2 out of 3

Wow!  It's been awhile since I've been on here.  Even though I didn't plan this, it has been quite nice to have a blogging break for awhile.  But, I'm back for now.

Since my HOA position has slowed down significantly lately, I have been able to finish 2 out of the 3 projects that have been on my list.

The first was to organize our storage room.  It has been a mess for awhile and I only added to the chaos by pretty much tossing stuff in there, knowing it was on the docket to get cleaned.  I took a few days a week or so ago, bought some more shelves and made it very neat and clean.  Wow! I have so much more room!  Check.

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The second project was to made some flannel twin size quilts for the boys.  I really haven't bought much for the cabin at all, but when I saw these sheets on sale, I knew they would be perfect to cut up and make into some simple tied quilts. Check.

 

The third project I have been working on for a long time.  Well, I take that back.  I worked on it all last school year and then promptly dropped it the day the boys got out of school last summer.  Trying to find uninterrupted "me" time is virtually impossible in the summer and I don't do well with projects when I'm in the zone and then get repeatedly interrupted.   This Fall was completely shot, so I have since picked it back up and am going full force.  I'm most excited about this one.  To be continued.....

When Mama is not on the ball....

this is what happens.

We have a tradition each December of buying the Lego advent calendars for our Christmas countdown.  The boys absolutely love them and love building something new every day. Well, we have learned in years past, that they often sell out and if you don't buy them early in November you may be out of luck.

Well, mama hasn't been on the ball lately, so about 3 days before December 1st, I started looking for one.  They were sold out online and I started the hunt in local stores.   I did find one...the last one at a Red Balloon toy store in Sandy.  There is only 1 problem with it.  It is the girl version.

I bought it anyways knowing it was this one or none and all and took it home, all the while wondering what my boys would say when they saw a pink, girlie version.

They looked at it for a few minutes, questioned me on why I bought the girl one, shrugged their shoulders and thought it was just fine.

Phew!

Another Tree

Last Christmas I had this great idea to buy a smaller, skinnier Christmas tree that would exclusively display all of the kid's hand made ornaments.  I was all gung ho on the idea and went looking for a fake tree.  At some point in this process, my enthusiasm started to wane and I decided that I would just wait and buy a tree after Christmas and get it on clearance.  End of that story.

About a week ago, my idea re-surfaced, but instead of buying a fake tree I decided that we would cut down a tree from our property and bring it home.  We have this area right behind our cabin that we affectionately call the pine tree nursery.  It is so thick with pines of all sizes you can barely walk through.  And honestly, some of these trees need to be thinned to let others grow to full size, so I don't feel too guilty cutting one down.

We decided to pick a nice, small skinny one, about 5 feet tall to take home.  Here you see Scott eyeing a nice "small" one.  You can tell how thick these trees are.  We found this little trail that meanders through them.

 The boys waiting for Scott to cut down the tree.

Scott lopped it down and we hauled it home.   Well, our 5 foot tree, turned out to be an 8' tree once we brought it into the house.  However, we did manage the skinny part and it looks very Charlie Brownish.  That tree is sucking down almost a gallon of water a day.

I bought some fun lights for it and now it is happily displaying all of our hand made ornaments.



I love it.

But that is not the end of the story.  As I was taking out all of my Christmas decorations, I came across a large garbage bag stuck in the corner of my storage room.  Imagine my confusion as I pulled off the bag to see what was inside, only to find a skinny 5' Christmas tree that I had bought last year on clearance.  I had totally forgotten about it.  So now, I have 3 trees and this one is sitting next to my piano with nothing on it.  That is the end of the story.

This and That

It had been three weeks since we had been up to the cabin to see what, if anything had been done.  Really, we hadn't been up since it started snowing and the roads now are slick and dicey at best.  It is now a requirement to have 4 wheel drive and chains to get up there.

Scott tried going up the hill with just 4 wheel drive and it didn't go so well.  So, he backed down and put on the chains.  You like how I took a picture from the warm cab?

 After some slipping and sliding on the roads we got up there.  A few things have been done.  Painters are finished and I love the army green doors and the shake shingles!  I know it's hard to tell in this picture, but the sun was fading quickly.

The inside is coming along as well.  We are so close!

Except for the fireplace.   It will be usable this winter, but will not get stone until the spring.

The real hang up is the cedar siding hangers.  They have not come up to finish the job.  They keep claiming they work in all weather, but I look at the slippery snow on the ground, the siding that is covered in a foot of snow and the ladders they have to climb and both Scott and I have grave doubts that they will come up and finish. 

We also had another task we needed to do while we were up there.  We had our appliances delivered months ago and they have been sitting in the garage ever since.  Our garage is detached and sits a little ways away from the cabin.  It was quite the ordeal pushing a washer, dryer, oven, and dishwasher up the hill, on a dolly, in the slick snow.  That was fun. :)  We still have the fridge that needs to get moved as well. Oh and by the time we left it was a balmy 14 degree outside.  My kind of weather.

