There are so many of them! For starters, my last post was entitled "A Day of Rest." HA! I'm struggling to remember what a day like that must feel like. It's been a wild and crazy week around here. There's no way I can remember all the details and, really, I'm sure there are several I'd just as soon forget anyway! Ha! We've worked soooooo hard and I'm sooooo tired. It's past midnight and I feel like I'm dozing off every minute or two, but my 52 year old mother is sitting across the room from me, fiddling on her computer. I can't be outdone by her, so I'd might as well blog while I'm waiting for her to give up and go to bed first. ;-)

Monday... all I know for sure is that the floor guys were back and I now have brand new, gorgeous floors and I'm soooooooooo happy!!! We've been working too hard to get everything all cleaned up so I can get a good picture, but hopefully tomorrow we'll be able to pull it off. :-)

We worked around the floor guys while they were here, although I can't remember what all we did. I don't remember any details from yesterday either, just that we worked, worked, worked. Right, Mom?! ;-) We've had an ongoing list of things to do each day and we check them off as we go. It's strange how lists like that work. Every time you check something off you think of at least two new things to add to the list! But we've accomplished SO MUCH--more than I really thought possible. At this point, we're very close to "done," except that I'm going to be polyurethaning for the rest of my life. Ha! There are so many things that need "finished" with the sealer and some of them will require several coats over several days' time.

I still don't have a whole lot of before and after pictures, but we're ALMOST done with the bathroom (James has yet to finish building the new toothpaste cabinet (we don't have any medicine, so it seems dumb to call it a medicine cabinet! Ha!) and I need to poly the countertop at least three or four more times, then caulk around the sink. Anyway, here are some before and almost after shots of that room. The "before" pictures don't even BEGIN to capture the true nastiness of that room--the floor was DISGUSTING and... well, everything was just gross!!! Just ask Jamey or Emilee! Ha! Anyway, here we go!!!

Entering the bathroom!!! Before...

After!



Before...



After!



Before...



After!



Before...



After!



We did a whole lot of "custom" things in this bathroom. That's our way of saying that we did things ourselves and saved some money here an there! The vanity was really nasty, but to save some $$$ we decided to refinish it instead of replace it. We got rid of the old sink/countertop, Mom scrubbed down the nasty wood on the cabinet, then I painted it this terrific blue color. After it was good and dry (several days later) I sanded off the edges here and there (and Mom came and sanded where the handles and knobs will eventually go--I was too chicken for that part!), put a coat of poly on it and voila! OH! And, of course, James installed the new countertop and surround and we stained and poly-ed it, too. It'll need more, but it's good enough for now!



The other really, really big project was the dining room chairs. WOW, what a job!!! I didn't think to take a picture of them before we started, but this pic of Joe sort of shows them...



They were a blonde sort of color, really blah, and didn't really go with anything. I bought them because they were good and sturdy and they were the right price. And because I had visions of what they'd look like all painted up to match my kitchen cabinets!

Monday afternoon at about 3:00 we pulled out Maurice. That's my airless paint sprayer. I have wasted away so much of my life with a paint brush or roller in hand that we finally invested in Maurice a couple of years ago when we lived in Andrews. He was worth the investment on the very first job!!! WOW, what a machine! It cuts the painting time down to a tenth of what it would otherwise take and it's so nice and smooth. I was in love the very first day. That's how "it" became a "he" and got a name all of his own. I wanted to find a place of honor to keep in him in the house, but James thought that was going a bit too far. ;-) Anyway, it's been a year or two since I've used Maurice, but I knew he was the only way to go when it was time to paint the chairs. So we drug him and and, lo and behold, he was NOT in the working groove the rest of us have been in for the past week and a half! I read the instructions over and over again, hooked and unhooked and rehooked everything up, had Mom look at it, then James, tried cleaning things again (it's very delicate--has to be cleaned thoroughly or will be ruined), talked to him, begged and pleaded and coaxed and finally laid hands on him and prayed for him! At long last, after I had poured boiling soapy water down him, he started putting forth some effort. We poured the paint into him and had to work a while longer before he was fully awakened from his two year nap and ready for work. By that time it was getting cold outside and the sun was slipping down behind the mountains. HURRY!!! We sprayed away and got a good, thick coat of paint on the chairs. Really thick! We were in such a hurry to get it done before it got too dark--then we had to get them into the house where it would be warm enough for them to dry. That meant transporting really, really wet chairs without smearing the paint. HA! Try that! Lets just say that Mom's and my fingerprints are forever preserved on the under side of each seat. We thought about painting over them, but decided to keep 'em that way as a momento to our work. :-) Since that time, there has been a whole lot of painting going on around here, all of it on the same six little chairs! Ha!

