Things are Happenin...

Guess what we did? NO! Not THAT!

WE Painted the house all inside. We got us a sprayer and sprayed away-- Keith mostly-- he is not confident in my spraying abilities. But it really does not matter how much you cover, your eyes get it -- We tried goggles but they covered in paint in about 1 minute-- thus the raccoon look.

My boogers did get a bit colored, I kept forgetting my mask. I would take it off to breath or talk, then start spraying then wonder why I was choking to death-- I am still blonde underneath the grey!

The cabinet guys showed up to start the cabinets today: The middle islands will be put in tomorrow.

And I finally got to start glazing the walls. Finally I can actually contribute. Keith has been doing the electric, the painting, the building of... I try to help but I do not think I do that much for him-- But NOW I can do something he can't-- I feel so useful!! And I LOVE doing it.

Keith also put in the living room lights tonight-- We LOVE them!

It is getting so much closer-- We are needing it finished by end april-- I think we will make It!

We just came back from attending Evan's graduation from Culinary School. It turned out to be a much 'bigger' deal than we had thought it was.  A great program!

Within the school Evan already attends is the opportunity to take this class. It is offered and taught by the San Antonio Food bank.  As it turns out San Antonio Food Bank partners with many in the community and trains many in the culinary arts.  Also graduating the same day were some men from prison.  They trained at a different time than the Independence School.  The goal of the culinary is to equip these adults with the skills that could really help them get careers.  Evan received a certificate of completion in culinary skills. He also received his own chef coat with his name on it and everything!

The meal was great, pork loin, ettouffe-ish dish, bell peppers stuffed with seasoned hash browns. The salad was spinach and strawberries and pecans, with flakes of red pepper. The dessert was a carrot cake(Keith's is better)with a marmalade tart. 

Evan is doing wonderfully at the school. He has his bus pass, but not complete freedom to go on his own yet.  We are thinking that those at the school are a bit protective of him and do not see his full potential yet.  He does have a way of hiding it well. 

We were talking with him about his driving in San Antonio, which has been the plan since his moving there. The school said it would be ok and they would work it in the plan once he got his job. After driving San Antonio recently we were wondering if it would be a good idea. Evan very maturely thought that it would probably be better to ride the bus, he said "People drive crazy in San Antonio".

He is also already planning his apartment when  he moves back home.  He will live with us a "little bit", till he gets a job and then get an apartment. Then he will need a bed and some dishes and pots and pans. He wanted the Texas dishes Lee had had in his house in Lubbock, but I sold them in a garage sale. So "we will have to find something else".

The big graduation should be about Christmas. Before that happens he will need to get a job in San Antonio then move to the apartments on campus and 'live on his own' for a few months. 

The school is whining right now about the 'economy' and hoping it does not affect the students job opportunities.  Too much faith in the world and not enough in our God. God is going to surprise them all!!

House Progress

The roof is pretty much finished!! A little trimming out and cutting edges and it is. What a process! Between the wind and the running out of materials it was a timely procedure. When we finally got the sponge tape in, to finish the 1/4 of the roof we had DAYS of wind. Then when it was perfect we were not able to wrangle enough people back up to help. Two just cannot do it. Though on Sunday we decided we could figure it out, we HAD to. We asked a few new friends,we had run the others all out of town. Most were not going to be able to make it. Brian said he wanted to help finish it out, that was 3, 4 is better but 3 is better than 2. Just as Brian drove up so did Nathanial, a young man who REALLY could have found better company and activity for his Sunday, putting up a roof for old people from his church could not be at the top of his FUN list. 4 is good! So we started B & K on the roof and N & C (me) on the bottom, putting on tape, removing protective film and loading the 24 ft peice on our loading shoot, the peice bows in the middle if you don't hold it just right. Just 2 peices up a red truck drives up and it is Roy and Faye, our dear friends. They had just said goodbye to their daughter and grandson and decided the day was so gorgeous we MUST be doing something on the house so they drove 30+ miles to come and see what they could help out with. 6 people working on the roof-- It was great, the way Roy and Brian and Keith worked together it was the first time the ground crew could not keep up!! God set up an awsome crew!THE FLOORS ARE FINISHED

You can see the shine! And NO we are not staining them, the color is in the concrete. The neat thing is each room has it's own personality and color! It is great! The floors are exactly what we were going for, we are very pleased, it was worth it.

BUT

I have not even tried to add all my hours together, put I am pretty sure it is up to 1000.

NEVER again! This will not be my business, I will not do this for a living, the machine is for sale!

We are now waiting for the foam insulation people to come in-- Tomorrow was the day, but we got a cold front, RAIN (drops of water from the sky) and 32-40 degrees, so it is freezing.

The guy will probably come Friday.

