A game of spies

"Tristin, you are not well camouflaged."
"But I am in a tree."


"Mama, Justina, can you see him?"


"We sure can punk. His shirt is orange."


"Awww man, we are gonna lose Tristin."


"Hey Tad, I have a good idea. I think it will work."
"I am sure it will. We will talk about it outside."


"Um, with the two of you things are not usually good ideas. You guys dont even make half a boy when you are together. What are you scheming?"


"Huh? Us? Nothing! Just playin' a game! Havin' fun. We are not doing anything wrong."
"Yeah mama."


"I did what? Broke my collar bone because I wasnt thinkin'? Huh uh... I mean, that was last year!"

I miss you

I open up my eyes I miss you
Everytime I fall asleep I miss you
I wanna scream and shout I miss you
Every day It's all about how i miss you
Everytime I close my eyes I miss you
Every day I'm walking the streets to be near you
When I drop my beat I feel you
How can I help you start to know how I miss you

-Lifted, Uriah Shelton and Dash Mihok

Remodeling

The first of (hopefully) many installments of remodeling photos. I have been without a good camera for a lot of the work I have done so far, the little camera that I was using for landscaping photos sort of quit on me. So, this is the kids bathroom, or hall bathroom. This is the one that Eric and the kids were working on drywall in. I finished all the drywall behind the toilet, around the shower and mudded/sanded and painted this bathroom. I have a few photos of that on a different camera card. Here, I am putting the toilet back down. Eric pulled it up, and set it in the tub. Then I laid morter and hardibacker on the floor, laid tile, grouted around the toilet area imediately (though not all finished tiling) and then put the toilet down. By myself. Okay fine with a phone call to a friend Amanda.


You can see this is where I ran out of morter. The problem with this is that it causes tile shifting sometimes, and the corners are not perfect because of it. People likely wont notice. Laying tile isnt hard, but it can be wearing and is time consuming.


Now it is finished, though I dont have a grout photo yet. The tile has to dry for 12 hrs before you grout. The rubber mallet and scrap of wood is for tapping down each tile after laying. The spacers keep the tile and equal distance apart for grouting. I did get the toilet installed AND it doesnt leak! I was very proud, I have installed toilets before but only when my husband was on site.


Another angle of finished. I am using my new camera and still getting used to it, some of the lighting is different than I meant for it to be, and also I am getting pretty fuzzy photos with the telephoto lens.


Now this is my bathroom-the master bathroom. For some reason the previous owners had a small stand up shower, and boxed in the other half of the tub/shower space with drywall and just wallpapered it. I guess it was cheaper? So we pulled out the shower, Jeremiah (Amanda's husband) and family came up and installed a nice tub for me in the space. He built a small shelf around it because there was space, due to drain issues, and it makes a nice area to tile inside the shower. I will be tiling these walls. The piece of backerboard here is waiting to be put down.


You can see the curve on the floor where the carpet used to come inside the bathroom at just that area. There were several layers of sticky tile on this floor, Tad scraped them up and threw them away. He has now finished since I took up the toilet and the backerboard is partially down for tiling.


I dont know why the ply board was painted in here, but it was. There is a problem in the corner by the tub with the drywall and it will require a patch. Tad did a lot of the work in here, he takes the vents out for me. The vents here are an older style and they take a lot of work to detach frmo their space, and some bad words are used by me. Tad just takes them up now without mentioning it.


Here the toilet is out. I cannot take the toilet up in 1 piece, I take the tank off of the back and then pull up the bowl. My flange is broken here, not sure if I need to take this one out/install a new one or if it is still usable. Eric will tell me tomorrow when he brings his ladder for me to borrow. I need to cut in paint next to vaulted ceilings, and I am simply not 20 ft tall.


The toilet had to go somewhere! The kids bathroom toilet was in their tub as well, now that shower/tub is being used. We bathed in here, or showered in the laundry room shower while the kids bathroom was being worked on. I plan on having mine done in about 3 days so the toilet wont live here long.

I have photos of the laundry room as well, the before, during and after. It still needs baseboards, but the wallpaper was removed, mudding and patching occured, the tile in there and laundry were done by myself and Frank last yr and it looks amazing, the shower we left alone. It is just a stand up shower, but there are 4 bathrooms here and 2 others have tub/showers. I painted the laundry room and bathroom.


For those who have been to my house, you know that paneling was used in excess. The maker of paneling should be shot. Some had come loose in the hall and foyer, and these 2 areas were excessively dark. The dining room has some paneling but not totally and it also has vaulted ceiling, french doors and it is open to kitchen and living room so it isnt so bad. Our bedroom has 1 wall of it which I will fix if I have time, but again there are windows and light walls as well. The hall and foyer were mudded, it takes 4 x and still the lines showed though I thought they were sanded well. This section shown is not yet painted because I had a wooden cabinet there that I had to sell first.


