Posts Tagged ‘Home Improvement’

Yes, our marriage can survive home improvements

Monday, August 2nd, 2010

Paul’s patience was tested through several trips to home improvement stores and even more instances of changing my mind. Let’s just say I HATED our old light fixtures. I don’t want to overstate it, but seriously–they were hideous. [no offense to anyone who might have them, they just didn't go w our stuff or the brushed nickel color I painted all our doorknobs this winter]. Here is the final result:

Overhead light before picture

Yay for matching brushed nickel!

Then our TV died. I felt so bad for Paul. He was “working from home” during the Tour de France one day. He settled onto the couch with his dogs and his laptop, turned on what should have been the pre-race show and saw NOTHING. He could hear Phil Liggett, but the screen was black. For some reason my $200 Kmart TV that still has a VCR player built in was not good enough (even the kids agreed w Paul). So my techno-geek went into uber-research mode–not during work hours, Wes, I am sure. We went to retrieve the winning TV the following Monday. [note--we did plug in the crappy TV for awhile b/c it is $35/day to stream the Tour on your computer. RIP OFF!]
Trouble was, the winning TV was clearly a winner—it was back-ordered since March or something crazy. So we got the runner up. Which didn’t fit into the space that we have and when we solved that (sort of), the central channel (some silly speaker thing in the surround sound magic) didn’t fit. It was 4 nights worth of MADNESS. Here is one of the classic moments:

Note the Runner Up lurking behind Paul giggling and mocking.

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Sanders Hanukkah, part 2!

Friday, January 1st, 2010

Paul and Susan on Christmas morning

This post has pictures that represent Christmas Day to New Year’s Day. Just to recap, we had 9 celebrations in 11 days. For some reason I also thought that was a good time to do a home improvement project of painting all the door knobs. Which also means the latches, screws, etc. You probably realized that. Wish I would have…

Christmas w Steph, Roy, BizNKids, and MomMom, Dec 26

Point of interest on this photo–I THOUGHT both eyes were crossed. I did a redo for Paul just now, thinking my eyes were crossed again. No such luck. My sister was like this all the time from birth and had surgery to make her normal. Perhaps I had preemptive surgery to make sure mine did not wander…EVER!

Anna--Dec 26 Christmas; celebration #9

I just love love love this photo of Anna. You get glimpses of what she will look like as a young woman, yet she still has that baby look too.

Tripp gets a robot for Christmas!

Sleepy Becca posing for pictures

The robot Tripp got for Christmas was very cool, it even danced to a Duran Duran knock off song (sounded like the song, but like they changed it to not have to pay royalties). But then it started to somewhat stalk MomMom. Kind of scared us. Rebecca was SO sleepy, but she always wants to get a good picture. And the truth still holds–sometimes the kids like the box the toy comes in rather than the toy itself!

New Year’s Eve 2009. Basic math I should have realized when I bought the sparklers: [(Sleepy kids x bad weather so they didn't get any exercise for days) x (Paul has been w said kids for 80 hours x Susan has been sick for 80 days)] x fire sparks shooting off a stick = probably not a good idea. Not to mention I had accidentally sprayed some grass (and a little driveway) with my door knob project so Tyler of course wanted to prance there w his sparklers. He was drawn like a moth to a flame. (get it–flame??)

Skinned squirrels in the refrigerator. Seriously. Ugh.

Paul took Tyler hunting w some friends and their kids. Tyler was a little loud (lucky for the squirrels), but the others were more successful (unlucky for Susan). We had 6 dead bodies in the fridge. It was like The Soprano’s. Paul made fried squirrel, scrambled eggs, grits, biscuits and squirrel gravy for New Year’s breakfast. They say that how you spend NY Day is how you spend your year. God help me.

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Call For New Projects

Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

Susan has had several home improvement projects that she has wanted to do lately and I am really starting to like these projects. We had a tree fall recently that we needed to cut up and some more trees that she wanted to cut down. Out of this I was able to get a new chainsaw.  For a long time now she has wanted to put up some loft storage in the garage which we did last weekend.  Out of this project I got a new cordless drill.

