Slow and Slightly Unsteady

One Year ago, plus eleven days, I began the biggest transformation my home has ever experienced. Dehoarding doesn’t happen in just an hour like on TV.  It takes a while.  My mentor, Mrs. Passion, warned that it would take 6-9 months.  I’m at the year mark and still not done.  I blame it on life.  Six kids and a crazy schedule tends to shoot the best laid plans out of the water.  You know the whole two steps forward, one back. 

However, I am still progressing – in the right direction as well.  I’ve been itching to show you progress, but I’m such a fruity-tootie perfectionist that I want to wait until everything’s done.  Then you’ll get the WOW effect to the oomph degree.  Now I’m kicking myself, because makeovers don’t happen in one post.  Unlike ‘Hoarding, Buried Alive’ on TV, the work to declutter can take weeks, and sometimes months, and in my case I’m now in it a whole year.  One of my biggest lessons:  Procrastination equals Pain… and anxiety.  Neither of which is fun to deal with.  In the past I’d bury them with more projects and stuff.  Now I’m confronting them head on.  I still don’t like pain.  But getting through it is finally worth more than letting it fester.

Case in Point:  Never, and I mean never let your house scream at you for a paint job like this.

Twelve years ago we paid an arm and a leg to have a professional paint it.  Within 5 years we noticed the paint bubbling, and three years ago we really knew it needed to be done.  But the unbloggable happened and stuff like painting the home retreats to the back of your mind.  When we started the whole transformation process a year ago we knew that our first outside order of business was to paint the home.  This summer we realized that if we didn’t tackle the project now we would be forking over thousands to replace the siding as well.

So began the most painful home improvement project we’ve tackled to date.  Believe it or not twice as stressful as retiling the kitchen floor.  What we thought would take a week has turned into four weeks of nightmarish adventure.  Add in the fact that we’ve never attempted a project to this magnitude which played into the tension as well.  We helped a friend paint her home and it only took 6 1/2 hours from start to finish.  Yes, a lot of people showed up to help.  It gave us a false sense of confidence that it would be easy-peasy.

We pressure washed our home for nearly three days trying to knock off all the chipped paint and not tear up the siding.  The results were disappointing.

Sure we got a lot of paint off but there was still too much chipped paint hanging on by a thread waiting to be scrapped.

  Some of the siding didn’t survive and had to be replaced.  In replacing some of the siding we also discovered shortcuts taken by the original builders where they had cut corners, not laid down the vapor-barrier in full which led to rotten wood underneath the trim and siding near the bottom.  So some lower trim had to be totally ripped off.  Our efforts to save money by doing the job ourselves ended up costing us as much as paying someone else to do it.   But only because we had to replace damaged sections caused by our procrastination. The only redeeming note of comfort is that I don’t think a professional would have fixed the damage, just covered it up.

Abner, my boy, was my rock.  He and his friend Chet put in hours daily for nearly two weeks scrapping the paint down to this.

Our favorite tool of choice was an angle grinder with a steel wool bristle brush.  The paint sander attachments made for chipping off paint didn’t last nearly as long.  So we were thrilled with the recommendation of the steel wool attachment. 

Another hard lessons to learn was don’t buy cheap tools.  We burnt through the motors on two angle grinders and even a paint sprayer before we bit the bullet and bought the proper equipment.

Poor Abner had to also deal with the nasty heights.  Our home sits on a hill which makes two stories nearly three on the backside.  Thankfully we’ve the best friends in the world who loaned us scaffolding and ladders, ropes and harnesses.  Friends are the best.  So glad I’m not a recluse.

Triple glad I’ve got a son willing to help.

Then there was another couple of days spent caulking every corner, window, door,  and siding seam.

Since we were down to bare wood on two sides of our home it only made sense to prime before we painted.

We were blessed with some more wonderful help our first day of priming.  Our church was wrapping up a community service project for Northwest Day of Service and many members stopped by after the community project to give us a hand with our adventure.  It’s amazing how many hands can make quick work of taping up and priming.

