Kicking The Parents Out!

It feels a bit odd making preparations to kick my own parents out of their bedroom in the house they built.

Awkward!!

With time running out before school starts, it has become depressing clear that they new space WILL NOT be ready for us to live in. It might be painted, but won’t have any flooring, bathroom fixtures, kitchen cabinets or appliances, etc. This means that we will be trying to live simultaneously in the space my parents currently occupy.

Julie and I figured we would just be “roughing it” for awhile and finishing things as we go. We’ve done it before and are happy to do it again. Some of our favorite memories are from such times.

My father however had different ideas. His plan is to move himself and Mom into the unfinished basement and turn the house’s master bedroom over to Julie and I. And he wants to do it soon. Before we move in. So that’s is what we are moving toward!

We knew this was the plan, and would eventually happen. But actually taking the steps to bring it to pass is rather… awkward. I’ve been jokingly telling people that we are “kicking my parents out and taking over” for a while, but it feels odd to have my parents working hard to kick themselves out.

The Steps Of Kicking Them Out

This week we gave up on the deck project (postponed it) and turned our attention to the basement. We spent just one day (Tuesday) cleaning out the space that is going to turn into my parents apartment. Yesterday we built the ‘exterior’ walls to trim out the cement walls. Today we almost completed laying down some subfloor particle board to strengthen up the flooring.

We will have to finish off the bathroom down there shortly, but I think when the flooring is done that Dad is planning on moving their bed down into the unfinished space. He says this is so that Julie and I can have a space to move into. I suspect that he is also secretly looking forward to living (and more importantly, sleeping) in the coolest part of the house – the basement.

My parents say that if the basement is too rough for them that they’ll just stay in the motorhome. They are taking it on vacation in just a few weeks anyway and so this is a very feasible and sensible plan. That’ll give us time to keep cleaning/organizing/building to improve the house space for all of us.

Hard To Do?

We’ve been witnessing how hard it has been for my parents to let go of some of the things they’ve collected/stored for years. As we make this transition I imagine it is going to be even harder to do. They’ve been living in a huge house for years all by themselves. To now try to downsize that into a small corner of the same house will stress the emotional limits I’m sure.

Thankfully we don’t actually have much to move into the house. All of the furniture and decorations will stay for the time being (hopefully without the kiddos breaking them). We don’t have dishes or appliances either. So moving/downsizing my parents is really a matter of condensing and moving clothing and a few mementos.

Hopefully that won’t prove to be too difficult!

7 August 2017

But Where Will We Park

Like dominoes, there are a lot of things that have to fall in place to accomplish even simple tasks around my parents house. Answering “where will we park?” is one of those.

Current Parking

The driveway at my parents house is about 400 ft long and takes a near 180 turn into the garages on the back. Unfortunately nobody has been able to park there for some time.

The culprit is the 40′ motorhome that my parents bought that dominates that space. That huge machine doesn’t really fit into the space nicely, and it makes it really difficult to park another vehicle in there. And so for years now nobody has. Instead my parents (and visitors) have been parking single file in the driveway and walking across the front lawn.

1st Domino

“Dad, when we move in, where will we park?” With more than just my parents living there soon, we need to find another way to park. It’s totally impractical for us to continue to try parking single file in the driveway indefinitely.

Because the area in front of the garages has not been drivable, other items have taken over that space. So, to answer “where will we park”, the answer was “right there were those bags of mulch are.”

2nd Domino

That answer naturally leads to “where are we going to put the mulch?” Well, in one of the flower beds of course. The only problem was that none of the flower beds were cleaned out and ready for mulch. So we set the younger kids to pulling weeds out of the flower bed bordering the soon-to-be-parking area.

The kids did great. They were aided a lot by Julie and her boundless energy who would go over and help them out when ever I took one of my all-too-frequent breaks.

3rd Domino

With that flower bed getting cleaned out and looking much nicer, it became painfully apparent that the tree in the corner of the bed was in dire need of a good trimming. And so that task was set upon as well.

A good 90 minutes were spent trimming and grooming that tree. There were numerous branches reaching out and rubbing against the house/shingles. Those were largely removed. Many branches were crossing over/under each other or growing down toward the ground that needed removal as well. And then a whole lot of others that were growing over the parking area were so low that a car would have a hard time getting through them. Some branches were so think that the loppers were traded in for a reciprocating saw.

