Sheet Rock!

This is a photo op of the work done and the youngest daughter of the owner. Isn't she cute??? She is on a ladder and is in HS in Helix.

This first one is from the living room...I think I need a new camera. The second one is the living room, on the end.

Here is the dining room with our new door (kitchen cabinets are still installed as it would have taken a lot to take them out) and the next one is in the kitchen looking to the laundry room.

This is the chimney area where the bar and counter will go.

Pretty nifty, huh????? I would post more blogs on what else we all did this weekend, but then I wouldn't have anything to write about later this week! So, in the next installment....DEMOLITION!

Still reading Anne books. It is a long series!

Working on the house

I forgot the camera so I wasn't able to get pix of what S has done this weekend. Which is a ton. The next shots will be of the done work..with the sheetrock on it. Here is the rather messy kitchen.

This is the sink by the window again and above the door to the laundry room. S has to 'fix' it all for the sheet rock to go around properly. Very frustrating. The last one is the new doorway to the dining rom. Tonight he worked on rewiring the kitchen.

And here is the light switch I made. J smashed the shells and drew the tops, I glued and colored it all in.

Reading the Anne books. Also melting. It has been very hot here. But, it is hotter in Iraq! If I keep telling myself that, it helps make it more bearable! Right now it is 97 degrees and 11 pm.

Sheet rock guys are coming!!!!!

We thought that they would be here at the end of October, but they had a change of plans and can arrive tomorrow!!! So, we have been really busy getting ready for them. We have to remove trim and lights and make a wall..busy, busy, busy!! Here are the rooms that we are preparing. The living room, the dining room, and the kitchen.

And see what we have in our backyard?????

Isn't it pretty?? The only bad thing is that I sneeze during the harvest and it has been a long harvest!

Just finished Cry of the Icemark again..a good read for a hot summer. Not sure what to pick up next. Can't do too much on the house while the sheetrock guys are there. I'm making J a light switch plate..it is pretty J-ish!

T sent photos!!!

He has 3 on his myspace page, but I stole this one!!!!! He also called and is sounding good, just like he looks.

Kinda cool!

OK, this is totally cool. A photographer from the Coast guard took this photo of the swim from Assateague to Chincoteague. Remember those books about Misty???? This was from last weekend. I found the photo on http://armytimes.com under photos from the front.

Home again, Home again.

Well, we were home...but now we are home in EO. Tillytown was splendid. Nice and misty and dampish. Very awesome. I did get some pix..not too many. In fact, very few. And they are horrid photos, I need a new camera! LOL

The first one is WiNeMa Christian Camp and the last one is of J's cabin mates. There were 196 kids at camp that week and about 120 were girls! OH, and then I have another one. Let me see, here is Mari!

She is usually prettier than that, but you know after a week of camp you get kind of tired!

Off to put away the banana chocolate chip muffins. Almost done reading Belgarath and am going to start painting trim in J's room..and start Polgara. Great reads.

Just stuff

We've been busy, but nothing that is really worth photographing yet! I have made a few wedding presents and Dot's got some great sunflowers that came up volunteer. The one project I have been working on is a big, grey huge thing...and the little table that 'goes' with it. Stripping paint is lots of work! We have some ideas on the table that should make it easier!

Grandpa went out and harvested some catnip. Rusty really likes catnip, she was in a better position before I got the camera..obviously!

And here are the paint removal pix:

The cleaner side was with a heat gun, the uglier side was after two days of chemicals. I am going to continue with the heat gun!!! I will have to find out where the table pix are. I don't recall which file they are in!!!

Off to the coast to pick up J from church camp. Be back soon!!!!

It's another birthday!

S had a birthday this weekend and some very old friends dropped by. OK, they are the same age as S and I. But, they had not been around in quite a while. The shorter one was in our wedding and Aquaman helped S burn down a shed or two when they were smaller. Enough said on those two!!!! At least, for now! (Did anyone notice how similar they all look?????)

Anyway, we broke in the new house with a small select party. Actually, it was a blanket invite and whoever showed up were the ones who were there! There were not too many, but it was very fun. The yellow candles stood for 10's and the white ones were 1's. Much easier that way!



J also was sent off to Scout camp..at Meriwether! The next week he will be at Winema. I am jealous cuz he is on the coast and I am not! But, we do have to pick him up from Winema..so that will be awesome fun! Notice, he is one of the few dressed for the Oregon Coast!




