October ends

This is the last week of October, when all the ghost and goblins seem to come out. I felt like a witch all week, everything and everybody got on my nerves, lol. I think its just the burnout from work and being gone to Bama last weekend I got behind on my chores and just could not get caught up. I tried to do supper on Tuesday night like we were doing before the outage and make it a lil birthday gathering for Kyle and Chris, but it did not work out. I found out Wednesday night would work so we all got together and had hotdogs and chili. Was really good to see Tracy's family, especially Rusty and Tyler. We had a nice visit and just enjoyed being together. Kyle was in a bad mood because a boy named Spooky had asked to borrow his phone to call his mom to come get him and after making his call ran off with the phone...Kyle ran after him, but them Rigsby short legs just could not do the job, and probably a good thing, being he is 18 years old now. Kyle filed a police report but he did not know the kids name, just heard his name was Spooky. The next day he and Tracy both talked to friends in low places and found out the kids real name. I doubt he ever gets it back, but maybe he will.



I have not had a camera here to take pictures because Pat has had it in Bama. I know Tracy has some good pictures of Halloween fun and tacky day at school so look at her post when she gets it done.



Pat came home on Thursday night and it sure is good to have him home, but I do miss the daily pictures and immediate update anytime of day, lol.



The lakehouse project may never end, so it seems. They did finish hanging sheet rock inside and also the garage. They finished the ceramic floors in the kids xbox room and bathroom. I am sure they painted some too, lol. They installed the potty's in the bathrooms on the bedroom end.

The dresser that matches my bedroom stuff was delivered this week. I did not buy it originally because I did not have room for it and then I found it still at the store this summer and reduced a bunch, so I bought it in June and waited until now to get it delivered. Notice the blinds are installed on the windows.

The archways have been formed with sheet rock and will shaped up better when the sheet rock floater comes to do his art work.

This is a view down the hall thru the computer room, which use to be the guest bedroom.

This is a view from the den bar area thru the kids xbox room to the back door to the garage

A better view of my dresser. I will add that the quilt on the bed is not meant to be pretty it is there to keep Pat warm, lol. I think he covered the new comforter with the quilt. There is not gonna be blue anywhere for a few years, lol.

This is my vanity with the mirror installed.

The weekend was mostly quiet with Chris working and Brooke at Tanners and the boys gone to their Mom's, but it was so nice to have 2 days off at home to do some deeper cleaning, major grocery buying and extra resting.

October - Bama trip at last

I had planned to just make one end of October Post but so much has been going on, I feel I better post before I forget or have no time to post. This post will be long and if it bores you sorry. Kyle and Chris both had birthdays this week, and seems we did not have time to celebrate properly, maybe we can fix that soon.

Busy busy week and I started out with car problems and put my car in the shop and rented a car because it was gonna be there for 3 days. It is impossible to do anything when you are working 12 hours. I sure miss having Pat around to do stuff when I am working. I had to fax stuff to the car rental place and get Tracy and Kyle to pick up the rental car for me. I hated the rental car and the kids had a blast laughing at me trying to drive it. The windshield wiper controls were where the gear shift is on my van (stupid idea only a Dodge Caliber has this I hope) so you can imagine how that went. I made 2 decisions on my next vehicle today.... it will not be a small car and it will not be a Dodge Caliber.

Work was up and down all week and I will just leave it at that, lol....I was trying to figure out if I was or if I was not gonna be able to go to Bama. Finally on Thursday morning my boss says work 12 to day and just 8 on Friday.. I let him know I needed to get of at 5 to take the rental back before they close. I called Mom to let her know I would be coming in on Friday night so she could bake Kyle the cake he wanted for his 18th birthday. I had made arrangements for Kyle to go pay for the van and get the key and then he and I would go get my van when I got off. The car repair place closes at 5. As it turned out Kyle missed the bus... How does an almost 18 year old boy miss the bus I ask myself and later ask him and find out ......ummm he was talking to a girl... pretty good excuse I guess cause Chris was talking calmly when I heard him discussing it, lol. As it turned out I had to get off at 4 in order to get my car because I was afraid Kyle was gonna not get home in time to go get it and it was pouring down rain and I sure did not want him to be rushing.


