Musings from the Threshold

Monthly Archives: November 2008

We’re In!

I am thrilled to be posting from our new house this morning while my man snoozes in bed a few feet away.  Praise the Lord!

The work is not over yet (we have lots of clean up to do at the old house, some finishing to do in our new room, and, of course, the whole unpacking thing), but we are so thankful to be officially moved over (aka – sleeping in our new home).

I haven’t been good about posting progress reports, so I’ll recap:
On Sunday we painted the new room.  It was thrilling to see paint finally going up on the ceiling and walls.  There were times in the last month that I have wondered if it would ever happen.

Here’s Jonathan cutting in on the ceiling:

Me painting the ceiling:

Dad Smith cutting in on the walls:

Mom Smith cutting in:

(a note about pictures:  I’ve just started a new habit of of shrinking pictures before I upload them to the blog.  So, when you click on the pictures, you’ll see a bigger picture, but not as big as you used to see.  If I ever post something you’d like a full-sized copy of, just email me and I’ll send it to you.  Not that I’m expecting you to want full-sized copies of our painting pictures.)

Monday we didn’t get to work over at the new house because Jonathan’s work-for-money day was very long. So yesterday, we brought over three loads. When we brought the first one, we took time to mop the floor in the new room, scrape up drywall mud, sweep, and mop again. The second load was beds and clothes, and the third load was office stuff. Jonathan got the computers up and running last night (or was it technically this morning…).

Today, I hope to get a bit of pre-cooking done and establish as much order as possible in my home. We’ll see how it goes; I’m learning to be flexible and let go of my expectations more often. I even bought myself frozen pie crusts last night at the store!

My composition teachers would be appalled at my lack of writing finesse this morning, but I wanted to get an update done. So there you have it – we’re in. Wootles!

Anticipating Advent

For the last couple of years, our family has been making use of some of the Advent traditions to help us focus on the true meaning of the Christmas season.  Although I’m generally committed to waiting until after Thanksgiving (which is one of my favorite holidays!) to let my Advent/Christmas juices start flowing, the guys at The Rabbit Room have gotten me off to an early start.  This post about Living Between Two Advents is the kickoff for a “Virtual Advent Wreath” series of weekly posts they’re going to be having.  I’m really looking forward to it!

Checking In

I realized today that I haven’t posted an update on the house for a few days.  It’s just that pictures of the various layers of the drywall process aren’t distinguishable from one another.  However, though I haven’t pictures to post, I can report that we are making progress!

We have a few ceiling joints that need one last layer of mud.  Hopefully, Jonathan will be able to finish up that tonight and we’ll get the rest sanded.  Work is running late, so we’ll see how much we get done before we crash.  We’re planning to paint the ceiling tomorrow, and hope to be able to get both coats done so that we can move over the beds and such on Saturday and start sleeping in our new house!  We’ll paint the walls next week probably, but we can scoot furniture away from the walls for that.
No profound thoughts from me today, but this post from Molly shook my boat (she has that way about her, I’m finding). 

Drywall

Last week we started drywalling our new room. Monday night, Jonathan and I worked on it some Monday night, but were only able to get a sheet and a half up on the ceiling. Tuesday, Jonathan and his dad got quite a bit done.

Then Wednesday, Alan and Joe (and their lovely families) came over. The guys worked together and got almost the whole room drywalled!

And no, it didn’t take three of them to put up every piece, but they were obliging and posed for me.

Then, while I was gone this weekend for the doula training, Jonathan and Joe finished the drywall and got on a first coat of mud. Yay! Yesterday afternoon we went over and started the 2nd coat. Later in the evening, Dad Smith helped finish up the 2nd coat.

Serious progress!

Barn Dance

Recently our dear friends Alan and Sue hosted their annual fall barn dance. It is always a great time of fellowship and good wholesome fun, and this year was no exception!

Though it was disappointing to not be able to dance (still not quite recovered from surgery at that point), I had a wonderful time and took lots of pictures. Please excuse the spots… our camera doesn’t seem to like cooler work conditions.

We stayed late visiting after the dance (of course!) and Stephen and Gracie T. had nice time playing and reading together. Aren’t they cute?!

Do you see what they have in common when it comes to reading?