Picture Catch Up

Above: my bed at ladies retreat. It was a great time! VERY challenging messages on conflict resolution.
Below: LouAnn officially lives here in Iowa. There were quite a few items she donated to help our around here, and we are very grateful!

Setting up the dining room table

J is one of the kiddos I have on school days. He is a cutie! Here he is sporting his "dog collar" for 80s day homecoming week.

C, J's brother, wasn't thrilled to be here the first couple of weeks, and he let me know it, but he has since settled into a nice routine. I found out he LOVES pasta!

Delphia FINALLY lost a tooth!

Jon's new glasses. He looks SO much like the grandpa he almost shared a name with. He missed his birthday by 17 minutes!

Don has been trimming and burning a lot of the scrubby lower limbs off our trees. LouAnn has been working VERY hard at dragging them to the burn pile.


A 1 month old and a 1 year old.... Deja Vu!!

Our room... primed.

Don had the primer tinted per the suggestion of one of our drywallers. It was a brilliant idea! You can see where you've been and missed both with the paint and the primer. I just told him to pick a lighter color next time. This was a little scary!

We did end up going with the gray paint. We both REALLY like it!

The orange and aqua bedding won out.

Today, Delphia's 7th birthday!

The traditional birthday donut.

Fruit pizza treats for her class

Don and I on our 11th anniversary!

I wore my paint pants for a week solid. I have a few more days to be wearing them. I end up washing them at night, because they start to take on a life of their own! I love having somewhere to wipe my hands, and I have also found that painting with out flooring is DA BOMB!! You don't have to worry about dripping!!

My Fiestaware Has a Home!!!

The East wall of our kitchen

The South wall of the kitchen

My spice cupboard!!

The man who held me while I cried, and cried, and cried some more... Honestly! I am happy to see progress in my kitchen!!!

Painting!!

Dad Mc's handy dandy airless paint (primer) sprayer

Obviously I was not the one doing the direct application of the primer. I just followed with a roller. My hair was pretty white on top, but you can't really see it.

The primed dining room/ kitchen. I guess I haven't taken a picture of it painted yet...



The East (back) of the house

The South side of the house, there will be a garage/ breezeway there eventually...


Our front porch with pansies, my favorite!!!

FINALLY SOME COLOR!!

I have dreamed of a grass green laundry room for over a year now, and here it is!!!

I always thought red was a hard color because there were so many different hues.

I am finding that applies to pretty much any color. Thankfully I have a good buddy in the area to help me hash thru all the pros and cons and realities of paint samples (i.e. the dark color I think I love will most likely be way too dark when applied to a whole room) I think that a color obsession should be listed as a requirement for all pastor's wives :-)

Seeing Red

If you didn't already know, my FAVORITE color is Red.


Red was also the favorite of my Granny. (my dad's mom, Delphia) I wasn't a big fan, of red, while she was alive, but I have found increasingly over the years I am drawn to all things red. (except Hellboy)


I don't really think it has anything to do with her particular tastes, but it is a nice connection!


Have you ever noticed how things you grew up around become your own favorites?


My grandparents are big coffee drinkers and while I was away from home in Life Action I began enjoying it simply because the smell comforted me. Some would say I didn't really enjoy the coffee due to the fact 1/2 my cup was fulled with flavored creamer.


My mom's favorites are M&Ms and Kit Kats. Guess who else enjoys them?! Daddy likes Coke and Peppermint Nougats. Again, they are favorites of mine!


Back to red: When we first started planning a house my instant choice for exterior color was.... RED! Don was very unsure, but by the time came up with another color I thought would work better, he had decided red was the way to go and wasn't swayed by any other colors.


I literally spent a year noting red houses and buildings to see how they looked in all 4 seasons. Red is a touchy color and it is very easy to get it wrong.


I finally decided I wanted the color of the little school house in Cedar Falls. I acquired paint samples and took them to the school to try to match the color. Paint was bought, tinted later, and I was giddy to paint me some siding to see how it looked. I was kinda concerned by the color visible thru the bubble on the top of the can. It looked a little mauve. Scary!!! I got the first coat on.... it looked REALLY mauve, at least when wet. I was freaking out!!!!


As it dried it got darker and I liked the color, but I was still unsure how it would look actually up on the house. I found out today and I LIKE it!!!


Here's to 2 years of stressing over a paint color!

I guess you can't really see it, but I still like it!

South end of the house

Part of the West side

I'm SO Excited!!

Tyvek commercial no more!!

P.S. My kitchen will be ready to paint after Saturday, or early next week!!

We Get That A Lot

We have a problem. More aptly, our neighbors have a problem, and we are it!

Here in the past couple of weeks I have needed to order a few things and have them shipped to our house.

Problem #1:

We share a driveway. There are 2 houses on our "lane".