And another lessons learned was…

Teenagers all will volunteer for any work if they get to be on a roof.  I had to pray like crazy that no one would get hurt.  I think I drove a couple people bonkers with my worry.  Sorry Prince Erik.

Here’s my manly men priming the back side of our home, while dancing on boards in the effort of trying to give me a heart attack.  I am not a fun person to be around when I’m worried.  Yet they survived me.

And as for the what our home looks like now…

Well, it’s painted…

mostly, except for the trim…

however… it’s raining…

but we beat the rain.  Our home is safe and protected and we learned some valuable lessons.

*  If you want something done right – do it yourself or find someone you really trust to do the job correctly.

*  Plan on it costing more than you thought.

*  Don’t skimp on tools.

*  Plan on it taking three times as long as you thought it would.

*  You’ll also be amazed at how many wonderful people there are that are angels on earth.  To the S.V.’s of the earth and especially to Abner’s friend Chet and his family.  They are the best sort of friends one can every hope for.   

*Abner learned he wants to get a great education to land a great job, earn some big bucks to pay someone else to do the work so that he will never have to ever do something like this again.  That’s my boy – he’s a dreamer like me after all.

There, now you know the before and during part.  I’m praying the liquid sunshine lets up so that I can show you the after pictures by Wednesday or Thursday.  Until then I’ve got to tackle the housework and laundry that’s been piling up while I was distracted outside.

Tootles,

FawnDear

Hack and Whack

The weapon of choice.

Evidence gathered from a crime scene.

 

Close up!  ‘Waaaaah!’ cries Mom.

The perpetrator is caught and taken in for a mug shot.

Then whisked away to the cheapest hair cut place I could still find open.  I guess I got what I paid for  - a cheap cut.

Sadly, the stylist spoke very little English and even after I kindly held up my hands to Hope’s hair (three times) trying to show her how short I would prefer the hair cut (to hide the evidence of a crime).  Well let’s just say I finally gave up trying to communicate and brought the culprit Hope home.   And here’s the uneven mess the hairdresser left me with.

Are you kidding me? 

How uneven can you get?  So seeing that I had no extra money to go find someone to cut it right.  Well let’s just say Hope had to pray hard I wouldn’t mess it up even more as I tried to fix the extra mess the hair dresser made. So, here’s my attempt at a fix.

And the front, which I must mention in my defense, is much fluffier when dry.

Dang, I miss her hair.

 

Snapped this picture the same day she whacked it all off.   Well at least it will grow.  Meanwhile the scissors are under lock and key along with the permanent markers.   I think it turned out as okay as any inexperienced, untrained person could have cut it.  And I have to say it matches her sassy personality quite well.

I think she chopped it off because big sis Princess recently got a shorter do.  Princess has a nasty habit of chewing on her hair when concentrating.  That and I could just see her gnawing on it at school so she got a cropped look too.  But I’m missing both my girls hair.

The other hack and whack we attempted today was for a National Day of Service to commemorate the Anniversary of Sept. 11th.  No we didn’t whack or hack anyone.  We, along with thousand of others in our area participated in service projects all over the community.  We ended up helping out weed a garden for a local non-profit organization Camp Korey.  Sadly, I forgot the memory card to my camera.  The whole family went and weeded for 4 hours.  Let me say, the time flew by and I have to say pulling weeds is much more fun when there’s lot’s of people helping out.

The spirit of  whacking was preserved long after we went back home.  We decided to attempt to fight the jungle out back.  We mowed down weeds taller than myself and have now started laying out plastic to kill them off so we can till up the ground next spring.  I want my garden back. 

Weed hacking I can handle.  Let’s just hope the hair hacking has come to an end.

Sidetracked!

I’ve so much to tell you but I keep getting sidetracked.  I wanted to tell you how wonderful it felt to pick up a crochet hook after nearly 11 years.  All the wonderful projects the girls and I have been working on.  The Dreams.  How we turned off the T.V. a few weeks early… etc.