Thursday night I packed my van with everything but the kitchen sink and went to work on Friday loaded to head to Bama if no one said anything about me working the weekend. It was so nice to have my van back.. but something did not seem right as I drove to work on Friday, I decided it was just because I had been driving that newer car a few days. I headed on to Bama after work and even called Pat while I was in Jackson and mentioned I feel like I am having to push this van it seems like it don't want to go.. I stopped in Meridian to look for Kyle birthday present, which I found. As I cranked the van to continue my journey the van started but the CHECK ENGINE SOON light came on and the car was sputtering like it might just die.... I called Pat immediately and headed to get more gas just in case I really was pushing it and using more gas.. then the LOW COOLANT LEVEL light came on. I checked the level it was fine. Here I was half way and what do I do. Well no way was I going back to Vicksburg.. So I drove on calling Pat every 30 minutes or so... when I got to Tuscaloosa and I knew that on the crooked road I would have no cell phone so I called Pat and told him If I don't call you in 1 hour and 30 minutes come find me, lol.... and I will call you as soon as I get reception again. Well I made it to Bama just fine.. put the van in the shop at 8 Saturday morning and out at 11:30 and all was well...Lets see car rental and 2 repairs this week a total of 1300.00 and a promise of 1 more time this year and its shopping time... 2nd thought its shopping time to decide what I want.... so next breakdown I will know just what I want, lol.


Saturday was way tooo busy to enjoy .. I made my plan to do as much as I could but at 6:30 pm work was over and We would watch the Bama game. We went to visit Mom and Dad and to see Sherri, Vanessa and Nylah, when we picked up the van.. Mom was really bad sick and later carried to the after hours clinic... the Dr agreed with her diagnosis and gave her a shot to stop the vomiting ... seems she has a bad stomach ulcer. I hated it for her so bad cause she was so excited to see the baby Nylah and was too sick to even sit up. Hopefully she will get better and get to spoil Nylah before she leaves on Thursday. Our visit with Sherri, Vanessa and Nylah was short but least we did get to visit. Nylah is such a cutie and looks just like Eric. I sure hate Eric was not able to make the trip, but I hear when he gets in from sea he will be visiting during Christmas.



Saturday afternoon Pat and I managed to move all the bedroom furniture out of the den and into the room it belongs...That was a big job and we admit we aren't as young as we use to be or as strong.





Greg and Marcia came over to see the house and watch the game with us and we really enjoyed their visit... Greg and I will be retiring at the same time so we enjoy making plans of what we gonna do when we retire, lol.


This is Dad, you know Mom must be real sick for him to be sweeping. I know he helps Mom more now than he use to. I do remember when I was a kid that he and mom use to do floors at night after they put us to bed. I hear about him vacuuming and such on occasion. Notice he still has that same ole mischevious grin even when sweeping.


Hannah and Ali waiting patiently for baby Nylah to arrive.






Vanessa and Nylah finally here. Nylah was a lil shocked by all the folks, but she warmed up nicely.
Mom did get a chance to hold Nylah a few but very few. She did a good job not letting her guest know she was so sick for a bit.

Nylah playing and putting on a show.

Hannah and Chloe getting their baby fix, I am jealous cause I did not get my fix. Just not enough hours in the day.

THE LAKE HOUSE....... I am going to post a few pictures and even a film clip of my bedroom, but the major accomplishment is Pat got to sleep in a bed on Friday night for the 1st time in 3 weeks. The workers and Pat worked hard to make this happen, I was so proud of Pat for pushing on the carpet folks when they called on Thursday morning saying they forgot to order the pad I wanted and it would be next week before they could get it...He let them know they needed to find the pad where ever and go get it and get the carpet in as planned... woooo hoooooo ....just what I would have done... and you know what THEY DID! The carpet was installed on Thursday and my new bed delivered on Friday and set up. I brought the new sheets (800 ct I might add) lol and we slept in our new bed in our new room. The new bed is different than I expected it is very firm, not fluffy at all and it gives just where it needs to, I slept fine but just did not have enough time to check it out as long as I would have liked. I love my new bedroom, I can't wait to go back and get things all in place. We got all 3 bedrooms with beds moved in but the rooms are not fixed up just have furniture in them. Heck it took me half a day to find my tooth brush. I was just happy to get enough stuff out of the den that I could walk all the way around it.

