Tis the Season

I am mad about Christmas. It is my favorite time of year. I turn on the Christmas carols as soon as they are on the radio and I love how everyone seems a bit nicer. I am a little sad because normally I do a post showing my decorations, the tree, the Christmas lights on the outside of my house...

But Christmas flew by this year. My house was being repaired for two months and just finished a week before family started coming into town. I don't know where the time went. I feel like quite a few hours of my life have been spent cleaning my house lately. I'm not comfortable unless my house is a certain level of clean. So I have this strange anxious feeling with so many visitors.

Joseph has ten family members visiting. I like his family and they try very hard to keep everything clean. They're very good guests - making sure the dishes are done, using only one towel (which was actually necessary because otherwise they would just go without), keeping track of their cup and using just that one cup.

But my house is still a mess. Boxes, Christmas presents, suitcases, blankets, shoes, random clothing...everywhere. Not their fault, but still making me anxious.

I had the week of Christmas off and I feel like I need a vacation from my vacation. I spent a day helping my sister Danielle move. Another day was spent building one of those tin sheds that have 450 screws (it took a whole day...Joseph's family was wonderful and very helpful). Christmas was kind of a bummer because J had such a bad migraine he threw up twice, so he was miserable in bed all day. I did take a fun day and go shopping with my sister Kristi, and found some smoking awesome deals. And then spent another day doing laundry to wash my new clothes and every towel I own. In between there was a lot of family time. We went on two hikes. Drove all over town.

Today J's brother Robert's baby was blessed at church. They live in Gilbert which is an hour away. J helped with the baby blessing and we almost missed it. We got there with two minutes to spare, and that's because J was speeding a bit. Afterward was a delicious luncheon.

I read an article that defined introverts in an interesting way. It's not that introverts are socially awkward or shy, they just need time by themselves to recharge batteries. Whereas extroverts obtain energy from interacting with others, introverts find that their energy is drained from these interactions. The article can be found here. I liked it. I am an introvert. I took a long nap today because I'm exhausted. Non-stop going and being surrounded by people. People I enjoy and I have fun, but it's draining. I only got up an hour and a half ago, but I'm considering going back to bed. I have to go back to work tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it; I've missed my coworkers and I like my job. There is just still a lot to do. Christmas presents to return/exchange, the shed needs to be anchored, the garage needs to be cleaned out and the shed filled, I have a few Christmas presents to deliver, we have a New Years party to attend...

I am tired.

I'm a little sad because usually J and I try to do something nice for Christmas...adopt a family or make a donation to a charitable company. I feel like this year was such a blur. We didn't have time for that and I feel badly. The season is about Jesus and I feel like I missed out on that. But since I can't change the past, I'll just try to be better in the future. We're going to try to do something monthly. I'm optimistic that it will happen.

The House Renovation

Our house is repair is done. Here is the blog about the car hitting our house. Now let's look at some pictures.

First, the destruction.

The emergency board-up.

One of the creepy-crawly visitors.

Trash and debris everywhere.

New framing.

 Waiting for a new window.

Outside view.

New column.

Wood rot that delayed the stucco guy a week.

New window.

Some drywall.

Finally some stucco. 

This was about the time that I found out I would be getting new flooring (can I get a woot woot!) so I started tearing up the tile in the kitchen (post here) and shopping for a new, prettier wood floor.

And I started looking at the things I wasn't going to miss. Things that had bugged me.

Like the gaps in my wood floors. J and I had fixed this once (post here) but other pieces were separating, and in other parts of the house, so it was a losing battle. 

Or this horrible piece of baseboard. What is going on here?

And since the tile was going to be removed, that horrible divider (which was broken in two places) was also going.

There were also parts of my house that we had missed painting, so when they painted the inside, all of those areas were addressed. It was fabulous. All my dreams come true.

Granted, it wasn't all good news. When they removed the flooring, they had to move everything I own. EVERYTHING. So the house was in shambles. Plus we didn't have a floor for a month (more delays) so I couldn't walk in my house without shoes. When I woke up in the morning, the first thing I did was turn off my alarm and the second thing was grope around on the floor for my shoes. I am not a morning person and I don't wear shoes in the house, so it wasn't fun.

The mess was really getting to me. I'm not a neat freak but I am tidy.

There were chunks of concrete that had to be patched when we removed the tile.

