About Don

Today is our 5th anniversary. I'm not usually one to get all mushy and tell you how wonderful and perfect my husband is. If I brag about my husband, it's usually in a tongue-and-cheek kind of way. It's just the way I am. Lucky for all of you, I've decided to set aside my reservations for today for one very good reason: Sometimes we assume the people we love know we love them, and so we don't tell them.

In light of that, let me tell you a little about Don: Don is the sort of person who will stop everything he's doing to come pull his wife out of a snowbank. Heck, he'll pull anyone out of a snowbank. It doesn't matter if we're driving home,it's 3 in the morning and it's a blizzard outside, and we still have an hour or two to drive. That's all the more reason to stop and help someone in need. This could quite possibly be a metaphor for his life. I once heard a friend say that when they died, they wanted people at their funeral to say that they were the sort of person who, "returned the shopping cart". Because that simple act says a lot about you: you're considerate, willing to do your part. And more likely than not, it extends to all the aspects of your life. So I think that an epitaph of "he pulls you out of rut" is an even better aspiration.

This characteristic also shows that Don is prepared. Whenever we go on a trip, long or short, our truck is packed with tools, toe straps, cables, etc. Not because Don is a hard core boy scout,living the motto, but because he wants to be able to take anything life has to throw at him. Case and point: last winter we were Christmas tree hunting with my family. Some oversight led us to only bring one chain saw. Our group got split up just when we just happened to find the tree we wanted. Because Don was there, there was no need to sit around and wait for my dad to bring the saw. He calmly pulled out his .45 and shot the dang thing down. It brings a whole new meaning to "Christmas tree hunting". The poor thing died quickly. No suffering.

While Don's the one of the biggest "man's man" I know, beneath that rough n' tough exterior you'll find a huge heart. Dog lover. Nature lover. Music lover. He'll never admit that he watches chic flicks with his wife not because she makes him, but because, I suspect, he kind-of likes them. He called up my sister before mother's day to ask her questions about jewelry making so he could make a necklace for me. One like my mother has that we can't afford. He gave me flowers for a month after LiLi was born just because he knew it made me ridiculously happy. He does laundry and dishes when I'm so sick of doing them I think I'm going to puke if I see another dirty sock. And the day LiLi was born he didn't look at her with the paternal pride I expected him to, instead I looked up and saw him crying, realizing that he was a daddy. Don was actually ready for kids before I was. He probably would have been happy had we had some right away, but the thought scared me silly. So he waited for me.

Thinking about all this, I realize that...dang. I'm lucky. My sentiments echo Elizabeth Barrett Browning,

"I love [him] to the level of everyday's most quiet need, by sun & candlelight. I love [him] with the passion put to use in my old greifs, and with my childhood's faith...
-I love with the breath, smiles, tears, of all my life!-and if God choose, I shall but love [him] better after death."

Here's to five, Baby.

Knee-Hugger

I know that I haven't posted it on here, but LiLi is walking!! She's been walking for a while, and I've tried to record it via my crappy compact camera (because it's the only one that will take video) only to be thwarted several times. So I finally gave up. It didn't occur to me to take several quick, consecutive pictures of her tottering towards me until last night. Maybe I'll do that.

But, one of the major perks that comes with LiLi walking, is the fact that she'll grab onto my knees and hug them. It makes my insides melt. I've always wanted a knee-hugger. It almost makes up for the fact that she's no longer a baby and now officially a toddler. Almost.

Labor Day

We have been in the middle of an extreme home makeover. It all started when I was in the bathroom, and looked in my shower and saw the wallpaper was sloughing off, and I decided that I could not live with that another day. Especially when I saw mold growing underneath it. So the next day I rented a wallpaper steamer, and took all the wallpaper off of my walls. It took about a week. There was a lot of wallpaper in my house, every possible surface that could be wallpapered was. I hate wallpaper. I will never do that to someone. Never. That was back in April...I think. The whole thing snowballed from there. Don looked that the situation and decided, why stop there? We hated the layout of our house, and how dark it was anyway.
So we came up with a game plan:

• We were going to knock out all of the walls in the main living area (which included the kitchen, living room, dining room, and computer/entry room).
  
