Word of the Day

CABINETS!

OH, I COULD GO ON...DON'T DARE ME!

I plan on using my future lotto winnings for MORE CABINETRY!

BWAH-HA-HA-HA!!!!

And the Winner Is....

ME!

I have three certificates that say so...

(Obviously, none of them are in Photography!)

Melee' got a certificate for the A honor roll and a gold certificate for having three commended performances on his three TAKS tests.

Peach got an All-Star certificate for Improvement in reading.

And John, not only got his Jr. High "Diploma" he received a certificate for four commended performances on his four TAKS tests.

Overall, I'd say our transition to new schools went well. The kids were very happy with their new friends and as much they are glad that school is over, they had a lot of fun at their end of the year parties.

YEAH! SUMMERTIME!

The countdown to the first summer blow-up begins...

yo peeps

yo peeps, this has been a patented john moment

Three Day Weekends are For Catching Up on Laundry, Right?

It's getting crunch time. We've got four more days of school and then we leave for my neice's wedding in Florida the next week. Melee' has fifth grade fieldtrip to The Ballpark at Arlington, we have fifth grade graduation, eighth grade graduation, after parties, field days, laundry, laundry, and more laundry. It doesn't matter how many loads of laundry I do, I'm always behind. I've pretty much got everybody ready for the wedding, except for Charlie who's needs to go shopping for shoes and such. (But who would evidently rather put a hot poker in his eye.)



I'm looking forward to traveling, but we've never gone on a trip like this before. Can you imagine how pleased the passengers sitting around us will be? I imagine there will be sighing and eye-rolling involved. And that's if all goes well. Evidently someone told the Little's that they have to take their shoes off at the airport, and I may or may-not have told them that that's because they're checking for bombs in the shoes, I also told them that they check for stinky feet, hairy toes and toe jam. I was hoping to get them distracted from the fact that I told them about the bombs in the shoes. There is now a very real possibility that we may be detained by security.



No progress was made on the house at the end of the week. We were hoping that they were going to be doing texture on Friday and Saturday but no one came. I don't know who they think they are taking a long weekend!


As requested, this is a picture of our granite. The one on the left is Charlie's choice, the one on the right is my choice. The large tile on the bottom is the floor tile and the other two tiles are backsplash options. See the thing is, I like the black granite, but I think a) it's too much like what everybody else has and b) if I do really dark cabinetry, the overall look of the kitchen will be too dark c) if I go with the lighter ghibli granite, I can do some kind of black accent in the backsplash. Not that any of this matters. I just wanted ya'll to know why I'm right.

Dum, da, Dum, Dum...

Dum, da, Dumpsters GONE!!

I love a good outline on my color pages, and my house too!
They finished the trim on the house, and since they had a bulldozer out working on a couple of foundations in the neighborhood, they brought it over and cleaned up the yard. This is the first time we've been able to see the house from the front without the giant trashcan in the way! They had also mowed down the grass so I made the mistake of walking around the house with my flip-flops on to take these pictures and the stickers are fierce! Two acres of stickers ya'll. And it's so freaky, when you walk on the dirt that just got dozed, the whole ground moves, it's like a slow motion trampoline. I'm hoping the sun resolves some of those issues, I definitely don't want the driveway to be flexible!

Where a Sunshiny Day equals Bauhaus Buff

The painters are here! You'll hardly be able to tell what they've done, because the raw color of the siding was very close to the color I chose. Bauhaus Buff from Sherwin Williams. Because you need to know the exact right shade to paint your house when you want to match Austin Stone. You'll be able to see a little more difference when they get the trim work painted, it's going to be something Sable if I remember correctly. The cedar columns are going to be stained a similarly dark brown. I got to order the garage doors yesterday and they are going to be sweet! I was even able to get them with some windows at the top. (In the budget, thank you very much.)

This is what we have picked out for tile .. the small 1x1's are the decorative element for the master bathroom and the
12 x 12 is the tile that will go in the shower and in the small bathrooms as well as the utility room and the pantry. We chose the same color in a 16 x 16 for the entryway, hallways and kitchen.
Today we went to Home Depot today and bought white 2" faux wood blinds for the TWENTY windows in the house. OUCH! And then I still have two "french doors" that I did not buy with the integrated blinds and now I don't know what I'm gonna do with them.

And this, my friends...
Is why I typically don't add pictures of the two knuckleheads on the blog. This is their makeshift lounge, note the T.V. perched on a U-Haul box (classy, eh?). When I took the picture they both got really mad at me. John said, if it shows up on my web log, he's going to sue. I tried to get a shot of them wrestling, but they're very good at sensing when I'm near, as I usually sneak up on them so I can sort out which one started it and needs a time out. Melee' is the one with the pale stems and John has his first sunburn of the season, which by tomorrow will be a toasty brown.

Melee' and I are freckled haters.

Watch out for the Nails...

The house is coming along. Brick is done! They're working on taping and bedding this week, next week texture. It's quickly getting down to the finish details. I haven't been keeping up with the pictures or the blog.

We're mostly on time according to the newest schedule except for the exterior paint. And of course the weather is not cooperating in that area. We had rain all day today and we may have more tonight.

