Forgive me Father.....

It's been two weeks since my last blog entry. We've been busy!

It seems that every extra minute we have is going towards fixing up the house. We both took some days off and spent about 12 hours a day working on so many projects. We of course had to purchase a bunch more stuff from Home Depot, somewhere between $4000 and $5000 worth, and that doesn't include what was purchased before closing. The first thing we got was a new water heater, and with the help of a buddy of Lawrence, we got it installed with no problem. It's nice to have hot water as in comes in handy for cleaning things. This past Friday we also purchased a new washer and dryer, a matching pair from LG with all the bells and whistles. $1900 for the pair. Ouch.

Lawrence has been busy making and installing new solar screens on the outside of all the windows, but not until I have washed them well. They were filthy, but now gleam with clarity! We also scraped the ceiling and walls in the laundry room getting ready for the new toys, and then painted them. The ceiling looks good, but the walls didn't turn out the way we wanted them, so we went back to Home Depot and purchased our own air compressor and texture sprayer. The compressor came with a air-powered nail gun as well, so we'll use that for the moldings and anything else that needs nailing. We plan on applying the texture in a style called "orange peel", which isn't rough to the touch like popcorn texture, but it has a little crackle to it. We haven't applied any of it yet, but we're looking forward to it. We'll have to repaint the room again, but that's OK. It's the smallest room in the house and makes a good testing ground.

I was able to remove all three layers of wallpaper and contact paper in the kitchen, as well as a horrid dark blue wallpaper in the guest bath. I am also happy to announce that the awful wallpaper mural depicting a Mediterranean ocean scene with sailboats and Roman columns once firmly glued to an entire large wall in the living room is now gone after three days of scraping. We're down to white walls in all rooms waiting for sanding, then texture, then paint. The big decision now is what colors to use in each of the rooms. I never thought it would be difficult to choose until I realized how semi-permanent it is. We know what carpet we want, now we have to make sure the paint and tile floors match. By the way, there will be no hardwood floors this time. I love them, but we couldn't figure out a way to make it work in this house.

An exciting moment for us was the first time Rusty got to run free in his new yard without being on a leash! He's never been able to do that, and he's happy. Needless to say, he has "christened" the yard a few times. It seems all our neighbors, including on both sides and to the rear of us, all have dogs as well, and those dogs have noticed a disturbance in the force...a new dog has arrived! They bark like crazy, and Rusty pays them no mind. He doesn't bark back since he has nothing to prove. We all know he's a snob. That's our boy!

Lawrence went up on the roof to seal around some of the vents that protrude above the shingles, and it seems that in the 27 years since the house was built, no one sealed anything. Inside the house all the light fixtures, air conditioning vents, light switches, wall plugs, dryer vents, gas and water lines...everything...never got sealed. Lawrence, armed with his new caulking gun and many tubes of caulking and silicone sealant, has resolved that problem. I had to giggle a little when Lawrence was on the roof....he doesn't like being up there. He was nervous and moving slowly. He only did about three of the many vents up there before he had to come down. I'll go up later and finish the job. Roofs don't intimidate me at all.

When you walk into the house, you see tools everywhere. We have just about everything a professional home remodeling company would have. Electric this, and air-powered that, every hand tool known to man, this doo-dad and that gadget. Even a rolling tool cart to haul everything from room to room. Show of hands on who has their own air compressor with attached nail gun and texture sprayer? I thought so.

Through all of this, we have had the pleasure of meeting our new neighbors. I was happy to find out that the guy on one side of us works for the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad. Needless to say, we have a lot in common to talk about, and he was quite interested in my duties with the Union Pacific Steam Crew. The guy on the other side works for an oil company, but not sure what he does for them. He does have a hobby as a woodworker in his garage. That may come in handy.

Today, while we were at Home Depot, which we seem to go to multiple times a day, Lawrence wanted to pick up a couple of small trees to plant in the backyard. The yard is devoid of any foliage other than a flat field of weeds. No trees, no plants, no bushes. A clean slate to start new, and we did just that as Lawrence planted an orange tree and a lemon tree. There were other types available, but I recommended those since I cook a lot with lemons and we both love oranges.

I still get a bit overwhelmed by all of this, but not Lawrence. He's loving every minute of it, and is a busy little bee with all the projects to complete and yet to be started. I help a little, but mostly I just watch him being happy.