Okay, it's been awhile, but I really had nothing to write about. We still have to do the crown molding (which I believe we're waiting until my dad gets up here because he wants to learn how to do it) and put our new bedspread on our bed.

    So, on Tuesday, I was substituting in a 5th grade classroom for the same school I permanent subbed for last school year and the Principal walks in. I didn't hear him walk in and all I hear is,"Tracey!" I about jumped a mile...lol. Then he asks if I was interested in a long-term subbing for a 4th grade teacher that has been out. Of course I jump at the chance! I will be in the classroom until December 19th, only 3 weeks, but I will take those three weeks and give it 100%. I just love that school because the teachers are so welcoming and treat you like you belong. It's awesome. Then I have students who know how to say my last name the right way and some who just say,"Mrs. B" saying hi to me. It's such a great feeling. Oh and the kids in this classroom are so well-behaved. There are a few that I will have to watch out for, but I'll take it! Unfortunately, I won't be able to be in this morning because I'm getting my upper braces off!! Yay!

    Well, I hope everyone has a great 1st of December! I celebrated by giving Jeff an advent calendar so he can open each one every day until Christmas. When he saw it this morning, he didn't even know what it was! Since we don't have kids, I'll have to just make do....I know my mom bought us elf in the shelf for our potential future child so maybe I should just hide it around the house for Jeff to find...haha!

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I'm not sure if that button up there will work, but here it goes. What's been going on here? Well, we finished everything in our house EXCEPT for the crown molding. I'm not sure if we'll ever get to that. I did have my best friend (for 20 years!) come visit with her husband and barely a year old son. They were so much fun! I hated to see them go. We went to the Butterfly House, Lone Elk Park, visited Main Street St. Charles, went to the Zoo, and then finally Grants Farm. What is really neat about them, is that they are vegetarians....which is the total opposite of what Jeff and I are (we can't stand veggies!). They do eat more than just veggies, but it's just funny and different. I am just awed by their lifestyle change since they did not grow up as vegetarians. I need a lifestyle change....maybe I'll start exercising. I know Jeff would be happy about that. Anyways, it was an awesome visit. I'm excited to do some subbing this week (only two days so far, but hopefully more will pop up). As much as I would LOVE my own classroom, I do love having the day already planned and ready to go. I just need to worry about time and classroom management. Which can be difficult, but I love the challenge of it. :)

so exciting!

Tomorrow, is the start of our hardwood flooring to be refinished! Yay! They'll be here around 9-9:15am (depending on traffic). We have moved into the basement until it's finished. It's almost like we're in a 5 room house....we have the basement, extra room in the basement, laundry room in the basement, our kitchen, and sunroom. Very, very cramped. I would love for Jeff to take pictures of our cramped quarters, but he can't stand the clutter. I'll try and talk him into it. I guess I can update on the shows we've been watching. We're on Season 4 of Madmen...such a good show! I highly recommend Sons of Anarchy, we're hoping Netflix will put Season 3 up soon. Season 4 on FX will start next month. The League is hilarious. We've started The Good Guys, it's so cheesy and funny. I do not recommend watching Kenny Vs. Spenny...awful, awful show (only watched the 1st episode) Oh and I have the best news!

One of my best friends, I've known her since 2nd grade, is coming to visit us with her husband and baby!! I am so excited. I just hope we finish our renovations and have everything complete before they get here. Or at least this gives us an incentive to get everything finished.

Oh and a little tip; do not put a clothespin on your cat's tail, she will go crazy! I promise we do not abuse our cats! Jeff just didn't know what kind of reaction she was going to have. Poor Miss Cleo. She seems to have gotten over it, though.

90 minutes of Heaven

Oh my gosh. That massage was amazing. I'm a little sore today, but it didn't help that we had to sleep in the theater chairs, in the basement, since our power was off from 7:50pm-3:40am. The massage therapist kept telling me that I was so tense and a hot mess. She couldn't get all the kinks out so she told me to come back in a few weeks. I'm not so sure that Jeff will be on board, but I will try :). Afterwards, I felt so relaxed, I've never felt that way before. The lady also gave me $10 off for my next session that I have to use by the 31st. My bulging disc doesn't seem to be in too much pain, but then again, pretty much all my muscles are sore and I just woke up. So, now I'm watching Twilight since I just finished reading it. Yes, I'm a twilight fan :). This movie is awful, but it doesn't feel right not watching it after reading the book. I'll do the same with the Harry Potter series after this.

