Ok, Ok, Ok...I will give in to the peer pressure!

It all began when I wrote my missionary son a letter this past week. He had written saying he really wanted to see pictures of the house I bought. I had been intentionally not sending him photos because it is a foreclosure and needs a lot of work. After him nagging me so much I decided to email him some photos. His reply after looking at them: To be brutally honest Mom, that place is a dump! This is exactly why I hadn't emailed him any of the photos before.

I don't know how to sew, I don't know how to drive a stick, I have never liked to exercise or eat healthy for very long. I don't have the best fingernails, smoothest heels, or most silky hair. There is a lot that I don't have. But I feel I do know how to take something really ugly...like this house...and make it into something really beautiful. This is something I enjoy and something I feel I do well at. It feeds my soul to make my world a more beautiful place.

With that being said, I will give you a sneak peek into the goings on at my new house. But you have to promise me not to snicker, not to gossip and not to call the men to come and put me in a strait jacket. I have not lost my mind...I just see potential :)

Here are a couple of the befores...followed by a couple of the durings.

First is the outside of the house. Not too attractive. There is beauty in everything however, and those weeds had many ladybugs living in them.




I just had the land cleared...front and back. The next step will be the sprinklers.



The Kitchen:

It was completely gutted. Everything in there was so old and dirty looking.



My deal of kitchen cabinets, new appliances, tile floor, a pretty green paint, and the coolest light fixtures ever will make this place beautiful!



I will send more rooms next week so you can believe I am really off my rocker! I hope these photos don't give anyone nightmares...for me I just get butterflies thinking of how in love I am going to be with it when it is all done. And many thanks and much appreciation to Jaime. I would never have bought this house if I didn't have such a skilled and visionary man to make my dreams for this house come true!

The Breakdown

There are many types of breakdowns in life. There are car breakdowns...there are appliance breakdowns...there are budget breakdowns....and then there are the nervous breakdowns. With all I have been through, I can't say I have actually had a nervous breakdown. But last Saturday I felt like I was almost there.

The house closed on April 7, but so far, I haven't done anything to it. It will take a lot of work because it is a foreclosure. I have been purchasing items off of ksl.com hoping to fix the house as inexpensively as possible. The garage was filled with all the remodeling products that needed to be hauled down south. Lucky for me, my boss offered to drive his trailer down for me. He brought the trailer by and with the help of neighborhood boys it was loaded rather quickly. There were kitchen cabinets, appliances, tables/chairs, couches, windows, lights, a water heater, french doors, plumbing fixtures, vanities, etc. and 2700 lbs. of tile. The trailer was filled and ready to be picked up on Saturday night.

I began the drive down alone on Saturday morning. I had one major dilemma. Who was going to help me unload the trailer on the other end? My father is on oxygen and is not capable of that anymore, my son has mandatory work at the census and couldn't get off, my go-to-guy for everything had hurt his knee two weeks before and was on crutches, my boss had broken his foot at scout camp...I was completely out of options. I did what most Mormons have learned to do...I humbly called the bishop of the new ward.

This was a big step for me. I am not one that likes to ask for help...especially from strangers. And there was one major blip in my plan...my boss couldn't deliver the trailer until the middle of the night Sunday morning...and he had to leave to get back to work early Monday morning. This meant total strangers would be asked to help me on the Sabbath - gasp! I really felt it was the "ox in the mire", but nevertheless...no one in my new place knows what I have been through and knows how hard it is to try and make it as a single woman. I felt all the guilt, imagined and real, that came from this request. The bishop hesitantly agreed to call the Elder's Quorum president and have some men come help me.

I was driving the four hours to my new home and the weight of aloneness just came over me. I began to sob. What am I doing? Can I really do this? I am alone and this is the way it is going to be...and it is scary! This may have been the first time I actually realized that I was alone and this is what it felt like to depend totally on other people.

I arrived at my house, empty and dead bug infested. It didn't take long to find out the water had been turned off. I had paid my two hundred dollar deposit to have it turned on May 5...but nope! I called the emergency line and said, "To me this is an emergency!" They sent someone right out. I have not had the gas turned on, so hot water was non-existent.

There was no table, no chair, no other person there. I grabbed some Mexican food and sat on the hard tile floor and began to ponder the choice I had made. Could I really do this? Was I crazy? As I usually do, I quickly gave up the pity party and went to work stripping the wallpaper - another one of my reasons for going down there.

A little after midnight the truck pulled in...and after many thanks to my boss and his family, I fell into a deep sleep on my cot. I awoke at 8 am the next morning and decided to begin unloading...not knowing if anyone would come or not. I worked for 2 hours and unloaded about 20 percent of the trailer. It was slow going and heavy work...not for a girl like me. At ten o'clock, cars and trucks began pulling in to my little cul-de-sac. Seven men and three young men had the trailer unloaded in 30 minutes. I was happy, relieved and so grateful for their service...and their muscles.

I attended church, felt welcomed, and returned home with my Arby's sack for dinner. As I entered my home this time, I had a chair to sit on, and I actually felt as if I was in the right place. I fell asleep Sunday night, on my cot, by the bedroom window. As i looked up to the heavens, I noticed that in the country you can see millions of stars. I wished on one, and fell into a very restful sleep.



The nervous breakdown was short lived, and I was back in business :)

May 8, 2010

One thing I have never been very good at is asking for help. Now I find myself in a situation where I have to ask for help. When you are a single woman, it is fairly obvious that there are things I simply cannot do by myself. I need a man...I need his muscles. I am preparing to move....a few hours away. Moving involves not just moving me and my children, but moving STUFF. I need help. It is hard to find enough willing hands and willing hearts to help me with this. It is even harder when you know you are inconveniencing people. Men have jobs, they have families, they have many obligations. That is why it is so disheartening when you get the courage to finally ask for help to find yourself without any. What am I going to do? I wake up pretty consistently now at 4 am wondering how this is all going to happen. I am a smart girl; I just need to think a little harder. Somehow it will all come together. But one thing is unchanging...I need help. Without it I will drown. Thanks to all of those who have saved me in the past...and thanks to all those who will save me in the future. I am just a girl...with a brain, but without muscles. I will figure it out.

May 5 The Deal of the Century!

I found the deal of the century a couple of weeks ago. I bought a foreclosure and am trying to redo it as inexpensively as possible. One thing I had been looking for online...nonstop...was some used kitchen cabinets. After several weeks of searching our local online "garage sale" I found them. I was not first on the list to call, but the seller moved me to the front of the line because he liked me :) I purchased 17 kitchen cabinets, the corian countertop, a double wall oven, an overhead microwave, a dishwasher, and even the kitchen sink for $1000 !!!!! What an incredible deal. The oven alone retails for $1800 online. If you think I am bragging...I am!

But the real deal came later. I was enjoying NOT being on a continuous search for the kitchen cabinets. And it came to me, isn't that how life is? Once we get something good, we need to stop looking. Take a marriage for example....you can marry someone really good...in fact, at wedding time you believe they are the best. But there is always someone better looking, more athletic, more talented, more relaxed, etc. If you choose to look, you will probably find them. But do you always want to be looking for something better around the next corner? Why not just be satisfied with what you have? Why decide to look else where when looking into your partners eyes will remind you that you already have the best. Be content, be satisfied...stop looking around. Just bathe yourself in the joy of having "good enough" in your life, in your home and in your arms each night. I wish my "wusband" would not have kept looking. Whether it is kitchen cabinets or the love of your life, once you have it, just enjoy it...Because that is the real deal!