Still Living In Organized Chaos

We are still in the basement.
We are still painting! Yesterday we opened our 12th gallon of paint and our 2nd gallon of primer. We should have primed these walls before painting but, oh well. I have been priming the wood trim. This has taken me forever and every time I turn around, I see more wood.  The master bedroom below is almost done, as far as painting. Hopefully we can set our bed up soon.

My goal was to get all the painting done before the floors went in but we didn't make it. They started the floors this morning.  I had to take a day or two off from painting because my body was telling me I am not used to so much work! Good news and a life saver, our neighbors let us use their hot tub. It has really helped our backs and we enjoy the colors!

This past week the drywall guys came. I was amazed how well they patched and matched the ceiling. I have never heard of a knock down textured ceiling but he was able to match it.

The drywall took four days. They started on Thursday, came back on Friday to find the mud had not dried enough to sand. Monday was sanding and then Tuesday was touch up.
This gave us extra days to try to finish painting. As mentioned above, we didn't make it. The knock down ceiling is extremely hard to paint and we missed a whole bunch of places. Now we will have to do the second coat with the wood floors in, since they are starting in the kitchen.

Mike enjoyed a day off from painting too!

And these are in our front yard. Just in time for Easter this past Sunday. Mike went to his parents farm for the weekend and I stayed home to paint (and to go to Church with my sister, Mary).

This most exciting part of  today was this, the flooring going in!! That first row took an hour to get in to make sure the rest of it goes in straight in this crooked wall house.

My Sisters

I have three sisters.  I love them all and have been hanging around with them lately.  Before we moved to Iowa, my sister Mary, from Davenport and my sister Sherry, from Wisconsin came south to stay with my other sister Jo, in South Carolina. I drove up from Athens to be with them. We were busy helping Jo and her boyfriend Gary with their very large garage sale. What we really met there for was our niece Alison, Jo's daughter, was having her baby Presley baptized. Did you get all of that? Here we all are with the baby.

When we woke that morning, this is what we found in Jo's backyard. Her swimming pool was  surrounded by snow.

The snow had melted by the time the baptism was over.
The night before, we had a great time with a facial mask party. When Jo was in Korea with my niece Meredith and daughter Molly, they picked up free facial masks made out of crazy stuff.

So now that I am here in the Midwest, I get to hang out with Mary and Sherry more often. Yesterday Sherry came to Davenport for a visit. We were heading to the Putnam Museum to see the Magical History Tour of the Beatles. We decided we needed to eat lunch first but couldn't decide where to eat. We just hopped in the car and headed towards the museum and would stop somewhere on the way.
We ended up here.

And they were selling this tee shirt. Most of you know I am a vegetarian. I had the macaroni salad and french fries for $2.50. My sisters went all out and had the pulled pork sandwich with mac salad for $5. I don't think this place ever had a vegetarian eat lunch at their three table restaurant.

When we got to the museum, we were excited to see that Mad Max was there as well.

We had a great time at the Beatles exhibit. There were some interesting facts we didn't know about such as at the beginning, their manager paid fans to greet the Beatles wherever they were. He didn't have to do that for very long.
We were sad that Jo wasn't with us. We really needed her here, to be the fourth Beatle.

But then I see where she was there in spirit, or else that is John or George with us. Look closely and you will see.

In 1968 when I was seven, our family was in Washington D.C.  My dad was a junior high science teacher so we would always travel in the summers. It turned out the Beatles were playing while we were there. My sisters were excited so Mom took them to see he Beatles. I was upset when they decided I was too young to go. I LOVED the Beatles. Instead, I had to go see  President Johnson with my Dad :)
When we left the exhibit, I had to take a picture of this poster because it looks just like my sister Jo and I when we were young.

We then decided to visit a friend of ours. She was actually my parent's neighbor and would have been ours but they just moved to a beautiful apartment over looking the Mississippi.  When we got to the building, we noticed many people were coming and found out there was an open house and we could just roam the place. It was built as a family mansion in 1912, so we really enjoyed going through it. I wish I would have taken more pictures but this one shows the view from the apartments. Our friend wasn't home so we will have to visit at night, to see the night view. Of course I won't be able to drive so Mike will have to. :(

I am looking forward to spending more fun days with my sisters here in the Midwest but, I will miss hanging out with Jo in the south.

Iowa DOT

I call my cat Pete, Fluff Love but when I say it, I omit the L's.  Try it once. You will need to know this to understand the end of this story.

Mike and I finally had a day to do what we wanted, actually what we needed to do to be legal in Iowa. I researched all the documentation we would need to get our driver's license and car tags. I found our Passports, Social Security cards, vehicle registrations but struggled finding something with Mike's name on it with our new address. Without really thinking about it, I had put all the utilities and bills in my name.  Luckily, one of our credit cards had sent him a letter saying they now have the new address for Michael and Elizabeth Sproston and had the new address printed on it. Off we went to the DMV.

