Music!

After years of prodding, Rob and his siblings FINALLY went and did a professional recording session and got some pretty great tracks out of it.  This makes me so so happy for two reasons.

Reason #1 - We get to share the music with all of you!  They've set up a website where they will be releasing the songs one at a time for dramatic effect.  So set the webpage as a bookmark or something else easy to keep track of, and go back every week to see what else has been posted.

Reason #2 - This is a treasure for my family.  My children will be able to have this music for forever.  Or at least until technology changes to the point where MP3s are no longer readable, or the sun does one of those super flares that destroys all electronic data and we're set back hundreds of years and killing each other with bows and arrows like in that TV show.

Hurray for great music!

Basement Update

First off, a very short note about Teancom and gymnastics:  He did it!  WOO HOO!  Mission accomplished.

Now on to the thing that is consuming our lives (in a good way?).

The Basement

In order to count the two rooms in the basement as bedrooms (and to give our children an escape in case of fire - all that safety stuff), we had new windows put in.  One of the windows was already a window, just a tiny one.  The second one was just cinder block wall.  Now they are both egress windows.  The process:

Front half of the cinder block cut out

A hole

From the inside

From the outside

The bathroom with most of the drywall put up:

There is also a window in this room.  It's a teeny tiny window, but it wouldn't matter how big it is, it wouldn't let in much light because it's under the deck.  In the above picture, it still has the old window (that let in no light because it's old and nasty dirty).  All the drywall in this room is green because it's moisture-resistant.  Then there is cement board in the shower, where the tile will be.

Drywall coming up:

All the drywall is up, as of today, so these pictures are outdated.  But it's fun to see the progress!  We're thrilled with how it's all going and it's hard to imagine, now, what it used to look like.

Teancom Joins Gymnastics?

Last year Elijah did gymnastics for a few months before summer.  Then it got warm and there was traveling, so we told him he could pick it back up during the colder months.  Well, we finally got around to it this last week:  March is our month for gymnastics!  Elijah has been so excited and he's talked his brother into being really excited, too.  

We drove up and the boys were all a-chatter while I parked the car.  I had to keep them from running too fast to the building ("We have to be careful, guys.  There's ice!).  They barged into the building ready to go.  I told the guy at the front desk that I had 2 boys for gymnastics, and he told them to go ahead and take off their coats and shoes and join the group while I filled out the paperwork.  I watched them put their stuff on a chair and move towards the group before I turned to write their names on a form.  

And then I heard a scared little Teancom voice say, "Mom.  I don't feel good."

I turned and looked at him.  He hadn't made it further than 5 feet from me.  He looked like he was going to puke at any moment.  I recognized this Teancom.  He's the one who wouldn't join the Halloween party.  The one who was terrified to go to Kindergarten.  The one who wouldn't get out of my arms for the first 4 years of his life.  He's now a 7-year-old boy with deep anxiety about doing new things.

I tried to reason with him, encourage him, and hug him into joining the group, but I knew it was useless.  He was paralyzed with fear.  The first line out of my mouth, an overly optimistic, "But Teancom, you've been so excited about this," prompted him to tear up.  There's no reasoning with anxiety like that.

I turned back to the man at the front desk and said said, "I guess I'm only signing up one boy."  He said we could give Tank a week to get used to it, and he could join next week.  Teancom objected to this, but I thought it sounded reasonable.  I also knew that if Teancom refused to participate, we could probably talk them into transferring the money to Elijah's "account."  I'm a rational optimist.

Teancom and I sat on a chair, watching Elijah while he warmed up and then started doing the drills.  Elijah, for his part, was adorable.  He ran over to us twice to make sure Teancom was okay, and to ask if Tank would come out and play.  I assured him that Teancom was fine, and that he would join next week.  Then I spent an hour with a teary-eyed little boy, trying to convince him that he really did want to join next week.  

I thought Teancom's comments about the kids participating were interesting.  A representative sampling:

"That girl is really good.  I can't do what she's doing."

"That girl just fell down.  I don't want to fall down."

"What are they doing now?  What will they do with that equipment over there?"

