Pictures to Follow

I have RETURNED; exhausted but exultant!!

The past 12 days I've been killing myself staining and polyurethaning(3 coats) 4 inch strips of plywood to create a hardwood perimeter in our living room. Now a 12 foot piece of carpet will fit between the hardwood edge and we don't have to splice the carpet, which we're terrible at! In the future we won't have to move our bookcases or entertainment center to replace or shampoo the carpet. L didn't understand my plan at first. He now thinks I'm brilliant!

We got the carpet laid on Tuesday night and our new furniture arrived yesterday afternoon. We're now the proud owners of a forest green La-Z-Boy couch and a BEAUTIFUL oak(actual REAL wood that we didn't have to assemble) entertainment center! I'm now in the process of wiring our AV equipment, which consists of: 2 VCRs, DVD player, turntable, graphic equalizer, dual cassette recorder, analog CD burner, 5 CD changer, amplifier, digital cable receiver, 2 video game systems, and bedroom and living room speakers. The new furniture forced us to rearrange all of our living room furniture, but we love the new arrangement! After I'm finished wiring and we get the entertainment center pushed into place, we have to find new places to hang our pictures. When we're finished, I'll post pictures of the finished product. I'll also post pics of our bedroom after I get the stereo equipment out of there.

It's the last day of September and I can't believe all we've accomplished in the last 2 months! We've replaced our water heater, rebuilt our bedroom floor, hung 10 feet of cabinets in our bedroom, painted 1 wall of our bedroom a lovely navy blue(which my mother hates), painted the bedroom ceiling light gray, stained, polyed and hung new trim on the blue wall, laid new bedroom carpet, put new paneling on the living room side of our kitchen cupboards(with extra insulation around the dishwasher), and created a BEAUTIFUL new living room floor.

I still need to stain and poly the new trim for the front door, shorten the new living room and bedroom drapes, and sew valences for the living room windows; but tonight I'm just gonna sit back and enjoy the fruits of our labor!

Thor

We found out today that the baby's name is Thor. I like this. Thor is a strong name and this little guy needs all the strength he can get!

We have our bedroom back together and now have our living room torn apart. We received some money from L's mother (a loooong story; will post about it later) and bought some new furniture. It will be delivered around the 28th. We're scurrying to get the living room floor done before the furniture arrives.

Z is having OCD problems. He's currently obsessing over his health and food. His health obsession has caused sleep problems. This is creating a rather vicious cycle. What next?

Not a Joyous Birth!

In a perfect world, every newborn would be welcomed into this world by a loving family, and be raised by TWO parents, who are ready to handle the responsibility.

Our goddaughter, SB, delivered a healthy(we hope), 5 lb, baby boy last weekend. We think he might have come early, hence the low birth weight. We're hoping she quit smoking during her pregnancy, which would also explain the low birth weight.

SB is 21; old enough to be a mother under normal circumstances. She's also bi-polar, dyslexic, and extremely immature for her age. This is SB's 5th pregnancy in 4 years with 4 different guys! The other 4 ended in miscarriage. We all KNOW that SB is trying to tie a guy to her with a baby. After the 2nd miscarriage, I discussed this with her and begged her to use contraception. Better yet, I implored her to get her head on straight before she started another relationship. She tearfully agreed with me at the time. . .

SB had a wretched childhood in a dysfunctional family. Her mother is also bipolar. Her father is a hard working man that spent all his time working to pay off the astronomical debts his wife incurred. Two years ago his wife left him to "find" herself. "Finding" herself translates into full-time partying and whoring around. SB's father is now engaged to his grandson's paternal grandmother, a wonderful woman.

The only saving grace to this situation is SB's boyfriend(bf). He's a highly intelligent young man of 23, with a good paying job. The downside is that SB and bf have alienated themselves from his mother and her father. We received the news of the baby's birth from his paternal grandma, who heard it from her other son, who is still in contact with his brother.

All concerned would LOVE to welcome this precious baby boy. Unfortunately, none of us knows where they are living. We don't know his name, exact birth weight, length, or birthdate. We just know that he's here! We're all worried about SB's ability to care for a newborn. We're also scared to death that post partum depression will afflict SB's bi-polar brain!! Is her bf prepared to handle all of this on his own? Will we ever know? All we can do is pray that God gives them the wisdom to raise this child the way he deserves.

Sleeping on the Right!

L installing cupboards

It's been almost a week since I've done any blogging. We've been BUSY!

Our 3 day weekend went quite well, until Monday. Monday morning we got the final (4th) coat of paint on the wall, reinstalled the ceiling light, cleared our bedroom of tools, and prepped the floor for the carpet. It rained all morning and we were waiting for the weather to clear for a few minutes, so we could pick up our carpet. We had our carpet stored in my parent's garage. Around 1:00, the weather cleared, so we made a quick trip to Menards and picked up the carpet.

We were getting ready to carry in the carpet when L's brother, sister-in-law, and mother pulled into our driveway. They'd driven up to visit from the Twin Cities with NO advance warning. That shot the rest of our work for the day. We did have a good time visiting with them and enjoyed the break from our labors.

Tuesday, I polyed the rest of the trim. Wednesday, Z and I layed the carpet. Last night we got our bed moved back into our bedroom. It was HEAVEN sleeping in our room again.

Moving our bed is no small accomplishment. Over 20 yrs ago, we built a storage bed. When we moved into this house our friends, that were helping us move, couldn't believe how much stuff came out of our bed. Our bed currently holds our spare blankets, seasonal clothes, my old comic book collection, all our games, our jigsaw puzzles AND our longjohns, wool socks and jeans. Hopefully we won't have to move the bed again for a LONG time!

This weekend we hope to complete our project. We still have some trim to hang, a chifferobe to assemble and the rest of the furniture and the computer(and all the peripherals) to move back in. THEN we can start on the living room floor!