Duckpond Photography

Saturday, January 30th was the first anniversary of our closing on the house.  Hence the debt part.  John and I had planned to visit my cousin Leanne, her husband Matt, and their newborn son Joshua.  Eileen (John’s mom) had planned on coming over to finish spackling and  painting the bathroom so that me and the little duckling wouldn’t be in the house while the paint was drying (bless her heart).  Upon hearing this, my parents promptly asked for a chore list and permission to come over and work on our house.  Permission.  To work on our house.  I have awesome parents.  Factors, including John being wounded in a courageous battle of cleaning in the kitchen,  the high likelihood of ice on the way home, and Leanne and Matt having at least three visitors, we decided not to go visit them.  Re: the battle wound, my mom vowed revenge against the evil cabinet door, but John decided to turn the other cheek (uh, forehead?).    By the time we decided to stay, the three parents were already at our house.

Before I get to the progress we made that day, or the cumulative progress over the course of a very intense year, I’d like to point out ways that we saw God work through our not going to visit my cousin.

1) My cousin and all points in between and beyond on the East coast got hit with a large, unforcasted snow storm that caused her area to basically shut down and be completely unsafe for travel.

2) We were able to spend quality time with parents on our debt-a-versary.  And make significant progress on the house once more.

3)  I had prepared stuffed shells for Leanne, Matt, and baby Joshua, who have significant amounts of very supportive family within easy driving distance.  Instead, John and I took them over to David, Christina, and *their* baby Joshua.  We got to bless our friends with lunches for the week while sharing in their joy of a 3 day old adorable baby.  We got to visit with them while Joshua ate and slept in Christina’s arms (that whole sleeping part was pretty new, so we didn’t even ask to hold him), and we got to see a newborn after all.

4) We got more rest than we would have even without crazy weather patterns.

So we are thankful that God is in control.  He does a better job than I would.  I should also mention that the last time we tried to visit Leanne and Matt on the way to see our two best men and their wives, we were prevented by the most snow they’d had in years.

Back to our house and progress there.  That Saturday, John installed new thermostats and prevented drafts from sabotaging them, which not only gave us nice programmable functions, but also stopped the problems we were having with our boiler.  He also ran around with patch paint for all those spots we’ve found or created since we moved in.  Eileen finished spackling and painting our bathroom, making it completely ready for move-in, which we promptly did.  My mom, dad, and I prepared shelves we’d gotten as hand-me-downs from them to hold heavy things without falling over.  We also sent a lot of the contents of the “armory” (storage room/workshop) into the shed, to the Habitat for Humanity Re-Store, or long-term storage at my parents’ house (thank you!!!).  Then we pulled everything workshop-esque out and reorganized it for long-term ability to find things.  This is a significant improvement from February last year, where the entire “mess room” (think family room) had tools of all kinds scattered on the floor so we could see and get to everything.  My dad stopped our particle board drawers from raining onto our pots and pans.  Eileen and my parents all contributed to the first step towards making the third bedroom into a nursery, by ripping out the single shelf in the closet, spackling, and painting in there so we can put in shelves for the duckling’s clothes.  Wow.

This brings our first year list of major projects completed to:

Work by contractors, research and decisions by John with a little help from me:

*New floor everywhere in the house

*New roof

*New gutters

*Insulation, bathroom lights/fans, and a new water heater (co-sponsored by the state of New Jersey)

*New windows of the ones that had rotted through (co-sponsored by the federal government)

*Plumbing and tiling in the bathroom

*Fix the electrical work so that the next time a truck comes into our driveway, no one gets electrocuted

Work done by The Team of Five (my parents, John’s mom, John, and me):

*Removal of 1500 square feet of vinyl floor tile

*Demolition (that would be the DemoMoms) of built-in shelving, old baseboard mouldings, the entire non-functional bathroom, and anything else that got in their way

*Installation of closet and pantry shelving in 4 different locations

*Installation of an attic fan

*Lots of cleaning.  You don’t want details.

*Replacement of old 2-prong outlets with grounded, tamper-resistant outlets and/or GFCI’s in anticipation of a duckling

*Cutting down of at least 18 trees that were dead/dying/killing other things.  Also lots of pruning so you can see the house from the street.

*Patch painting and caulking of the outside of the house, plus some repairs to the roofline

*Planting of blueberries, raspberries, peaches, tomatoes, herbs, and more

*Lots of nailpop search-and-destroy and spackling

*Spackling, painting and shower sealing of the new bathroom

With the help of Lucy’s extended family:

*Painting and installation of baseboard mouldings

*Beautification of windows in the form of cleaning them and adding faux stained glass

*various carpentry jobs

With the help of our Bible study:

*Painting the entire living room, dining room, kitchen

And that’s just the work from through February (when I wrote 99% of this post and then didn’t finish…)

The latest project has been the nursery!  Stay tuned!