I haven't been in school in 26 years. (Ouch!) The feeling of passing a test never goes away, though...

WE PASSED OUR ELECTRICAL INSPECTION!!!

Hip, hip, hooray! 3 cheers! Yay!

There wasn't really any reason why we wouldn't - DH did what he was supposed to do, the right way, with Best Man L the Electrician checking on his every move. I think DH was a bit nervous since Best Man L the Electrician commented that some of the work at KD's wasn't up to his standards, and DH and KD ran all those wires... I know Best Man L the Electrician is a very picky worker - after all, he is his reputation.

DH said the inspector wasn't there 5 minutes. He came in, climbed up the ladder, looked around, told DH he passed, and left. I suppose there were a few more comments made, but that was the one we were waiting for :)

The leftover TJIs were picked up yesterday; now we just have to wait to hear from 84 Lumber how much credit we're going to get for them. They're worth about $300+, but apparently, by the time the pick up charge ($80) and the restocking charge (30%) is deducted, we're looking at around $159 + tax, IF all three beams are considered to be in resaleable condition...

Here's our schedule for the next few weeks:

• Stairs will be delivered Monday or Tuesday of next week
• Hopefully A the Framer will be able to come by the end of next week to install them, repair the fireplace framing, and correct whatever else they did wrong or didn't do at all
• Monday, August 6 - Wednesday, August 8 - chimney restoration and extension
• Some other date in August - fireplace installation
• Week of August 13 (maybe) - siding goes up on the house (we chose ivy with white trim) - I'm having a crisis with the corbels for the door - another issue, perhaps, the framer might have to handle

At this point, the house might begin to look like a home from the outside, rather than a construction site...

I know I've promised photos, and they will come - next week, I promise. After I go to Wal-Mart and have them downloaded onto a CD.

We're being inspected today. By the electrical inspector. Wish us luck.

I have some more photos, but haven't had a chance to download them yet. Will update you all as soon as I can.

Met with L the Siding Guy (no relation to Larry the Cable Guy!) and have picked out the siding. Ivy with white trim. Was leaning toward linen trim, but all the doodads were not available in linen and our windows are white so...

When I have more time, I'll write more...

Happy B'day, Coby!

Happy Birthday, Maria!!! (She's the one in the middle!)

Today Maria turns 29. She still looks so young, and someday, I promise her, she'll be happy about that. Right now? Not so much.

She's constantly asked how old she is, people assume she's very young so they don't give her the respect due a teacher who's been in the trenches for five years...

Listen up, people! My daughter is 29. She's a GREAT teacher, with an instinctive knowledge of how to reach a problem child. Her test scores were the best in her grade last year, and she had a class full of really troubled kids. She's smart, good at what she does, and should be given the respect due a 5-year teacher. Her dream has always been to teach at-risk children, and that's what she's doing. She worked in Trenton for a year and is now working in Hoboken. She's in the school that's in the projects end of town. Her kids are tough, street kids whose first goal in life is not to get an education, but to stay alive past their teen years.

29 cheers for Maria!!! Love you!

Better late than never...

HARRY RULES!

LOVED the new book. Want more. Am doomed to no more new Harry. Ever. That sucks.
I am already waiting for the next 2 movies. I want them. And I want them NOW.

POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT - IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE LAST ONE AND DON'T WANT TO KNOW WHO SURVIVED, DON'T READ THIS PARAGRAPH: I did read a review of JK Rowling's interview with Meredith Viera - she was gonna kill off Arthur! Thank God she didn't!!! I was happy to see that Dudley turned out to be okay, as did Creatcher. Was devastated by the scene with Hedwig. And all the deaths. (I won't mention any names 'cause that would be wrong, just in case someone slips and reads this paragraph anyway...)

Happy Anniversary to us!
Happy Anniversary to us!
Happy Anniversary to u-us!
Happy Anniversary to us!

8 years.

And more than one person has commented recently that we're "just like newlyweds."

Awww.

I love you, DH. Always.

My scrapping pages...

Pepper died July 19/20, right around midnight-ish.

A black cat with a very distinct personality. Some might say she wasn't a very nice cat. But she was. She loved her family with all her tiny little heart. She was affectionate with them. They called her "Poopie." She would allow them to pet her, play with her, kiss her. She ate mini marshmallows.

