I never knew I could juggle

     In elementary P.E. we had a juggling section where we started with two scarves, moved onto three and then attempted it with real balls.  I practiced at home with WalMart bags, and after totally dominating the scarves section, I was prepared to be an awesome juggler.  I mean if I was that awesome with scarves that floated in the air giving me years-worth of time to grab them, then how hard could non air-resistant balls be when gravity got a hold of them? (give me a break, my logic skills were still developing in the third grade) And then reality set in, and all of the balls ended up hitting the floor and rolling around all over the gym.  So rather than practicing, I gave up all of my juggling aspirations; who likes to practice things that they are bad at anyway? However, while I still cannot juggle round objects, since about March, I would say I have become quite a juggling expert.
     It has been awhile since I have posted any updates, and let me tell you why.  Since my last update I have: gotten married, gone on a honeymoon, lived in the basement of my in-laws, moved into our house (and by that I mean our unfinished bedroom), started school, started a new job, visited the license branch and the social security office and license branch 3 more times in order to change my name, done a lot of homework and taken some quizzes and exams, attempted to get internet and failed, and drank a whole lot of coffee. On a brighter note our house is coming along, and I have had experiences that I never would have thought of.
     I will begin with the house updates.  We not only have drywall, paint, running water, electricity, lights, air conditioning, a mattress on the floor on a tarp, a mini fridge, microwave and toaster, and card table with 2 chairs, we also have a kitchen floor, hardwood floors practically finished downstairs and started upstairs, a mattress on the floor (finally no tarp because the hardwood doesn't soak up dirt the way the luan did), a coffee maker (in the bathroom), and hopefully soon-to-be cabinets, and appliances ordered.  Let me tell you that I have never been so excited about floors in my life! They look awesome, and you can walk without turning your feet or socks black.

Here is a shot of the hardwood and kitchen tile!

   

      Life in our house has been kind of like an adventure though.  For instance, nothing is eaten that a)will not fit in a mini fridge or piled on the card-table, b)is not microwavable or from a package, or c)was not prepared by someone else (aka our parents, friends or neighbors).  This is not all bad, and I know that Ryan never gets tired of Pizza, but he drinks a LOT of milk.  I think if I would let him, he would drink a gallon a day.  Try keeping up with that when you can only fit one gallon in the fridge at a time, maybe 2 if you have nothing else in there.  I also only associate coffee makers in the bathroom with hotels, and doing dishes in the bathroom sink with dorm-life; both are realities in our world.  We have not been making our bi-weekly trips to Menard's though; I wonder if that means that we have been dethroned from our positions of home improvement store royalty?  Strangely I kind of miss those trips; they always made for good stories.  So life has been pretty crazy, I am still learning a lot, and I am excited about all of the progress.  Here are some pictures, and I will try to keep this updated.

All of the necessities for water.

Part of the Kitchen.

Part 2 of the kitchen.

The mostly finished, fully functional bathroom.

Our bed in our room.  Notice the tarp beneath and the wonderful ceiling fan.

Keep it moving

Well, with electric and plumbing well on its way (thanks to both of our dads, Josiah, Ryan, and Schrier), I began the insulation process downstairs yesterday, and I insulated until we ran out of insulation.  So let me catch you up a bit.

  

                                                         The can lights that Ryan is installing.

Last Friday, Jeff Schrier came over and helped with the plumbing and then Saturday he and Kyle Whiteley both helped all day.  Both Friday and Saturday I was sent on Menards runs for plumbing items- because "sweep T's" are actually labeled "elongated TY's" or something that, and somehow the greeter girl was the same both days, and I am convinced that she looked at me kind of funny (by the end of this they will know us by name; see us coming and get a golden cart for us to ride around in and name us king and queen- only because we spend so much money).  However, the funny look could have been due to the fact that I failed to change shirts from the night before.  Either way, despite those trips, we still need more plumbing connectors, but the pvc is looking quite good in between our PECs, framing, and electric, and I certainly learned a valuable lesson- stay away from the purple plumbing primer; it never feels good in your eye.

                                                                           The plumbing.

Saturday, my aunt provided chicken noodles, potato salad, green bean casserole and cream de menthe cake for lunch (she is a wonderful cook), and I am sure it served to be a nice change from lunch meat sandwiches and chips.  However, something caused someone (who will remain nameless for the sake of their dignity) to create methane that wreaked of road kill or something.  I don't think it was lunch, but this nameless subject found great pleasure in standing in front of the squirrel box (a large, intense-looking fan for those who are not construction term savvy) in the small upstairs where all of us worked in close quarters and release his/her pleasant aroma and blow it in our direction.  Thanks nameless subject!  However, the upstairs is ready (except for a few minor details) for dry wall, and Josiah and Ryan even loaded all of the dry wall upstairs.  Nice work boys! Soon our upstairs will look like a room rather than the inside of a giant lunch box.