Mom painted...

And painted...

And painted some more...

I take that back. She spent the first 2 hours taping off the "hoops" on the chairs. She then painted two chairs and realized that the tape was worthless and was creating MORE work and that it would be faster to just take her time and paint carefully without the tape. So I spent an hour removing all of the tape she'd worked so hard to get on, then I helped her paint the yellow "hoops" on the chairs. Actually, on a chair. My chair. My one and only. Mom painted 5 chairs, I painted one. I'm a little slow. ;-) We were determined that the yellow had to be done last night, so we stayed up until nearly 3:00 in the morning last night painting chairs!!! James put on some good, happy music for us and it was fun, for the most part. After about 2:00 we were getting a little loopy and we laughed ourselves to tears a couple of times over nothing all that funny. That's always the best. :-)

Then today, Mom touched up on all the red paint that we'd missed with Maurice or that the yellow had oozed on to...

And tonight she was finally able to get the the green paint and finish everything up! Wa-Hoo!!! Ain't they CUTE?!?!?


Of course, nobody is allowed to sit on them or anything. Ha! Not until I get a chance to put several good coats of polyurethane on them to preserve their cuteness. That can't happen until next week at this point, so the kids will just have to keep using the stools for now. But we had to put the chairs around the table to see what they look like and to take a picture! :-)

~whew~ Mom finally just gave up and is headed to bed. Guess that means I can go, too. I'll try to blog tomorrow night because we'll be gone to LADIES' RETREAT for the weekend!!! WA-HOOOOOO!!!!! I am sooooooooo excited! I've been thinking about it and praying for it while we've been painting and sanding and staining our lives away this week. We went shopping tonight for all of the ingredients we'll need for the goodies we'll be taking with us. :-) Tomorrow we're going to try real hard to stay away from any tools, paintbrushes, or sandpaper. We're going to just clean things up a bit, do some cooking and baking, and get ready for the Retreat. ~sigh~ That will be so nice! :-)

~aaaaaaahhhhh~ What a welcomed relief! We had a great Sunday. We had a good service this morning and Sunday School went well with the kids. Much better than the messy, painty disasters of weeks past. :-) AND... a family that used to attend very regularly but hasn't been to church since we've begun having services in homes was there with us!!! PRAISE THE LORD!!! For anybody who was at camp, it was Aaron and his family. :-) They've been attending another church, but Mark (the dad) finally said he wanted to find us and come have church with us wherever we are because they're just not getting fed at the other church. Again, PRAISE THE LORD!!! That is just SO EXCITING to me! There is something different about The Church of God. We hadn't even made it through the service (James had yet to preach) when Mark testified and said he's so glad they came, that he could feel the spirit and presence of the Lord and he felt loved and wanted and he felt "at home" and comfortable. Can I say it a third time?! PRAISE THE LORD!!! I'm just so thrilled. We're hoping and praying that they'll be joining us regularly again. They are a special family and we've really grown to love them. We definitely need a place to worship though--we pack out a house when we're all together! What a good problem to have!!! :-)

James had scheduled tonight's ABM service here at our house. Isn't that thoughtful of him?! HA! Since our floor isn't installed yet and the stove is still in the garage, we weren't able to bake anything today. So after church this morning we stopped by a grocery store and bought a caramel apple cheesecake, some fall cookies, and some mini-brownies to serve after the service. We stopped and had lunch at Burger Boy on our way up the mountain, then came home and got busy straightening the house up a bit. Mom had already gotten the kitchen all cleaned up last night--and somehow cleared off the last of the table debris--so that was a HUGE headstart. We got it whipped into shape pretty quick and actually had a couple minutes to lay down before church.

Sister Galaviz is our newly appointed ABM leader and she had a FANTASTIC service tonight. First of all, it was SO GREAT to have a piano during our song service! It's amazing what a difference that makes. God has been good and we've been blessed in our acapulco ;-) song services, but having a piano (especially when Mom's playing it!) just sort of draws your spirit into the worship of it all, you know? I was so blessed. Anyway, Sister Galaviz talked about the ABM department and used lots of illustrations about the human body and how it functions and how WE are to funcion as a unit. She had the kids help her out with the visual aids. She talked about the organs and the seven major functions (is that what she called them?!) of the body...

And she talked about the joints and how they work--two separate parts working together in harmony and such. Lots of good analogies from that!


