Walls! Walls! Walls!

After two days of no drywall folks who were supposed to show up on Monday, they finally showed up on Wednesday and began work with a vengeance. By Thursday they had the entire house walled in. It is still just rough drywall - the finishing crew will come next week but boy has it made a difference to see walls and ceilings everywhere!! They started on the garage ceiling. Betsy is modeling that for us.






They walled in the entire basement. This was once paneling attached to firring strips on the concrete block. They somehow managed to put up drywall to replace it. I sure won't miss that paneling!!!







Moving upstairs. This is the view into the garage door and across the old kitchen from the new dining room. The large blocky thing in the middle is a 3-sided pillar. It is hollow on the kitchen side of it to accommodate a piece of closet organizer I'm hoping will reduce clutter in our lives.



Here is a better view of the new kitchen. The little door to the left of the picture is the door to the built-in pantry. The fridge will go to the right of that and the double oven next to that. The thing on the wall that resembles a question mark is the wiring for the oven hanging out of the wall.








Here is a view from the dining room addition that looks through the new dining room, into the old and into the living room. The whole downstairs is quite open now.







Going up the steps you can see the ceiling. Where the ceiling fan was is now solid ceiling and you can see the new trapdoor that leads to the upper crawl space to gain access to the new HVAC unit up there.







This is the view standing at the top of the steps and looking all the way down the hallway into what is now our bedroom suite.








Betsy is modeling what was Miriam's room. The room which once sustained the most fire damage now looks just like all the rest. We'll be moving John and David into here. The double closet is behind Betsy so you can glimpse into the next bedroom.





The girls are standing in front of the closet in the common area next to the top of the steps.










This is the door leading into what was John and David's room and will now be the baby's room. You can almost see the remains of the car track I painted on the floor but all the floors upstairs should be covered in wood laminate.



And here the girls are modeling the master suite. They are standing in what was the older boys' room and will now be our bedroom. The passage into the other side will be the library/chapel area.

Good-Bye Neil Armstrong!

This week saw the demise of Neil Armstrong. Let me start at the beginning... Meet Paul. He's the unwitting villain in our story. Little did he know when Bill Pilcher Painting hired him to work on our house, he would be the bearer of death to a world-reknown icon. Bill is one of our parishioners and he's hired Paul and Joe (also parishioners) to help with the painting work on our house. Here you see Paul beginning to strip away the hallway wallpaper...
Now if you remember the finer details about our house, you'll remember that just down that hallway is the room my husband once shared with his brother. The same room where each were allowed to choose their wallpaper of choice. So for the past 30?! years, Steve's cars have very....interestingly...contrasted with Fr. Joel's choice of Neil Armstrong walking on the moon. It was in this very room where Paul and Joe violently stripped away Neil Armstrong from our walls - but not our memories! I can't say I'm quite as saddened as my husband is. In fact, I'm campaigning to do away with the paneling as well...an idea which long ago outlived its stylishness.But the story doesn't end there and if you are Tata (also known as Terry Klopcic, married to one Valerie Klopcic - an important point to remember) you may know what is coming next. To our surprise, Neil Armstrong seemed to be hiding the sentiments of a 30 year younger former resident of our home. Look closely at this picture. For those with less-discerning eyesight I'll let you in on the secret. Written in pencil, and still surviving the stripping away of our brave hero, are the words Terry Loves Valerie:

Dad left a more obvious message under the wallpaper in the room he and Mom once shared. I'm sure these sentiments are still very much alive and well in Ohio!! Unfortunately, within the next two weeks they will be covered over with Sherwin Williams Practical Beige.

Carrying Hope

I am beginning to understand why my husband wants to name this baby Hope. As I lie awake tonight, waiting for an inkling of movement within my bulging belly, my mind has wandered down the path we've taken since the fire. We are so unhappy here in this temporary dwelling. It is a place which seems almost devoid of hope. The spirits of depression and fear hang heavy over these people and their households.

