3....2...1...

DISNEY

OR

BUST!!!

SEE

Y'ALL

IN

A

WEEK

A dash of FATE and a sprinkle of change

A lot of you know the story of how we came to live in the house that we live in. For those of you who don't, I will try to make it brief. The house that my husband and I bought 9 years ago as newlyweds, just happens to be my Grandparents "old" house. (built by my great uncle Joe in around 1955). The house my Mother grew up in. The house that as a child, I would run up the path from my house whenever I had the chance, to visit with grampa hoddie and gramma claire. Heck I practically lived in their in-ground pool during the summers (which caused my blonde hair to turn green every year). The accessibility that I had to family on our street was one of my favorite things - and still is today. It is a perk to living on land that was once a part of the "family farm". Well, when Great Grampa Frank passed away, my grandparent's decision to sell their home and move 2 houses up to the farm house was a necessary one for them. I was about 11 or 12 years old at the time. **sniff**...no more pool, the path was no longer traveled, and I missed that house. I missed the bathroom mirror that opened so far you could see all around your head, I missed the memories of how cold it felt to come in from the pool into the air conditioned living room, the memories of learning to ride my bike in the driveway, and jumping all around the lawn on my pogo stick, and being paid 50 cents per bag of leaves that I could rake up. Yup - they sold the house to a family from "the city" - they were pretty nice i guess, they borrowed stuff once in a while, but sadly, I never went there again. eventually,after about 11 more years, that family fell on hard times and illness. and the house fell into Foreclosure. JUST so happens this was all falling into place the year Gary and I were getting married and wondering where we were going to call home. It started out a long and involved process of "finessing" the bank into a short sale of the property. TO US! I think the first correspondence was in February of 2000, and we finally had the closing that Fall. It was Fate! - and it was ours. to be honest, at first it didn't really feel like our's. It was in need of such fixing up, that it didn't feel like Grandmas anymore either. but as we dove into the repairs, I found myself wanting to keep the silly things that I remembered as a child the same. The bathroom mirror was still there - I painted it up pretty again and requested it be back in the bathroom. Unfortunately the pool had been destroyed, and with lack of funds to replace it, we filled in the hole - but the landscaping around it is untouched, and I have other plans for the "silly" looking circle we have in the backyard. All of these "un-changes" were reminders of my childhood. As the nine years have gone by, and our family has blossomed, Their are a lot of things I realize we need to change. But their is so much that I am glad remains the same - My kids are learning to ride their bikes in the same driveway - Kyle bounces all over the yard on his pogo stick. The path between us and my Mother's house is worn again, and the same easy access to family brings me all the comfort in the world.
The reason I got thinking about all of this and wanted to blog it, was because we Just had another major change. The yard has always been outlined with tall spruce trees. They were planted when I was just a baby - or maybe before, I'm not sure. they were great for privacy, they were great for assurance that no kids could get to the busy street. What they were not great for, was the power company. After years of the power company going by and butchering cutting them away from the power lines, they died. They were resembling skeletons of trees past.

They were pretty ugly. So we contacted the power company last year and asked if they would just cut them down next time. They agreed that the next time they were scheduled to cut on our street, that they would take care of whatever would fit in the chipper. That time was today! major major change to our yard. - Although I think it is a good one - my mind is reeling about how I am going to utilize the front yard now - what landscaping I will dedicate next summer to. It is very exciting. Don't worry - I took pictures (for you Janie!) as you can see, there is still a lot of cleanup to do on our part. I will update you in the spring.

now if I could only talk the power company into putting the lines under ground so they weren't so .......... power liney looking!

Mini Them's...........Long story short

I had Monday and Tuesday off! - by Wednesday, I was ready to go back to work (I know - I feel like such an ungrateful mother sometimes) BUT - I had spent most of those 2 days trying to clean the house! I had high expectations, I even washed the living room curtains! but as the day went on, I felt like I was spinning my wheels. By Tuesday, I was just plain angry about it. It didn't look any cleaner, (or less cluttered) than it had on Sunday!!!! and to top it all off - I could tell the Kids were feeling a little attention deprived because they were being just plain NAUGHTY! - so I decided to drop what we were doing and head out into the awesome, fresh, clean, autumn air and frolic and play a little.......

We did THIS:

But the house is still a mess.......

Counting Down....

• 4 hours until I am on a long weekend
• 8 hours until an out of town relative who we have never met comes to stay at my mom's for a week!
• 8 hours 30 minutes until that said relative will think my kids are crazy, and we will need to head home.
• 1 day until one of the kids asks to go to a toy store for some "junk"
• 2 days until our Sunday Morning coffee ritual at the farm - I look forward to it so much. This Sunday will include the out of town relatives.
• 3 days 'til I have to really buckle down and get things packed and organized for Disney
• 6 days until payday - oh gosh , stretching 'til then SUCKS
• 14 days until we will be staying up all night long because we are too excited to sleep - leaving for Disney in the morning!
• 15 days until the 9 of us will board that plane to Disney in disbelief that the day has finally arrived!
• 22 days until Halloween - where we will be trick or treating AT Disney!
• 23 days until the Disney Vacation of a lifetime is over and we are heading back home.
• 23 days 6 hours 'til we collapse from exhaustion and have to think about getting up for work in the morning.