Things to come:

insulation

finish out plumbing(spouts out)

poly cabinets,1 sand and 1more coat(they came in and are gorgeous)

drywall/texture

doors

master bath stuff

lights in

set up kitchen-cabinets, appliances.

With all this we should be able to move in!

Another has gone home.

Keith's dad Gerald has died. Gerald has been passively ill for a few years.  Just a few months ago the decision was made that he move to a nursing home, it was a difficult decision. Gerald physically was declining, mentally declined.  The hopes and desires of course were different, the truth was it was not healthy nor safe for Mary Lou or Gerald, for him to stay home with her.

A week ago Hospice who helps with the care of Gerald, notified Mary Lou that Gerald was actively dying.  This was the beginning, and could take some time.  With my own father it was about a week. The next day the offer and acceptance of him moving to Hospice house- This was a great relief and blessing.  The house, as Keith described it, was beautiful, it was a ,'home', it reminded him of Geralds childhood home, Keith had known from visiting his grandparents.  It is an older home, two story, and filled with antiques, the only part not 'homey' the hospital beds, but the atmosphere made up for this.  

The next day Keith's brother made it in to town, and saw his father, as it was, just a few hours before Gerald went home to our father.  Gerald left this world, peacefully and quietly, and answer to prayers in the quiet of the morning, just he with the Lord.

The out pouring of love that followed was amazing.  The perfect timing for so very many to be at the service amazing. The many people that came to honor Gerald, amazing.

This service for Gerald actually revived him, in all of our hearts and memories.  Gerald had slipped away from us all, the man we had seen for the past few years was not the man Gerald had been.  The man Gerald had become died, but the Gerald we knew and loved was honored at the services was brought back to life in our memories. Our Gerald, 'Big G', Gia, Brother Petty is alive and well forever more.

Topping things off

We are in the process of roofing. Still.  The metal came in. Pretty and silver. The shortest piece it 3' the longest is 29" approximately 18" wide.  

The order of build is to do the  back porch then the back main roof- front porch and front of main roof.

Brian and Keith began the back porch. The lining up of the first piece and the next few was most tedious. They intended on having all of the porch finished by the time some awesome friends from church and work came in, so the 'hardest' could be worked on when there were many. It did not happen that way. 

Steps to be taken, are get a section of metal, the 20+ sheets have to have one on each end and NOT bend it. Lay it down- pull the blue protection plastic off of the outside, flip it over and run 1/2" foam tape down the middle (to prevent Oil Canning?) Then hook onto rope and clamp so the on the roof guys can pull it up the ramp, which Tanah says looks a 'little like a good slide'. 

We set up an assembly line and it worked pretty well, as long as I did not get cocky and try to show Jack how to really put the tape on straight, the WRONG side.  And as long as we did not have two Geologist putting on the tape, the WRONG side 5 TIMES!  

The wind cooperated pretty much all the time.  Only picking up at the end of the day Super bowl Sunday, actually just in time for all to make their parties. Freeing Keith from being the friend they hated for abusing their friendship and causing them to miss the game. 

Since then we have had a couple of good un windy days, Keith worked on the sides of the front porch, and another friend showed up one day to help him do that, just because he felt he might be needed.  God has provided.

We had all intentions to finish the roof this past weekend, when Lee came in town bringing Evan for a visit.  We had decided to pay Lee the $ for the flight for Evan to come home would be like killing a bunch of chickens, getting more help, getting to see Evan, getting to see grand kids.  IT WAS A GREAT PLAN, just not for the same reasons we had.  

As it was, Gerald, Keith's dad passed away just before their coming in, so we had a memorial service to attend, and they were all able to be here.

The wind blew like CRAZY all this time, building to a crescendo on Sunday as everyone left to 40 mile gusts. Keeping us from deciding to do some work to make up for lost time.  We have lost nothing. Keith is emotionally and physically wiped out, being on a roof is probably the last place he should be right now.

God has been ever present in this build.  Most recently it has been in the use of our church body.  The men that have come to help us, have been a blessing. More than just physical labor, but spiritual growth. Asking for help is the last thing, we, Keith, will do. We both feel we have jumped into this with both feet, and should not expect, ask, even desire others to even dip a toe in of their own. We are learning. Just as these men were giving their time to us, I was hearing a on ipod Daily Bible, of Moses who received help to hold up his hands to help the Israelites to victory in war. In the same reading Moses was advised to accept help in ministering to the Israelites.  Receiving help is also a service, as well as giving it. I am thinking even more so, it takes humility.  

So today as we have forecast of 60 mile gusts, we are standing back and knowing HE is in control, and as much as we want this done now, God will bring this home to completion in His time.  We have placed the scripture, 'As for me and my house we will serve the Lord' literally everywhere on this home.  Cut into the concrete on the porch, written on the styrofoam wall,I intend on stenciling this on my walls, and it is in our hearts.  We must know this and allow this, thus allowing God control of this, His home. We have been blessed beyond what we deserved. We have the desire to let Him use this home for His work, and want to be vessels for Him. So we wait and learn.

