Well there's one little lady that deserves an awful lot of credit for what she has gone through the last 3 months.(OK, no it's not me-no one can call me little.) It's Eva. They say kids are quite adaptable , but most of them do not have to try adapt not only to a new environment and a new care taker, but to do it all in a consrtuction atmosphere. There are electric saws going, air compressors going off, air guns & nailers, drills,hammering, pounding, nailing and yelling. It can be jolting & scary.
Remember we are basically living in 3 rooms, so Eva is limited in the area she has to play, eat & nap. We'll go for a walk thru the construction site if all is quiet, so we can see Mommy working. We have had to be creative on some days on finding areas where she can actually nap and hopefully sleep. The most creative has been the shower, it was the quietest area for a few days. The most enjoyable was on me on the deck in the rocker.We've moved the rocker to the bathroom vanity area, we've moved the crib to the bathroom vanity area, to the den; basically we'll do what we need to work around the construction workers so Eva gets a nap (and Auntie Martha gets a break). It's also a day to day learning . Eva turned 7 mos on the 24th, she had her first Arrowroot cookie at Auntie Martha's & we found this neat mesh feeder for fresh fruits & vegggies that's just great. She thought the slice of banana Uncle Tom gave her to try was great,she couldn't have any more though; Uncle Tom & Mommy ate them all.
Well, Mother's Day was our first get together at the house & the weather cooperated(mostly). Mom & Louise came early & took advantage of the peace & quiet, they soaked for a while in the hot tub before the festivities began. Then we fished and hot tubbed and ate and drank. If you didn't bring your own pole we had spares-I think Danny was using a Mickey Mouse Original?!? A little short but what the heck? We had an awesome time and we were sorry Rick & Cheryl and David & Kristin couldn't join us. The Three Mom's- Mom, Louise & Nancy certainly knew they were loved & appreciated.
EEEK!! A BAT!!
Just another chapter in the strange animal happenings here.On Thursday Eva & I went outside to sit on the deck, being the conscientious aunt that I am, I put the patio umbrella up to protect her beautiful skin from the sun.
I turned & saw what I thought was a dead bat on the deck, must have fallen from the umbrella. I called to Tom to come remove the dead bat from the deck & of course Mandy & Dana had to come too. (WORK STOPPAGE!!!)
Well of course we had to grab the camera, as I said before...who would believe this stuff?? Mandy gets down to look at the little bugger & doesn't it start hissing at her. Guess it's not dead...Well when Mandy took the camera to get a close up hissing shot , it wasn't too pleased & took off. Guess I'll be a little more careful opening the umbrella from now on....
We think the bats lived in the house we tore down and now need a home, even though we have plenty of roomhere, we're not offering. We are however going to be putting a Bat house up in the tree very soon.
Saturday was bath night, Sunday night was shower night. (no, there are no pictures of us in the shower...settle for pic before the grouting & all body sprays were installed).
We climbed into Tom's 7x5 Master shower with 4 body sprays on each side, 2 hand held shower heads & a rain shower head in the center of the ceiling.Now that's a lot of water coming at you! Even at that rate it still took awhile to run out of hot water! A far cry from our first few weeks when we had none at all!
I'm In Heaven......
Saturday night is bath night! I haven't had a bath in 9 months (gee, that doesn't sound so good..)! I'm christening the Mistress' Tub! Bought curtains for the windows, have a fragrant candle from our neice & nephew, lavender bath salts, a nice glass of chardonnay and a good book on tape (no page turning or wet pages)! Now remember, there is a tub with a bay window & a separate shower; there is no lighting, extension cords are running the jets & blower in the tub; the rest of the master bath is still just studs, 2 by 4's and a concrete floor.
But I've accomplised my own little oasis of relaxation.
So... Ladies, as I'm enjoying a well deserved soak, doesn't my husband come in with my cell phone??? As I send him an evil, dirty look ...he innocently says "I brought you your phone so you can call me when you need a refill on your glass of wine." Well all is right in my world again, I soaked for 1 1/2 hours & certainly did call for a refill! I'm in Heaven.....
Well, the tub is finally in!!Plumbed up & almost ready to go. And on a very strange coincidence , the neighbor had his junk car towed out on a flat bed the same day, in fact, just after Tom & Mandy finished plumbing the tub up!!!They couldn't wait to let me know & get a picture!That relaxing pastoral scene is improving......
