Patching the Siding

When I look back over all that we have done since I last posted, it is surprisingly amazing.  It thought I would dedicate a few posts trying to highlight some of the major changes.

 

After our major kitchen and laundry room remodel. It left an ugly opening where the garage door used to be. Now there are some things that we would rather not do our selves, not that we couldn’t, it’s just that there are certain things that we are not familiar with or don’t have the proper tools for. One of those things was patching our cement board siding where we had moved the garage door.

We have heard horror stories of breakage. We were sure that we would need twice the material than a seasoned professional just to allow for the breakage.  We knew just the person for the job, my niece's husband, Austin. Through the week, he works with his family’s construction business, but occasionally on the weekends, he will pick up side jobs.  Austin and his friend came and not only patched in the door, but added cedar trim around the new window. He even fixed some other damaged pieces of siding and trim. It was definitely worth having someone else do this job.

Don’t you just love the hat and jackets. We had him do this work back in February.  Those would be pretty welcome right now considering today’s high was 111° today. Yes, it was a record high for today.They did excellent work and even offered to deal with some of the other areas  that need attention, like finishing off the dryer vent. He offered to get rid of an old phone wire that we no longer needed since we don’t have a home phone (other than Magic Jack.)  I said, “Sure, you can just cut it.”  Wellll! that wasn’t a very smart idea.

We had been having issues over the past couple of weeks with our internet. Pages were getting slower and slower to load. Frequently, they even failed to load at all. This was on every computer in the house. I was thinking it was an issue with the modem. Then on Saturday afternoon, we lost service completely. I called our internet service provider and they tried some tests and decided to send a service tech on Monday morning. When the service tech evaluated the problem, he found that the phone cord providing the internet service had been cut. I sheepishly admitted that I had told Austin to cut it-just a tad bit embarrassing!  He fixed the internet and did end up changing out the modem because their were issues with it as well, so all is good, (except for the bill I got for my dumb mistake.)

The siding is fixed and looks great. Ready for paint-post coming soon. 

Missing in Action

I know, I know! I have dropped the ball-big time. So many have asked me when I was going to do a post again. Frankly, I have struggled with a love-hate relationship with blogging. There are times that I’m very excited to write and other times I don’t have any inspiration whatsoever.  I don’t like the pressure, (mostly it’s self imposed-I know) but part of being involved in the blogging world is consistency. I’m not making any promises, but I will try to be more consistent. 

So what have I done in the last several month? It seems like not a lot that is really blog worthy, but as I look back through old posts, I do see a lot that we have done. Sometimes I tend to get lost in the details. (Like taking a whole week to organize our master closet after we got carpet.)  I’m not very good at stopping at the end of the day to document my progress when I feel like I’ve moved at a snails pace.

As far as blogging goes, some of my set backs have to do with the direction of the blog. First, I knew I needed to update my header. (That’s a picture of our old house.) Our new house needs too much work to be an adequate replacement-but maybe someday. In the meantime, I’ve just taken a few pictures from around the house and a few older ones from my computer. I hope to update them someday as well, but they are a more accurate representation of my life right now than our old house was.

Secondly, my blog started out about the transitions involved in moving. Now that the moving is done, I feel like I need to switch directions slightly. Yes, there are still a lot of projects around our new house, but my life is so much more than projects. What makes me love my home the most are the relationships that happen here, whether it is the family under our roof, my married kids coming home for a visit, extended family and of course our friends coming to visit. I love making our home a cozy inviting place to relax, build relationships and share our lives.

These are the primary people who make me love my home-and also make me love being away from home when I am with them.

Where do I plan to go with my blog? I think I’m going to share a little more of my life and my thoughts as well as my projects. (I still plan to share a lot of projects.) I will write about what ever is on my heart to write about (that I’m willing to make public-that is.)  I may even reflect a little on parenting now that my kids are almost grown-we shall see about that one! I can’t say that I’m much of a cook, but I do cook- and I may even share a favorite recipe or two. I need to blog for me. If others enjoy it and I can be an inspiration and encouragement to them, I am thrilled. If its not quite what someone is wanting to read about, I am not offended in the least. Each person should seek what inspires them in the blog world.