Our children have been exposed to more in their short months here than in the sum of there lives. Every day they despair over a new cheat, a new lie, a thievery, insults hurled at lightning speed. The children in this neighborhood are insecure with themselves and frightened to be found out and they take it out on one another, lashing out at anyone and anything. We have been encouraged that our children have stood their ground. Occassionally they have faltered when confronted with something so new and confounding as strings of insults or physical blows offered for no apparant reason, but mostly they have learned to state their beliefs, stand their ground and then walk away when the troubles continue.

The children in this neighborhood have contributed a steady flow of material for our daily family devotions. "Mom, why does this one lie? Mom, why does he act like that? Mom, what does *this* word mean? Mom, why do the parents call their children stupid? Mom, they are so mean to Philip, what should we do?" We have had opportunity to discuss prejudice, fear, insecurity, anger, the dangers of the tongue, living as a witness to Jesus Christ in a crying world. We've examined the proverbs and the Gospel. We've traced Satan's desire to squelch the presence of Christ in His children throughout the old and new testaments. JT and Ben have learned how to defend their less witting siblings against verbal attacks which sting them more than they do their unsuspecting brother. I think they've grown a lifetime here through the school of challenges and obstacles.

And woven through the thread of day is the train - constant, loud, a vibrating presence that punctuates the hours. I loved the train when we first moved here. It gave rhythm to our days. Somewhere in the recesses of my soul it reminded me of the trains I had loved as a child - the train by the Old Mill behind Mom's craft shop in PA, the train that ran by the home of my little first grade love whose tracks we would follow to visit his aunt, the train that ran past my grandmother's house and would blow its whistle in the night. But one day Tiffany and Ava got on the train that punctuates our days here and the train did not bring them back. It swallowed them up and spit them on the streets of DC which are now trying to devour them. The train is a symbol now of a lost Hope, a missing link to our little family, a scar of our family's wounding in this place.

And so in all this Hope was conceived. Hope was born into a womb once called barren. Hope was called into being to be loved by us in the midst of a loveless place. And now I sit and wait for Hope to move within me. Honestly, I am a bit concerned that I have not felt what I want to. I will have another sonogram this week which will hopefully dash those fears but if I have learned anything over the past year it is that God does not make promises just because we are good people or devout or devoted. And if, God forbid, we should lose our little Hope before this baby sees the light of this world, people will say all the wrong things. They will say "It was God's will." They will say that we have so much on our plate already and God knew what we could handle. They will say that perhaps this child would have had such serious disabilities that life would have been difficult, if worth living at all. (This one will pierce me the most because it will make me wonder if these same people would have us snuff out life in the womb for the ones we have adopted whose challenges are ugly and difficult.) What they will not see is that God does not kill Hope. There is only one enemy who kills Hope and he is the enemy of all our souls.

Hope is fueled by progress. If only we can see the progress, we can have more hope. This is why I wait to feel this baby move and wonder why I do not have indigestion. Each time we go to our house and see the progress - a wall constructed, a door delivered, a light switch wired - our hope of moving beyond this temporary place grows. There is so much hope in the place we call Home now that we desire to just drag our sleeping bags over there and sleep on the floors just to be in a place where we can feel It, breath It. Were we to go there and see no progress, I am sure our Hope would begin to grow faint and Despair would take its place.

As a family, we have lived our lives on Hope. We are thankful that God has given us vision so that we do not need to perish in despair but can walk in the Hope that His vision will be fulfilled. We can measure progress over a long period of time and see it clearly, rather than looking at each day's challenges individually and wallowing in despair. Vision is the path to Hope for it shows us that Hope is a journey, not a stopping place. It is clear why the scriptures teach us that without vision the people will perish, because without vision there is nothing to Hope for.

And so I carry Hope. I carry Hope like a beacon in body which flashes in the darkness of this time and place and reminds our family of the Vision which always drives us further in and further up. And should the enemy of our souls try to kill this Hope within me, he will not succeed. We are a people of vision, we are a family who Hopes.

