laundry and one lazy dog

When I do laundry, I wash it all in one day and let it all pile up on the bed so that I can sort it and put it away. Maggie is always is the way when I'm trying to put laundry away. She flat refuses to leave. So I usually just pile it up on top of her. As you can see in the second picture she just falls asleep under the huge mound...it doesn't seem to bother her much.

Close-ups

Here are a few close-ups of my babies.

Flooring/Cabinets/Countertops

Here is a really bad pic of our cabinet color, the bamboo flooring we purchased, and a countertop sample we are considering.

Boom-a-Ring Circus

Tonight, Haley and my mom came up to go the circus with us. They visited my classroom, went to Chick Fila with us for Fox Meadow Night, went to Barnes & Noble for Fox Meadow night, and then to the circus. We had a very busy night! The circus was a blast! Haley got a stuffed elephant, a tiger cup, and a hat!

Bricks

They started our brick today! Yay!

Sometimes the grass is greener on the other side...

Here is a pic of our backyard and the fence that seperates it from our neighbor's yard. Their sod is starting to turn a pretty bright green. I'm envious of their lush yard compared to our sandy, dirty mudpile. But I just have to tell myself that they were in our position not too long ago!

Sugarland & Little Big Town Concert

Last night Travis and I went to the Sugarland & Little Big Town Concert here at the Convo. We had such a great time! It was hands down one of the best concerts I've ever been to. Both bands put on a great show. Very energetic! It was one of those where you danced and sang along the whole time! Unfortunately we didn't bring the camera and didn't get any pictures! But here is one pic of us before we left. We absolutely needed a night off like that where we could relax and blow off some steam!

New Address

Our brick is being delivered on Monday! Our neighborhood requires a brick mailbox and address plate. This is one of our new address plates. One will go on the house and one will go on the mailbox.

finish saferoom...check

Finally we finished our safe room today! Normally it is completed long before framing, however, our block guys never would show up to do it before the framing started. Well, we've had the walls completed for several weeks and have been waiting to get the roof installed. We had two options. Either haul 160 5 gallon buckets of concrete up the stairs to pour into the saferoom ceiling or hire a pump truck to come and do it. Of course we hired the pump truck...expensive but well worth it. It showed up today...took up the entire street and awed the entire neighborhood (several people stopped to watch). It raised it's boom 40 ft into the air and then lowered the hose into our upstairs window. Travis had to catch it from the window. Then several hoses had to be attached to reach the saferoom. We were smart enough to cover the upstairs bedroom in plastic...but little did we know it would not even come close to preventing the mess we had coming. Apparently our pump guys had not completely cleaned out the hoses from the previous pour. When they began to pump our concrete it got clogged. The guys had to pound on it to get it to release. Well...when it released it basically exploded everywhere. The electrician and I were downstairs when it happened. It was this loud boom and then splash. We knew it was bad. Concrete was everywhere...wall to wall. It poured down into the garage (all over the drywall Travis had just installed, our new back door, two boxes of siding, etc.). I ran around saying several "choice" words and trying to move what I could. Travis worked for over 5 hours to smooth it alone. We haven't even begun to tackle the job of cleaning up. That'll be tomorrow! Here are a few pics of our adventure today.

In honor of Earth day...

In honor of Earth day, here is a list of all the ways we are trying to make our new house a little bit more "green":

• We are installing "low energy" windows
• We are using a tankless electric water heater that saves water and energy
• We are heating the floor which reduces energy needed to heat the house
• We are installing bamboo flooring which saves trees
• We are Super insulating it...which will save energy and lower our electic bills! :)

New Work Boots

Today I got a pair of new work boots. I went to target to get a pair of rainboots to wear when I work on the lot. Unfortunately they didn't have my size in any of the ones I liked. Then I saw these and they were my size. I wasn't really crazy about them but for some reason they were marked down to $4.95...that was 75% off the original price!

electric, plumbing, siding

This week so far we have been getting our electrical, plumbing, and siding installed. None are completely finished at this point. Soon our heating/air guy will start. This weekend we hope to get some dirtwork done. Our brickers are supposed to start on Monday! Here is a picture of the tub in the master bathroom, the siding under the back grilling porch, and an empty electric box.

Man's work Part 2

We worked our patooties off today. We put in a very loooong 10 hour day! We started the day off by loading up and then taking back the leftover wood from our framing ($200 worth!!!). Then we went and picked up half of our bamboo flooring. Travis unloaded it...the boxes were too heavy for me to lift. While he unloaded it box by box I picked up all the scrap boards and burned them. Then he began hanging drywall in the garage. I began picking up all the scrap pieces of shingles. I worked for several hours do just that...I was determined to get them all! I did get them all. I filled up the entire bed of Travis' truck. By the end of the day I was covered in mud...head to toe. My shoes were ruined...so the good news today was that now I get to buy a new pair of tennis shoes!

