Projects – 2008 in Review

I was sitting around trying to think about what we did all year.  It seems like 2008 was a slow year for us as far as the DIY scene was concerned.  In the early part of the year, around March, we spent a lot of time getting construction bids and filling out mountains of paperwork for our construction loan, only for the subprime mortgage crisis to hit and, in the end, we ended up scratching the whole deal.  I had to go back through my pictures to see what exactly we DID accomplish this year.  I was glad to find proof that our year was not wasted.  Here is a pictorial review of our year:

January:

Finished the rent house (Hallelujah!) and took our three year old employee to Chuck-E-Cheese.  Hey, we had to pay her somehow for all that painting she did!

February:

We celebrated our five year anniversary

March:

My birthday!  Ahem….anyway.  In 8 hours, I cleaned, primed and put two coats of paint on the living room walls.  It wouldn’t have taken me 8 hours normally except that I: 1) painted alone; 2) pushed a very heavy 10 foot ladder around the room 8 times while I painted the middle and top of the room …twice! I have 13 feet ceilings.  [is it 13 foot, or 13 feet?]

April:

In April, I redid an ugly 80’s dresser for Vivian’s room and, for storage, we revamped an old shelf my brother made many years ago by adding crown moulding to it and painting it.

May:

We took down the ugly drop ceiling in the attic.   We also painted the Master Bedroom.

June:

I sanded, repainted and recovered an old chair I bought for $5.00 at a junk store.  I also managed to tick off the entire Ratcliff family and get called a potstirrer.   Hahaha….that’s definitely a new one for me!

July:

I started this blog. Yay!  I pulled a metal tray on wheels out of the garbage and remade it into a plant stand for my porch.  Click here for the details and pictures.  Even my husband could not believe I wanted something this ugly.  But it turned out well.

My new plant stand

August:

We went to the Philippines.  What a life changing experience!  Click here to see more photos of the trip.  In case you cannot figure out who I am, I am the very white girl in the middle!

handumanan

September:

Vivian’s Birthday.   Hurricane Gustav hit Cenla.  That was very interesting.  It took us about a month to recover and get all of the debris cleared and everything back to normal.  I can’t complain though, we did not endure anything like New Orleans did.  Click the link above to see pictures of that fun.

October:

Was definitely not a project month.  I was caught up watching the media and reading the news regarding  local and national politics.  I did get a call from the Louisiana Historic Preservation Office in Baton Rouge telling me that they want to put my street on the National Register.  Which reminds me…..I need to give her a call.  That nomination is supposed to be sent to Washington in April.  I am definitely going to help make sure that happens!

Precious!

November:

I repainted and reappointed the guest room and stripped a fireplace mantel.

December:

We worked on the attic/loft area so we can add another bathroom upstairs.  Steven put up two porch lights in the back.  Steven stripped a door and a transom down to the bare wood.  We also stripped some paint in the hall that was caked on to the wainscoting.  Click here for December’s project pictures.

I guess all in all it was not a bad year.  We did not get as much as we wanted accomplished.  We didn’t nearly come close to the amount of work we did in 2007.  Oh well, put it on the list!  It will get done eventually!

Andrea

Merry Christmas!

I woke up this morning singing:

“Come on, ring those bells,
Light the Christmas tree,
Jesus is the king
Born for you and me.
Come on, ring those bells,
Every-body say,
Jesus, we remember
This is your birthday. “

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Vivian opening her presents this morning.  Steven told her that in celebration of Jesus’ birthday, Santa delivers us all a present.

Daddy Steven putting everything together (like good daddy’s do):

And lastly, Vivian wrote Santa and asked him for a purple “buggy” and a brown baby.   This is what she found by the tree this morning:

Last night at Nana’s house:

It was really muddy out at Steven’s aunt’s house.  I accidentally closed my hair in the door and, when getting in the car, got mud ALL OVER my skirt.  I had to borrow Nana’s red jammies.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!

Dilemma of the Day

I decided to sit down and finish sewing the last curtain panel for my dining room.  I have been trying to get it done for about six months now.  I don’t know why I stopped with only one to go.  I must have been really tired!  I put the finishing touches on the very last one and then pulled out the hardware that I am going to make into a bay window curtain rod.  I have searched high and low for a bay window curtain rod to my liking.  There are only few choices out there for bay windows and the few available on the internet and at JCPenney either cost way too much or was not suitable for my needs.  I did not want a double curtain rod and I wanted to be able to open and close the curtains, so the rod had to be nice to look at with the drapes tied back or pulled close.  So…I took a trip to Lowes and bought several pieces and parts and made my own bay window rod.  Right now it looks like this:

Overlook the rug.  It is temporary until I get new dining furniture.  Right now it is serving its purpose by protecting the wood floors.  Anyway… I am two curtain brackets short and need to run to Lowes to see if I can find two more.  Hopefully I can talk Steven in to cutting the rods down to size so I can paint them, assemble it all and get it put up on the windows before next week.  We have been in our house two years without any curtains….sigh….