4th Domino

Not letting that be enough, now that the weeds were pulled and the tree was trimmed we could easily see how much stuff and been placed under there while we were doing our cleaning. So now we needed to find a new place to hide quite a few “eye sore” items. That led to the need to clean off a pallet to place those items on…

You see how this is going right?

In order to fully complete one project another one is required, which needs another, which demands something different. It is a long line of dominoes that need to fall to make this house comfortably livable for the 12 people who are going to live there.

If there are any expert domino players out there, I’d love the help!

Did you notice that with all that work, I didn’t mention what we’re doing about the real problem, the motorhome? Well, my parents will be taking it on vacation shortly after we move in. While they are gone we will clear out a better place in the yard for it to go when they return.

5 August 2017

Update After My Hiatus

I’ve been on a hiatus and think I should give an update on life. With nothing really going on I just haven’t found anything to write about. Of course things have happened, but they all seem so small and insignificant at the time that they don’t seem worth mentioning. It is only in the accumulation of seemingly insignificant changes that the scope of the change becomes apparent.

HOUSE PROJECT UPDATE

Things aren’t moving as quickly as I’d like, but they are moving about as quickly as they could possibly move. We finished the wiring/plumbing/etc last week; HVAC was installed last week, and the sheetrock was hung this week. The sheetrock mudders will be in on Monday. By the end of the week we should be able to paint.

While the sheetrock was going up this week we were working on the deck that is going out the south side of the great room (going to have to stop calling it that because now it is a collection of small rooms that are no greater than any other rooms). We have the supports up and joists up. We don’t have any decking or railing on yet. That might happen this week while the mudders have us out of the place again this week.

As soon as we can get back in we will paint just as quickly as possible and then get to finishing the bathroom and working on flooring.

I will try to get some video edited of what the space looks like out to you soon!

MISSOURI/FINANCES UPDATE

We have accepted (grudgingly) that we won’t be moving back to MO anytime soon. This is sad. We don’t want to lose the property though just in case we ever do find a way to get back there.

Even though we are way under water on the mortgage for a house that no longer exists, we have still been making the payments. I’ve tried reaching the bank to see if we can work something out but they refuse to speak to me. If nothing else I’d like to get approval to lower my payments since there is no insurance on the property (why would there be?) and the taxes are going to be MUCH lower now with no home.

We have sold our cattle. They have been at a neighbors house since the fire and he took care of them over the winter. I had him haul them to auction this week and should get a check for them soon. That will help out a lot of things!

We haven’t decided how/when we are going to collect the rest of our things. I think it is feasible to have everything loaded into my storage unit and then ship the entire thing here to Utah, but I don’t have a good way of getting it all loaded. I could ask friends/neighbors to do it for me, but that seems like a big ask. Maybe my Dad goes back and does it with help. May I have to do it? Still undecided.

FAMILY UPDATE

Everyone is fine. Caitlin (15) and Joshua (13) had birthdays. Everyone is healthy and enjoying the summer. They’d like to not be working at my parents so much, but it hasn’t been bad. With frequent (near daily) trips to the pool or the new splash pad in Bluffdale they are all getting out a lot. They’ve done some hiking and sports too.

I think everyone is apprehensive about the move. We know my parents place won’t be done. We only have 2 weeks from today, so I don’t even know what state of cleanliness it will be in. But school is starting, so we will move in regardless and make the best of it. Maybe with school starting it will help make things easier for Julie and I to get things into a more livable condition.

VA/MENTAL HEALTH UPDATE

I’m surviving. I’m still going to all my regular appointments (several a week) and getting by.

I have started and completed the beginners portion of Canines with a Cause. I still don’t have my own dog but have been working with their dogs. The first part of the intermediate class that begins in a few weeks will be looking for my own dog. The timing is working out fine since I couldn’t have my own here at the Penrod’s, but can have one as soon as we move. This will go a LONG way to helping my anxiety and will hopefully be beneficial in dealing with nightmares too.

Julie is still crazy!

EXERCISE/HEALTH UPDATE

You haven’t seen any running logs since the pool opened because we stopped running. We have instead been swimming. I have the kids do laps each time we show up to keep them doing some cardio, then they are free to go play (which rarely includes actual swimming).