Then there's the patio deck...big Pow-Wow to map out the design, they've come up with the herringbone design,multilevel.
In addition to that, the porch roof was finished this past week.
On a sad & frustrating note, our framer has informed us, he has decided he wants to get out of the busness. We're hoping that at least the work that was agreed on gets done first.
Fingers crossed. Then maybe a little incentive????? Hiring another framer at this time of year &one willing to take on another's job won't be easy to find.
How do you build stairs when there is such great fishing here? I told you in the last update the stairs had begun, and on the 2nd of May, finally, they were finished. Well, despite the distractions, they did an awesome job! We're thrilled with them!
Let's see...then there was the bird that got into the house on the 30th (I have to take pictures, no one would believe this stuff...), no matter what we did, he had no intrest in leaving. Apparently all he wanted to do was keep flying into windows. Tom kept hoping he'd knock himself out. (I assume it was a "him" since he didn't ask for directions.) I was more concerned about bird droppings landing in areas I couldn't reach to clean. The bird kept landing on the ceiling fans (we have 3), so I asked Tom to turn the fans on low so the bird would not re-land on them. Then I had these horror visions of bird plops on the fan blades & Tom was going to turn the fans on, we were going to have a faux finish of fresh bird poop plops (say that 3x after a wine or two) splattered around the 23 ft high walls. 45 Minutes later, he finally flew out an open upper window! Missed out on the faux finish; damn!
The area around the Mistress' tub in the Master Bath (& really, why do they call it that if the Master never takes a bath?) has been painted & tiled. Please note the view out of the window of the neighbor's junk car, what a pastoral scene for a relaxing soak...
The Hot tub has been moved to it's place!!! Cleaned & ready to fill!! We filled it with water to run it thru a cycle & check for leaks(remember this is the tub that came home from the auction with the infamous kitchen cabinents), shouldn't be a problem since it came with a manufacturer's warranty; but we're checking just the same, since it sat for a couple of months outside. Well, guess what??? Leaks?
Yup, a couple of them. Tom who is already quite good at repairing leaks is fixing these too.
You see the reason he's fixing them and not taking advantage of the warranty (and no, it's not because he's tired of his wife's bitching & just wants to get it over with...good guess though), is because we found out after calling the 1-800 # that it was a reconditioned tub & came with only a 30 day warranty from the date of purchase. "Basically," said the voice on the end line, "you're S.O.L." OK...I'm cleaning it & Damn It.... Happy Hour will be in the hot tub on Friday!!! The 5th of May, Happy Hour was in the Tub & it's working fine. If Tom want's to fight with the auctioneer he's on his own...we've got our tub & all is right with the world.
Eva was 6 months old! We were so busy harassing her Gramma Colleen for turning 50, that we missed Eva's big day! Uncle Tom was so into it, that he got her a drill! Please note (lower right hand corner) that it is yellow & not girlie pink. He decided she's here so much anyway she might as well do something; then maybe he could get some work out of Aunt Martha too!
Tom decided the original site for the island in the kitchen was no longer where he wanted it. Now remember, we built on a slab & everything we need to plumb the kitchen & 6 baths (but who's counting?), bring electricty to the kitchen & heat the flooring is buried under that slab; which we're now apparently going to alter.So we're going to jack hammer the concrete kitchen floor(relative term..I'm not jjjaaaccckkk hhhaaammmeeerrriiinnnggg anything).There are concrete chunks flying everywhere, our happy helper Dana says "I don't think I hit your new fridge". Yikes! Out come the drop cloths-cover the fridge, cover the windows..what were they thinking???
Well, you knew it was going to happen, (I gave you a clue, what's under the concrete?)Yep...the radiant heat line got hit with the jack hammer; who ever would have guessed it would have floated that close to the surface?!?A lovely water spray for Dana (& the ceiling & the floor), had to shut the system down.
I should have gone shopping......
Tom went to see his contact at the company we got the radiant heat flooring from, talked to them about how to fix the problem; "Umm, not sure.." was the response he got; by the time he left the company extremely frustrated,he knew he'd be figuring this one out on his own. Apparently they know how to install one on paper, they've never actually done one. Well you know Tom,he was creative & figured out a solution that was not extremely time consuming & the system is back up & running. Maybe we should patent it.
