What more could I ask for?
Year: 2008 (Page 4 of 6)
Shortly after the last post about my camera, it gave up the ghost. I pulled the screwdrivers out of hiding and gave it to Mike to see if he could work a miracle. He was unable to get the problem area open. When my programmer found out about the operation, he was perplexed at why we hadn’t invited him to use his masterful skills. It’s been sitting on his desk in pieces for a couple of weeks now. Maybe I should have tried e-bay before breaking out the screwdrivers.
After much research my sweet husband picked out this new camera for me. Happy Birthday to me. It’s pretty cool. I included a review in the link above. It’s a Sony Cyber Shot H50. My friend in Birmingham bought one recently and really likes it. It has some pretty cool features and seems pretty easy to use. My two favorite features so far are that you can set it to take many shots in a row and you can set it to wait for the person to smile before it shoots. It’s bigger than my old camera (defiantly not pocket sized) but takes better pictures so far.
So how do you like it?
I love the hight of the new counter. It makes my bathroom counter seem so low, though.
I had to add in the decorative mint green tiles to make up for tub being half an inch shorter than my old tub. Thanks, Dad, for the suggestion. They match my towels perfectly.
Courtney asked what color floor tiles we used. We got them at Lowes.
New light fixture, a place to hang our hand towels, and drawer space for the kids. The new paper holder wasn’t the exact one in the set but it cost $10 less and I liked it more. No bleach products are allowed on the solid surface counter top. If it gets a stain, you’re supposed to sand it out. I am a little nervous about that.
Finally enough places to hang the kids’ towels. I used scrapbook paper for the art.
I tiled and painted the hall, too. It’s laminate wood floors were water damaged earlier this year. Everyone says it looks wider now (in person). The walls needed repainting. I used left over paint from the kitchen/music room. Blank wall to the right is where my family and friends colleges are going after our trip to MoRanch.
Our front entry way is brick. A lot of the older entry ways here have it. New tile goes down the hall and laminate wood floor goes into my living room. We’re versatile.
Working in a little bathroom 6 days a week for the last month started to feel like solitary confinement.
I started looking pretty ragged, too.
I missed learning with the kids in school. I missed talking to people. I missed enjoying my nice little clean house which wasn’t clean any longer.
I was very thankful for my wet saw.
After a couple of weeks of thinking, “I’ll finish by the end of this week.” I finally got my ipod out and sung my heart out while tiling.
One cool thing about doing your own remodeling is uncovering the history of your house. I found this wallpaper in one of the moldy walls.
I loved tiling the floor. It went faster than anything else.
This fan was my most valuable tool for survival.
Mike was able to help me get started on the tile one Saturday.
I learned this cool trick on YouTube on how to measure the cuts you need for the edges of the room. I cut this piece of card board to the size I needed and used it like the YouTube video tool linked above.
One of the very last things that we had to do was put in the new bath tub fixtures. Mike started working on it one night after work. Once we got it partially together, we discovered that we had no cold water. It looked like we were going to have to tear out the tile to turn on the cold water valve inside the wall.
It was unthinkable to me. I was so tired. I didn’t want to add on another 3 or 4 days of work. I asked for time to think. Finally about an hour later I had the thought that it would be easier to get at the pluming from the living room wall and patch that wall than to have to retile. So we measured the distance from the wall to the pluming and found this air conditioner vent..
which was really a disguise for an access to the tub plumbing. Hurray! I was so relieved. Especially when we discovered it wasn’t the wall valve at all it was different part that needed loosened up. I would have been so upset. Thank You, Jesus for the inspired wall idea.
I liked this song by Brandon Heath so much that I had my programmer set up a player for me.
Here are the lyrics:
Looked down from a broken sky
Traced out by the city lights
My world from a mile high
Best seat in the house tonight
Touched down on the cold black tile
Hold on for the sudden stop
Breath in the familiar shock
Of confusion and chaos
Are those people going somewhere?
Why have I never cared?
