I was going to post a picture of my bathroom, but since that's too depressing, here's a picture of my cutie, instead. I'm reading the latest Sue Grafton ("U") mystery right now and one phrase she used in this book was that some parents "doted" on their little child (who incidentally, got kidnapped at age 4 and was never heard from again, which is where Detective Kinsey Milhone comes in). I realized, that's us! Sam is the child we "dote" on. By virtue of his late arrival and all-around adorableness, he definitely gets doted on, unlike his poor older brothers.
Well, speaking of my bathroom...it's been ripped up for 6 months now. I haven't had a bath in this house since August 5 - six months ago today, actually. But I've still had the vanity and have been able to do my hair in there. Well, not anymore! Paul didn't have to work yesterday and I ran to Des Moines in the morning and knocked out some of my bi-monthly shopping (boy, was Ben not happy with me!). I came home and my bathroom was in the kitchen. Paul got the wall between the new addition and the bathroom totally out, took out the vanity (which is still sitting in the middle of the kitchen), took out the medicine cabinet (now on the floor by the kitchen table), took out my white crate that held extra hair supplies (in the back room now), the marble sink (it was propped up against the computer desk; not sure where Will carried it off to now), my cabinet that Pastor Young made for me (also on the kitchen floor) and the big huge tub that I had filled up with bathroom stuff when he initially started ripping up the room. He and Will did get most of the new subfloor down yesterday. So now it's just one big room.
We've pretty much decided to move the bathroom into the new addition instead of putting it back where it was. My office will be there instead.
One problem has arisen though: Paul called me yesterday and said, "Uh, what do you know about black mold?" Oh no! My heart just sunk. I know two women in my homeschool group who have had to move out of their homes because of black mold problems. Paul discovered it on the drywall of the wall he took out. That was the wall that the toilet had been against. And then when he removed the medicine cabinet he found a hole in the wall where an older medicine cabinet had evidently been at one time. And the drywall in there has black mold on it, too. He's going to tear into that wall a bit more and if there's more mold, then the entire wall will have to be taken out and re-built. That's the other side of our closet. Never, never, never buy an old house. You're better off to save up your money and buy something new!
Poor Ben and David are miserable with their allergies this weekend. I'm quite sure they won't be going to church tomorrow. I just know it's from all the dust in this house from the work. I'm giving serious consideration to spending $200 for an ionizer I found on Amazon. I hate to spend the money now, because this time of year it's in such short supply around here, but I just can't have them suffering like this, either. Not that we know for sure it's the air quality. It could still be their mattresses and carpet which we'll be replacing very soon ("the DAY Uncle Sam gives us our refund!" I told Paul yesterday).
Thankfully, Paul is working today. Actually, he's a little irritated because he really needs to work on the bathroom. With it being all open now, it's going to be very cold in there. Today and tomorrow, the temps are not supposed to be all that cold. But Monday they will plummet into single digit highs for most of the week. So, anyway, Paul is on call now. He didn't work all day yesterday, but last night he had to leave around 8 to run a call and he didn't get home until one o'clock. Then, his phone rang again at 6:30. He's been getting non-stop calls ever since. It's just weird, since it really isn't that cold. I don't understand why people would be willing to pay weekend rates when it's not terribly cold. Oh well - it's their money, I guess. I met him for lunch today and his phone rang about 4 times during that half hour or so that we were together!
I am so, so tired of this house work. I am SICK of the mess! I remind myself that living in a house with a $300 monthly mortgage is what is keeping me home with the boys and therefore, worth the sacrifice, which it is. And when we get done, we will have a nice house. It's just the interim that's killing me. Actually, we just found some property not too far from here that's in foreclosure. We haven't looked inside the house yet, but it's big and we're very interested. It sits on 8 acres, which excites Paul. He wants more land. We are toying with the idea of finishing our house and then turning it into a rental property. We would make more money renting it than we would by selling it out right. But, of course, the flip side of that is having to deal with tenants and property maintenance. Paul has been talking more and more about becoming a landlord and a couple of weeks ago we went and toured a different house that was having an open house. It was too small and too expensive, but it kind of got the wheels turning in our head. But, of course, we have to finish this house first. And I'd say we have at least a year's worth of work, if not more. And then, if we were going to rent this house, there's more work that would have to be done right up front than if we just planned to continue living here ourselves.
Paul is now talking about going ahead and bumping the kitchen out into the new addition. That was supposed to happen later on, down the road. But, I guess it's going to happen sooner than that. That will give me an additional 4 feet of kitchen space along one wall. Our kitchen is already big; this will make it huge. Of course, that means we'll have to replace the flooring that we just put down 3 years ago.
And this work is costing me more than mental peace. Yesterday, while the sink was propped up against the computer desk, I ran into it - hard - with my knee. Today it is all swollen and bruised and so very painful! That wasn't supposed to happen.
So, I'm taking lots of Levare. Levare is a new product I just discovered at last week's Natural Living Expo. It's some sort of herb concoction, although I really don't know what's in it. It's specifically designed for pain relief. They gave me a sample last week and I'd been saving it for when I needed it. I finally got a good daytime headache a couple of days ago and I took the Levare instead of Advil. It totally wiped out my headache. I was so excited! And then later that same day, I got an email from the company, telling me I had won a free bottle of the stuff. That arrived yesterday. I'm hooked - if I can take something natural instead of rotting my liver with Advil, then so much the better!
Well, hopefully I'll be back later today. I need to get to work on making tomorrow's dinner and other stuff. I've got plenty to blog about; I could be here all evening.
No comments:
Post a Comment