Toilets and Tomatoes

We have two working toilets! Yay! Thursday night Bob and his dad worked on the plumbing... Rustin came over briefly to help move our living room furniture and he got roped into helping a little bit too. Sally and I worked on peaches and agreed that we would rather slave over a hot stove than do plumbing, especially toilet plumbing. It sounded rather miserable- it's easy to see where the toilet pipe is in the basement, but because of how the foundations and walls are it's next to impossible to work on it. They got the flange replaced by 11... and then we realized that the old, stiff water line was too short by just a tiny bit. So frustrating! We got a nice new braided one on Friday and so far no leaks so it's all good!

One bad thing about two toilets and a bigger house is that it takes way longer to clean. mur. I worked on that some Saturday, ran to the farm for tomatoes, started to tame the jungle that is the side of our house while Bob mowed, started doing tomatoes, and got lazy and ordered pizza for supper. I know, I'm such a slacker. My feet hurt by the end of the night... *sigh* I don't think I want to calculate the increase in psi on my poor feet. My days of running on gravel are long over, sadly.

Church was full Sunday and my brothers were there for the men's sing... Mom and Dad came for the afternoon program, and the Streits... They stopped by after church to see the new floors and take the tour. hehe. I really haven't gotten anything unpacked yet. Bob even mentioned that there weren't any pictures or "personal touches." Um... oops... maybe this week!

Blessings.

A few more pictures

The floors are all in! Yay! Now to put the trim back on...

This is the green bathroom that is still a mess. I got greyish vinyl to sort of go with the black counter top, and to hide dirt in the hallway right outside. This toilet did not make for a good Tuesday morning... it's older and bigger than the other one, the water supply line is different, and all of the bolts were rusted. So rusted that they broke when Bob tried to unscrew the nuts. And the screws that hold the completely rusted flange pulled right out of the floor. Lovely. So it's still sitting there, while we figure out if it's a Daaad-help! job or a call-a-plummer job. Also, what's a good way to get years of lime scale off of shower doors?



The hallway- I really, really like the floor compared to the old green hexagons. hehe.



The blue bathroom got white squares, it looks more grey in this picture. The baseboard is back on, but I still need to touch up the paint and hide the nails. And probably need to break out the blue AGAIN to touch up some pink spots that keep appearing. I am begining to despise 60's pink...



And the empty living room with new neutral carpet. I love it, it's super soft. I'm also glad I didn't go with something with more color... hopefully this will not be obviously out of style in 5-10 years.



This is the room at the bottom of the basement stairs. The chalkboard has a JD tractor drawn on it. Guess which brother.



The room to the left is full of my washer and dryer and freezer, plus some filing cabinets we inherited, and one of the furnaces. (yes, we have two furnaces and two air conditioners... not sure why... one theory is that they were overselling to older people?)


The other end of that room is full of electrical flotsam right now. This is the shiny new panel, the old panel was on the wall to the right.


The house was added on to at some point and the room under the addition has a walk out cellar door. I've been spray painting some register covers... with low odor water based spray paint... I'm trying to be good.


The other side of the room has a workbench and trim pieces that are getting a fresh coat of paint.

Last night I stopped and got peaches and tomatoes from my mom... I'll be busy tonight. That is, if my stove has migrated to the new electrical panel by the time I get home. We ate microwaved leftovers last night. *grin*

Blessings.

Moving Day

Or for me, days. :) I survived. I feel so much better now. This is going to be a long post, sorry, and half the pictures are from Shelly. I didn't remember to use my camera for some reason.

Thursday evening, Mom, Shelly, Sharon, and Sally came over and we packed up and moved my kitchen stuff. It was slightly sad to discover that I have more dishes than books... we must do something about that! We got it all unpacked too, which is awesome. I kind of had an idea of what was going to go where in the new kitchen, but still, waay too many snap decisions to be made and I just looove making decisions. hehe. O well, at least it's done and I can tweak things at my leisure... Somehow we managed to overlook one drawer that night which ended up being a good thing. If we hadn't forgotten that drawer, we would have had to scoop ice cream with plastic spoons. Can't have that!

We're replacing the old, unsafe breaker panel at our new house. And when Dad unhooked the old 70's era washer and dryer that came with the house he discovered that they'd hardwired the dryer directly to the panel and we'll need an outlet... and the stove's plugged in to 60 amp wire... yikes. Anyway, yeah, we've decided to upgrade to 200amp service and move the electric meter to the side of the house instead of right next to the front window. Friday morning Cilco came to check things out, so then our favorite general contractor was asking all sorts of questions about where I wanted the wire conduit run. Through the attic, along the garage ceiling, shortest path or parallel and perpendicular to the walls? Umm.... not sure I have an opinion... path of least resistance? He went with right angles. If you know Herb, that's not at all a surprise. hehe.

