Amy J. Bennett

Wow, what a weekend.  The last 3 days have accomplished more than I thought possible.  Four of five of my prayer requests were answered in just 48 hours.

Friday afternoon we barely squeaked into the granite shop for my mom to sneak a peak at the original cream colored (crema marfil – going to look a lot like this) marble remnant I had seen a few weeks ago.  We took our floor tile this time and it was a perfect match.  I felt really good about it.

Dani stopped by Friday and was a gem and took my inspiration picture and helped me pick out colors from that and the floor and shower tile.  I would be a good blogger and post a picture of this but I’m trying to sneak this post in before the morning.

Friday at lunch I picked out and bought our carpet.  This is truly a miracle because I picked out a carpet AND color BY MYSELF in all of about 10 minutes.  It was the easiest purchase of this entire addition.

Saturday the guys came back to do round two of the mud and when they were finished, had a little surprise for me.  “Can we come back tomorrow and sand?”  Uh…..sure.  If you recall, we weren’t expecting sanding until Monday, maybe even Tuesday.  As soon as Scott got home we kicked it into high gear and emptied our two bedrooms, bought some plastic and tape and went to town.  I think at one point I was putting plastic over plastic, just to be sure.

Saturday night we had everything taped down and spent the night at my parents.  Scott was working this morning so we had to have it all ready for them to show up at noon.  The girls and I went to church and then spent the afternoon at my mom’s, all the while wondering how much cleaning we’d be doing this evening.  Either way, I was so happy that they were able to do it today since tomorrow I’ll be at the office and not home until 6 and then wanting to crawl back in bed by 8.  Well, I didn’t have too much to worry about because our finishing crew apparently had some sort of vacuum on their sander and left almost no dust behind.  It was a super good thing that we covered in our rooms and taped off the hallway, but beyond that, you wouldn’t have even known anything had happened.  And even in the rooms, it was just a light dusting.  I was SO, SO grateful.  The bad news is I had taken so much stuff down in preparation that I had to really hustle to get the house back in order tonight.  But not too much complaining.  As they say, better safe than sorry.

Our washer is still not fixed but honestly, it was quite a blessing for my mom to take on ALL our laundry this weekend.  I think she must have washed 8 or 9 loads so far.  I completely enjoyed the smell of home and putting away unwrinkled clothes this evening.

So between getting all the big decisions out of the way, getting this huge hurdle of the walls out of the way and all the clean laundry, I have to say I feel so FREE this evening.  I really feel like we’re out of the woods with this addition and now everything is just tying together loose ends.

As for a loose upcoming schedule:

• Doors, trimming and paint go up first of this week.
• Vanity goes in after that
• Next week will be the tile, countertop and carpet!

We’re on the home stretch!

I’ll do a more detailed post with pictures of the room and paint picks soon.  I’m getting really excited about all the finishing touches!

Well, here we are on Friday and I haven’t given a bit of an update since Monday.  Click through if you’d like to read on because I have a lot to get out.

[Read more…] about Dry Wall, Light Switches, Washers and Countertops

Paul – I thought this song was a lot of fun and I love Paul but I think his days are numbered.

Jac0b – the last three noted deserve any praise he gets. Beautiful!

Scotty- Ok I called it weeks ago that he sounded like George and while I liked it something was off with him last night. Did Pia freak them out? He seemed super nervous. It was the first time I’ve seen him unsure. Or was that his attempt at emotional vulnerability?

Lauren I’m a fan of the original but Lauren did some really cool things with it. Imma fan.

Haley – I fast forwarded most of her. Again with the overt sec appeal. How old is she anyway?

Stefano ok vocally I was a fan. But good gracious why does his face have to look like someone is twisting a knife in his back?

James – I like that James sticks to his guns on songs. While I’m not a metal fan I certainly can appreciate good vocals and a good performance. He won’t win idol doing that every week but I think it’s enough to get him through.

Casey -Again, we got The Casey Abrams and I love every second.

In trouble. I keep putting Stefano and he’s continually in the bottom but never goes. I’m still calling it and putting Paul as backup.

Favorites: Lauren, Casey, Jac0b’s last three notes

I think they could have gotten done today if they had gotten those other two pieces for the lights in.  So close!  And I LOVE it!

Date Night

By Friday evening I was wiped out so as soon as I got home, we headed out to eat.  We spent a relaxing evening at home until about 8 when we took the kids to stay at Scott’s parents.  Scott and I came home and went straight to bed.  Pretty sure we were asleep before the kids.  And that’s how date night went around here!

Serve 7

Saturday morning we spent some time with our church’s Serve 7 project at a local homeless shelter helping them get some projects done.  I’d like to say I walked away with warm fuzzies and I did feel good that we were being “hands and feet”.  But.  I really left a little angry that we as a community (just community, not even Christian community) treat our homeless, and those who help them, so poorly.  I mean, seriously.  The offices are housed in an old church whose electrical work is so bad that we couldn’t turn the overhead lights on in a worker’s office because it sparks and could cause a fire. And in fact, one of the lights in the executive director’s office HAD caught on fire and had not been replaced.  Every piece of equipment had to at least have been 20 years old.  There were tables and chairs all in disrepair.  Just last week we had a meeting at work suggesting that we *really needed* a smart board and we didn’t have good enough pens in our supply closet.  I understand that we’re a for-profit business and they run off volunteers and donations but for goodness sakes!  There are children that are LIVING IN THEIR CARS if not for this place.  Can we not service them a tiny bit better??  So if you can’t tell I didn’t walk away  with warm fuzzies.  To be honest, I’m a little angry and embarrassed at how little we care of these office workers that are taking care of people who really, really need help.  OK, let me step off my soap box because I could certainly go on.  Just trust me when I say I plan not to turn a blind eye to anymore.

