Can You Feel It?

Awwwwwww......

Progress!

Before and After pictures are so much fun to look at, don't you think?

Thought I'd share some "In Progress" pictures with you. The kitchen of our current investment property is quite different that other kitchens we've encountered. This one is located in the middle of the house with no exterior walls and thus no windows to the outside. It made this kitchen DARK- very dark and very gloomy!

This is the day we purchased the property... before trash removal and renovations began. You are looking into the door of the kitchen from a room off the back.

Dark, eh?

Here's a view from inside the kitchen looking back to where the previous picture was taken from:

The rest of this house is light and bright... lots of nice windows and natural light. This kitchen was just ODD.

On the other side of this kitchen (front side of the house) is a dining room. We needed to lighten up.... brighten up this room. The room needed to become a functioning part of this home instead of a cave inside a house.

Here's our progress from last week:

We opened up the wall and this half-wall will be a breakfast bar when we're finished. We added can lighting above this area too and we opened up a window pass-thru to the family room off the right of the picture above.
Much better, don't you think!

I LOVE progress!

I am a Misfit!

I'm pretty sure of it! And since posting that on my facebook account, several people have asked, "Why are you a misfit?".

Well.... I'm just not normal. My good-man-charlie-brown... my always-by-my-side... often reminds me that I'm just not like everyone else. More and more, I find myself in the minority of life... whether it be my thinking, my convictions, my likes & dislikes... I'm just not normal. And yet... I am still LOVED! ::insert huge grin::

So- we're working on our current real estate investment. When our team purchased this house, it had been disassembled... and disassembled in a fashion resembling that of She-with-once-skinned-knees' attempts to remove her training wheels by herself at two years old. Catch my drift?

The process of bringing this house back has been an involved process. And the time finally came when we were ready to run the plumbing (yes! The copper had all been removed underneath... I wasn't kidding! DISASSEMBLED!). A conversation, months ago, with a friend in a similar business, turned us on to a product- not really new- called PEX. The Lord had a hand in that conversation because just a few weeks later we acquired this house. PEX research was at the top of the list.

In true misfit fashion, I was completely intrigued with the idea of putting the plumbing back together and learning all there was to learn about running PEX. Years ago I was hooked on a puzzle game called "Pipe Dream". Maybe that's where this excitement over assembling PEX circuits for an entire house came from. I don't know. But I LOVED it! I think it was even FUN!


And it's not just the flexibility of the product but the COLOR CODING too! Blue lines for cold water.... Red lines for hot water... White lines for main lines. And OHHHHH... then there's the manifold where it all comes together! It's just the COOLEST!

See! Not normal!

I'm a misfit!

There's an island out there for people like me!

And SANTA comes ESPECIALLY for us! ROFL!!!!!! ;D

Yikes!

I haven't blogged since the 3rd!!! How in the world did that happen?

Ok... I'm just a tad swamped right now. We're schooling again and teaching 2nd, 4th & 7th grade is taking a little more brain power than teaching all elementary grades. We've added some additional classes thru our local support group that keep us running more than I prefer. And we are all adjusting to the "back-to-school" schedule. ::sigh:: Summer was just TOO SHORT this year!!

And in our spare time, we've been working hard on our real estate investment. Last week we ran PEX ... a wonderful alternative to copper plumbing... for the entire house. I swear, I had sooo much fun learning and running circuits. And the satisfaction of turning the water on and having it all work- no leaks!- what a blast! It's a beautiful thing... I have pictures to prove it! ;)

But alas... it's too late tonight for me to even consider preparing pic files to post here... so that must wait. I promise that I will try to share them soon. You must see what we're doing to the kitchen in this place!!! I know everyone enjoys before & after pics! I'll share some of those too!

And then there's horses, dogs, cats with kittens... rain... the grass is growing again (oh no! When will I mow?)... painting our classroom... laundry (goodness! That never goes away!)... Fall is on our doorstep (I want summer back!)...facebook (will I EVER figure that out?)... and...




PS - I discovered another family member has taken the plunge into blogging. Check her out! Isn't It Amazing?

Look who's grown!

Remember this tiny gal?

Here she is the end of May.

And then the end of June!

And now look at her!
She's a Puppy Pre-school grad now!

And she's even earned her Camping Badge!

A Team Effort

We're back from another family camping trip!!

