The Great Remodel Part 3: some people should not have pets.

Before I start my new blog I want to assure all my animal loving friends that we do like animals and we sincerely tried to make them a part of our lives. They just didn't seem to like us much. We do promise not to get any more so you can rest easy.
   Our first animal ownership was a couple cows.  These cows ended up being fence jumpers and, with fire poker in hand, I was constantly chasing them back home. I ate them with a sense of justice and satisfaction.
   Then we got a little black ball of fur and we named her Licorice. She was a part of the family for about five weeks. We had just put new insulation under our house and for some reason that pup crawled under the house and pulled it all out, strewing it all over the yard. She was quickly relocated for her own protection and even given a new name.
  I bought a cat from a silent auction once and his name was Charlie. The owner told me he was strictly an indoor cat. I got Charlie all settled in and left for work the next day. When I came home that afternoon, to my nose's horror, Charlie had sprayed all over my couches and my freshly sheet-rocked walls. Apparently my house belonged to him now. In a true hostile take over I decided Charlie was now an outside cat. He climbed about forty feet up a tree in the back yard, where he stayed for about a week, even resisting the can of tuna I opened as a peace offering.
   As I was checking on Charlie through the binoculars after about a week, I was sure he had left us for good. I asked my husband to remove his little carcass so the children didn't have to come home each day to see a Charlie skeleton hanging in the tree. Terry climbed the tree dangling a chainsaw by his side, cut off the branch only to witness Charlie fly through the air like a great flying squirrel and hit the ground running, it was pretty amazing. Sadly Charlie met his demise in the road in front of our house two months later. Of course it was on the day after I had him neutered, I've always wondered if  his death was self inflicted.
  There was frosty, our white American Eskimo who thought he was so good looking the night I had him professionally groomed.  He decided to go carousing and ended up a victim of the road too. (I think there was a lesson in that one for my kids, something about disobeying and being where you shouldn't be. I think I had them good and scared for a while.)
   Don't even get me started on Wilbur the goat. He came from a friend (my BFF, she almost lost that status because of him) The term ornery goat described Wilbur to a tee. He was supposed to eat our weeds but preferred my flowers and Japanese maple. The first time he head butted me in the posterior was when I started working on getting rid of him, I think that was his first day with us.
  Giving up on the four footed variety, I bought five baby ducks thinking they would be easier to raise. It was a miracle I actually got them to adulthood. Terry was building the kids a swing-set that summer and the minute he came in for lunch they gobbled down all the nuts and bolts he had nicely arranged on a piece of cardboard. Needless to say we had to wait twenty-four hours before finishing the swing set.  I found almost all the bolts in their little wading pool, a little chewed up but still useable.
   They decided they liked the warmth of the pavement on the road better than the safety of the back yard and it didn't take long for my little gaggle to disappear.
   I did have two favorite pets though, Sadie our black lab, she was a terrific guard dog and Litters, our successful in-door cat who was born in a litter box (hence the name litters). Both actually made it to a good old age.
   Four cats, three dogs, five ducks, two cows, one goat, one bird, three Japanese fighting fish, one turtle and countless gold fish later we have decided it is best for man and beast that we just remain pet free.

An evening with the young pack.

   On my sons twenty- third birthday my husband and I were surprised to be invited to his party. I told my husband that wild horses couldn't keep me away from partying with the cool, younger crowd.
   As we set off that night I thought to myself, "who drives an hour for pizza?" When we arrived the sweet little hostess questioned if we were sure we were there for the "Doug party" and promptly took us to the bar. After assuring her none of those "older people" were Doug she led us upstairs to the table where eleven twenty-somethings sat in lively conversation. When we approached the table all conversation stopped and we stared at each other with a great generational canyon between us. It was at that defining moment when I realized how old I  really was.
  A wave of panic came over me at the thought of holding their attention in conversation. Would they smile and pretend they were listening all the while wondering who invited the old people? I took the high road and mostly listened to their conversations. For all you who know me you know this was very hard, I was at a party and most of my fun stories were out of date or had no relevance to someone just starting out in life.
  When it came time to order our dinner we shamelessly used the light on our cell phone to read the menu. It was dark in there, who eats pizza in the dark? Some people, namely me, like to see their food before they eat it. We searched the menu for something that sounded good and would cause the least amount of digestive problems later.
  After eating, they all discussed going for donuts and Terry and I started off for home, after all it was 7:45 and we would barely make our nine o'clock bed call.
  On the way home, as I was digging in my purse for my Rolaids, we tried to remember the days of eating anything we wanted and staying up all night (without severe consequences). Although it was fun to hang out with such a great group of kids, I'll take the slower paced, easy-going, life I have the privilege of living right now.