This is now the hall, it used to be like the previous picture without the mud lines! I still have some tape to take off of the door frames but it is a huge difference. Took 1 layer of primer and 3 of paint to make the difference, and it isnt perfect but it is so much better. Dark doesnt sell well, and we want to sell.


Another hall shot-bit fuzzy due to getting used to the camera. There were no baseboards in here, but I couldnt mud/paint all the way to the floor so we will put down baseboards.


This is the foyer, the wall on the left was actually a hideous gold print wallpaper from sometime ago. That was after I peeled 3 layers, the last one wanted to stay so I primed/painted over it. We are going to paint the door red-its on the list.


And here is our half wall when you first walk in, this was also paneling. The wall on the other side is a very dark beige color, this new color is called beige but its more like a cream. I will paint the guitar wall as well, the whole living room, kitchen and dining room will be painted this week in between tiling my bathroom floor and walls, homeschooling, college, making children's wardrobes, running errands to do paperwork (getting ready to cross through canada) and cleaning up from the shop burning down.

We are staying busy and getting closer to the end of this deployment! We are very excited about it... It is hard to be patient but at least I have work to keep me busy.

Landscape 2

This is a very late landscaping post. I am super exhausted from all that we are busy doing, I would love to blog more but am always running behind. I started the work to sell our property in August, the first thing that we did was landscaping. This was the last, and hardest bed that I did. The 110+ degree temps didnt help.

It was educational, relatively fun except for the heat. I was very glad for a hardworking tractor! I ripped out the old rock bed here, it had a plastic thing along the side to create the bed which I didnt like, and grass had grown up through the old ground cloth.

I was able to get very close to the house, leaving just a small strip to dig out by hand. The plastic butcher board (for chickens) is against the window to protect it from any stones or debris.


This is the pile that the bucket left, I couldnt get any closer without damaging the porch so had to shovel this out by hand. Doesnt look too bad huh? Well, the grass roots, the burried ground cloth and stones were pretty wearing... it took 2 days for that portion.

I just dug it out and filled the tractor bucket and took it to dump it along the side yard. We fished out the pieces of ground cloth and the stones will keep the foliage down in the tree line for some time.

More digging... I did find that the ground cloth ran many feet into the yard. I gave up excavation at about 3 foot out from the bed edge.

The stripped bed, mostly leveled.

The corner that had to be dug out, you can see where I stated to remove the groundcloth from the actual yard and gave up, at the bottom left of this photo.

Tacking down the groundcloth with small pins, they are long and U shaped, they are not hard to put in. This is a heavy duty groundcloth, though I know now that the people who lived here before had no weeds because they used weed control chemicals, I end up pulling weeds because I wont use those. Yes, I know there is graffiti on my house. My daughter is the culprit-she found that the "guts" of old drywall will write on things.

Finished bed! We bought cyprus wood chips from a local lawn and garden place for 20$ per bucket scoop-tractor bucket. It was a good size bucket and all of our mulch cost 100$ total.

Another view, I tucked the ground cloth under to create a longer, better weed prevention. The RR ties are not complete, I need a small piece cut and the end piece shimmed up but the actual bed is complete-the hard part.

Since then I have accomplished a lot of remodeling, 1 semester in college, started homeschool, sold a lot of our belongings, finished paying off debt completely (this wasnt work so much as determination), made our clothes, oh and other things. We have had a good two months!

Remodeling update

I am not on here a lot! Early on in this deployment I did well keeping up with posts, for my poor distant husband. He loves to see what the kids are doing. Change in computer systems and a broken camera, coupled with a larger workload has really hammered my blogging abilities. I have no recent pictures, this bathroom that the guys are working on is now nearly done! Eric came over and spent the day hanging drywall and an assortment of other tasks. He lets the kids help and along the way he teaches them which they love.


The bathroom pictured is one of 4, and only 1 of the 4 wasnt in some state of "torn up." This one is the kids bathroom. Tad and Nathalie both learned to measure, mark and cut drywall. Tad learned how NOT to cut drywall in case the razor knife slipped. He learned what his femoral artery is, and what % of chance he had of living if he cut it. The % was only above 0 because Eric and I are both educated in emergency medicine.


Eric did help with their scoring, but they both have the concept now and appreciate how careful the cuts need to be once they saw the mudding process. Tad has cut his piece with Eric's help here.


Now once it is folded back, he can carefully cut the paper at the other side and has his pieces. I didnt get any good photos of Nathalie helping but she did, in between her art projects. I didnt do much more than cook lunch, the 4 of us dont fit comfortably in a bathroom!

