Day 5 -- friends join in...

Jason, Mary, and Bekah James joined James today to work. What a hard-working family! We are grateful that they are still in town! They unloaded the upstairs (into the dumpster), unloaded the first of the sheds, and then cleaned the 1/2 bath like crazy. I took pizza over after I got up, and turned the OU/Texas game on the radio, so we could listen to them lose. bummer... Mary, Bekah and I then cleaned walls. Yeeha. Curt and Dad are on their way over to continue cleaning up the front and back yards. Hard work! Now back to the hospital...

Day 4 -- more trash...

Well, the dumpster arrived this morning. The Browns were with me to continue the fun. Jan and I removed more wallpaper -- the REST of the wallpaper, and we hooked Mr. Brown in by requesting that he bring over the ShopVac and some scissors. He ended up staying for hours. We cleaned and bagged fans, covered windows, and taped trim -- preparing for James to spray Kilz. Mom and the girls, G&P, Kenna and Molly brought us some Subway, and we enjoyed our first "meal" in the "dining room." Once again, Charis was excited to be in the new house. I took her on a more thorough tour -- her first question: "Where the kitty cat?" Oh dear... She loved the stairs and the backyard.

We vacuumed every room, and, with G&P's help, got all the trash out to the dumpster. Papa and Mr. Brown took up the living room flooring. Mr. Brown also unloaded his truck full of our stuff. Jeff delivered the pad and carpet to the garage. And Dad's getting started on the yard -- what a mess. I'm off to work -- the money-making kind. Hard to shift gears!

P.S. James decided tonight to not spray, but to roll. So he unbagged the fans and uncovered the windows. :-) I think it's probably a good decision...

Day 3 -- To work!

Well, today was the first day of real work at the house.My first order of business was to get rid of the remaining cat that wouldn't let me in the front door.  I called Animal Control and -- a major advantage of a small town -- they were there within 10 minutes, loving all over the cat.  YAY!  Mom joined me and 2 rolls of trash bags for quite a party. We cleaned out the bedrooms and closets and cabinets and kitchen. 16 bags in the first 4 hours. Wow. We also got the main bathroom clean and usable -- a must! Grandmother and Papa joined us with Chick-Fil-A in hand, removing outlet covers and supervising our throwing out -- Mom was determined to keep it all. Jana said, "No. Trash!" Haley joined us for the wallpaper "removing" party. REMINDER TO SELF: Do not ever install wallpaper... After scraping and gel-spraying for hours, we had made little progress.
We also had visits from Jeanette and Lisa Lynn. Fun to entertain our first guests. :-) The water got turned back on, without incident. And Mom insisted we girls head to Sonic for Happy Hour. What a treat!



James came over after work -- did you hear that? WORK! :-) And after we got the girls to bed, Dad and Mom came back for more. James bought us the tool of all tools -- a PAPER TIGER! (That's a wallpaper scorer for you novices out there.) With the paper tiger and some new spray, we made fantastic progress -- much more rewarding than the daytime work. James and Dad did some more cleaning out, including removing the back room flooring and installing a new front door deadbolt. We called it a night...

Day 2

Well, nothing got done today. We didn't expect to be in the house until tonight, so nothing was scheduled. Just lots of mental work. Oh, the decisions to be made... Oh, and we ordered the dumpster. Should be here Friday morning. Hope we just need one...

Day 1 -- Closing!

Well, today we signed about a zillion papers that put us solely in charge of this mess of a house. "What are they thinking??" you might ask... Well, my only explanation is the prompting of the Lord. From the moment I first saw the house online, I was intrigued, and James wasn't far behind when he saw the pictures for the first time. I remember sitting at dinner a few weeks ago and acknowledging to each other that we couldn't get the house of our brains. We said then that we just needed to see the house to get it out of our systems.

Little did we know that when Kim took us to see it, we only liked it more. Despite the cats, smell, JUNK, and undone rooms, I told James, "I'm still excited!" Kim told me, "If you weren't married to James Brown, I'd tell you to run away. But you can make it happen!" We decided on an offer as soon as we got in the car with Kim. Let me tell you, that's completely against my nature. What happened to planning, logic, reason, practicality?! --another confirmation for me that this was being orchestrated by the Lord, not by me.

I was really freaked out about taking Charis in for the first time -- I thought that if she was uncomfortable or scared, I would really start to worry about our decision. But she went in with me during the appraisal and immediately got down and started exploring the house! She was so excited when I mentioned this would be our new house. That was another major relief for me.

The inspection was entertaining, to say the least. 3 inspectors, 4 hours, 16 pages of repairs that need to be made. Scared yet? We weren't. And there I was, still thinking, "Why am I not freaking out?!"

So, here we are, on closing day, absolutely pumped about the possibilities. Charis and I took a trip to "The Orange Store" this morning for cleaning and painting supplies. Never have I had so many Home Depot employees greet me. They must have just had a pep-talk staff meeting. Where are these "helpful" people when you actually need them?!

The seller left the keys in the mailbox at 9, so James and I were there at 9:05 with flashlights in hand. It was a fun time of finally getting to really explore all the nooks and crannies -- and the many light switches that apparently go to nothing. Oh, this is going to be fun. And one day, hopefully soon, this will be our home. Now if we can just get it livable...