More Trappings on the House

Yesterday we acquired some steps into the trap door leading to the upper crawl space. The trap door runs perpendicular to what was once the ceiling fan and drops down directly in front of the attic and bedroom doors. Here's a picture of one of our favorite guys, actually referred to as "Jr" putting in the final screws. The electrical inspector came yesterday as well and it looks like he approved most of the work. As soon as the final approval comes on that, the drywall goes up!!
They have also delivered all the doors and trim and deposited it in the two back downstairs bedrooms. Betsy wanted to model one of the new doors (most of these go upstairs although you can see the new pantry pocket door to the left of Betsy). Notice her new Dorothy Hamil hair-do. Aunt Beth took one look at the chop job she did on herself and decided that had to be corrected. It looks really cute but I have to admit I've been having flashbacks of being that age w/the same haircut and having all the old men at church call me a "cute little boy". Hasn't happened to Betsy yet, though, so I guess I can stop worrying about it now.

Holy Zeus Batman!

I wanted to share yesterday's fun project. We made little sculpey statues of the Greek gods - and got a good taste of everyone's artistic....er....expression.
Going 'round the pan we have Ruth's artistic expression of the Goddess Aphrodite, then Philip's fine interpretation of Zeus sporting a lightning bolt (although admittedly it does look quite a bit like a hammerhead shark), the lady in pink is Betsy's Persephone (aided somewhat by Ben) and below her in shimmering blue is her mother Demeter, fashioned by Miriam. Next to Demeter is JT's attempt at Apollo who lost his cloak along the way and closely resembles a chicken he once drew. Above Apollo is Mommy's rendition of Poseidon bearing his trident which appears to be stabbing Ben's Hermes in the foot. Now, I have taken a real liking to dear little Hermes. If you look closely you can see the little wings on his feet - how cute is that?! And, last but not least, let's not forget the blue blob by Poseidon's head. John Michael carefully crafted this addition to the showcase of the gods. He titled this work "Apple Pie".

Special Day!

Betsy's First Communion Friends: Sam Huff (he's always surrounded by girls at our church), Marcie Pilcher, Betsy, Sarah Carico and Grace Northwood They were a little punchy by the time we took this picture.

This is my body....Betsy was so nervous about doing it "right" that Fr. Rob got out "Betsy, this is..." and Betsy responded loudly with, "Amen!"

Since she had to stand up to reach the cup, Fr. Joel had time to get all the words out for that before she said, "Amen!"

Betsy in her pretty dress and in her pretty dress with her Knight in Shining Armor.

Kid Vocabulary

goggie - the large furry thing that eats all David's food

hotgoggie - a long skinny thing that often gets fed to the goggie

uppeas - a polite appeal to be moved in an upward direction

peas - often referred to as "the magic word"

tank too - the polite response to getting what you want

no! - this means whatever you need it to mean in response to whatever was just said

holyholy king - the man on the altar wearing the cool robes, also often referred to as a king of holyholy

gangtee - largish piece of quilted fabric used to keep warm in bed, not to be confused with GeeTee, brother to the owner of the gangtee

RoarRoar - small, plastic dagger so named by the noise the wielder of said weapon makes when wielding the weapon

BoomBoom - also known as a shield (but often resembling a cowboy pillow), also named for the noise it makes when in use

sideside - the opposite of inside

Eyeclops - mythical one-eyed giant

wetter - appliance whose job culminates in the need for a dryer


As part of our study of Ancient Greece, I had the children watch a documentary film on the subject. The two older boys were complaining that the film showed too many naked statues for their comfort. I tried to explain to them that the statues are art and that God created our bodies as something wonderful, not shameful. Ben responded quickly, "Well, Mom, I prefer to put clothes on my artwork!"

More House Pics

The siding is completely finished now. The sheetrock was brought in through the front window into Steve's room. That window was installed and the siding completed the beginning of the week.





This is in the kitchen addition. I was trying to get a picture of the little tiny gas hook-up in the middle of the floor. This is where the cooktop will go. Underneath the window in the bottom picture you can see the plumbing established for the sink. As far as I know, we plan to keep the same sink but hopefully with a new faucet. I'd like a taller, goosneck faucet so I can fit my rather large pots under it.