                                                                  This is the lunch box.

Last night Mouser caught her first mouse (so proud), and Jim, our neighbor, came over to tell us.  She may have caught two, not sure though because it may have been the same one.  Either way, I am proud.  Less than 2 weeks ago she was just a scrawny, mal-nourished, bag of bones, and now I have plumped her up enough to catch a mouse- hopefully she killed it and didn't just play with it.

      Mouser. She likes to rest on the mower.  She and Ryan have more in common than he thought.

Upon getting home last night after hours of insulating and complaining the whole way home about how itchy I was and how much I needed a shower (sorry Ryan), our power was out.  Lightning had struck our transformer during the storm earlier that day leaving us in the dark, and Alecia, whose family is re-doing the floors in their house and has no bed or shower as of right now has been staying at our house to use a bed and shower (and hang out with me of course).  So we made our way over to our Neighbor's (how convenient that they happen to be my future in-laws) to take showers-Thanks by the way!  So glad I didn't have to suffer through an itchy night.

17 days?

So as of today there are 17 days until the big day! CRAZY! We have so much to do! Plumbing and electric are well on there way, and we have decided to hire out for drywall, but after that we still have to prime, paint, stomp ceilings, install flooring, finish wood floors, get a bed and a mattress, install cabinets after picking cabinets up, install bathroom vanity, toilet, etc. in both bathrooms, hook up water and electric, finish heat and air, move in, etc, etc, etc. All of this and finishing up wedding plans and work and packing and everything else.

Are you overwhelmed because I am! Whether or not it is done or even livable (which it will be livable) it will all be okay. Sound like I am trying to convince myself? So while this a short update lacking in funny stories,  I will include stories later when I have more time. For sneak peak of what is to come- squirrel boxes, pipe primer incidents, and the thing that died in Jeff's stomach...Enjoy!

"You make a better... window than a door?"

A couple of weeks ago, Ryan's brother-in-law Jeff came over after a day of work to help... (DUH, duh, DUH)...install windows! I had to work until 8 that night but had made my first apple pie, crust and all, that morning as a thank you for driving the hour here after a full day of work right before you go camping and despite having a wife and baby to help us with our crazy project because we would be lost without you gift. How domestic of me by the way. And when I got to the house I was greeted with...WINDOWS! They were cruising through them; our sliding glass door, and crank kitchen window, and front bathroom window that replaced the old front door window were already in, plus some, and the only thing slowing them down was that we didn't have the whole house wrapped yet and of course daylight running out.



Our new bathroom window pre-window, post door.

So after inspecting all of the windows, I helped Josiah roll out the tyvek and hold it in place while he nailed it, which is really difficult when your front yard seems to be a breeding ground for mosquitoes and the bug spray that you just doused yourself with seems to be sweet nectar attracting them to your flesh, but we got it nailed, and nearly half of the windows were installed that night. As I walked around admiring the fact that there was no longer 5/8" plywood covering the holes in our walls in order to keep the elements and marauders out- instead there were real, highly efficient glass, fully sealed, fully opening WINDOWS- Jeff with his wit said something to the extent of making a better window than a door. And while that is not how the saying goes, it was relatively fitting for our situation of replacing plywood with glass, and it was nice that the opposite was not being said to me by my dad due to my being in the way of his eyes and the sci fi movie on the television screen because quite frankly that is the only context that I have ever heard that saying in the past. But we have windows and doors now, and I am thrilled with them all, except for one, which comes with a story.



Sliding glass door with Tyvek in place.

That same night while I was inspecting the windows (quality control people), I noticed a problem in the room off of the garage. The problem, you ask- I know you are all at the edges of your seats with this story- was that when I went to open the sliding window in this room, the lock appeared to be on the outside and the screen on the inside. Double checking with the identical window in the garage to make sure that I was not just an idiot, I determined that indeed this window was backwards. However, upon telling Jeff of my discovery, he seemed a bit confused. "What do you mean- backwards?" he asked (which was my first clue that he was confused). I told him that I meant that the lock was on the outside and the screen on the inside. Still confused, or just struck with disbelief that he, a professional would do such a thing, he went to check out the scene for himself. And I believe I remember his ego-demolished tone laughing out loud and saying, "That is too funny. I can't believe we did that." I think he handled it quite well, and it is now the only window that we have to fix-the rest are in correctly, and even if it was in right it would have to be fixed because our floor slopes down which would make for headaches and asymmetry with the siding. What a funny anecdote to add to our house-building experience; I am convinced that Jeff just wanted to add to the charm and hilarity of our project, so thanks a billion Jeff!



