Your Stories Are Needed

Going into this weekend, we are starting to think about the other part of the house - the yard. It's a tough thing for me for a couple of reasons. First this was Leslie's favorite part of winter - the end. Although she loved to ski in the mountains and bringing cups of hot cocoa as I shoveled the driveway by hand, she loved watching out the window as the barren earth began to pop with tiny green sprouts and early season color. This very large yard was yet to have been discussed in any great detail, so I'm flying blind a bit.

At our last house, we went to a local nursery that created a plan for us free of charge as long as we bought materials and plants from them, which we were more than happy to do. That taught us a lot about zoning, bed height, variation, timing among other things besides just giving us a color-by-numbers plan for our yard. we took it and used it more as a guideline and created a beautiful yard that we loved to spend time in. It was funny, we would see an area that was 'barren' of grass and would usually say, Let's turn that into a flower bed. Of what? we'd ask. I don't know, we'll figure it out as we go. We need this or that in that part of the yard, let's do that. And we would, it was great to be able to talk through the smaller details of how to take a barren, unproductive part of land and make it into something beautiful. It also meant I had less to mow ;-) Leslie always had a glimmer in her eye as she spoke of flowers or landscaping. She had spent a couple of summers in college working for a company and learned alot and loved to bring that knowledge to our yard. It was great because she wasn't afraid to get mud under her nails (she'd use it as an excuse to have a manicure later) and saw the benefit of short term dirtiness for long term beauty. There's something to be said to walking through your yard and having a story for almost every bush, flower or plant and being proud of that finished work.

One great story, then I'll let you go. When we first moved in to the last house there wre 8 foot hedges that were partially blocking the solarium windows because they had grown so out of control. In the new plan, they needed to come out and were to be replaced by smaller, more ornamental bushes. Leslie helped trim off the branches and put them into bags, then went inside the house. It was the usual Iowa summer in July -90 and humid as hades. I tore into the roots that seemed to be 3x the size as the bush above ground. I was 5 feet below surface, cursing the bush, the weather, the too small of a hole, the heavy shovel, Leslie... hey where'd she go again?! I was about to start crabbing about doing this alone, when suddenly Leslie appears with a huge, ice-cold, glass glistening cup of lemonade. Followed by, "Wow, you're doing great Honey." Man she was the greatest. That was a good day.

As I've shared here, please share yours with me. They certainly don't need to be posts here, but please do take a moment and write a "Leslie story" down and send it to me. Via email, snail mail, whatever, We're trying to collect stories for Ellie so that she knows her mom in a greater sense than I can give her alone. Some have said they're waiting to write a couple at a time and haven't found time yet - don't write the first today and send it. You may find it starts to flow after the first one. Anything at all, the most ''everyday' stories, the most outrageous stories, send them all. I love to know about my wife too from stories I may not have been around to see. Inevitably, if I was there it jogs memories I've even forgotten - and that's scary. Please, take a moment to remember, then write, then send, it would mean the world to me. Take care.

The Walls Are Cumbling-Seriously

Well crumbling is a bit of a stretch, unfortunately not too much of a stretch. This weekend we finally came across one of those moments that everyone 'expects' to go wrong and roll your eyes at when talking about them. We were trying to complete the header installation in the house so that all rooms and remodeling would be complete. This led to the 'easiest' of widening of the existing opening to the eat-in area of the kitchen that will expand the kitchen to double its size (roughly 11x22 in the end). About three minutes into the project and cutting the mortar that held the existing bricks in place, it all started coming down, literally.

Whoever thought a brick facade of brick on a balloon framed house would ever be an issue when the rest of the house is as solid as a rock? But when an addition that was put on the house 70 years ago and was only tied into the brick facade, and then the foundation shifts, the brick facade is not going to hold, period. If you don't believe me, I am more than happy to show you the wall that left us scratching our heads for the better portion of a Saturday.

Needless to say men wielding sledgehammers and concrete saws were made to trade in those for chisels and support blocks - and the homeowner was now breathing down their necks watching closely as the walls literally swayed as someone would touch the support beam. We got through it and are thinking we have a solution that will make the outside walls as solid for the next 90 years as they were for the first 90 (although prayers for insight and careful hands would be appreciated).

This leads to the discussion of needing the foundation of the eat-in area of the kitchen. Another project to add to the list that needs to be completed before Ellie and I can move in. To this point I've been blessed to not to have found the mysteries/catastrophes that are often hidden in the walls of old houses. If this is the worst that happens, Leslie and I spent our time well researching and having contractors going through before pulling the trigger, and the Lord has continued to guide me in a blessed life and gives me only what I can handle. That old saying that the Lord only gives you what you can handle, may be true, I just wish He didn't trust me so much. Honestly, though I think it's not that he trusts me, rather I think he wanted me to realize the great support network I have of family, friends, church, my faith and even this blog. I see that although I may be a strong person, it is this network that gets me through the times when I'm not. It's hard to always keep this perspective, but it is one that I try to keep in the forefront during those rough moments.

Back to the house breifly before I sign off. We are moving forward with the installation of the wiring, the HVAC and starting the plumbing. A great moment on asmall scale is that the plumber acting as my guide, asked the inspector about the bathroom on the first floor that didn't quite meet code, that I thought I might have to redo 'secretly' at a later time' will actually be able to be refinished at the same time as everything else without problems! So when you come over for dinner you won't have to go upstairs to powder your nose! Just a little note of praise. More details to come, hope you come back soon.


