this is for karen, who never forgets when i promise pictures. these were taken last sunday. the husband has done all the touch-up work since then so it looks a little more finished now. we are waiting for the men to put the smart siding on next week and then we can go back in and finish around the edges. probably another day or so of work. i helped three solid days and let me tell you, rock work is a great thigh workout! up to get a new rock, down to mortar it in place. up to get a new rock, down to mortar it in place. the jet tub does indeed have its merits.

inside they finished painting all the walls (they look great) and are staining the woodwork in their shop. that will go up after the flooring--which is another project we are going to tackle ourselves. we'll start tiling this weekend and the wood floors will follow. still a lot of work to do, but not really. we're getting close!
i can almost hear me yelling at my family to not make a mess or touch anything already. ha.

that's actually not a joke.

i see that we have to "fall" back this weekend. sigh. i hate the early darkness. when it's dark at five, i'm pretty much ready to call it a night by 9:30. i am hoping for some serious sun this winter or next year i'm just going to pack it up after halloween and i'll see ya'll in march.

fall back. whose stupid idea was that anyway?

hmm. somehow the photos posted without the comments. but of course, i have to comment :)

so the rocking is rocking. seriously. it's so fun. i know that deep down i am a blue collar girl. dressing up for board meetings is like wearing a costume. today while the husband and i were rocking the house, the workmen were inside putting primer on the walls. they were playing great music and singing in there, and the sun was shining and my brain was so happy not to be sitting at a computer. i kept thinking of my brother who gets to build and remodel and crane every day, and how it just fits him and how much i love him.

anyway, i'm sure it's not that fun for the people who call it a job, but it was sure a nice day for me. i can see how beautiful this is going to be and it makes me so happy. the husband and i did not have one argument or altercation. it was just so nice to be out there working on something together, something that will feel so much like ours because we had a hand in creating it.

i'm happy. and tired. and ready to devour the homemade chicken noodle soup.

i'll report again on sunday night, hopefully with finished pics.

happy weekend.

i've been waiting for this but by the end of the day i'm sure i will be feeling totally the opposite.

today the husband starts rocking the outside of the house. i'm very excited and i really want to be part of it...so i say. i worked last night and early this morning to get my stuff done so i can spend the next few hours out there. i do know me. i know i have no skills. i know the husband will get frustrated because of it, and i'll get frustrated back and pretty soon i'll throw a rock at his head...but for now, i'm excited. i cannot wait to see this house done.

wish me luck. i'm dressing up like a worker man now and heading out...ok, my hat is pink and black and my coat matches and i've got these cute gloves...but otherwise, i'm all man.

truly.

the husband and little j have now both been through the flu at our house. little j was sick all weekend and the husband had it about a week ago. they both recovered pretty well, but it wasn't fun while it lasted.

it's like waiting for the other shoe to fall. i have way too much going on to be sick.
doesn't help that little j wanted me to cuddle him up every night...and how can you say no to that?

hope you all are staying healthy.

today i'm supposed to pick out the paint for the interior rooms of our new house. they start painting next week. do you know how many millions of colors there are in this world? i am OVERWHELMED by choice. oh, to have a design girl or two pick them all out for me...ahem.

when i was at the agency, they wanted us to be like 80% billable or something. i can't remember, but it meant we needed to bill as much of our day as possible to a client. if you absolutely weren't doing anything to further the payroll, you called it GO or General Office. they hated it in accounting when you had too much GO. too much GO was bad and could get you behind a Closed Door. thing is, anything i tried to accomplish after 3 pm was no good anyway, so what was the point? later on i just started going home at 3. that was the smartest move of all.

anyway, i've always been fortunate that God gave me a talent for speed. i could whip through piles of work pretty quickly when i finally kicked people out of my chair and set my mind to it. my deal was to work fast and bill it for what it SHOULD have taken me so my last two hours of work could be spent goofing off with other co-workers who were doing the same thing.

i've always relied on the power of speed to get me to the reward of untabulated GO. but lately i've run into a little snag. my workload is might these days and no matter how fast i work, i don't have much time for GO. and you know what? it makes me crabby and tired and not very fun to be around. GO is there for a reason. we all need it. on monday i felt like my brain was going to bust so i bundled up and went outside for a run. i didn't go far. it didn't take long. but i felt the release IMMEDIATELY. i needed that GO more than i needed another hour at the computer.
it turned my whole mood around, just in time to pick up my little people from school.

