Beach, Flooring, and Cousins

Well, I don't know how many paid attention to the weather around here in mid-November, but we had a very big "nor'easter" combined with the tropical storm "Ida", which caused 30-year historic rainfall! We had flooding all over the place, some places deep enough that cars were entirely covered, and houses were half-filled with water. Thankfully all that happened here was the end of our road got covered in about 1 foot of water, and the ditches all the way along the street were flooded, so driveways were hard to distinguish. No one on our street had indoor flooding though!

So, anyway, because of this, the ocean beaches were difficult to access at the beginning of the week that my parents were here, so we suggested that rather than going to a local beach, the OBX (Outer Banx) might be a better option. After going to the beach there, we thought perhaps a drive down to Cape Hatteras would be nice, turned out the road was flooded out, so they were only opening it for 1 hour of the whole day. We decided we'd go somewhere else, and ended up going to see the park where the Lost Colony was located... until they disappeared mysteriously. It's really an interesting thing, because it's a mystery that they may never find the answer to.


Rebecca thinks it is great fun to climb her stroller. We were waiting for everyone to be ready to go to the OBX at this point.

Lunch break! We'd just entered Kitty Hawk, I think. We stopped to have lunch at the tourist information there.


BEACH! I love the above picture. :)

We found a shovel sitting on the beach, and Rebecca had a great time digging in the sand for a while with it!


One of the things that we did while my parents were here, is floored the living room. Currently I haven't taken any "after" pictures-- I'll have to do that. But, this is before... but after we had the leveler down. Rebecca thought she should help too!

Mooshum helped her chiseling out the lumps...
and then tried to get her to help sanding it smooth...
but she went elsewhere, lol!
Getting ready to lay tiles, I believe, but here's one half of the room.

There's the other half!

And, here's Mara and Rebecca together. :)

Now that my phone works with my computer...

I have a video! This one is from about a month ago, I think. Just a little after I got my new phone (which happens to take decent videos, so I actually regularly make videos of Rebecca now).

This one is particularly for her Cokum and Mooshum to show them how much she can enjoy her rocking chair. :-) I have some others that will appear on here at some point in the future, probably when I once again have nothing better to say, lol.

Our dining room now has a closet thanks to Justin's efforts on Monday and today, our living room has two book cases (FULL of books), and our piano is getting tuned tomorrow morning!! YAY!! Oh... and I still have to figure out where to put certain items of furniture... hmmmmmm... Oh well, the dining room is much tidier than it was for the last few months, and it will only continue to improve as I figure out where to put everything. The living room leaves a little to be desired at the moment because of all the rearranging we've been doing in there in the last few days, but that will be quickly remedied, and the kitchen shouldn't take too long either! It's so nice to finally have things mostly in place!!

Rebecca and I are going to go out for a walk on this lovely, yet slightly chilly afternoon, then make pancakes for supper and head out for choir practise... then home to bed. Oh... bed sure sounds nice.... :-)

Things are busy around here

I didn't quite accomplish my goal of getting all three rooms presentable, but one out of three isn't too bad, right? 1 1/2 is even better... I'm working on the kitchen today, and the dining room as well. Perhaps by the end of this weekend I'll finally have a livable house...

Rebecca enjoys laying on her tummy and looking around now. It used to be that she would fuss about being on her belly, but not because she couldn't hold her head up. I guess she just didn't like it. Anyway, I took a few pictures of her on the floor on her belly... just haven't had time to get them on my computer yet. I'll do that sometime soon!

We went to our church's Valentine's dinner last Sunday evening, and had a really nice time. Rebecca was good enough to sleep through it! At least, the time when we were eating. She's quite social though, so any time there are a lot of people moving around, she's generally wide awake watching them instead, as evidenced by our activity last night. We went to the "intergenerational games night" thing at the church which was a part of the sr. youth group lock-in they were doing. I'm really starting to wonder if anyone else is going to go to these games nights, but anyway... Rebecca stayed awake for nearly the entire time with only like a five minute "nap" somewhere in there! Oh, and while we were there, I'm not sure if I was given a compliment or an insult... one of the teens asked me my name, I told him Melissa, and he asked if I wanted him to call me "Miss Melissa" or if Melissa was fine. *sigh* I didn't think I was that old! I told him Melissa was fine. I mean, seriously, I'm not even ten years his senior! It's one thing if it was a six year old, but a 16/17 year old? Apparently as soon as you have a baby you're old enough in a teen's books here to be a "Miss ____"...

