the latest saga of my life

there's an actual wall there now. looks kinda weird, because it's a wall, and it wasn't there before, and now you can't see the window on the other side. funny how i got used to seeing the garage as it was even though i hardly spent any time there before the wall came. but i heard once that it only takes two weeks to make something a habit. it might look weird right now, but give it two weeks and it'll look original.

this weekend was a process, as usual. seems like i always make more work for myself. Mom says i'm like Tim Allen on the show Home Improvement. all i can say to that is, "that's probably true, but at least i haven't blown anything up yet." anyway, i decided it was time to accessorize the kitchen. all of the bottom doors and drawers didn't have any hardware, nor holes for the hardware. the upper doors did, but they were ugly (in my opinion). since the uppers already had handles, i decided to replace the handles with handles. but i really like knobs, too, so i decided all the bottom stuff could have knobs.

here's the before....

and after...

i decided the fake drawers at the sink looked neglected, so i added knobs there too. but ultimately, as i do with nearly everything, i thought about it further and decided maybe i should have put handles on the drawers and knobs on the upper doors. *sigh* i always over think everything to the point of not liking it. so now i'm looking at my kitchen liking it, but thinking i could like it a lot better. but to like it better would cause me a TON of more work.

as it turned out, my entire weekend was spent working on one WEE kitchen. and all i'd planned to do was add knobs and handles. no big deal. but the doors aren't hung evenly. and they don't close all the way. so after i spent a couple of hours adding the knobs and handles i tackled the hinge issue. and THAT is what took up the rest of my weekend.

i thought maybe it was the hinge's fault as to why the door won't close all the way. so i took the hinge off. but first i had to scrape the paint off the screws. then i got the hinge off the door and decided that the unevenness would be fixed by moving the hinge location up a little bit. ok. great idea, but it didn't work. well it did, for the unevenness, but ended up making the closing even worse. doubly worse!

i worked and worked at it, never making it better. *sigh* maybe it's the hinge. maybe the hinge is too old. or not the right kind. so off to the store i go to buy a new hinge. but now that i have the door off the cabinet and the hinge off, i might as well scrape the paint off since the paint is already ruined from the previous handle so i can repaint it and make it look new to match the new handle. went to the store and bought all the necessary supplies, came home, put the stripper on the door, opened the hinge package, looked at it up against another hanging door and decided it's not the right kind. it's flush and i need inset. i think.

it's now about 8 p.m. on saturday night, i'm in the garage scraping paint off ONE cabinet door. good grief. i got the white paint off one side of the door, but the brown paint underneath is being stubborn. after two attempts i finally decide i've had enough of this project for the day and go to bed.

the next day i took back the flush hinge and bought an inset one. i sanded the one side of the door and hung it up with the new hinge. it's ugly, but the hinges look good. :-) and, even better, it closes!!! but of course, this is ME we're talking about. the new old unpainted door with new black hinges and handle hanges beautifully and even with the other door, but it overlaps the other door, by about half an inch. well, that's because of the different hinge. solution? take the other door's hinges off and put new ones on it too, making it move to the right half an inch and all will be well with my kitchen world.

except both doors will have hinge holes on the outside that will need to be filled, the other door will need to be scraped and repainted, and the same thing will need to be done with ALL the OTHER doors. there are 10 of them, mind you. and now there are 9 matching and one oddball. of course. plus there are 8 doors on the bottom that don't match any on the top at all because they're newer and are thicker and have hidden hinges.... *sigh*

such is my life ... this from a woman who likes consistency, things that match. i think i'll scrap the entire thing and just buy new doors, ones that match the bottom ones. of course, i still have to decide if i want knobs or handles. ugh!

my little sweet pea

Dweezil Mills
April 1992 - September 2008

Dweezil lived a good life, full of barking, kissing, camping, digging, and running. he wasn't much of a player, but loved to chew. he ate beef and ice cream with much anticipation, but wouldn't go near a carrot or grape. he put up with annoying younger dogs who came to visit and even started learning how to play at the very end.

but ultimately, his little legs just wouldn't carry him much anymore. though nearly blind and very deaf, his love never failed. he still welcomed us home with happiness each day.

he was preceeded in death by his human father, Bobby. he is survived by his primary human mother, Oma; his other human mother, Jenny; his furry companion and playmate Ozzy; and many other dear human family members.

