Pictureless

We're in the new house :) I am so excited. Because of our hard work the house looks awesome (with still a lot to do but oh well) and so things are really starting to look homey. I title this post "Pictureless" because my camera is somewhere in the new house. Somewhere. So I don't have pictures yet. Blake's dad came up Monday night to help us move, and what a super-man!! He and Blake got the whole house moved yesterday! I even took a day off work to help and it went really smoothly. We still have some odds and ends at the old house, but we will take care of those today and give the house a good cleaning. After only a week of advertising the house is for rent, we have new tenants taking over our lease!! No double payments, such a blessing.

We were concerned about our fridge fitting. The space where it is supposed to go is a cut out surrounded by cabinets, and then the wall...which the previous owners had cut into to get their fridge to fit. So yes, there is a gaping hole in the drywall by the fridge space. But, thankfully....the fridge fits!!! Just barely. I can't believe it.

We also moved Sticker over last night. We were a little anxious over moving her since it's a big change. We have been told to keep her indoors for 2 weeks to aclimate her to the new location. I shut her in the bathroom last night with a litter box and blanket and she adjusted beautifully! She even used the litter box, I was amazed--I don't know if she's ever used one. I'm hoping she will get used to things soon. She settled down pretty quickly though and seems to like the bathroom, so that is all good news!!

House Update Day....12 yikes

Yep, it really is about Day 12 of workdays that we've been trying to do on the house - maybe less. We've not been in town on Fridays-Sundays so that's put us behind a little. But we're making such good headway! My mom really got us going and helped clean and paint. I'm horrible at cleaning, I just get frustrated and then call my halfway attempt "good". But Mom got in there and got my bathrooms clean for us!

These are our accomplishments to date:
-Painted Master Bedroom, Master Bath, Office, Laundry Room and Kitchen walls
-Painted Kitchen cabinets (inside and out), and trim for Master area, Kitchen and hallway
-Put on new hardware for Kitchen cabinets
-Put on new silver door knobs with locks for the guest bathroom doors
-Cleaned closets, carpet, bathrooms, attic

The Kitchen!
The walls are actually like a daffodil-tan sort of color. That is also what I'm painting most of the bedrooms and hallway and living room.

To do before we move in (realistically)
-paint woodwork and trim in Office and Practice Room
-Paint Practice Room (another bedroom) and Guest Room
-sweep out garage and throw away all the leftover stuff (boxes) the previous owner didn't take with them

After that, we just have to paint the living room and hallway. I think we can handle that after we move in - I can't wait to move in! I'm going to have to figure out a good way to get to my work though since we live off a toll road now. I think I can take some free backroads but it will add about 10 minutes to my drive. But, one way just to my work is $1, so that is $2 a day times 25 days...that adds up. So I'm going to try to save in that department. Blake also has to use the toll road to get to his work and I don't think he has much option there. We live out in a more rural area so some of the big free roads don't connect up to where we live yet. We found that out the hard way one day when we wanted to see if there was another easier route to get to our house other than the toll road or the very long road with hundreds of stoplights. Nope.

This weekend Blake and I are participating in a friend's wedding and then we head out Saturday night to Wichita Falls for a Sunday morning concert, then back to OKC for an evening concert. Then we start moving in next week! Our official move in day is the 31st but hopefully we'll have everything in but the big stuff by then. :)

House Work Day ??

I forget what day this is. My mom has been working like an animal! Most of the interior is caulked now and all the windows sealed. She scrubbed and cleaned the master bath and it's all white now! The toilet was really grodey and the shower was okay, but still had dirty pink scum all on it. She painted the master bed's woodwork and window sills white (it's beautiful!). She painted our laundry cabinets white (inside and out) and cleaned the water spigots that hook up to the washer (they were all green and crusty). She painted the second coat of blue on the laundry walls and affixed a piece of cardboard over the hole the plumber made while replacing the spigots. I think today she's starting the kitchen cabinets - there are a lot of them! I am so appreciative and we could not have done this or gotten near this far without her help. Thanks Mommy!

We got the kitchen walls painted. They're no longer a pinky-brown. They're now a soft yellow/tan. I'm hoping that color works for the living room and rest of the bedrooms. I'll find out at lunch today. We had the carpets cleaned, and all the stains mostly came out. I'm anxious to see how clean they look. Mom and Blake say they look pretty good. I didn't go out to the new house last night because I decided to stay and clean up our rental and get organized since everything was piling up. I packed away several breakable decorations and I'm excited that we can actually start moving our stuff over now! Blake will move all the photos and pictures and wall hangings over on Friday I believe.

Last night was also a bittersweet night, I gave away George.

