knocking out knockouts - what a wonderful invention - and poking wire through holes.  It was fun as the beginning of this year in science we were learning about electricity and current and things like that and now we had the opportunity to really make circuits.  We hope!  Reality will show up tomorrow as we have our electrical inspection.  I even pulled wire today for a wired speakers for our TV.  I kind of laughed though as I was pulling them because we are so not that technologically advanced and it would be a huge leap if we were ever to actually use them!  But, you can only have those studs open one time, you might as well pull the wire. 
School in the mornings and early to mid afternoon arrive to work on the house.  It has been an adventure.  The other day though we had a very efficient and effective contractor show up.  He was needed due to a miscommunication about what was needed as far as holes in the foundation to run ducting through.  So he came out and drilled some.  He showed up in a huge truck with a big core drill.  His drilling leavings looked like core samples of my foundation which is exactly what they were.  It was very fun. 
The plan is still to be in by Christmas.  So to do that I need to get the house painted inside and out. After the sheet rock and insulation is all in.  Cabinets in. Trim up.  Doors in. Flooring in.  Plumbing fixtures and trims all set in place.  Closets up and the closet maid hangers in.  Pantry ready.