The next person that tells me that.....!!!

"I suppose now you'll be moving into your garage."
"How does it feel to have a garage bigger than your house?"
If I have to hear either of these statements ONE MORE TIME, I'll go postal!!

These statements are a result of prejudice. You see, our home is a 16x76 mobile home.

20 years ago, Wednesday, we purchased our home for $25,000. We moved it onto 10 lots of our own land, 2 miles from town. We have city water and sewer, and cable TV and internet. Our house is built of 2x6s, which gives us R-19 insulation in the walls, and R-22 in the double floors, and ceiling. We have high effeciency vinyl windows with separate combination storm windows. We have landscaped with evergreens on the north side of our house, and deciduous trees on the south. 11 years ago, during a stretch of 100 degree weather, we equipped our home with central air conditioning. Our house is VERY economical to heat and cool. WHY would we move into our garage, which is constructed of 2x4s and has a concrete floor?!

When we bought our mobile home, we thought we'd eventually build a bigger house on our lots. We looked at thousands of floor plans, and NEVER found one that we liked as well as our current home. NONE of the bedrooms and kitchens, in these floor plans, were as big as ours!

Our kids' bedrooms are 12x12 with HUGE closets. Our bedroom is 12x15 with a walk-in closet, and master bath with a garden tub. The kids' bedrooms and full bathroom are at one end of the house. Our bedroom is at the opposite end, with the living room and kitchen in between. Our kitchen has 22 feet of counter, with upper and lower cupboards all around. We also have a separate laundry/storage room.

What DON'T we have in our house? We don't have a formal dining room and a separate living room and family room. Our living room IS our family room. Our kitchen is the heart of our home. We prefer an "eat in" kitchen. We don't have a foyer. Why should we heat, cool, and CLEAN space that we'd NEVER use, like a foyer, formal dining room, and formal living room?

With the declining economic conditions in our town, we're happy that we didn't build a bigger home. Why? Because EVERYTHING we own, other than 1/2 of the garage, is totally PAID FOR! How many of the people, who ridicule our home, can say that?

By the way, our garage has 896 square feet of space. Our home has 1216 square feet of space. Yes, our home is bigger than our garage. SO THERE!!

Tagged by Nancy Drew

5 Things always in my purse:

wallet
keys
pen
leatherman tool
knee brace

5 Things always in my wallet:

driver's license
insurance cards
pictures of my kids
credit cards
receipts

5 Things always in my refrigerator:

milk
eggs
condiments
ice cubes
margarine

5 Things always in my closet:

bathrobes
guns
vitamins (store in a cool, dry place)
folding chairs
Christmas ornaments that shouldn't freeze

5 Things always in my car:

dog rug
binoculars
flashlight
tools
kleenex and paper towels

5 Things always on my desk:

4,000,000 computer games that my son and husband NEVER put away
homeschool research
scanner
external hard drive
webcam

5 People to tag
All my blogfriends are busy this summer, so I'll let YOU decide if you want to do this one.

DW & BS Update

The saga continues with our morning dishwasher (DW) and the boss' son (BS).

As most of you know, BS is a 39 yr old leech. He lives, rent free, in his mother's rental house. He shares custody of his 3 kids with his ex, so he doesn't have to pay child-support. Mama buys the kids clothes and feeds them, when the kids are with BS every other week. The only bills BS has are for his utilities and $600/month for his $40,000 truck, that he bought last September.

DW is a 24 yr old alcoholic that lives with her alcoholic parents (what a surprise). DW has worked at the restaurant for about a year and has yet to make it to work for 2 weeks straight. There's always a day in there where she's too drunk or hungover to make it to work.

In early June, DW once again didn't make it to work. We were busy and my boss kept looking out the window, waiting for DW to show up. BS happened to be passing through the kitchen and casually mentioned to his mother that DW MIGHT be in jail. WTF?! Sure enough; my boss called DW's mom and found out that she was in jail. DW showed up for work the following day and my boss acted like nothing had happened.

A few days later, L noticed that BS' truck was missing and asked him if it was in the shop. BS said that his truck had been IMPOUNDED!! L quickly dropped the subject.

About 2 weeks later, BS walked through the kitchen all spiffed up. The following day, my boss finally told me what was going on. BS had been to court the previous day. He and DW had gone out partying. BS got too drunk to drive, so he let DW(also drunk) drive his new truck, knowing that she had already lost her driver's license because of a DUI. DW got pulled over for speeding, failed a sobriety test, and got thrown in jail. BS' truck got impounded, but he avoided jail because he wasn't driving. The court ruled that they couldn't drink, or be in situations where liquor was served. BS got his truck back but has to have special license plates, that indicate the vehicle has been involved in a DUI, on his truck for 5 yrs. Both DW and BS are subject to random drug and alcohol testing. Both DW and BS have to pay a $1000 fine and DW has to attend classes on alcohol dependency.

The morning of July 5th, DW's mom called to tell the boss that DW had failed her pee test and was back in jail. What a surprise! Did anybody really think that she would stay sober for the 4th of July?! DW was back in court on Friday. The judge is letting her out on work release, so she was back to work for the first time today.

She obviously wasn't paying attention in drunk class.

Update: DW told BS that she hadn't been drinking. She said her test showed positive for alcohol because she had been around people who were drinking.

Natural Obstacles

Sunday and Tuesday we put in 12-hour days getting the garage totally primed, and painted on 3 walls.

While taking a bathroom break on Tuesday, L made an odd comment:
"I thought they were nocturnal?"
Me: "Who?"
L: "Skunks."
Me: "What?!"

Sure enough; the view from our bathroom window was of 4 skunks, wrestling and playing on the mound of dirt 10 feet from the back door of our garage! This dirt hill has been here since we bought the property. I hauled many wheelbarrow loads of dirt out of that hill to landscape our side yard, when we first moved here. Now, the skunks have dug themselves a cozy little den in that pile of dirt. You'd think that the skunks would have moved out when our contractor dug up the garage site and dumped several loads of rocks and dirt in front of their den, but NOOOOO. Our presence doesn't bother them in the least.

In the picture above, the skunk's den is located behind the fresh mound of dirt and rock, and under the trees in the background.

The skunks have slowed our painting progress considerably. We now have to be conscious of what's behind us, at all times. We must check the bottom of the ladder, before getting down, so we don't step on a skunk. Z's head turning tic has worked to his advantage this time. So far, the skunks have stayed on the wooded side of our property during the day.

We have discussed several grisly ways to dispose of the skunks, but we just can't do it. They're just so damned cute when they come rolling out of their den. Besides, our granddaughter would NEVER forgive us if we killed the skunks! (Would you Demi?) The first thing they do, when they get outside, is shake the dirt out of their fur. Then they start pouncing on each other, like a pack of puppies.

Hairry's area of the yard is 30 feet from the den. Hairry just quietly watches the new neighbors. I think he sees them as new playmates, like his chipmunk buddies. NOT a good thing! We now tie Hairry out in the front yard when the skunks are out.

The new rule at our house is: do NOT make friends with or feed the skunks. Skunks domesticate very easily. We don't want them constantly romping around at our feet. Do NOT name the skunks. If they become too big of a nuisance, we'll have to dispose of them.

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY, EVERYBODY!!

I'm sorry that I haven't been visiting all of you, but we've been BUSY!! We also got a Trojan in our computer last week, so this is the first time all week that we've had internet access.

Our garage is almost primed and ready to paint. We also laid 18 sidewalk blocks from the back door of the garage. We only have around 60 more to lay.

We're hoping to get some color on the garage today. It's a beautiful day our there, so we'd better get cracking!! See you soon.