Cinders made a trip to the veterinarian on Thursday because of a giant oozing sore on her back. it turns out that one of the cysts she has had for ages sprang a leak and abcessed and got infected. She's on antibiotics and painkillers now, in the hopes that her body will heal itself properly. If it doesn't, we are probably going to be looking at having her put down rather than the surgery that would be required to fix this problem. She's nearly nine, so I suppose she's lived a pretty good life, plus, the only reason half the breeds out there have a life expectancy of like 12 years is because a lot of them are medicated for the last 3-5 years of their lives. Somehow I doubt people used to "help" an animal in such a way. They probably just took it out and shot it when it started to seem unable to survive much longer.

We are trying to figure out where would be best to place a couple of closets in our home, because we have almost literally no easily accessible storage, and I need a place to put things like hats and coats, sheets and towels, my vacuum, and my mop... and I guess general cleaning supplies. Justin's made a suggestion, but I'm not a big fan of it, so I'm still thinking on where I want them. I need them, but I want to place them in good locations that I won't regret down the road.

Anyway, I need to make the most of this nap period that Rebecca is being so good as to take, and perhaps get ALL the dishes done, and maybe my kitchen cleaned! I'll try to post some pictures in the next few days...

A mostly finished bedroom

All that is left is to paint the two doors, put the closet door back ON the closet, and paint the trim around the window. Basically, that means this room is done!

Here's the "before" picture, looking toward the closet...

and, here is after looking the same direction.

Here's "before" looking *away* from the closet...

and, this is after, looking the same direction.

So, there you have it, pictures of what we have done with one bedroom, at least. We haven't got our room in an orderly enough state at the moment to have pictures of it up. We should very shortly!!

In bird news... We have one week-old baby finch in the nest, and we now also have four newly hatched babies (1 Friday, 2 Saturday, 1 today). We're getting to listen to a lot of noise now! All we hear is little squeaks and squawks coming out of the nest! It can be VERY noisy at times. They seem to think that we should have to attempt to be heard over their noise, and it's rather difficult to hear oneself think, let alone talk over them at times!

A Month

Yes, it's been a month. And, it is still a month. Two ways to take that title, I guess.

This past month has been total chaos. We've been trying to get things organized in the house while trying to keep up with two children and their schooling, and a pregnancy.

So, with all we've been doing we have actually managed to do a few things. We've finally got (somewhat) a living room. At least, there's a couch, a chair, an ottoman, and a rocking chair. Oh yes, and let's not forget that we also have the piano in there! I think that may just be a highlight!! We've got the rats in there by the fire place, and Justin made the addition of a couple of finches to our collection of pets. No, I didn't ask for them! Regardless, they are very cute, and quite entertaining to watch. We're not sure if they'll hatch their eggs or not, considering how much we stressed them out in their little move. If they don't hatch them, then we'll just empty the nest and let them start again, I guess. We weren't going to get the particular female that we did, as she was the one with all the eggs, but when we discovered that the male we (I) wanted was mated with that female, and that the females mate for life, we thought we ought to get her instead of the other one we were going to get so she would at least be happy and not die mourning because her mate was taken away!

The dining room is basically our room of disaster at the moment. Our bedroom and the baby's room are starting to look half way to "normal" or whatever you want to call it. Organized? Hah. I don't know if that will ever happen! The kitchen is starting to get there though. Justin hung a bunch of hooks for my pots today, so that gets a large majority of things out of my way. Now I just have to figure out how to hang all my utensils! Then the kitchen will have a floor to walk on!

Oh, and while we were digging things out of the living room and dining room we finally found my school books! Now I can finish my course! Yay!! With the tidying and organizing and various other things that have been going on, I've been quite tired, however, so hopefully I will actually get it done. Most days I'm ready to crash around 7:00pm. That doesn't make it particularly helpful for Justin when he's coming home between 8:30 and 9:00, and I'm so tired that supper just isn't on my list of priorities (I'm normally so tired that I'm not hungry!). So, anyway... I need to really start planning out our menues, so that at least I will know what I'm supposed to be making, and maybe if it's all completely figured out I will actually make it! Most times we have a general "we'll have these seven meals this week" plan, but not a specific day and time or anything like that, which makes it so I don't actually necessarily make all the meals, because I'm tired and don't feel like picking one to make... I'm bad, I know...

I mixed up the dates of when some church stuff was happening, so while I thought we had a games night this past Saturday evening, I discovered it is actually this coming Saturday. That should be fun... it's supposed to be for the 18-40's crowd. I'm not sure just how many actually fit that age range. I know there are at least 10, but who knows how many will actually show up as well! Hopefully there will be at least a decent turn out. Oh, and the minister at the church was just an interim minister, and apparently his interim term was one year, and therefore he is leaving... as of this week. But, it really doesn't make sense to me-- they won't let the people of the church even keep in touch with interim pastors, because it "hinders the next minister's ability to establish himself in the church" or something like that. While I can understand that they don't want people putting things like "Well, so-and-so did it this way instead of that way" or whatever up in the new person's face, I don't think it is reasonable to say you can't contact/keep in touch with the pastor. I can't even think of any biblical basis for it. I mean, seriously, Paul wrote letters to all the churches he had VISITED, let alone ones he had stayed with for a year or more!