My exercise has been fine, but hasn’t resulted in any weight loss. I think it has trimmed up my waist a little bit (several people have mentioned it), but my actual weight hasn’t gone down. Perhaps with time.

23 July 201724 July 2017

Book Review: The Woman Who Rides Like a Man

Book Review:

The Woman Who Rides Like a Man (Book Three in the Song of the Lioness Series) by Tamora Pierce

I actually finished this one weeks ago. However, my full time construction job on top of motherhood leaves me very little computer time. But here is my review of the third book in this saga. (And I mean that in the sense that the series is becoming a little long winded with only a few dramatic events.)

Content

Now that she has won her knighthood and defeated the sorcerer who threatened the peace of the kingdom, Sir Alanna of Trebond seeks adventure in the deserts of Tortall. She defeats a band of robbers but breaks her sword irreparably. In a strange twist of fate she is adopted by the desert Bazhir tribe, the Bloody Hawk, and becomes their Shaman. And this is where the majority of the book takes place.

As Shaman, Alanna improves her own magic skills and trains apprentices, two girls and a boy. Alanna spends much of her knighthood defending the rights of women in a male dominated culture, as opposed to seeking out adventure. There is not a distinct antagonist in this book. Instead, this books seems to be a sort of coming of age story for Alanna. She continues her search for love and acceptance, while turning down a marriage proposal, and mastering her Gift.

Recommendation

I give Book Three 3 out of 12 buttered rolls. This could be the “Empire Strikes Back” installment of this series but really, I was left totally underwhelmed. There is so much drama. I’m talking femi-nazi, “Girls can do anything boys can do,” “A family will kill my career,” “Anyone who supports a patriarchal society is enslaving women,” type feminism. It got old, and without a specific antagonist or quest to focus on, it got old fast. Don’t get me wrong, I do like the idea of a female heroine. I encourage my daughters to be anything they want to be. But between the what-am-I-going-to-do-with-my-life drama and the men-hate-strong-women femi-nazi propaganda, I am left hoping there is a “Return of the Jedi” finish to this series. Here’s hoping for the best.

17 July 2017

What Is That? – Photo Edition

“What is that?” is the most common question the kids have asked while cleaning? This is the fourth installment and is the first photo edition. You can read the first three here and here, and here.

These pictures are from all over the house (Great Room, garage, basement, and main living area).

What Is That?

A mouse skeleton we found in some old insulation

A really old pair of snow shoes (possibly made by my Mom’s Dad?)

Two sets of deer horns from deer my Dad killed

Some type of shell my mother kept

Two old large pipe cutters

An old oil lantern (antique?) of unknown functionality

The Kawasaki motorcycle that I jumped into the canal behind my house

A bathroom sink of unknown origin

The Husqvarna motorcycle my Dad used to race up Widowmaker

A big pile of staples we found on the garage floor in a mess of spiderwebs

Three broken weed eaters (we threw others away before I can grab pics)

The tire from my Dad’s first car?

The watering jug that time forgot

An elk horn that my sons want to turn into a weapon (like a Klingon Bat’ leth)

A pair of chest waders that I wouldn’t trust to cross a rain gutter

A box of glass jars (this was repeated ad nauseam)

Roller skates that (hopefully) belonged to my sister

A gallon jar of brown sugar from the 20th century (does it ever go bad?)

A Kerosene heater we (only occasionally) used while I was growing up

A can green paint (I think 1963 is a code for the color, but could the purchase date)

A Garbage Can that is just happy that it can be helpful (unlike the kids)

a SMALL sampling of various tools

A canteen I’m going to pretend was Grandpa’s WWII companion (possible!)

A ceramic chicken that now greets us at the door each day

A really old fire extinguisher that I think Mom wants to turn into a lamp

And finally, my favorite find to date, a Yahtzee score card used by my good friend Darby Golub (circa 1985-88?). There was a time we spent every waking moment together. Darby was killed just a week after I got home from my mission and I never got to see him. I still have the program from his funeral in my personal hymnal. This find is special to me. RIP my friend!

At this point we really have transitioned from cleaning/organizing to construction. So don’t expect another installment of What Is That? anytime soon… but more will come at some point. We WILL finish cleaning out the basement AND the garage… And I’m sure that there are a ton of gems to be found in those places!

Jensen Journey

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