What's been happening? Not much!

People are asking why I haven't posted in awhile...the short answer is - nothing is happening!  On Tuesday the 22nd it was one month that we've officially lived here, the photo ops are pretty much over.  Chris Fuller has been coming back now and again when I notice small things that need repaired, there's a small persistent leak in the 2nd bath shower that refuses to stay "fixed".  And amazingly, there's even been a few things that have broken and had to be replaced. 

There are a lot of things I think of now that we've lived here for awhile that I wish I had done differently, for example: I wish I would not have had the outlets in the living area installed under the windows, since the lamps are on tables in between the windows and the cords are visible stretching to the outlets. 

A week ago I sealed all the tile floors, which left them with a soft gloss that looked so lovely.  Yesterday I mopped all the floors, using good old Murphy's Oil Soap.  When the tile floors dried they had a white scummy look that seems to be the finish that I applied last week coming off!!  I was very sad.  The container says the product should be used in dry areas, I took that to mean it can't be used on the shower tiles, I did not think I wouldn't be able to clean any tiles it had been applied to.  So, back to the hardware store I go for something waterproof and I'll have to do the tiles all over again...oh my poor knees...

Our cat Daxter has finally come to the new house to find us, must of wondered where we were at these past few weeks.  We left the cats and Annabelle at the garage and just feed and water them every day, we do feel bad because they no longer have family activity around them.  Gabby and Tiny are still at the garage with Annabelle, but use the cat door to venture outside whenever they want to.  Annabelle comes to visit on nice days and lays on a blanket in the garage, she does not come in because she can no longer go up and down stairs, she is now 14 years old.  Daxter being here at the house has caused anxious moments for Harley who thinks of himself as the one and only.  But Daxter is the same size as Harley, and doesn't back down when Harley charges at him.  So, they sit and stare at one another, and the only time there's a problem is when I sit down and they both want to sit on my lap.

I was in Home Depot for something one day and stumbled into something else, a really great sale on window blinds, no interest for a year, and only $118 to have the windows measured and the blinds installed in the whole house!!  Eric, the blind guy (nooo, not the guy who is sightless...) was a nice young man, and we now have blinds on our windows.  After all my searching for the right shade of green in top down, bottom up, cellular shades, I ended up choosing a shade of white.  I was afraid of getting too much green in the living area, plus I would be stuck with the color green forever...this way I can change the wall color to whatever I want.

I'll post a few more pictures in this blog, then I will sign off for a few months.  There just won't be anything happening worth photographing until sometime in the spring when the outside work can begin.  That will be a huge job that no one except me is looking forward to, I can't wait to get my hands on the landscaping project.  Plus, I have an area picked out for a vegetable garden!  I've mentioned this to Rod and Chris, but they pretend they can't hear me... they want the end result, without all the work that's involved in growing the food...

Talk to you again in a couple of months!

2/17/11  Today the temps were well into the 50's, notice the garage windows are open?  I moved everything out of the garage and hosed the floors clean, leaving the windows open so it could dry.  Chris is uncovering the sidewalk leading to the front door, the sidewalks had been covered with straw and plastic (and dirt and snow) all winter.  With a clean garage floor, and the sidewalk cleaned off, I hope to have less dirt coming into the house.  Chris is so strong, he made short work of this job!  I had struggled with it a little, but the plastic was so heavy with the weight of the dirt and snow on top of it, so I left that job for the stronger ones in the family..

2/22/11
Eric The Installer...sounds like a super hero name.  There are six windows in this room, each one with two double hung windows, that's twelve shades..it took Eric under an hour to do the whole house, not just this room...because he's...Eric- the installerrrr....

2/24/11
This is Daxter, doing something that Harley can't do, sitting on a window sill...na,na,na,na,naaa...

Harley washing his leg, he got onto the sofa using the stool technique that Uncle Bob taught him.  I was taking pictures of the blinds but posted this one because I saw that I had captured Harley taking his morning wash...and the next picture because he's caught in mid air while getting off the sofa.