Anyway... yes, it is still one month to go until we are officially due with this little one. My prenatal went well on Tuesday, and they say the baby is probably of average size despite my small size. Apparently the baby is sitting very deeply, and so I may not show at all for the whole time. Considering we're only 3-4 weeks away from delivery (most likely... though I guess the baby could be late!), I guess there's a fairly good chance that that baby isn't going be doing much showing at all. All the stuff they measure is perfect, though my blood pressure keeps going down. I'm starting to wonder if perhaps I'm going to have low blood pressure by the end of this! Oh, and I haven't gained anything between the last appointment and this appointment. No panic there though, lol. I guess it doesn't matter to them if I gain or not! So... currently we have a whole 8 lb gain, because I actually lost 2 lbs between the two appointments. By the time this little one gets out, I guess I'll be literally right back to my "prepregancy weight", possibly less, and probably still lose. Hmm... this could be interesting. I guess all my regular clothing isn't going to fit?? I'm still wearing it right now with what little baby belly I currently DO have! Sure hope it isn't going to all fall off... I'll have to take things in and buy new clothing... Anyway, all that I have left to do, is to purchase covers for our diapers. I should do that sometime soon, seeing as the baby is due in four weeks, lol!

It's been a while...

Well, it's been a while, and while I do have things to post (such as pictures) I haven't got the time to be uploading them at the moment. They should be coming sometime in the next week though. At least pictures of the baby's room. Our room is still in progress, so maybe next week sometime? The kitchen is just going to drive me CRAZY, because I have yet to figure out where to fit my pots. There isn't a cupboard the right size anywhere, nor is there one near the stove even *close* to the right size. So I'm a little annoyed with that. Oh, and we are using a dresser to put our dishes, cutlery, and storage containers in, because I honestly haven't got anywhere else at the moment to put them!! How irritating! I think things will improve as we start getting more things done in other parts of the house. Right now I just have to finish vacuuming at the apartment, and then the vacuum can come here, and the apartment will be done. I think we may be steam cleaning tonight or tomorrow night, not sure which, as well.

I had my monthly prenatal appointment yesterday afternoon, and it's quite difficult to believe it's already been a month since the last one!

So, yesterday I was 30 weeks, 4 days

b/p: 115/64

pulse: 108

weight: used a different scale from normal, as we were in a different place, it said I've gained 9 lbs... I don't know if that is true, but it doesn't really matter to me, and they were not concerned at all. Everything else is "perfect" so it really doesn't matter.

fundal height: 30 cm. Funny story... she measured me, and said "you're measuring thirty too" and I thought she had said thirty-two, so I was wondering where the additional 2 cm had come from!! So she went back and corrected herself, as she realized that what she'd said was rather confusing, lol!

fht: 130's range resting heart rate, into the 140's when you bother it, which is a good acceleration I'm told, and indicates a healthy baby in there... so I guess that's a good thing.

And, that's basically it. No swelling, no other problems, and no problems anticipated.

In other news... I want blinds for my windows, and I want tiles for my floors. I have a feeling I'm not going to have the tiles for a long time, the blinds... I'm hoping will be sooner!!

We Have Water... and it's hot!

We've been holding off on lighting the pilot flame on our water heater until we were much closer to moving in, and then realized, when we went to light it, that not only did we not have any idea where the main turn off was, but there was no gas flowing anywhere anyway! So, we called the gas company, and ended up having to argue our way through the main call centre in order to accomplish talking to someone higher up the chain, but finally in the end we managed to have someone out to take a look for us. It turned out that though records showed that we had our gas turned on, the gentleman who looked at the thing had to uncap it in order to light the pilot flame! So much for having had gas for nearly a month!

On the same day that we got our gas working, Justin also got the water working properly, so I was able to run our diapers through their first couple of washes. When they were done their first two washes, I realized that there really were 12 that just were NOT the same as the others, so I called the company that makes them (Gerber) and asked questions. The weaves just look completely different, and the one package of them simply did not soften up the way the other two packs did! Apparently almost no one calls in dissatisfied with the product, but they want the pack of diapers and they're going to replace them free for me, so that's good news. We were thinking we were just going to have to buy another package that I liked the feel of and have spent an extra bit of money, but this is much better!

We're aiming to have the master bedroom finished, and personally, I'm hoping to have the walls down and repaired, and the new floor laid in the dining room by the end of the weekend. Of course, considering we're trying to figure out where to get people to help us move a fridge (everyone we know has been busy or has a bad back), I'm not sure just how much will actually happen, but anyway... Perhaps, if it doesn't rain all weekend, we'll also get the rest of the trim in the baby's room painted, and the closet door painted and put up. We had run out of trim paint, so needed to get more before we could complete the painting in there, but there is really very little left to be done.