No more painting walls

Our bedrooms are finished! Well, the painting part, that is, which was the biggest project we have that we're doing ourselves. We still need to put the blinds back up in each bedroom, the outlet covers need to go back on, and the vents as well. Last Monday, I could barely paint because my back was hurting me. I have not had this constant pain (at this magnitude) in a long time. It's so bad that I am going to a doctor on the 12th at 10am. I am counting down the hours and days. I also talked Jeff into letting me go get a massage. A real massage. I've never had that done before and I am excited. It's going to be at 10am tomorrow and I just can't wait! 90 minutes of pure relaxation coming up :).

Update

Yesterday, my mother-in-law called as usual on Sundays. Well, she offered to come up to help us out with the painting! Now, some of you may shudder at the thought of your mother-in-law coming to visit. I, on the other hand, am ecstatic! I get along great with my in-laws. She will arrive on Wednesday. I'm a little nervous about driving to the airport by myself, but I think I'll be okay...lol.

We didn't get a lot accomplished yesterday. I did get laundry finished (but that's every Sunday) and grocery shopping completed, but all Jeff was able to do was to move the electrical outlet up behind the tv. This is no easy task so I'm not saying that I can't believe he didn't do a lot. It just took a lot longer than we thought. So, we still need to prep the walls in our bedroom to get ready to paint. I'm not sure if Jeff is wanting to wait until his mom arrives or if we're going to get it done tonight and tomorrow night.

I am going to be busy with cleaning house and getting it ready for the visit. I also have a floor guy coming for an estimate today, and then calling the other floor girl to change that appointment since it will be at the same time that I need to head to the airport on Wednesday. Fun fun!

Holy Cow!

Well, today we had a guy come in to give us an estimate of the refinishing of our hardwood floors. It was a bit more expensive than we thought, but we still have 2 other companies coming over next week (Monday and Wednesday). We really liked the guy, though, he was really nice. I hate that Jeff is going to be at work during the other 2 estimates, though. Before the guy arrived, I was busy cleaning off the shower doors and other odd chores around the house while Jeff was putting wall putty up and sanding. Then he took off the baseboards while I took out 90% of our clothes out of the closet....It's so weird having an almost empty closet. I even had to pack up most of our shoes as well (kept a few flip flops nearby though). We then moved to the basement after dinner to clean out Jeff's music room so that we can have room to store everything from upstairs down there. Luckily, we will only stay down there for 24-36 hours before we can walk and start moving furniture back upstairs. Oh, we finally received our Roku player (it was suppose to arrive yesterday). It's pretty neat. We received a movie from Netflix, though so we didn't play with the Roku player too much. We got Rango. I'm sorry if this post is boring, I'm just way too tired to be interesting at the moment. This blog is really to let things off my chest so that I can get some decent sleep at night. This way I can get most of my thoughts of the day on here and not think about it too much later. Very therapeutic (sp?). So, once again, so sorry that this post is awful.

Amazing!

We have finally entered the world of having a flat screen tv. We could have received one for Christmas a few years ago, but decided to get a new mattress instead (which we love!). We weren't really anxious to get one at all, but now that I have one....amazing! I can't believe we didn't get one sooner. We're hoping once this renovation is done that maybe we could get one for the living room as well. I'm thinking a Black Friday sale is in my future :). Anyways, today I am cleaning the shower (after UPS arrives with our wall mount and roku player) and calling around for hardwood flooring refinishing. My life as a housewife right now is borderline boring. When I don't have anything to do (or I am just taking a break), I am watching Grey's Atanomy on Netflix instant play. I had no idea how awesome that show is! I am definitely becoming a fan. Okay, well, time to make some calls.

Renovations have begun!

So, with my baby fever at an all time high, last Friday, July 8, Jeff decided that we should start renovating the bedrooms. Seems simple, right? Wrong. The list Jeff has is a mile long of what we need to do! He has a weekly plan that will have us completing roughly around September 10th.


