Month: March 2011 (Page 1 of 2)

Yes, we are snowed in again today. But this time it is the heavy, wet snow with water and/or mud underneath. Awful to shovel. Dad shoveled himself out and went to work and I just went out and shoveled again – about 3 or 4 inches. And it is still coming down. But its pretty and it covers up all the mud!

Today was the annual Senior Americans Day at UW-EC. I’ve been going every year for about 6 years and I absolutely love it every year. This year I signed up for a class just for me – no educational value whatsoever — learning to make a flower arrangement. I found that I absolutely loved the process. I already knew that working with flowers in the garden is extremely relaxing, but I found that arranging them was just as relaxing. So I’m excited about what I learned and where I can go, creatively, from here.

Other classes were chair yoga and “What Do you Want to Do/Be when you Grow Up?” It was about having a purpose each day and how your attitude shapes your life. Both were very good. The food was great, I got lots of chocolates from the vendors, the company was great. The only hitch was the weather on the drive down, but we went slowly and avoided joining many other cars in the ditch!

All in all a super day!

After a whirlwind day of work on the house yesterday, today is much more relaxing. Yesterday, Dad and Gary worked on putting the window on the east side in and patching the siding on all three sides where the new windows didn’t fit exactly like the old ones. So everything looks good from the outside, except for the patches needing paint. While they were doing that, I pulled the paneling and styrofoam off the slanted ceiling in the room at the head of the stairs, preparing for eventual sheet rock. I wasn’t going to do that, but once the room was empty, we realized that we do have room for a half bath, but the size is determined by head space, so removing all that stuff gained us at least an inch, which actually makes a difference. The job involved removing really a lot of nails from overhead, so my neck was really stiff this a.m. I’m better now, though.

So, today after church and lunch, I did the Saturday housecleaning that I couldn’t do yesterday, then went grocery shopping, made a recording for school and worked on my puzzle some. Dad has been working on taxes pretty much all day, with short diversions to vacuum the study and other important things.  I made an easy dish for lunch that we both agreed was very tasty. It was a can of cream of mushroom and chicken soup, a  can of chicken (the kind like canned tuna), some green peas and ramen noodles (cooked and drained, but without any seasoning added), all mixed together. It was quick and made entirely out of things you could have sitting on your cupboard shelves. Worth a try some day when you run out of ideas!

This week is busy again. I have a concert tomorrow night, then Tuesday is Senior Americans Day at UW-Eau Claire. Wednesday is Lent service (which doesn’t really last long.) Then Saturday we are heading to Waukesha for the weekend.

Dad applied for a job at St. Joe’s Hospital in Chippewa and got a call to arrange an interview. It is for the infection control person, something he doesn’t have experience in, but not many around here do (unless they already have a job.) He would have to take some training, if he gets it. So pray that he would do well in his interview, etc.

We are putting in a window at the head of the stairs tomorrow morning. The new room is basically done, except the trim around the doors and the little doors on the attic openings along the sides. Because those things are not done, we can’t actually nail in the baseboard trim, but it is all painted and cut and ready to be nailed in. Tonight I get to move everything from the head of the stairs back into that room, so there is room to work out there tomorrow. Fun…

It has felt a lot more like spring, which makes everyone around here a lot happier! Only 28 days until April 15, my “first day of spring!” (And Luke’s birthday, of course)

Our offer of $25,500 was accepted, so now we just wait for the pre-closing business to be completed and then we will own another house. And a very economical one, we hope. And we were (or I was…) getting really stressed about coming up with money for the down payment, and Carol at the bank told Dad we don’t need to pay a down payment. What a relief that is! Now we just have to get the current house looking like it is worth $55,000 and we will be set. Gary is going to put in the other window for us Saturday and we are going to work on the landing. Hopefully we will get to the bathroom a bit before then, but Dad is working as fast as he can!

It’s 3:00 Sunday and Dad left for a meeting. People from the school are meeting with The Garage’s board about holding the school’s summer daycare at The Garage, because it has grown out of their space at the gradeschool. That would be wonderful for The Garage – more income and more visibility of the youth center.