I spent the rest of Friday packing up all of our clothes in suitcases and bringing them over while Bob got to deal with the guy from Comcast who came to set up our phone and internet. I've pretty much come to the conclusion that I have way too many clothes. O well, I guess maybe we'll see if I ever fit into any of them again. :) That evening I crashed on the couch at the mostly empty duplex and just stared at the ceiling for awhile... since we only had uncomfortable folding chairs at the house.

Saturday morning started off bright and early. There were a few last minute things to pack and clean... curtains to take down, toiletries, etc. Grandma and Grandpa and Pearline showed up with pudding and bars and went right to work defrosting my freezer.


And then they loaded up the contents plus some random drawers that I wasn't going to bother emptying to drive less than a mile.


Then the muscle arrived...



Grandma made sure everything was dust free. :)


My idea of just having some sandwiches and chips sitting out for people if they got hungry turned into quite the lunch spread (note the aforementioned pudding and bars...). (Hi Dale!)


Some of the boys checking out what's under the manhole cover in the back yard.


And Jakey of course had to go down in it.


So yeah, everyone else says it went smoothly and was a laid back moving day. Guess that's a good thing! They did manage to get all the furniture/washer/dryer/freezer moved in and the old washer and dryer moved out and donated in a pretty short amount of time. We even had some time to relax before we went to Grandma and Grandpa Beutel's for an early supper.

I wandered around and took some pictures that night. The kitchen-

Living room furniture squished into the family room until the carpet comes this week-

Bob chilling in the office- not sure yet what all will stay back here as far as furniture...

Bedroom-

Sneak peak at the baby's room, and all of our luggage-

The no longer pink bathroom. The floor looks way better with the blue, maybe we shouldn't have ordered new... hehe... o wait, except that it's covered with paint splots now.

The third bedroom contains most of the mess. At least it's mostly books and picture frames, not 'junk.' hehe.

Living room is still very empty-

It looks like I forgot to get a picture of the newly green bathroom, or any of the basement. O well.

And last but not least, my little brother, crawling through the laundry trap door. Who knows. (Why they had a laundry door in the middle of the master bedroom, and why Jakey crawled through it)

So thankful that's over. Now I just get to put stuff away. The vinyl floors and carpet are coming this week. Last night Bob got to take a toilet off for the very first time. So funny... and then I got to remove the remains of the old wax seal because for some reason it doesn't gross me out that much... Such good bonding time. *grin*

Blessings.

Soon and very soon

Moving is frustrating. I'm tired of it. *grin*

So far, the worst of it hasn't even been the packing and painting... it's all the calling and appointments and changing addresses and coordinating. ugh. Add not enough sleep, a healthy dose of extra hormones, and much stress and what you get is an easily irritable, slightly cranky Jenny. Say a prayer for Bob. hehe.

Anyways... we had issues with getting mail right after we got married. They didn't bother to deliver to our new address, even though we had both filled out change of address and mail forwarding forms online. This time I set up mail forwarding online and was going to try and make it to the post office sometime when I got around to it and let them know in person that we were moving. And then Monday I got an email from our insurance agent... we switched to home insurance from renters insurance (obviously) and the address for that policy is our new house (also obviously). Country mailed our policy summary to the new address and when it got to the T-town post office they didn't know what to do with it. They called the Country office in town, who is not our agent, who called our agent, who emailed me. At 3:50. The post office closes at the ridiculous hour of 4:30. aarrg. I managed to get there before they closed and got it straightened out...

The thing I don't quite get is that Tremont is a small town. The city called Bob weeks ago, before we even closed on the house, wanting to know when we needed the water turned on. I heard that the sale has even been discussed at the library... But the letter carrier didn't notice that the for sale sign was gone? And they couldn't put two and two together? Or call us directly? *sigh*

So yes, annoying start to the week. A lot of our families came over later that night and got our books moved and a bunch of other stuff done. Shelly got up close and personal with the insides of my kitchen cabinets again, hehe.

Tuesday Mom and Donna came and painted- it's all done except for some touchups! Yay! And I like all the colors on the walls, so that's a plus. Herb was also over looking at our electrical... looks like that's going to be a bigger, more expensive project than anticipated, of course. Welcome to home ownership, right!? O well, better a little money and time now than burning the house down around our ears.

I'm hoping and praying (maybe even begging) that the rest of the week goes smoothly...
Blessings.

Just keep swimming...

So we spent most of the weekend working at our new house... hooray!

