a bit of Christmas

I have to say, I haven't felt terribly festive this year. It seems so very strange that Christmas is next week! So, I decided to take a few pictures of the decorations around our home just to reflect on what is here (there's not much out this year).

the countdown

We are so excited that we are going to get to see lots of family and friends in the coming weeks! Here's the countdown:

- The Baileys (Matt's cousin and family), 5 days
- The Simmons's (Jennifer's best friend from college and family), 6 days
- The Johnsons, Moseleys, Autons, Baileys, etc (Matt's extended family), 6 days
- The Fergusons (Jennifer's parents, brother and family - including new neice!), 10 days
- The Nelsons, Tylers, etc (Jennifer's extended family), 11 days
- The Moseleys, Murrays, Childers, etc (Matt's parents and sister and family friends), 13 days

Whew! By the time we're done with all this visiting, it will be time for a rest! We're looking forward to it, though. It has been quite a long time since we have seen some of these people so we are sure to have a good time!

B&A - laundry room

Ok. This is really more like before and middle rather than before and after, but it's already such a big difference. I couldn't help but share. Plus, it may be a while before it becomes a true after. :)

Anyway, the laundry room in our house is one of those that used to be "outside". When the house was originally built, you had to go through the carport to get to the laundry room. However, the carport was long ago (most likely) closed in. So, it is now inside. It didn't much look like it, though. As you can see from the pictures below, it still looked more like something you would find in an outside shop. The only "inside" feature was the floor. It actually has hardwood floors. Of course, they are in terrible shape...but once upon a time, it was probably pretty.



Matt did a lot of the work that has been done. He had some help from Nathan (see below) doing some of the drywall. I did most of the shelves. Matt also did a little electrical work.


So far, there is drywall up on most of the walls (with insulation behind it) and the shelves have been installed. Those really were the most needed parts. We still had all these boxes sitting in the computer room. Now, most of the sitting around stuff is gone. Yay! As you can see, we haven't gotten the new vinyl flooring installed. We're hoping to get that done before too long, but it will at least be after Christmas. Once we get to it, though, it won't take very long.


Here is the view to the right of the door. There is no drywall on the ceilings yet. It is still lots of random pieces of plywood. Eventually, that will also get done along with installing two new light fixtures.


And here is the shot to the left of the door. There is still some work to be done here. Matt is going to install a washer connection box. He needs to do this plumbing work before the drywall behind the washing machine. Unfortunately, the corner will probably stay like it is for a while. The plumbing from the hot water heater runs all in the way of trying to get drywall back there. So...until it dies and has to be replaced, the corner will probably remain undone.

our neice

Look at our niece! And look at that hair! How cute! (I stole this picture from her Mommy's blog.)

B&A - Master Bedroom

Finally...here are some pictures of the master bedroom. It has taken forever to get some up because I just didn't know what to do with it. Originally, the floor had been uncovered but the tack stripes were still down. The walls were the same very boring off-white color that the whole house was painted.


Here is a shot into the room now. As you can see, I still have a completely blank wall. I've been working hard to find things to put up in the room (we already had the candles). This wall is next on my list.


This is another of the only "before" shots that we have. This is one of two windows in the room. As you can see, the floor was in pretty good shape.


After moving in, I couldn't decide if I liked the wall color. The room just didn't feel "cozy" or "comfortable". If I kept the wall color, I didn't know what to do with the curtains. I also considered changing bedding (and, therefore, having other curtain options). However, I couldn't find anything that I particularly liked that wasn't expensive that went with the wall color. So...I finally opted to go with the burgundy curtains and such. I like this color in general. I figure that it will work even if I eventually decide to change the wall color. I'm still not exactly happy with the room, but it's much more comfortable now, and I don't think "I just don't like this at all" when I walk in.