Later when Rob asked why Teancom didn't participate, I said, "Because he's scared of people, new things, and, most of all, failure."  Teancom is a perfectionist.  He HATES to fail.  I tried to give Tank my best, kindest pep talks about how failing makes us better people, about how if we never do new things, we'll never know if we like those things.  

I wanted him to know that I wouldn't force him to do something he didn't want to do.  I wasn't trying to get him to participate just to make him uncomfortable.  I just knew that he really did want to do this.  I said, "Teancom, what if gymnastics is the most fun thing you've ever done in your life?  I mean, maybe it won't be.  Maybe you'll hate it.  I don't know.  But what IF?  What if it's the most fun you've ever had?  And what if you missed it because you weren't brave enough to try?"  

So, through a combination of pep talks, bribery (he'll get ice cream if he participates each week), guilt ("I've already paid for 3 weeks for you"), and becoming more comfortable with the newness, he calmed down and agreed to try it out.  He told Rob on the phone that night, "I didn't do gymnastics today because I was scared.  But I'm going to do it for the next 3 weeks."  

Crossing my fingers and saying a little prayer that he really will do it.

Going back to the moment when I heard that scared little voice and saw that terrified face.  I instantly thought, "Tamra, you should have seen this coming."  He's come a long way, Teancom has, but he still battles that anxiety demon.  I wonder if he always will.

Of note

Our basement is coming along, but the changes aren't things that show up well in pictures.  For instance, light switches and outlets and water lines and duct work.  Unless you really, really, really care about those things, they're not worth a close-up shot, and they're not discernibly different from day to day.  When the walls start going up, then it'll be ready for another picture.

Picture-worthy or not, the changes are AWESOME.  For instance, the duct work.  The guy who lived here before us was a tinkerer, and he knew just enough to mess stuff up.  We've known the duct work was a mess for years, since we replaced the furnace.  They told us back then that they could re-work it all for about double the cost of the furnace.  We said no thanks.  But now we need new stuff installed anyway, since we are creating 4 new rooms in the basement.

So why am I reporting this?  Because our house feels a TON warmer now.  I didn't realize how unevenly our house was heating until it was suddenly evened-out.  This is most noticeable in our bedroom, which was previously an icebox, and from the basement into the kitchen, where leaving the door open was the best way to let in a huge draft of cold air.  I assumed those things were just part of owning an older home.  Nope!  Fixed.  It's blissful.

While all this work in the basement is being done, the kids have been living in one room.  It's working out better than I thought it would, and for the most part the kids are taking things in stride.  Check it out:

Looking in from the door

Looking from the edge of Micah's bed

The kids are champs.  Though I do have to say, we're all looking forward to having our space back (and then some).  The basement is so close that I can taste it.  We're ready to start utilizing our increased space, instead of being stuck managing the decreased space.

The Basement Today

Here's what the basement looks like today:

This is a picture right when you come down the stairs.  It will open up into a family room, with all the other rooms hugging the outside to the right and around the back.  You can see the skeleton of all those rooms.

For comparison, that's Miciah's old room, and will be the family room when the basement is done.  The framing of the walls sticks out to cover up the meters, etc. that you can see in the corner.  That column (and another just like it a few feet down the wall (but not represented in this picture)) will be cabinets so we can utilize as much of that dead space as possible.

This was part of the old laundry room / open space (read: wasted space).  It will be the bathroom.  You can see the plumbing for the shower and toilet.  On the right side of the bathroom wall will be the laundry room / storage space.  One the left side of the bathroom wall will be Miciah's room.

Lastly, this is looking into what used to be the toy room (from a different angle as the picture of the toy room in the last post), but what will be the boys' bedroom.  To the right of the picture you can see the center skeleton wall that will divide the boys' room from Miciah's room.

It's coming along!  I can walk down and really sense what it'll look like.  I like spending time down there watching all the work.  It's fascinating and sorta relaxing to watch.  This must be why aristocrats like watching the peasants!  Ha!  (In all seriousness, paying someone else to do this work was a fantastic decision.  This would have taken us forever, much of the work has been hyper-skilled to the point that we'd be in deep water if we'd tried it, and the contractors are all super nice.  Good decision, us!)

