Welcome Home

A red door means “welcome” in Feng Shui, as well as historical American traditions (or so I’m told.)

A red door means “mortgage free” in Sweden. Ha. But it’s a goal anyway. And besides, we don’t live in Sweden.

A red door means happiness to me.

I have always planned on living in a house with a red door.

We bought this door off someone in Broadripple, two years ago when we first bought our house. J has been working on restoring it here and there (trust me it was all just potential when we bought it.) While I was far away in Mississippi chasing enjoying my kiddos, he was finally able to install it. And lucky me came home to this beautiful door! So this should have been a post way back in July – but that’s neither here nor there.

Still Here!

I got a rash tonight at bookclub about not posting anymore... but to tell the truth, I've been avoiding the Internet all-together.

I'm going to give it my BEST effort to get back to keeping up with the blog. Here's a quick recap of what's been going on in our lives, and I'll try my best to get some posts elaborating on the major ones:

We had a super-fun camping trip with these friends, these friends, and these friends. Hoping it will become and annual event.

We have had ANOTHER flood of our house since the first flood... this time was WAY worse. That day we got the basement full to the brim. So, that's been keeping things pretty buys around here. Working on some major house renovations and regrading our entire yard. J goes to work all day, then comes home and works all night.

Lily had her very first dance recital. It was awesome. SO CUTE.

Lily played soccer for about 2 weeks. Two practices and one game... that was all she was up for. After that she decided her feet were tired and her ball "moved too slow."

We also gave swimming lessons for Lily a shot. That too was less-than successful.

We do ALL love swimming though! Justin's parent's got a pool that we've been loving this summer, and my parent's just started putting one in this week!

Violet is 18 months old now! She's a super busy girl. Cares nothing for sitting still, TV, or eating. But loves doing ANYTHING her big sister does, her blankie and her shoes!

Around the time of our first flood (Easter) I started cloth diapering. Yup. I went off. the. deep. end. And I'm really enjoying it. We still have to use disposables when she has diaper rash, or when it floods and we loose our water softener... but otherwise, we're cloth and I'm not planning on going back.

The girls and I have lots of short trips here and there planned all summer long. Two weeks ago we went to Cincinnati to visit Aunt Jamie and the zoo and had a great time. Coming up we're planning on visiting my grandpa in Mississippi, and taking a couple long family weekends camping and cabin-ing.

Here are a few of the soccer pics we got from that brief stint:

Yes, there are lots more events that have happened in the months since I last posted. But, I'd say those are some of the high (and low) points. Here's to hoping I manage to get back on again this week.

House of Water

Remember last Tuesday night when we had thunderstorm warnings and flash flooding across central Indiana?

This is what we woke up to Wednesday morning...

 (love how the rocking horse is floating)

And when the water was all finally drained... the aftermath:

And it didn't just stop in the basement. Since our first level is sunken, we had water back-up there too. I just got this new carpet in NOVEMBER. All GONE. Craft room/office carpet was lost too.

Total damage:

1300 sf carpet & pad

TV stand

vacuum cleaner

baby swing

bouncy seat

bassinet

futon & mattress

oil painting

end table

whole house humidifier

closet doors

ALL our architecture & engineering books from college, & notes

my entire stash of wrapping paper, bags & tissue

lots of Christmas decorations

All GONE.

I have washed & dried, folded and put away TWELVE tubs of baby & maternity clothes, that *thank goodness* have been saved. And we have managed to dry out the majority of the Christmas/holiday decorations that we store in the basement.

And oh yeah, Justin's car won't start either.

It's been an awesome week.

Our New Roof

At the end of July we got a new roof on our house. (Thank you to the insurance company.) And thank goodness we did, because when they took the shingles off on the part of the roof over the kitchen there was so much water damage that they were surprised they hadn't fallen into our kitchen. And of course, there were no obvious signs of anything going on in that area of the roof. We were having it replaced because of problems in other areas of the house!

We have the brilliant chaps who "flipped" our house before we bought it - and had no idea what they were doing - to thank for this fun experience. When they put the "new" roof on five years ago they didn't replace any damaged decking, and covered the soggy mess with another building material that you don't even use on roofs. Then they slapped a bunch of super-cheap shingles over it, and viola! sold the house to us!