Now that I've got stuff on the two walls, I think I'm going to have to move the candles so that they're closer to the middle.

a beautiful place

along the drive

Every time we drive to Augusta, we pass this scene. I've always found it interesting. This little blue building sitting in the middle of the field looks slightly out of place and yet exactly where it belongs. The buildings in the background look peaceful. There are always cows in this field. Often, they are right where they are in this picture. Anyway, I've always wanted to stop and take a picture. This time, we did.

home and recovering

Mama got to go home Tuesday afternoon. They were talking about letting her go on Wednesday morning, but she convinced the doctor to get everything done and get her out Tuesday. She is doing very well as long as she doesn't do much. She has to walk three times a day starting at 3 minutes each on Wednesday and adding a minute every day until she gets to 10. She will probably go back to work at the beginning of January. Thanks to all who have prayed! Please continue to pray for a full recovery.

the latest on Mama

Mama is doing as well as she could be at this point. She has been moved out of the ICU, so that should be good. She will stay in the hospital until Thursday or so. That's about all for now.

surgery success

Nancy's surgery was completed (with two bypasses) sometime before 10:30. Everything went fine. Now the goal is for her to wake up as expected and I guess for everything to be stable. The next few hours are the most critical. She will stay in the ICU until Monday and will stay at the hospital until sometime later next week. Thank you all who have prayed; please continue to do so!

please pray

Please be praying for my family. My mom is going to have open heart surgery tomorrow.

She's been having chest pain for a couple weeks, but initially thought it was stress related (or that's what she wanted to believe). However, it has continued to get worse. Tuesday night she was not able to sleep. Daddy took her to the ER yesterday and they decided to do a heart cath. because of her family history. (My grandfather has had two open heart surgeries and several stents and my uncle died suddenly of a heart attack when he was in his 40's.)

So, this morning they did the heart cath. and found a 90% blockage and a 30% blockage in one of her main arteries. They are going to move her to a different hospital (where she will have the surgery) today and do the surgery in the morning. They will only have to do one bypass because the blockages are in the same area.

So, please be praying for all of us. Pray that Mama will be calm and that the surgery will go well. Pray that we will all know how to best help. Pray for the kids as they will probably be carted around some in the next couple days. Most of all, pray that God's Will will be done in all of this.

interesting to me

the pants are back

Since it has been cooling off, I decided that I need some more blue jeans. I only have one pair at the moment. Before going to buy some, though, I thought I should try on my pre-pregnancy jeans. Well, they fit! Yay! Hip Hip Hooray! Now, I'm not saying that they're to a completely comfortable state yet, but I didn't have to work to get them on or fastened. So...that's one step toward success!

On a similar note, what kind of pants do you wear just for "normal" activities?

a niece! a niece!

Well, we now have a new niece! My brother's wife birthed a little girl this morning. I can't wait to see pictures. I hope to have some either tonight or in the morning, so I'll share when I do. From what I have gathered, everything went pretty well. She did have a lot of pushing, though. I talked to Jenn just a little while after Kaitlin Lane was born and she sounded like she was doing great!

Here's a picture (added later than original post). Isn't she a cutie!

B&A - The Playroom

Well, I couldn't find any good "before" pictures of the playroom. I guess we didn't take too many because we knew we wouldn't be doing much in there. The only thing we really did was to replace the carpet. It was originally a yucky green carpet. We tore it out and replaced it with some nice normal beige carpet. As you can see in the last "after" picture, this room was originally outside. The brick in that picture is the same as is everywhere outside. There was originally a smaller sized porch. At some point, this additional room was built. Eventually, we will probably do some work in here, but we decided it was fine for the moment for using as a playroom.

This picture is looking right from the wall that goes into the dining room.


This is looking left. As you can see, the playroom overlooks the backyard.


We use this wall to hang some of the many pieces of art that Nathan brings home from church. I think we need to add an extra line or two.


Here you can see the backdoor as well as the window going back into the dining room. This was originally an exterior window. Now, however, there is no glass...just a window frame.

the rest of the house

There are still several rooms that I have not posted pictures for. (Yes, I know that's bad grammar.) There are several reasons.

The playroom - no good reason. Maybe I'll get something up soon.

Nathan's room - I tried to dye the existing drapes, but they were too old to take the agitation in the washing maching. So, they have lots of holes and are pink. Once we get his navy ones, I'll get pictures up.

Our room - it's far from finished. I have just started finding some things for the walls. I found some curtains that I think will work, but I need Target to get one in so I'll have two. It may be a little while still before it gets in picture taking order.