And, of course, she went through lots of scriptures about the body and likened it to our own local church. It really spoke to me, and everyone else, I'm sure.
It was a really, really good service! Afterward we pulled out all the goodies and just visited for a while, which was nice. This was the first time any of our folks have been up to our house (except Sister Galaviz--she was here a few days ago) and I LOVED it!!! ~sigh~ It's just so nice to have people here. We've been meaning to have them up one family at a time for dinner, but things have been so crazy--and, of course, you feel bad inviting people to your house when it's all torn up! But it was great tonight. Aside from having only half a new floor (the rest comes tomorrow! WA-HOOOOO!), things looked pretty good around here, I thought! Well, not the garage or the bathroom we're only half done with (it currently has no toilet or sink--which is FAR BETTER than the nasty stuff that used to be there, right Jamey and Em?! Ha!) -- but that doesn't really count! It'll all be better next time around, I'm sure. Anyway, we had a really terrific service and it made me truly happy to be able to have it here at my very own little home. :-)

When everybody left Mom and I ran to the bathroom and put the wallpaper border up. Sorry, Amy--this one is at the top of the room! Ha! I generally prefer them in the middle of the wall, too (in fact, I've never put one at the top before tonight!), but it's just the way it had to go in this particular room! That was our one and only job of the day. Then we sat down with a cookie, another piece of cheesecake and some vanilla cokes and PLAYED A GAME! Yippie!!! It's against all the rules (just ask James--this is not a leisure trip! Mom is here to WORK, WORK, WORK! Ha!), but we've been working soooooo hard... and it's SUNDAY, for goodness' sake! So we got a few hours off tonight. :-) I smothered her at the game, in cause you're wondering. ;-) Tomorrow morning it's back to work! We've got quite a list and only time will tell how it will all go. Especially with the floor guys here again--it's hard to function around them. But it will be soooooooo worth it when I have beautiful new floors tomorrow night and can move everything back into place! I'M SO EXCITED!!! :-)

I wasn't going to post any pictures of our work until I had some before and after pictures to show you. Unfortunatly, we have yet to get to any "after" pictures! Ha! Mom has already been sharing some pictures with a few of you and I finally figured I should join in the fun. Besides, it feels great to to sit down and blog a bit and get some relief from a paint brush or sand paper for a little while!

Here is a "before" picture of the utility room after we emptied it out. GA-ROSS. You have no idea.
And here's a picture of the "during." Don't be fooled. I did the painting in there, not Mom. ;-) Actually, she did all of the trim work and I did the roller work. She's soooooo much faster than I am with the detailed stuff!

And that's it. No "after" to show you yet. We have all of the paint and wallpaper done and I have the cabinets stained and polyurethaned and ready to install. We're just waiting on the floor dudes to come do their job in there so we can move the appliances back in and we'll be in business!

In all of our excitement over making the really, really nasty utility room into a really cute and clean place that I might enjoy working in, we got a little carried away and decided to take the cuteness into the pantry and hall closet. :-)

We kept losing Mom though--she blended right into the wall. Ha!

Here's what the utility room looks like now that we've got the wallpaper and border up on top of the red paint. :-)

Better yet, here it is with the really great picture I eye-balled at Aunt Sue's store for a few months and finally took home. I never really had a place for it before, but I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE how this room is turning out!!!


I'll get the "after" shot of the whole room once we have a floor, install the cabinets and get the washer and dryer back in place.

I spent most of my day today in the garage inhaling various fumes. It usually doesn't bother me a bit (I like the smell of most of that stuff), but after 8 or 9 hours of working with paint and stain and polyurethane (without thinking to open the window) I got to feeling rather sick. Oh well--I got a lot done before then! I can't remember what all, but I finished up on two or three coats of all three colors of paint on the cabinets that will go under the kitchen window--all they lack now is polyurethane. I stained the countertop for the bathroom and all of the trim that James will install to separate the wallpapers in there. Hhmmm. I can't remember what else. All I know is that I had about 14 things on my personal "to do" list today and I knocked of 8 or 9 of them. That's a whole lot better than Mom. She only had four things and still struggled to knock off two. Ha! Her's were biggie's--like wallpapering the top half of the bathroom. It's always so much more time consuming than you think it should be!

There will be lots more pictures to come, but I'll go ahead and post this one. We put yellow ginham wallpaper on the top half of the bathroom, then some textured wood looking paper on the bottom half... then we "washed" it with blue! I smeared blue paint over it and Mom wiped off the excess, leaving dark blue in the cracks and light blue over the rest. I can't wait to see what this bathroom is going to look like when it's all finished! My last bathroom was SOOOOOO great and I knew I could never recreate it. Besides, I wanted to go more "rustic" here in this house--it's more fitting that way. I think we're going to be able to pull it off and still go blue and yellow, which makes me very happy. (I like blue and yellow together... and we have really nice blue and yellow towels we bought just after we got married so we need to stick with those colors!) Anyway, this will give you some idea of the direction we're headed with this bathroom:

We called it quits early tonight. About 7:00, I think. We've been working until 10 or 11 o'clock each night. I wasn't feeling the greatest tonight anyway, but I also had to scrub down some really cruddy kids and get ready for Sunday School tomorrow. I had thought ahead to get my ideas together last week (can you believe that?!), so all I really had to do tonight was gather my supplies and do a little prep work. :-)

Hhmmm. I had figured on waiting until morning to take my bath, but I think now that Mom's done in there (we're down to one bathroom until we finish the blue and yellow one!) I may go ahead and go get that over with. I know I'll feel better after I soak a while--and it means I'll be able to sleep a little bit longer tomorrow morning! ;-) G'night!

