Super Husband (or . . . She's Thinks my Backhoe's Sexy)



Our project took an unexpected turn yesterday when our plumber showed up a day early (prayers answered!) and told us that the sewer pipe was broken too far under the house. We would have to dig down to it outside. 
Again . . . I was ready to throw up.

But, what was that?  A bird?  A plane?  No, it was Super Husband swooping in to save the day!  Dig down to it, you say?  Call someone to do it?  HA!  That's what the backhoe attachment on the Skidsteer is for!  By this morning, it was all ready to go.  Whew! 
Crisis averted and now we will have all new pipes to the septic tank, so there will be no surprise clay pipe collapse in our future. 

Gotta run and pick up some pipe fittings.
There will be one more bathroom project post, and then I promise I will move onto other topics!

Step One

Step one is done.  I have to admit when we first started at about 9pm Friday evening, I was so nervous I could have thrown up.  Did we know anything about sawing and jackhammering concrete?  No.  But, just as we did when we built the living room addition, we plowed ahead and took it one thing at a time. 

The girls stayed at grandma and grandpa's for the night, so the rest of us had all of Saturday to work.  David's dad and uncle Doyle came to help, too, which was huge.  We were all done by 4pm Saturday. 

 This shows the east side of the house where the new bathroom and laundry room will be.  We had remodeled this shortly after we were married to be an office. 

This is the present utility room.  The old toilet pictured here is now gone. 

This room will be used for our freezers and storage. 

The only snag we encountered was hitting the sewer pipe in a few places.  Thankfully we never went all the way through or we wouldn't have plumbing now!   We have it covered, so it doesn't smell and hopefully won't before the plumber can get here on Wednesday to put the new plumbing in.  The kids thought it was pretty neat to flush the toilet and run downstairs to watch it go through the pipes! :o)

David and I both agreed that it really wasn't all that bad doing that part ourselves.

Now . . . we wait on the professionals to come and do their part.

Home Improvement

There are several ways to my heart.  Admittedly, most of those involve food.  Among the top finishers, though, is making progress on long ago back-burnered house projects.
I blogged about the history of our home renovations in 2009.  2009!  Yes, at that time it looked like the kitchen remodel would be coming up quickly.  I don't remember what happened exactly, but it didn't happen.
I think what probably happened is that we had a 1, 3, and 5 year old in the house full time and I was already living on the brink of sanity.  (Sanity is a very important quality in a mom.) Then we were expecting little miss Rachel and that was about 9 months of mom in survival mode.  After her birth, I made the proclamation that all humans living in our home needed to be upright first before we delved into destruction.  She started walking in February.
You know, what's not so great about comfort zones is that sometimes you (or maybe it's just me) can stay in them because they're familiar and functional, even if no longer comfortable.
I love our home and the history behind it.  BUT, our kitchen NEEDS to be remodeled and our family NEEDS to go through this messy transition.  I am ready and have suddenly become quite impatient about getting started!
The kitchen has become like the acne I used to battle.  I could ignore it for awhile, until someone asked me about the red spots on my face. 
Our kitchen has plenty of blemishes.  The sticky tiles we put in 8 years ago with a 5 year warranty lasted exactly that long and not a day more.  Our hand-me-down rolling chairs have worn plenty of holes in floor.  The cabinets are dark Formica--fully functional, but needing a much-needed makeover.  We have already purchased a temporary refrigerator and microwave.  We have already been told that there aren't many 13 year-old dishwashers working anymore.  Who knows when the range will die--could be tomorrow or next year.  The insulation is near zero.  I know that winter is here when the butter in the cupboard becomes hard to spread.  Yes, it is all functional, and we are thankful to have everything it has given us in the past 12 years, but it all needs a serious dose of Tetracycline.
Thankfully, my husband came up with a brilliant plan to make this all a little more feasible (and more likely that I will maintain my sanity, because he kind of admires that about me as well.)
We will attack this mountain in two phases.
Phase 1:  Renovating the former downstairs office (now vacant) into a bathroom and laundry room.  This will take a little work, redoing plumbing, etc., but we will handle the demolition phase of that ourselves . . . hopefully within DAYS!!!   (These spring snow storms worked in this house's favor.) 
After this phase is completed, we will be able to demolish the kitchen and move the kitchen cabinets downstairs to our present utility room.  Most of our appliances will also move downstairs, so we can cook and survive for the duration of Phase 2. 

Today I talked to a guy about renting a jack hammer.  I think it scares David a little about how excited I am to bring it home.  :)  Or, maybe he's always wanted a wife who can handle cement-crushing tools.  Maybe I will have a hidden talent there.  Can't wait to find out.

. . . and back to white.

The boys got their snow day.

The promised storm finally blew in late yesterday afternoon and continued to dump snow on us overnight.  It is still snowing a little as I write this. 

We can't complain, though.  Many in the Sioux Falls area are fighting falling tree branches and are without power due to the rain that came before the snow. 

We've done that before.

Not fun. 

 

It's been a day of cleaning (when isn't it?), Wii, baking molasses cookies and lemon cupcakes, playing Memory, fighting/playing (sometimes it overlaps), snow angels and a long nap with Baa Baa (for Rachel, anyway). 

 

I just signed the boys up for baseball.

It seems impossible that practice will start in just a few weeks!

Granola Bars

Alright . . . the inside of our house is starting to get old AGAIN!  So, the girls and I have started getting creative in the kitchen.
Today's project was Granola Bars.  I intended to make a more healthy recipe, but as it turned out, I didn't have all of the healthier ingredients that I needed.
So, I found this recipe on allrecipes.com.  They are still pretty healthy for a baked treat, especially if you use fat-free sweetened condensed milk.  I read in the reviews that the butter can be left out, too, without affecting the end product. 
What I like about this recipe is that it is very versatile.  Basically, add 3 cups of quick oats and then 3 cups of whatever else you like in your granola bars.  I did not add the coconut or raisins this time, and we used some Easter M&M's for instead of the chocolate chips.
You do need to use quick oats, since they are not baked for long and you will want the oats to be soft.

Granola Bars

3 cups quick-cooking oats
1 14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk
2 T butter, melted
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup flaked coconut
1 cup sliced almonds
1 cup mini chocolate chips
1/2 cup raisins or Craisins, etc. 

Preheat oven to 350.  In a large bowl, mix the ingredients together until blended.  Press flat into a greased 9x13 pan.  Bake for 20 minutes for soft bars or 25 minutes for crunchier bars.  Let cool for 5 minutes, cut and then cool completely before serving.