Not much time to read right now. Our new library is opening today, though! I have been doing a lot of primering. You know, that stuff is hard to remove from skin after it dries!

T called last week. I have to send out notes to everyone on how he is doing. He sounds more positive than he has and he is getting a tad more sleep. They are still having mouse problems and they have their internet back finally. (yeah!)

T's birthday..a little late, but hey!

OK, as he is not here, we did celebrate. Moses apparently wanted something on the table. It probably wasn't the frosted brownie..it probably was the sirloin roast!
Grandpa had to blow out the candles. We figured he had the experience to do that (he is 83!). So, Happy Birthday T! We love you!

Debris and Derelicts

OK, it is NOT a derelict, but it is full of debris now!

This is our 'new' door to the kitchen. The fridge is still in the way. It needs framed and tidied, but it should be nice when it is done. The second photo is the bathroom. Minus just about everything. The cabinet thing is where the tub used to sit..we are not exactly sure what it was for. The other side has the laundry room. The wall that was next to the toilet and had the plumbing in it needed replaced as most of the plumbing was dangling in the wall.

this is photo from the kitchen side of our 'new' door. The wood looking part will also be removed eventually. The plaster is covering the chimney and is too messed up to reveal. So, we found a cool metal tile stuff for that. When it is done there will be a big opening to the dining room and a sort of a bar along and around the chimney. When it happens, we will post more photos.

Books being opened this week: David Eddings, Belgariad series.

Pix of Sunridge and Stuff

OK, here is J's school. In the previous post you saw the front doors. Here is the rest of the building. It is so big!!!!!


You drive up to the school and go around to the front. The domed shape in the second and third pix are one of the gyms. It has solar panels in it and there is a bottom floor, too. That is where the band classes are, the gyms, and the shop classes. 8th grade is at the far end by the domes. Pretty cool, huh? In this last photo, I just noticed that there is a lighter panel of yellow on the wall. That is because it is the color the whole school was supposed to be. Apparently, the school was supposed to fade to the color of wheat. It has been several years and it has not faded yet. The one panel was one that needed replaced or something. The secretary said the school is a landmark for airplanes because it is so yellow!!!

The garden photos are from last week. Dot and I picked some strawberries today and ate them warm from the sun. YUMMY. It all needs water! My chamomile looks great and my lavendar is sprawling all over. Some stuff did not do well, some stuff did.


And last, but not least, here is a more Teddy looking Teddy. Although, I think the peroxide from the de-scenting mix bleached him a tad.

Jake's a Genius!

These are all retro photos because I finally discovered that I had a nose on my face. Which means, my sister told me how to get the photos off the camera onto the computer. It was very easy. (shakes head in chagrin).





J at SMS in Pendleton. He is just inside the door in the first photo. In the second spotty photo you see most of his HUGE jazz band. And yes, there are flutes in there. J is by the speaker. The last one is his award for being the only bass woodwind or whatever he was. (see earlier post)

Dot's iris before the wind blew them over and the rain hammered them into the ground.

Next photos are of the house again! See you soon!

House Pictures (Finally!)

We don't have the camera stuff, but you can get pix on a disk! So, we did. Here is our house:

544 N 3rd.

This is the back..I forgot to take any of the front yard! (I am sorry that some of these are sideways. Not sure how to fix that on a disk photo.) This is only one part of the yard. Please note that like some mirrors, objects in frames are closer than they appear.

Steps leading from yard to house or house to basement and yard. Pix of scary basement, in second frame.

The one room with the chairs is the living room, which leads into the dining room. The dining room is the greenish one. That room leads into the short hall that goes into the pink bath, J's room, and another hall to the left. That tiny hall leads to either the l (outside to the deck that will be our bedroom/bath) or r (upstairs-pix will follow.).

It will be lots of work and when it is done we will have a home to be really proud of. We keep telling ourselves that!!!! I have been cleaning the mice mess in the kitchen appliances!

Not much reading being done. Pretty amazing, huh???? Did some gardening today, planted some plants we brought from Tillamook. I think they will be very happy!!!

Not so Cliff Notes

Well, I have written one blog already today and lost it (that was on my myspace page). I had to rewrite it. So, this one will be a shorter version than the last one. With no pictures yet. Bummer deal.