Oh, well. Maybe it gives you some idea anyway. Did you notice that the garage that we worked SO HARD to get all cleaned out a few weeks ago, is now loaded heavy with junk. It used to be clear enough to be a nice bike room for the kids. Now you have to hurdle four cans of paint, a couch and a few cabinets just to get yourself a bowl of cereal.

Even the dog is having a hard time finding a place to relax anymore.

Yesterday didn't exactly go according to our plans. We started off well enough, but then the floor guys showed up. We really thought we could just work around them--stay busy on projects in the area they weren't working on at the moment, then switch to another area when they got close to our spot. Nope. It seemed that no matter where we went and what we did, we were in their way! Mom was able to get some of the wallpaper up in the bathroom, but she finally gave up on that because the dudes kept needing in there. Sister Galaviz had come up to help, but there was just nothing to do! The whole house was in utter chaos and there were people buzzing here and there in every direction and it was enough to drive a person just a little batty. Sister Galaviz's job turned out to be occupying the kids! Little did we know it was really the best thing that anybody could have done!!! The chaos would have been soooooo much worse if she hadn't been there to keep them busy.

Lunch time came soon enough, but there was no place to eat, so I made my way to the garage (yes, the garage) and scooped up an armful of peanut butter, jelly, bread, left-over pizza and a few paper plates. We fixed our gourmet lunch out at the kiddy picnic table and enjoyed a little break from the mess and chaos of the house. Poor Sister Galaviz. We had invited her up for lunch, to begin with. In the end it turned out to be a peanut butter sandwich she had to make for herself! Ha! She somehow seemed to enjoy it and didn't seem the least bit frazzled by all of the madness going on. That made one of us, so it was nice. Ha!

When the floor guys finally left at 4:00... No, wait. One important little tidbit of information is that they DIDN'T FINISH the floor. Good ole' Wade had told me it would be a one day job, but then they ended up coming on a day when they couldn't start bright and early AND had to quit early. And, of course, we had added two little sections of floor to the job after he gave us the bid. Anyway, they don't work Saturdays, so they won't be back until MONDAY. No problem. Except that Mom and I were both really thirsty last night and would have gone to get something to drink... if the refrigerator wasn't so far away! Ha! The fridge and stove and washer and dryer and all of the contents of the pantry and utility closet and who knows what else have been strewn all over the kitchen table and somehow filled the garage up as well. Crazy!

Anyway, after the floor dudes finally left we were able to get busy and DO something. We marked 6 things off of our list of 12 for the day. Actually, there were a few little things that got done that weren't on the list, but I wrote them down real quick so we could check them off and feel more successful than we really were. ;-) Today's list has three things on it, as well as the 6 from yesterday. Oh, wait... I think we thought of a couple of new things to add to it last night. Oh well. We'll see how far we get!

The kids just finished breakfast and are almost all gathered (two-thirds of them, so far) for devotions, so I've got to go. Hopefully the next crop of pictures will be more impressive than these. ;-) Have a great weekend!

Well, so far we have accomplished getting my entire house into shambles. It's a WRECK around here. It's so exciting!!! You always have to tear up jack before accomplishing something truly grand. If the magnitude of the mess directly connects to the grandness of the finished product then things should be beyond fantastic in the end! ;-)

We went to town a little early on Tuesday so I could go vote before we picked Mom up at the airport. Felt good to get that done. I've done my part. I wasn't so much voting for one person as I was voting AGAINST another! :-) Anyway, we got Mom from the airport and took her out to eat at the Olive Garden. Dad doesn't like Italian food and she never gets to eat at places like that, so it was fun. We came home and spent our first evening just THINKING. Got to get a good game plan going before you jump into remodeling stuff, you know?!

Yesterday, once we finally got through breakfast and devotions and all that, we all piled into the vehicles and headed to town to shop for everything we'd scribbled down on the list the night before. Home Depot and Lowes. I think we were successful. We got home with only about an hour to work. It was good, actually, because there's always so much prep work to be done before you can actually start on a real "project." So I removed vent and outlet covers and started scrubbing walls.

