Progress

So much has been accomplished this weekend ... the house is absolutely unrecognizable in its improvement. On Saturday I finished knocking down the last ceiling (in the smallest bedroom). Just to show you how much of a novice I am ... I worked steadily for over an hour (and feeling fairly proud of my ability since I was working all by myself) and was down to the last strip of ceiling (about 2 ft x 10 ft). Ed came in to check on my progress and told me I was doing good and said "here, let me help you for a minute" He then took down the entire strip in about three passes ... hmmmmm. The misisonaries came over to see what they could do and Ed put one of them to work sanding back bedrooms and the other headed up into the rafters to knock down that pesky ceiling box. I am rather glad that I didn't try to do it since I would still be up there. That silly thing was all but welded to a specially built box in the attic! Brute strength prevailed, however, and the box was finally beaten into submission (or at least out of the ceiling). Under Lynn & Ed's direction, I taped, sanded, patched, and in general made a nuisance of myself. By Saturday evening, however, the back two bedrooms had new ceilings and wall. The difference is amazing! While all this was going on, Dad was measuring and placing speaker wires and boxes for cables and television connections. Lynn (to the rescue once again) climed up and belly-crawled through the two feet of insulation in the attic to help thread the speakers in the corners. Dad might have gotten a chance to finish, but I didn't have a long enough S-video cord to string from the computer (which will be next to the fireplace) to the TV (on the opposite wall). Still the wires look beautiful and I am thrilled to have them not stapled along the ceiling as they are in the old house. Thanks Dad!

After a lovely dinner brought in by another wonderful sister (I need Carol's meatloaf recipe - seriously!), we packed up and headed home where I bathed the kids, put them to bed, did the dishes, and headed back up to the new house. Jenny joined me and we wiped down what had already been done and vacuumed ... just putting things in order generally for Monday. Harley appeared at the front window - startling a good decade out of me in the process - and complemented our progress. He took violent exception to the spindles however, with the result that they are now in many pieces in the back yard (hurray!). I didn't really think that it would make that much of a difference since they were so skinny, but having them gone really opens up the room! He also insisted that we paint the beadboard there white (I got the impression that if we didn't agree we might come into the room in the near future to find the words PAINT ME WHITE sprawled across the board rather like a dusty car that has had a similar message traced into a dusty window) fortunately, Byron and I agree and white they shall become. Sunday we rested ... and I mean that literally since I actually took a three-hour nap with my children. This morning, I got up bright and early and cleaned this house (which was looking really bad), did the laundry, and made it up to the new house by 9am. I put the kids out back with the little DVD player and a box of toys. They did incredibly well! Ben and Ginny really more or less kept to the porch and Joshua wandered around in the yard pushing a truck. Robert found a climbing tree that enabled him to see everything that was happening and he just hung out there. Over the course of the day, the living and dining rooms now have new ceilings and walls. It looks amazing and I am even more amazed at Lynn and Ed ... I don't normally mess with power tools. Believe it or not, they intimidate me, so other than the odd job with Byron's little cordless drill, I don't have much experience. Ed threw me the texture gun and said "point there." That was my entire training. Still, I got the hang of it, but my arms and neck were killing me in no time at all. Ed sprayed the actual pattern over the entire ceiling and walls all by himself ... go Ed! Tomorrow, we paint! On a side note, Harley pulled the cooler apart and found that the pads had petrified. Once those were replaced, the cooler worked great. Thanks mate! Of course, all could not be sunshine and roses, I finally found a bit of a thorn today. My telephone was supposed to be transferred up to the new house today (remember I was going to move in over the weekend, ha ha). Tim came up and looked at it and low-and-behold there is no physical line for my information to be tranferred to! Plus, as soon as the information left the old house, that line was given to someone else!!! So what now? I have computer access until it doesn't work anymore (which could be at any moment) and no phone until one comes availble - basically until someone else cancels their service. How fun is that? You would think that here in California (the land of red tape and permit-happy bureaucrats) when a new house is built the phone company would make sure that there is a physical line available to the property (don't we have to do that with the other utilities already?) before the house is finished. But no, they don't and so there is a shortage here. Joy. At the moment, the only way to contact me is via e-mail or by cell phone ...