Overdue

I am long overdue on updating the blog.  We moved in two and a half weeks ago, and I have yet to write about what has been going one.  There are several reasons.  One is because not much has been going on.  Another is because we have been busy.  Also, some things have been trying so I have not wanted to write about them.  But my biggest reason is still to come.

Let me start with the saga of the kitchen floor.  It's actually the kitchen/dining room floor, but that's too long to type every time.  On the Friday before we moved in (moving day was Wednesday), I tackled the linoleum, as I wrote about in my Roller Coaster post.  It did not go well and we still have no kitchen floor, well at least not a finished one.  Our plan of attack has been to scrape away the paper that was left from the first layer of linoleum, then prime over it to seal in what paper we couldn't get up.  Next will be a layer of thin set, which is like a little bit of concrete to make it all smooth.  And finally, adhesive, tile, and grout.  Ken is going to help us with laying the tile.  Currently, Tim is priming the floor with his trust extension roller, so our house has that lovely oil based paint smell... we are going out for dinner.

Scrape, vacuum, repeat.

Now that you've seen the kitchen floor and what a hassle it has been, let me explain my biggest reason for not blogging lately.  Some women I go to church with (whom I completely adore) started a women's Bible study in a really lousy part of town four years ago.  They started with two and currently have up to 40 each week.  This summer they have expanded to add a literacy program for some of the women who struggle with reading.  I have one student that I meet with on Tuesday mornings to tutor.  There is a curriculum, which is necessary for a music teacher, and it is such a cool thing.  My student, who will be referred to as B is one amazing lady.  She is 51 years old and wants to learn to read better so she can read the Bible more, read novels, and possibly be able to get a job.  She is so selfless in her thinking.  She is always seeing the best in people, and she loves the Lord!  I have been doing this for three weeks now, but it only took one.  After the first time I went downtown and met with B, I came home and didn't have a single care for my kitchen floor.  The women we see on Tuesday mornings have very little, if anything, but they are happy and they love God.  Not only do I have a house, but it has three bedrooms, two of which we don't particularly need but which are full of stuff.  Not only do I have a house, but it has two working bathrooms.  Not only do I have a house, but it is in a great neighborhood with people around who are friendly and nice.  What does it matter if my kitchen floor hasn't been the easiest thing in the world to deal with?  I didn't ride in a bus last night that got shot at.  I get to eat three meals a day and wear clean clothes every day.  

So this has been my dilemma.  For a while I didn't really know what to say because I have it so good.  There have been plenty of mishaps at the house and we still don't really know what we are doing a lot of times, but it just didn't seem that important for a while.  Don't get me wrong, I am fully aware that the floor does need to be finished.  It just isn't so important that it hasn't happened yet.  And, of course, I still have days where little things seem like a big deal because they aren't the way I want them.   And I will love it when we no longer are tracking paper from the kitchen to the rest of the house (it gets everywhere!).  And I will be particularly happy on the day when there are no longer any boxes to be found.  But I have learned an important lesson from B and the rest of the ladies that I hope I do not soon forget.  

With all of that being said, there has been some definite progress made on the house in the last few days.  My friend Tasha came and helped me clean the kitchen cabinets and put new paper on the shelves on Thursday.  It was a big job, and she was amazing!  I even had to take a friend to the airport, but she stayed at my house and finished the papering.  What would I do without you, Tasha?!  Friday, Tim and I bought and hung some curtains and rods, he worked in the yard, I unpacked kitchen stuff, and he was victorious against the pesky vent cover that did NOT want to stay up.  :)

Unpacking madness!

That's what I call using your head.

For some time we were using a very small space in the kitchen because the rest of it was dirty, and we have also been eating meals that either come from a crock pot or the microwave, as all of our dishes and pots were still in boxes.  It's also fun to starting seeing some of our stuff around the kitchen.

The entire contents of our kitchen for two weeks.

Tried some new recipes that don't require any chopping
or precooking meat.  

These are my canisters, which I love, and Liz found the crock
to match at her mom's house.  What a great house warming present!!

In case you were wondering what I might be cooking up now that we have our dishes and pots unboxed, I'm afraid the menu isn't going to change very much.  We had to take the stove out today so that we can do the kitchen floor.  And falling in with the norm of everything else in this house, it did not prove to be an easy job.  But it's out for now and we will deal with getting it back in later.  

Where's Tim?

I hope to write again soon to show some more pictures of things that have gotten done around here.  I do have one more to share today, though.  This morning I went and met a friend who is going to be my accountability partner, which I am really excited about!  This is certainly a God ordained thing.  When I got home, my thoughtful husband had flowers for me in our semi-finished kitchen where we had been working so hard.  He's such a wonderful man and hard worker... I had to brag a little.  :)

Glad you were curious enough to read.  