That's the update.  Our builder is still hopeful and hasn't shut it down yet.  Scott and I are in a wait and see mode at this point.  So, we wait and see.

I'm still around....barely

October was a wild month.  And not necessarily in a good way.  Honestly, I'm glad it is over and I'm hoping November will be better.   I'm not quite sure what happened but here is what I managed to do and not do.

-Worry, stress and fret about our cabin getting finished before the snow falls. That's always productive right?  Especially when you can do nothing about it.

It's coming along and our builder is optimistic...but now we are literally going day by day and watching the weather.  I'm not sure though....although the stuff that needs to be completed on the outside is making progress it is still not completely done. 

-Spending an unbelievable amount of time on the HOA board for our cabin development.   It has turned out to be an absolute nightmare trying to deal with all the issues and problems up there along with having to work with different personalities on the board, some harder to get along with than others.   To be honest, it has taken a lot out of me. 

-Volunteering my time working with a refugee family from Rwanda.  Although I am very grateful for this opportunity that I have, it has been a challenge to meet with them once a week.  Initially I thought I would be going up to Salt Lake in the mornings to help them when my kids are in school, but they like me to come late afternoon when their children are home to help translate.  The parents know very little English and my Kinyarwanda and Swahili are a bit rusty.  Late afternoon is not an ideal time as my kids are also home and needing to be parented.  So, I try to make it work.

-Being a mom.  That's right.  I do have 4 kiddos that need me around to help with school work, carpool them here and there and everywhere. A house that needs to be cleaned on occasion and laundry that needs to be done.  Home lunches?  Nope not a chance this month.  Even dinner has been pretty sketchy lately.  Kids that struggle being responsible and like to throw fits.  Yep, got that as well.

-Soccer x 3.  Just finished our last soccer game of the season last Saturday.  I will admit.  I am relieved.  No more games, no more practices for now.

 

-Halloween - Sketchy this year at best.  Chase's costume consisted of a last minute stop at Smith's and grabbing Captain America off the rack.  Owen settled on wearing our black morph suit that we've had for 3 years.  I didn't even get a picture of Owen.  The other 2 boys were on their own.

This is a downer post I know, but October wasn't a great month for me.  Simple as that.  The good news is that the HOA board just made a few decisions that have taken a huge weight off me and even though I have no idea about a finish date for our cabin, I feel so much better.

Here's to a better November!

Halloween Craft

Between my regular duties, building a cabin, being on an HOA board and doing some volunteer work with a refugee family, this fall has been crazy for me. I didn't plan it this way.  The volunteering was supposed to start last spring.   The cabin was supposed to be done in the summer.  And I had no idea how time consuming this board position would be.  But, sometimes these things happen and you just have to roll with it and do your best.

Despite my schedule, I had a crazy desire to do a Halloween craft.  I don't have a lot of Halloween decoration because every time I decide to go buy some I come home empty handed because everything I find is either cheesy or gory.

I saw these adorable ghosts on my beloved Pinterest and decided to make them with the boys on conference weekend.  They were quite easy to make and turned out really well.

Now, I can put my crafty side to sleep again.

Cabin Update

Are we done yet?  No.  Not even close.  The combination of super slow county departments and inspectors and workers that won't show up, we are in desperation mode now.  The snow is coming soon and if we can't get the outside of the cabin complete and the septic and propane installed we are in big trouble.

We finally got our cedar siding delivered a few weeks ago.  Guess who got to stain it all?  Me with a very amazing helper.  We stained over 400 boards in 3 days.  I haven't been that sore or tired in a very long time.

We had quite the system going.  A staining area followed by a drying area that continued down our driveway.

This is a lot of wood drying.  The worse part was not the staining.  It was moving all that wood to the different areas and then stacking it back up. Those boards are heavy!

 

All was going well until we got a call from the builder telling us that we are required to spray flame retardant on pretty much everything up there that could possibly start a fire.  Not only is it outrageously expensive, it makes all your stained wood look like painted wood.  Not what I want in a cabin.   But I won't go there anymore as the story gets even more ridiculous.  Let's just say we are required to follow application instructions that are not even on the bottle.  I was close to tears at one point.

 

 

 

The hangers finally showed up to hang the siding.  Yeah!!  It looks really good and was going
smoothly,  until another worker doing another job decided to dig up the main power line to the house. Everything came to a halt until the Rocky Mountain Power people decided to come up and re-pull all the power line and inspect it. But of course, they had to get lost which set us back another day.  At this point, nothing surprises me now.

 

  

While I'm working like a dog outside staining wood, Scott is working like a dog inside laying down flooring (which looks great) and hanging cabinets.  He was going up after finishing work, working until the wee hours of the morning and then driving back home.   We didn't want anyone telling us we were the ones slowing down the process.  There were a few hiccups (of course) but those 2 jobs are complete.  

So that is where we are at.  The hangers are still hanging.  Our builder is putting up trim.  We've got another guy who is working on the septic and propane outside and the weather is supposed to turn bad this weekend........ To be continued.