Dweezil, little sweet pea, bubba, little man, The Dweez ...... you will be missed greatly, remembered fondly, and loved dearly for as long as we live. thank you for being with us.

garage progress

a frame exists. awesome! i doubt very seriously that i'll be washing anything inside that little room by next weekend, but that's ok .... i guess. i will eventually, and that's really all that matters. this is one giant step for my little house and i will rejoice, even if it's still a couple of weeks from being finished. :-)

maybe next week i'll show you the termite hole. it's amazing to me that i keep forgetting to take a picture of the one thing that has caused me much frustration. can we say denial? hm, maybe.

the prettiness of my house

my house is so small that it's hard to capture it in pictures and do it justice. seriously. it looks a lot better in person, so i guess you'll just have to come visit me and see for yourself. nonetheless, here's the living room, dining room, and kitchen. the rest of the house is just not photogenic.

pictures

here's a basic view of the garage, a.k.a future utility room. see the window? the washer and dryer sits on either side of it. where the step up is will be a wall. you'll see, eventually. the guys are framing it today, so i'll get a picture up soon.

this is a view of the dining room. notice the trim scuffs. i really shoulda noticed those. thankfully a little paint goes a long way.

the bathroom door. again, a little paint goes a long way. apparently this room used to be baby blue. ugh!


Here is an example of nearly ALL my baseboards. some actually have shoe moulding, but even with that they look beat up and neglected.

Notice the napkin stuck in the corner of my kitchen window... yes, that's filling a hole in the glass. no, i didn't put it there. and no, i didn't notice it until after i got the keys to the house. i'm tellin ya, you'll never see all the little things during walk-throughs. just ain't gonna happen, unfortunately.

this is my bedroom as it stands now. i'd like to replace the bedding, but i haven't found anything i like yet. the headboard is sitting in the other bedroom for now, because i figure the bed will be moving around when we start working in here. this is where the termite hole is (still no picture of that), so i'll be tearing out the paneling as soon as possible. i'm also missing nightstands, but at least i know where they are! (storage, of course!)

the closet story

ok, here's how the story goes. at first glance, a closet is just a closet. a small hole, not much to see, certainly nothing to brag about, but a place to put stuff nonetheless. at my first glance, that's what i thought. the second glance i noticed "scuff" marks and thought, "oh, i'll definitely need to paint in here."


that is, until i really looked at it. "hmm, what's that?" well, that's wallpaper, on top of canvas, that they put on the walls way back then. looks like they got creative when plastering came out and actually plastered the wallpaper to make it LOOK like drywall. very deceiving.


i decided to be destructive and tore that already falling apart canvas. i found wood. my wood. THE wood that makes up my house.


either the previous owner took off the canvas in here, too, or the owner before her got tired of faking it and left the wood in this closet exposed, at least most of it.


so there you have it, folks, a tour of all four closets in my house. one size fits all. but they each have a different look inside. it's almost nice, having all that character there. but they will eventually match, with REAL drywall. i need consistency in my life.

progress

the termites have been treated. a garage door opener has been installed. new windows are ordered. rotted wood around three of those windows has been replaced with new wood. most of the garage has been insulated. cables have been wired mostly inside the walls instead of wrapping the entire length of the house along the outside. some plumbing pipes have been replaced. work has begun on the new wall being added in the garage. and many, many other little things have been completed.

i've also managed to move from storage most essentials for living. i've unpacked all the boxes i moved over and am making piles for the future garage sale. i finally got the refrigerator working and filled with food and i even cooked my first meal last night. and i've actually spent five nights on my own ... well, with Ozzy of course!

we're making progress. slowly but surely. things are still chaotic and work is a bit slow for my liking, especially since work on the inside of the house is on hold until the termites have had time to die. but at least i have some organization to my belongings and don't feel TOO cluttered.

i've tried to take some pictures, but they aren't very good which is why i haven't posted any. i will try again very soon though.

all work and no play makes me tired!

thanks to my very willing mother, i now have nearly all the necessities for living in my new home, and then some. what i'm still missing is a bed, clothing, and food. my goal is to fill the house with those items by this weekend. maybe. i'm pretty tired and three nights this week are filled up with other activities, so it might have to wait until the actual weekend.