Chorus
Give me your eyes for just one second
Give me your eyes so I can see
Everything that I keep missing
Give me your love for humanity
Give me your arms for the broken hearted
The ones that are far beyond my reach
Give me your heart for the once forgotten
Give me your eyes so I can see
yeah .. yeah .. yeah .. yeah
Step out on a busy street
See a girl and our eyes meet
Does her best to smile at me
To hide whats underneath
There’s a man just to her right
Black suit and a bright red tie
To ashamed to tell his wife
He’s out of work
He’s buying time
Are those people going somewhere?
Why have I never cared?
Chorus
Give me your eyes for just one second
Give me your eyes so I can see
Everything that I keep missing
Give me your love for humanity
Give me your arms for the broken hearted
The ones that are far beyond my reach
Give me your heart for the once forgotten
Give me your eyes so I can see
yeah .. yeah .. yeah .. yeah
I’ve been there a million times
A couple of million eyes
Just moving past me by
I swear I never thought that I was wrong
Well I want a second glance
So give me a second chance
To see the way you see the people all alone
Chorus (x2)
Traced out by the city lights
My world from a mile high
Best seat in the house tonight
Touched down on the cold black tile
Hold on for the sudden stop
Breath in the familiar shock
Of confusion and chaos
Are those people going somewhere?
Why have I never cared?
Chorus
Give me your eyes for just one second
Give me your eyes so I can see
Everything that I keep missing
Give me your love for humanity
Give me your arms for the broken hearted
The ones that are far beyond my reach
Give me your heart for the once forgotten
Give me your eyes so I can see
yeah .. yeah .. yeah .. yeah
Step out on a busy street
See a girl and our eyes meet
Does her best to smile at me
To hide whats underneath
There’s a man just to her right
Black suit and a bright red tie
To ashamed to tell his wife
He’s out of work
He’s buying time
Are those people going somewhere?
Why have I never cared?
Chorus
Give me your eyes for just one second
Give me your eyes so I can see
Everything that I keep missing
Give me your love for humanity
Give me your arms for the broken hearted
The ones that are far beyond my reach
Give me your heart for the once forgotten
Give me your eyes so I can see
yeah .. yeah .. yeah .. yeah
I’ve been there a million times
A couple of million eyes
Just moving past me by
I swear I never thought that I was wrong
Well I want a second glance
So give me a second chance
To see the way you see the people all alone
Chorus (x2)
Hair cut day at our house was long over due. Two of the boys have decided to grow their hair out. I don’t make an issue out of it. It’s their hair and less hair cuts for me. I do let them know that not everybody is as understanding as me and they may have to cut their hair one day to get a job.
My programmer has been asking me for weeks to cut his hair. He doesn’t like it in his eyes. I think the shaggy look is kinda cute on him. This is probably the longest it’s ever been.
Princess J took lots of photos of me cutting his hair. This is the best we could do. My programmer was playing camera shy and had his hand in front of his face most of the time.
I am using a Robo Cutter (link above). It’s a cutting blade that hooks up to the vacuum hose. I was a little chicken about using my electric clippers and when the boys were little because they wiggled too much. After I clipped a couple of ears with the scissors we decided to get the Robo Cutter to make everything easier. No more itchy hair on their clothes and it’s wiggle proof.
We invested $50 for for the Robo Cutter 15 or so years ago and I’ve only had to replace the blades twice. Do you know what 15 years times 12 months times 5 boys times only $10 a hair cut equals? $9,000. Can you believe such a simple thing can save you so much money? I’ve even used it on myself a few times.
Ta da. The after picture.
Back to the bathroom.
Love,
Jenny
We have been doing school through the summer to make up the time we took off for the move. We have pretty much always schooled year round. It’s easier than restarting after a long summer break. Something always interrupts our schedule, so I plan to school everyday then when something comes up I can take off for it and just trust that it will all work out in the end and it usually does.
I had one small project that I was needing to get to this summer. There were a few loose tile in the kid’s bathroom and it was smelling moldy in there. My plan was that while the two go-go kids were at youth camp, I would replace a few tile.