OK, T called this AM. He has called quite a bit this week. It has been a red letter week~He told us all kinds of interesting deserty like things. Such as: the mosquitos over there are not as numerous as the ones in Alaska, but they are as aggressive. He said there are lots of bats and was very thankful for them. On a duty he had a flock of mosquitos (are there mosquito flocks, that was my term not his.) hovering in front of him and they left when a bat blew through them. He also said there are lots of mongoose. They run along the river banks.

Mail takes ages to reach him, but continue to send it using the new address. (the same as the last one, just drop the palehorse troop and add 'White Platoon Eagle Co 2-2'. All the rest of it is the same. They go back to the Warhorse Camp every 9 or so days for laundry drops, haircuts (although he said that he ditched the line finally and got a basic training cut from a fellow soldier.), and mail.

T was able to observe part of a desert wedding. They are very noisy and involve the large type of hand held weapons available over there. His area was on alert during the festivities. He shared that it was a bit exciting. (I wondered if it was their version of a shot gun wedding!)

J had a band concert last night. He won an award for the most outstanding low woodwind in concert band and jazz band. He did say it was by default. He is the only one. Well, except for a kid on a bass clarinet who has only been playing a few weeks. S said if you are going to be good at something, it helps if you are the only one. He had a tour today. Don't know how that went. His grades are not too warm, but he knows it and we have discussed it extensively.

We are getting closer on a house. We have keys for our own mailbox! Can you believe it? We will have to have a PO box as they don't deliver to the location of where we hope to be living. I don't think I have had a PO Box since I lived in Anchor Point as a kid. I am not sure that S has ever had one. It will be interesting.

Not much else. I guess these cliff notes are the longer edited version! Have a great day and I hope you are feeling as blessed as I am!

Nope, it's winter again.

Summer is over and it is cold and dampish again. Nice for the plants as to the wet, but not for the lack of warmth. The house is still in the paperwork stage. Which is frustrating in more ways than you think. I would love to try and unpack some things and find a few items we are missing. Like the camera disks. And the scanner cords. And some other stuff like that.

Found one of my old Mercedes Lackey books. It is good to read old friends! Spent the Memorial holiday hanging out with a friend. She bought flowers and all of us ate together and then we watched a movie. The last Pirates one. That is so silly!

T called from the desert. He sounds pretty upbeat and in better spirits than he has been. Well, gotta go, Moses is being catty and needs some TLC.

Computer is here!

Our new computer is in and it is very different. Instead of XP we have Vista and it has more bells and whistles than you can imagine! It will take some getting used to and we still have to figure out how to hook up stuff like our printer and the camera and so on and so forth.
I went shopping last week and found a book I had been looking for and it was only 50 cents. I was very happy and just finished it today. A Company of Swans by Eva Ibbotsen. Interestingly enough, those books (her older ones) are being reprinted. I was very happy as most of them are pretty spendy on ebay and amazon. Her children's ones are always available, but the adult ones are not as easy to find.
Got some papers for our house today..closing may be soon! Very excited about that. Also did some more planting today. Not sure if I did the potatos right, but they are covered and cut into pieces. Also planted my cukes and will have to figure out how to put up a trellis for them. It was so sunny and warm today that many seeds are up as well as lots of leaves on a variety of plants. It is like we skipped spring and now it is summer. Oh, well. It looks pretty and that is what matters the most. The lilacs in town look and smell loverly and the house we are trying for has several, one of which is white! Very cool.
More on the later.

Non-pictoral news

Just wandering along here and there. Looking at a house in Athena and waiting for real spring. It is very cold out today. Sunny, but COLD. Our new computer is on the way and when it arrives, we will update more then.
T is on his way North of where he is now. It sounds more intense, so keep him in your prayers. Every Cav Scout needs a battalion of angels! J is mowing for S's Aunt and is having fun and earning some money. (which he is planning on using for a sharp object of some sort) Got Mum and Dot the same Mom's Day present..It is cheaper in Oregon, but it will be fun for both. I am anticipating tomato plants as mine have frozen. And a house! (There are two lilac trees in the yard!)
Reading more old favorites. I tried to snag a new Anne and Todd McCaffrey from a friend's suitcase, but it was obvious I was trying to hide it under my shirt. Oh, well, I tried.