Keeping Busy

So I (somewhat foolishly) decided to take on some projects at our house. I know it's not really our place but I figure we have to live there for now so I should make it the best it can be. First up was the second bedroom that we use as a tv room. The reason for this is because the frontroom faces the north and it is the coldest room in the house. We try to stay out of it and keep it blocked off by a curtain partition to keep our heating bill down. Anyway, the second bedroom still had the terrible '70's wall-paper in it, you know, the weird green color that didn't really go with anything. So I decided to take one evening and see how hard it would be to tear it down. Well, all I had to do was pull on the corner of each section and the paper fell down on top of me. I didn't have to spray it or try to scrape it off or anything. it was AWESOME!! I found a really pretty color in the mis-tinted section at Wal-mart and got a gallon for under six dollars. Very exciting!! I have never worked so hard to make a room look good. I don't usually tape off the edges of doors and windows but I did this time. I also used primer for the first time and now I know why I should use it every time. It makes painting soooooooooooooooo much easier. I only had to put up one coat of paint and the room was done. It turned out super good and I am really proud of it.

The next project was not so easy. The next room to get done was the bathroom. It also had the '70's wall-paper but this time it was HUGE orange flowers with big sick green leaves. Thank goodness it was only on the top half of the walls. The bottom half is a very neutral cream tile. Well, the paper again came off very easily but after that it got tricky. Maybe there was still a glue residue or maybe the walls were in really bad condition but either way the paint I picked out did not go on very well. I primed the walls but it did no good. I put the first coat on and it looked very bad. I put the second coat on and it looked very odd. I put the third coat on and decided the color was now so messed up that I would never be able to fix it. The color I picked out was a beautiful golden glow, but with three coats it looked more like old mustard. So I decided a nice wall-paper would have to do. Matt and I went to Lowes to look at new tile for the floor and on the way out we went down a random ilse that just happened to have a clearance cart in it. The cart was full of all the last rolls of an order of wall-paper. I happened to pick up a really great roll but there was no way one roll would cover the entire bathroom. I glanced down and underneath several rools was a second roll of the one I wanted! I couldn't believe my luck. We got the two rolls for six dollars and the next saturday Matt's mom came and helped me fix my LARGE mistake. We pulled up the carpet and put in our tile and now the bathroom looks GREAT!!

NEXT: Our bedroom (As soon as Matt lifts the project ban!)

Our Rockin' New Years Eve

So our new years eve went like this:
-Ran to the video store at 6:30 p.m. to see if there were ANY good movies left. (We ended up with seven and cut down to six thinking we could get through them by midnight.)
-Stopped at Dillons to stock up on junk food to get us through the night.
-Stopped at Pizza Hut to pick up our large pizza for the two of us.
-Went home and got into our pajamas and got ready for bed so that we could fall in right at 12:10a.m.
-Made ourselves sick on really bad food and only made it through 4 of the 6 movies.
-Caught the last ten minutes of one of the New Year's Eve specials.
-Said Happy New Year to each other and then hit the hay.
Rockin' I know. That's what you do after a hard day of work! What more could I ask for?

Another Long Month

A little more sad news. My grandmother passed away this month. So my Wills grandparents are in heaven and I feel like a large part of my childhood is just gone, completely missing. Together they taught me so much and apart they taught me very different but equally wonderful things. I doubt I will ever meet someone so little but so strong like my granny. She was the short one in our family and she always teased us about being so tall. She would say "you lean down here and give me a good hug" but none of us grandchildren ever crossed her. I remember one time when I was about 10, I did not want to go to bed so I stalled with everything I had. Well, did she count to 3? NO, did she say my name in a warning tone? No, all she had to do was start to walk into the room and I knew I better get in that bed and be ready for my story and then it was time to sleep. That was the only time I ever tried to get my way with my granny.
She always had this amazing garden that produced the best tomatoes EVER! One summer I ate so many cherry tomatoes I broke out in hives. And for some reason I never minded getting up with the sun to go out and weed that huge country garden with her. It's from her that I found out how much fun it is to grow things and watch the beauty of nature around me.
It's strange how some of the littlest things will sneak up on me and make me remember some long forgotten tidbit about them.
They really were the best set of grandparents a child could have.