How it is supposed to look!



How it does look- so if you want to break in here is your best bet!


So speaking of camping,(since that is where Jeff was headed for the fourth of July weekend after installing windows)after a Saturday trip with my dad to Bailey's only 79 miles away to order cabinets and buy bathroom stuff, and see my old roommate Korie who met us there, Ryan and I took the day off to visit his family at Shakamak where they were camping for the weekend. Leaving early and getting back late, we enjoyed three delicious meals, swimming, playing catch, hanging up and goofing around, a campfire, and the luxury of air conditioning? Yes the new Noerenberg camper is more equipped for living currently than our house, with air conditioning, a bathroom and kitchenette, and 3 beds, and while it was not the roughing it sort of camping that you might think of, it was a nice escape from the bugs and the heat. We had an incredible day with the whole family and some fun times with the little ones, and Luke rode his bike without training wheels that day, the fourth of July with the encouragement of his new friend Brighton, who was also five and riding like a pro on two wheels; he was a proud friend though, telling everyone that he new friend Luke was riding for the first time without his trainers and doing great. We also got some free marriage counseling from Ryan's sister Megan and her husband Kyle- "marriage is like washing dishes," he said as we scrubbed the dinner dishes. "They will have a dishwasher," Megan cut it. Kyle thought, rewound and started over, "Marriage when it is good is like a dishwasher, but what do you do when it breaks?" Megan's solution "You fix it." The moral of the story, when marriage breaks, you fix it with money! Oh the things you can learn while building a house (or rather rebuilding it), camping, and doing dishes. What a great day!

However, Monday was back to the drawing board, as we worked all week on the casa (Just trying to put my Spanish minor to use here). Then Friday, Jeff came back to finish the windows and doors after camping that weekend, and then he stayed to help run wire, which we have almost completely roughed in upstairs aside from the homeruns, and the fiberglass insulation is nearly completely in place up there as well. (You can all go ahead and be impressed with all of my skill, knowledge and legit terms including homeruns and pig tails-who knew electrical terms were so much fun) Jeff showed me how to drill the holes in the studs for the wires and then I ran them through, leaving enough room for a loop above the electrical boxes in case any get destroyed during the rest of the construction process (I am telling you, I could build a house on my own now- haha). We are getting closer and closer to the dry walling every day- how exciting!

On top of all of the hard work, we recently got ourselves a new kitten who showed up a couple days ago, scrawny and mangy as she is, which Josiah was correct in his feeling that it is a female feline, and while she would probably burst if she tried to eat a whole mouse now due to her under-nourished state, I have full plans to fatten her up and make her a mouser, and that is her name- Mouser. I am banking on power of suggestion here- hopefully she gets it.

Save Big Money at...

During our time remodeling, many a trip has been been to home improvement stores, mostly Menards because not only can you save big money there, but it is conveniently located 20 minutes from our house. While spending hundreds of dollars every trip (or thousands when buying cabinets, toilets, and vanities at Baileys) has become a norm, there is still a bit of sticker shock every time we check out and hear the cashier sing (because they are that excited to tell us how much we owe them), "That will be (a gajillion) dollars". However, more than the hours of time and hundreds of dollars spilled on every trip, the reactions of the cashiers are never less than priceless; we often ponder why they never see big purchases for big renovations at a home improvement store, but they always look at us like we are aliens.

Anyway, this last trip to Menards for foil faced foam and plumbing necessities -PVC and what not- landed us with the most amusing reactions. As Dad, Ryan, and I pulled our 3 carts up to the checkout, the cashier next door cheerily chirped "I can help someone on aisle 6." When I informed her that we were all together, her eyes got big and she asked what kind of big project this was for. She was satisfied with a reply of remodeling a house, however, our checkout boy in aisle 5 could not figure out what we might be working on, so while he was ringing up the cart full of PVC 90's, 45's, Y's, and other such connectors, he asked in a very confused tone, as if he had been pondering it for awhile and with much emphasis, "What are you building?" I don't know, maybe he thought we were constructing some sort of tunnel with PVC, but Ryan, with an amused grin on his face simply replied, "a house." The checkout boy seemed to except the answer, but I could tell he was cracking up inside at the ridiculousness of us and our project. Glad we could bring some excitement to what I can only imagine might have been a relatively boring Sunday afternoon- you are welcome Menards checkout boy.

