Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Did You Know.....

Did you know that it IS possible to get 1600 sq ft of hardwood flooring laid in 1 weekend??
Well. It is. When you have a Pack of amazing kids and an out-of-this-world amazing husband. :)

Did you know that getting woken up early, 6:30 on the Thanksgiving morning, to HH bugging you, "wake up. wake up. SHHanNan! wake up!" is not fun? well its not. especially when I am not the one making the turkey and cleaning the house and getting ready to host (that was my wonderful mother's job ;). When I asked him why he was waking me up so early, his answer was, "wanna lay some flooring?!?!?" urgh.... not really. but he was so excited. so we started laying hardwood flooring at 7:30. Thanksgiving morning...

Did you know that when you have 5 kids and one amazingly willing boyfriend (Country Boy), helping install flooring, it goes amazingly well? Well now ya do :)

And that working on said floors till 11:30 at night and then getting up in the morning and digging right in again, is exhausting, back-breaking, sore feet inducing work? Well. It is. :P

Did you know... that when the grandparents stop by to see how its going and they see Little Brother using a table saw to rip down boards and Beans and Baby Sister using the miter saw to cut boards to length and they see Little Brother using the hardwood flooring nail gun to install the floors, that Grandpa gets worried and can't watch it any longer cuz he is sure that he is going to witness one of his grand kids lose a finger or a hand or an arm. So he decides its time to go. And he is sure they will be getting a phone call at some time letting them know that they have an armless, fingerless or handless grandchild by morning. ;)

* there were NO injuries this weekend!!! PTL!

Did you know that it is possible to get 1600 sq ft of hardwood flooring installed in one weekend. AND get one bedroom primed, painted, floors installed, and sanded AND sealed in ONE weekend?? Well it is. When you have Mouth and Blue Eyes on the job :)

OH!!! And all of this is possible while having 2 extra LITTLE kidlets present (and helping out!) Blue Eyes babysat all day Friday, and K was a great little helper. She can handle a hammer tacker amazingly well for a 6 yr old. And little H's job was to look as adorable as possible, which she is a pro at as, as most 2 yr olds are :)

Did you know that when you use polyurethane on floors, then start the stove in the other room, that you can smell kerosene? Well now you do :)

Did you know that the smell of kerosene brings back memories of winter evenings when I was a little girl? When dad would get home from work, b4 he took his boots off, he would grab the tank from the little kerosene heater, go out to the shop and fill up the tank and I would hope the heater would go out because then dad would have to restart the heater and I loved the smell of the kerosene when he would get it started.... hmmmm, yep. still love that smell :)

Did you know that when trying to upload pictures to my blog and it not working, that I get very annoyed and decide that it will have to wait for another day? Urgh :P well now ya do!!!

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Did you see the GUN on his belt?!?!?

Friday night is pizza night around here. The Pack invites friends and we have homemade pizza, and the kids watch movies or play outside or hang out or help HH with work around the house. I was sick of homemade pizza quiet frankly. So we had crackers and cheese and meat and bbq meatballs and little smokies (and it taught me to rethink serving food that a house full of teenagers can make jokes about and giggle about all night), and veggies and chips and dip.

This really has nothing to do with the story I am about to tell you. I just had to throw it out there. you know. a bunch of useless information that can make you all wonder afterwards, 'what was the deal with the food?'

ok. this is how it went....

I was in the bathroom, along with Beans, Blue Eyes and Mantha, they were talking, and I was.. well. you know.
Anyway, we hear the kids in the front entry, Mouth and the boys.
shocker, I know.
This is what I overhear...

Is it broken?
um... uh huh.
crap!
whats broken?
the door.
the NEW door???
yeah.
Shanan's gonna kill me.
SHANAN???
yeah.
your worried about Shanan?
uh huh.
not (name that we shall not mention)?
no.
did you see the GUN on his belt???
he wouldn't shoot me. Shanan might kill me tho.
but the GUN... did you see the gun?!?!
yeah.
he's a BIG guy. he looks really strong.
yep.
does he get really mad?
well, what do you think? we BROKE the door!
oh. why does he have a gun?
cuz he can.

I am sitting in the bathroom. dreading going to see what happened but thinking that the kids being more scared of me than HH is kinda funny. and the whole conversation about HH's gun... Yes, I laughed to myself about it.