Mom went with me to watch the kids at their riding lessons at 4:00. They're all doing good and seem to have fun, but Sam has told me three weeks in a row now that he doesn't want to go and ride... until we get there--then he changes his mind and rides after all. Anyway, Staci let Katie and Joe trot for the first time yesterday. HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! Ohhhhh, how I wish I would have had my camcorder!!! Joe was HILARIOUS! There's just no way to describe it. I only hope that my mind can forever remember the crazed look on his face and those giant eyeballs of his. You'd never know it to watch him, but he had a blast! He bounced around quite a bit and never really got the hang of a "posting trot" (you're supposed to sort of stand up on every other bounce), but he sure had fun. Still, I don't think he had as much fun as Katie girl did. She LOVED it. Not at first--she wanted to stop right away the first couple of times, but then she got into the groove and did really good. And asked to do it again and again! It was fun to watch them having so much fun! :-)

We came home and got back to work. Mom scrubbed walls while I painted ceilings in the bathroom and the utility room. Then we got the walls painted in the utility room as well. We were really surprised we got so far since we didn't really start until 5:30 or something like that!

Today wasn't quite as rewarding initially. We were busy for hours and hours before you could really see any progress! It was a bunch of those jobs that are necessary to do before you can do the really fun stuff that says WOW, you know? I got the shelves out of the pantry and scrubbed them down while Katie painted the shelf supports still in the pantry. Mom was busy scrubbing on the cabinet in the bathroom. Then she was busy wallpapering and I was busy painting the shelves, then the cabinet in the bathroom. Everything is turning out SO GREAT! ~sigh~ It's just so fun to be able to take something so gross (although it would be more fun to take something nice and clean for a change!) and turn it into someting really adorable. :-)

We stopped and got everybody ready for church and headed to Sister Grimes house for BTI service. We started into our new book tonight: The Will of God. Looks to be a really good one. Pat had pumpkin pecan bread for us afterward and it was really good, as was the fellowship. Pat is a riot!

After we left there we went out to Dion's... AGAIN. (I'm about pizza-ed out, I think--if that's possible!) Then we headed to Wal-Mart in Edgewood to pick up some more paint supplies. Came home and got the kid-o's to bed, then put our work clothes on again and finished up on the wallpaper and moved the stove and fridge out of the kitchen because WADE, THE FLOOR GUY, IS FINALLY COMING TOMORROW!!!!!! Wa-Hoo!!! I will finally have FLOORS! (Thanks for the tip on the cleaners, Kevin--it's a laminate flooring that we're installing.) We'll have to work our projects around wherever he is working, but that's okay. :-) James also has poor Sister Galaviz roped into coming up here in her work clothes tomorrow. Can you imagine?! Crazy woman seems excited to come help, though. Ha! It will be so fun to have her here! I think he initially had me invite her up here for lunch or dinner or something silly like that. In the middle of all this work?! I'm afraid all we'll have to offer her is a sandwich or left-overs! ~sigh~ I should be so ashamed. Somehow, I'm not. She just strikes me as the kind of lady who will be just as happy with it this way!

So now we blog. Mom in the blue chair and me in the red chair, 10 feet away from each other. She lives in Tennessee and I live in New Mexico. We see each other a few times a year. And here we sit, in the same room, not speaking, clicking away on the computers on our laps like we would do if we were a thousand miles away. There are times when I hate technology. I would have hidden the computers and made Mom play a game with me tonight... if only we could get to the table. Right not it's about 2' deep in STUFF. The kids will have to eat on the floor tomorrow. They'd just as soon do that anyway. Oh well. Hopefully we'll have SOME of this mess cleaned up by tomorrow night. Of course, we will have created a whole new mess in another room by then. ;-)

For now, I'm going to go take a bath and wash my hair. I'll sleep sooooo much better, I'm sure!

Anyway, I taught Katie how to scrub the tub and toilet, then talked Joe through cleaning the floor and mirror. Sam had already stripped the sheets off all the beds earlier and I was able to get the laundry started. It will take a lot more of my time initially (until the kids can actually do this stuff without me there to help or coach them), but I'm sure it will be sooooo worth it. Assuming I stick with it, that is! I fear we'll be taking a two week break from the chores we haven't learned yet, because...

MOM IS COMING!!!! Wa-Hooooo!!! I am sooooooooo excited! I'm excited to spend time with her and James is excited to see what the house will look like once she's gone. Ha! Our first two priorities are the utility room and that nasty second bathroom. There are several other things that are on the list just in case we're better than we think and finish up on those two rooms super fast. :-) It's going to be so fun!