Ever since he attacked Lenny (something I should have forseen considering their namesake) I've had them in two separate cages. It got kinda annoying to clean 2 all the time and George wasn't as fun to hold as Lenny. So! I posted him on Craigslist and I got 4 calls in 2 hours--and a guy came to pick George up for his 3 kids at 10pm last night. So I hope his kids like George!!

Tonight we'll go to the new house and perhaps paint the Master Bed ceiling, prime the master bath and prime the next bedroom.

Trip to Pampa

Last night we got the master bedroom painted! We got it done in record time, an hour and a half! Many thanks to Brandy and Joey who got it knocked out with us! My mom also came up and was prepping the kitchen so she could start work today on the cabinets. I got a little overwhelmed last night about the amount of work that needs to be done to make our new house "pretty". But, I guess houses are always a work in progress. I think just having a few rooms painted new will help us feel at home. But we're realizing as we add paint, the ceilings are dark! They painted them a darker taupe. Grr. So we have to paint the ceilings lighter. The picture I got on my phone last night of the Master Bedroom is weird, so I'll try to take better pics tonight.

This past weekend we did a concert in Perryton and Pampa. Pampa is where my grandparents live. So here are some pics from that!

At the Product Table

Running our sound system

Blake singing away

more running sound system

Me and Grandma and Grandpa!

You can see their new couch they got well here

Tonight's house goal is to prime another bedroom and finish that darn laundry room's second coat of paint. And maybe paint a ceiling or two.

CD Release Party & Weekend

We just got back last night around midnight from a crazy weekend. This past Friday Blake's NEW CD was officially released woo hoo! And not a moment too soon. Friday night we drove to Perryton TX for a CD Release Party that Saturday morning. We got to Perryton and had a cozy night and then woke up to SLEET! It was icy outside, we were totally surprised. But, we packed up our stuff and headed over to His Corner Bookstore and Cafe at Community Worship Center for some coffee and CD sales :) We had several brave souls show up and buy a CD and take us up on our Free coffee with purchase offer. I got a Chai Tea with raspberry in it...I loved it. So the release party was from 11-1 and then we went over to First Baptist for soundchecks and load-in. We were so glad we did that in the afternoon and got it out of the way because it was just so cold the rest of the day and it actually snowed a bit. We came back and my mother-in-law had the fireplace going and so it was toasty. We all sat around and talked about decorating stuff...it was great! I guess Blake's parents plan to redo some flooring in their house so we were looking at what they'd picked out. We actually got to bed on time and it was a good day.

Then we had an early morning at First Baptist, Blake did a full concert there and we tried out our very first Hymns program! I think we pulled it off. I'd bought a video clip to introduce "It Is Well" before Blake sang it and that was a good decision-people were moved by it. The program itself I think needs some tweaks, I know the music was good and Blake sang it well, but we always want our programs to just be riveting from start to finish and I dont' think it has that quality yet. We'll get there! I have to say, no matter how good, I don't know if a "hymns concert" will ever be riveting. Engaging, maybe touching...but probably not riveting.

We sold a ton of CDs. It was great. After the morning service we tore down quickly and ate at Blake's parents house then we were on the road again to our night concert in Pampa, TX. My grandparents live there so they came to the night concert. It was so good to see them and my grandma got me some towels for a housewarming present! So sweet! Look at this church, isn't it cute? It was probably only 25-30 feet deep. I had a little trouble running the sound since the room was so small, but I think I pulled it off and didn't hurt anyone's ears.

We finished the concert up and loaded up and were on the road back to OKC at 8pm and we were STARVING! But we wanted to get home as fast as possible since both Blake and I had to work in the morning. So it wasn't until about 10:00 that we found some food--it took us that long to get from the back country roads and onto a highway. We stopped at Long John Silvers and waited and waited on our food. It was frustrating! But we finally got to eat. Then we got home and tallied up all the business records and got a little organized and got into bed at 1am. Ugh, too late!

Tonight my mom is coming up and my friend to help me and Blake paint some rooms in our house. Our goal is to finish the master bed tonight and the laundry room and maybe start priming another bedroom? Who knows!

Day 3: Primer

Yesterday was an eventful day! And I'm sorry to say I don't have any pictures. Whoops. I had my hands full of everything else so I didn't get snapshots of before/after rooms. Yesterday the new roof went on our house. They did it so quick and they fixed the faulty rafter in our attic. It was a good thing they did the roof yesterday, the forecast here in OKC is RAIN RAIN RAIN for like the next 2 weeks.

