Aug 29, 2015

PROJECT DARKSTONE: Day 210

Today was a good day. We loaded a cooler full of water, grabbed a bag full of crackers and fruit snacks, brought some shows for the kids to watch and headed out to our house.  The roofers were there and while we were working the window guy showed up as well. It's pretty exciting being there when a bunch of other people are working too. It makes one feel like a part of something.

And the roofers FINISHED!  FINISHED! We have a new roof!




I saw that guy in the picture actually walking around on the ridges of my roof today.  I guess it takes a person with a very specific set of skills to be a roofer, cuz that terrifies me.  It seems like the older I get, the more scared of heights I become.  Richard was putting a vent pipe through the roof last week and I had to climb up onto the roof to make sure it was straight.  I was like, "Oh, yeah.  Sure.  I can do that." But once I got up there I instantly regretted it. I did not like it one bit and had to make darn sure I didn't look down.  No roofing futures for me.



The window guy started replacing all the old windows and got all but 2 of them done!



Those are new windows in that picture.  Can you tell? Now I've got a stack of old windows I have to do something with,  but I don’t know what.

New windows.  So exciting.  We've had those old, broken, cold, cold, so uselessly cold, inefficient windows in our house for over 12 years!  Hooray for Windows!  And while we're at it, let's hear it for exclamation marks!!

For the window guy to be able to reach the last two windows he needs to replace, we had to rearrange things in the front room.  That is the one room downstairs that no work is being done on, so we have had it crammed to the gills with all of our junk.  We had to move most of it out though, and then reposition the couches.



That picture doesn't illustrate my point at all, so you'll just have to take my word for it.  Fun fact: that mound on the couch that looks like a body is actually just a bunch of coats covered up by a sheet.  The window guy, (who has a name, by the way.  I think it is Casey.) said he was coming back on Monday, so we wanted to be ready for him.


We're making a lot of good headway with the plumbing and electrical work.   We completely finished all the wiring upstairs. 100%. Done. Well, not counting the internet or smoke detectors.  But still, woohoo! Let's see how the TO DO list looks now. What could be more fun for you?

Lighting in the downstairs bathroom
Outlet in downstairs bathroom
Fan in the downstairs bathroom
Lighting in the 3rd bedroom
Lighting in 2nd Bedroom
Outlets in upstairs hall
Lighting in the office
Outlets in the Office
Lighting in the utility room
Coat closet lighting
Closet under the stairs lighting
Porch lighting
Patio Lighting
carport lighting
back door lights
Fan in the master bathroom
internet wiring upstairs
internet wiring downstairs
cabinet lighting in the kitchen
carport lighting
smoke detectors
plumbing for dishwasher
plumbing for fridge
gluing all pipes together
clean up front room
clean up office


Things are going well but we're trying to stay realistic and not get our hopes up too much.  STAY TUNED!


Aug 27, 2015

PROJECT DARKSTONE : Day 208

Here's the haps:


The roof is almost done!
I love how the red brick looks against the black shingles.  Hooray!  
There are just a few sections left to shingle, and I predict they will probably finish on Saturday.  Possibly.  They told us it would be done last Wednesday, but here we are.  I don't know why people don't estimate long.  If they had told us it would take 3 weeks, and then it took two, I would have been thrilled.  But he told us it would be about 4 days, so now two weeks seems like forever.  Richard says everyone should do what Scottie does.  When the warp core is on the fritz he tells the captain, "I canna do it in less than a week."  And the captain says, "You have two hours."    And he always does it in time.  If he told the captain in the first place that he could do it in two hours, the captain would probably expect him to be done in 15 minutes.  


What's next?

Lani the builder has just about finished up all of the framing.  For instance, in the picture below you can see the wall that has put up in the front room.  Now when you walk in the house you are standing in a hallway, with a room off to each side.  


And then in the 3rd bedroom with the vaulted ceiling there is now a little loft above the closet.  It is going to be awesome.  



We're still working away on the plumbing and electrical.  It isn't really hard work, just time consuming.  And hot.  And it has been so humid lately that it makes me sweat like a sprinkler. 

Still, I kind of enjoy it.   And lots of the wiring I can do by myself while Richard is at work, and that is good too.  We are making a lot of progress and getting close to being done.  All that is left to do is:

Lighting in the downstairs bathroom
Outlet in downstairs bathroom
Fan in the downstairs bathroom
Lighting in the 3rd bedroom
Lighting in 2nd Bedroom
Outlets in upstairs hall
Lighting in the office
Outlets in the Office
Lighting in the utility room
Coat closet lighting
Closet under the stairs lighting
Porch lighting
Patio Lighting
carport lighting
back door lights
Fan in the master bathroom
internet wiring upstairs
internet wiring downstairs
cabinet lighting in the kitchen
carport lighting
smoke detectors
plumbing for dishwasher
plumbing for fridge
gluing all pipes together
clean up front room
clean up office


Can you guess how long the list was in the first place if this is how long the almost done list looks like?  Hopefully that will only take us a couple of weeks because hopefully we only have a couple of weeks until we have to be done with it.   And that is all my friends.  Au revoir.