Back to our day... We got into school, but it wasn't too long before James came home with another little can of stain--the third shade he'd bought in an effort to match our new log siding with the rest of the house. This one wasn't any good either. At Mom's suggestion, we finally pulled out the old faithful can of Special Walnut that we've had lying around the house and *voila* a perfect match! Well, as perfect as we're going to get! James was gettin' pretty antsy about the situation, so I told the kids to take a break from school and we'd finish up later. Made for a very, very happy Joe.

Katie wanted to help me stain the logs, so she and I put our work clothes on and headed outside. She helped me get the bottom 7 logs done (as far up as she could comfortably reach) and did a pretty good job, I thought! Then I sent her inside to figure out something for lunch for herself and the boys. After a while Sam came outside with a hot dog wrapped up in a corn tortilla--and just raving about how good it was. Whatever works! Kate did pretty well cleaning things up, too, so that was a GREAT help!

Once she went inside and I was left alone without distraction I couldn't help but notice the color of the logs and recognize the smell of the stain and the feel of it--and my hands covered in it. It brought back sooooo many strong memories of Grandmother and Granddad. Everybody has different memories that are special to them. Although we all know who their favorite grandkid was (Ha! I only say that in case she happens to be reading! ;-) Love ya, Stacey!), going to the cabin to help out with the wood was my special thing with them. From the time I was about 12 years old I would go spend a week or two and help Grandmother stain and sand and wax all the stuff that Granddad had built. I remember having so much fun with them and talking to Grandmother about all sorts of things. I remember asking lots of questions once about her parents and her childhood and I was so fascinated by it all. I only wish I had written it down so I could remember it all now! So I stood outside staining my logs today, tears just pouring, and praying to God and thanking Him SO MUCH for giving me such wonderful Grandparents and for all of the wonderful memories I have of them. It's been 8 years this month since they were killed and I was feeling that same ache in my heart today as I did in the very beginning. I know it sounds strange, but I'm so glad. I don't ever want to forget how much I love them and all of the wonderful memories that make me laugh or cry or both. I am SO BLESSED.

Anyway, this is the result of our labor today...

Not a perfect match, but close enough to make me very happy! And see that tiny little can next to the dog? It only took about a can and a half of that stain to do the whole thing. So today's work only cost us about $6 total. That's the kind of work day I like! :-) I just hope we can figure out how to finish the entire house so it'll still match. The old, dried out logs are going to take the Penofin or linseed oil differently than the new, smooth logs do. We may have to get creative to make sure everything still matches decently in the end!

I helped the kids finish up their crafts from Sunday School yesterday. Joe had a hard time drawing the connection between Christopher Columbus and Jacob wrestling with the angel. "But Mom... what does any of this have to do with Jacob???" Good point. NOTHING, Joe--just finish your dumb boat. ;-)

I ran out of laundry detergent before my last load this evening, so James decided to load us all up and head into town to get some. I think he was really just dreading the sandwiches or left-overs that were about to show up for dinner and wanted an excuse to go out to eat! We went to Sam's club and got my detergent and a few other odds and ends we didn't know we needed until we got there. (That's the trouble with Sam's...) Then we went to Dion's for cheap pizza before heading home.

The kids are all sleeping in their sleeping bags tonight because I never got the fresh sheets put on their beds today. ~sigh~ What a slacker! I just finished up on all of the ironing (yeah!!!), except the little bit that is still in the dryer. So in the morning I'll have to do that--and get sheets on the beds--and we should be all ready for Mom to come! I'm going to try real hard to have a full day of school tomorrow, since there's no telling how much schooling will be taking place the next week or two. ;-) And I figured I really should blog since, as you know, I don't like to sit in front of a computer when I have real, live people to be with!

Before I go, here are some pictures James took today of Sam and the cross he built. That kid is sooooo cute.


Cute... until he tries to crucify somebody tomorrow, that is! Ha! Anyway, that's it from here! LATER!!!

Like this.

Hey, don'tcha' just love the girl in the black skirt in the first potato picture?! Looks like she's smoothing out her heating lamp skirt! Ha!

I stood in line so long I got bored and took a picture of the lady in front of me--her hat, actually. She's apparently quite the Punkin' Chunkin' enthusiast!

And here are the boys enjoying those ribbon fries, at long last!

When we finished our lunch we turned our full attention to the theme of the day: hurling pumpkins at amazing speeds to the other side of town or bowing them to smithereens and watching the chunks drop back to the earth, depending on which cannon was doing the blasting and how they were operated. It was cool! I read somewhere that at the National Championships (can you imagine?!) in Deleware a guy had blasted a pumpkin 4,594 feet. I don't know if these were going THAT far, but who knows! It was amazing, if a little noisy. Here are some of the air cannons. Gotta love the names!

I tried several times, but never could get a picture of a pumpkin in the air--they were WAY too fast for me! I got close with this one, but that's it.