There was a problem with the baseboard guy, so there was another delay. 

 But now that everything is done done DONE, doesn't it look amazing?

Up on that shelf area is where we hadn't painted and it was a bit yellow. It didn't bother me enough to do anything about it (J and I really hate painting) but now that it's freshly done, it just looks amazing.

And I love the new baseboards.

I am very happy with everything. They were done Tuesday, and the only issue was that we had something going on every day this week so we just finished putting everything back and cleaning (every single thing had to be wiped down, there was so much construction dust) this Saturday. It took two months, but it was worth it. And my house is cleaner than it has been in years.

We were walking our dog through the neighborhood, and we passed the neighbor who hit our house. J said we should send him a Christmas card. Because of him, we have a new paint, floors, and baseboards.

It was perfect timing - we had saved up enough to buy our new oven/microwave. So we went from nasty, crusty old this:

To beautiful, sleek new this:

I am ready for Christmas.

House Repair

This is supposed to be the blog where I tell you how my house has been repaired and everything is done and look how wonderful everything looks! (Car hit my house, blog here.)

But it's not. My house is getting there, but there have been delays. I expected delays (I've heard that contractors are notorious for that sort of thing) but it's still aggravating.

I would show you pictures of the complete wreckage that I have been living in, but I've misplaced my external hard drive (J has it set up so that my pictures only go on the external hard drive, otherwise I fill up my computer memory...I have a picture overload problem). The fact that I can't find it is an indication of the state of my house. It's in the office somewhere...under the piles and piles of stuff....

I'm not a neat freak but I am tidy, and when I am trying to get ready for work and can't find my shoes, it's really a problem. When the flooring in the entire house is replaced, they move EVERYTHING.

EVERYTHING.

And just because I didn't have enough going on, my heater broke two days ago.

But that's alright, because it's that time of year. Christmas is a few weeks away, there are carols on the radio, and Christmas lights are going up everywhere (to include my house, nothing was moved in the garage so we were able to hang our lights).

'Tis the season to be jolly, fa la la la la, la la la la. Life will be normal soon good golly, fa la la la la, la la la laaaaa.

Joseph Punched Holes in my Walls

Awhile back (it's probably been at least two years) Joseph stomped around in the attic and ran wires through the walls so that he would have an internet wire in the den by the TV and in the guest bedroom (now Jacob's bedroom) where we also had a TV. He wanted to be able to wire internet for his video game systems; apparently it's faster than wireless.

The things my nerd boy will do for gaming systems.

Well, he didn't put either of the wires in a box - he just punched a hole in the wall and the wire stuck out. It didn't really bug me until two things happened.
1) The car hit our house and when the guys came and painted and tore out the flooring, the TV stand was moved and I could see the hole.
2) Jacob re-arranged his room and moved the dresser the TV had been sitting on and revealed the hole in his room. Also, an electrical outlet we had missed when we replaced them all in the house (post found here).

Since it wasn't out of sight and out of mind, it started to bug me.

I told Joseph he was in charge of fixing it. But when nothing happened I decided to take matters into my own hands.

I watched a tutorial on planitdiy.com and realized I wouldn't have to repair any drywall, they sell "old work" electrical boxes. So I made a trip to Lowe's and got to work.

Here's the hole in the den. I still don't have any flooring.

Here's the hole in Jacob's room.

My only suggestion to anyone trying to do this is to screw into that "wing" part (it's what holds the box up against the drywall) because the plastic isn't threaded and it helps loosen it up. You just have to be careful not to screw into it too far because then you can't lay it down, which you have to do to get the box into the wall.

I put in the boxes but J was in charge of splitting the wiring.

Here's the replaced outlet.

It wasn't a completely smooth project. While the boxes went in easily, it was actually the outlet that gave me problems. Here's what I posted on Facebook:

The good news is that I got some electrical work done in Jacob's room that has been on my to-do list. The bad news is that when I killed the power, Joseph's computer started beeping. I thought it would just turn off but he informed me it was updating something, and if it died in the middle of updating something it would crash his computer and he would have to re-install something and he was on the verge of being mad at me. The good news is that Jacob suggested running a power cord to a section of the house that still had power and that was a successful work-around. The bad news is that while I was running in and out turning off and on the electricity, Micah got loose. The good news is that someone found him and our little dog is back safe at home.

Aaaaaaand that was pretty successful for a house project in my book.