i need an instruction manual

ready for change?

Posted on by mommyinthemidwest

Well, well, well.  A few things have changed since I last wrote.  Like, oh, you know, we got a new house and I got a new job.

What the what!

Yep, we closed on our house (seen here and here) a couple of weeks ago.  Some issues came up (I’ll talk more about later, maybe) so we weren’t able to start in on our remodeling right away.  Sunday we said to heck with it and decided to move forward.

And I wasn’t looking for a job.  I worked in child welfare for 6 years and had no immediate plans of going anywhere else.  But another social work job in the mental health field found it’s way to me and I couldn’t pass it up.  No more night shift!  I’m going back to living like normal people instead of vampires.  Somebody say woot!  I start in a couple of weeks.  My new employer was kind enough to allow me some time to work on our house.


I have been so preoccupied and busy that I haven’t had much time to write.  Not a lot has changed with the boys, other than growing taller and smarter and older every day.  Theo sounds too old, saying things that he hears grown-ups say, like “last week I was at the store and I saw something and then I went to the car and probably saw everything everywhere…” and on and on and on.  I just love listening to his stories about nothing at all.  Dex is starting to try more and more words when prompted but I don’t feel like he says them independently as much as Theo did at about 15 months.  Hard to remember these things!

SO… back to the HOUSE.  I’m excited about the changes we’ve made so far with Ryan’s dad’s help.  We’ve got lots of bright ideas and it seems like everything is top priority.  Who knows when we’ll ever get it all done.  Here are a couple of before/after photos so far.

Front door:

Library:

(more of a “during” than an “after” pic)
Boys’ bathroom (in progress): 
Before 
Shower door removed

Cabinet doors removed 
I’m staining the cabinets black. So far, so good!

Ryan’s dad taking out some of the tile.
Ready to take the old tub out and put a new one in.

Obviously the bathroom is where we are spending the most of our energy right now.  Can’t wait to see the finished product and share it with you!  
Finally – our other big project, the kitchen. 
With carpet, appliance shed (corner), and brick backsplash.

Ryan’s dad, getting me started on tearing out the brick.

No brick, no appliance shed!  Looking so much better already.
So there you have it, that’s what we/I have been up to.  What do you think about the changes we’re making so far? 
miss you!
~C~

life update.

Posted on by mommyinthemidwest

I suppose an update is in order.  I’ve been trying to hold off because we know how things turned out last time.  We do have a contract on another house.  It is almost a total remodel.  I mean it.  New floors. Paint in every room.  Kitchen do-over.  4 bathrooms that need to be completely updated.  Lighting, fixtures, tile.  EVERYTHING.

Right now, we are waiting for their response to our requests from the inspection.  There was nothing major but a few fixes are going to be deal-breakers if they refuse.  This house was built in 1983 and wow… I think everything in there is original.  You get the idea.

Work.
Work.
Work.

In other news, we have a big first tonight.  Theo went away to an old fashioned amusement park with Nana and Pop Pop.  He’s spent the night with them before, but he’s never gone out of town or been away from “home” with anyone but us.  We’re missing his first amusement park.  It’s kind of a big, sad deal!

Dexter is starting to talk.  He mimics and repeats sounds, trying to say words every day.  He is starting to say things on command.  He’s also starting to identify objects by name as he points to them.  My favorite? When he points and says “I want that.”  Not quite that plain, but I understand him.  He’ll say “I want that” and point, then he keeps saying “that, that, that.”

I can’t stop thinking about this house.  I have some pictures of it, I’m debating posting them.  Because guys? It’s lovely outside, but pretty hideous inside.  Should I?  What have we gotten ourselves into?

Reminds me of a fascinating blog I stumbled across while searching for remodeling ideas.  It’s written by homeowners who bought a house that’s….Not Quite a Teardown…but almost.  The transformation is shocking and addicting.

Work has been pretty tough lately.  I haven’t been getting much sleep.  My grandpa has been really sick.  We have had some fun, floating on rafts in the lake.  We really need a getaway.  We need a change of scenery.  Some new kind of fun.

~C~

how we ended up this way (homeless)

Posted on by mommyinthemidwest

I know I have gone on and on about this but truthfully, it is dragging on and on and has been one of the most stressful times of my life.  Our lives.  We close on our house next Thursday, but I have to work next week so we pretty much have to be out of here by the end of the weekend.  Meaning the boys are staying at nana and pop pop’s while we finish packing and move all of our stuff to storage.

It hit me like a ton of bricks yesterday that we will not put our little boys to bed in this house ever again, after tonight.  They won’t come back here. They won’t play with magnets on the fridge or kick a ball across the yard.   This is it.  It’s over.  We’ve done all the living here we are going to do.

We carried 2 brand new babies up the sidewalk and through the front door. We painted nurseries and picked out baby names here.  My dad died while I lived here and I cried myself to sleep more times than I can count.  We were just 24 and 26 years old when we sat on the front step of the house and made an offer on it because we didn’t want to let it get away from us.  We tore that step out and put in a big porch.

We have made so many memories here and I know we aren’t leaving the memories behind, but it feels weird.  It feels bad.  I can’t imagine some other totally lame family doing the same thing in my house. Our house.

Maybe it would feel different if we had somewhere to go.  We did have somewhere to go, but it fell through. It didn’t fall through, we backed out.  After the inspection we found out that this house…

this beautiful house that we had a contract on, needed a new roof in a few years.  But not bad enough yet to replace, so we couldn’t justifiably ask for it.  It needs a new roof in 4 years (ish).  Well, as you can see, the roof is super steep. Which means it costs a lot more to replace.  Like $20,000.  That’s just not a burden we were willing to take on.  So this house, which was starting to feel a lot like Home Sweet Home to us, turned into Nothing Sweet Nothing but a lot of wasted money (earnest money, inspection money…down the drain). But we made the responsible decision to forego this home knowing about the impending expense. 
Of course that means now, that we have no home.  We are going to stay with Ryan’s kind and gracious parents for a minute while we figure out what we’re doing.  We are considering building, but we are still watching the market and hoping for that perfect home (with a flatter roof) that we can get into in a month or so.  
Cross your fingers.  Say a prayer. Knock on wood.  Wish us well.  Do whatever you want to do if you think it will help us find a home and not feel so homeless and hopeless.  
So that’s what’s been going on.  Has anything like this happened to you?  Did people tell you a billion times it will all work out and everything will be okay?  And did you roll your eyes because, while that’s true, it hasn’t and it’s not?  I know I’m being dramatic.  But y’all?  This sucks.  Bigtime. 
~C~