Anyway, we didn’t get as much done as we’d hoped. But we should have the carpet done in the new bedroom before bed tonight. We got the curtains up and the light up. The trim still needs to be painted and put it and we won’t get to that today. Plus, we never got to the bathroom at all. Shopping for carpet, etc. took longer than we thought, so we only had about 4 hours yesterday until Dad had to go work at The Garage. Then we only had until now today, and I went to church, so that didn’t leave much time. But, hey, the bedroom is almost done.

Can’t figure out how to get the pictures, but hopefully when Dad gets home, I’ll post some.

Ah, yes. Well, we did the offer back and forth thing, then found out the person making the offers on the other end really didn’t have the authority, and after they had offered $25,000 (to counter our $24,000), to which we countered $24,500 (not my idea, mind you – I would have taken the $25), it turned out the bank wasn’t willing to go any lower than $26,000. So they rejected. So we had to start all over. Grrrrr….. The funny thing is that it really won’t make that much difference. The whole thing is really only over a few thousand dollars because the house is so cheap to begin with. But now it is the weekend and everything is on hold until Monday.

Meanwhile, I inadvertantly lit a fire under Dad when I told him that he really told the bank this house was worth more than it is at this point, with all the projects incomplete. So we are working our tails off, trying to get them all done before the bank has to reappraise this house for the second mortgage that we are taking out for the improvements on the house we are buying. I had thought we could get a sort of “building loan” but I guess you can’t on a remodel. So we got the bedroom painted last night, bought the carpet and trim today, as well as wallboard for the downstairs bathroom. We hope to get the bedroom and part of the bathroom done this weekend. Then we have to clean out the area at the top of the stairs and put sheetrock on that and paint it. But we aren’t going to reinsulate and everything like we did in the bedroom We do have to put in a new window, though. We can’t put a bathroom up there (we just found out) because of ceiling clearance, so we are just going to leave it open. Another place people can sleep. We’ll just have to get by on one bathroom, but the bathroom will be redone so it won’t be so gross. We are going to use the sink we bought for the upstairs bathroom and Dad says there is a new tub surround somewhere in the basement. And I think we have a new toilet outside somewhere. Then figure out what to do about cabinets, redo the walls and trim and, tada, new bathroom!

Whew!

Another Monday. A chance for a new start. I updated my weight-loss game to include a necessity to have “good” days in order to redeem any points. What was happening was that I was acquiring points, but never really having good days, so never really losing anything. So I never spent any points. Plus I lost the sheet that had what my prizes would be. Now I don’t have prizes, I just have things I can purchase for a certain number of points, but I also need 3 gold coins, which can only be earned by a “good” day, in order to redeem any points. We’ll see how that works.

Good thing I called the building inspector and asked about ceiling heights before we bought the house. I think we are still going to buy it, but we can only make it a two bedroom because the upstairs ceiling is too low for bedrooms. It will cost a lot less to remodel and take a lot less time, but it will end up a rather small house, living area-wise. It will have a great upstairs to use for crafts and hobbies, office space, etc. though. We’ll keep you posted. Here’s a picture, taken from inside the porch of our house (so it is really close..)

I just hit 100 posts. I didn’t realize I actually looked at that ticker, until I noticed it said 100 just now. Cool!

Friday afternoon once again. Pretty warm today – nice change. Yesterday there was a lot of complaining about the weather. Cold. More snow. I get tired of saying, “Don’t worry. Spring is on it’s way.” Particularly when I have a hard time believing it, too!

On a bright side, the house across the street and down one is for sale for $29,900. It would make a good “flip house” we think, because the renters have pretty much trashed it and we should be able to fix it up really cute and resell it for $50,000 or so. If not, another rental. We are looking at it at 5:15 today and Dad already talked to the bank about financing and they approved us for $25,000 with a very small down payment.  Crazy, I know, but that is pretty much what we are these days. We’ve had our sensible days when we were raising kids. Now is the time to be crazy.

We still haven’t heard anything about Dad’s application at St. Joe’s Hospital, but it has only been a couple days. We’re guardedly hopeful.

Have a great weekend!