Home Improvement

This is entry #1 of what what I'm sure will be many more to come. We have a lot to do on the house we just bought, and I love the idea of documenting the renovation of it. Mainly because it is in such rough shape right now and we have such an exciting vision for how beautiful it can be with a little hard work and imagination. As so many people have said, it has a lot of "potential." ;)

But this requires me to share photos that I would have normally kept to myself. Haha. Part of me thinks, oh let's just wait until the place is fixed up and then we will post photos, and then we will have people over. But a) the renovation will take much too long to wait to have friends over, b) I find the only reason I don't want to share is rooted in silly pride (not wanting anyone to see it in it's present condition) and c) how much more fun is it to see how beautiful something can become when you see how rough it was before? It's the transformation that makes it so meaningful. And you must see where something has come from to appreciate all the work that went into what it is now. Plus, I find the whole process totally fascinating and fun, since I have never done anything quite like it before. (Joel, on the other hand is an old pro). ;) If you find the subject boring, I hope you'll bear with me here.

And so we begin.

Yesterday escrow finally closed. Joel had been waiting patiently an extra 11 days past his intended start date to get in there and get some work done. So last night, right after work, he headed straight over to the house and started pulling up the old carpet. I stayed home to take care of our son and get some cleaning done. But it was a long lonely day without him last evening, so when the opportunity arose to help him tonight, I was eager to join. After he got off work today, we all headed over together.

This is a photo taken last month when we went to see the house:

As mentioned, Joel already pulled the carpet and carpet pad out last night, but there were about 1000 staples left in the floor, so I helped pull them out tonight.

The little staples with carpet pad stuck under them.

And this is my sweet boy. He was so good tonight. He kept himself occupied by making friends with some ants outside and enjoying the porch, taking the occasional trip inside to inspect our work and point out staples we might have 'missed.' :)

It's gonna be a long week. The boy and I leave tomorrow for a wedding out of town, and we won't be able to help again until Sunday. Joel will stay behind and try to get some progress done on the floor. More updates soon!

Transplanting

If you've been reading for any length of time you know my struggle with wanting a garden but not being able to grow anything. I have narrowed the problem down to a lack of sunshine in my life. Haha. Metaphorical sunshine excluded, of course. I have plenty of that (see first photo below). But, I literally have 100% shade on my patio and only two sunny (but tiny) window sills.

Well, since we will shortly be moving to a new house with 1/3 acre (!), I decided to give it another shot and see how I do with more adequate resources. I have high hopes for this years' garden and I'm getting very excited about it. In fact, I was getting a little anxious that I was losing precious time to get seeds in the ground this year (since it's already almost June!) so a couple of weeks ago we started a few seedlings in the window, with the hope of giving them a nice spot in our new backyard when we move.

And they are looking very well! My son is happy to water them every day and see them popping out of the ground.

 

So far all we have are some cucumbers:  

And To-mah-toes: 

The cucumbers are already looking too big for an egg carton, so I hope to put them in the ground as soon as I can. I have to get my hands on some compost first. Woohoo! Bring on the compost! ;) Side note: A friend of mine introduced to SproutBot, which I'm trying out this year. It seems very user-friendly and I'm enjoying it so far! :)

Well, after several delays, escrow is set to close this morning and we have one week to be out of our apartment. So, I will be busy cleaning, packing, renovating, cleaning more, and unpacking for awhile. And not unlike these tiny seedlings, me and my little family will be transplanting our lives to a new, sunnier spot. ^_^

See you on the other side!



"To sail across dark seas to a strange land..."

"Little is more extraordinary than the decision to migrate, little more extraordinary than the accumulation of emotions and thoughts which finally leads a family to say farewell to a community where it has lived for centuries, to abandon old ties and familiar landmarks, and to sail across dark seas to a strange land... centuries ago, migration was a leap into the unknown. It was an enormous intellectual and emotional commitment. The forces that moved our forbears to their great decision - the decision to leave their homes and begin an adventure filled with incalculable uncertainty, risk and hardship - must have been of overpowering proportions."