Problem #2:

For some odd reason our address sign, placed by the police department, sits to the east of our neighbors, but our house is West of them.

Problem #3:

Our place looks very much "under construction".

So, when an unsuspecting father comes to pick up his kiddo, to who's house does he go? Not ours, our neighbor's. When UPS and FedEx have a package to deliver they don't even stop to consider the house with the scaffolding set up for installing soffit, they keep on trucking up to our neighbors. Can't they see my cute rug on the porch?!!!! It doesn't help that I usually don't hear if anyone is knocking on the front door.

Even the delivery guys for our new bed called to see if I was home.....from up at our neighbors.

Thankfully, by the end of next week our house will look much more like a home from the outside. I can't wait!!

In relation to the lost dad, my neighbor said tonight, "He said it didn't look like anyone lived there. We get that a lot."

P.S. Thankfully our neighbors are super. I can't wait until we aren't constanly working on our place and can hang out with them!>

What ARE These?!!!

This glorious sight greeted me upon my arrival home from Bible study last night! I has already made navigating around here much easier! Don did an awesome job getting them all cut and installed evenly!

A Dishwasher Of My Own!!!

(Alternately titled: My husband, my hero!)

Yes, boys and girls, I Sarah McCallum just loaded a dishwasher installed here in MY house!!! I cried, I literally cried. I cannot explain the tremendous relief to have this machine at work for me! It is currently set up here in the basement, but it can be moved to the kitchen when it gets done.

Many things were accomplished here today, which makes for an exhilarating day! Our drywall help was here for 6 hours. I was gone for 3 hours of that time, on a supply run. I was delighted to find many walls well underway upon my return.

Don has been super busy here all week, but he's pretty much been working non stop for the past 12 hours today. We both woke up at 6:30 this morning. That is a big gripe of mine. Saturday is the ONLY day we get to sleep in, and if it isn't us waking up and not able to get back to sleep, it's the kids awake and making noise at 7. (we have to wake them up by 8 on Sunday)

So, Don has: run a couple of phone lines, ran a couple of thermostat wires, direct wired my dishwasher, plumbed the dishwasher, kept track of 4 kids for 3 hours and all 5 for 2, helped the drywall guy, got our printer up and running, ran electricity to our water heater, (it used to be heated only by the wood stove, but when the stove cooled down too much, no hot water. Not cool!! Yes all my McCallum readers, I know the water actually was cool.) He is currently setting up our whole house vac, and finishing up the 220 wiring for our stove.

We will both be ready to fall into our wonderful new bed and pillows. I am so glad we ordered it! Don says the only downside is that we didn't buy it 2 years ago. It has helped his back A LOT! But that's a whole other post.

The first load being washed!

Friends With Appliances

It has not been a week since I posted!!!! I can't believe it's been that long, but yes, we've been busy. I do have a list of things to blog about in the back of my Bible Study book. That tends to be the time I get ideas, so I just write them down so they don't distract me any further.

Anyway, one HUGE thing on my mind here of late it all the things this "adventure" of living in the basement is teaching me to be thankful for. Things like:

• Flooring
• Walls
• Stairs
• Cupboards
• Storage space
• Countertop
• Dishwasher
• Garbage disposal
• Clothes Dryer
• Kitchen sink

All the above are things I do not have and REALLY miss. If it's any indication, I almost got weepy when I was washing a friends dishes, a couple of weeks ago, in a SINK!!!!

This week I got the privilege of baby sitting for a friend 2 mornings. Not only did I get to interact with a petite little 2 year old girl, but also Jesse had a buddy to keep him busy, said friend lit up my days with cheery flowers, I didn't have my own "To Do" piles screaming at me, AND I had a dishwasher, clothes dryer and a kitchen sink at my disposal!!!!!! It was heaven! And worth the multiple trips to the car to lug in tubs and baskets of dishes and wet clothes.

Happy Valentines Day!

It is the end of another day that "I saw going differently in my head".

Nothing disastrous mind you, but I find here as of late I hold SO loosely to my own expectations that sometimes I don't care enough. Kinda a coping mechanism in a life that is rather "fluid" to say the least.

Thankfully we had set aside last night as our cozy family time. Don worked overtime this week, to help settle some of the overwhelming load he is dealing with at work. We all CRASHED big time last night. It was so nice to relax and be together!

Today, we had planned to get 2 walls build down here and install the stairs. Also, we called our "by the hour" drywaller, and set up for him and his helper (wife) to get started in our laundry room.

Well, plan one, didn't go down as we thought. Don woke up with the flu, and had me call my brothers, Micah and Aaron, (who were going to help) and let them know he would not be "bossing" them today.

Our drywalling duo did show up before 1oAM and in four hours they had the laundry room drywall hung, as well as half the dining room!!!!! Yea!!!!! I am sooooooo excited to see some progress!