We did try to sleep in on Saturday and it didn't really happen- the phone kept ringing. *sigh* O well. At least one of the phone calls was worthwhile, young Matt started repenting!

My mom worked in the kitchen.... Bob moved some stuff... Bob's mom and young Matt took on the monumental task of cleaning the basement and getting rid of years worth of spiders. Ugh. MEW came over and replaced a light fixture so now we can see in the kitchen. And I painted a bathroom in the dark. I had just started when Matt shut the power off so he could wire, and then the storm came through so there was no sunlight. Lets just say it was a pretty bad paint job and needed a second coat badly!

I had gotten a ton of boxes from friends of a friend who just moved their family to T-town, but since so much of our stuff was already in boxes and tubs and totes we haven't needed as many as we have. Plus I've been filling laundry baskets and my car every time I go over to the house. I broke down the smaller, less useful sizes and our living room is actually starting to feel empty. It's kind of sad.

Sunday was a much needed day of rest... our goal for this week is to finish the last little bit of painting and get everything but the furniture moved. Then Saturday is the big day... yikesabee. Hopefully I make it to Saturday. *grin*

Blessings.

He's Home!!!

.... and already hard at work getting our internet/phone switched to the new house. hehe. SO glad that was on his to-do list and not mine.

So yeah, Bob was in Texas/Mexico for work since Wednesday. It's the first time we've spent a night apart in 2.25 years. I didn't like it. Yes, I know I'm pathetic, but I don't care. :)

Blessings.

Red Mountain Music

I love it when people put old hymns that no one sings (or are hard to sing) to new music... I have two of their CD's and I've been listening pretty exclusively to them the last few weeks. And I love that this one comes from Psalm 61.

Lead Me to the Rock
Taken from the Gadsby Hymnal # 1104
Words - S.Turner or Bennet , 1838.

Convinced as a sinner, to Jesus I come
Informed by the gospel for such there is room;
Overwhelmed with sorrows for sin I will cry
Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.

When sorely afflicted and ready to faint,
Before my Redeemer I’ll spread my complaint;
’Mid storms and distresses my soul shall rely
On Jesus, the rock that is higher than I.

’Tis there with the chosen of Jesus,
I long to dwell and eternally join in the song,
And praising and blessings, with angels on high,
It’s Jesus, the rock that is higher than I.

The house is coming along... my sanity is slipping away... hehe. Or something. I came down with a cold this week so my head feels foggy. Slightly more foggy than normal, anyway. :) Carol came over the other night and we got the rest of the cleaning done, and Mom and Shelly and Meg helped me last night with some painting and shelf-papering. Both places look chaotic though, so it's hard to feel like there's been a whole lot of progress- and there has been! One more week. Ayiyiyiyi.

Blessings.

Whistle while you work

We've been busy. Friday night Bob's mom and Sharon came over and we scoured the kitchen. It kind of needed it... Sharon scrubbed one of the bathrooms, so glad that's done! Sprout showed up from AL later in the evening and we got the living room taped for painting. woot woot!

Saturday I barely sat down, but we got a lot of things checked off the to-do list. My brothers, young Matt, Susan, Rustin and Sharon all came over to help and we got the wall paper down, the carpet out, baseboards off, other bathroom cleaned, bushes trimmed, tree trimmed, and a first coat of paint on two rooms... yeah. Many hands make light work, right? Although, too many hands and everybody gets in everyone else's way. :)

Matt and I did the painting. He insisted on rolling, so I got to cut in. Painting up by the ceilings and the corners wasn't too bad, but crawling around on the floor was not fun at all. Especially since I had to avoid tack strips in the living room. I managed to survive with only one puncture wound, and the only paint that got on me was Matt's fault... hehe. I was so stiff for the rest of the night...

We rushed home and barely got cleaned up in time to make it to the cabin for a Beutel family thing. I pretty much sat the whole time... like I said, I was a little bit stiff and sore and it hurt to move. *grin*

Sunday we went to W-ton for Troy and Ellie's wedding. They're so cute and the wedding was great and everything was really pretty. Good times, although it seems really weird that she's all married and gone now. *sniff* They just grow up so fast... hehe.

I fell asleep when we got home... I've been working too hard I guess. :) Then we went to Bob's parent's for brownies and ice cream since Saturday was his Dad's birthday. Which we totally forgot. Ooops. (Sorry!!) Someday I will have all family birthdays on the calendar and will remember to at least get a card a week in advance. Someday. Or maybe I take after my aunts... hehe.

Anyway, back to work today...
Blessings.

Home Sweet Home

So on Tuesday we did a very fast final walk through, ran to the bank to meet with our loan officer (and randomly, I went to HS with his kids), then quick to the lawyer's to sign some more papers. And then they handed us keys. Yikesabee. But not the garage door keypad code... still need to get that from the previous owner...