Aug 15, 2015

PROJECT DARKSTONE: Day 760

I know 760 days seems like way too high of a number all of the sudden, but I realized that we first started talking to Lani the builder in July 2013.  So this has been my focus and goal and stress and worry for the last TWO YEARS.  No wonder I am exhausted.  I'm going to start patting myself on the back daily for my excellent show of patience.

However one of my wishes is finally coming true.  Because what you see in the following picture are roofers!


Some of the addition already has the shingles on and everything!  Now if they can just finish the roofing without any of them getting heat stroke, we will all be winners!

Here are some more porch pictures.  Richard wanted a big porch, so Richard got a big porch.  


It is going to be awesome.  Not that you could tell that from this picture of porch ceiling, but it will be.

Aug 7, 2015

Harrison Is Always Listening

In the car today Harrison told me the parable of the 10 virgins.

He said, "I want to teach you a lesson about being prepared.  This is a TRUE story."  And then proceeded to tell me about a wife's husband and 10 grooms, 5 who had extra oil for their lamps and 5 who didn't.  Besides a few details, he got most of it right.  If you are unfamiliar with the parable of the 10 virgins, here it is in video form:


My favorite part of his story was when the foolish "grooms" who ran out of oil asked the wise ones to share their oil with them, and the wise ones said, 

"I love you and you're great, but I don't have enough to share with you."

He is so gifted at ignoring people, that most of the time I just assume he isn't listening, so when he drops something like this on me, it always blows me away.

Aug 5, 2015

PROJECT DARKSTONE : Day 186

I was really super excited for the roofers to start working on Monday,  and so, of course,  they didn't.  Cuz of the rain. Darn rain. The builder says he hasn't heard from them, so who knows when they will start.  That will teach me to get my hopes up about something.

And while we are on the subject of the darn rain,  Richard and I spent all day Saturday rewiring the lights in bedroom #2, the one that used to be the master bedroom. It took forever because we didn't want to take out the drywall.  And then it POURED rain, and since the shingles had been taken off the roof above that room the drywall all got soaked anyway and will have to be replaced.  Some of it even fell out all by itself, just to mock us.


So Rude.

We've spent a bunch more time running wires and doing plumbing and I even got to crawl around under the house, covered in spiderwebs, dirt and sweat to pull some wires.  I was sweating so much it was running down my face like rain.  When I climbed out from under the house a big drop of sweat dripped off my face and splatted onto my toe.  I know you are glad to know that about me.  I am certainly glad to share it with you.  


We stopped by the house this evening to plan out the lights in the kitchen, and when we pulled up we found this in front of our house:

It was around 7:00, so we were surprised to find anyone still working.  Then we walked into to the house and I started shouting, "A window!  Richard, I see a window!!"



And indeed, there was a window guy, installing windows all by himself, and acting like it was totally no big deal, which it TOTALLY was.  I think I actually jumped up and down a few times.  


We may have no idea when the roofers are coming, but at least half of the windows are put in!  


The porch is also coming along, in its own way.  Slow and steady wins the race, right?


Just before we left a huge wind came up and ripped most of the plastic off the roof, so Richard climbed up in the ManLift and nailed it back down.  It was a pain in the patootie, but the sunset was beautiful.  That just about sums up life doesn't it?  Stuff stinks and drives you crazy and at the same time you are surrounded by so much wonder and beauty you just want to cry.

Colin Says



Just found this.  Better post it.  Don't worry, I have stuff on Harrison too.  You'll just have to wait.

OCTOBER 2013:
Found Colin Naked in the kitchen wiping up something off the floor. 
“Wow, Colin, watcha cleaning up?"
Colin, happily “it’s just pee.”

Went to get the mail but there was none.  To Colin I said “There is no mail today.”
Colin:”Maybe the mailman dead.”
Me “No, there just isn’t any mail for us.  The mailman isn’t dead.”
Colin, persuasively, “But maybe.”


Colin hurt his leg, so I told we would have to cut it off.  He said "No!  We need two legs!  Me have one leg me hop around like a bunny!"


And speaking of bunnies, for several months there when he was three, when he pretended to hop around like a rabbit he would say "Hobbit" as he jumped.

Feb 2015:  The family was discussing how big our town is getting.  Harrison said it used to be a town, but now it is a city.  Colin said, "Cities are fun!  I mean boring!  Because I am bored!"  I started laughing and he said, "No, Mom.  For real."

Jan 2015: I put Colin in time out and I heard him upstairs screaming "You not going to get away with this, Mommy!"

Aug 4, 2015

Things My Kids Say

A few things about my kids.

Things Colin has cried about in the last 24 hours: 


Not being able to hold a pencil behind his ear like Handy Manny does.
Harrison talked just before Colin was going to talk.
Harrison made a noise while Colin was singing and messed up his song.
Harrison picked up a lego that Colin was going to pick up.
Noticing that there is a scratch on his foot.




The other day while watching Scooby Doo, Richard said "You know, if the sherriff would just carry a GUN, they could avoid a lot of these problems."  
And Harrison replied, "But how could they get the information to solve the mystery if he or she was dead?"

Hard to argue with Logic Like That.



Hmm, ya think it might be time to clean out the stairwell where I took these pictures?