Pictures of the Project

As requested, here are some pictures of the basement.  I didn't want to just start on today's pictures, so here's a few pictures to give you an idea of the process and progress that's been going on.  Also, with each picture, imagine a thin layer of dust.  Everywhere.

Part 1 - Waterproofing

These guys tore out everything along the outside walls, then busted out a foot and a half of the floor's concrete all along the edges (they also dug a trench around the house on the outside), then installed drainage and stuff.

Miciah's room, in demolition mode

The toy room - guy with jackhammer working on taking out the concrete

Food storage room - guy making trench

Miciah's room - ditch and drainage

While the waterproofing guys were here, we paid them a little extra to take out all the inside walls.  It made our basement feel huge!  Then, for the 3 weeks of downtime between their work and the contractor's start, we set to work removing all of that lovely tile that you see in the above picture.  I'm sad that it's all gone, cause it was awesome!  The basement was our hobby for almost that full time.  We swept about 100 times (that's not an exaggeration.  I swear that dust procreates while you're not looking), mopped a few times, pulled up all the tile, and moved our stuff "out of the way."  Out of the way was difficult, though, because of this:

Our garage, full of scrap wood

By the end it was filled to the brim with wood and insulation.  The waterproofing guys helped us do the demolition, but didn't take all the trash away.  We had to wait for the contractors to do that part.  

Part 2 - Remodel

With all the walls removed, here's a picture of our basement at the end of the contractors working on day 3:

The torn up concrete you see is for the bathroom plumbing.  Of course, the old pipes weren't in great condition, so a bunch of them needed replaced.

And here's the dumpster full of all the crap they pulled out of our basement (and at that point, our garage):

It's been an adventure! More pictures to come.

Hello, Blog World

So, things have been both exactly the same as always AND completely wacky.  We're neck-deep in home projects and other equally large purchases, and it's insane.  Rob and I keep looking at each other and saying, "And then we'll be done, right?"  Because, honestly, this last 6 months has been a little much.

What happened is that for 10 years we had no money.  Like, none.  We sacrificed because we had to, and because we preferred it over an indulgent lifestyle funded by credit.  During that time we made do with a dying duo of cars, a home that needed attention, and multiple appliances that were nearly dead.  So when we finally had money, all those things needed taken care of.  Fast.  We didn't anticipate the fast part.

Both cars have now been replaced.  (Never mind that Rob forced our hand on the one car that we could have kept alive.  Poor Rob.  He feels pretty terrible about that.)  The van left this world with 396,615 miles.  Good job, old man.  It's weird, though, to drive around in a new-ish Outback and Cruze, when we were so used to rocking out the old car thing.

Our home has now had a new roof installed, new flooring upstairs, and all the upstairs rooms touched up.  The basement has been professionally water-proofed and is currently under renovation by another group of professionals (who are AWESOME!  Seriously, if anyone needs a project done, these contractors are amazing).  In just a few weeks we'll have 2 new bedrooms, a bathroom, and an entertainment room down there.  We're almost doubling our livable space.

We finally purchased a new washer and dryer.  If you remember, years back the dryer tried to die on us a few times.  Fortunately, we were able to eek out a few good years with it.  Now, though, the dryer is only drying our clothes about every 3rd or 4th load.  So in a few weeks a new set will show up, and we're excited that it will actually, you know, clean and dry our clothes.

We've had people make comments about all our recent purchases ("Ooh.  Rolling in money now, huh?"), and Rob and I just sigh.  This wasn't the plan, but when you spend 10 years spending no money on things that needed money spent on them,  ...  this is what happens.

I do have to giggle, though.  I turned to Rob and joked, "But, Rob, how will we prove our self-worth next year?  We'll have to buy a newer car, I think."

This whole thing has stopped being completely devastating to me.  You'd think these purchases would somehow make me happy.  But it turns out that I really don't like spending money.  Now, though, it just is what it is.  I'm excited about our new basement, for sure, and I'm happy we have the money to fund these things that really should have been taken care of years ago (with the exception of the basement renovation - that one really is just for fun, as well as to make it so we don't have to move).  So it's not all doom and gloom.

Hope you're all doing well!  I do read everyone's blog, even if I'm not writing on my own.  :)