Harley had to end his bath and get down because he heard Daxter jumping down from the windowsill.  Harley will now attempt to intimidate Daxter...  I hope you're also noticing the top down bottom up cellular shades in these pictures, since that was the reason I was taking pictures.  The patio door also has a cellular shade, a vertical shade, although the sales person informed me I could have a horizontal shade on that too.  I just couldn't imagine why I would want a horizontal shade on sliding glass doors... I do not have valances on the window blinds yet, they were so expensive, and I saw a website that shows a person how to make their own valances..hmmm, I wonder if I could do it....

Attempting intimidation...

And finally, one more sunset post, this one from the 17th of this month.  I told Rod that I was going to stop taking pictures of sunsets until he gets the rest of the trees cut down...

Weekend guests and a small (?) problem...

Tomorrow it will be 3 weeks since we've officially lived here, hard to believe!  I'm not anywhere near being completely moved in, and it just doesn't matter, we don't have any deadlines to meet so we can move when we get around to it.  I've decided not to move anything this week in the hopes that my back will get back to normal if I rest for a week.  That doesn't mean that I can't boss Rod and Chris around and have them move things for me! 

Last week was spent getting ready for our first overnight guests who were arriving on Friday evening and staying until Sunday, my sister Deb, her husband Bob, and their daughter Donna from Dalton, Ohio came to visit, and we girls were going to practice making crepe paper flowers for Donna's upcoming wedding in June.  My other sister Linda was actually our first official visitor, but not an overnight guest.

I was very busy on Friday, I had a lot to do before company arrived but had everything tightly scheduled and knew I could be ready when my sis arrived if I stayed on that schedule.  Chris didn't have school that day, while he enjoyed sleeping in I started laundry, cleaned the kitchen up, and swept and mopped the floors.  Then we both took showers and headed to Edinboro to pick up our new glasses and a few things at the grocery store...I was exactly on schedule...to good to be true, right?

When we got home- following my plans- I started to finish the cleaning, then I was going to prepare all the food for the weekend so that I could be free to make paper flowers and when it was time to eat everything would be ready, all I'd have to do was pull out the food and put it in the oven.  Sooo, I started a load of laundry (the sheets for our beds!), started the dishwasher, and was cleaning the hall bath when the alarm on the washing machine went off.  A code was flashing, telling me that there wasn't any water in the machine...  I turned everything off, called Rod- who was on his way home from work, and told him we had NO WATER, and asked him what I should do (yes, I was panicked!).  He had me flipping breakers, changing fuses, checking gauges, but still no water. We hung up, Rod called our contractor Chris Fuller, and he said he'd be here in 40 minutes, which was about 30 minutes before Rod got home, and about 60 minutes before our weekend guests arrived...

The end result was that the problem was not discovered that night, Chris said he'd be back Saturday morning.  Rod went to the store and bought bottled water and filled two 5 gallon buckets with water at a friends house to use for toilet flushing.  I did not prepare any food ahead of time, our bedsheets were partially washed and still in the washing machine, and we had to be very careful with our toilet flushing!  So much for my schedule...  Our guests are very laid back and adapted to the situation just fine, I tried to look on the bright side and said things like,"at least we have electricity", and it wasn't to long before we all went to bed.

The next morning was windy and snowy, Chris Fuller came back, and since the night before they had determined the pump and other things were not the problem, they pulled something up out of the well to check that.  That also wasn't the problem, so...what was the problem?

 Chris Crouse, Chris Fuller, Bob Horst, and Rod kneeling.

They finally decided the problem was in the transformer, and had to call the electric company, who came right out.  They found that when they had hooked up the power to the new house that something hadn't been done correctly that involved the water pump, that connection had got wet, and on the day that we were getting company, shorted out... They fixed the problem, everyone went home, the guys came inside where I was spending my time preparing food and Deb and Donna were making flowers.  The rest of the week end was sunny and relaxing, and I give thanks for water that comes out of the spigot when you turn the handle..