Now I am looking for new projects to do around the house so I can get some more tools :) . Right now I have a couple tools in mind that I would like and I am sure I can find more. I want a torque wrench for working on the bikes (I may be able to get this one without a house project).  For the loft project we borrowed the Blue’s electric stud finder/laser level and I really liked it. If anyone has any ideas for projects that can get me these tools, or any other cool tools you can think of, let me know.

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Posted in Home Improvement | 3 Comments »

Good Choice This Weeked

Monday, May 11th, 2009

This past weekend Susan and I made the hard decision not to do the White Lake Half Iron distance race. Now that the weekend is over I think we made a good decision. I left work early on Friday and did a 44 mile ride and have started building back some fitness after being off so long sick. Susan went to the doctor Friday and he gave her some antibiotics and told her to get some rest. She did a lot of sleeping Friday and Saturday, and by Sunday she was sounding much better. Sunday morning she was feeling good enough that she wanted to go for a ride. We took it easy and she still isn’t 100% but she is headed in the right direction now.

With me just getting back and Susan being sick I am not sure if either of us would have finished the race. Skipping the race allowed me to get in some easy training and get some work done around the house. It also allowed Susan time to sleep and get better. Even though I wish we could have done the race I think we made the right choice. Now the goal is to get Susan 100% as soon as possible. We have our first ride in the mountain planned for Saturday the 23rd. Her asthma gives her a hard enough time in the mountains without a cold.

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The Best Mother’s Day EVER

Sunday, May 10th, 2009

Awhile ago I typed out what my ideal day was for a thing on Facebook. Today pretty much fulfilled that. I got to sleep in, Paul made my favorite breakfast (from a recipe of my mom’s) while I cleaned out and organized our garage post-project (more on that in a minute). We rode bikes and did some yard work. We ate Mexican food on the patio on a gorgeous Carolina day w no clouds. I talked to my mom and hung out w Paul’s family, then friends of Paul’s stopped by. Shortly after we got home from dinner in Asheboro, Anna and Tyler were dropped off. They both made me cards that were so cute. Anna made me a bracelet of various color beads and had a poem about what the colors mean. Tyler had a picture he drew framed for me. Wow. It is my first Mother’s Day and I just don’t think it can be topped.

About our home improvement project…Usually I hear about couples arguing constantly over home improvement projects. Ours made me love Paul even more! I have seen Lance Armstrong side (cocky athlete), Martha Stewart side (cook EXTRAORDINAIRE!), work side (too smart for most ppl’s good), but to see the Bob Vila side, WOW! You can see the photos of him working (I really did just stand around most of the time like I predicted in my previous post) by clicking here. I was drawing 3D pictures and trying to get exact measurements and things. He had the whole thing in his brain for months and executed the plan perfectly! We only made 1 trip to Home Depot–the initial trip! THAT has to be a record!

Also at that link are some photos of chillin and grillin at Paul’s mom’s house for Mother’s Day. Healthwise…I am feeling much healthier and more ready to start the work week than I have been in a long time.

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Posted in Family, Holiday, Home Improvement | 1 Comment »

Race Weekend, Plan B as in…

Thursday, May 7th, 2009

…BUILDING!! Instead of racing the White Lake Half Iron Triathlon, we are going to tackle a home improvement project we have been talking about for over 6 months! Our house is about 1200 sq ft and with 2 kids, 2 cats, 400 pounds of Labradors, and 2 6-foot adults…needless to say we are crowded. Paul and I have mercilessly pared down, purged and simplified, but we still have lots of stuff. So we are going to build loft-like hanging storage in the garage.

I think it will be a lot of me standing around waiting to hold 4×4 beams in place above my head on a ladder while Paul measures and makes the cuts with the circular saw we got for our wedding shower.   So I plan to take pictures to post as we go so stay tuned!

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