Although it couldn't complete with the distance of the air cannons, this catapult was the COOLEST of all and always got the biggest applause. A couple of dudes would spend a few minutes cranking it down, then they'd put a pumpkin in the sling and tuck it up under the trailer before releasing it.

Here's the fam, enjoying the show and some cotton candy.

It was a good, fun day. But there are only so many pumpkins you can watch soaring through the air before it loses it's novelty. We left the big event and headed home, but made a couple of stops along the way. We went into a thrift store we'd never noticed before in Moriarty. WOW!!! It was huge and sooooo clean and organized--and CHEAP. We walked out with a turtleneck and 3 nice denim skirts for me, a vest for Katie, a book for Joe and a complete pirate outfit for Sam (pants, vest and hat) for $5.40. !!!!! Wa-Hoo!!! Now THAT is the way to shop! :-) Don't tell James, but all of the skirts are a little small for me. I wanted to try them on there, but he said no, at that price just take 'em--surely one of them will fit. I'll bring them to Ladies' Retreat, Em! ;-)

We came home and I spent about 40 minutes looking high and low for the new batteries and charger James just bought a few weeks ago. The camera batteries had died at the Punkin' Chunkin' so I needed to put the new ones back in. I couldn't find them ANYWHERE and kept looking and looking and looking, having that dread feeling swell bigger and bigger knowing that eventually I was going to have to tell James. I HATE THAT!!! That's why I spend so much of my life secretly spinning circles in search of whatever I've misplaced. ~sigh~ I get so tired of it, but I just can't seem to REMEMBER where I put stuff and I so dread the lecture that occurs when I TELL James I can't find something! Ha! He's so much nicer about such things than he used to be, but you know. Lectures are NEVER fun! ;-) Anyway, I did the same thing with my purse a few days ago. I can't tell you how much time I spent looking for it, knowing it was here SOMEWHERE, but just not seeing it and not able to remember where I had put it. I eventually found it right out in the open in the dining room. I found the batteries, too, yesterday. In my purse. Good grief.

After I finally solved the missing batteries mystery I was free and clear to work on Sunday School and VLB service. James made our new appointments last week and I have been relieved from WMB and appointed to VLB. Wa-Hoo!!! Is it okay to wa-hoo an appointment loss?! It feels so good to NOT be the WMB leader. I know that sounds terrible, but I was just really ready for a new focus, you know? I've been WMBing it for a whole lot of years now and I felt like I was just kind of saying the same thing over and over again. I'm excited about the VLB work, even though we don't have any VLB's other than James and me. :-) We've got some potential and I'm excited about working witht that. :-)

We had good services today, although Sunday School was a disaster. We use a spare room at Sister Galaviz's house and I had the brilliant idea of PAINTING this morning. I had brought a vinyl tablecloth to spread on the floor and it did it's job of sparing Sister Galaviz's carpet. For THAT I am very thankful! I don't know why I hadn't thought to bring trash bags for the kids to wear while they painted; I somehow just thought it would be okay since they were going to painting just a little tiny thing. HA. Sam slopped greenish-blue paint on my peachy-orange colored skirt right off. I went to the bathroom to wash it off and came back to find paint on Sam's pants, shirt, tie, and suit jacket. Aaaauuuugggghhhhh!!! What a dope!!! We never did finish the crafts. We spent the rest of the "class" cleaning up our clothes and washing the paint off of everybody's hands. No matter. The crafts had nothing whatsoever to do with our lesson! Ha! I couldn't come up with anything to do with the story of Jacob and Leah and Rachel and then his wrestling with the angel. So I talked about him having great perseverance, in both instances! We made some fall leaves and talked about trees persevering through the long winter even after sad things happen like loosing their leaves. I know: LAME. That's okay, the kids don't know it! Then we were going to talk about Columbus (we just had his holiday, you know) persevering and making it all the way to "discover" America. We were in the middle of making tiny Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria's when the paint got out of hand and we had to quit. The kids didn't even know what we were making or that it had anything to do with Columbus! Ha! Maybe we'll get a chance to finish them up tomorrow.

My VLB service went okay tonight, I think--although it was quite short. I'm notorious for having very, very short services (I just don't have that much to SAY, you know?!), but it seems like they've been stretching out longer lately for one reason or another. In lieu of true-blue VLB's, Joe read a scripture for me, Katie led songs, and Sam took up the offering. I talked about the sons of the prophets eating the pottage with the wild gourds in it and crying out to Elisha that there was "death in the pot." They didn't know they were eating anything dangerous until it was too late. The young people in the world today are doing the very same thing--partaking of so many things that will lead to their distruction, but they don't even know it. Elisha knew the remedy though. He simply said, "Then bring meal" and had it thrown into the pot. Meal is the main ingredient of bread, so I talked about Jesus being the Bread of Life and how He is the only thing that can save us from the poison of this world. When young people finally realize that their lives are not turning out the way they had thought and that the things they're partaking of are actually destroying them, they will cry out for help. When they do, we need to be ready with the solution--the Bread of Life! It made great sense in my mind--I just hope it came across clear enough that the dots connected for everybody else tonight! Ha!