Ace took some pictures the last time we were out at the house. This is my daily job of going out to the house and stocking the cooler with cokes and water. Mr. Cooper thinks I'm spoiling the workers, but I'm getting good results, and it gives me an excuse to go out and check the progress everyday. We stepped on our first nail this week and of course it was Ace. Thankfully he is current on his tetnus booster.

We're winding down at school, so everybody has a lot of end of the year activities going on right now. Including an end of the year band concert Monday night which was a lot of fun. Melee' signed up for the talent show at his Intermediate School, I had to ask him what he was doing for his talent. And he said "Well, playing the piano, of course!" Of course. I had forgotten Charlie had taught him the Intro to Journey's "Faithfully". :) Well, at least I have one brave child. He said he might also play the Peanuts song his dad taught him. I think he knows about four bars of that one.

Jokes. 'Cause You Guys Make Me Smile

This first joke was sent to us from a friend that thought we could appreciate some house building humor....

Here's a truly heartwarming story about the bond formed between a little 5-year-old girl and some construction workers that will make you believe that we all can make a difference when we give a child the gift of our time. A young family moved into a house, next to a vacant lot. One day, a construction crew turned up to start building a house on the empty lot. The young family's 5-year-old daughter naturally took an interest in all the activity going on next door and spent much of each day observing the workers. Eventually the construction crew, all of them 'gems-in-the-rough', more or less, adopted her as a kind of project mascot. They chatted with her, let her sit with them while they had coffee and lunch breaks, and gave her little jobs to do here and there to make her feel important. At the end of the first week, they even presented her with a pay envelope containing ten dollars. The little girl took this home to her mother who suggested that she take her ten dollars 'pay' she'd received to the bank the next day to start a savings account. When the girl and her mom got to the bank, the teller was equally impressed and asked the little girl how she had come by her very own pay check at such a young age. The little girl proudly replied, 'I worked last week with a real construction crew building the new house next door to us.' 'Oh my goodness gracious,' said the teller, 'and will you be working on the house again this week, too?' The little girl replied, 'I will, if those assholes at Lowe's ever deliver the fuckin' sheet rock...' Kind of brings a tear to the eye - doesn't it?

Then Sunday Father Selverage told this one at Church. Father is from India, and he likes to tell the occasional joke, sometimes they're funny, sometimes it's just funny because sometimes you can understand him and sometimes you can't...

There were three very devout members of the congregation, members of theKnights of Colombus, that died in a tragic accident. Because of their many good works they were sent straight to the gates of heaven where they met St. Peter. St. Peter was distressed because he did not have their rooms ready and he had no place for these fine men. So St. Peter called Lucifer and asked if there was any way that he could accomadate these guys for the next few days until there rooms were ready. Lucifer said "No problem." and took the men down. The next day, Lucifer showed up at the gates of heaven and said to St. Peter "You have to take these men back right away!" St Peter had a grin on his face and was very amused, "They're good men aren't they?" he said, "Have they been down there trying to spread the Gospel?" "NO!" said Lucifer, "They're playing Bingo and raising funds to air condition the place!"

HOLY SHEETROCK BATMAN!

View from the family room into the kitchen.

View from the family room, to the left is the hallway that leads to Ace's room and the entry, to the right is the arch that leads to the staircase on the left or straight to to the main living room

The family room with the wood burning fireplace. Sadly, budgetary demands have caused me to eliminate the bookcases on each side.

View from the family room/eat in kitchen, to the hallway with the pantry, powder bath and out to the garage.

Upstairs in the bonus room.

All's Good in the Hood

We were in the news today.

This morning, Charlie took the kids to school today. I was scurrying around the house trying to get ready as we were headed to Tyler to choose tile. When he got back it had started to sprinkle and by the time he got Ace's shoes on and got to the front door, it was pouring. I ran back into the house and grabbed Peaches "Hello Kitty" umbrella and stepped back out it was dark and the wind was whipping all around as I tried to wrestle the booster seat out of the suburban and into Charlie's car and then I forgot to grab the color sample wheel and by the time I jumped into the front seat, the Hello Kitty umbrella was toast and I was soaked. We went over to the Sonic for our daily dose of caffiene and then we headed up 64 toward Tyler. About five minutes later we hear on the radio that there had been a tornado reported in Canton.

Turns out it hit about four blocks from the "Dog House", where we're staying. This weekend is First Monday Weekend and it hit right at the main entrance. A couple of minor injuries, a few overturned tables and one overturned R.V.

Of course as we sat at the Sonic waiting for the three Dr. Peppers to arrive the storm went on down the road. Highway 64 to be exact. Yep, we followed the storm, ran into the storm and then after a very tense 10 minutes (or at least it was tense for me) we came out on the other side. We got to the tile store, just in time to hear the tornado sirens going off in Tyler. I think Tyler made it through unscathed.

We picked our tile. We went out and had lunch. And then drove back to Canton to a beautiful sunny day with First Monday bustling as usual. We finished the day at Melee's first game of a baseball tournament. Whew, what a day!