Windows and doors

We got our windows and doors installed today. We don't have the windows in the garage or bonus room yet because they ordered the wrong ones! The doors are white now but we will paint them later. We ended up getting a pretty good deal on them. We saved $2100 on our double front doors alone! Bartons had originally priced us at $2500 for fiberglass doors. We found these steel ones at a little shop here in town for $400. :) That shop is also saving us about $25 per interior door as well. Then we went to Surplus Warehouse and got the back glass door for $120 which saved us about $50 off Barton's price. We also found some solid Bamboo flooring at that same place for $2.80/ft. That's WAY cheaper than we've seen anywhere! We're going tomorrow to get that. We love those deals!

Another great buy!

We found this sink at that same furniture store in Batesville that we bought our other 2 sinks. We purchased it for $50. It retails for $600. The top had been crushed (as you can see on the left side) but the cabinet was pretty much perfect. Just a few minor scratches that we can fill in. We went to a countertop place here and they are going to custom make us a new granite top for it. The granite we chose is called tropical brown and it is beautiful. We spent $340 on the top...so for a grand total of $390 we got a beautiful sink! To have the cabinet place make us a plain ole' regular vanity with plain marble top would have cost us almost $500. So I think we got one heck of deal!

Man's work

Wow! We had an incredibly busy day. We spent the first part of the day shopping for flooring and lighting. Then we headed to the lot around 2:00 this afternoon. Our goal was to really clean it up. It was COVERED with small scrap pieces of wood, nails, shingles, bags, trash, etc. It was to the point where it was difficult to walk. The task was so daunting at first that I didn't know how we could even begin. Yet we did...one piece of wood at a time. We started a burn pile and just kept piling it on. I was really surprised at the sheer amound of wasted wood there was. We worked non-stop until 8:00 this evening when it got too dark to see. I did a day's worth of "man's work"(hauling wood, digging in the dirt, etc.) I have several splinters to show for it. :)Our shingle guys did finish the job today. On Monday we should start the siding process (we are only siding the eaves and underneath side of the porches). Thursday our plumber comes. Here is a pic of our new shingles...they are a little hard to see.

Check this out...

I saw this link on a friend's page and decided to check out this little girls' story. I was so moved and engrossed in it that I sat and read every single blog and have checked it every single day since. It's a hearbreaking story and moved me to sobs...yes, sobs several times. Yet, the family's strength and faith are so amazing. Please check it out and keep this family in your prayers! http://audreycaroline.blogspot.com/

Dried in and shingles

Our house is officially "dried in" and is in the process of getting shingles. We've gotten about half of our shingles completed. Our safe room is almost completed...we still have to put the top on it. It's supposed to rain tomorrow so we probably won't have much more change until this weekend. My goal this weekend is to get the lot cleaned up some. Travis is going to try and finish the safe room.

Hot-tub lovin' girl

Haley LOVES the hot tub. She cannot wait to get in it whenever she's over at Nanna and Pa's house.

more house pics

When we got back into town this morning, we pretty much headed straight over to the lot. The block guys were working on the safe room, the framers were working on the roof, and Travis and I decided to work on cleaning out the inside. The floors were covered with bent nails, sawdust, cigarette butts, sunflower seeds, bottles, etc. So we worked for a few hours sweeping and picking up trash. Then we went driving around to look at brick colors and shingle colors. We had narrowed down our brick colors between just a few and we wanted to see them one more time before we made our final decision. We did decide on both our brick and shingle colors today (I can scratch those off our "to do" list). Then Ashley and Chandler came over to walk through our new house as well! Here are a few updated pics of the new house!

Hot-tubbin'

Once we got in Batesville, we pretty much hopped into the hot tub. My mom got it for my dad for his 50th birthday. It was really cold outside so we really enjoyed it!

House Update

We decided to head to batesville for the weekend to get away from the house stuff as well as the move, etc. We stopped by the lot on our way out of town. The guys haven't been able to work much the last few days because of the rain. They did work a little bit Friday afternoon putting in our stairs. The are going to lay the boards on the roof and our block guys is supposed to complete the safe room. I can't wait to see it on Sunday!

Framing, Day 4

Today was the fourth day of framing. They've gotten up all the exterior and interior walls. They're currently working on the roof trusses and the upstairs bonus room floor. Here is a pic of the front of the house...it's not great because of the sun's glare. There is also one of the back of the house.