Still Painting

Yesterday we spent quite a bit of time painting . . . today, not so much, because we mostly ran out of paint :)

The kids decided they like this bookshelf arrangement better than the previous one. They can walk all the way around it and feel like they're in a library :)

Stretch! There are a few places we can't quite reach with the ladder in this room. We'll have to get the big guy out on Buck's next day off.

Pose? My child? Why, yes of course she did :)

I hope the white ends up looking nice! It's called "Nebulous" . . . it's kind of a family thing ;)

The gray/blue is creeping up the wall--but we can't reach any more and our paint can is dry, so it will remain thus until another trip to the paint shop :)

Fireworks in June

Fireworks in June are NOT a dog's best friend. Chauncey is pretty low key; thunderstorms don't bother him much, the vacuum isn't his favorite (but mostly because he has to move from wherever he's laying down, so I can clean beneath him :), but this fireworks thing is not his jam! He squeezed into the tiny, narrow space between the couch and the foot rest, between Buck's and my legs. And there he sat. Shedding a dog-sized pile of fur, so when he left . . . it was almost as if he were still there :)

What's Behind Door Number ONE?!!

It's game show time . . . can you guess what's behind door number one?

















If you guessed two growing boys listening to Adventures in Odyssey, you were correct!! They found the one little nook in the house I cleared out for carpeting installation (still TBD) and made it a hiding place . . . but not a super great hiding place, because when they get hot or stuffy they have to pound on the door because they're too squished to comfortably reach the inside handle :)




Funny boys :)

Pondering Paint

Thinking about painting the big wall this color--IDK,

I'm scared, ha! I've already used it on the wall behind the

couch and the accent mirror on the wall next to the guitars.

But the big wall . . . dare I be so bold?!

Here are today's updates: Buck and G$ took the van to the nearby insurance check point. Our estimate for a total fix is around $1,200. We are checking to see if we can just get the sensor fixed under our warranty for free. Apparently, our coverage only charges us the $500 deductible if we get our own vehicle fixed. The other vehicle's damage is already covered by our liability insurance. Buck said the guy at the repair shop asked if the mileage was right . . . yup, 2,000 miles. It's brand stinkin' new. Oh well :) I gave my insurance testimony via telephone. We called about our carpet--which was supposed to be delivered to the warehouse today. The truck driver doing the toting was over hours and had to stop enroute, so now the carpet gets to the warehouse Monday, and they will call us then to set up installation (I think). Buck fixed the toilet that was running incessantly, tried to rewire us into a fully functioning thermostat (ours just shuts off/goes dead at random and we don't notice until it's like 85 degrees in the house), but discovered there is some funky wiring with the old one that makes the new one impossible to power. He is deciding whether to return it or alert an electrician to our woes. The fridge/freezer is still working in the garage, but is currently pulled into an almost unusable position (as far as door opening goes) so we can access the electrical panel behind it. The boys did a final touch up on the deck (we didn't have enough paint left to do a full second coat). Oh and we found out the mattress for Caelan's new bed is now delayed a month longer than it has already been delayed. I feel like there should be a discount in this purchase we are already making payments on, but will not possess until late July . . . hmmm . . . Oh, in good news, we had our yard sprayed for ticks a couple of weeks ago and haven't seen a single one of those pesky critters since, woohoo!

The weather was beautiful today! We fully planned to go do something fun, but we didn't. We're just a little worn out it seems. Buck and I both took a quick after dinner nap on the couch. Now I'm writing to stay awake :) Oooh, heard this joke today from Google . . . What do you call a fake noodle? An im-pasta!! Hahahahaha!

Well, I think that's all for today folks :)

Thursday Mystery

I thought perhaps you'd like to be involved in the latest mystery here at the Manor! I shall start by telling you that the appraiser came today, and was a very nice lady. I do hope that all went and looked well, because we scrubbed this house from top to bottom for like four hours to get it ready for her visit and photos. We'll find out what she thought middle of next week. (She liked our hedgehog--has always wanted one, but never got to touch one before; our gerbil bit her; she thought the guinea pigs were cute, and Chauncey reminded her of the big dog they just had to put down three months ago. I'm afraid she may accidently write on the report that she was appraising a zoo! Ha! Oh, and she was very interested in homeschooling and asked if she could call me in a couple of weeks to ask me more questions about it. She's never had someone to talk to about homeschooling before; I thought that was so neat!)

As she was leaving, I received a text from my VBS fender bender buddy . . . prepare to be shocked . . . her fix-it bill is nearly $3,000!!!! Her Blue Book value  . . . maybe $2,000. Sigh. So anyway, I got to feel really special and popular with all the insurance people I got to talk to this afternoon. They really seem efficient and ready to help us . . . I, of course, am curious what this will mean out-of-pocket in the months to come, but it is nice to have it handed over to people who deal with this every day. And, we may even go ahead and get our van fixed, if we're paying the deductible anyway.