It was recently noted, I had not written about the house for quite some time..... pretty much nothing had changed until today. We did get our cupboards ordered and picked up.... they are still in boxes in the office. I did brave out and open on last weekend. (I was scared after all that time and $ I wouldn't like them) I am happy to report they are lovely!

Don's workload since the new year has been quite heavy. We knew even during Christmas break this would be the case. He put in 8 extra hours 2 weeks in January, and then this week.

He did get some pocket door frames hung, and is working on figuring out our A/C duct work and also a central vac!

Back to today. I was rather derailed when I realized the wall/stairs thing wasn't going to happen, but Don was noticeably miserable so my pity party was short lived.

After lunch Don said he did have some things for the boys to work on, so they were called and came over. Once they finished the odd jobs Don had for them they even tackled the original job "the wall".

I am pleased to announce they did get one section all done!

So, here I sit with more drywall done than I had guessed, a wall, tulips, ice cream cake, a mellow hubby, and kids buzzed on obscene amounts of candy from their "friendship parties" at school.....does no one just give a card anymore?!!!! They were eating candy all day.... and it's still not done!!!

I wonder how many days of Don staying in bed we can afford!

Oh, we did have another guy come in and he is bidding our siding and drywall. I am praying, praying, praying he will be affordable! It would smooth out so many wrinkles in our life right now!

...Where Is The Woman I Married?!!!!

"Who are you and WHERE is the woman I married?" This pretty much sums up the look Don gave me last night when I chose pert near the least expensive kitchen sink in Menards.

Yeah!!! My kitchen cupboards are here!!!!

We are REALLY going to have to step up the hunt for a drywaller!

Hmmm....maybe I could find somebody and hold them at gun point and demand they drywall my house as a matter of national security....

Oh, so sorry! I forget I am not Jack Bauer!

Can you guess what I've been watching?

There are a couple of trains of thought on watching 24. One is that after one episode you are so on edge you need to take a break for a day, or a week.

Then there are those who get hooked and believe you have to watch the whole season in a 24 hour period in order to get the full effect.....can you believe there are crazy people out there like that?!!!! It honestly doesn't take as long if you watch it in double time on your laptop. The subtitles help. You can read what they are saying. But again, who could process all that action in 1/2 the time!!!!

TGFF 2nd Edition

Thank God For Friends

(especially the ones who are technically "Equestrian Podiatrists", but also moonlight as plumbers)

Yeah!!! We have a shower!!!

Many thanks to our friends Pete and April Mc Cloud for spending the afternoon/evening with us hooking up our shower. Pete also took the initiative of getting our 2nd toilet set up and running! That's another BIG yeah!! Our mornings should go MUCH smoother now!!

I tried to get a picture of Pete hard at work, but I think his exact words to me were, "Sarah Dagum McCallum!!!! Put that camera away RIGHT NOW or I will undo everything I just spent the last 4 hours installing!!!" No picture was worth that!!!

April on the other hand, though not thrilled about being photographed, is gorgeous and a much better picture to post anyway!

I tried with the camera again while Don and Pete were hanging my OH SO CUTE shower curtain, but had to settle for this shot of Don "breaking in the bathroom". He was pretending, I promise!!!

Today I...

• spent the day with my family at OUR house
• cooked a meal at OUR house (Chicken noodle soup and grilled cheese)
• took a nap in my chair at OUR house
• watched a movie, read a book, and played games with the kids at OUR house
• learned to solder copper pipes
• soldered pipes needed to hook up the water inside OUR house
• wished I had brought a tee shirt because it was so warm inside OUR house
• Praise God He is beside me no matter where I am

There is still an overwhelming list of things needing to be accomplished. I can't wait to see the pole barn finished and trim and siding on the house! It could be a way off yet. I'm struggling with that. There are just so many other things needing to come first.

Two of my brothers blessed us by helping Friday night and Saturday. Don's boss continues to plug away at the electrical.

I found the boot tub, but so had the mice. They used it for a home for quite some time. I am not sure how to ( or if I have the stomach to) clean them up, they smell REALLY bad!

T-14 Days, For Now

I am sure there are those out there who get annoyed with our lives being so fluid right now, but honestly, it's the best way to be with so many demands and changes popping up unexpectedly.

Don and I were actually able to communicate Friday morning. With his parents here our lives kind of ran on parallel tracks for 12 days. No complaints! It was super and a huge relief to both of us to be getting so much accomplished.

I digress, We talked Friday morning and decided our "official move" would be best postponed until after our trip to the Family Life "Weekend to Remember" November 14th -16th.

My sister and a college friend are going to be keeping track of our gang while we are gone. While things would be moved by that time. There would be very little settled. We'll hang tight a little longer.

