Beautiful Snow

Three days after Christmas we had the most beautiful snowfall! Husband's parents were supposed to come down for a visit that day, and it delayed them, but other than that, it was the perfect snowfall. It was the kind of snow that just made everything look like a Christmas card. It even packed nicely so the kids made a snowman. Husband shoveled, the kids played outside, and I took pictures (from inside where it was warm and dry!).

We Have A Window!

I know it's a little overdue, but we FINALLY have our window back in place! We have had it back in since August 25. I took it in to be repaired at the end of June. We had a little incident with The Girl and a softball. I thought I had posted this story, but apparently I never did. Ooops! Here is the story:


The Girl really enjoyed playing softball this year. She has one game left and is planning on going out again next year. She would like to pitch, but she still needs more practice. Today, she decided to draw herself a strike zone and practice, practice, practice. They say pictures are worth a thousand words........

The Strike Zone is drawn...........

Now Notice How Close the Strike Zone is to the WINDOWS!!!!!

Finally, NOTICE the WINDOW!!!!

After lots of "I'm Sorry!!! I didn't mean to!!!!" and Mom had calmed down considerably, what is The Girl's comment? "Except for the windows, it was a really good idea, don't you think?"
UUUUHHHHH........NO!!!!! I don't think!!

When I took the window in to be repaired, I found out the only man who repairs them had just had surgery on his hand and wasn't sure when he'd be able to work on it. He was in a cast, and I just didn't have the nerve to take my window elsewhere. After living with plastic over the window spot for two months I finally called to check on the progress of the window. "Oh, yeah, that's been done!" he said when I asked about my window. I was SO upset! I wanted to yell, "THEN WHY DIDN'T YOU CALL ME AND TELL ME IT WAS DONE??!!" Instead, I just calmly said, "Thank you. I'll be there Thursday." Two days later, my handy-man, Dad, came and put the window back in its place. Life is good again.

Notice the cat waiting for his chance to pounce out the window and into freedom! LOL!!

Thanks, Dad, for another job well done!

The Saga of the Clothesline

Those of you who know me, know I LOVE my clothesline. Actually, anyone who has read this blog probably knows by now how much I love my clothesline! Anyway, it finally has it's tight green wire and I am so happy with it! It has truly been a family project, too! Here are a few shots of Father-in-Law working on it.

Tying the line to the hardware

Putting the hardware and line onto the poles

Same Day, Different Project

Whenever my dad comes over, I try to squeeze as many projects out of him as possible. Husband and I just aren't very handy people. I think my dad's favorite saying is, "What are you going to do when I'm gone?!" I try to think of clever answers to this question like, "I'll just give you a call and you can come back!" Of course, this isn't exactly what he means, but oh well!
Anyway, the day he finished the clothesline he also hooked up the water and ice maker to our refrigerator. This may not sound too exciting to you, but to me, it was GREAT!!! We have been without ice for probably four years or more. My old refrigerator's ice maker quit working, and I didn't ever have room in the freezer for ice trays. The old refigerator finally died, but fortunately for us, my sister and brother-in-law, Chloe (pronounced Schlow) and Skeeter, were getting a new fridge at the same time. They sold us their old one, and now, thanks to Dad, we have ice! The entire project went relatively well, and I even got to drill the hole in the floor with my own drill. I did use my dad's drill bit, though, because he had some fancy thing I had never seen before. All in all it was a good day. I can't tell you how nice it is to have ice again. You just can't truly appreciate the little things until you go without!

Clothesline Progress

A week after my dad came and started the clothesline project, he came over to finish it. It wasn't a very nice day because it was raining, but he persevered nonetheless. My mom decided to supervise from the house by watching out the windows and occasionally opening the door and hollering something out. I decided to be a tad more helpful this time and withstood the rain outside with my dad. It was a little slick and muddy trying to get the old posts out of the ground. As always, though, my dad used a little ingenuity and found an easier way to do it. After a couple unsuccessful tries with the jack, he found a long pole to use as a lever, and the old poles came right out!

My mom helped my dad string the lines on the poles, then he took us for Chinese! Yum!

Today is the first time I have had a chance to use my new clothesline to it's full potential! My daughter has hung out a load for me a couple times, but since I'm still in school and it has rained faithfully every weekend since the completion of the project, I have not had the chance to do all of the laundry at once. I'm happy for the most part; completely happy with the posts and spacing of the lines, but disappointed with the line itself. All they had at Home Depot was the white plastic line, and it's TOO stretchy! I need to go to a couple of other places and see if I can find the green stuff with the wire in the middle. Then I believe my lines will be perfect!

Eventful Day

My mom and dad came over this morning to help us out
(i.e. Dad--do, Mom and I supervise) and get some things done around the house. I have been complaining about my clothesline since we moved into this house. It's so short, and the lines are so close together that the clothes take all day to dry. I can't even get all of the laundry done in one day. My dad made me some new poles and came over today to put them in the ground. He also fixed the garage door. His favorite line of the day was, "I don't like to do anything the easy way." Case in point, instead of removing the topper on the truck, he left it on even though it made it really difficult to get the 8+ foot poles in and out.

It was comical for us supervisors to watch him get those out. (I should mention that Tom was at work most of the day, so there was no other male support for my dad, physical or otherwise. Poor guy!) Then, he set out to dig the holes. I went in the house to do a few things. Nearing completion of the second hole, I heard him say, "I should've known that first one went in too easy!" When I went out to see what was wrong, I learned that after digging about two feet down, he had run into some kind of plastic pipe. He had to move forward a couple of feet and dig a new hole.

Then when it was time to pour the cement in the hole he discovered that we didn't have enough. We made a quick trip to get more, then my mom and I dropped him off at home and went to get a new spring for the garage door. Well, since we were out and about we did a little shopping at Kohl's as well. Needless to say, by the time we returned with the supplies for the garage door, my dad had been finished with the poles for quite some time. He perked up just a bit when we handed him a polish sausage from a local cookout! The new poles look great! You can see (kind of) how much more room I'm going to have. I was thinking that I could do some laundry tomorrow, but apparently the cement has to settle for a few days first. The next big job will be to take the old poles out.

Sticking with the "Nothing Easy" theme, we got two springs for the garage door instead of just one. The helpful guys at Home Depot agreed that it would not be a good idea to change only one spring, explaining that this would not balance the garage door, and would probably cause the old spring to break anyway. I don't know how many times my dad was up and down and on and off that ladder!! He was wanting to find and murder whoever built our garage and left NO ROOM on the west side of the door by the time he was finished!! Note to anyone that may someday build a house or garage: It's a VERY BAD idea to run one of the garage door tracks directly into the garage wall. It leaves no wiggle room when you need to fix things!

Eventually it was all finished and working beautifully. With all of the handiness going on around me, I thought I'd do something. I decided I'd change the light bulb in the garage door opener that's been burnt out for about a month. My dad and I got quite the chuckle when I pulled a 3-way bulb out!!! We figure it must've been the same guy that built the garage door track into the garage wall!! DUH!! Tom got home from work shortly after everything was done. Isn't that always the way?! I tried talking my dad into hooking up the water/ice maker on the refrigerator while he was here, but he assured me that he had had enough fun for one day!