• Install a beam. Because one of the walls we were planning on taking down was a bearing wall.
  
• Reroute plumbing and electrical so we could move the kitchen and make it bigger.
• Knock out chimney, because it's an eye sore. This would mean that we'll have to reroute the furnace underneath.
• Install tile floors and get rid of our scuzzy carpeting.

That's the master plan in a nutshell. Perhaps I'll have to put some floor plans up on here. It's an ambitious plan, but in the end I think that we'll be proud of our house, and feel like it's really ours. Plus, little-by-little it's taking away the cigarette smell left from the previous chain smoking owners. That smell was in everything...the wallpaper, the cabinets, the carpet.

So here are some visuals:

Kitchen

Before:


The opposite wall was covered in cabinets, it was gallery style.



I'm pretty sure a Mary Engelbreit wanna-be inhabited my kitchen before me. Look at this wallpaper. It's not as bad as some of the other stuff. But still enough for me to hate it.


After:
Right now we are living the minimalist lifestyle. No cupboards, no counter space. Only a table, stove, and fridge. It's kind-of like camping...sort-of.

Living Room

Before:


This was our quaint little living room. See what I mean about the wallpaper? Everywhere. And it all had at least a little bit of blue in it. The people were blue freaks. You'd be really scared if I showed you my blue tub, sink, and toilet. Yes I said blue toilet.


Here's the wall that you see the green couch backed up against in the previous picture. Yes it's ugly. That gray mark is Don experimenting with venetian plaster.

After:
And here's how it looks with the wall partially gone.

Here's how it looks with the wall all the way gone, and a beam installed. It's times like these when I'm really glad that I married Don. Not only is he able to calculate what type of beam we needed for our house, he's also able to install it. So top that.

Chimney


This is the fireplace on the other side of the living room. It was in the middle of the house. That would make sense if it were still a real fireplace as it used to be, but someone turned it into an inefficient gas one. Plus we have a wood burning stove in the basement. It's an eyesore to say the least. But I'm happy to say that it's now gone, as of yesterday. :) :) (That deserves a double smiley face icon.)

See? No more fireplace. Just a big hole in the floor and ceiling. And a lot more light. Ahhhhhh. Light.

Here's what our living room looks like now:


It's our make-shift dining room. Soon to be our official, pretty dining room. This picture is pre-chimney removal, as you can see off to the right.

Dining Room

Before:

Alright. Now you can't see it, because Don had already taken it out in this picture, but there was an old door to the right of where he is that never opened because it was screwed shut. It was pretty much worthless because there's a sliding glass door about five feet away from it on the same wall. So we took the door out, obviously, and the huge window that was next to it. And all of those black dots on the wall behind the china hutch? That's tar, there used to be a scary huge mirror that covered the entire wall that made you do a double take every time you walked past it because you thought you saw someone else instead of your reflection. It was really scary at night, when you're all alone. I don't miss it. I much prefer the ugly black spots to it.

After:


This is what it looks like now. Don built a wall and put in a window. Then he finished the plumbing this weekend and installed the sink. This is where the kitchen will be, in an "L" shape. Tons more room. An island...we have big plans for it. It's probably going to be my favorite part.

This was my view when I was washed dishes before: the mint green garage (minus the two-by-fours, the window wasn't framed in).


This is my view now:


Green. Into my backyard. It makes all the difference in the world. I just might like washing dishes now.

So, we'll keep you updated on everything! Right now I'm painting cabinets with a vengeance. And the next step will be working on the electrical and rerouting the sister flue from the furnace that we knocked out yesterday. It's a lot of work. But it's worth it.

A big thank you to Bruce, Dona, Katie & Galen for coming over the last two weekends and slaving away at our house. We had so much fun, and were able to get three times as much work done with your help. You are wonderful!