Our new house... the red front door and porch, which I love.



This is the back yard. One of the biggest reasons I liked this house. The back fence borders the school, and the fence on the left borders the cemetery. They're completely covered with what I think are honeysuckle vines. It's hard to tell but there are also three different clumps of lilac bushes along the fence and peonies in the corner.



And looking back towards the house... my photography skills are pathetic.



So this is the living room, the green carpet is going. It's a bit dirty, but it's not worn at all, so if you want it, you're welcome to it!




Off the living room is the hallway to the bedrooms... pretty basic. :) Although, check out the parquet floors! I love it.



There are three bedrooms, they're all pretty much white boxes with wood floors currently, like this one.



And the bathroom off the bedrooms. I really like the wallpaper- it's super cute and very vintage, but... I think it's going to go. Too much pink. Every person who has stepped in this room has commented on the floor, including the guy who came to measure for vinyl. It's just such a contrast to the pink. And maybe the oddest linoleum I've ever seen.



And we've got another lovely inset vanity with fluorescent lights. Ugh. I dislike fluorescent lights intensely.



This is the kitchen, it looks really colorless right now. I love all the cabinets and counter top space and the window that looks out on the yard.



The house was added on to at some point and it's honestly a little bit disorienting the first few times you walk through it, but this is the family room right next to the kitchen. And our mantle less fireplace. One of my goals is to get a mantle before Christmas. *grin*



So the family room kind of turns the corner over here. We're not sure what it's going to be yet... maybe the office?



And next to the family room is the side entrance and second bathroom.



Lovely color choices in here, hehe. Yellow, black, and red flecked linoleum and black counter top.



And more fluorescent lights. *sigh* 2014 can take its time getting here.

So anyway, that's kind of what it looks like now. I have a feeling menards is going to be my home away from home for a little bit, which I love. One of the toilets was running (the water had been off since the house was empty) so I got to visit a new aisle yesterday. *Grin* Plus, we'll be pulling the toilets off when they install the new floors so we needed new seals. There are many advantages to growing up in an old farm house... I know what a wax toilet seal is and I could probably talk you through replacing it. Since, you know, I can't be expected to actually do the work in my delicate condition. hehe.

Mom and Dad and Shelly came over last night and we did some cleaning and prepping for paint. Poor Dad got to play plumber and remover of things that were glued/screwed/nailed to walls and doors. Good times.

Blessings.

Science

I ran across this comic this morning... it made me laugh, because it's so true. Scientists don't think of some project to try and Voila!, two weeks later it's available to the public. Sometimes I spend three or four months doing the same reaction, or testing the same material. And nothing I have worked on has been a major, change-the-textbooks, discovery. Most of research is just adding to and building upon what is already known. (of making many books there is no end...)

I worked here at the lab as a student the summer of 2006. I spent the whole time mixing up plastic resins in collaboration with a company that wanted to make bio-based chairs... it's now five years later, they dropped the project and our contact person works for a different company. My boss wrote and published a paper about the reactions and data, but will it ever get used? Who knows.

I edited for language... *grin* Click on it to make it bigger so you can read it.

Happenings

Life is crazy. :)

We have 16 boxes of books waiting to be moved... maybe 1 or 2 more, depending if you count cookbooks as "books." (I remember there being some disagreement when we tried to take inventory at the farm...) And a living room full of empty boxes that we got from a friend of one of my coworkers who just moved to T-town.

I went and looked at carpet and vinyl last weekend. There's a rather overwhelming selection. Plus, I have no idea what I'm doing. Any suggestions for carpet color that would go with this couch? And that wouldn't look out of style in 5-10 yrs? I don't use those reddish pillows...

We're replacing some lovely bright avacado green carpet and interesting vinyl in the bathrooms... and I don't want to hear about the green carpet- I had green shag carpet in my bedroom for years and that was more than enough for one lifetime.

I bought a bunch of paint too, and I was good and got the No VOC deodorizing kind. *eyeroll* Because, you know, I've been working with concentrated organic solvents for four years now and never had traces show up in my bloodwork... and a few afternoons of paint fumes is nowhere near my regular exposure level...

Bob got to help direct traffic at the Threshing day, and then we went to potluck on Saturday night. And last night we ate at Olive Garden with Dang and his family and some of his friends for his birthday. It was an interesting and fun evening.

We were supposed to do our final walk through of the house last night as well, I even brought my camera to take pictures, and then the lock box was missing and it was too late in the evening to get keys from the seller or realtor. Sooo... hopefully we'll still be closing this afternoon.

Anyways... blessings.