This is an alcove they have roughed in (standing on its side - sorry). This is located in between the kitchen and the dining room. The wall on the right runs along the line of the original outside wall. I plan to make this into the "command center". I have a piece of closet orgnizer furniture picked out to go in there. It will have cubbies for incoming mail, a place for the telephone and possibly a flat-screen computer and drawers for telephone books, scissors, etc. This is my attempt at eliminating some of the clutter that always seems to collect in spite of our best efforts to the contrary.

This is a picture of the wall going up the steps. I just wanted to point out that the doorbell hardware will be HISTORY! No more will the doorbell come crashing to the floor everytime someone goes up or down the stairs and no more will anyone ever ring a doorbell while I have 2 sleeping children and 4 times as many in quiet time. We could never hear it from most of the house anyway but the dog could!

Sweet Suite!

I got some pictures today of the rough-in for our bedroom suite. Those who once lived there will probably appreciate these finer details...We are creating a master bedroom suite out of the front and back bedrooms on the top floor and the "boys'" bathroom (which fortunately will have lost all traces of ever having been a boys' bathroom by the time these guys are done with it!!). The door to Steve's room will be walled across and the door to Tad's room will be moved down the hall to the other side of the bathroom. Tad's closet has been removed to make a large archway between the two rooms, leaving the other closet intact. This will create a suite with a bedroom, library and bathroom area for own private use - SWEET! Here's the pictures. If you look closely hopefully you can see the rough-ins for all the changes.


If you lay on your side and look at the new wood (the parts that aren't white) you can see the rough-in for the new door frame. This would have been the door to Tad's room and has been moved down the hall past the door to Steve's room and past the bathroom door. To the right of the picture you can see the doorway to the girls' bathroom which should give you some perspective. There must be some way to turn this picture around but I haven't found it yet - sorry!



This is standing in the bathroom and looking into the what-was-once-the-door-to-Steve's-room. You can see two 2x4's have been put in to wall this door off. This will create a little alcove in the library which Tad has some sort of plans for setting up a computer command station. (You can also see the sheetrock piled up waiting for the completion of the electrical and plumbing work.)
This is standing in Tad's room and looking out the front of the house into Steve's room. You can see that Tad's closet has been removed while Steve's remains. This will create an archway between the two rooms. I would like to make the quieter back bedroom our bedroom space and the front room the library space but that means our closet will be in the library...I'll just have to decide if it's worth it. The back bedroom would also put us in direct line to the bathroom which is important as a pregnant woman but I'm not so sure how important that will be when I'm *not* pregnant. We had originally planned to take out Steve's closet and leave Tad's which would have naturally made Tad's room our bedroom area but there was too much electrical wiring in that wall to mess with it. This is the place I daydream about when the walls in Riverside come closing in.

Oh Boy!

I went to Target today and got to park Clifford in the space reserved for Pregnant Customers. I love this spot. It's the only time I can park that big honking van anywhere remotely near a store which is nice, not because I'm pregnant, but because of all the other little ones I need to haul across parking lots. Anyway, I always get a kick out of this sign. I was pregnant with someone else (can't remember who) when they first posted these signs there and had Fr. Joel in the van with us. The kids remarked about the sign and asked "What does that mean?" To which my husband replied, "Oh Boy! That's a Large Customer!"

SNOW! (yuck)

Well, in spite of my hopes that the weathermen had once again miscalculated we've been dumped upon. I'd say at least a foot if not more. I had a wonderful dream that it all melted within the afternoon but then I woke up....and it was still there - in all its white glory. How many times will I now have to dress and undress little people, locate hats and matching gloves, pull snowpants out of the dryer...and put them back in. Snow is a lot of WORK! yuck

Life Goes On Attempt II...

Fortunately our lives aren't stymied by the construction. We may have one delay after another on the house, but the life in my womb continues to grow and have its being right on schedule. I had my sonogram this morning. I'm measuring at about 15 weeks with an estimated due date of August 2nd (give or take a week). It was great fun to see the new little one swimming around in there!

It's Electric!

