There are two big pieces of news from the last month. First of all, my parents came out for a visit at Christmas! We all had a lot of fun while they were here. We went to hardware ranch and saw the winter elk-feeding grounds, we drove up the canyons and checked out the snow levels at the ski resorts, we spent Christmas eve/day/day after Christmas at Jason's grandparent's ranch in Logan, where we all went for horseback rides on Christmas day with beautiful views of the snow-covered mountains. Best of all my parents got 6 days of travel, story telling, and relaxing WITHOUT cows! It was good to see them have so much fun, and I hope they make it back again soon.
The second bit of news is our recently completed tile job. On the main floor there was linoleum in the bathroom and kitchen. One of the seams in the kitchen floor had been poorly done and was starting to peel up. I had been wanting to do tile for awhile...even more so after finding out Jason's cousins Weston and Kyle have been doing freelance tile jobs over the past year or more. Weston and Kyle's schedule cleared up a bit after Christmas so the first 2 weekends of January was dedicated to installing tile at our house. Under the kitchen linoleum we found VCT tile, however under the bathroom linoleum we were surprised to find ancient tile! It made the prep-work a little longer due to creating the necessity of borrowing a belt sander to get the glue from the old linoleum off of the even older tile. Thanks to Jason's dad's neighbor Nolan, we were back up and running first thing Saturday morning. Saturday the guys managed to get the bathroom tile set, and about 60% of the kitchen. The project was then put on hold until the following weekend while Weston and Kyle took care of church and school responsibilities for the week. The following Friday night the guys were back once again, this time to finish setting the remaining tile. Saturday all that was left was the grout and caulk which was easily finished by sundown. I am so happy to have new tile and thankful to Weston and Kyle for all of their hard work. Admittedly the tile project was a bit of a hassle...we spent 2 nights sleeping on cots at cousin Heather's house, since we only have one bathroom and our toilet was residing in our bathtub. Our oven was moved into and out of our living room during the project, and for the entire week our refrigerator resided on our back porch. To complicate matters, the fridge door couldn't be opened facing the house, so in order to get into the fridge you had to go outside. Luckily (or not so luckily for the barefoot person really wanting something out of the fridge) the weather stayed cold during the week, so the food in the fridge was fine and we were able to move the frozen goods to the upright freezer in the basement. The exciting part is that the tile looks really nice. The bathroom is my favorite, so I thought I'd include before and after pictures.
In other exciting news we used paint stripper to remove the chipping paint from our previously refinished bathtub that was starting to flake. That stuff was STRONG! We actually set off our 'explosive gas alarm' on our carbon monoxide detector in the process and had to open a few windows. The result is a bathtub that no longer has chipping paint, but is once again it's original UGLY brown color. We purchased a white spray-enamel kit specifically for refinishing bathtubs so we're going to give that a try later in the week. If all goes well, we will go from a chipping white/brown tub...to an ugly brown tub...to a new-looking white refinished tub. Wish us luck! Hopefully there will be pictures in the next edition of this blog.
My 3 1/2 year old Dell laptop has recently been reduced to an awkward desktop. Basically the laptop screen has died...so all my data is there, I just have to mess with hooking it to an external monitor to see what I'm doing and get it off. This is complicated by the fact that my laptop is currently in about a half dozen pieces, after I attempted minor laptop surgery last week to replace the LCD inverter to see if I could fix the problem. Since it didn't seem to fix anything, I just haven't had the motivation to put it all back together...so its currently rather useless. On the bright side, I've purchased a new laptop...which should be here in 1-2 weeks. I am (im)patiently waiting for my pretty new Toshiba.
Projects, projects, projects. Our tile job is ever-so-close to finished (just replacing some trim yet), our tub in in progress, my new laptop is ordered. I hope to shortly win the lottery to afford all of this excess.
On a side note, I am especially thankful for my supportive husband this month, who hasn't so much as flinched when I told him what my tuition would cost...when the tile job became this month's project, and when my laptop unexpectedly died. I know money can be a huge arguing point for married couples, and if anything he has shown a great deal of confidence in me making financial decisions--not complaining about the price of my new laptop, but instead trusting me to make wise spending decisions. He knows I worry more about money sometimes than he does (and he's the "financial professional"). I picked a good one.
Stay tuned 'til next month. I hope this finds you well!
S.~
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