And this is our weekly plan:
7/9 - 7/10 WEEK1 (weekend)
-fix toilet
 need plumber's putty
-measure other rooms so we know how much paint to buy
-buy stuff
 fabric softner
 -wallpaper roller
 -6 rollers (3/8" to 1/2")
 -sandpaper
 primer (4 gallons)
 paint for walls (3 gallons)
 paint for ceilings (1 gallon)
 paint for trim (1 gallon)
 -pick out closets doors
 -pick out fan (21" ?)
 -price crown molding
 -price miter saw
 price nail gun
 -price caulk (we have one tube)
 -price door hardware
 -price outlets
 -price switches
 -plastic for floors
-remove wallpaper in guest room
-remove cheap crown molding in guest room
-prep walls and ceiling (fill holes, sand, remove switch and outlet covers) in guest room
-price tvs, mounts, bluray, hd antenna
-pull toilet up to see what's under
-buy new toilet
-install toilet
7/11 - 7/14 (during the week)
-prep walls and ceiling in guest room since we didn't get it done over the weekend
-cleanup/packup/whatever any stray clothing/shoes/junk/whatever in master bedroom
-move furniture from master to guest room (bed is moved last on friday morning)
-throughly clean master bath
-buy tv and wall mount and hd antenna and bluray
7/15 - 7/17 WEEK2 (weekend)
-remove carpeting in master
-remove cheap crown molding in master
-remove vanity and toilet tank
-install wall mount and remove it for painting
 cut any necessary holes in drywall to hide cableing
-prep walls and ceiling (fill holes, sand, remove switch and outlet covers) in master
-remove calk around windows, shower, sink, baseboards
-blue tape master
-buy paint
7/22 - 7/24 WEEK3 (weekend)
-paint ceiling in master bedroom and bath
-paint walls in master bedroom and bath
-move furniture from office to kitchen
-remove wallpaper in office
-remove cheap crown molding in office
-prep walls and ceiling (fill holes, sand, remmove switch and outlet covers) in office
-blue tape office
7/29 - 7/31 WEEK4 (weekend)
-paint office ceiling
-paint office walls
-caulk sides and top of windows, shower, sink
-install toilet tank and vanity
-move furniture from guest to master, move dressers to dining room
-paint ceiling in guest
-paint walls in guest
-note: ready for floor refinish in one week starting monday 8/8/2011
8/5 - 8/7 WEEK5 (weekend)
-thouroughly clean downstairs bathroom
-thouroughly clean theater room
-move master furniture downstairs
-move all other bedroom furniture downstairs, kitchen, living room
8/8 - 8/12 (during the week)
-Refinish hardwood floors
 cost per square ft?
 cost to replace damaged planks?
 dust containment system?
 600 sq ft
8/12 - 8/14 WEEK6 (weekend)
-while refinishing floors (2-3 weeks)
 clean out basement
 pick out pictures
 order pictures
8/19 - 8/21 WEEK7 (weekend)
 buy frames
 buy lamps
 buy fan
 buy crown molding, miter saw, nail gun (can i use a miter box and circular saw?)
 buy closet doors and rollers and track (4 of 24x80 6 panel doors)
 during the last week, buy bed frame, night stands, bench
8/22 - 8/25 (during the week)
 during the last week, paint trim and doors
 during the last week, caulk bottom of windows
 during the last week, install new door hardware
 during the last week, install new outlets and switches
8/26 - 8/28 WEEK8 (weekend)
-put furniture back in office
-put furniture back in guest
 sleep here until bedroom furniture is
-put together bed frame in master
-put together night stands, bench
-mount tv
9/1 - 9/4 WEEK9 (weekend - labor day)
-paint closet doors
-hang closet doors
-measure and cut crown molding for all bedrooms
-paint crown molding
9/8 - 9/10 WEEK10 (weekend)
-install crown molding
-hang pictures

While cleaning the shower; I missed our tv being shipped! So, I can go up to retrieve it around 8-9pm tonight. Luckily Jeff will be going with me so I won't have to do any heavy lifting. For those of you who don't know, I have degenerate disc disease (aka: bulging disc) on my L5-S1 disc and it hurts like crazy. There's nothing I can do to hurt it worse (except more pain of course) and surgery could fix it, but it might not. It seems like I'm stuck with back pain. So anywho, now my baby fever has been set back and I'm busy with getting things accomplished around the house for the renovations. Now if only we could have cooler weather.

Looks like I need to box up some shoes that I won't need for awhile.....lately, my footwear has only been consisted of flip flops....oh how I love flipflops :).