This is not to say that each day find a new level of "moving" accomplished. Today I finally buttoned up some packing in our rental living room, and I also re assembled our refrigerator at the property and set up a microwave out there as well. It is so much handier to have food storage and warming capabilities!! I just wish I had thought to buy more milk to store out there. I can never buy more than 2 gallons at a time, and with the local grocery store closed, AND with our consuming almost 1 gallon per day....

Saturday I was planning to paint siding. It has been unseasonably warm here and we are grateful!! It ended up that there were so many other things pressing to be done. I was disappointed, but we did get Don's shop floor found! It had so much scrap lumber laying around you could hardly walk thru.

Homer, Jon and I moved most of it to the top of Don's shop. (A.K.A. The He Man Woman Haters Club) This name is due only for it's resemblance to the scrapped together fort on "The Little Rascals".

God blessed our hearts this weekend with lots of help physically and also thru worship with our church family.

My dad, Marc and Aaron helped Saturday, as well as a Rob Swailes from church. My friends Trisha and Michelle each helped with kids. I get so much more done when I do not have to settle petty squabbles! My mom had Jon Friday night. That helped and made his day!

We are blessed. We are settled. We are waiting. Funny, that was pastors messages Sunday morning and evening.

Getting Things Accomplished

Drum roll please!

We have an address!

We have GREAT work hats!

We have fine dining!

We've had our address since last summer, but we finally have our "Emergency Response" address marker in place. Don will be working on getting the mail box up here soon, then we will be able to get mail!! I am planning to start changing the address on all our stuff as soon as the mailbox is in place. I drive by there 2x a day, and it will be one less thing to do at move time!

The tractor is the kids favorite place to "stay out of the way".


Also, as of today, our septic tank and seepage bed are in place. Now we just need to get a toilet set up and we will have a bathroom! Thrilling I assure you! No more poison ivy scares!

Hurried Updates

I had a major case of envy this past summer.... concrete envy. I would see one of these trucks,

rolling down the road and I would think, "OH! I wish they were headed to our house!!!!" The trucks finally rolled into our place last month to supply the concrete for our basement floor, and once again this weekend to pour the stoop cap, and bases for our egress window wells. It's funny how simple a deal it seems now, but I do remember how painfully I wanted them to be going to our house!!

Exhibit B is rather hard to make out, but at the top of the picture there is a flag which is mounted on the tip top of the equipment our well drillers are using. Yeah!!! A well!! (another big milestone!)

And finally, Exhibit C:

Granted, Don was less than trilled to pose for this picture, but it is a tribute to my mother and her sewing skills. They have saved us a fortune!!!!

I just cracked up, no pun intended, (I am a McCallum by marriage) when Don was headed off to work Saturday morning. At present this pair of work jeans has 3 patched holes in the back, and one new one needing patching. This doesn't include the patched seam in the front... Let's just say we needed to keep the work clothes G rated....

So again, thanks mom! We started this project with 3 pair of grubby jeans, but were it not for patching I would have been spending money on new jeans just to have them destroyed!!! One pair was sacrificed for the patching material, but we still have 2 pair in circulation.

Oh! Funny note: My dad and Don's mom share a birthday, today! Happy Birthday!!!

LABOR Day

I felt a bit of "testosterone overload" yesterday. I spent the afternoon and evening with our boys cleaning up a tree. Don had cut it down last week to make room for the well drilling equipment that is to arrive sometime this week. The boys work very well with direction and gallons of Gatorade. We trimmed some branches up for firewood, and burned the rest. I pointed out they would be less likely to get scratched if they wore a shirt, I was in long sleeves, but it was hot and they can be bareback, so they stayed that way. They were filthy by the time we got home!!

I thought about taking Don's picture....All three boys together were only half as dirty and far less stinky. Don spent all day working on various things. It was quite muggy and hot. We can't wait to have the well dug and the water hooked up!

I'm Still Here

Here is some photo documentation of how I spent the past month. I have been helping Don as much as possible. Sometimes with kids, sometimes with out. It has been great to spend the time working together. (At least I get to see him!) But as you can see below I have a lot of catching up to do!!

This isn't actually where we started. Originally the floor was all dirt, and we had to dig to place the plumbing, but it gives you a good idea of the layout, so....

This....

To this....
To this...

And Finally This!!
We had like a 12 hour reprieve/ sigh of relief, when the floor was poured, but there are a new batch of things to accomplish, so it didn't take long for Don to gear back up for sealing the concrete, pouring retaining wall, installing windows, etc....

I have come to the realization that a house left to itself brings it's owner shame.....

My house pretty much lookes like this couch EVERYWHERE! Only being home enough to eat, sleep, shower, and change clothes ..... things kinda tend to pile up.

Oh yeah, we also had the first day of school and all the things that entails...

First day of School