We were so lucky that we replaced the roof when we did. And we feel even more blessed that we were able to get the insurance company to cover it!

Anyhoo- the girls and I spent a few days listening to feet and hammers all over the roof. And we spent a few hours each day watching out the front window all the activity and commotion. It's amazing to me, all the toys and things they have to do, and this is the most interesting thing they've ever seen.

Bug has been insisting on taking pictures herself... here is her version of the roofing experience:

The Latest Projects...

So this post is long overdue, but here are the projects that have been keeping us busy these last few months.

We planted a garden! This picture is really old now, but we've gotten a few tomatoes, a few cucumbers, and some jalapenos out of it already! It's WAY overcrowded because we had no idea what we were doing, but you learn as you go. Right?

J has been working on our yard and putting in some block to help move the water away from the house...

We also have lots of beds to plant now.

I painted a wall in our kitchen with chalkboard and magnetic paint. We are loving it!

Bug loves it too!

And more recently... this is the latest growth chart I've made. It was for a friend's daughter's first birthday! (The ladybugs are picture frames.)

Handyman Husband at it again...

This beautiful butcher block island is what my amazing handyman husband made me for my birthday. (Sorry, it took awhile for me to get around to photographing it - I kept waiting for a day when my kitchen was clean, and well, that just never seemed to happen... so finally I broke down and just burned the edges of the photo so you can't see how dirty the kitchen is.)

I'm not biased or anything, but it is pretty amazing how talented he is.

Oh, and PS if you want one for yourself, they are absolutely for sale!

Baby Wrens

A few weeks ago, our Wren-Friend had babies. They were the nosiest bunch of tenants I've ever heard. Look closely, and you can see a baby in there telling me to get out of his face.

Money Pit

A little about our new house.

Whew.

Well, to tell you the truth we’ve been feeling a little like we got magically transferred into the movie “The Money Pit.” Until just a few days ago, it’s been pretty much non-stop house/appliances falling apart since the day (before) we moved in.

It started with the huge 50 gallon tank of water that the seller dumped all over the (carpeted) living room floor while we were at closing – where we had to tear up the carpet, replace the pad and the house still smells like mildew.

And then there was the water softener – which was there, but didn’t work – and the receptacle – that they were supposed to install, and did, but not to functioning.

Oh, and did I mention that after J replaced the water softener and added a new whole house water filter (we’re on a well) the kitchen sink faucet no longer worked? So we had to buy and replace that too.

And while we were at it, the air conditioning stopped working – which we got fixed after a week or two. And then there were some uncapped loose wires hanging out on the back porch, and when J went to cap them the air conditioning stopped working again.

Oh and the dishwasher doesn’t work either – well, technically it runs, but when it makes the dishes dirtier than when they went in, I don’t count that as working. So we bought a new one of those this weekend too. Hopefully J will get that installed ASAP, because hand washing dishes is really getting old.

We’ve got lots more fun things and projects that have come up – some that we knew about going in – others that were surprises. I thank goodness that J is so handy, because otherwise we would have been in some serious trouble on this house. I felt pretty bad for him, though. One day he just looked at me and said, “I’m so tired of being wet.”

Trust me, we’re still REALLY happy we bought this house. Every day when I look out my windows it seems like I’m living in a park. I can’t see a single neighbor’s house from any window – which is a pretty big change, considering at our last house I could look INTO my neighbors bathroom.

At first when we moved in, I felt like we were camping. The street is pitch black at night, so you can really see the stars – it was so dark it took some getting used to. And when it rains, the sound of the rain on the tree canopy sounds like you’re in a tent. We also have tons of birds, squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits and toads. The toads are my favorite. And there’s a bird house with a Wren living in it that we can see from the kitchen table. Bug and I call it our “Wren-Friend.”

The increase in actual bugs is taking some getting used to… but considering my aversion, I think I’m handling it quite well.

And all in all, the catastrophic hiccups seem to be waning. We’re settling in and trying to get those darn boxes unpacked. We finished painting Bug’s bathroom last night – one down, about 10 to go!

Did I mention I’m NEVER moving again?