Our current house project is the electric. This is a photo of the electricians installing outlets into the floor - very exciting. Unfortunately they also got down to the basement and began to fear for our lives. The whole thing will need to be rewired. They are working on juggling upstairs work w/basement work so hopefully that change order will come out to a zero balance. Considering in the past two months we've paid out almost $10,000 in change orders, I kissed our construction foreman....on the cheek...he does try...

They are continuing the siding now that we've had dry weather again but this time it is COLD dry weather. They finished the gable on one side of the house and were moving around to the front of the house when I left this morning. UPDATE 2/12/06: Actually, they moved to the gable on the other side and then quit before the snow came. All that's left for siding is the front of the house. Notice all the antennae are gone.

Sheetrock should be delivered this afternoon. They've left a window out of the front of the house just for that purpose - all the sheetrock will be delivered right through the upstairs window. So after today we should have the last of the windows installed as well. The sheetrock can't actually go up until all the plumbing and electric is finished, tho, so that it can all be inspected at once but at least we'll have a few nice piles looking like they're ready for some business....

It's coming along but the electric snafu in the basement may cost us up to another month...so it'll be really close to a year by the time we're back in....sigh....

Here's the heating ductwork disappearing into the brand new crawlspace underneath the addition. This was once the window over the basement sink. I wonder if the toads will still
collect here in the summer. I'm going to miss them hopping about and banging into the glass while I fold laundry...


Here's another picture of the kitchen from another angle. I was trying to get a shot of the rough-in of the little pantry closet in the corner. That's a 2' by 3' closet with a pocket door. No more sending the children up and down the steps to the green cabinet - yay! This was one addition to the kitchen which I gained from living in Riverside and got spoiled by the small kitchen pantry here. The refrigerator will be on the side of the pantry and then the double wall oven next to that. The sink and counter space with wall cabinets will flank the other side of the pantry. You can see the existing plumbing sticking up out of the middle of the floor. That's next week's project...

Kid Pics

This is JT standing on a horse with Philip kneeling in front of him. I don't know what took more practice - for the boys to learn this vault or me to stop worrying about it! At least the horse wasn't moving...this time.



And this is David demonstrating his best skill - not doing whatever it is anybody wants him to be doing.


Here is Betsy in costume for today's show. Fortunately (Oops! Did I say that?!) the show never happened and I was just blessed with the costume parade.





Here is John Michael dressed for the show that never happened. Who can resist that face?!



And..one more of John Michael. All the bigs were going outside and JM wanted to join them. I told him he needed to take off his jammies and get his coat on first. So...he took off his jammies and put on his coat (upside down I might add).

Siding!

These pictures are about a week old but due to the weather, not much progress has been made since then. The siding is complete on the back of the house and on the gables on the sides. The front is still barren of its siding. Inside the only progress has been to mark off where the new cabinetry is going in preparation for the plumbing and electric. This seems to be a slow and tedious process and I'm hoping this will be the final hump which will thrust the project to its end. Of course we are way over-budget but we are slogging along.



I love the color of the new roof and the siding but the blue trim has got to go now!! I've always loved the blue but boy does it clash with our new colors! The best news, I think, is that we have had much hard drenching rain and the basement remains bone dry!

Heartbroken

We are heartbroken this week. Tiffany and little Ava went home for a weekend visit on Thursday and aren't coming back. Saturday she called to say that the trains weren't running their usual schedule, she'd try to catch one on Monday. Monday her mom called and left a message that Tiffany would be home "later" as she had some relatives who wanted to see the baby. We've played the train game before and had already decided we weren't going to stand for it. It's very difficult to plan our whole day around a time when I need to get 8 children to the train station only to be told at the last minute that she has no intention of being on that train and so thus began a series of conversations with Tiffany's mom trying to explain why they were being inconsiderate. She didn't get it.