Ricky and his son, Gary, are also hard at work in the garage and attic. i'm really hoping to see actual evidence of that work by the end of the week.

as for the termites, the bug man came on friday and treated the area outside the house where he found live termites. so, hopefully, they are spreading the poison as i speak, thereby killing each other. why do termites exist, anyway? for what good reason? are they food for certain other animals or insects? and even if they are, how do they get eaten if they're hiding so well within walls and such? all i really know is that i want them dead and out of my wood...

oh, i also now have a working garage door opener and new windows on the way. and i've introduced Ozzy (my dog) to the house and the back yard. he hasn't exactly made friends with the five dogs in adjacent yard who very rudely bark at him the moment he sets foot outside. there are also two other dogs two houses down that see him and start barking immediately, too, and will not let up for anything. needless to say, privacy fences are definitely on my list. maybe all the dogs will get used to each other eventually, but i'd still like to be able to go outside unnoticed.

bug be gone!!!

we all hit the ground running on Tuesday morning. by the time the day was all over with, it was determined that i DID have termite damage from the past and the guy who did the inspection before i bought the house missed it all. he also missed the fact that the house has wood touching soil, which is a prime condition for termites to enter the home. because of all that, the guy agreed to treat the entire house at his expense while apologizing and expressing his desire to keep me as a customer and to keep me happy. which i am and will be, as long as i have dead termites in a few weeks. (BTW, he went by today and found live termites along the soil/beam. bingo!)

last night i also met with the guy (Ricky) who's going to do some work for me inside the house. we discussed in more detail about the future laundry room in the garage. he started the prep work today. besides finishing the garage with drywall, he'll build a wall to separate the washer and dryer from the rest of the garage, add a couple of lights and power outlets, install some shelves, and put some tile on the floor. hopefully in two weeks or less i'll have an actual laundry room. :-)

i'm feeling a little better. i was very overwhelmed and VERY discouraged when we found bugs, but today i feel like we're making progress instead of problems. phew!

how much wood can a woodchuck, or termite, chuck?

that's the question of the day. in order to answer it i'd have to make several more holes in my walls and doing so scares me. so i quit with one small hole and lots of tiny termites crawling around.

one might wonder, didn't i have an inspection? yes. of course! and the inpsection was clean. but they didn't attempt to tear off paneling to check for termites. like i did.

*sigh* yes, i'm disappointed. but i'm even more disappointed because of timing. i didn't get the keys till thursday night. i spent friday worrying and saturday doing various things like moving a few things in and taking out very old wallpaper off the closet walls to reveal the original wood structure (with no termites). i also did a lot of thinking and planning in my head. then today i decided i really don't like the cracking and peeling and poorly installed wood paneling that's in the majority of the house, so i might as well take off a piece to see what i find, and for future preparation of installing drywall. unfortunately, i found more than i bargained for.

however, in spite of my disappointment and frustration and worry, i'm also thankful. thankful that i decided to crack open the paneling. thankful i haven't hired anybody to do anything else in the meantime. thankful i haven't actually moved myself into the house yet. and thankful i have a grandfather who knows people and will fight for me to get this fixed ASAP.

sadly enough, i'm back to playing the waiting game....

i own it, but i don't occupy it

the closing on my house was yesterday. i arrived, signed a bunch of papers, handed over a very large check, and went back to work. it was kind of odd, to say the least. like a normal day, but yet i just spent an enormous amount of money and have nothing to show for it except paper. very strange feeling. the reason for this is because the now-former owner can't move out until the end of next week. which leaves me holding a title to a house, but no keys.

and so i wait....