The sleep, the challenges, the ups and downs of life with six very different kids.  But I can’t bring myself to form two coherent sentences because my attention in focused on Haiti.  I’ve been checking up news updates every couple of hours, and my heart aches for their pain.

I’ve only been through one quake in my life that I actually felt and it shook me to my core.   A 6.8 magnitude, but it was deeper in the earth so the damage wasn’t catastrophic like you seen in Haiti.  I remember hurriedly crowding toddlers and small children under my large dining room table, watching the chandelier sway a few feet and seeing my vehicle out the front window bouncing up and down like a toy.  Then when it the shaking stopped, I grabbed my little ones and rushed to the nearby elementary school to make sure my other two kiddo’s were o.k.  They were fine.  I was the one freaking out.  No damage, no injury, only frayed nerves. 

I haven’t shown my kids too much of the news but I have told them a little about it.  However, I can’t tell them about it without getting a little emotional. 

My heart was touched yesterday afternoon when my daughter Lea brought me a sandwich bag full of her carefully saved money. 

‘Mom, I want this to go and help the children in Haiti,’ she said as she handed me the bag. ‘Maybe it could help so that they could stop dying.’ My husband and I had donated earlier in the day to an organization providing food, water, tents, medicine and more.  But I hadn’t really talked about it with the kids.

I love that Lea has a big heart.  I know her money will help.  But for many it will be too late.  One foreign relief worker told Reuters, ‘"Money is worth nothing right now, water is the currency."

Water, Medicine, Food, all needed.  All slowly trickling into a country with Millions of people so desperate.   Donations do make a difference, and I’m so grateful for those Doctors, Missionaries, Search and Rescue, and Military people who are flying in to help, and I pray for them as well as the people of Haiti.

Sometimes sidetracked can be a good thing.  I don’t think I’ve gone through our 72 hour kids for 5 years.  Time to update.  And those empty water barrels in the back yard, – now would be an excellent time to wash them out and fill them up.  Family escape drill, emergency contact information – perfect for our Family Home Evening activity on Monday.  I’m grateful that I have the means to help my family be a little bit more prepared.  I’ve no doubt that we will all have to deal with disaster at some time or another, so for me Preparedness is Hope.  And when you see the eyes of people who have lost Hope on the news, it makes you want it all the more for yourself as well as them.

Here are some great organizations that can use the donations to help and that are on the ground in Haiti helping as we chat.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints Emergency Response

American Red Cross

Save the Children

World Vision International

Mercy Corps

Unicef

Care

Hopefully soon I’ll be able to let you in on all the other mommy adventures happening in our forest.  They are magical to say the least.

Ummm, Take Two!

Oh, My Honk!!!


Who do-ya suppose made this mess? My Giving Tree didn’t even make it 24 hours. Sheezzz!

Well now you know why breakables aren’t something that last too long around these parts.

Being a wee bit scatterbrained like I normally am, I first put our little tree on a small table at the bottom of the stairs knowing full well that dirty clothes get tossed over the edge periodically throughout the day.

Apparently someone with poor aim tossed a heavy towel over the edge and it caught enough branches to send it to the floor. The glass vase was shattered to near dust. Good news is that the glass marbles were nigh indestructible. Who'd have thunk?

And who was that someone???

Sigh – ME!!! See my kids are doomed.

So I found a new base – Glass, because you know I love to tempt fate that way. Fixed the tree back up and put it in the furthest corner of the room where only the dust mites hang out.

Then I loaded the entry table with kid friend nativities that could handle a few knock-downs over the course of the month.

I can almost guarantee that they will find the floor sooner rather than later.

So tonight, our family read the story of ‘The Littlest Angel’ by Charles Tazewell, for our family service project, and talked about how the simplest gifts can often be the best.

Then after opening another bag on the tree we scoured the house looking for loose change.