P.S. feel free to leave messages as it's nice to hear feedback of things that are meaningful or just that you're doing okay and all things are well with you and yours. or leave a message at the below email.

obywan73@yahoo.com

We Interupt This Program...

Sorry for the delay once again for two weeks as I have taken a short sabbatical to the beautiful islands of Hawaii, Kauai to be specific. Needless to say, not much has been accomplished on the house over the past two Saturdays as I have been traveling with a two year old on a plane. One way by myself (the return flight) and the other with my sister-in-law and her boyfriend. Man I am truly blessed to have such a well behaved little girl that likes to make friends with everyone, usually stating conversation with a very excited, "Hi!".

I went with Leslie's family on the vacation they had been planning since June of last year. I wasn't originally supposed to go as this is THE busiest time of the year for me at work, but life changes and sometimes schedules need to be rethought. I stayed up all night on the 9th trying to get things tidied up at work and then left in the early a.m. on Saturday to the bright sunny paradise of our 50th state. It truly was a land of beauty, sunshine and when I would allow myself, relaxation.


I'll be honest, vacations for me for a while are not going to be what most people experience. You see, Leslie and I worked so we could go on vacation, plain and simple. In the five years of being together we went to a lot of great places that I never thought I'd see and I was able to share every one of them with the love of my life. It was amazing to go some place and have every moment be better than the last. Our home is filled with token items of the places we visited, a vase here, a crystal bowl there, a mirror over there. All things that remind me of the great vacations, and the great moments of learning more about the person I married as well as about myself. Vacations are funny sometimes that if you have the time to slow down and reflect, you find answers to things you didn't realize there was even a question for.

This is not to say I didn't enjoy myself or have a great time with the Van Hemerts, honestly it's quite the opposite. Heck, I got to play two rounds of golf at an AWESOME course and got to go mountain hiking and sat by the pool and ate way too much as well as kayakling down a moutain-fed river and swinging from a tree swing. I think going on this vacation has continued to force me forward in facing the hard reality I live in and all of the facets of that reality will continue to bring in the years to come. There were moments of laughter and kidding around as well as moments where I just wanted to crawl up in a corner and let the day pass me by. Hopefully the latter didn't affect the others around me too much. We had a great time overall and the weather was as beautiful as you'd hope it to be. Although we had a few mornings of rain, we never lost a whole day to bad weather, in fact we were pleasantly surprised that we were able to be out in the sun for the majority of every day (due to the forecast in the early part of the week being heavily expecting of rain).

All in all a great week for me, and I'm ready to get back to building stuff and spending money! See you all there!

P.S. If you want to see more Hawaii photos just shout!!

The Move Is On!

The time had finally come, it was time to move out of my current house last Saturday the 3rd. It kind of snuck up on me a bit as the final day of closing was always the 9th of March, but it never hit me that the 9th was a Friday - meaning that I would need to move out the weekend BEFORE. So at the last minute I recruited 10-12 people to help me move.

The two nights before the big move, I had five people each night helping me pack. Mostly family members and a freind or two to fill out the group. Everyone pretty muck worked on the main floor while I tried to push through the upstairs master bedroom. It was a lot tougher to do than I ever thought it would be. Not only had we accumulated more than I realized, but going through Leslie's things was extremely tough. It wasn't so much the clothes (after the first two to three hard cries) but more so the other small things that I really didn't know about. Things that most husbands don't know about because it's their own space and items and it's not ours to know. Anyway, a ton of memories surfaced those two nights that really made me realize all of the great times Leslie and I had together through our five years together. Hopefully over the next few months in this blog, I'll find time and appropriate situations to share some of them with you.

The day of the move I had a semi coming up from Pella, IA that was supposed to arrive around 8:00 am so I could have things ready for the crew that was to arrive around 9. As life would have it, we had some nasty weather the day or two before (6-8 inces of snow on top of freezing rain) that made travel tough, but not impossible. As it would turn out, the driver decided on his own without telling me that he'd wait until 10 am to leave Pella - making him THREE HOURS late. What do you do with 10 volunteers that come over to help you move and the damn truck doesn't show on time? You feed them pastries and pack up the tools that you thought weren't going to be touched until after the move, and you start cleaning the house. I was so upset with the driver I could almost taste it. To me, there is nothing worse than telling people you'll be ready to move at a certain time and they come over and you still aren't ready and are still packing boxes. Alltough this wasn't exactly the same, it was the same to me in my book. To the 10 people that showed up to help me move, thank you for yur patience and I'm sorry things weren't completely ready for you.

Anyway, once the truck finally showed up, we actually had everything out of the house in an hour and ten minutes. Pretty good time if you ask me. It was pretty amazing to see the help and the efficency of everyone.

All the while, Matt S and my brother were over at the new house trying to put up the remaining walls on the second floor. They got them all in with only six people as well as most of the walls on the third floor. It was crazy to have two seperate crews at different locations trying to crank out the work,while also being carefulwith my things as well as my future house. All went off without a hitch and I'm now living in the third floor room of a good friend of mine from high school.

It took until late Thursday evening for my broter and I to finally get everything out of the house until the new owner is there. It was a tough week in that it was also one of the most taxing and time consuming at work. It's very bittersweet that I have moved out of mu current house (really more bitter than sweet.

I hope that I follow through on some thoughts that I had while going through some of the photos and such, that I fill out some of the photo albums that were started and start new ones for the hhouse and other recent heappenings. Time will tell.