something hit me as i wrote the subject of this post. i own a house, but i don't occupy it. i've paid for it, but i can't go inside. this reminds me very much of the way heaven will be one day for many people. they will inhabit heaven, but they won't inherit heaven. what's the difference? being able to walk through special doors. they'll be there, watching others do things that are wonderful, going to magnificent places, even ruling with Jesus Himself, but they won't be able to do those things. heck, I might not even be able to do those things. it all just depends. i used to think going to heaven was good enough. but i've been learning so much more about rewards and priveleges and honors kept out for a select people and now i want to be able to participate, to inherit.

privelege: 1) A special advantage, immunity, permission, right, or benefit granted to or enjoyed by an individual, class, or caste. 2) Such an advantage, immunity, or right held as a prerogative of status or rank, and exercised to the exclusion or detriment of others.

wow. i don't know about you, but i hate being left out. i hate being excluded.

think about it. tomorrow you're out running errands. when you get home, your small house has been replaced with a GINORMOUS mansion. the rooms are HUGE, the tv is HUGE, the yard is PERFECT, and all the furnishings are BEAUTIFUL. there stands a housekeeper, a chef, and a gardener. but later your family and closest friends come over. they have this major cool party in the kitchen and dining room of YOUR home. your chef cooks a five-course meal for THEM and gives you a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. they have fabulous food and drinks and lots of laughter and special gifts for each other. but you're not in the kitchen. you're in the living room, by yourself, eating your PB & J sandwich, listening. maybe even catching a glimpse of the goings-on. but you can't join in. why? because when they were talking about having the party, you chose to ignore them and do your own thing. when they were trying to involve you, you didn't care about the party, because it was weeks in the future and all you cared about was watching the Olympics. they stayed up until midnight planning, but you went to bed. they got up early in the morning to go shopping for gifts and you slept in.

how would you feel? i know i would feel HORRIBLE. i'd probably cry and beg them to let me join them. but my grandpa, or someone else in authority (Jesus, in this analogy) would tell me, "i'm sorry, but you can't, because you have to be held responsible for your actions in the past. you chose to not participate then, so you can't participate now." that would just totally suck. i get to live in this mansion, which is wonderful, but there's a steel doggy-door preventing me from going to the party, which is so much better.

so what's the answer? how do you inherit heaven? well, first you have to guarantee your inhabitance. then you grow up, spiritually, and learn as much as you can about God, the Bible, and your purpose on this earth according to Him. as you do that, you learn how to keep the faith, love God, love others, love yourself, and live as a mature believer in Christ. if you grow up, you'll get to go to the party. and so much more that we can't even imagine.

of course that party in heaven is far better than having keys to my wee house. but still. today i own, but in nine days i will possess. it will be so nice to be able to walk through the front door and claim it as mine.

build, buy, or borrow?

for quite some time now the lingering question in my life has been whether i should buy a house. but then, as often happens, that begs another question ... should i build a new house or buy a "used" one? well, after months and months of analyzing, researching, dreaming, and stressing, i FINALLY made a decision.

this will be my new house. get used to seeing it, i'll be posting a LOT of pictures of it over the next months, years, whatever. i REALLY wanted to build a new house with a study nook and arches and all of it's grand newness, but i finally came to the conclusion that i really couldn't afford it. i also decided i didn't really need three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a two-car garage like the standard American family. sure, it's nice to have all that room to put my stuff in, but do i really need all that stuff even? reducing size to match my budget truly seemed the better choice.

two bedrooms, one bathroom, one car garage, a small room for an office, and a big yard. it'll be perfect. closing will be at the end of August. location is .7 of a mile from my mom, on the same street even! and work will begin as soon as i have the keys. here are the pictures from the real estate listing.

when i say work, i don't mean major construction. i mean smaller things that will still cost money and take time, but i can actually live in the house while it's happening. i want to put a passthrough window thing between the living room and kitchen. i want to add a wall in the garage to make the washer and dryer feel like they are part of the house instead of part of the garage. i'm so considerate. :-) i also want to revamp the kitchen and bathroom. a patio out back would be nice, too.