So we came home to a new roof yesterday. I stopped in around lunchtime to check on the men and look at some paint samples in the daytime. Our lighting is not the best yet in our house, so we've been guessing at paint colors. I still feel like I'm guessing, but I'm going with my first instinct--which is really quick so I'm hoping I'm not just brushing past the paint choices too fast. I picked the roof shingle color and...well, oh well. It works. We primed the master bedroom last night and oh it took so long. They had a dark chocolate/icky mud color on the wall in the room and it just felt like a hole. So we primed the walls, without getting much on the carpet or ceiling, and now the room is bright! You can still see the brown behind the primer though so I'm worried we'll have to use 2 coats of new paint. I chose a light shade of sage green for the master bed so I'm hoping it still is homey, yet light enough with our blonde-colored furniture to not be a hole. I have to admit, during the first wall of priming I felt pretty hopeless. It took a long time it felt like. It took us about 3 hours. Is that normal?

As long as we can get the master painted then I am good to go. The rest of the house needs it, but I'm submitting to my alarm bells in my body and mind that Blake and I are too stressed for more painting right now. I have one more coat of paint to do in the laundry room and then we're just going to focus on cleaning the house and packing. I may feel differently after the master is painted and be inspired to at least do one more bedroom (there is one that is burnt orange with brown faux finish...eww) or get the kitchen cabinets over with.

I'm just worried we're not going to be packed to move by next Saturday. So I'm trying to figure out if I should extend our move in goal to Halloween. We'll see. We're not working on the house tonight because our rental house is a wreck and if I'm to start packing next week, then it has to be clean and organized!

Blake on a radio interview and Good Roast

Click here to listen to a live radio interview Blake did yesterday on KEYE radio (it's about 30 min)

mms://www.keye.net/CoffeeTuesday.wma

Also, I don't know if I've share this recipe yet but it's awesome! My favorite roast recipe:

PEPSI ROAST

3 lbs (approx) any kind of chuck roast 1 can Pepsi or Coke 1 can Cream of Mushroom soup 1 package onion soup mix Place roast in Crockpot. Mix the Coke or Pepsi with the mushroom soup and onion soup mix; and stir well (or just pour it all in separately, it still tastes good!). Pour over roast. Cook on low for 8-10 hours. Remove roast and carve as usual. Use juices in crockpot to make gravy. You can add potatoes or carrots or whatever else will fit!

Day 2: Paint Laundry Room

We painted the laundry room last night and vacuumed the whole house really well. I had to buy a new vacuum bag for it. I bet I used a whole one just last night with all the bugs I vacuumed up. But I'm so excited! It's already feeling like ours just because we painted the laundry room, it's very "me." A robin's egg blue sort of color. It's happy! Of course the picture looks a little dingy. But trust me, it's bright and happy. It was an unfinished mustard yellow over a purple paint job.

Tonight our goal is to paint the second coat of paint in the laundry room (it's kinda uneven) and prime the master bedroom. We're going to paint the master bedroom a lighter sage green. We've been getting so many offers to help that I think we may go ahead and tape off the living room and other rooms to have a "Paint party!" I just need to decide what color to use. I think Kilim Beige from SW will work. But it's kind of yellow in our house. I need to decide quick!

Mission: Clean Up

Yesterday marked day 1 of our mission: house clean up. It's so dirty! But, I am glad to say it's not a "caked" on dirt. It comes off pretty easy with just soap and water. We tackled the kitchen yesterday and Blake went around and took off all the hardware and lightswitch plates and stuff. I wiped down the cabinets and swept them out and swept the kitchen and entry floors...that took us from 6pm-10pm last night. But, I am already feeling like I'll really like our house. I am going to shop today for a nice robin's egg blue for our laundry room. Right now our laundry room is mustard yellow. Well, the top half is. The people before us ran out of steam and so our laundry room is two-toned mustard yellow and violet I think. I am also going to need a lot of shelf-liner.

I've decided Blake and I are dangerously near our breaking point in our schedule. The only thing that is keeping us going right now is that we know we'll have a break at the end of November. If we can get there, then it will be over for a while. We've not had a free weekend at home since August 2nd. Wow, I just calculated that. That is not healthy. Our next weekend that should be free at home is November 22nd. That's too long. But, if we can just get moved in and get past these CD release concerts we'll feel a lot better. Blake is having to design a whole new concert program for these next two weekends of concerts and we just don't have enough hours in the day to do all this. Surprisingly my attitude is doing okay! We'll just do what we can do and not worry about the rest.

If anyone would like to help us paint we sure could use the help. It'll probably be next week sometime and we'll just do it all one night.

We Closed!

It's official! We are homeowners, I can't believe it. What a headache closing this house was. But, we have the key and the papers, and lots of debt, so we're all set now.

I have some pics we took last night. They're not very exciting, and the house is REALLY dirty, but it shows more of the house. Blake mowed the lawn last night...it was a jungle. That mower was on the highest setting too. He had to mow it twice and it's still pretty long. I think we're going to get a crew to finish it up nice.

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