In fact, she didn't get a lot of things. She didn't get why Tiffany was living with us in the first place - isn't the best place for her in her own home with her own mom? She didn't get why Tiffany didn't see a future for herself in DC - wasn't this where she'd been raised and isn't this the city she loves? She didn't get how a 16-year old girl could have the will to change her heart and her circumstances - how can she know what she wants when she's so young? The conversations with her over the next couple of days were very revealing to me. They were filled with lies, half-truths, broken promises and a lot of self-pity. By the end of the first day I was up all night reading a map written on my soul of Tiffany's spiritual heritage. It was truly frightening and I prayed for her, begging God to bring her back to us before she slips away for good. But she'd been in the city for too long and she'd been sucked back in. The next morning Deacon Jeff called to tell us Tiffany had called him to tell him she wouldn't be coming back. She didn't have the guts to call us - and still hasn't. That seems to be her family way - if there's some unpleasantness just don't talk about it and you won't have to deal with it. Convenient for them, infuriatingly frustrating for those who are at the other end of it.

I spent 3 hours today cleaning out her bedroom - she had, afterall, just gone home for the weekend and so she left behind most of her things. I sorted through a mound of laundry, I put aside her wallet and her WIC coupons, her medical card and her important papers - things you just don't abandon somewhere if you're thinking rationally. I sorted and packed and I cried. There was so much evidence there of her growth since she'd entered Sparrow House. I found her baptismal certificate, her pamphlets on parenting which she'd been reading religiously, CD's filled with Christian music she'd been trying to use to replace the filth of the world which had filled her mind and soul until her recent conversion. "Please, Lord, don't let bitterness take root in me!" I cried out and He listened and He replaced the bitterness with an overwhelming, heart-wrenching sadness.

I'd been contemplating yesterday in a particular way the marriage relationship between God's people and His church which scriptures describe most vividly in Song of Solomon. I had been thinking that intimacy between two people married so long that they begin to acquire one another's thoughts, characteristics, even looks is a wonderful picture of the intimacy Christ desires with us. When we use the phrase that we are to "be Christlike" we are placing ourselves in that relationship with Him in which we are so acquainted with His ways and so intimately connected to His thoughts that His Being begins to seep into ours. It is as much a curious happenstance of Friendship with God as it is any intentional effort of our own. And so, in the midst of my turmoil over Tiffany I stood in the bathroom and called out to Christ as the Spouse of My Soul. And He responded with likewise intimacy by revealing to me His Heart. I saw Him stand and watch Tiffany wherever she was at the moment and He began to weep and the pain overwhelmed me and I had to weep with him. I wept for only a moment compared to His eternal weeping for all of us. It was too much. It was too overwhelming. His love for us is so lavish. His gift to us, too generous.

My heart is broken. Betsy watched me sort through a pile of papers and immediately noticed a colorful picture full of butterfly stickers she had given to Tiffany. "Mommy!" she cried, "I gave Tiffany that picture! She loves that picture! Why did she forget her picture, Mommy? Why didn't she take her picture? Is she coming back? Is she coming back to get her picture I made her?" How do I answer that? How do I wrap up all the generations of someone else's bad choices in a simple answer for a 4 year old? I can't. There is no answer for my dear little Betsy except to assure her that Tiffany will get the picture back. She'll get it because it will be on the top of the pile of things I send to her that she's too irrational to realize yet that she needs. She'll see the picture Betsy made her along with the picture of our family I tucked into her wallet and the broken crucifix we'd given her which was broken because she'd been carrying it in her pocket faithfully.

Tiffany is teachable - it's the thing I love most about her. So when she sees her things, she will remember that her sights were set higher here, that her soul was more free here and that God has a wonderful plan and purpose for her life. She will remember and she will rise above it. No, I don't think this chapter is done yet but there is still the lingering sadness of the present moment. I am still living in that place in life where we allow God to have His way with our hearts so that we can learn more of His heart. Tiffany and Ava have taken up residence in that place of my heart already occupied by Jake. They are the ones for whom I will pray without ceasing until God sees fit to raise them up out of their circumstances to walk solidly on His path.

This House is Loud

I've taken up the habit of sitting outside for a few minutes during the day when I feel like I just need to clear my head. It does me wonders. The weather here hasn't been particularly nice so I've sat in the rain and the clouds and the cold usually in my sox and no coat but my mind doesn't seem to notice except to take in with delight the sharpness of and the contrast between what's inside the house and what's outside.