She scratched my foot the one time I tried to feed her a snack, when the family was away and DH and I were taking care of her. She needed us for food, water and a clean litterbox, but she scratched my foot.

It took years, but eventually, after many, many Mondays spent around their kitchen table, Pepper would once in a while walk past my leg, rubbing against it, accidentally of course, although they all said she did it 'cause she liked me.

She became sick. Very sick. We don't know if it was a stroke or a brain tumor, but three weeks ago or so she fell. She started to walk funny, sort of loose-hipped, with a distinct lean to one side. She started to become paralyzed. Eventually she couldn't eat or drink herself; they fed her with a food syringe. They held her for hours and hours every day, never leaving her alone.

On July 16, Pepper let me pet her. I knew this wasn't a good sign. Her fur felt cool to the touch, cooler than I thought it should, although I didn't say anything. They assured me Pepper would let me pet her.

I wish she hadn't. I wish she was still here to avoid me and to scratch me. Both DH and I were devastated when Pepper's family called to tell us she was gone.

She will always be remembered.

Scrapbooking is such a big thing for me now. It's really the only part of my life where I feel creative. I never considered myself a creative person. I have no discernible artistic talent; in other words, I can't draw my way out of a paper bag! (One of my favorite phrases!)

My dad and my sister C are very artistic. Dad could draw, carve. C got a degree in fine arts from Mason Gross School of the Arts/Rutgers. Upon graduation she was invited to exhibit at a gallery, but couldn't - she became mom to my wonderful nephew J! I wish she'd take up art again so I could pick her brain on a regular basis about what I'm doing... Maybe we could "art" together...

Anyway, Mom, too, is artistic. She was a brilliant seamstress, making all our clothes when we were small. She also knits and crochets, did needlepoint when she could, and even made quilts for some spare money years ago.

Me? I'm challenged, to say the least. P? I'm not really sure. I don't think of my sister P as artistic, per se, at least not like C, but she's the first of the family to have brought color into her home by painting the walls in her home very different and strong colors (not varying shades of white, which I did for years). So that must be her artistic side coming out! She's also a crocheter - so I'll take back the comment about not being artistic - she is, too! (It's a hobby she took up in AZ, so she'll have to forgive me for forgetting about it - out of sight, out of mind!)

I guess I should admit that I can draw a mean digestive system, or heart, or lungs - got lots of A's in school for drawing in science class, but that was more copying than drawing...

I get a great deal of satisfaction in creating a scrapbook page that I like, that works, where the colors and the proportion appeal to my eye. I'll post a couple here that I'm particularly proud of but remember, before you look, beauty is in the eye of the beholder!

We have part of the house.
It's big.
Bigger than I expected.
Later on I'll post more pictures, showing it sheathed and roofed.
We have a house.
Oh.My.God.





The grand reveal will come soon!!!

P has a theory. Her theory is that there is one male brain, and all men share it. If you think about it, it only makes sense. It's so rare that men do things right, sensibly, with consideration and forethought. That absolutely HAS to happen "when they have the brain." We've discussed how they pass it along amongst themselves: perhaps in the bathroom, perhaps in the locker room, perhaps via osmosis (since sometimes you can literally see more than one man have possession one right after the other).

Well, yesterday, yesterday MY HUSBAND HAD THE BRAIN.

As you know, we're under construction at the lake house. One of the jobs we hired the framers to do was install the large sliding glass door onto the deck. [Lord knows I can't help DH with that, it's just too heavy.] Yesterday my DH asked the framers, who were installing all the windows on the new 2nd floor, how much it would cost to install the 6 on the first floor that he had planned to install, and remove and close up a 7th.

$400.

And DH had them do it.

WE HAVE WINDOWS. INSTALLED. ALL IN ONE DAY. WITHOUT DH KILLING HIMSELF DOING IT ALONE.
I'm so proud!!!

Now, if only I could talk him into keeping the brain for a while...

When it rains, it pours.

Literally.

I haven't seen it, but according to DH, the rain blew in the unprotected side of the addition and leaked through the floor into my kitchen, living room, and spare room. He emptied buckets and buckets and buckets of water, then finally had to leave so that he could get home in time to see HP5 with me. He's on the way up there to see the damage...

HP5 was awesome! I saw it at 10am yesterday with Eva, and again at 7:45pm with DH. As always, my only complaint is that at 2 hours/10 minutes, they could have added another hour or two to the movie and included some of the more visual scenes that I was looking forward to seeing on the big screen, instead of in my tiny head...