Here are the dining room curtains that will be going up (hopefully) sometime this week.

Off to finish the curtain rods……

TOMORROW IS CHRISTMAS!

Andrea

Buy Nothing Christmas

So, my mom, dad and sister came in this weekend and we exchanged our “Buy Nothing” gifts.  The point of “Buy Nothing Christmas” is to make something or do a service instead of buying a generic, overpriced gift from the store.  If you have to buy supplies, it should not be more than $5.00.  We were trying to be creative and see what we could come up with.  It was very neat and interesting what my family gave me.

Melanie, my sister, made me an apron and hand painted “Kiss the Cook” on it.

My mom made me a devotional book.  It is very cool.  She took family devotions from our childhood that she saved and combined them with my first recital sheet music “Joy to the World” and family activities.

My other sister, Tiffany, who lives in Alaska made me a mini scrapbook out of dominoes.  It is too precious!  I absolutely love it!  When you open it up, it says: “Words that describe you”.  Sprinkled throughout are words that she attributes to me.

My dad made me DVD’s of our family vacations, childhood videos and a 1987 “Passion Play” our church used to do every Easter.  This is also a favorite gift.  I think they were all my “favorites”.  I am glad that my dad took the time to convert them from VHS to DVD and make me a copy for Vivian to watch.  I think Vivian will get a kick out of seeing her mommy at a young age.

I made all of the girls pretty whimsical pot holders with pretty fabric.  Vivian and I made the men a miniature box made out of an altoid tin.  Vivian painted the tins and I decoupaged them with different images and sayings.  On the inside we gave them a list of suggestions on how to use their little box.  Such as:  toothpick holder, really small pens, chinese fortune holder, stray screws, etc. 

Steven received a metal detector from my dad.  My dad either bought or received the metal detector as a gift many years ago.  After digging several holes in our yard, my dad was satisfied that there was not buried treasure located anywhere in the front or back of our property.  At that time, he put the metal detector up and never used it again.  My dad overheard Steven say he wanted one, so he dug it out of the attic and gave it to him for Christmas.  Well, it wasn’t very long before Steven and my dad disappeared and this is where we found them:

At first, we kinda came in and out of the house laughing at them. I fussed at them for digging holes in my yard and told them to make sure that they filled them back in.  They found many roofing nails and a twisted metal, but we stopped laughing when they found this:

It appears to be a circa 1920’s silver cosmetic case.  That’s when all of us got interested and pulled a chair out on the porch to give advice on where they needed to dig.  In fact, my dad and Steven laughed at us and took a picture of us gawking.  Here is a picture of us with our food and drinks with a front row seat watching the “Gold Digging”:

Even Vivian caught “Gold” fever.

We also found a 1929 wheat penny and an old marble.  The marble was a lucky find.  It just turned up in a clump of dirt they turned over.  Last time I checked, the metal detector is parked close to the door so I am sure that there are many more holes to come and many more roof nails to find. 

All in all we enjoyed our Christmas.  We proved that you don’t have to spend a million dollars or buy the “perfect” gift in order to have a good Christmas.  We focused on what is really important.   I did not want Vivian to grow up thinking Christmas was all about getting presents and I did not want to feel pressured to buy a lot of “Stuff” just to keep up with the Jones’.  I hope everyone liked their gifts and I look forward to continuing this tradition for years to come.

THREE DAYS TIL CHRISTMAS!

ANDREA

Yay! Holiday!

Today school is out and we don’t go back for two weeks! Yay! I came home and looked at my “To-Do” list…

Decorate [Check]
Send Christmas Cards [Check]
Buy/Make Presents [Check]
Clean house, get ready for family coming in [Double Check]

I got down to the bottom of my list and could not believe that everything is done! In fact, I felt a bit lost not having the pressure of “getting something done” this afternoon.  So, since I have the time, I am writing this short blog post to recap this past week in pictures.  It is nice to sit and relax and enjoy Christmas.