Before and After

The movers are coming today!  Everything is boxed up and ready to go.  We have not finished all the projects we would have liked to before moving in, but the house is definitely livable.  So, I thought today I would show some of the before and after pictures of what we have accomplished.  Enjoy!

 PS- By the time I had these pictures on the blog, the movers got here and a going super fast!  I will have to do the rest of the pictures later.  :)

Glad you were curious enough to read.

Roller Coaster

A lot of things were done at the house this past week.  I spent most of my time there, and as expected, I'm pretty worn out.  The week got off to a very quick start.  Tim and I sat down Monday morning because I was having a bit of a break down because I was trying to wrap my mind around all the things that needed to happen.  And because I was tired of this house being the center of our lives.  This has been quite an overwhelming task for two people who don't really know anything about home improvement.

But, the Lord was very faithful and restored my joy for that day.  Tim went crazy calling people and by Tuesday we had an electrician, air duct cleaning, carpet removed, nail holes filled in the floors, and quite a few small projects done.  I felt like a tornado with all the things going on!  Our electrician even came in $300 under what we had budgeted.  It was pretty amazing to see all these things coming together so quickly... such a testament to the faithfulness of our God.

New breaker box and quad outlet

Breaker box explosion!

Dad filling holes in the floor

Carpet curb-side

Air duct vacuum hose

Usually I'm behind the camera, but I figured
this warranted a picture.  

So, the beginning of the week was going just swimmingly, but then I started getting into the big, not fun projects.  Plus, I was starting to run out of energy.  I primed all the door frames which is a very smelly job because of the oil based paint.  My entire house smells awful now.  I also was still painting and touching up other areas.  Ken came over and was patching the cracks in our ceilings.  My mom and brother came in Thursday night to help us pack the apartment.  We also did our normal Thursday night college Bible study, which was great.  We watched a video and talked about the greatness of God.  How the whole universe communicates to us the majesty, and splendor, and bigness of God.  I'm so thankful that I'm not the biggest and most important thing in the world.  This lesson was a great reminder to keep the right perspective.  I know that things in the house will get done in time and that there are many more important things happening in my life.  Like marriage, and family, and college ministry, and friends... like people!

But then Friday happened.  My brother and I went to the house and were met by one of my sweet college girls to pull up the linoleum in the kitchen and dining room.  This did not go well.  We pulled it up easily enough, but the paper stayed down on top of the adhesive, which I knew would probably happen because I had read about it on the internet.  What I did not bargain for was the other 2 layers of linoleum under that on top of rotting particle board under it all.  At this point, I just moved on to another project.  Jonathan and I tried to get rid of the old shelves in our garage with no success at all.

So now I have a stinky house, unfinished floor in the entire house, an unorganized garage, a dirty refrigerator that will have to live in the garage for a while, a dining table that will be in the garage while we use a card table, unfinished cabinets that aren't ready for dishes or pots, one functional but dirty bathroom, and not a very good attitude.  How fickle I can be!  I don't want these temporary, silly things to be my focus or steal my joy.  There is a song that talks about standing with my "heart abandoned in awe of the One who gave it all."  I feel like I'm letting my kitchen floor have pieces of my heart instead of fully giving my love to the Lord.  That floor doesn't and never will love me back!  But my Savior loves me more perfectly than I can ever imagine and deserves my whole heart.

Ok, I'm done preaching (mostly to myself!) and here are a few more pictures of life as I know it at the moment.

Linoleum gone, paper still there

Second layer of linoleum

Current state of our apartment- thanks mom!!!!

And in other news, my brother found Jesus!  One of my coworkers had told me about the (creepily) giant statue of Jesus at her church, and Tim and I had looked for it more than once, but it turns out we were looking at the wrong church.  Jonathan and I were driving from the house to the apartment and he said, "Is that Jesus?"  It was a pretty funny statement, but I instantly knew what he was talking about and yelled, "Did you find him?!"

Greasy Elbows

Late night.  Early morning.  Very tired.  No words.  Just pictures.

Funny story- Tim and I actually got trapped in a room after the knobs had been taken off.
My father-in-law stood on the other side and laughed.  :)

Guest bathroom or storage area?

Good thing he's got strong shoulders!

Nail holes in the wood floor from the carpet tack strip.

LOTS to clean.  But if you do it right, it lasts longer.

Painted closet- just inside, not the trim... yet.

Why yes, my husband did tape the shop vac hose to a roller extension so he could suck some
nasty stuff out from under the air conditioner.  Such an engineer.

This is what it looks like underneath a toilet.  Gross.

This is our method of draining and cleaning the bottom of said toilet.

Getting really close!  (some rooms)

Started painting the kitchen.

Bahahahahaha!  This was a giant shrub in our front yard.
Now I call it the poodle shrub.