Sunday, lovely day of rest.

     We worked very hard in the yard and I seem to have barely touched what needs to be done.  Hubby mowed the yard and cleaned the chicken coop.  Because he had to play for a wedding he did not weed.  If his hands are tired it makes his bow bounce.  Anyway I was outside from 10 until 5:30 and I am very sore and stiff today, but it felt so good to be in the sunshine moving and stretching and seeing some results.  I would take short breaks where I would sit with my face to the sun eyes closed and sip a cold drink, just peaceful and warm.

     I told hubby he was going to have to take a few days off for us to get this work done, because the weekends are going to fill up with Nutcracker practice and other things.  He agreed.  My eyes are better and I am getting a cold. Rats!  I just hope it is gone quickly.  We went to the movie Gravity last night and I liked it.  You are on the edge of your seat the whole time and it really makes you think.  Some may not like it, but I love Sandra Bullock.  Definitely not one of her cutesy movies.

     We are watching conference for our church today via the Internet.   We are between sessions.  I purchased a really large Ham yesterday that I am going to put in the oven with acorn squash from the garden.  I will put some roll dough on to raise before the next session of conference and punch it down during the intermission.  I'm toying with a dessert, just so many things sound good right now.  Chocolate cream pie, pumpkin pie, chocolate cake, lemon cake? I ate so much candy at the movies last night .  Do I really need dessert?  No!  But I want it.

     saga cont:    

     I still don't know how we did what we did, with all those kids and the mess.  The people at the land fill knew us by sight within days.  I think we counted 27 truck loads of debree and garbage.  We rented sanders and sanded floors (the boys were good at that).  Finally we had the living room, the dining room and the main floor bath and kitchen painted.  But what to do with the kitchen and bath floors.  We could not get new linoleum, so we bleached what was there and went to a paint store to ask about painting the floor.  They sent us to a boat shop and we bought under water boat paint in blue and white and proceeded to paint the floors.  Sister in law painted her self into a corner and had to walk on paint that was sticky and then put her flip flops back on.  By the time we got home the sun was coming up and we could not get the flip flops off her  feet!  Good times.

     Hubby was dead set against moving out of our apartment and into this house.  It was too much work and he refused to help on any level.  So I moved over without him.  I remember sleeping on the hide-abed sofa with the two kids out on the glassed in side porch only there was no glass.  We still had to have the glass man come to replace windows.  It was June and very warm so we were fine. I don't remember when Hubby joined us but a few days later he came.  I asked him yesterday, what he remembers about not wanting to move and he wondered why I was bringing it up.  He then repeated it was such a mess and so much work.  Well guess what sweetheart life is work.

     So now I was in my first rented house, it was old and large and I was overwhelmed.  It was pretty spartan in furnishings as we had moved to this town with only a truck and a small trailer.  We had very little in far of decorations and stuff. But the house was dusty and old.  It needed to be gone through at least once a week with a dust mop and a regular mop.  There was not a carpet in the whole huge old place.
   
      Hubby was TDY to South America.  It was during the Noriega crisis and no money could come from Panama.  So here we were in an old drafty house with only my small teaching stipend.  We were so far behind in truck payments that I had my brother-in-law hide the truck in a potato cellar.  I drove the small Nissan sedan.  We were at the end of our rope when I finally took a job three days a week at an insurance office.  Finally monies could come in and I was able to put $500.00 a month away in CD's.  When Hubby returned in the spring I had a nice little nest egg.  Wish I had it now.:) I tried desperately to fix up that house and yard and keep it clean, but it was so much work.  I just did not have good maintenance skills.  Daily habits that would enable me to keep a house clean.  I was always in crisis mode.  Company was coming or the landlord was over.  I did just what my Mother had done.  I had a formal living room complete with a baby grand piano.  It was always clean, it was never used.  You could dust off the three tables on your way to the front door.  The rest of the house.  Disaster!

     I was watching the housing market and realized that we might be able to buy this house and sell it for a profit.  So we met with the land lord and offered to put on a new cedar roof(abnormally steep) in exchange for the down payment.  That way if we reneged she would have a new roof the last thing the house needed to bring it to code.  We met with her lawyer and signed a contract.  We insisted on the contract.  Hubby and I went to the woods and actually worked a shake mill to get our shakes.  We tied our selves onto the roof with ropes and replaced those shakes.  A roofing company came by and saw me all 118 lbs of me tied to the roof in overalls and lent us his roof jacks.  He said it scared him to death to see a woman three storied up tied with a rope.  He was also upset that we had produced our own shakes.  He did not want us putting him out of business.  You see I always looked so put together and I was always chipper and hard working obviously I had a spotless house right?  WRONG!

 to be continued:

Need to get upstairs and start dinner.

Have a great Sabbath.

Kim