this will become my new project, the thing that gives me reason to blog. i'll share before and after pictures of all the work and with interesting stories to match, i'm sure. so, if you care to follow along, come back soon. :-)

realization

ok, i got a little sidetracked with various tasks and forgot i was supposed to be posting more often. so here's another thought that i had from over a month ago in relation to my trip to Colorado.

realization: if you allow yourself the freedom to stay in the broken place your heart is in, you will continue to stay there far longer than actually necessary.

this is a tricky thought to actually explain .... .... .... basically what i'm getting at is that, while it's not ok to stuff your feelings, emotions, pain, etc., ignoring that they exist so you don't feel ANYthing, it's also not ok to allow yourself the freedom to wallow. i've done both and have found, at least for myself, that it's ok to be in that place for a period of time. but if you stay in that broken, sad, hurting place, with the excuses your head continually comes up with, you don't allow yourself to heal and move on. i think this is true of grief. divorce. psychological problems. so many different things. whatever has you in the negative place. if you continue to tell yourself that it's ok to be where you are because of the circumstance, you'll continue to stay there.

the fact is, it's FAR easier to stay in the broken place than to heal. it's comfortable. it's safe. it's usually not fun, but it's known and therefore not scary. to allow healing and growth is scary because it's unknown. where are you going to end up afterward? who are you going to be? will you have the same things, the same people around, the same thoughts and feelings about stuff? only God knows. and that's scary. that's what keeps you frozen in the place that you actually don't want to be in.

so what's the answer? well, that's different for everyone i guess. but i think the first step is to tell yourself that it really IS ok to emotionally heal and move on. if you start telling yourself that, it'll be easier to accept the changes that will start occurring. if you start telling yourself that it's ok to grow and change, i think your heart will start listening and WANT to change.

i understand everyone is different. and i understand this could be a touchy subject for some. please remember that these are my thoughts and realizations about my life. i share it all not as judgement to others, but rather with the hope that the pains in my life can bring someone else blessing and encouragement.

blessing #2

warning ... this turned out to be more "preachy" than i had intended.

BLESSING #2: church

since moving back to Brenham, i've been going to a new church. at first it was just during the week for Bible study, but soon after i changed to Sundays as well. isn't it interesting how God moves you around to show you the importance of certain things for that moment in your life?

i was raised in the Baptist church. i went for social reasons, basically, most of my attendance being while i was a teenager. but after graduation, church quickly became a non-essential. when you go to church to see your friends, and then your friends are gone, why go to church? so when i moved to Colorado, i began a search for a new church, but for different reasons. all of a sudden i NEEDED God! and now i wanted a church where i could be with God, but i also wanted to fit in with a group of friends. after many years of church-hopping, growth, and realizations, i finally found a place where i felt like i was being fed. the Bible was actually taught and the music touched my heart. and there i attended twice a week, served in the bookstore, and felt like i was growing up a bit.

i returned to Brenham with no church direction and started my search once again. and not long after i began to search, i found. now i go to Country Bible Church (CBC). it's a small place, but has big teaching. the music doesn't give me an emotional experience, but that's not why i'm going to church. i'm going to learn the Word of God and more about Him, and i'm learning that. so much so that now my way of thinking has completely changed. when i see or hear something in relation to God, my brain filters it through what i've been learning and determines if it's truth or not. if it's not, or if it's only partially true, i turn it off, leave, or tune it out, and often times i am disappointed.

for example, when i was in Colorado to visit my friends, i went to my old church on Sunday morning and walked out feeling disappointed, yet thankful. the music, the same music i used to thoroughly enjoy, bored me this time. 30 minutes of the same theme, the same words sung over and over, and the leader trying to reach out ONLY to the hurting, lost, and broken ... well, it got old. AND, it made me feel as though i should be feeling hurt, lost, and broken in order to be there.

the teaching was ok. i didn't learn anything new, but was reminded about some things. but then it was all over and i left feeling empty. disappointed. like i'd just wasted an hour+ of my life. i don't think God's intention for church was for people to leave feeling that way. granted, i didn't feel that way when i was going there all the time. but that's where i was at the time, in my heart. and i guess it was good for the time, but i feel very thankful that i've grown beyond that. thankful that God has been working in me and changing me. through His grace He's brought me to new levels of learning about Him.

i don't say this to imply that every church, including my former church, is "bad." no, instead i challenge and urge you to look closely at your church's teaching, and determine if you're being fed with the Word of God, the truth, as it is in the actual scriptures. you can be fed in positive, negative, or truthful ways. not all church experiences should be positive (in that you're always feeling super wonderful about life), and not all should be negative (in that you're always feeling beat up). you should, however, feel convicted, taught, and encouraged through the Word, no matter where you are in the scriptures or where you are in your personal life.