I have some good pictures hidden on my camera (that wont work) of my friends Amanda and Jeremiah (and offspring) here for a wkend. They came up to install a bathtub in one of the other 3 bathrooms. That leaves nothing but tile needing to be done in there which is wonderful! Tile I love to do, installing a bathtub-well I lack education there... Amanda had some great ideas and together they created something that will be easy for me to tile, and very attractive to us and the buyers of our home. I appreciate the help I have had from friends. Eric's drywall work allowed me to complete 1 bathroom altogether, and the next one nearly. I mudded, sanded and painted the one bathroom and laundry room-they are checked off the list.

I finished the drywall and mud, sanding and painting in the kids bathroom with some extra help from the kids and Jeffrey (Eric's son). I have spent the last wk mudding the cracks in paneling in my hall and foyer. They are dark areas-no windows, no high ceilings and thus the paneling is overwhelmingly dark. I dont like paneling ever but in the vaulted living room the bit of wall that is paneling is manageable. After 3+ layers of mud, I was able to prime the hall and foyer today. I was excited to be that close to done! My house goals were to finish all that I have listed plus the tile in kids bath. I have that and painting in hall left! Then I will move on to the tile in our bathroom and possibly the paint in the living room.

As for the outside, Tad and I have mowed and brushogged all 6 acres, cleaned out all but 1 barn. On the barns Nathalie helped but on the brushogging-the girl cannot drive! During those times she cleaned house, did laundry and cooked dinner. My 4000 $ (that we did for 200$) landscaping jobs are lovely and I am so glad they are done, they were my biggest worries because I hadnt landscaped before. I have good pictures of the other beds completed but once again... camera troubles. Tad will fix it tomorrow or I will buy a new one before I go farther in remodeling. I dont want Frank to miss one step in the work we are doing. He is sad about not being here and misses this time very much.

We are excited about our upcoming move, and the changes in our lives. As always, we want to remember and count our blessings until we are so full from them that we can make it over life's hurdles with patience and happiness.

Lost camera

I lost my camera, and the other one is broken (my good one) and there is another little one that is both lost and out of battery. None of this is normal for me, I love to take pictures! I will give you an update and find my camera asap.

Because we are moving to Alaska shortly after Frank comes home, there is a lot of work to do. We have a lot of paperwork with the insurance company over the shop burning down. Also, we have to demo the site. For a small amount of money (that I made) a man in a town nearby collected the metal-which was the bulk of the shop rubble. He can turn it in to make money, and I didnt have to do all the work alone. We do get paid for demo, but we rather demo ourselves. Now I need to clean up the remaining chard wood (burn it) clean up any obvious trash (dump) and then figure out the ashes.

The landscaping-it is all done, and the beds are beautiful especially considering my lack of decorating abilities. Our friend Eric helped me with the beds and has one more job to do...I have to have a small piece of rr tie cut down which I am not capable of with no chainsaw.

The property otherwise-almost all brushogged, (Tad and I do this on the tractor) mowed (Tad), weed eating done (Tad and myself) and some hedging where the brushog cannot go (Tad). During this time Nathalie kept the house clean, laundry done and food cooked. We still have a little more cleaning and repair in the barns, but have sold most of our farm stuff and all animals save 2 crazy, wild chickens. A bantam rooster and his hen-they live off the land.

Have 2 rooms to clean out, pump room and jacuzzi room. The jacuzzi was sold long ago but has junk in the room. These things will go to the dump.

Rest of the house has been mostly cleaned and organized, we have a few more things inside to sell. We are selling a lot of our goods because we want to move to Ak without a lot of stuff.

Remodeling-I am almost done with one bathroom. Eric finished the drywall for me, now I need to finish sanding the mud which I did and paint. Bathroom # 2, Eric finished most of the drywall. I need to finish that, mud, sand and paint. Then I have to tile the floor. Bathroom # 3, Jeremiah-friend from south of here- did the bathtub this wkend, a job I couldnt do alone. It had many problems that came up which he was able to solve right away, they would have stumped me. We had a great wkend with his family, and and the bathtub is perfect. I now need to tile the shower walls, finish the drywall around the top, paint it and tile the floor. I pealed the wall paper from it yesterday.

Bathroom # 4 isnt gutted. We gutted part of the laundry room because the pipes broke. Gutted # 2 because it had carpet and no shower-just an old tub. New tub, new shower, but couldnt do new floor because the floor sagged. Why? Because next door our bathroom, # 3, had the main floor supports cut out underneath for the drain. Why? Because people make poor decisions-it wasnt us this time. We had to then gut that bathroom shower-learned there was empty wall space so a full shower/tub would fit, and so that made 3 bathrooms gutted partially. A lot of work, but he didnt intend for us to move so soon.