Oops! What a Learning Experience!

So... we went out to pick up some flooring we'd paid for but it wasn't available at the time we were there, and apparently missed quite the storm. In the 2 hours we were gone, enough rain went through to leave large puddles, and obviously there was enough wind to make a number of large branches and even trees go down! It almost looked like we missed a small hurricane or something! We're not quite sure what exactly we missed, but anyway... it was obviously quite the storm! We got another storm late last night as well, which we were here for, and it seemed to plant itself over us for quite a while!

Now for the oops from the title...

Justin learned something new last night. We had a slight plumbing emergency, when he decided to pull the large PVC elbow pipe thing off the main water-in pipe and discovered, much to our dismay, that it is a 1 inch pvc pipe. Why dismay over this discovery? Well, we found out that it wasn't a very durable piece of PVC... it broke-- just snapped with a little pressure! So, Justin went running to turn off the main water in the front, because obviously when you break the pipe just above the ground where it comes out, there is no other water turn off! So, then, realizing that we had to fix the pipe, and considering it somewhat of an emergency, we headed out for Home Depot to get the stuff we needed to fix the thing despite our not preferring to shop on Sundays. But, let's face it, had the pipe burst and we been living in the house and not brave enough to try to fix it ourselves, we'd have made an emergency plumbing call so we would have water by the next day!

Anyway, as we were figuring out what all we needed to get at Home Depot, we realized that since we already had that portion of the piping apart, we might as well replace the connector they had running through the wall that *was* steel (I think...?) with proper copper piping like the rest of the house's pipes are, so we added a piece of 1/2 inch copper pipe, a 1/2 inch elbow thing, and a little stop valve thingy for a "main" turn off inside the house to our list of things to get just in case something happens to the interior piping, knowing how well everything else has been done (NOT!). Oh, and then we realized that in order to turn the water back on, we also needed a hot water and a cold water stop valve, because one was completely shot (we had to turn off the hot water in order to do anything with the pipes in the first place). Our list, in the end was something like... one 1 inch PVC connector, one 1 inch PVC sleeve, one 1 inch PVC elbow with threading for the 1/2 inch piping, PVC primer and glue, one 1/2 inch threaded copper pipe connector, one (short) piece of 1/2 inch copper pipe, one 1/2 inch copper piping elbow, 2 stop valves for sink stuff, 1 stop pressure valve for the "just in case" main turn off inside the house. So, after we got all the stuff we needed, and some assistance from the guy at Home Depot in figuring out how to put this all together, we also added a soldering tip, and a little kit of soldering stuff to the list of things we needed, in order to put the piping together.

We dropped by Justin's parents house to get the blow torch so that the soldering could be done (we didn't have a torch), and headed back to the house. Justin got the PVC primed, and while the primer was drying, we worked on the yard. He worked on filling the hole in the back yard with the pile of dirt, and I gave the willow a "hair cut". I don't like how the willow looks for the first few days after it's been trimmed... maybe because it just looks unnaturally even or something, but within a couple of weeks it should be back to my "magical" little tree again, so it's not that big a deal. After we got the bit of yard work done, Justin glued the PVC piping into place, and then we went inside to work on the copper piping. That's when we discovered just how much "fun" it can be to solder something together! Justin's first time soldering piping for water pipes actually went quite well. Aside from the learning curve it has, in that you have to learn just how hot to get things, and how high the flame needs to be and everything, it was quite easy, I think! So, anyway, after about 2 hours of working on the piping, and having everything in place, Justin turned on the main water. What a loud bang it made when it hit our turned off pressure stop! Well, it would have worked great, except that one of the pieces of PVC didn't quite stick, so we ended up with having to redo that part of the PVC. Justin went and worked on that this morning, and says that now he just has a small leak in one of the pieces of PVC, and then the water is back to perfect working order... YAY!