Pictures of the construction tomorrow...

Don't have time to post a lengthy construction update today, but here are the highlights:

• Friday, 07/06/07 - Construction begins. They removed our roof, built the platform to support the new 2nd floor, and began adding floor joists. At some point in the afternoon, I went into the house to go the bathroom. While I was in there, doing what I had to do, DH walked into the house and shouted, "Krys! What happened? Why didn't you call me?" I quickly exited the bathroom only to see my living room ceiling fan hanging by a wire in the middle of the room! We had just put the light fixture on it two days before. We're so lucky it didn't hit the floor! (The light fixture over the kitchen sink was also hanging by a wire.)
• Saturday, 07/07/07 - We spend the day doing odd jobs around the house. We went to see Live Free and Die Hard with Bruce Willis at night. When we walked into the house, I walked right into the bedroom, with DH behind me. All of a sudden, he shouted, "Krys! What happened here?" [Are you sensing a pattern here?] I turn around and the ceiling in our spare room had fallen. We spend another hour taking pictures of the damage, questioning why it had happened, why the supports weren't sistered/strapped, practicing what DH would say to the framers on Monday.
• Sunday, 07/08/07 - I go to my cousin's for his daughter's 8th grade graduation party. I take pictures of his shed to show DH, predicting he'll comment that the addition to the house is beautiful. And I also predict he'll flip when I tell him, "That's the shed." I showed him the pix - his response was exactly as I predicted.
• Monday, 07/09/07 - The framers come early in the morning and DH confronts them about the ceiling. The reason it's not strapped there is because that's where the stairs are going and when they cut out the space for the stairs, those beams will be connected to something. We go out for literally an hour and ten minutes, to order the fireplace, and when we return, WE HAVE EXTERIOR WALLS! By the time they leave, we have all the interior walls framed out, with just some windows and the hearth to go, and a roof all framed out as well.
• Tuesday, 07/10/07 - My best friend Chris' birthday - Happy Birthday, Chris! - I haven't seen it yet, and won't 'til the end of the week, but we apparently have our decorative peaks all framed out, the roof line on the first floor framed out, and windows delivered. If they have time, they'll begin installing windows.

The roof will go on the end of this week, hopefully. We wait now for the stair guy to measure, the roof to go on, the rest of the windows to go in, the stairs to be ready and installed, and the plumbing and electric to be done. Then we side the house.

Pix to come soon...

Here's just a glimpse of what it looks like in front of our lake house. Two truckloads of lumber was literally dumped in front of our neighbor's house, and DH had to move what was moveable by hand, closer to our home. The electrical lines and cable lines were in the way, so the truck couldn't get any closer. The middle shot shows part of the 250 2x4s that DH moved by hand.

Here are some more pictures, better late than never, I always say!!!

This is our not-new-any-longer-new-used-car. We bought this '98 (?) Subaru Forest this past January and we love it! It gets great mileage, and I am learning to drive a stick shift on this car!

Here's DH tearing out the basement stairs. We have since closed up the opening on the 1st floor, so we now have an idea of the space we gained by relocating the stairs.

Here's the closed in floor and the new French doors-to-be! What used to be our bedroom will now be our dining room (and I can see scrapping events being held here - yay!). We'll be moving DH's mom's chandelier here when we relocate permanently; for now we'll most likely just put the current fan/light fixture back.



And here are my favorite pictures of all: our ducklings! Sadly, there are now only 8 left of these original 11 - this is the part of ducklings at the lake that really bothers me a LOT! We have eagles, snapping turtles, vultures, etc. It's hard to know what happened to the 3 missing ducklings...

And here are the four ducks we feed by hand! The bigger of the 2 white ones has a name: Piggy. He/she has stolen entire chunks of bread out of DH's hand, and tries to take every piece of bread from us; he/she will actually run right over the other ducks' backs to get at a snack!

Construction has been delayed.

Again.

End of bitch-fest.

Here are the Lights I Really Want to put in the two hallways, possibly 3:

We bought some Boring Temporary Fixtures, in case all the Lowe's stores we go to are sold out, like the Rutherford Lowe's was yesterday:

Keep your fingers crossed for me!

[NOTE: I GOT THE LIGHTS I WANTED. YAY! 07/25/07]