Over the weekend, we went to the zoo and had a great time listening to the music and looking at the lights. I felt a little bit homesick. Every year at City Park in New Orleans, they play music and light the whole park up with beautiful lights and trees that the children of the area schools decorate.  They call it “Christmas In The Oaks” It is beautiful and used to be (still is when I can get down there) my favorite thing to do at Christmas. City Park has a mini amusement park. It has some of the funniest things to do and, even as a teenager, I would get on the “Dragon Coaster” just because it was a tradition. My dad’s company would give us free tickets for a hot chocolate and a cookie. We always brought a neighbor friend and had a really good time.

We had a Connect Group meeting at our house this past Tuesday. It was a lot of fun. We drank hot cocoa, cider and coffee and snacked. We also played UNO attack and for a while there, we thought we would never see the end of the game! But it was a lot of fun.

 

Wednesday was Vivian’s school play and she was a very cute reindeer.

Andrea

Let it snow…let it snow….

I received a call this morning at 6:15 letting me know that I did not have to come in to work today. They were closing the schools due to the bad weather. Well, maybe I should back up, I did not hear the phone ring or the alarm go off. STEVEN, heard the phone and answered it and came back to tell me. After I finally drug myself out of bed at 9:00, I looked out the window to see what the fuss was all about.

I remember waking up a few times in the early morning hours hearing the sleet “ping” on the window. Then, I opened my email this morning and saw a picture my dad took this morning in New Orleans. They are getting a good bit of snow. Here is a picture of a Streetcar downtown where he works.

In all of my time living in New Orleans, I only remember it snowing twice. The first time I remember it being very cold and I was sick. My brothers and sisters and I all got bundled up, went outside and threw snowballs at one another. The next time it snowed, it caught us unaware. We all bundled up and scraped snow from the front yard, back yard, steps and neighbors yard together to form a 2 foot snowman! Then the last time it snowed, about 2-3 years ago, I was not there but I saw a video of kids playing in it.

I bet all of the people in Alaska (where my sister lives) and northern states are laughing at us right now! We get a little tiny bit of sleet and snow flurries and everything comes to a standstill in Louisiana! Oh well…(humming) “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas..”

Natchitoches Christmas Festival

This past weekend, Steven, Vivian and I joined Brad, Amy, Julie and Riley Scroggs at the Natchitoches Christmas Festival.  It was a lot of fun.  Here we are waiting on the parade.  It was loud and crowded, but it is worth going to see the Christmas lights, fireworks and shopping at all of the quaint shops that line Front Street.  We had a great time.  After the festival, we went over to Steven’s mom and dad’s house for a chat.  It was nice to sit quietly and visit with family.  All in all, we had a great weekend.  Today, it was back to the old grind.

I hope everyone is able to take a break during all of the busyness to spend some time with your family and celebrate the birth of our Saviour.

Andrea

Christmas Decorating

Ok, so I know I am behind the game this year.  Everyone (besides me that is) has had enough forethought to dig out the Christmas decorations and get them up in enough time to enjoy them.  Maybe one day, in a perfect world, that will happen in my house.  We put up our tree Monday night and last night we (or maybe I should say, I) decorated it.  I did not worry about having to get lights or decorations.  I remembered that I had tons of stuff from previous years.  However, this seemed to be the year that all of the lights wanted to die.  I plugged the first strand in, BINGO, it worked.  I plugged the second strand in, same thing.  I wound them on the tree.  When I was pulling out the third strand of lights, all of a sudden half of a strand of lights went out.  No amount of shaking, wiggling or jiggling made them come back on.  So, I unplugged it, and went for the third strand.  I had the third strand out of the box (this is the one that has the 10 different light flash functions) and noticed that the wiring was exposed like something chewed through it (which brings up another possible problem…mice in the attic?).  So….I guess my husband noticed the look of frustration on my face as I stood on top of the ladder with three strands of lights that were not working, because he grabbed his jacket, keys and our four year old daughter and headed out the door to buy more lights.  That gave me enough time to sit on the sofa and reflect on the REAL meaning of Christmas and why we do all of this anyway.  Jesus is the reason for the season.

Here are some pictures of my Christmas decorating efforts.    Maybe next year I will have curtains up…maybe….

Tis the Season!  Make it a memorable one! 

Andrea

HACL Christmas Party

Merry Christmas!

YOU ARE INVITED!!!

The Historical Association of Central Louisiana will be hosting its Annual Christmas Party at the loft residence of James and Frances Hurst.  This property is located at the corner of 16th and Washington Streets in downtown Alexandria.  The event will be held on Sunday, December 7, 2008 from 2-4 p.m.

Please RSVP: (318) 448-3952