We are going to donate it to ‘The Heifer Project’. It’s one of the fundraisers that are going on at my girl’s school. Actually there are several charitable causes petitioning school families to contribute to. The reason I choose this one was because it revolves around the oldie but goodie phrase of.

‘Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, Teach him to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.’

The farm girl in me loves that this organization gives farm animals to impoverished people around the world and teaches them lessons on how to use the animals to become more self-reliant and contribute to their families and communities. And finally they are taught how to pass their livestock’s offspring on to another person in need.

So, after we cleaned out the laundry room, cars, couch cushions, purses, and coat pockets we were able to come up with a small cupful of change to donate. I know with the purse strings being tight in a lot of households giving $ is hard to do. But every little penny helps. If everyone donates their loose change for one month, imagine how many people around the world would benefit from a good cause.

After our money dig we let the kids have a cup of hot chocolate topped with mini marshmallows and a Hershey’s Chocolate Mint Candy Cane. Just a little bit of heaven for the taste buds. See even Abner agrees.

Only I didn’t take into account that the sugar would spazz up my kids something fierce right at bedtime. You’d think I’d have learned that lesson by now. Oh well.

Life Lessons from a Fourth Grader

Seen the news today, or yesterday, or last year, or seven years ago? Bad things happen. And they happen to good people too. Seven years ago today, my world was rocked, and not in a good way. We were reading morning scriptures with our kids when my mom-in-law called and told us to turn the news on. I have to admit I was hard pressed to pull myself away from the television and life came to a standstill as I watched with horror the aftermath of the World Trade Center Disasters. September the 11th is to this generation, what I think December the 7th was to our grandparent’s lives. And it affected everyone whether we knew someone personally involved or not.

I would get my kids off to school and then worry about terrorists blowing them up there. The streets and skies were eerily quiet and there was only one thing on people’s minds. ‘What kind of a world do we live in and what does the future hold for our kids?’

My (then) fourth grade son Abner helped me refocus on all that is right with the world. Within a day he helped draft a letter asking his Principle if he could ask the students at the school to help raise money to help the firefighters and rescue people associated with the tragedy.




The Principle agreed and he put canning jars in every classroom with this picture on them asking students to bring cold lunches and donate the money or change they would have spent on hot lunches so we could help people affected by the attack. Loose change started flooding in and within a week those little elementary school kids had donated close to $2,000. We then took the money to a bank which was matching the funds and donated it all to the Red Cross.

So what did this fourth grader teach me? One person can make a difference and make the world a better place. That person can be me, you, or even a little fourth grade boy.

Too often when I see the news and see enormous disasters in some foreign lands, I find myself trying not to care. It’s easy to overlook how many people’s lives have been snuffed out or families have been broken. I think I’m desensitized to it all a little bit. So how can I help people so far away that I don’t really even know?

First, I try to care. Whenever I remember or especially if something happened recently I try to give a few bucks to the Humanitarian Fund my church has set up. I know there are so many good organizations out there that contribute as well. If everyone just gave a little it would add up big time. Those little grade-schoolers taught me this. I’m not going to sell my home and live out of our tank and donate it all but I will donate something.

I participate in races that raise money for good causes. I donate time to help out. In the case of a sweet Sadie an angel going through brain cancer our family is donating 1,000 deeds of service. I know it's not much but the world will be a better place because of her.

Sometimes I just have to try. I probably don’t make that much of a difference like yesterday I didn’t make any difference. But I did try to donate blood for the first time in 4 years. They want my blood since its O-neg. And they keep calling and I keep meaning to go. Yesterday I went only to find out my iron was too low and I couldn’t help after all. So I’m upping the iron supplements so that I can probably try and again in a month or so. And I will try, because that’s the key. Not giving up.

And when I don’t have the funds, or blood or physical time to help someone out I do what I think helps the most. I pray. Because I believe there’s only one person who can really heal the wounds the world has inflicted on itself, or give peace to those who need comforting or are going through tough times. I’ve seen many miracles in my life because of the prayers of so many others.