While waiting, another customer overheard us talking and he said he thought you needed two types of proof of address. Darn. No sense in waiting so we looked it up and there was nothing on their website that said you needed two. So we did wait. I was amazed at how many people were working. It was nothing like Athen's DMV and everyone was soooo nice. I was called before Mike  The woman helping me said I needed two things with my name and address.  I told her my husband was with me and he only had this one document. She called him up and we all thought very hard  about what he would have or anything we could do. I searched through my folder and found another letter from the same credit card company with a different account number. We were in business, she would accept those two documents. Of course the picture doesn't look like me. You can smile but not show teeth. It looks like my lips are sewn shut. I was hoping there wouldn't be an eye test but sure enough, she told me to put eyes up to the vision tester and tell her what the top line was. I did this, tried to focus and stay calm but I had to tell her I couldn't read it. She pushed a button and made the letters very large. I could read those and then I would have to read all the lines below before I couldn't make them out anymore.

When my mom would get her drivers license and do the eye test, she always had a problem with her peripheral vision. My dad would stand behind her and somehow he new what side the flashing light was blinking.  When it flashed on the right, he would tap the right side of her back and same for the left. I always scolded them for that but Mom refused to quit driving.

I always tell my family that I am the best driver. They always remind me that I have the most tickets in the family. Mike told me today that I am the best driver. When I questioned him, he said he meant the best driver out of us two, in Davenport. I wanted to keep my Georgia tag for as long as I could so that people would see I was not from Iowa, in case I drove badly.

When I was done with my test she asked if I had progressive lens and I do. She asked it I was using the top section of my glasses lens. I was. I started to panic a little which she must have sensed. She told me she wasn't going to deny a license, I just can't drive when headlights are needed. I then told her I was overdue for cataract surgery and asked if I could get a new license to allow night driving after I have my surgery. She said yes but was worried about the $10 I would have to pay and asked if I  could get the surgery done soon.  We only have seven days left before our 30 day time limit is over so no, I couldn't. I am not allowed to drive at night. This will give me incentive to have the surgery done sooner rather than later, after the house is settled.

Off we went to get our tags. We stopped for lunch at Sippie's first.

Everything went okay at the tag office  for my car but I didn't have the right vehicle registration for Mike.  The person working there said we could get both tags together the next day if we wanted our tags to be in sequence. This was not important to us so I got mine, and Mike went back to get his today.

These are our tags. Say them together real fast.

It sounds like the nickname I call my cat Pete.

A lot to talk about

Once again, we over extended ourselves on Saturday. What did we do? Paint, paint, paint, and paint some more. Mike painted part of the living room and all of the back bedroom while I stained shoe base, painted more baseboard, and high up trim. Up the ladder, down the ladder, many times. When I was up high on the ladder, things looked pretty cool.

You can see the top of the fridge in the living room along with half the flooring. Over 30 boxes were delivered last week. Joe with Joe's hardwood flooring carried each box in by himself over his shoulder. The other boxes ended up in the purple master bedroom.

Since most of the flooring was carpet, there wasn't much shoe base. We went to Lowe's and decided to buy 16 foot shoe base because it was ringing up at the 12 foot price. When Mike pulled it down from the wall I heard a crash as my vision went totally black and felt pain on the top of my head, forehead, lips and then arm. I didn't know what had hit me until my vision came back and saw a look of horror on Mike's face as he held the wood. He had swung it around and hit me in the head! I rubbed my head and told him it hurt like hell. He felt sooooo bad. I didn't get a picture of that fiasco but here is the stained base. As you may see, I forgot one that is still on the sidewalk. Probably because I still had birds flying around my head.

I have been painting the base white and dedicated the front bedroom as the drying room. Every time I walk in that room I am startled by something I always see in the right window.

This is what I see which is in my neighbors yard. How close we are is something we are not used to.

The amazing floor puller outer finished getting all the wood floors pulled out. It took him longer than four hours as he first thought it would take. It ended up being 1 1/2 days because of the enormous amount of staples holding down the floor. We decided whoever put it in never thought it would be pulled out. He was able to salvage 75% of the floor.

Today, the construction guys came and they worked so quickly.

They had the pantry pulled apart and built what they needed to. This is where the fridge and small pantry will be located.

They also had the soffits gone in no time.

The inside of their truck was something I would love to have.

