Hey, I'm back and I have a lot to say and do!

Well, look who's finally writing again!  Yes, over six months have passed since I last wrote a blog post.  A lot has happened since then.  Yes, I did get the Christmas cards out before Christmas and get all of the decorations up, gifts bought and wrapped.  My husband bought me a wonderful camera for Christmas.  I still have not had time to figure out how to REALLY use it.  It takes great pictures anyway.  Oh, and yes, I took the decorations all down on or near new year's day.  One month ago I was laid off from my corporate job of 8 years due to restructuring.  I was given eight or nine weeks notice so I had plenty of time to get over the shock before the final day came.  It will take a little longer to get past the hurt. :(  I have long wanted to just work DIY projects and refurbish and paint furniture for my income so I am looking at this situation as my big opportunity.   Some background info here---Five years ago my husband took a job promotion to a small town a little more than three hours drive from our home.  Our plan was to rent or buy a small place for him to stay during the week.  He would come home on weekends and we would get our house ready to sell and put it on the market.  Well, um, he retired last year.  We never did get the house ready and sell it.  Now we are going to do that!  When he first took the new position he came across a little house for sale just outside of the town he transferred to.  It had everything wrong with it.  We bought it.  It is tiny.  695 square feet tiny.  Living room, kitchen, one bathroom and two bedrooms.  One bathroom.....even if I lived alone, I would want more than one bathroom.  Oh, and that bathroom was falling in.  We had to gut it completely.  If you remember from my previous blog posts, usually when I say WE did some hard task, it means He did the hard part and I hauled out debris and cleaned up the messes, went to Home Depot multiple times daily and handed him tools.  So, we gutted the bathroom and hired a carpenter recommended by one of my husband's new staff who has lived there all his life.  We bought floor tile, tub, tub enclosure, sink and vanity, faucets, shower head, light fixtures, commode, plumbing, bead board panels for walls and ceiling, and every nail, screw, adhesive, and caulk which would be needed.  The bathroom walls were covered with those little clear flower shaped plastic things that you put screws through.  They are supposed to make it prettier instead of covering the screw heads.  There must have been two hundred of them!  We tossed them all in the trash pile with all the rotten flooring and walls.  The carpenter had never worked with bead board panels and didn't know how to cover the nail holes.  My husband walked in just as he was attaching them with little clear plastic flower things.  Ha!  The carpenter said, "These will make it pretty."  My husband said, "You can't use those!  My wife will have a fit if she comes in here and sees those."  So, he put the panels on with little nails which he didn't cover.  He put the panels on the ceiling with nails he didn't cover or use enough of.  It sags.  He broke a tile when installing the commode and didn't replace it.  He didn't leave the cardboard cover in the tub while installing it.  His helper dropped a hammer on it and chipped it.  We had to buy another one.  He and his wife are raising their grandchildren and are really in need of money so we wouldn't let him pay for it.
  We paid him to build custom cabinets for the kitchen which is only 10 x 15 feet.  I reminded him about the dishwasher which he would need to install and ask if he should get the measurements of it.  He said no.  My husband walked in one day as he was about to cut the countertop for the sink.  He was going to put it halfway under the sink and halfway under the cabinet!!!  What in the world was he thinking?????  He didn't allow for the height of the dishwasher and he didn't take out the little stubs in the ends of the countertop before installing it.  The next day was Saturday so we took the cabinet out, took the whole thing apart and rebuilt it.  The man came in while we were working and saw what we were doing.  My husband told him everything was done wrong and we would not need him any more.  So, we had paid him to do all of this work and nothing was done right.  It was usable though.  We could use the bathroom facilities and we put the dishwasher, cabinets and sink in the kitchen so it's usable too.
  I wondered though why the little shelf on each side of the shower stall was curved on top making it impossible to set anything on it other than a small bottle of shampoo or soap on the center of the curve.  One day I was lying in the tub and wondered why the underside of the shelf had ridges on it like for putting soap on it. .........The side panels were upside down!  Can you believe it?  I was amazed.  How do you do that???  We had to special order a new panel.  The panel which had the faucet holes cut in it had to be trashed.  It was the left panel.  Well, it was really the right panel which he had put on the left side.  So, we took down the three panels and ordered a new one and put it all up correctly.  That house is still in need of a lot of work!
  So, we have two houses which need fixed up!  I will blog about both of them as we work our way through them.  First, we need to get our primary house ready to sell.  Stick with me as we work on it and give me encouragement.  I am ready to get it done!  I'll post some pictures too.  Some are kind of scary though, so you've been warned!