                     We are wearing Beard Hats, my favorite son, he's so much fun.

The great remodel part 2

   When we first started  getting our hands dirty I had no idea what we were in for. I am convinced that my husband, who dreams in blueprints , was secretly overjoyed at the prospect of a life long project. At one point I offered that I was willing to bulldoze the whole house and set up a triple wide mobile home but my vote was vetoed and the work soon commenced and hasn't stopped since.
   One of my favorite projects was giving the old fireplace a facelift. It went from caveman to elegant  in three days. It was a bit grand for our small living room though, and occasionally we would walk to close to the mantle  and ram our arm into the corner. It was like living with my brothers and the "hurts donut" all over again, we all had bruises on our upper arms for weeks.  We also upgraded to a pellet stove and I was overjoyed to walk over and turn up the thermostat when I was cold. We recently moved the entire fireplace to a different wall.
   When I decided to wall paper the kitchen I had no idea what I was doing. I found a couple rolls at a yard sale and started the project. Boy was that a fiasco. My five dollar wall paper turned into three hundred dollars when I had to "special order" more rolls because I had failed to measure anything.  When it was finished it looked like a garden had thrown up all over my walls, it actually made me feel a little dizzy. Terry, (Mr. White walls), just shook his head and walked away.
   A few things I've learned along the way are building terms like header, floor joist, bearing wall (that one is real important) and sub flooring. There is a difference between a drill and an impact drill but not between a reciprocating saw and a sawzaw. I now know there is more to installing a window than cutting a hole and shoving it in. The words "change order" were always met with a frown and it does matter how many electrical sockets you have in one room. My mag flashlight works just as well as my hammer and if you position the picture right you can hide all your mistake holes.

   Scott taking out the caveman fireplace, Doug holding the wall up.

 

 

 
 

Melody inside removing bricks

 

fireplace out, now what?

 

                                                                                                        This is the finished product, I love it.

 
 























Please try to look past the hottie in the leather jacket for a small sample of my wall paper.

The Great Remodel part 1

  Twenty two years ago my husband and I bought an old farm house that was built in the mid eighteen-nineties. It was a scary looking old house and needed a lot of work.
   We moved in the bitter cold of January. With a couch and a few mattresses to toss on the floor for the kids we called it home. I quickly learned to build fires in the wood stove to keep the frost from forming on the inside of the windows. I remember the day I discovered Presto Logs, no more chopping and loading dirty wood into the house, no more bringing in bugs or thawing out frozen yellow jackets that were hiding in the wood for the winter. I would simply take my Buick to the local feed store and load my trunk up with logs until my front tires barely touch the pavement.
    The house also came with a few undesirables. I first discovered the rat when we met face to face in my kitchen. He screeched and ran into the pantry while I screamed and ran into the living room. I hopped onto my couch and did a little shiver dance. I calmed myself down, took up my trusty fire poker and set off to look for the rat hole. I found it in the pantry floor and I nailed a canning lid over it, problem solved.
    Keeping the mice out was a little more tricky. I sat on the couch and watched them play by the warmth of the fire while I was completely frozen in fear. I spent the whole next day filling every crack and crevice I could find with my can of liquid spray insulation. 
It worked pretty good until I used it on the door jams, the insulation swelled so much it pushed the jam out and we couldn't get the door closed, boy was I in trouble, it took my husband hours to dig it all out. (problem solved, sorry honey).
 The first major part of our remodel was to add to the second story. The plan was that my husband framed the wall and my oldest daughter and I were to hold it in place while he nailed it off. I have never been so scared in my life. Holding on to a thousand pound wall on the second floor with a thirteen year old girl did not go over well with either of us. I have never dug my nails in so deep or stretched my body to such lengths as I did that day.
  After nailing the upstairs floor perfectly in place so it wouldn't squeak we discovered that a cat had gotten between the floor boards the night before and gave birth to kittens. She was nicely sealed into our squeak-free floor and it took hours of floor removal to get little the family safely out.