Finally, I face the inevitable, and check to see how bad the damage is. Its could be worse. But its not good. The frame on the brand new entry door was cracked and broken.

I didn't yell. I was quiet proud of myself.
The only thing I said was, "You can explain this to HH when he gets home". and I will admit, I added a little bit of ominous drama to my tone..

it was dead silent. Not a word was said.
Mouth burst into tears and went into my room to call HH.
She was one of the main reasons the door broke and she was gonna face up to it and get it out of the way.
She told HH what happened.
And he hung up on her.
Not good. at.all.

So the Pack and their friends sat in the living room. and did not talk.
Not a word was spoken. it was amazing.
I talked to HH on the phone. explained the situation. He calmed down. I told him about the conversation that I had overheard. about "the GUN on his belt"?!?! he chuckled ;)

When he arrived home the kids got up and helped him unload the trailer of materials for the house. And not a word was spoken. Not a single word. It was amazing.

He then grabbed his drill and tools and fixed the brand new front door. And did not say a single word to the kids. They were terrified. CB looked sick to his stomach. Beans was almost in tears. Mouth's eyes were swollen and red from crying for the last hr. Mantha was quiet. Her new BF stared at the floor. and didn't say a word. No one would look at HH.

I walked into the entry where HH was working on the door, and he looked at me, smirked, and said, "so, who died?" I giggled and we snuck into the other room to laugh about it in secret.

He then walked thru the living room, into the bedroom, monkeyed around with stuff. Called Mouth in there. then all of a sudden you hear a "BANG!!" The boys in the living room freak out. They figure they are next. ;)

Then HH walks out of the bedroom, stands next to the couch, looks at everyone and says, "Who died??" Beans burst into tears. CB looks ready to bolt. The new BF is white as a ghost. the other kids don't make a sound. Beans is sobbing as she gets up, hits HH and yells at him for being so mean.

Then in all seriousness HH talked to all the kids and told them that he was able to fix the door, and he understands that it was an accident. BUT we have all worked hard at getting the house looking like it does. and he WILL NOT have kids breaking the things that we have worked so hard to do.

He pulled CB and Beans aside and talked to them privately, as they were the oldest and they were the ones that were taking it so hard. CB told HH what we were all feeling, " You work all day, you have come home and work on the house till late at night. And we say "thank you" by wrecking things and making more work for you. I'm sorry. And I won't do it again."


oh, the bang the kids heard? it was Mouth and HH moving the bed and dropping it into place. ;)

Whine Whine Whine

My house is a disaster. Really and truly a disaster. And I am SO tired of it :P And I figure this is the best place for me to vent because if HH would know how truly tired I am of the mess he would feel bad that our little project has taken this long, and he would feel guilty about that, and I would NEVER want him to feel even a little bit bad about it. He is an amazing man, husband, father and provider! But my amazing man is never ever ever on my blog, so I feel safe venting here ;)

I walked thru the house this morning and looked around.... want to know what I saw? well, you're gonna hear about it anyway...

An air compressor in the living room, with a Wii nun chuck draped over it.

A sawzall (cuz it saws all!) in the schoolroom, along with a few ladders and misc boxes of screws, paint, flooring... oh! and about 20 sheets of louane flooring leaning against my (freshly) painted walls. And 2 new doors, still in their boxes, that I have to skirt around to get into my bedroom. Another air compressor is in the schoolroom, this one has a pair of pajama pants draped over it.

*The jammie pants are green. 1000 useless points to whoever can guess who they belong to*

In the kitchen I see 2 drills on my kitchen table (HH took the other one to work with him), a HUGE box of screws under one of the kitchen chairs, 2 battery chargers plugged in on my kitchen counter. a couple hammers, screwdrivers, a carpet knife and a crockpot with tonights supper in it, all sharing space on my counter.

I spy a bucket of drywall compound in my front entry and a bucket of drywall tools in my one and only bathroom :)

I can see a pile of orange hats, coats, and pants draped over my teachers desk in the front entry, along with a few hunting knives and a handfull of 20 gauge shells rolling around.

As I walked to the van to go get Little Em from preschool, I had to skirt around a ladder with a deer carcass hanging from it.