God is so awesome ... He has given us EVERYTHING we need to live. if we have a question or a problem, we should be able to look in the Bible and find an answer. we should find our life map in there. and if you're not being shown that through your pastor, i encourage you to seek out a different church. if you're going each week but leave feeling empty, change churches. if you love the music where you're going, but the teaching isn't doing anything for you, you need to move on! that's what was happening to me ... the one church provided great music, but the pastor wasn't teaching me anything. so i prayed about going to CBC, went there in faith, and God has completely taken my supposed music need, in church, away. i've realized teaching is so much more important than just music.

church is not meant to provide an emotional experience. it's nice to have sometimes, like when you finally understand something, or when you're convicted of something. but it's not necessary in order to learn about God. and too often anymore i feel churches think they need to pump up the music and the social activities in order to reach those who are NOT going to church, instead of pumping up the teaching to reach the ones who ARE.

if you go to church because of habit, tradition or ritual, think about this: God doesn't want ritual, He wants relationship. if you go to score brownie points with God, just because you showed up, i have news for you ... it's not working. He doesn't want you to just show up. and whether that's your intention or not, if you're not learning anything, then you're just showing up. and believe me, He's disappointed. He expects you to change. and if that means going someplace new, getting out of your comfort zone, driving farther, not sleeping in, going to the lake later in the day, whatever .... you should do it.

so why is church important, anyway? because God commands us to go. because church is a way to help us stay on the right track, to teach us more about Him through ways we can't learn on our own, to put us in fellowship with other believers ... it's all for Him, really. because the more positive coming from me, the more He's glorified. so i go to church as a means for positive output. don't we take in more than enough negative just by living in the world? i don't know about you, but i want to add as much positive as possible in order to override that other stuff.

do yourselves a favor. look closely at your heart and ask, "where is God?" He wants to give you so much more!

blessings!

in the last several days God has opened my eyes to many things. i want to address them, but not with just one blog entry. since my life has, in my opinion, become mundane and daily, it's hard to come up with things to write about that i feel are interesting. therefore, my realizations over the last week will be written over a period of time. i hope you find them to be blessings in your life, just as they have become in mine.

BLESSING #1: friends, fellowship, tears, hugs, laughter, and silence

i felt the need for a whirlwind trip to Colorado to see the people i love and miss dearly. in three and a half days i saw seven specific people and had wonderful one-on-one time with each of them, and had the pleasure of quickly reconnecting and hugging at least 17 others.

TO ALL OF YOU ... thank you for the honor of knowing you, seeing you, receiving your love and care. each of you is a precious gift, not only to me but to each other.

having even five minutes with each of these people is just what i needed. daily life in texas gets emotionally cloudy from time to time. i tend to get bogged down with duties and sometimes feel as if everyone i left 1,000 miles away has moved on without me. which is normal, because that's life. but i found out during this weekend that i have not been forgotten about, which is a wonderful and humbling feeling. let it be known, i have NOT forgotten ANY of you, even the people i was not able to connect with because of lack of time. i pray the opportunity come back and visit again will come sooner than later.

anyway ... i wanted to take this time to thank, as a whole, everyone who took time out of their busyness in order to spend just a few minutes of precious time with me. i am overwhelmed and tremendously honored. your presence in my life is a HUGE blessing!

since i can't give much, especially to those in Colorado, please accept this ... a picture of what is affectionately known in my life as "the happy flower." i send you happy flowers today and pray you realize you have more blessings than seem apparent at first. i love you all!