Through Every Season

Month: July 2008

Hair Cut Day

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

A few loose tile

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

Tub Party Tonight



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.  
🙂

Youth Small Group

 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.

My Camera

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

A Week in Huntsville

Mike had a class in Huntsville the last week of June.  Our Pizza Maker stayed home alone to make pizzas and to register for college but the rest of us got to go with him for a week’s vacation.  I have two friends from my Charlotte Mason group in FL that moved to AL before me.  LeeAnn and her family who live right outside of Huntsville and Terri and her family who live in Birmingham.

Terri’s the one with the camera and LeeAnn is in green.  
I emailed my friends a couple of weeks before our trip to see if I could see them there.  They more than obliged.  Terri’s sweet husband, Kent, worked it out so that he was able to work in Huntsville the same week that we were there and stayed at the same hotel as us.  Then LeeAnn and her husband had us over for a cook out and swimming and told us all the best places to visit and went to some of them with us.  We all had a blast.
LeeAnn has a beautiful home with extra rooms she hopes to fill with children from China.  
Here are three of our boys.. the one on the left belongs to LeeAnn and Chuck, my Computer Programer, and Terri and Kent’s son, who is shooting up like a weed.

This is Terri’s little girl.  She and our Programmer are great friends.

Can’t go to Huntsville and not visit the Space and Rocket Center.
We got an extra special treat and saw some Army guys sing and dance in the opening ceremonies of a covenate signing.  I left my camera at LeeAnn’s and didn’t get a picture.  🙁  Chuck brought it up to me later that morning.  🙂

The Space and Rocket Center was OK.  We went on a good day.  It wasn’t too crowed.  
The kids zoomed by most of the displays and went straight for the rides and rock climbing wall.  
Needless to say, I don’t think we have any future Astronauts in the bunch.  
It was Terri’s little girl’s first try at rock climbing.  
She was very persistent and conquered the wall after several very good tries.  
I think the highlight of the Space and Rocket Center was the hats we found in the gift shop.
So many hats and so little time.
Are our hats making you hungry as an alligator?  We were.
We had to get one classic picture in before lunch.
And one of the mommies.
That night after the husbands got off work we all went to our favorite restaurant, Red Robin.  
They have the best burgers and shakes ever.  We had the greatest time talking about things 
we could do and see together in the future;  rent a house boat, go camping… 
It was located in one of the coolest shopping centers I’ve ever been to.  
It’s like Down Town Disney.  They even had a Apple Store.
The next morning we had some Mommie time and coffee at a huge sale at B&N. 
Then took the kids up to a living history museum on top of a mountain called Burritt on the Mount.  
We met some really cool docents.  One thing that we learned was that the girls bedroom was always up stairs in the loft.  You had to walk through the parents bed room to get to loft.  Nifty.  Right?
If you’ve noticed that these aren’t my pictures, it’s because I dropped and broke my camera the night before.  🙁  I am still recovering from the devastation.  I did learn a secret way to get it to turn on.  More details later.  From what I learned on line it will cost almost as much to repair it as it will to buy a new one.  🙁
I am leaving out so many details from our trip.. the first good Mexican food we’ve had since moving to AL at Rosie’s Mexican Cantina, hanging out at the pool, shopping for shoes, the Harrison Brothers’ Hardware store, accidentally finding the corn fields (streets should have only one name) then having my Mathematician pipe up from the back “Our hotel is just a little ways down that away.”, free breakfast and snack time at the hotel… it was a great adventure and we had a great time.
Love you all,
Jenny
 

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