Uh, so, whew, that came out of nowhere.

Taekwondo Belt Test

Lexi looking very pensive before her test.  You can see us sitting on the wall in the mirror.

We left there and Lexi tested for her yellow belt at Taekwondo.  Let me just say that that was actually fun.  The kids have to break a piece of wood to graduate to the next level and watching those kids was some of the best entertainment I’ve seen in a while.  There was this one tiny blond girl that couldn’t have been more than 5 and I honestly didn’t think she would be able to break it and apparently she didn’t think so either because the look on her face would have won her American’s Funniest Video’s $10,000 when she did because she was SO SHOCKED.  Two other little boys had to go to the side after trying and not succeeding.  After they came back for a second round of tries, the room erupted into thunderous applause when both of their boards broke.  I’m telling you, I was choked up clapping and I had no clue who these kids were.  I walked away from there thinking about challenges we all face when we were sure we can’t tackle but just knowing we all have so much more power than we think.  Are we being stretched?  If not, shouldn’t we stretch ourselves to do something?

Hail Storm

Saturday evening we were surprised by a the hail storm of the century.  I have never ever seen a hail storm like this.  I’ve heard pea size hail hit our windows in past storms but up to baseball sized hail was heard to have hit in the area.  We regularly saw ping pong sized hail being thrown like we were at the busiest range you ever did see.

 

 

Carowinds

Today the girl’s and I took off to CAROWINDS!  I spent much of my adolescent summers at Carowinds.  We’ve taken the kids two or three times in the last few years but really, Lexi just wasn’t up for that much walking.  But they are at great ages and seeing that it’s less than 10 minutes away, it suddenly seemed silly to me that we didn’t go.  So we went!  And boy-howdy did we have a blast.  Such nostalgia walking through there and thinking I was my kids’ age when I started going.  By the time we left they wanted to ride the “big kids roller coaster” several more times in a row but I promised many more trips.  I can’t wait.

Addition

We did nothing on the addition and I have to say it was very nice taking a breather and not thinking of it for a while.  I think they are jumping back in with the stone tomorrow and the big electrical switch is supposed to happen this week as well as the start of the drywall.  Pretty sure I was saying that last week at this time but hopefully will not be next week! 

Hope you guys had a great weekend!

Ahhhh…I’m so excited.  We have stone!  I so wish my pictures did it any sort of justice but it is *just* what I wanted.  (just to be clear, it’s only halfway done)

Not sure when the rest is being done.  Maybe next week for most of it.  I do know we are waiting on two special pieces that go around our garage lighting and those don’t come in for another 2 weeks so I’m not expecting it to be done-done soon.

Other notes:

• The power company can’t come until Wednesday which pushes the dry wall back to at least then.
• I ordered light #3 today at lunch because apparently every other one I picked is like $600.

I have to be honest, I’m starting to get to the point where I’m throwing my hands up on any kind of scheduling on this addition.  I’m sure many are asking why I was trying to schedule in the first place.  We’re not on any tight deadline really.  Part of me just needs! to! know! what! is happening!  Well, part of it is trying to understand what is happening so I know when to start picking the next thing out.  But I admit I’ve taken it a bit far and poor Scott has had to answer 80 billion questions about what comes next.  And if you know him, 20 questions isn’t his favorite game.  Poor guy.

After the storms this week I think it was a final straw on trying to figure anything out.  I had assumed we’d be doing drywall this week but I guess I assumed the power company would have been out here on Monday when Scott moved the electrical box but Scott didn’t call them until today and now they are so swamped because of the storm they don’t think they can get out here until next week.  Which means no drywall like we thought this week.

In super good news, the mud for the stone outside is nearly dry and they came today to put the board down for the bathroom tile floor and shower and mud the floor for the shower pan or something along those lines.  It’s starting to look like a real shower!  The tile will be here Friday but will have to wait until the drywall is done sometime next week (or whenever!).  And if you don’t recall, it will be chocolate tile floor to ceiling and on the knee wall on the outside and then glass from the wall up.  The jury is still out on whether we are going to need a glass door or not.  We prefer not but I hate drafty showers too so we’ll see.

Scott also finished off hand-rails on the back steps yesterday.

And I’m just going to throw this picture up because I thought it looked funny that we have a window between our bedrooms.  Won’t be there long!

And finally for anyone wondering #1 won the lighting choice yesterday by a landslide.

#7 came in second

and #2, 3 and 10 tied for third.

For me right now I’m thinking maybe to put #1 or 7 in our bathroom and #3 in the bedroom.   Thank you so much for voting!

And finally, let me just say I’ve decided I do not like granite for my bathroom.  Everyone keeps saying we need granite because we’re going kinda upscale on everything but it’s just so BUSY and I’m just so not a BUSY patterned person.  I went today to Tile Collection’s Granite shop to look at some remnants and there was one piece that if we do go granite, it would work but it’s just so…veiny.  I must have some really bad memory stuck in my brain folds somewhere of an old person and granite.  It just feels old and out of date.  Although when I go in restaurants or friends’ houses I think it’s quite beautiful.  I know that makes no sense but all I can say is it just did NOT excite me picturing that piece in my bathroom every day!  So I’m planning on stepping back and seeing what other hard surfaces we can get.  Wish me luck.

OK, whew, thank you for letting me vent and update a little about the addition.

So I’m stepping back and looking…we are only 26 days into this project including weekends.  Pretty amazing.