I hope this post doesn’t sound like I’m some charitable all-knowing angel and I’m patting myself on the back because I’m thinking I’m all that and more. Heavens No – I know I’ve got a long way to go and a lot to learn and by-hoot I want to make a difference and really help other people but I’m only going to do it a little bit at a time. Because my son taught me that a little goes a long way.

1000 Acts of Service

Well summer is finally here and although they have only been home a couple of days the kids are driving you up the wall and out the window. What to do, what to do?

It’s been one of those wild a crazy few days here in the Dear herd. Then again it’s a rarity when something wild and crazy isn’t going on. I was getting ready to complain about dealing with difficult pre-teen kids (the teenagers are no problem, yet), weather, my weight and what not when I was brought back to reality by reading Sadie’s Blog.

My long time blog viewers will remember when I had my B.A.B gift certificate give-away and Sassy wanted to win them to give them to her dear friend whose little 5 year old girl was just diagnosed with an inoperable Brain Tumor and the prognosis wasn’t great. Thankfully Sassy won the contest but I’ve been keeping tabs on Sadie ever since at her blog.

I couldn’t help but be touched at today’s story where their family received 1000 paper cranes as a good luck and health token. What does Sadie’s mom go and do, feel sorry for herself, complain about what it’s like to deal with a child with cancer? No – She does the exact opposite and decides that Sadie and their family will give back 1000 acts of service. It’s humbling to meet wonderful people who when going through the worst life can throw at them turn around and show true Christ like Charity to others.

So we are going to do the same. This summer the Fawndear herd is going to dedicate 1000 acts of service in honor of Sadie and her family. Sure we’ll do all the fun things families do over the summer but our overall theme will be service. Thanks Sadie for letting us get to know a real angel. Anyone else who wants to contribute service in Sadie’s behalf go ahead and go to her blog and say Hi.

Angels Among Us.

It was the Best of Days. It was the Worst of Days.


Worst because someone nicked my husband’s work backpack containing his laptop, cycling shoes, wallet, and smelly bike clothes right out of his personal office at work. Of course he talked with security who said they rarely have anything like this happen – so signs are pointing to the temporary painters and carpet layers who have been working in the building lately.

You can guess that his afternoon was occupied with calling around canceling credit cards and all that fun stuff.

Best because of our Angels.

I got a phone call mid-day from our sweet friends Delbert and Michelle and they wanted to join us for Family Home Evening activities and were wondering if it would be o.k. if Delbert brought his good friend the Tractor. I think I had mentioned my secret garden to Michelle not too long ago and she passed the info. on to her sweetie. And since he loves his tractor and has so much fun on it they were hoping that he could come have fun at our home…

Before they came I had T-Rev help me pull up the old planter boxes out of the garden.

'The Gardens before shot.'

Then out of the goodness of his heart and his overwhelming urge to play with his Tractor, Delber attacked our Secret Garden in a good way.




It could be because he was embarrassed at the state of disrepair our little food store has fallen in to recently.

However you'd have to know the real reason is because Michelle and him are those one-in-a-million, down-to-earth, most amazing neighbors who are so Christlike that they would give the shirt off their backs to help anyone.

Another Before: Notice that you can barely even see the planer boxes through all the weeds.







Their generosity probably saved me a good month's worth of yard work. I now might actually have the opportunity to plant a garden before it's too late to plant.

Prince Erik enjoyed some fresh air while drooling over Delbert's toy.

And if Delbert playing with his Tractor wasn't enough, Michelle attacked with a fervor, another front flower bed.

It seems no matter where we have lived there have always been some kind people, angels, friends who for no reason other than to be nice give up an evening or valuable block of time to touch our lives in a Christlike manner, with nothing expected in return.

And being as it was a downer day for my husband, this was the perfect pick-me-up to help restore our faith in the generosity and kindness of others.

So Thank Heaven for angels, especially Delbert and Michelle!