so next time you're feeling overwhelmed and tired and angry and mean, just GO. you can always bill it to something else later :)

ok, this isn't exactly the shot i was looking for. sidney dog is really camera shy, she won't look into the camera for a million doggie treats.

but she will bring down those ringnecks, three legs or not. the husband has always called her WonderDog during hunting season (complete with song). she is an ace and i know he was very sad last year thinking she might be done--not for his sake but for hers too.

they opened up the public fields last weekend for in-state hunters and the two of them went for a little walk. the husband said she was like a puppy again, having a blast and running through the fields. he couldn't get her to quit. they brought home one pheasant and a couple of really big smiles.

yes, she smiles. all the way up to her eyes.

such a good girl.

yesterday i did something that might make you design girls crazy.

i had to make a bunch of decisions on the house. decision like what kind of railing on the stairs, what kind of trim, what kind of baseboards, what kind of beams for the ceiling, etc. etc.

i was having a crazy busy day and was pretty overwhelmed, so i flipped through a catalog, picked a couple of things quick and then told the nice bearded workman to just pick out the rest of the stuff. yes. i told the guy wearing wranglers, a green flannel shirt and a purple vikings hat that i trusted him. to go ahead and pick it out.

he looked pretty pleased with himself. he called this morning to talk through his choices, saying things like "well, the trim has like three lines in it and the top matches the lines on your coffers. and um, the baseboard is 4 inches high and has kind of a little design on top. "

it sounds good to me. i told him he was like martha stewart and i could practically feel him blushing over the phone. he looks like my dad with a big red beard and kind of a big, worker man build. i mostly just want to hug him but if i told him that he'd probably melt through the floor.

so for now, i'll just let him pick out my stuff and maybe i'll hug him when it's all done.

i found this story in big j's composition notebook the other day and it about broke my heart. before you get too worried, he really does seem happy and fine and talks about friends at school...and yet...

i walked onto the playground and realized something was missing. my friend landon was not there. i heard the sound of kids laughing and had to blink. i was as sad as a rain cloud. i saw kids playing kickball and felt the ball being kicked. i used to play kickball with landon. i walked past the lunchroom and smelled the lunch. i used to eat lunch with landon. i could practically taste the cookies. landon loves cookies. can't you see how lonely i am without my friend?

i feel like the worst mom in the world.

crud.

i feel bad.

i am a horrible people pleasing woosey and this whole "get three estimates" for every job while we build the house is sucking.

it's not just getting three estimates. it's setting up three meetings and getting to know three people and making three people jump through hoops and looking at three people's kids' photos on three different desks and THEN getting three estimates and then giving two people the ax.

and because i'm a people pleasing woosey, i always break up via email. a long, rambling email explaining that they were wonderful, we loved their work, it was a hard decision, we wish them well, yadda yadda yadda. the answer is always a terse "thanks." i have a hard time with the terse thanks, because i know it really means "thanks for nothing you big tease."

so far i've had to do it to the house builders, the flooring people and the cabinet people. i didn't have the guts to tell the guys who gave us an estimate for wiring the house for audio/video that we decided we're just not technology people, so it's getting wired.

mostly because they didn't have email.

doh.

i have always always hated video games. the boys each have a nintendo ds, and if i could run them over with my truck i would. this past weekend we said goodbye to the nintendos for an undetermined amount of time. at the moment my home is completely video game free. no playstation. no wii. no nintendo. no gameboy. no boys staring like zombies at a screen while the world passes them by. it is positively awesome. they've only been gone for ONE day, but we had all kinds of projects going on, stories being read and actual conversations.

i have to admit, i take the blame for letting the games become MY crutch when i need the kids to wait for me (play the ds and wait), sit through a meeting with me (play the ds and sit) or just be quiet (be quiet and play your ds). i know that i can go anywhere and do anything with the boys if they have their games--no whining, no fighting, NO INTERACTION WITH ANYONE WHATSOEVER.

my bad.

so the games are gone. little j never really had a problem with it, but taking it away brought big j to some serious tears. i hope he sees that it's so. not. worth. it.