Monday morning I started on the tile. I found a leak behind the tile. It was in the connection from the pipe to the spout. Easy enough to fix with some plumber’s tape but I had to take out quite a few tile where the water had been soaking the drywall.
Mike came home and saw how many tile I had to take out and said something like.. “Wow, look how easy it would be to pull out the tub now.” The tub coating had been scoured out and there was a couple of rusty spots in it.
I called around and try to find someone to come repaint it. I wasn’t too happy with the paint job we had done in FL. I was unable to reach anyone and they never called me back.
I asked Mike several times if he was sure he wanted to take out the tub. We had never replaced a tub before. It was a little scary to me, but we still had two boys at home that could help with the brute strength we needed.
I thought for a long time and tried to remember how sore I get when doing big projects like this. I wanted to remember and talk myself out of agreeing to do it, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember. It must be like forgetting the pain of child birth. Boy did I remember a day or two later.
In order to get the tub out we had to take out the toilet and part of the wall. I didn’t mind too much because a lot of it and some of the wood behind it had been damaged by the leak anyway. The boys looked up a video on YouTube to learn how to take out the toilet.
We decided to take out the vanity while we were at it. It had been previously damaged by a different leak and the sink/counter top was ugly. This is what we found behind it.
I am so glad we were able to find and get rid of it all. It smells so much better in there now.
Ta da. We have a new tub. It wasn’t easy but we finally got it.
No more mold. Yeah! I bought a sheet of the new mold resistant dry wall. I discovered a new tool through YouTube, too. A dry wall saw. It’s pretty nifty.
Wall destroyed and all we decided to strip the painted/bubbling wall paper. This was the worst part of the whole project so far. A bunch of the drywall paper came off with it. Made a huge mess. I am not good with joint compound and if I never have to skim another wall, I will be so happy. It took me days and days of skimming and sanding.
Our lowest day was the day that Mike decided to try and take out the old tub faucet handle. It was so corroded that the valve broke off and we had to call a plumber. Our plumbing is so out dated that he had to replace a whole big part. Sweating pipes is a little out of our league. The new plumbing is pressurized. When someone flushes the toilet it won’t change the temperature of your shower. Pretty cool. Right?
A floor tile popped out while replacing the tub, so we decided to pay the boys take it out. It was cracked and we were needing to replace the laminate flooring in the hall, too because of an air conditioner drain leak that we had a the beginning of the summer that warped the boards. One boy went a little crazy with the hammer and did this to my bran new tub. 🙁
We told him that for his penance that he had to re-enact the crime for my blog. This is his interpretation of an re-enactment. He said he wanted to add to the drama but I think wanted to remain nameless.
See my blue walls? We are working on tile now.
J
Our pool has been this nice shade of green most of the summer, pretty much ever since we switched to a salt system in April. Mike was able to get it clear for about two days twice.
The salt system is supposed to be easier to care for. All the chemicals are right.
We’re about ready to look up that pool guy’s number.
In the mean time, Princess J would like to invite you to our backyard tub swimming party.
🙂
We decided to start light and do a Super Man Bible study.
Mike and our youth pastor, Jon. I forgot to get a picture of his lovely wife, Jennifer.
Two of their three kids.
Fun in the pool.
Safety in a floaty.
Or maybe not so safe.
Making waves.
Watch out!
Got ya.
See the shadow around the top edges? The lens snapped out of place.
If I bang it around a little, this is as centered as I can get it.
I hid the screwdrivers from Mike and my Computer Programmer. They both couldn’t wait to get at it. That brings up another hard thing about moving so often.. you never get to know where the honest local camera shop, or car shop, or plumber, pool guy, etc. is.
Picture taking and I are not getting along too well. I forget to bring my camera. I forget to get it out. I am not patient enough or have enough room in my brain to learn how to use the camera properly. I am shy. I don’t like to get in people’s faces, so I don’t take the time to get a good picture.. Then my kids are always ducking out of and running away from the camera. I leave the camera at a friend’s house. I drop and break the camera.
Blogging has motivated me to battle the dragon and take more pictures. Thanks for getting me into it.
Jenny