Tonight I made it through the hour of power - 5:15 - 6:15 pm - when I am trying to make dinner for a lot of little people and the little people are doing their best to exert their limited power over me and each other. I actually had a nice dinner prepared a few minutes before Fr. Joel was due to be home from work and so I snuck through the house, tried to quietly exit through the front door and sat on the porch breathing in the cold, wet air and working my way into an inviting welcome for my dear husband. About 2 seconds into my escape I felt the eyes of little people boring through my back and turned to see no less than 3 or 4 faces pressed against the windows of the front door staring at me. I squawked, I shooed and I skeedaddled those faces away. A couple left silently, one hooted at her brother and another let out a war cry and ran willy nilly for the nearest target to torture. It's ok, I thought, I'm right here, how much damage can they do in a couple of minutes? I'm still going to take my time on the porch.

I put my head in my hands and breathed deeply as I thought about the loudness of it all. This house is loud, no doubt. The collective noise of that many people can be overwhelming - even when they are all actually acting like civilized human beings and not whooping and hollering like hooligans. At the moment there was a lot of hooliganian shenanigans going on and with great effort I put my chin in my hand and chose to ignore it. From that vantage point, I could look across the street at my neighbors - people I barely know, who after 7 months time here are still virtual strangers. There's Loud Boy (so named by my husband after just a few weeks in residence here) on the corner. His family is rarely home. I don't know where they go but it was months before I even realized that this young man has 2 parents and a little sister. It's loud at his house too, the kind of loud that just seems to happen when you get a bunch of 18 - 20 year olds and their cars crammed into a small space of tarmac. They don't mean to be loud but, really, take it to a college campus please. This is a neighborhood with, you know, grown-ups and young children who take naps in the afternoon and dogs who bark at every disturbance to the territory surrounding their households. Yep, I'm awfully glad, I thought, that we're not that family (momentarily ignoring the fact that at some vague point in the future we will have several 18-20 year olds of our own in our household at once).

Next door to Loud Boy is the Quiet Family. They only have one little girl that I know of. I'm told through the grapevine that her mom would like to have more children but she is frustrated by a closed womb. I see her and her daughter outside together looking incredibly lonely with just the two of them rattling around that house all day without anyone else to play with them. Well, I think to myself, I'm glad we're not them too.

Next door to her is a family with two children (I think). One of them is a young lad of about 3 or 4 who likes to hang out his 2nd story bedroom window and call out to passsers by. That, I thought, is more like it. I get a kick out of passing by that house when I walk down to the mailbox and I hear that little voice scream out, "Hey Lady, whatcha doin''?!" I'm happy to tell him I'm getting my mail and then counter with an equally enthusiastic, "Whatcha doin''?!" Yep, that house is a little closer but you know there just isn't enough of those little faces hanging out the window - it still seems, well, lonely.

I turned my sights to the family who live behind us whose house I couldn't see at the moment. We know them the best. They have two children and are very loud - in a whiny, demanding and dysfunctional way. I am soo glad that's not us that I didn't even have to dwell long on that household. Which is good, because just as my thoughts turned to them I saw one of my favorite sights - a silver Saturn driven by a very handsome gentleman - come around the corner and pull up to the curb in front of the house. The gentleman got out of the car with a surprised look on his face. He's not used to seeing me sitting on the front porch when he gets home and he asked, "Is something wrong?" I replied with, "It's really loud in there" and gestured vaguely toward our front door. "Yeah," he said and I completed his thought, "but I'm really glad. I like our kind of loud."

I got my hello kiss on the front porch that night uninterrupted by the loud and then he proceeded to his favorite part of the day - walking through that door into the loudness after a long day away. He always says any man who doesn't have at least 6 little people scream out his name in delight and offer excited hugs and streams of chatter about their day the moment he walks through the door is missing out on the best part of life. He's right, you know. There's some loud you just can't beat.

Locks of Love

On Thursday Miriam and I finally got our hair cut for Locks of Love. It was a year and a half of growing it out. Miriam was at the point where her arms were too short to even brush out her long hair and I'm just too hormonal to deal with all that hair cascading around my shoulders so it was perfect timing and now we both have the cutest little haircuts...The pictures are of her with her long hair, then getting it cut and the bottom picture shows her with her bag of hair to send away.