Now today is our first official day of school, didnt work out 2 wks ago so here we are! Photos later.

Landscaping bed 1

We are finished with our landscaping except for a small piece of rr tie which I cannot cut myself. Due to my chainsaw being burned up in the fire. Oh, and my lack of desire to use a chainsaw. I am not fond of them. We obtained a landscaping quote, and it was unmanageable so some help from a friend for tree cutting and removal, Tad and I started a long 10 days of (literally) muscle pulling labor. This was our back patio. After some of the work, the weeds between these stones were over our knees. The bed along the house was an old creeping evergreen that had long since died, and under that was a myriad of ground cloth, weeds, and heavy small rocks.

This area is under the deck steps and it is north of the patio just mentioned, still on the back of the house. Dirt and weeds were growing nicely under here.


Why I didnt load the tractor bucket... I do not know. I had to dig out this bed by hand fully, unlike the front bed (not pictured and much more work), I couldnt scrape any of it with the tractor. I dug it out, put it in the this poor old rusted thing (the tire stays flat) and hauled it off (after sifting it for trash) to the tiny tree line we have. The rocks will keep down weeds there for a couple more years.



Mulch, we bought this by the scoop-bobcat scoop and paid 20$ a scoop. Our total landscaping needs were covered by 7 scoops so 140$ in mulch. I made a total of 3 trips to the small town 8 miles from us to pick this up as well as ground-cloth and pins.


Previous post to this one showed pictures of Tad and Eric trimming back this bush. It was much eaiser to work with the bush trimmed, and it will come back much nicer next year.


I laid the ground-cloth. It was at this point, after hitting my thumb with a hammer putting in pins, that it occured to me that I possibly had not googled landscaping enough yet. Maybe I should have read a few more articles. I felt suddenly unsure in this territory. Doesnt this qualify as something pretty, decorative? Purposefully artful in a way that doesnt produce food or functional clothing? This is not my area. Deep breaths. Saving 4000 $.

Once again, working by hand. My tractor bucket cannot scoop it out of the truck bed. I filled the bed with mulch, making sure I kept it below the rock edge and covered the ground-cloth evenly. I began to spread mulch around the AC and the trimmed bush, but these things had no proper edge. Back to the decoration issues.

The fatal error of this small tree was to grow inside of this bed. Tad did away with the small tree.

My little daughter does poorly in the heat, and cannot handle bugs. In spring and early summer, she works well in the yard but we dont often see her mid/late summer. She keeps the house in a constant state of clean, keeps the meals cooked and laundry done and brings us water regularly. This evening was a cooler than average evening, and there were no bugs so here she is happily sweeping. With a broken broom. The good broom was in the shop. Now its still in the shop I assume. Or it went where all good brooms go?

We found the square end shovel to be wonderful for removing the weeds. The dirt somehow piled up on these stones over the years, I do not know why but there were large piles of it on top of some stones and IN the dirt grew nice grass.

The under the stair area after work, I edged/weed eated the edges, scraped out the weeds and dirt and the children swept and clean farther back. oh and we sold our stock pile of 55 gal plastic drums so they are not longer cluttering that area. So I MADE money while I saved the 4K in landscaping costs...

Finishing up the clean up. The area around the AC and the bush now has a nice rock garden surround. I found enough flat paving stones on our property to go seamlessly from the edge of the patio stones, right around the AC and bush. I made this rock garden, on my own, and we will not eat it, it will not produce something useful so I did a very good thing, though it was outside of my comfort zone. My children were astounded that I could do something so, not useful. Tad said, it is a nice rock garden. I said, maybe if we water it it will grow rocks for us and we can sell them and make money. He said, oh you want me to pee on it? Wow. My children need more civilization.

Side view of my rock garden. I am so proud of it! The old plastic furniture was here when we moved in, somewhere in the back field or something. We drug it in and sit on them, or sometimes they provide tent holdings when the children build tarp tents.

And the final view. This bed was a lot of work, though nothing compared to the front (west) bed. This bed is one of the eastern beds, the next one over will be shown as soon as I get the photos up. The north bed is has three tiers and then a flat top portion with stones, flowers and it used to have weeds. We have eradicated those and mulched.

There was a total of 4 beds to work. I have pictures of all of them, and my total cost came to 200$ and some change including fuel to pick up the supplies needed. 10 days of hard labor for a 10 yr old and myself, I am not sure if that translates into 4000$ but either way, we saved it, we learned a lot, had fun, a pulled muscle, a deep feeling of pride and you know, despite the fact that the only function is pretty, I do like them...