We always love to wind down at the end of the day. In Iowa we are charged 5 cents for every bottle or can.  We then return the empty bottles/cans to get our 5 cents back. This is a way to get people to recycle.This started back when I was in college and we would stock up on bottles and cans and turn them in to have enough money to throw a party.
This picture shows how we collect the bottles to take back, right next to our box of dirty dishes. As you can see, Mike has seven bottles to take back when I only have six!

I want to mention that we are now having spring. This is the second spring Mike and I have had this year, one in Georgia and one in Iowa.

Cats and Other Animals

Before we came to Iowa, we decided I would drive our cats Pete and Binx to Iowa before we drove the Uhaul up. I had heard and even experienced before, that pets think you are abandoning them if they are the last to be moved. I sedated them, put them is a cage together, and started on the 13 hour trip. They did pretty good until I would stop for gas. I would get gas, go the the bathroom, and then pull into a parking spot and let them out of the cage to roam the car. Once they realized they didn't know where they were, they would jump back in the cage. Finally we reached the Hayes house and parked the car in the garage. Pete and Binx were freaked out. I unloaded the air bed and my bag while they explored the house. Next thing I knew, Binx was nowhere to be found. How can a cat disappear in an empty house? I opened every drawer and cabinet and called his name. This was so unlike him. I thought I heard a meow once in a while as I yelled for him, but couldn't figure it out. Binx never meows anyway. I went outside to look for tracks in the snow. None to be found. I called my family and told them I lost a cat already. I was in a panic but Mike said he had to be somewhere. I had looked everywhere but then thought  about  one place I hadn't looked. I opened the hood of my car in the garage and there he was, stuck in the car parts. I was so relieved as I pulled him out. Poor guy, drugged, frightened and stuck.
Pete and Binx were inside, outside cats in Athens but are now strictly inside cats here in Iowa.

I had just painted this window sill! One day he backed up against the wall and had a purple back.

In a way, I am happy that I no longer have to worry about Binx and Pete bringing  live animals into the house. It was not fun to wake at 3am to get a chipmunk, squirrel, rabbit, or mouse out of the house. We actually had a box to catch things in, the critter box.
So now, this is all Binx can do, sit and wish.

My sister Mary, who lives a couple blocks away, told me she thought there was something in the walls. She had heard some rustling when she would come over to check on the house before I got here. The first week when I was alone with the cats, I had one chair to sit in while I watched T.V.  and sure enough, one night as I sat there watching the television I heard it too. I knew it wasn't a mouse. It was loud, heavy and had claws because I heard them being used as it slid down the inside of the wall. I would have to wait until Mike got here to figure out what we would do.

I noticed the squirrels around here are very large, nothing like in Athens. What is even more exciting are the black squirrels. When I told people about them in Athens, it was hard for them to believe. I think it is just in this part of town because my friend in Rock Island, Illinois didn't believe me either, until he saw one in my parents yard.  What do you get when you cross a brown or red squirrel with a black squirrel?

The big brown squirrel was building a nest in our walls because I saw him exit where a piece of siding had fallen out. This black brown guy was also in the walls, stealing nuts from the brown squirrel. So, the rustling in our walls were squirrels. When Mike arrived, he got the ladder out and replaced the siding. He wasn't sure if a squirrel was in the wall when he patched things up.
A day later, I heard the rustling again and was sure one of them was stuck in the wall. I didn't want it to die and have that awful smell. We then realized it wasn't a squirrel, it was Binx. He found a way to get into the rafters in the basement and lay on the ductwork for warmth.

There is a drop down ceiling in most of the basement and he found a way to explore and run on the ceiling. It sounded like the squirrel.
One day I was sitting at the table in the basement and I heard him above me. All of a sudden,  a piece of the ceiling fell with Binx struggling not to come down with it. He saved himself.

I am happy to say that Binx is starting to understand what a litter box is. I had traded the Georgia leaves for actual kitty litter and when he saw that, he jumped into the box and started rolling in it, like he did outside in our Georgia yard.  Pete saw him do this and ran over to his own box, jumped in, scratched, peed, covered it, and then looked over at Binx with a face that said " that is how you do it".
I was so proud of Pete for teaching Binx.  That night, I caught them is deep conversation on how to use a litter box. Binx the gray cat does not look too happy about the situation.

I have seen Binx use the litter box since. This makes me very happy. Thank you Pete!

Let's talk about painting and flooring

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we painted too long on Saturday. We were so sore from our wrists, elbows, knees and even ankles. I knew painting wood white would take a lot of time and patience but I am already dreading finishing all the trim in the house. It is taking two coats of primer and two coats of the gloss paint. The first windows I did were in the dining area and I was so careful to not get paint on any of the metal pieces. By the time I got to the living room I was flinging paint everywhere. If I painted the window or metal, my thinking was that I would take care of it later.
I am finding the doors to be a challenge. They may need three coats of primer. This door shows where I am starting on the second coat of primer.