We LOVE camping! It's a great way to spend time together as a family.


Camping is a family tradition that my own family had growing up. We spent at least one whole week out of every summer camping on the shores of Seventh Lake, located just outside Inlet, NY. The very special part of camping on Seventh Lake is that the state owned sites are boat (or hiking) accessible only. There are no roads leading in... no modern restrooms... no electricity... only two pit toilets located near the 2 sites with lean-to's (meaning you dig your own hole if you camp at any of the other sites)... it's truly CAMPING!!

I have the BEST memories from those family camping trips. It's one of my favorite places to be and someday I hope to take my girls there too.

But after our 3 day camping trip to Raccoon Lake, here in Indiana, something important has occurred to me. Camping is truly a TEAM EFFORT!!! That's the only way that I can imagine my mother ever got us there with all the necessary supplies for survival. We always had enough food & drinks for the week. We always had the right clothes. We always had toilet paper... ALWAYS!!!

And when I consider the preparations, the planning, the packing and foresight that mom had to have, I am in awe of her skills! (There were no Walmarts nearby folks!) While Mom & Dad always held to the motto that "we are a team" and Chad & I were always given tasks to pitch in on the work, I realize now that Chad & I didn't carry the "heavy end" of that load. NO indeed!

We were able to go on those wonderful family camping trips because Mom and Dad were... and are... a TEAM. They are a beautiful example of marriage. They work TOGETHER. They each SHARE the load. Mom worked hard to prepare for camping. And Dad didn't come home from his day job, plop down on the couch and expect her to wait on him... nope. He pitched in too. They WORKED TOGETHER. There was never his and hers - never! Not in jobs and not in possessions. It will always be OURS in their book.

And so we went camping this week and worked TOGETHER as a family. We drove in to our camp site and used the modern restrooms nearby (not quite the same as my ideal camping trip to Seventh Lake) but... We did the work TOGETHER and then we played TOGETHER.


Today is Mom & Dad's 38th wedding anniversary. And today I am so very thankful for my parents and their wonderful example to Chad & I then... and to us, our spouses and children now.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY Mom & Dad! We LOVE YOU TONS!!!




P.S. I would be remiss not to wish my mother and father-in-law a HAPPY ANNIVERSARY also. Today they celebrate their 49th wedding anniversary.
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!!

(... some day I'll tell you readers about my good-man-Charlie-Brown's & my weird number thing ;) )

Rockin'!!

Last night we took the girls to a ROCK Concert!

We drove an hour with our tailgate down on the truck... never losing a single chair. We purchased seats on the lawn of the Verizon Music Center and thought we came prepared. Security informed us that chairs only 9" or smaller (think beach chair) were allowed. So we prepared ourselves to just enjoy the lawn. We paid a pretty penny to see this concert and were not to be deterred by the possibility of rain nor the prospect of grass stain.

We found a decent spot on the lawn and settled in. Another security officer appeared and hollered in my ear (it was a ROCK concert folks... think LOUD!) that we could move forward into the seats up to a certain mark. Hesitate?? NO WAY! We promptly found a great spot in the seats!


Even Bluebird & Ducky came along (they got in free you know!!! Flew in, I'm told!)



What a blast! It was four and a half hours of great Christian rock bands!

Jars of Clay!


R.Randolph and The Family Band!

We'd never actually heard of this band before but completely enjoyed them. Amazingly talented! We even came home with their newest cd!

They were followed by Switchfoot.

Crazy, wild but completely passionate!

Switchfoot fans... name that song... ;)


The girls were in to it!! Rockin!



And last, the band that drew us to this awesome gathering....

THIRD DAY!



But the really COOL thing..
...really awesome thing...
....the thing that the wagging fingers don't understand (they're too busy wagging those critical fingertips)...

WORSHIP!!


There was prayer!

There was fellowship!

There was sharing... a message!

There was Worship!

Hymns even (with electric guitars, drums, singing & dancing)...

But the most important thing was ... the presence of the LORD! All else paled to His Presence.

No boundary lines drawn by denominations or theology or doctrine
Rather a gathering of people with a common love for Jesus, Lord of my heart,...King of Glory!

It was ROCKIN'!!!!



P.S. I've never seen a crowd that size exit a packed... PACKED parking lot in such a civilized manner. I pray the Lord's Glory seeped out of that place last night! :)