 A beautiful fall day to be on the job site Despite a few mishaps these past couple of weeks, like ending the week with a pretty good backache, the sniffles from a winter cold, the hubs taking a six-foot dive from a ladder (he's okay), and a still-lingering hole in the living room floor at the job site, it's been a pretty good couple of weeks overall! The Christmas season has officially been ushered in with tree-lightings in small neighboring towns, parades, markets, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday. There have been more television Christmas specials already than I can count and I have watched no less than 10 cheesy Hallmark Christmas movies in the evenings with the hubs. I'm not so sure he's REALLY watching because he's usually working on his computer pretending not to be listening or next to me on the couch snoozing by the first commercial break. But, in spite of their cheesiness and the fact that they all have pretty much the same plot and ending, I still watch them and I still love them because they confirm that fuzzy Christmas feeling in my heart -- romance and good tidings -- and it's hard to find anything wrong with that! We also got to spend Thanksgiving weekend with our son and his family in Tampa, so that is always a highlight! A weekend with my two oldest grandchildren is always a lot of fun and their energy confirms the sneaky suspicion that I am indeed getting older. Just face it, Nana, you're getting older. Ugh. Unlike tiny ones such as my daughter's, my son's children are 9 and 14, and are tackling a whole new boatload of pre-teen and teen challenges...like advanced school work, social issues and conflicts, and downright serious questions about life. Their daily challenges don't so much step on Nana's toes like the little ones, but on Nana's heart big-time. I am so glad I am no longer a teenager or trying to rear a teenager! Those are tough years when you have to learn to deal with such things as disappointment and rejection and cynicism. But they are always glad to see us and we are always blessed by getting to hunker down with them for a few days. Good, good times and good, good kiddos. I am so proud of them. Despite the job site looking like a warzone -- a very small warzone but a warzone nonetheless -- there has been some actual progress made in the last couple of weeks. The living room/dining room ceiling around the fireplace has been opened up to install wiring for electricity and lighting since the beginning of time it seems, so this week was the week it FINALLY got closed up, new bead board installed where the old was un-salvageable, and two lovely faux beams built and now adorning the dining room ceiling. In other words, the ceilings in that part of the house are closed, yippee! Big ol' support beams have been installed in three different places to correct unsupported ceilings (one actually sagging) and give the roof the reinforcement it so desperately needed. I say desperate, but this house is a tank! Despite some structural issues that "novice-renovators" (for lack of a better word) left unattended and have been there for years, the structure is now properly secured and will probably still be standing strong in another 125 years, I have no doubt. That mature old-growth wood is the hardest wood we've ever encountered! Also in the last couple of weeks, the entire exterior of the house has been completely painted and landscaping (at least for now) has been completed. Or little holly shrubs are thriving and we have beautiful tender green grass sprouting up everywhere! Today the trim on the exterior is being painted and the gutters are going up as well, one beautiful downspout at a time. We have begun hanging shutters as well and had an impromptu shutter-making day recently using the old wood torn out from inside the house where drywall will be hung in its place. And did I mention we have a completed working half bath with toilet and sink? Oh, right, I did mention that...about a million times. Can you tell my excitement for that has not waned one little bit? And for about the hundredth time, we once again have what I call a wooded wonderland on the job site, as the various wood -- old and new -- insists on taking up a decent part of the real estate, in spite of the hubby's efforts to keep it controlled. All it takes is one day of some type of wood working (like making shutters or constructing faux beams) to once again have countless piles of wood trying to take up our walking space and enough sawdust to fill a silo. He says he needs an increase in his pay to cover his role of wood management. He's so funny. I'd like a raise too. But payday is still a ways away for us. In spite of small victories, there is still much to be done before listing this home on the market. But we try to revel in those victories, however small they might be, and try not to let it get us down when we have setbacks. Because we all know, house renovation is not for the faint of heart, the scaredy cats, or those who don't like a challenge or getting mud on their feet. It's for the brave and the strong and the down-and-dirty. And that's who we are... ..at least most of the time. Blessings!
"We all naturally want to become successful... we also want to take shortcuts. And it's easy to do so, but you can never take away the effort of hard work and discipline and sacrifice." -Apolo Ohno  A new coat of paint and some new eyelashes for the ol' girl! We've got a long way to go but we've come so far!
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