Country Living

We actually live about six miles outside of Augusta which puts us in the middle of nowhere. I'm not really sure I'm a country kind of person. There are bugs, HUGE ones, there are sounds, SCARY ones, and there are SMELLS!!! that I cannot deal with. I do not get along well with spiders and they are all over the house. BIG brown ones that move fast. Matt likes to joke that what I think of as big is gnat size, but even he has agreed that these spiders are escapees of some scientific lab that does experiments to enlarge ugly insects. One night we were watching a movie with the lights turned out and I was sitting in the recliner when I see this thing moving on the arm. Well, I scream and Matt jumps up and turns on the light and this spider as big as my fist is right next to me! I've never jumped that high or moved that fast but in this case I think I set a couple of records. My awesome friend gave me this really good bug spray to use and I really think it has helped. That and the colder weather maybe? But I don't care what it is as long as they leave me alone. Matt says that the bugs were there first but I contend that I'm here now so they need to leave.
Another thing I'm not doing to well with is the fact that we cannot get internet service out at the house without paying a huge cost for it. First the installation fee and then the monthly bill would just be absurdly high. I can't wait an entire month to check my email. I HATE it!!

A Year Long Month

I can't believe it's been a full month since I've written anything. I think this has been the longest month of my life. I'm trying to think of all of the things that have happened, but they are all so blurry that it's really hard to separate them. Well, here goes:
1.) My grandpa's funural, of course.
2.) That same week my sister got married.
3.) Our place to live in fell through and so my family asked me to take over the care of my grandparents house.
4.) We moved to Augusta to care for said house.
5.) And now the holidays are before us.

That's a pretty good breakdown of what's been going on. We had the funural on Tuesday and on Thursday my sister got married. I'll talk about that for just a moment. I cannot describe this guy without making myself just sound seriously harsh. I guess I will just say I will never really think of him as family because he certainly doesn't act that way, and leave it at that.
Next, we had an apt. all lined up but they couldn't work with us on the move-in date and when we were given our eviction notice the new place was not ready for us. We had 72 hours to leave and no where to go. So I talked with my family and they said it would really be a blessing to have us move out to Augusta and take care of the house for my granny. So I did it. I packed up our house in two hours and my mom got me a moving company and I moved out to Augusta. All while Matt was in Oklahoma doing his training. I think I cried myself sick that day. Now I drive an hour to work and have the added responsibility of cleaning a house that has been sitting empty for six months. I used my very first vacation ever to clean. I've seen more dust than I ever want to again. And that brings me up to date and to the holidays. Should be fun.

Sad Week

So now for some sad news. My grandpa passed away on Sunday morning after a (relatively) short battle with cancer. There at the end he was in a lot of pain and it was very difficult to go and see him. We had some time with him though and new it was coming so this was not completely a surprise. I got to tell him I loved him and goodbye which was more than some of my cousins from AZ got. The service was nice and respectful and hard. I've never been to a funeral of someone I knew really well so this was a little bit of a shock. And of course Matt was out of town for his new job this week. I really needed him but I understand he was doing what he needed to do for us.

I loved my grandpa, he was the person that convinced my parents I was ready to get married. I'll always thank him for that. He taught me so much about God and what religion means to me as a person. There were a few questions I had that I thought for sure were impossible to anwser but he came up with the answers for me. He always had time to help me and went out of his way to make me comfortable. He was a great man and he is in his mansion with Jesus right now. I KNOW that.

More Good News

We have a place to live in!!! I took a personal day off from work yesterday and spent all day going around to places that looked promising. It was a very trying day I must say. But the good thing that came out of it is a new apartment. It's even on the ground floor, that means goodbye to stairs. We did have to make some compromises though, such as no washer/dryer hookups :( But they do allow our pet so I felt like it was an alright trade off, for now. They were really understanding about our situation and made me feel like they were on our side. We can move in as soon as the 20th this month which is a HUGE relief. We will we be out from under this very stressful situation and I won't have to move while Matt is out of town. That was what I was afraid of, having to do this all by myself. I will still end up doing all the packing while he's away but at least he'll be here to help carry it down the stairs. Now if I could just get rid of the stuff I know I don't need......