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Chillin at home

Tuesday, February 24th, 2009
Sunday morning jam session

Sunday morning jam session

I wanted to add some pics to our site. Not much to say really. Paul has been playing his guitar a lot lately, which has made Anna want to play too. It makes Tyler sad he destroyed his drum set.

Paul, dogs and Barton (L corner of the couch)

Paul, dogs and Barton (L corner of the couch)

The cats have really relaxed quite a bit in the last few months so there are some cute pictures of that too.

Lizardhead (Tyler's Webkinz) on Paulhead

Lizardhead (Tyler's Webkinz) on Paulhead

I love this pic of Anna

I love this pic of Anna

Goal update: I am doing well at “active recovery.” Better than we are doing at completing unfinished projects, that is for sure. :) Taxes are done, Anna and I had some girl time (pic here too),

veggies suck but I learned that you get a TON of spinach for only a few calories so that is what is helping me get that goal checked off. Journaling is sketchy, but I have the rest of the week to get 1 more entry.

Tyler and Bluesy bonding

Tyler and Bluesy bonding

Still on a book slump, but I started Purpose Driven Life this week so perhaps it will be a hit. Everyone else in the world seems to love it according to the critics. Paul’s mom suggested that perhaps because I am on a slump I should write my own book (see bucket list to the right).

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Posted in Family, Goals, Home Improvement, Pets, Training | 1 Comment »

Projects in Progress

Tuesday, February 10th, 2009

I alluded to this topic on my goal page so I thought I would elaborate a bit. I don’t want it to seem like we don’t have follow through b/c hey– we are pretty stubborn people when you get right down to it. Its just some projects take an odd spin sometimes. For example, Paul disconnected the speakers when we had our floors put in. He has spent the equivalent of an entire weekend army crawling in and out of the crawl space under the house trying to run the wires…unsuccessfully. He talked to his friend Brian and has a new plan so we have a new angle to tackle it from. Those kind of things–anyone who owns a home knows what I am talking about! So here is the list of things that we need to complete before moving on to bigger and better (ok, just new and different) home improvement projects:

  1. Finish wiring back speakers in living room. See above.
  2. Change handles on Tyler’s dresser. My old dresser, they all broke off–not sure what the deal was there. It was fine, then we moved it and it was not fine. Kind of like the stroke of midnight for Cinderella. You would think this was an easy task–NO handles fit the current holes. We bought several kinds, then finally just took measurements to Lowe’s and I went through EVERY HANDLE THEY HAD. So we need to drill holes, but when we had time to do that, the drill was under the house where Paul left it one afternoon in disgust over project #1.
  3. Susan’s mtn bike. Paul has been fixing it up for me for a year. Last thing is putting on new tires. FYI–sitting in a shed year round for about 8 years is not good for tires nor tubes. Who knew??
  4. Paint touch ups. Amazing how many things you don’t see until the can is hammered closed and the brushes are clean.
  5. Finish peg board and bike maintenance shelf. Paul thinks we are done. Little does he know how much more purging, I mean organizing we can do to his shelf! Muuuuaaaaahahhahahahahhahahahh!!!

So that is our lil list o’ fun. Does that make you feel any better for not getting a call back from us? :)

UPDATE 2.11.09: Paul did the handles last night, then Tyler vacuumed out the drawers. He is fired UP about chores! (Tyler, not Paul).  1 down, 4 to go! :)

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The latest reason I love my husband!

Sunday, January 4th, 2009

First of all, b/c “organizing” is now a blog tag so he is accepts this is a continual part of our life together. It really helps me keep mentally healthy! For those of you who don’t know, I tried my hand at a consulting business once, professional organizing was part of it.

Now Paul has gotten into the act. He purchased several sheets of peg board and put it up in the garage. Then he hung his bike maintenance tools (there are 4 shelves of a workbench full of them). We did this on Sat afternoon so while the kids played outside and Paul did that, I spent all that time cleaning out and organizing the garage! AWESOME! Here are the lessons we have learned:

1–Home Improvement Formula: (# hours spent on project) x (1.79) = number of trips to the home improvement store. It took us 5 trips.

2–We have found the limitation to the Honda Fit (see Laminate Flooring post). We wanted 8×8 peg boards cut in half, and after waiting 38 minutes (literally, I know I exaggerate, but I am not here) for some guy to have 27 cuts made (I counted, thinking of the entertainment you, the reader, would get out of this) we went to the car only to find out 4×4 sheets will not fit in the car.  So we returned to the store for additional cuts (this still counted as 1 trip in the formula). At least we made the man cutting the wood smile.

3–There are always unexpected surprises when you clean out a garage. Like bike tools you have been looking for, toys you didn’t know you had, and dead squirrels. Yep–I moved the steam cleaner and there it was. I think I wet my pants. Tyler offered to pick it up for us. Paul again saved the say with a Wal-Mart plastic bag and plenty of anti-bacterial soap.

Stay tuned for the building of loft storage for the garage! Whooo hoooo!!!

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Posted in Goals, Home Improvement | 1 Comment »

The Floors are Done!

Monday, October 27th, 2008

Our new floors are done and they look great! We ripped out the carpet on Monday and Wednesday nights and Graham put in the new flooring Thursday and Friday. Going from Monday to Friday with the floors in various states of completion was difficult, especially on the days we had the kids, but it was well worth it.  The carpet needed to go badly and now there will be no more stepping on carpet tacks!

Graham Blue from High Country Flooring did the work and he was great to work with. If anyone is thinking about doing their floors we would highly recommend him. Give him a call at 828-406-9221.

You can see pictures here.

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Stay in school, kids

Tuesday, October 21st, 2008
Susan Pulling Out the Carpet

Susan Pulling Out the Carpet

The Original Carpet Color

The Original Carpet Color

What a nasty nasty thing it is to tear out carpet. We skipped our run to do demolition. Which started out as PARTY! Just think of the word: DEMOLISH. How excellent is that?!?! When I first moved into the house, I stepped on the threshold and the carpet tackstrip (the wood strip thingy with nails in it that looks like a midevil torture device) was poking through the carpet and I stepped on it. Let’s just say I probably scared the children.

So that was where we started. Paul gave me the first tear–at that section. It was cool for about 15 minutes. Then we saw all the dirt that accumulates under the carpet and padding. Then we saw the color the carpet originally was. In the words of Everybody Loves Raymond, “Holy CRAP, Marie!”

Needless to say, this is one of those “character building” tasks. Like moving stuffed animals from the school library (Susan) or a job cutting paper (Paul)–THIS is the kind of thing that makes me glad that this is not my everyday job.

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I Hope We Can Make It Home Like This!

Monday, October 20th, 2008

Susan and I are getting new floors put in this week so we went out to buy the materials last night on our way to eat dinner with the Blues. When we got there the floor guy obviously didn’t want to work with us and he wasn’t exactly the brightest guy either. This became obvious when Susan asked him how much the padding was per square foot and he said:

We don’t sell the padding by the square foot, it is $25 for a 100 square foot roll.

Since we were short on time we didn’t even bother trying to explain to him how a roll that covers 100 square feet is the same as selling us a box of flooring that covers 12 square feet…it’s all sold by the square foot.

When we got out of there we were worried {{Susan edit:only Paul was worried, not me}} that everything wasn’t going to fit into the car (we had 62 boxes of flooring and 8 roles off padding). Surprisingly everything fit into the back of the Fit. The suspension was completely compressed in the back and the bumper was about to drag the ground (see the picture) but we made it home without any problems.

Tonight we start ripping out the carpet and getting things ready. Elliot’s brother Graham is coming this Thursday and Friday to put the flooring in.

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