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Ok here are some more pictures-- I have been receiving requests of our progress-- I do not know if you can tell, but we HAVE been working- We put down the underlay for the roof, it is not as easy as it looks (if it looks easy). Actually the we consisted of Keith all the time and Brian with about 3/4 of it and then Keith had to settle for me for the last 1/4. We started laying it on a Saturday afternoon, and did the front porch. Sunday we were going to start the main roof, which has a bit more pitch.

I was some what nervous about this part. The angle is such that you have to lean all the time, more than it looks you would. My knees have become most uncooperative since my being sick, don't know why, or what, just know they REALLY hurt. The right one hurts to straighten and the left to bend. So sitting in a crouched position unrolling a huge roll of paper on a 12:5 pitch roof in the wind AND being a clutz makes me nervous. So I prayed for strength and ability all day Sunday before we began the roof. Just as I was climbing the ladder to begin this endeavor Keith's phone rang, it was Brian, my strength and ability calling, to see if we needed any help!!

The guys got all the front pitched roof done and the back porch. Keith and I finished the back pitch in two more afternoons. Keith has lots of holes in his tongue from biting it those two days.

The electric is mostly run, that took many days and wire.

I have 3600 square feet of 800 polishing and then 3600 square feet of 1500 polishing and probably a densifyer or sealer finish to go and the floors are finished. I have run 4 different grinds and will have run 6 rounds of polish- 36,000 feet of grinding polishing. NEVER NEVER again, the floors will be great, but NEVER NEVER again. We will be selling the grinder polisher-- we bought it for 7000$ and a little extra for the last polish pads and densifiyer-- If we sell if for 3000 then we will have 1$ per square foot floors... Anyone buying?

We are pretty sure we have the doors 'done', except for the front door Keith is proposing to build. Some friends just unbroke ground and we purchased some of their doors from them.

God has blessed us with a change in the building weather, our construction people are getting hungry and beginning to come to us for work and are actually coming DOWN and competing with each other on prices.

Steel prices came down this week so our roof cost will too.

What we are fixin to do:

Roof this weekend

Finish polish

Run rest of plumbing (exhaust)

Air ducts for air/heat ( need to have them 'compete' more)

Dry wall and texture

Doors hang

Master bath: toilet, sinks(have)build tile shower, bath(have)

Texture paint Master bed

The cabinets have been purchased!! They should be ready at end of February-- Again a God send. The cabinet maker, the timing, the cost, all perfect. After we had figured we could not afford anything but prefab and wondered if that would be worth it.. Here is this, they will be knotty alder, exactly what we want!!

Our hope is to be to a point of moving in it by April-- basically kitchen and master finished and the rest to be finished within a few weeks and $$ of that.

I gotta go and grind-- more soon--

STILL building a house

Okay my house is not finished. I was most sure that 6 months would be plenty of time to build a house.  Or at least be MUCH further along than we are. We really have been 'doin sumthin' the whole time. But obviously NOT ENOUGH.

We (Keith and some of his guys from work) started the electric this last weekend.  That to did not complete in one day-- It should in another.  

We did find that there are a bit more 'little things' the framers did askew.  So we are contemplating NOT using them for the dry wall work-- IF we do, I will be more aggressive and bossy(bitchy) with them while they are here.  The little things may be the norm, a few inches off here or there, a wall/door misplaced, (they fixed it,but it messed up a bit of my concrete floor, so I will have to become creative with the holes) A couple of walls were not anchored to the cement wall, which would really be an issue if they fell down.  Little things.... One of the little things was on the raising of the trusses, they (after much instruction of NOT to) put one too close to the gable, leaving us short one on one end.  They had to build another for that end. The end that got too many we had a room designed in the attic that might one day open into the living as a loft-- an after thought, but the truss guy designed it so we could do this.  The moving of the truss though made it so it would be impossible to open this loft to the living without much redesign.  So brain storm of Meg Ash and I was to put the opening to the room on the outside of the house, with stairs going up to it from the outside-- Like Doc's office on Gunsmoke.  -- It will be Keith's poker room and or 'doghouse'.  I keep trying to convince him to put a toilet and sink up there also, but so far he thinks the work will be more than the convenience. 

The porches look great.  

The roof metal guy is coming tomorrow to give us some estimates and measure

The jury is still out on the loan.

We brought the second set of doors home with us after Christmas (Keith went and picked them up in Houston)

We bought the master bath.

We have only had two really big arguments since last posting.. pretty good for the circumstances-- one of them being KEITH.