Some other things we have learned is that Menards sales last longer than they say they will, and they are sometimes only 2 cents off the regular price, like foil faced foam board-normally $10.96 on sale for a limited time for... $10.94. Save big money folks! However, Rocky and Brett, our dear Menards friends from the roofing and siding section have been quite good to us and don't seem to be quite so shocked with our orders. On the other hand, our cashier at Lowe's was so shocked with our purchase of faucets and drains for 2 showers, 2 vanities, and a kitchen sink that she almost gave us $40 in cash after our exact credit card payment for the purchases. And I am pretty sure Elaine, of Bailey's Warehouse in North Judson won the competition between her colleagues for most sales after we ordered our complete custom kitchen cabinets complete with counter top and sink, and 2 vanities, 2 medicine cabinets, 2 vanity tops, and 2 toilets. You're welcome Elaine for allowing you to get off early on Monday.

Needless to say, we have spent our fair amount of time in hardware stores over the past few months, and quite frankly I can find my way around in there like a man.

From The Beginning...

So let me catch you up a bit...

On Friday, March 27, 2010, after searching for many and looking at two houses, my fiance Ryan and I sealed the deal on a real beauty! Let me tell you, she came fully loaded with wood paneling, puke green carpet, and a beautiful shade of teal in the kitchen-walls and ceiling. Here's a couple of photos so you can try to picture it yourself.



Note the paneling and ceiling tile.

And the beautiful paint in the kitchen.


So anyway, after closing on Friday, we tore into her on Sunday, ripping up floors and tearing off ceiling tile (which was located on the ceiling and the walls in the upstairs), pulling out billions of nails, and leaving nothing in there but the studs and the nasty carpet padding that was plastered to the floor of the living room. After a few weeks of dust masks and dirt, we were ready to start the roofing, and after a three hour trip to Menards (little did I know that it would be the first of many lengthy trips), the shingles were ordered and soon-to-be delivered to our work site. This is said nasty carpet padding.

The re-roofing was a bit depressing, as it took a bit longer than I expected, but after ripping off shingles, shake shingles, adding overhangs around the entire house, working around the charming but annoying-to-roof "A", and then beginning the re-roofing portion of the project, we found ourselves a bit discouraged and a bit further into the project than we expected. Did I mention we got engaged in January and have an August deadline (aka. the wedding)? But alas, we could work inside without the fear of rain...and so the project continued.
New roof! Notice the over hangs!

We moved on to putting up the frames for the new walls, which was completed at a much more encouraging speed than the roof. However, we did have to add more supports to the ceiling so that our future bedroom didn't fall through on us, and move a couple of walls. We also had to tear out the upstairs window to get the shower in so that we could build the walls around it (no worries though; we were going to replace that window anyway). Soon windows and doors were being framed in, and siding was being torn off (all million layers of siding mind you). In fact that became a couple Saturdays project for the women-folk (me, my future mother-in-law and one of my future sister-in-laws), and I truly wish we had been in the state of mind to take pictures of how disgusting we were after working in the hot sun all day being coated by bugs, dirt, more bugs, and more dirt. The amount of bugs underneath our siding (and I am sure your siding too-makes you feel really good, huh?) was incredible, and by that I mean disgusting! Those stupid little orange lady bugs that stink when you touch them- completely coating our house underneath our siding, and they weren't just underneath the vinyl, but also underneath the foam that came next, the shake siding that came after that, and the tar paper that came after that. Needless to say, millions of shakes and trillions of nails and bugs later, the siding was off, and the foil-faced foam insulation was ready to take its place on our house. Newly de-sided.


Just a few of our little friends.

What way does foil-faced foam go- foil side up or white side up- you might ask. As that is what we pondered as well, and a couple of phone calls to friends and family later, we were stuck at the same dilemma. So we called our dear friend Brett and Menards and ended up with foil out (hope you were right Brett- we placed our trust in him after he shaved off some dollars for us in the siding order, the next agonizingly long trip to our favorite store). So on went the insulation and the tyvek (although we did resort to the menards wrap which was a free gift, so to all of the tyvek snobs out there don't think I don't know the difference). A glimpse of Josiah's graphing skills put in place for our curved A roof.

TaDa!!

So while our house was being sealed up from the outside, Ryan's dad has been diligently working on heat, air, and electric, and after adding concrete block around our utility room whose wood formerly sat in direct contact with our forest of a yard, my dad was looking into the beginnings of plumbing.

Maybe tomorrow (or the next time I have time to write because I am not at the pool lifeguarding, working at the house, or staying up far later than I should be to blog) I will fill you in up to current and include some more fun anecdotes, but for now, I think this should be enough for your reading pleasure. Enjoy, look at the photo albums on Facebook, and take notes on what not to do, like buy a house in order to completely renovate it only five months before your wedding. After all, despite having confidence in the fact that we will have a wonderful home when this is all done, one of Ryan's new favorite quotes is "remind me never to do this again, ever."