Who knows, maybe we'll do it again in another year and a half. It feels good to help someone else.

Today's Progress

This is today's picture from my spot in the backyard. As you can see, the siding is going up around the addition. It probably got finished today on that part of the house. You can see the new French doors from the outside. Obviously we'll need a few steps down to the yard.



This was how much siding had been done as of Sunday. I didn't realize what slow going that can be - especially when cutting around edges, roof, windows, etc. I pleased that the guys were taking their time and making sure to get it all fit nice and tightly. They asked today if we needed to keep the two antennae on the roof since we have cable. Fr. Joel said we may as well trash them as they don't seem to work very well even as lightning rods...






Here is the most recent picture of the basement. The gutting of it down to the insulation is now complete.

This is my day today...

The big boys are at their grandparents' house for the week and the girls were at my mom's. Life should have been pretty good...except for that thing called lack of sleep caused by a lack of furniture which was removed from the house yesterday afternoon thanks to our insurance company wrapping up the whole relocation bit of our settlement. Unfortunately, with renovations being done on the house, we are still about 2 months from being able to move back in...so away went the rental furniture. We bought new mattresses but they don't arrive until tomorrow sometime which is the same time I'm supposed to be in an appliance showroom an hour away from here to finally choose the appliances - which has been a whole complicated mess of its own. The clincher is that the inside work can't go forward until we have our appliances chosen since the next step is plumbing and electric. I'm beginning to realize why marriages suddenly dissolve when couples decide to take on major home renovation projects. These deadlines, decisions and ultimatums from the contractor are enough to drive the sanest person to the brink of madness. That and lack of sleep in my case. I have to admit I've been a terrible bear today. The closeness of space, the decisions that need to be made, the morning sickness...and afternoon sickness...and evening sickness, the regular bickering and bantering and , oh yeah, did I mention lack of sleep, have all started to creep into my brain and make me a good candidate for the nearest nut house. We just keep looking at each other and saying, "Why is life so *hard*?" Is it too much to ask to just be able to walk into Sears, pick out some appliances and then have our contractor work around it? Apparently so.

So, anyway, I decided to declutter some things. And I decided to use my favorite venue - Freecycle. If you've never freecycled then please stop reading now, go to yahoogroups and look up a freecycle group for your local county. I have decluttered, gained valuable items which someone else mistook for clutter in their homes and made some terrific friends along the way. These were my posts for the past two days:


OFFER: Lite Brite Cube - Brand New

This was a gift and I have no desire to even open it and let a single one ofthose little colored pegs come tumbling out of that box...lol..


OFFER: Itty Bitty dollhouse
This was also a Christmas gift for the two children voted most likely to lose any tiny loose piece of anything given to them. It is adorable. It is a little dollhouse w/furniture and two itty bitty dolls. The dollhouse is about 4 inches high and 6-8 inches long. It opens up with the little furniture and dolls inside. I prefer pickup before the owners come home from their grandmother's house tomorrow.


OFFER: Itty Bitty dollhouse - OFFER RESCINDED
I'm sorry to say I can no longer offer this item. The 18 month old and the 21/2 yo have taken all the itty bitty peices and stuffed them into the tape deck of a boom box here. I cannot get them out and what remains of this item has been thrown in the trash in frustration.


OFFER: "Boombox" CD/Cassette player
I have up for grabs a boombox type CD player/tape player /radio. There are two cassette decks. One of them has been stepped on when the 2 yo shoved the 18month old off of it and the door has come off, the other has pieces of an ittybitty dollhouse set stuffed into it which I cannot get out. I think the CD player works ok and I know the radio works but I can't really make any guarantees since we haven't used this thing in a while. I am considering adding a 2 yo and an 18 month old - two adorable boys - in with this offer.

It amused the freecycle community and gave me a little therapeutic release anyway...Oh yeah, did I mention I also bought a balance beam today? Yep, a bonified gymnastics balance beam for 10 bucks - now how many cool mom points do you think *that* will win me?! I'm going to need them....it's been a rough day.