The next order of business with the water is to figure out the natural gas stuff. For some reason there doesn't appear to be a gas cutoff. This means we cannot cap things off, because the gas will be leaking out as we work to remove pipes. So, I think Justin has to contact the gas company or something and find out how to remove the piping without having a gas leak occur. Anyway, the gas is what serves our water heater, and currently the pilot flame isn't lit. Well, that needs to happen sometime soon, because I now have 36 diapers that need a minimum of like 6-8 washes (according to the package!) before their first use! I have to say, though the diapers are "thin" I really like how they feel! I know there are a lot of people who don't really like flats, and particularly don't like birdseye cotton flats from Gerber, but having now felt them, I really can't see how they are any different from prefolds, unless you are using like... a lightweight denim or flannel for the prefold! And hey, I can put a flannel diaper/receiving blanket on the inside or outside of these if I need to... or both! Talk about versatile! Initially, I can't see our needing more than these diapers. They feel quite absorbent to me, even without having been washed even once. Though they are "see through" they really aren't that see through once they have been folded properly and are ready for pinning (yes, I tested it out already), and, they are supposed to fluff up quite a bit with every wash and dry for the first 6-8 washes (which is why they need so many washes). They actually apparently don't even necessarily achieve their maximum absorbency until they have been washed like 10-12 times or even more in some cases! Anyway, now I'm excited about washing diapers! I wonder how long that excitement will last... Well, considering I love watching my washing machine, I might just be excited about every load of laundry I have to do, regardless of what its contents are, LOL!

So... there's all the big news from this past week. In case you were wondering, no, we didn't get the other bedroom done, but that is largely because of a couple of things. 1) We couldn't find flooring to match the flooring we already had, so we had to spend an afternoon looking at flooring instead of actually working in the room. 2) Because we had our plumbing emergency, which took over the time that would have been for painting the ceiling and levelling the floor. I think Justin is working on getting a day off either tomorrow, or next Tuesday in an attempt to be able to get that room done by Saturday night (we want to be fully moved by the 23rd, but can't really do much until floors are levelled and that room is done, because we don't want to be pulling the bed out again once it is in!!). Anyway, hopefully we'll have the master bedroom done, and... maybe... the dining room?? done by the time the end of next weekend comes! YAY!

Getting Ready to Move

I'm trying to decide if I like moving a little at a time, or all at once better. In a way, it is nice to be able to take bits and pieces instead of having stacks and stacks of boxes, but at the same time, it is a real pain to have so many trips to make, and since the kitchen isn't really ready for us to move in yet, we can't really even start taking my pots and stuff over that we are not currently using (due to lack of space).

We've mostly finished the baby's room now, but as there was a piece missing from the book case we have for the room, I'm not quite finished setting up in there. When we have the book case put together and I've been able to finish organizing things, then I'll see about putting up some pictures! It looks really nice, particularly considering all we still need to do to that room! Oh, and to add to all the other baby things we need to be doing, we also need to wash, fold, and put away a whole stack of clothing we were given. Most of what we actually kept was tops, because the things that were bottoms were either too worn out, or just not things we think we would use. We got rid of pyjamas that were "fire resistant" (ie, made of polyester or whatever) because we would prefer cottons and cotton blends over 100% polyesters... plus they were really yucky feeling polyesters! Oh, and most of it is girls stuff, so we're no better off if the baby is a boy than we were before. Now I just have to decide on a container to put the clothing in to store it. Oh, and it's all toddler stuff. The person must think babies grow realllllly fast, lol!

We pulled out the carpets from the master bedroom and the living room, in the hopes that it is going to get rid of some of the smell that is in the house. Personally, I already think it smells a little better in there, but I'm not a big fan of the whole blackish-brown "church basement" tile flooring thing going on now. The entire house was tiled with the exact same tiles! In the process of removing the carpet from the living room, we also discovered a "lovely" thing. There is a crack running straight across the floor. A big enough crack that the floor on one side is about 1 1/2 inches lower than on the other side!! It doesn't go through the structure itself though, as it runs straight out the front door at the front of the room, and crashes into the brick pillar at the back of the room. So, we at least know our house isn't going to crumble and split from the bottom to the top!

This weekend we're going to try really hard to get the "master bedroom" fully finished. We're probably going to have to get some more flooring for it, as it used just a little more than half for the baby's room (we were taking a guess when we said it would probably be enough for the two rooms). I think we're probably going to need like 8 pieces of laminate. That's really not bad. Of course, we're also going to need laminate for the dining room, so I guess we'll likely get it all at once (makes it a TON easier to install the stuff when you have it all there and ready!). We may actually need to just purchase enough for both rooms. I suppose I should probably measure the dining room for that. I know that we need approximately 40 pieces for the bedroom, since it took about that much for the other bedroom, so I'm guessing we likely need about 60 for the dining room, but I'm not sure, as I don't know how big the room actually is.

I suppose another thing on the list for the coming couple of weeks is to tear off and replace walls, and then paint them my nice cheery yellow. I'd really like to be rid of the mint, pastel lime, and aqua greens before the baby comes. I think the kitchen is going to be the worst though! It's so... deteriorated! We pulled off the molding at the bottom, because the last people painted it black and we really don't feel like using a gallon of paint to cover the black on something that probably would cost less to simply replace. Anyway, the bottom portion of the wall came with it! The original plaster simply tore right off. Why, you might ask? Well, because the people were intelligent enough to stick the stuff on using... rubber cement! We don't ask questions about this house... we just smile and shake/nod our heads regarding everything we find, because things are often just that ridiculous!