While dealing with these two big events, I decided I should feed my family. Oh wait, this is where the mystery starts! See if you can follow the trail and guess where the extension cord is leading before you get to the end . . .

Here's the start . . . a working electrical outlet, always a plus!

Scooting out the door . . . serpentine, serpentine (we just watched the first Cars DVD so that phrase is in my head :)

Getting warmer! Both literally and figuratively . . . does the bed frame confuse you? Aha, an unexpected diversion from your mystery trail. It just so happens more than half of us do not currently sleep in beds with frames . . . tomorrow the carpet installer calls, and hopefully this will be a short term experience :)

No ... not the vacuum . . .

Ooh! That's a give away . . . although not the full picture . . .

Here is the solution to your mystery! BOTH the refrigerator and deep freeze were without power when I went to get bread from the freezer. Due to the not-frozenness of the bread, I realized they had been powerless for not a short time :( For whatever reason, all the outlets in the garage were dead even though the lights worked normally and the garage would open and close. So then my mystery included . . .

Two electrical panels where NOTHING seemed to be *popped* . . . hence my back-up plan, of just plug the appliances into the working outlet :) Buck came home from work early, messed around with the panel I didn't flip through and got the power back on . . . actually, I should probably go check again . . .

The *funny* thing is, just a few days ago, I helped my neighbor through the "Oh, no, my freezer didn't get closed!" emergency. She had hers packed with meat :( I lent her a crock pot and said she had a lot of cooking ahead of her, but could save most of it. Ours has swung open before, with the pressure from the fridge door popping open the freezer. However . . . I didn't realize I had TWO freezers and a fridge (full of nine gallons of milk from yesterday's grocery shopping trip!) defrosting unbeknownst to me. Seriously, what a day! I just have to laugh. I am so out of control when it comes to all of these things--roll with the punches, isn't that what they say? :)

So it was incredibly sweet my baby picked me a bunch of wild flowers from the hills in the backyard. Awww, little day brightener :)

Weekend Wonders

Somehow . . . putting in loooooooong days . . . Buck and the kids managed to finish building the deck over the weekend! And then Caelan and Brennen even started slapping paint on it! Yesterday we spent painting even more, but I'll wait until we're finished to give a final reveal. I have to tell you though . . . completely repainting a deck for the fourth time in four years . . . I can think of more fun things to do :) So, so many spindles . . .

The paint is now creeping into

the living room. It is very white :)

Where my kitchen colors meet. I think

I need to always have white flowers on

the table. They make the colors look so

nice :) 

Lighter, brighter hallway! The carpet looks gross, but hopefully that will be fixed in the next few weeks.

 Good work, team!!

Father's Day *Fun*

When you're sitting at the computer and suddenly your

family is talking to you through a hole in the wall :)

Peek-a-boo!! (Buck was fixing the dryer vent;

it's no longer blowing moist air under the deck!!)

It was a busy day, indeed! We awoke to a quick breakfast before heading to church. The kids were due to sing on stage for their VBS performance. It so happened, we were running late . . . but so were the church people, so Graysen got to sneak in to sing with the crowd for two of the three services. Brennen decided he was ready to just go to the middle/high school group and that way he could skip the whole singing on stage thing, lol! He said, "I'm not doing the actions. It will look weird when I'm the only one just standing there." Ha, okay, okay, no stage singing and dancing for you :)

During church, a young man from Africa who had grown up a Compassion kid, shared his life story. Buck and I were in tears. That stuff hits us right in the gut!! We were scheduled for our family Compassion experience tour right after church. Since the girls and Brennen had already seen one story, and Graysen and I saw the other, we decided to split up and see the story we hadn't. We met in the end with the room full of sponsor-ready kiddos' pictures on the walls.

Buck and the other three got a little head start on us, and Buck zoned in on a little bitty thing from Africa. She's just four years old and he said, "She's little. She needs food." So, that's the wee child we sponsored. I wanted to sponsor 10 :) I've always been interested, like my whole life, in child sponsorship. This is the first time we've ever actually done it. I know it will be different than the older children who can write letters back, she's so small she won't really understand what's happening, but I don't mind. We can still pray for her!

After church, Buck needed a couple of things for deck building at the hardware store. And, because we're fancy, we drove through Jimmy John's for sandwiches . . . oh yeah, fancy us! :) We ate lunch at home, and then Buck opened gifts. He got a coffee

grinder, so he can finally use that whole bean coffee we gave him for his birthday :) Other than that, most unwrapped items were accessories for his gun. Gabby got him a LivePD t-shirt. It's his favorite show!

After that, it was all deck, all day! Well, for me and for Caelan it was paint, paint, paint inside the house. I'm glad she likes to paint . . . I'm kind of over it, hee hee :)

So, we're working on the hall, the kitchen, and the main living room. My "racing the rain" gray turned out to be "rocking the baby" blue . . . but it's growing on me. I'll like it better when we get the picture wall back up . . . but I don't think this color is going to make the BIG WALL as it was originally intended.

But enough about paint . . . look at the progress on that deck! Wowza!