The new washer and dryer are in place, there is still some trim painting to be done here then the doors will be installed.
Pat has been helping with some of the electrical and whatever else he can do. He did a great job of picking out lights for our closet and installing them.


Notice the archway opening to the entry hall, actually there are 3 different archways going out of the den area, this one then one to the hallway going to the bedroom area and one to the kids room which is where the back porch use to be.


This is a view from the entry from garage, standing in the kids room.

Closer view of my archway opening.

The carpet is in.
The bed is delivered and set up.

Pat sent me these fall pictures after I got home... I was shocked I did not even notice the fall colors when I was there. I guess I was busy, gone or it was dark. Thanks Pat, Maybe in 2 weeks when I go back it will still be fall colors.

The movie clip of my bedroom.

Mid October- I have a Front Door....:)

Finally, Yippeee!!!!! the front door is in. I am so excited that my front entry is becoming reality. The door is installed, but has not been stained yet. They had to go back and rebuild the inside wall some because I wanted bigger corners and a smaller doorway... if all goes as planned the doorways going out of the den will all be arched. I am thinking that the sheetrock guy will be back late next week or possibly the following weekto finish the sheetrock. The focus this week has been on painting trim and putting down ceramic tile and they even cleaned up the yard area some and carried off 3 dump truck loads of garbage before it rained and they could not get to the dumping place again for awhile. The carpet is ordered and will be installed on the 23rd. My plan has been to make a trip out there on the 24th... but I am not sure the outage is going to be over in time. It will be close but IF I was a betting gal....I'd bet I will be in Mississippi the entire month of OCTOBER. I'm so afraid I will not get to see Eric's baby ( Nylah).

The outage is tough on aging folks. We had one operator have a heart attack last weekend and he is doing better now with 5 stints in. Another guy turned in his paperwork on Monday, he is just moving on....he was my 1st trainee about 28 years ago.. and he has been my trainer for many years now....he is not old enough to retire just ready for a change. By the way I have 8 months and 10 days until I retire. :) :):)

View of the door from inside.

View of the door from outside.

View of the door and porch area and partial columns. I am ready to see the roof line out here.

The ceramic floor looks nice and the light coming in from the road side is cool.

Road side view.

OH! MY DOOR IS GOING TO LOOK SO GOOD!!!!!

This is the hall going thru my sewing/compter room to the addition area.

I had them redo this and dog ear the corners... I just do not like pointy square stuff.

This is the kids room (Pat calls it the mud room) (Kids call it the xbox room) and it is looking pretty small.They have the ceramic tile down but not grouted yet. If you stop and think about it ALL our kids are getting grown. The plan is to have a Tv and sofa in here and let the kids hook up a Xbox, Nintendo etc in this area. I will probably let them put 1 computer in here.

This is the new guest room and the trim is looking really good. It looks like the carpet and the closet door is all thats left to do here.

I did not sleep 2.5 hours on Thurday night and Friday I just barely made it through the 12 hours. I went home Friday night and was in bed within 30 minutes and made myself stay there for 12 hours. Saturday was filled with many things, I started the day off doing laundry and baking a pound cake to take to work, I cleaned bathrooms and vacumned the bedrooms while the cake was baking, then Brooke and I I carried the thermostat back to Home Depot, then to Walmart, then I dropped Brooke off at Tanners to spend the night. I got home and groceries unloaded in time to watch the OLE MISS vs ALABAMA game. I finished the den and kitchen chores and baked a cake for home while watching the game. I made a decison that the next time I go shopping I will go ahead and buy the wall TV for the lakehouse bathroom so I can use it here in my kitchen until I retire. There is no way to watch Tv when I am in the kitchen in Alabama or Mississippi and I can't seem to stay out of there long enough to watch a ball game.