Fleas *sigh*

We have fleas. In the apartment. Tell me, how, when all you have is two rats in a cage, do you get fleas??? My only explanation is that perhaps the critters chose to come home with us when we brought the rats home... There were apparently fleas on the dogs at the house where they stayed... *sigh*

Anyway, I called a local vet clinic that looks after all sorts of exotic pets, rodents, as well as your usual run of the mill cat or dog, and they said to let the rats swim for a bit (did you know rats can swim...?), and then use a flea comb dipped in listerine and comb their hair out, and it should remove most if not all flea residue, and then spray the entire apartment for fleas. Well, since we are moving in a couple of weeks, I figure we'll just live with the bugs for another couple of weeks, and then when we move I'll do a really good, thorough cleaning of the rats, and we'll spray the "frog" prior to setting things up in there, and we'll spray the cushioned furniture prior to moving it into the house, and *hopefully* by the end of it we'll have left the fleas behind at the apartment, where I will be really nice, and spray for whoever the next people are who are coming... after we clean the carpet (why *we* have to clean the carpet is beyond me... I would have thought that would be part of the "normal wear and tear" stuff...).

Oh, and I'm about to head over to the house to do a bit of work in the baby's room... we got all the floor laid last night, except for the last piece or two in the closet. Justin realized this morning that we'd missed that one spot, lol. Now though, I can put the book case in there, and start actually moving things from here to there, and all that... and get the baby's room set up (for the most part). I'm quite pleased to be able to actually have *A* room done! Now we just need the other bedroom, which actually had a set back, because the mud we bought grew mould, and I'm not really sure I trust it not to grow mould, even sitting in the open air for a week... anyway, other than that, we're about ready to paint that room, and now we know, flooring it will only take about three and a half or four hours, LOL. It shouldn't take that long, but it does, simply because the flooring we are using is from the kitchen and dining room and it is all warped and bowed and stuff, so things don't quite fit right! It took us 3 hours to do the baby's room... maybe we can do it that fast again in our room... hmmmm... :-)

Appliances!

We have a piano now! It's not been tuned yet, but there's apparently a very good tuner in the area that gives discounts to teachers, so I'll be able to get my piano tuned for nearly half the price people would normally have to pay for their tuning! I haven't taken pictures of it yet, as we have it covered in a plastic tarp thing to keep dust out while we work on the walls in the different rooms. I'll put pictures up when I do have them.

We also got a front loading washer, and a dryer (which happens to be like... laundromat sized capacity... WOW). They both work wonderfully!! I got four loads of laundry done in less than two hours! Five loads total (one dried on the line, but then it looked like it was going to rain so the others went into the dryer). We were quite impressed, plus both machines seem to be quieter than Justin's parents' machines! We'll be putting them in the garage when we figure out how to stop the garage floor from leaking because the cement pad wasn't done to code and so is right at ground level instead of being 3 inches or more above the ground level. *sigh* Right now the dryer is in the garage, because apparently whoever built the laundry area didn't realize that a 20" clearance is not enough to do laundry in. Justin did most of the wiring for the dryer already, the line just needs to be run through the wall and down instead of just be hanging loosely in the open.

In the process of getting the wiring done, we discovered that we need to rewire EVERYTHING in the house. The breaker box in the house says specifically not to exceed 120 amps, and it's currently running (if I remember correctly) 170 amps. The main breaker is a 60 amp, but the breaker in there for the garage is a 100 amp one, so the main breaker should have been at least a 160, but of course, that exceeds the box's limitation. Right there the limitation is exceeded, actually. Anyway, in the garage, running off that 100 amp breaker, there is currently (I think) 130 amps! YIKES! Whoever did the wiring REALLY didn't know what they were doing!! Anyway, it's become a priority for as soon as we have the money. At least the wire is all new wire so it's just a matter of getting a new box for each building, probably some new breakers, and connecting all the grounds properly and everything. Oh, that's right, most of the wiring is not grounded currently either! Justin's fixing a lot of this as we go.

We now have the bedroom that was blue in the pictures, painted a cheery yellowy-green colour, the ceiling is actually white now, and we've only got the trim, doors, and floor to finish! It's quite amazing to see how good that room looks, and how much larger that colour has made it appear! We should have the room finished next weekend... hopefully on Saturday, and we're hoping to have the masterbedroom painted fully by the end of Sunday... perhaps floored as well?? As soon as those two rooms are done, we'll be moving things in, and starting to live there instead. Just have to find ourselves a fridge!