Thank goodness we are taking some doors out of the house. My Mom must have loved doors. She picked out the blueprints for the house and approved the design. The built his house in 1993 and they moved into the house in 1994.

Two of the doors we are taking out were in the master bathroom which is very tiny!

There was a strip of wallpaper around the living room which pulled off easily. Little did I know I would spend a day wetting, scraping, and sanding off the glue.

We didn't plan on painting Monday but Mike's parents came for a visit and his Mom wanted to help out and brought her painting clothes. She and Mike painted the master bedroom while I hung out with Mike's Dad. We sat and talked and didn't even care that Mike and his Mom were working so hard. Looks like we will have a purple gray bedroom. I hope I like all of the colors I chose. I was in a hurry because the buy two, get one free gallons of paint sale was soon ending. We ended up with 9 gallons of paint.

I had several floor companies come out for estimates putting new hardwood throughout the house. I decided on Joe, who gave me a reasonable estimate of flooring, installation and also tearing out the carport, cork floor, and hardwood in the kitchen dining area. We were going to tear everything out ourselves but couldn't pass up the deal of him doing all the work.
The cork floor turned out to be easier than we thought it would be. He had it torn out in 15 minutes because it was just floating.

The carpet ended up in rolls in the garage. By the way, this is the first time we have ever had a garage. Mike is very excited about that.

And this is what is happening today. Thank goodness we are not doing this. Many people think we are crazy for tearing this up but we want the same floor though the whole house. Joe plans to salvage this floor.

The new floors will not be installed until the kitchen construction is complete. Even though we could have done a lot of this work, we kind of like having someone else do the construction and flooring.
Mike and I have taken the day off from painting. It is so cold and rainy, and we don't want to get in the way upstairs.

Week 2 Progress

This past week started our excellent! We ordered the cabinets and countertop and what a surprise the kitchen and bath company was cheaper than the big home store. To think I was snappy towards the designer. I did apologize when she came out to measure. She didn't deny that I was being difficult.
Here is what the kitchen will look like. Look really close, sorry so tiny.

After the exciting news of getting the cabinets in four weeks, we decided we needed a better way to wash our dishes while we wait for our kitchen. There is a sink in the basement, but it is small and rusty. We were washing in Mom's bathroom but what a chore to carry dirty dishes upstairs and then back down when clean. We bought a sink vanity for the basement and plumbed for the first time. I turned on the water and water went everywhere! Mike had to tighten everything again and then no more leaks.

The above picture is the sink we wash dishes in.
Below you will see me cooking spaghetti in our kitchen. Notice the nice big fridge!

We were excited to hear our appliances would be delivered on Wednesday evening. We couldn't wait to do laundry! But the truck broke down and they couldn't get here. We would have to wait until Saturday. How disappointing, since our laundry pile was getting bigger and bigger. Saturday came and I watched as the guys unloaded and  hooked up the washer and dryer. I was then told our washer facet was leaking. Darn, so much laundry to do.  We waited on this leak  because we had planned to spend the whole day painting. Painting 8am to 7pm with a 40 minute walk in between was a mistake. We woke this morning very sore and I was extremely cranky. As we were having our first cup of coffee, I noticed Binx, our cat was acting strangely. I watched in horror as he started peeing on a garbage bag full of clothes I had not unpacked yet. I grabbed the litter box from upstairs and brought it down to him. He has always been an outside cat. The litter box is new to him but he was doing so well. I had brought a bag of leaves from our yard to use as litter and I watched as he would use the box. I guess only when he wanted to.  Since we hadn't unpacked a lot of garbage bags, I started picking them up and sniffing. I was so upset when I realized he must have been doing this for awhile. Our laundry was doubling.
It was time to fix the leak. The delivery guy told us all we needed to do was unscrew  a nut and replace the washer inside the faucet.

You Tube has always been my friend in fixing things I don't understand. But this was a mystery because these handles were not in any of the videos. I called the neighbor my parents always called in situations like this. He had also  never seen these before  and suggested we go to the hardware store and buy a whole new faucet. Off I went to ACE, the helpful hardware guys and was told it would be an easy fix. I turned off the water to the house and Mike tugged and turned and the front piece came off with water spraying and flowing onto the floor. I panicked, grabbed a bucket, and when the flow died down, decided to call a plumber. I knew it would be expensive on a Sunday afternoon but we had smelly piles of clothes and no water running in the house.  I randomly called a plumber from the internet and what a great guy he was. He came out, struggled with the lines, fixed everything, took my check but also said the company would come out to check the air and furnace for the next year for free and any other problems we might have would be at a discount. Yippee.

We did many loads of laundry this evening.