Welcome to my world. A house under construction is not a fun thing. "It WILL be worth it all!!!" when my HH can come home from work and sit down and we can watch a movie together. And we aren't tripping over tools and air compressors and extension cords. And he can relax again. And in the spring when the roof doesn't leak, it will be worth it all :)

Blue Eyes is putting the 3rd coat of paint on the kitchen walls. And Mouth is going to be starting on the ceiling in our bedroom this afternoon. And tonight we will be installing those 2 new doors and putting some more of that louann sheeting down to get things prepped for that hardwood flooring that i have been dreaming about....

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Things are getting done around here (finally)!!

Not that things haven't been getting done. HH has been amazing at getting things done around here. I feel kinda bad for him. He's exhausted. Every night, he gets home from working all day, and brings his tool belt in and gets things done around here till he falls into bed around midnight. This week he has finished all the mudding, taping and texturing. He's taking a couple days off to go deer hunting with Little Brother. But last night, as we were laying in bed, he tells me, "Man I hope we fill out on Thursday. Then I take the rest of the weekend and get things finished up around here." He's pretty amazing. And I love him. A LOT.

Last weekend HH and I drove to the big big city to pick up our flooring. Lets just say that 1700 sq feet of hardwood flooring ends up being more than we envisioned. The nice guy at LLs brings it out to the trailer on a forklift. There was a LOT of wood on that forklift. A. Lot. We get it all into HH's enclosed trailer. The tires were starting to squat pretty good. We finished loading it all up. As we were leaving, the nice, informative, young man that helped us load the trailer comes over to my window and says, "Oh, I thought you might like to know, the manifest says that its 4100 lbs of flooring that you got into that trailer".

Yeah. I think we could have done without that little tidbit of information. Thank you very much.

So we decide it would be best if we bypassed the major highways and byways and take roads a little less traveled. That way we wouldn't have a ton of people mad at us for driving 45-50 mph, (I'm being generous here.) pulling that loaded down trailer.

So we are kinda trying to figure out back roads as we go (ie. following our noses). We come up to a detour sign. Hmmmm. Detour.... HH informs me we can "probably" make it thru. So he doesn't take the detour.

*Fun Fact~ HH NEVER believes those detour signs. Ever. I cannot tell you how many times we have had to turn around and go back and follow the signs. ;)

Anywho.... I just giggled and shook my head. And we keep going. As we are driving he mentions, "the only way we wouldn't be able to get thru is if there was a bridge out or something like that".
I look up ahead and ask him if they would use a large crane if a bridge was out...
"yeah, they would. Why?"
oh, no reason. just that the really big crane up there looks kinda big for this little road doesn't it?
then I start laughing. uncontrollably. Just our luck. Don't ya think? lolz :)
Yep. The bridge was out. and we had to turn around. and go back. and follow those silly little detour signs. And I laughed.
And it only took us almost 6 hrs to make, what would usually be, a 2 hr trip.

HH's stitches came out. And the cut split open again. Gaping. And he never covers it up. And his job doesn't really encourage keeping a wound like that clean. And it oozes. All. day. long. And the Dr said there is no point in restitching it. Cuz HH will not let it heal. And it will just keep getting broke back open. So last night he was texturing the ceilings. And he dropped something in the bucket of watered down mud, so he dunks his hand in the bucket of watered down mud to grab whatever it was that he dropped. But he HAD to use his bad hand (of course). And last night (really it was this morning, cuz he finally finished up texturing around midnight, then we had to get things cleaned and put away so we could sleep in our bed), anywho, too many details maybe? ok. So all night (morning) he is complaining about his hand whenever he bumps it in his sleep, "ouch!" *groan*moan*whine*grumble*. and we get up this morning and his hand is back to being swollen and red and inflamed and and and... yuck. *sigh* (that's all I can do. he doesn't listen to me when I tell him to take care of himself).

The Pack and I, (hows that for proper grammar, such a big, bad, homeschooling mom that I am ;) have been priming and painting and getting things done around here :) The addition is painted! The livingroom ceiling is primed and painted! The kitchen ceiling is getting primed right now. Painting to be done later today. :) Then tomorrow, on to the walls!!! yay!!!!

We, the girls and I, are hoping to get ALL the painting done before Friday. Really, that means we have today and tomorrow to get it all done. I think its doable. Maybe. If everyone has a good attitude... yeah. I'll keep you posted on that one.

Well I had better get back to painting. And priming. And laundry. And cleaning. And school. And And And.... *sigh* I can't wait till my house is back to normal....