Work We're Doing

Justin and I spent our weekend tearing out the corners in the brown bedroom and re-mudding them. one of them had been done entirely wrong. I don't think there are many people who can claim to have mudded a wall using handfuls of mud, but I am a person who can make that claim, due to the size of crack in the corner that was done so badly. It's quite amazing that rooms that are not nearly finished and ready to paint can look so much better, especially considering how many white patches are all over the walls right now, but it really does look quite good. I think (hopefully) in the blue room, all that needs to happen now is for it to have its final sanding and it should be ready to paint, which would be nice! The brown room... we have no idea how long that mud is going to take to dry. Probably a week at least. Anyway, after that, it needs sanding, and then probably some more work in the two corners we needed to mud, but then it will be ready to paint as well. Thankfully the other four rooms that we need to work on do not have corners with such major issues!

On Saturday night we were there quite late in the evening, and arrived just in time to disturb (and frighten away) a small brown rabbit that was feasting on some plant or another that is growing on the driveway. We then found two toads in the garden! That's a good thing to have in the garden, so we'll be seeing what we can do to make our garden a little more toad friendly. Then, as I was taking a walk around the yard, I nearly stepped on a small dark shiny creature, which I discovered was a frog when I finally managed to get my hands on it long enough to get it into the light. In our searching, we found that the most likely candidate for what species of frog it is, is some sort of a chorus frog, but seeing as there are three different ones we get in Virginia, and even five of the same one can have completely different markings and colourings, I don't think we'll ever know exactly what kind it is!

Oh yes, and we mustn't forget my *very* small garden that I am working on. I have a whole bunch of pepper and tomato plants, some cantaloupe, and some watermelon plants all growing! I'm looking forward to being able to transplant these gorgeous plants, as they do seem to be thriving quite well. If I recall correctly, you're supposed to wait until your plant has at least four real leaves before transplanting, so I guess I have a couple of weeks to wait. The tomatoes and cantaloupe are just starting to put out their first real leaves, and the watermelon and peppers have really just started growing in the last few days, so they'll be a little slower.

Our New House

This is the view of the front yard, garage, and house, with the willow rising up behind the house.

This is the front porch. Since I took this picture we have rearranged (and drastically weeded) the garden, uncovered the sidewalk, and removed that UGLY white latticework. It looks SO much better now!

This is the living room. The fireplace is painted with some sort of ugly gold metallic paint which we will be stripping and figuring out how to finish the fireplace properly so that it looks nice instead of being an ugly sparkly orangy-yellow.

This is the dining room, looking toward the living room. To the left of the dining room in this picture is the bedroom that is currently painted brown (the colour will be changing to a blue).

This is the kitchen, or, at the moment, what looks like Justin's work bench, lol... looking toward the back entry. To the right in this picture of the kitchen is the other bedroom.

This is the back entry, where the hot water heater, washer, and drier all go.

The VERY small bathroom. If you notice, on the left of the picture there's the little sink, and then the toilet is right there, and the tub is right next to it. There is hardly any space to move in there!

What we have deemed our bedroom, simply because we don't think our bed will fit in the other bedroom. This is the bedroom off the dining room.

View from the other end of the bedroom.

As you may be able to guess, this is the baby's room. It's a rather ugly colour of blue everywhere, including the ceiling! It's going to be changing to a very nice green colour instead.

View from the other end of the bedroom. Notice the ugly brown door....

A look at the back of the house. Somewhere in here I lost a picture of the willow from the ground... I'm not sure what happened to it!
A look at the garage. The shed is the building to the right of the stairs. The stairs lead to the "Frog" (Finished room over garage).

A somewhat areal view of the backyard.

This is where part of my vegetable garden is going to go... eventually.

This is the other part of my vegetable garden. The two pictures span the space between the garage, shed, fence, and frog deck, and make a pretty decently sized garden space, I think.

Deck and outside of the frog.

Looking into the frog.

Look at the entry to the frog from inside.

Here's a look at the "bedroom" part of the frog.

Look at the other end of the bedroom part of the frog.

The bathroom in the frog.

Toilet...

Shower... without a shower head. We're quite fascinated by how they managed to put this shower in, actually. Though we can't say much for the work they did, this one was quite creative!

A House!

Well, barring any complications between now and Monday morning, we should be the proud owners of a house by Monday afternoon! Well... owners via a bank at least...

It's a wood frame, brick exterior, two bed, one bath home, with a living room, dining room, and kitchen. For out buildings, it has a one car garage that has an apartment over top, and there is a small shed. We'll need to lift the shed and repair the floor as the floor of the shed seems to have gotten wet and be sagging, and rotting wood is just an open invitation for termites (and we really don't want termites!!).

