Home Improvement.

****This is a longer post, so if you don't have a few minutes, you might want to read later****

Last week around here was absolute chaos. A couple of weeks ago we had the entire exterior of our house pressure washed in preparation to paint some some of our columns and rails that were in desperate need of repainting. Well, as it turns out, our huge pine doors that we have---all 14 of them--were not sealed properly at the top when the house was built. Water seeped down at the top of the doors and caused the doors to essentially swell and expand. As a result, every single pine door in the house would not open AT ALL. When I say at all, I mean those suckers were stuck and would not budge!!! That left us with only 1 way in and 1 way out of the house-- in and out of the only door in the mudroom/laundry room that is not pine. As they dried, they did actually open but did not open/close all that well and the doors did not seem to "fit" anymore. Last Tuesday, the contractor and his crew (not the guy who built the house---him and his wife split and thus why we ended up with this brand new home that was supposed to be for them) came with all sorts of equipment. I thought it was a bit more equipment than needed to lightly sand some doors to make them open and close again, but my brain is wired medical/science, so what do I know, really? I thought that this was a one day deal, boy was I wrong. They were here all week and ended up sanding, staining, refinishing, etc...every pine door in the house. I knew that they were going to do the front doors, but once those were done it really made all the other doors look neglected and decrepit. Brad and I decided that we might as well go ahead and do the rest of the doors to and get them done properly. This is a glimpse of what we have been dealing with.....

Plastic, very interesting to a one year old

Plastic on every door!!

No more dog scratch marks on the bottom of the door from Flash

It is hard to tell, but the ones on the bottom are done, and the ones on top are not

I am very happy that this is being done, but had planned on spending this money for home improvements we had budgeted on new furniture for the TV room! Chalk it up to home ownership. I cannot complain at all about the guys that are here. They are nice, courteous, and very professional, but it is the nature of the work frazzled me and this is why (1) I hear sanders and other power tools in my sleep (2) Anderson's naps were nearly non-existent (3) it was lukewarm in the house all week b/c the doors were open a lot (4) the floors are disgusting and it not even worth it to mop until they are done (5) I had to keep Anderson away from all the plastic and tools around (6) we had no place to go in the house that did not have a pine door (7) we had to stay at the house all week! #7 is the worst part of it all. Prisoner in my own home.


In the midst of all the chaos, it just seemed that annoying things just kept happening. The ones that in a normal day would not bother me at all, but coupled with the above just made me want to scream. But in true form, we also had some great things (awesome, actually) happen! Let me share the fun things (and keep the annoying ones to myself).....

(1) Anderson took his first few steps last Tuesday....9/8/09!! Still prefers to crawl, but we are
making progress!

(2) He started using a spoon. Let me clarify this...I put the food on the spoon and hand it to him,
then he brings the spoon to his mouth, and then puts the spoon on his tray. Many posts ago,
wrote about Anderson learning how get down once he gets to standing and how we worked
for an entire day on this and he got it. I got an anonymous commenter that said I should not
rush my child. Negative, anonymous commenter's annoy me. If this person knew that I
have a Master's degree in Occupational Therapy and my sole practice area is pediatrics,
maybe the comment would not have been made. So to any readers out there who do
not know me personally, I know EXACTLY what I am doing and unless you have an
expertise in this area to rival mine, please keep your comments to yourself. Sorry, it had
to be said, and I am not trying to be ugly, I just would never dream of leaving a comment
that was not positive on a stranger's blog.

(3) Brad was playing with Anderson after he got home from work on Friday and took the
spatula that he likes to play with and did a karate chop move while saying "hi-ya". Anderson
looked right at him and said "hi-ya" as clearly as I have ever heard anything! Too funny!

(4) He finally clapped his hands!! This little thing has been stressing me to no end. I knew that
he would do it and there was no underlying problem. He would bring his hands to midline and cross midline all the time, but would not clap. Now he will, and will do it when I say clap:)

(5) He learned his first football referee move. Brad taught him to raise both his hands in the air
when he says "it's good" for a field goal. One of the cutest things ever!

I think all of this was God's way of letting me know that all is well, and that the chaos in the house is nothing in comparison. Point taken. I went to bed Sunday night thinking, this week is going to be GREAT! The workers will be working on the outside after the noon hour and all my doors will be closed, finally. I woke Monday morning after a good nights sleep (something that was rare last week) refreshed. Then Brad says to me that we got an email early, early that morning alerting us of possible fraudulent charges on my AMEX. No way, this is NOT the way this is supposed to happen...this is a GOOD week. Brad got it handled, the charge was taken off, and my card was closed--b/c, of course, it was on my card. Not having my AMEX is not a start to a good week, but whatever! A new one was overnighted and arrived today!


I look at the paper this morning and on the front page is an article about the congressman and how people are changing their travel plans b/c of his outburst on Wednesday night (the aftermath of that was on my annoyance list). Then I get in the car to meet some friends at the beach and I hear the very same thing. Music to my ears since I live in the resort side of this county. Go ahead and cancel your plans, that means I don't have to waste 30 minutes of my life waiting on a table at a restaurant or sitting in traffic. Don't worry about the economic impact, those of us who have been in hiding will come out and spend money again now that the crowds are gone!

This blog post was a little heavy, sorry, but I sure do feel better now! This really is a therapeutic tool!