John F. Kennedy

A Nation of Immigrants

Reading this tonight, made me think again of all my ancestors who have made that enormous commitment and extraordinary decision to immigrate to America. Without that decision on the part of each and every one of them, I wouldn't be here today! If they had stayed in their homelands, they never would've come here, met each other, married each other, and created the line of descendants which led to me... and my children:

In studying the family tree again recently, I realized a stark difference between my mother's side and my father's side. On my dad's side, the immigrations are very recent - all within the last 100 years or so. Though he was born in America, it is easy to see that dad was 100% pure-blooded Scandinavian. On my mom's side, the line just keeps going and going, several of the branches reaching through the history of our country, back to 1700s Colonial America! It is much harder to trace the immigrant ancestors on her side, since the records become scarcer the farther you go back.

But here are the names of all the immigrants on my dad's side:

Great Grandparents

Carl Waldamer Petersen born 1883, Copenhagen, Denmark

(became an American citzen in 1917)

Ellen Susanna Svensson born 1885, Sweden

     

Great Great Grandparents 

Charles Cornell born 1853, Sweden

Annie Skarlund born 1864, Sweden

And these people, whom I only know by their names, but have never seen their faces
3 Greats Grandparents
Anders Erikson Holm born 1829, Sweden
Inga Stina Jean Persdotter born 1821, Sweden

and
Great Great Grandpa John Noyed born 1866 Sweden


Thank you, grandparents for making that extraordinary decision!

The Moving Out Checklist

OK, if you haven't caught on by now, I can be kind of a detail nerd. :) I loooove lists. Checklists, to do lists, weekly lists, chore lists... I don't think I even keep up with any of them at any given time. But I find it comforting that they are there. I think it has to do with my forgetful nature and with having a lot of various responsibilities. The lists help me feel like I'm not forgetting anything! And if I do forget something, of course, I add it to the list for next time. ;)

So, with recent developments, and because I am kind of freaking out with everything that needs to be done this week, I decided to overhaul and update my "moving out checklist." And just in case someone else might find it useful, I'm posting it here.
Moving Out Checklist
(first time I've pointed to a Google Doc, let me know if you have any trouble viewing it!)

OK, so we are about 3 weeks from the Big Day. And don't you dare ask me how many things I can or cannot check off this list! Haha. Maybe I was typing when I should have been packing. Maybe.

Here's to fresh starts and making new memories!

C~

Changing Seasons

Changes are afoot.
First of all, the BIG news: we are expecting our second child in November! ^_^ We're about 13 weeks along now and just started letting the word out a couple of weeks ago. We've been wanting a baby for a very long year, so we are SO excited to finally be expecting. Normally I wouldn't get an ultrasound done so early, but we wanted to check on the baby last week to make sure everything was OK (it is). While there, we were able to get this little memento:

Still tiny - about the size of a fig, I'm told. This is not the clearest picture in the world, but it's still fun to see the shape of our sweet little bean in there! Of course, it's too early to tell the gender yet, but I have resorted to calling the baby "she." Mainly because I hate calling babies "it" and I'm kinda hoping for a girl this time... :0)

Also... after about seven years of hoping and praying and searching and getting refused and trying again, we will finally be buying our first house this month! Lord willing, escrow closes on Wednesday. I am SO excited to have a place that we can call our own - to be able to paint the walls and put down roots (literally - I plan to become the most prolific gardener!) and make our own improvements on the place. And many improvements will need to be made! It's definitely a fixer-upper. But I kind of like that. It means we got a great price and can increase it's value more easily while we're there. ;) Joel is pretty handy, so he is capable of most of the projects himself which will save a lot of money too.

I'll be sure to share "before" and "after" photos on our makeover project. :)
Another change this year is that our son will be starting preschool in August. I am more than a little nervous about becoming a school mom, with the added responsibility of homeowrk and volunteer hours (it's a charter school) and needing to have him fed, presentable and packed up by 7:30 every morning. EEK! Especailly with the baby on the way, I am crossing my fingers on this one. I think I might practice our new schedule over the summer. Haha. He is only going to preschool 2 half days a week, so it's not too bad, actually. Mommy might actually need more adjustment than he does. I'm pretty sure I'll be missing him pretty badly for those 8 hours a week. :')

Celebrating the exciting changes ahead,
Charity