We'll be spending a lot of time between now and the end of August cleaning and moving things over gradually. I'm hoping we can paint the walls at least, since I think re-walling is something that will have to wait until we have more money (ie, not this year), but other than the detestable colours, and the incredibly small bathroom in the house, it's really quite nice! I'm really hoping it is going to hold its temperature really well, because when we were in there in April after a week of really cool weather, it was still a fairly comfortable room temperature inside with no power to the house at all, and then when we were in there couple of weeks later following one of those really WARM weeks, it was still the same really comfortable temperature, so hopefully we'll not need a/c or heat too much! I'm not sure, but I think all the wiring has been redone in the last little while (because a LOT was not up to code at all when we looked at it), and some plumbing work has been done on it because of a few problems.

Frustrated!!

Well... I'm sure having a maintenance team is supposed to help you out, and make life easier. Well, not in this case! I'm feeling really sick from the chemicals that the guy used to attempt to fix our heater's motor, and even so, they didn't do the job. He has to order a new motor.

But, in the process, he also managed to spray black dust and stuff all over the livingroom and bedroom. Our table, floors, bed, and side table (and everything on them) are now COVERED in this stuff! Basically that means that I have to clean the entire apartment today! Not that it doesn't need it, I just don't have the energy to have to do the whole place as thoroughly as it now needs in one day!! I'm so frustrated!

At least he did fix the closet rod and the weatherstripping on the door (finally, after we've waited two months...).

Birthdays and the Beach

Justin and I have been busily getting the house "perfectly" organized. I guess you could say that we have mostly succeeded at this point, though we're probably still not done. We've still got a little left to do in our bedroom. But, we have a shoe rack (THANK GOODNESS!!) which is keeping our shoes and things in order by the door. We have a second book shelf, which is also almost full, so we're likely to be needing another one sometime, but for now this one will do just fine. :-) Perhaps we should actually have gotten a second shelf like the first. We have the computers mostly organized (like that will ever *really* happen). Justin still has to figure out a better method for dealing with the cords, but I guess that will come sometime down the road. :-)

I've spent the last few days not feeling too great. I spent Monday curled up on the couch in a blanket, half asleep. We're not really sure what caused it, though it may have been a cross contamination from a wooden spoon used in something I can't eat at some meal previously made at Justin's parents' house. We're not sure that that is what caused it, but at least it offers somewhat of an explanation. I guess we'll just have to be more vigilant about what is used on and in food that gets cooked over there. But, I'm starting to get back to feeling good again, which is wonderful! Justin prefers when I'm feeling good because I tend to be in a good mood when I'm feeling good, hehe. He's been good about dealing with me not feeling good though, and with my lack of ambition in cooking lately! At least his favourites are easy to cook-- anything pasta is "perfect" in his opinion, lol.

Tonight on the menu will be pancakes, which he thinks is rather odd. He apparently grew up in a family where pancakes are only for breakfast or brunch. Strange, in MY family, we ate them for breakfast, lunch, or supper... whatever meal for which the mood struck! I guess he'll have to adjust to that one, because my family did pretty well anything for any meal, though I have to say I don't think we ever had pasta or baked chicken or anything for breakfast unless it was leftovers! We did have second day spaghetti a few times for breakfast though (if I recall correctly), so really, I don't suppose I've ever been conditioned to ONLY having certain meals at certain times of day! Of course, the tendency was, is, and will be in the future, to have cereal or something for breakfast (ie, normal breakfast food), but I don't see what is wrong with having "breakfast" for supper. Anyway, all that to say, we are having pancakes with fruit on top.

We've had a lot of birthdays this past month! First my mother (who lives too far away for us to go there for her birthday). Then Justin's mother, for whom we had a cake at their house. Then, on the 21st, 22nd, and 23rd of the month we had Justin's Dad, our nephew, and Justin! We had a cake for the three of them at their house (his parents) on the 20th, and then we invited them over for a celebration of Justin's birthday at OUR house this past Sunday.

Sorry for the quality, but this is the best picture I got. If you look closely, you'll see that the candles are all burning different colours! VERY cool! They must be treated with chemicals of some sort to cause the coloured flames or something. Anyway, all but the white one burned the colour of the wax. The white one burned pale blueish purple.

Justin and I went to test out my camera after getting the dust off the various areas we could see that had issues. We're hoping that it's taken care of the problem now, but here is a pretty cool picture that resulted in our testing!

This was also a part of those test shots. I think it actually turned out pretty good! It's probably one of my favourite pictures of Justin at the moment. Of course, they only seem to improve. Perhaps that is my skill improving, or perhaps it is Justin learning to smile more often when a camera is pointed his direction.

And, after the couple of test shots by the marsh, we went over to the beach. Of course, we probably would have stayed at the marsh if we had more area to explore, but there was a gate and barbed wire fence around the areas we were thinking we would explore, so we decided to go to the beach again. So, here's to a walk on the beach at sunset!
And, this shell just looked beautiful with the sunlight hitting it at the angle it was! It really seemed to bring out the colour in it.