Donna and Deb concentrating on making flowers.

Bob and Harley concentrating on relaxing in a sunbeam, and I think Bob was drying out his pant legs!

Deb got marker on my new counter top!  She promised me it could be removed with bug spray, plus all insects would be repelled from that spot.  The stain was removed, and I haven't seen any insects there...

Sunday evening; this type of spectacular sunset is what we usually have here on Brown Hill, but the first since we've lived here!  The end to a really crazy week end!

P.S. Within minutes after posting this our power went off, and just came back on after three hours without electricity...  So, what's next?

The sun sets on a crazy day!

Tuesday the 8th:

7:00 a.m.

Chris missed the bus...

I have to take him to school, but I got the van stuck in the driveway while backing up and I got over to close to the edge of the driveway, got into a snowbank and onto the ice underneath the snow. Chris and I tried and tried to get out, my back is killin' me, we give up..

Around 10:00 it occurs to me to pour hot water on the ice, three buckets of hot water later we're on our way to school...

When I returned I went to the little farmhouse to get some things that I want from there, and I got stuck in that driveway!!  I got out of that in about 2 minutes, then left and went home, without even going inside!  I'll wait for Rod and his 4WD truck...

I spent the rest of the day in the old place, gathering up "stuff" that we need the most right now (picture Steve Martin in "The Jerk", "I need this, I need this..").  I had a lot of stuff gathered up, so instead of using "Old Blue"- the plastic sled I've been using to move stuff, I loaded the van, then backed into the garage and unloaded into the house. Chris came home from school and helped me, he's so strong!  When I pick something up I groan and strain, Chris just takes it from me and carries it with no effort..  Rod and Chris moved a lot of furniture related things for me tonight ...AFTER Rod blew the snow out of the driveway!  :-)

I've been dealing with lower back pain for a week and a half, it was REALLY bad at first, but I was feeling much better this morning, After shoveling, carrying buckets of hot water, and then carrying all that stuff to move...I bet I'll be in pain tomorrow!

Then, the sun set, and I got to see what I wanted most from this house...sunsets, the moon and stars.. without having to go outside to see them!

The sun is setting..

Going....

Going....

Gone!

Home...

It's starting to look like we live here!  Still lots to do, but we're slowly making progress.  Rod had a great week end and got a lot of "things" done, got the sink and cabinet moved into the laundry room, and also built a clothes folding table beside the washer and dryer!  I got almost nothing done, but today my back started to feel better (did I mention that I hurt my back?) and I have great hope for this coming week!

First Blog post from the new house!

Wednesday the 2nd:

The satellite dishes were successfully moved today, despite the ice storm we had, and we now have television and Internet service in our new house.  This is my first blog post from the house. 

In the past few days the wood stove has been moved (no small task), the washer and dryer, the water softener, and the dishwasher.  Rod still has some work to do in the utility/laundry room.  He's going to move the sink and counter top from the garage into the utility room, and build a "table" beside the washer/dryer for me to fold clothes on.  That will be the last chore he'll have to do...until I think of another, that is!  There's still lots of furniture for the guys to move, but even if they move one item a day, it won't take long to have it done.

Moving here is not the usual type of move.  Usually, moving means putting all your possessions in boxes, moving the boxes to the new house,then unpacking and finding a place for everything.  When I move things, I put three Rubbermaid boxes on an old blue plastic sled of Chris' and head for the garage.  I take the boxes into the garage and throw stuff into them, then load them back onto the sled and pull it all to the house.  I unload, then start it all again.  Anything bigger than the sled has to wait until the guys get home!

Only a few pictures to add to this post, I guess I'm running out of things to take pictures of...

Darren saved the day when he helped move, not just the wood stove, but also the washer and dryer, and helped hook them up too!

Rod had Monday and Tuesday off while he was in between jobs, that was just what we needed as it gave him the time he needed to move some things.  Here he is having his coffee before he starts the day.  It looks like Harley needs a pick me up too!