The computer room - It is still got a pile of boxes. They will eventually go in the laundry room, but it needs to be redone first. Who knows when this will happen. I could probably go ahead and put up some pictures, though, since it's livable.

Ok. I think that's all the ones that I have missed. Oh yeah...our bathroom. It's a project waiting...and will be for a while, I'm afraid.

our front bed

I know that I have already posted about our front bed, but we didn't have mulch down at the time that the pictures were taken. So, I wanted to get a new picture up. Plus, our daisies (or chrysanthemums) are now blooming. So, here is the before, middle, and after pictures.

sad reality

Tonight we went out to eat at Backyard Burgers. While sitting there eating, we observed a woman pull up in a new GMC Yukon (diagonally across a couple of parking spaces). I thought it looked a little odd, and she just sat there for a bit. A man came walking across the parking lot from a truck and went around the other side of the Yukon. Right as I said to Jennifer that I was looking to see if the woman had a ring on, Jennifer said she was looking for exactly the same thing. It became incredibly obvious that we were indeed seeing two divorced parents "swapping off" the kids in the parking lot. The parents hardly spoke a word or even looked at each other.

The two little girls stood around on the sidewalk waiting on the dad to finish fiddling around with stuff in his truck (across the parking lot) while the mom waited for him to come back and get the girls. It was a searing illustration of the way kids of divorce end up in a confused, painful world of "in-between."

After the dad came back and got the two girls, the mom came back a few minutes later with another younger sister. As the mom drove off again, Jennifer thought she saw the mom start to cry. There were no smiles or laughter from anyone, even while the dad and daughters were in the restaurant. It was sad to see the cold reality of what divorce does to people and families. And to think that most marriages end in divorce now.

curiosity

I enjoy taking pictures. Unfortunately, I don't have any real knowledge of how to take pictures. Every once in a while, though, I get a picture that I particularly like. Here's one of them (it's better if you click on it to see it larger):

B&A - Caroline's Room

Caroline's room has probably seen the least amount of change. The floor was already uncovered and finished. We did, however, have it refinished along with the rest of the floors. The walls and ceilings were all painted. Caroline's room is the only one to have new curtains at this point. Everything else is pretty plain right now. We haven't gotten any pictures up on the walls yet and all of her bedding is gone (except sheets, of course). I'm hoping to get things decorated a little better before too long. Anyway, here are some before and after pictures and a close-up of the curtains.

Mommy and Nathan project

Nathan and I have been talking about planting some flowers in our little flower bed by the sidewalk in front of the house since way before we moved. It's just been too stinkin' hot to put anything out there. The last week or two, it has finally cooled off, so we got some plants in this weekend. We have daisies that will be blooming soon, gardenias that will bloom next year, and verbena that is blooming now. We haven't made it to the store to get much yet, but here are the pictures as things look right now.

James 1:4

I read James 1:4 the last couple nights and have been mulling over one phrase - "perseverance must finish its work". I keep thinking "What does that really mean?" I can't really come up with an answer that tells me what that looks like. It clearly says in the rest of the verse "so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." So, we know the result of perseverance finishing its work. In verse 2, it says "the testing of your faith develops perseverance", so we know how we get perseverance. Now, what is the middle step? What is the work of perseverance?

weekend work - part 2

In the front, I worked on getting rid of dead stuff and some things that I have no intention of keeping or relocating. Nathan also helped. He worked on sawing down a dead branch for quite a while. I really don't know how long it took him, but I would say maybe 20 minutes. Things don't look good yet, but we've made progress. Most likely all the bushes in this section will be removed or relocated. Below are before and after pictures as well as pictures of Nathan's sawing conquest and mine.

weekend work - part 1

This weekend, I spent a good bit of time clearing out some of our yard. At this point, I'm not even attempting to prune anything (it's really too hot anyway). I'm just trying to get rid of all the junk that is growing. Here are some pictures of a section of the backyard that I worked on. You can see that it is just off the patio. Eventually, this whole area will be reworked. (You may have to look at the larger version of the pictures in order to really tell what is or isn't there.)

plant identification

Plant 1



Plant 2


Plant 3


Plant 4


Plant 5


Plant 6


Plant 7