Saturday, December 27, 2008

while I'm on a rant...

Thin people: I believe your intentions are rooted in genuine concern in telling me how to eat, what to eat, how to exercise, how many times a day to eat, and blah, blah, blah!

Newsflash: I know I'm fat! I know what to do about it and when I'm ready, I will do it! I know how to eat, what to eat, how often to eat it, how, why and when to exercise, and so much more!

Please listen to this: what I'd really like is encouragement when I begin a diet plan and silence with a smile when I'm not ready.

Whew!

Friday, December 26, 2008

This drives me up the wall!!!

Why is it that supposed intelligent people cannot pronounce simple words correctly?
Like nuclear? When I hear it pronounced nuc-ya-lar, I want to scream! While I'm at it:
the T in often really IS silent!
realtor IS a two-syllable word. real-tor
Thank you for letting me vent!

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

"the" house

So the search began again. I kept feeling drawn to Greentree but at the time, the only thing for sale in our range was a two-story house. Then I saw a new listing for a house with the most beautiful interior photos I'd seen. Rakey agreed. To make a long story short, when we saw it in person, we knew immediately that this was it. We sat and talked over the details in this gorgeous family room, with the high ceiling and "judges paneling." (Think courtroom) We looked at the beautiful master bedroom and bathroom. Planned for our prayer room and Rakey's office.

What were we thinking?!!! Every single other house we looked at, if the kitchen didn't cut it, we didn't bother looking at the rest of the house! We completely overlooked the kitchen!

Once we moved in, it was very apparent that the kitchen needed some updating. Our refrigerator was small by comparison to new ones and although it fit snugly into the space, you couldn't fully open the freezer door, because it crashed into the window sill. When I pulled on the oven door, the handle was so loose that the only reliable way to open and close it was with an oven mitt on either side. The microwave was just sitting on a shelf over the oven and it looked just like the original RadarRange my mom had... the one where you felt like you should temporarily assume the role of a dental assistant taking x-rays and step out of the room. During the attempt fo preparing our first dinner, I discovered that the range had inconsistent heating, which made it impossible to coordinate things!

After a couple of months, we decided that we needed new appliances. Great! We bought all new appliances, except the dishwasher, and wow! Those cabinets really did look shabby and I don't mean shabby chic! They were so shallow, that our plates wouldn't even fit inside without bumping the doors.

So on September 1st, we began remodeling...

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Let the house search begin!

The search began. I drove around. I scanned the internet. I even scanned the newspaper! And of course, we called Bill Lanier. Charmaine came and evaluated our house and she started hunting. She showed me house after house. (I've always found that I know when I walk through the front door when it's THE home for me.) So we kept on looking.

There was one very elusive house that we wanted to see but had many obstacles. From the description and the photos, is seemed perfect! I was told by a realtor, at an open house, who didn't know us that from what I told her that house would be perfect for us. I determined that we were going to see that house. I prayed. I drove around it... okay it bordered on stalking! I saw the owner outside and waved to him hoping that he would invite me in. He didn't. Finally, I told Charmaine that if the owners told her that we could only see it at 3:05 AM, that's okay! We'll be there!

Well, we got an appointment and it was convenient! We went to the house, prepared to meet Mr. and Mrs. Hyde. I promised to be on my best behavior! Rakey planned to meet us there. The owner came outside and showed us around the yard, telling what each little grouping meant and he was very personable! He said his wife would be home soon from the store. "Well," I thought, "SHE must be the difficult one." She arrived a bit later and was also very sweet and personable. Where were these difficult people we had heard about? After we saw this beautiful home, the man invited Rakey into another room to pray for him! He said he noticed that Rakey was limping and he wanted to pray for him.

This was positively a Divine appointment! The house was perfect! We loved it! We were ready to make an offer! We told the couple of our intention and headed home. We were ecstatic! We prayed, giving thanks for letting us see this home. After praying, I opened my eyes and looked at Rakey. Uh-oh. "What answer did you get," I asked. Rakey said, "The answer in my prayer was that the people who live there are the ones who are supposed to live there." Yep. My answer was almost exactly the same! We called them and we called our agent.

About 30 minutes later, the homeowner, Dan, called and asked if he could bring the "big gun" prayer warrior over to pray. Of course! Well, after praying, Rakey and I received the baptism of the Holy Spirit! Praise God!

The bad news? Keep looking for a house!

The whole house saga

Back in Spring 2007, Rakey and I decided that it was time for us to look at options for having a wheelchair accessible home. The discussion followed a time where he needed my help in the master bathroom. I went in to help him and between the small space, the sharp corner of the countertop and the towel bar, we laughed so hard that we almost had to call the paramedics because we were just plain STUCK! Afterward we talked about what if there had been a walker or a wheelchair in there too? We talked to a contractor about adapting our D Street house. He told us that he could modify our bathrooms but the hallway was still too narrow, as were ALL the doorways in the house. His advice was for us to sell that house and add to it take the money we would spend on remodeling and find a house that had enough space.

So the search began...

best year so far!

Having a title causes me to focus on what is most important since my last post. Okay, I had a brief funny entry not too long ago but overall, it's been a year. In a nutshell... Rakey and I began to remodel our house shortly after we moved into it. The whole reason for moving into this house was to have enough room for it to be made handicapped accessible. We began the process on September 1, 2007. It was completed December 12, 2008! Now I'll summarize the highs and extreme lows that we've come through during that time.

You know... I.m not so good with summarizing. I'd rather tell the stories. So I'll let this be the summary and just post what I post! After all, whos blog is this anyway?

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Wow! Have I got catching up to do!

For today, I'll just add a funny tidbit. Our good friends Bob and Shvaughn were here visiting this weekend. Shvaughn tends to be cold-natured and I knew that there was only a comforter on their bed. I asked if they would like another blanket and that the down blanket for their bed was back from the dry cleaner.

"Do you want me to get the down blanket?" I asked.
Shvaughn gave me a surprised look and then apparently replayed in her head what I had said. What she heard that had surprised her was,"Do you want me to get the dam blanket?"
I laughed until I cried!