We stood outside and visited for a little while after church tonight, which was so nice. Came home and let the kids have a snack before bed instead of dinner. Got everybody in their pj's, teeth brushed and in bed, then I went back to the dishes. Turned and looked at the clock and saw it was only 7:55!!! HA! Bedtime is 8:30 around here, so the kids really got gyped. It just FELT later than that--and the clock in the kids' room is still flashing the wrong time from another momentary power outage yesterday. I didn't tell 'em. What they don't know won't hurt 'em, I say! ;-)

And that's about it! Mom gets here on Tuesday and then it's work, work, work! :-) So I've got tomorrow to try to get the house cleaned up a little bit and HOPEFULLY get all caught up on the laundry and ironing. No problem except for one tiny little hitch. I think James is going to want me to be caulking and staining the new log siding tomorrow! Hhmmm... Guess we'll see who's jobs take priority, hu?! ;-)

And just as achy!!! Ha! It's been a VERY productive day today. We didn't get a LOT of projects done, but the ones we did were BIG!!! :-)

Things started off normal enough with breakfast, cleaning up and devotions. I sent the kids off to play, thinking we'd gather again at 11:00 for school. HA! Never saw a school book today. I knew James would be needing my help, but I didn't realize how much help he'd be needing!

It was time to set up the walls that he had built out in the garage. One wall really, but in two sections--a 6' section and a 10' section. No, wait. The first project was ridding ourselves of the garage door, piece by piece. Then we got the rail and everything else out of there. After that we spent, oh, quite some time (!) wrestling the two wall sections into place! Ha! James did a GREAT job though and the wall fits really good! He even built the window hole just right and we slid it right into place. And get this: everything is LEVEL!!! Not perfectly level, but the bubble stays between the lines on the level, so we're GOOD!!! :-) I sound almost as surprised as James did the other day when we tested the window in the hole in the wall for it (while it was still laying on the garage floor). It slid perfectly into place and with the most astonished voice James said, "It fits!!!" Almost like he was confused by the fact that he'd done it right! Ha!

This is what it looks like from the inside. This will be the boys' room eventually. Maybe by Christmas??? :-)

The boys love having their own tools to work with. They really don't have their OWN yet, but we let the borrow some to keep them occupied on days like today!

James and I didn't really have an expectations of getting much more done after getting the wall up and in place. But somehow we just jumped right into the next project, which was putting up the log siding to match the rest of the house.

This is a picture of the house when we first went to look at it. You can see the mountain man we bought it from there in the garage, along with all of his junk.

This is what the house looked like this afternoon once we got the wall up and the window installed.

And this is what it looked like a few hours later! Wa-Hoo!!!
We'll be staining the new logs to match the others--and then resealing the whole house. It REALLY needs it!

It was a long a grueling day, but sooooooo fulfilling! My back was so sore and achy, but I soaked in a nice, hot bath for a while tonight and feel great now. :-) I am just sooooo proud of us! I mean, this was BIG!!! I still think of us as teen-agers... wait. I still think of ME as a teenager (I always say that James was born 80 years old! Ha!) and I still feel that way most of the time, and it just seems like the coolest thing that my husband and I just BUILT A WALL! Ha! Silly to some folks, I'm sure, but it just feels so bizarre and amazing that we were able to DO something like that--and it looks pretty good, I think! :-)

We finished up just before dark and came in for a late dinner. Ravioli for the kids and scrambled egg and ham and cheese sandwhich for James. I didn't really eat, just munched. It's been a long and tiring day. But I'm so proud of us! Have I mentioned that?! ;-)

Ah, yes! I saw the picture on Emilee's blog of her gorgeous trees and thought I should post a picture of mine:

Ha! The baby aspen trees James ordered for me came yesterday, so I planted them today in the middle of our other projects. I've got my very own little aspen grove! Ha! Now given, they're not quite as impressive as Emilee's maple yet... Ha! I have great hope that these sad little twigs will someday be beautiful white aspen trees with brilliant golden leaves in the fall. :-) --Look this little guy even has a leaf already! Ha!

And here's one of the roses from out front. Pretty, hu?

Seems strange to me to have roses in October, but we're enjoying them!

And that's about it from here! Hope everybody has a really great weekend. :-)