Pat is still in Bama over seeing the addition but I think he is getting tired of sleeping on the floor on a mattress. Hopefully, he only has a few more days of that and can move a bed into a room after the carpet is installed. I am keeping my fingers crossed that next Saturday night I sleep on my new bed in my new bedroom in Bama. :)

2ND WEEK OF OCTOBER

This week has not gone as well at work and I am thinking we will be still in outage on Halloween. All the kids have been at their Mom's this week so its been quiet here.



Pat has been in Bama all week and has kept me up to date on the progress. Things are not going as well there as I wish. It seems many things are just not coming together as I had planned or visualized. I have spent much time this week trying to come up with alternative plans on many things.. One day I cried bout all day at work, lol. The guy that works with me finally asked if I was OK? I guess he heard my snubbing, lol. He has built a house not too long ago so he understands, lol. I have really not let this remodel get to me until this week, maybe its the outage hours or just the fact that I probably won't get to make the trip I had so looked forward to October 25th.

Today Chris went to meet his Dad in Meridian to get Brooke and she has gotten a new hairstyle and color. I guess she don't like being blonde. It is gonna take some getting use to.




Brooke's new hair style. ....ummm and color, I had nuttin to do with this.
















This is the front entry hall to be, lol We have the door but there is much work to be done here. I think they will focus on this area this week as well as finishing the final things in the bedrooms. Carpet on the 20th and I sure hope so.

This is the front entrance to be and seems it will never get where I can tell what it will look like.. we do have the step now. The plan for this coming week is to work on this area but I am thinking that may be inside, getting the rest of the sheet rock ready for the sheet rock man to come back.



This is sewing/ computer room (our old guest bedroom) with ceiling fan. I think they did get crown molding installed here today.



This is Bedroom #3 (our old bedroom) with trim and ceiling fan... final coat of paint and this room is ready for carpet.

The latest pic I have of lakeside. We still have lots to do to be finished with the outside but we do have the rock column finally.

This is the master bedroom with ceiling fan, door and crown molding in place.

This is the potty room of the mater bathroom with ceramic tile for the baseboard.

This is the new guest bedroom with trim, fan and door in place. Another coat of paint on everything and the closet door installed and this room is ready for carpet.

The bathtub is in place and faucets installed. Pat says it works well...however we do not have the hot water heater for the addition installed yet so he has not tried it out.
This is Pat's vanity and closet area. The cabinet I bought to go next to the vanity is not big enough to cover the empty space, so I have to make a decision here.. to keep it or find something different.

The ceramic tile is ready at the bedroom entrance from the deck and waiting for the carpet.
This is the guest bathroom vanity and I was disappointed that it does not fill the area wall to wall.... I may go with a bigger vanity here.... just not happy with the mirror or vanity or faucet, lol and I picked it all out.

The walk in pantry door has been cut and hope to get the sheet rock hung this week. I am anxious to see how this kitchen/dining wall area looks with its new design.

My off day this week was typical ballgames and grocery shopping. I made a mistake by going to home depot picked up the sale paper and saw an ac unit thermostat that says it is for heat pumps. It has the digital temperature indicator like the units at the lakehouse so I bought it. I decided I could install it so I read all the directions and then looked it all over..I did not see what I expected on the installed thermostat so I called the number on the new one and talked with a man who told me what to do and assured me it would work. GUESS WHAT!!!!!! He was wrong... so I spent hours trying to make sure I did exactly what he told me... then decided ok I am hot I will hook up the old one.... Guess what ....I can not get it to work either .... so here I am warmer than I prefer... I have called for help from the man that does our Heat and ac work... Probably be Monday before I hear from him. I think everyone is pissed at me lol but hey it could be worse ... least its not July. Pat would be happy if he was here, he would not be cold, lol. I missed watching Bama play today but enjoyed watching their competitors. It is strange rooting for Florida and Texas, (sorry OKIE family) lol when normally I would be cheering Oklahoma and LSU on.

See ya next week.

OCTOBER BEGINS!!!!

The outage is half over and going well, the diet is not, lol. Have I told ya its now 8 months and 25 days until I retire?



I have been disappointed in the progress made at the lake the last few weeks, but there has been understandable reasons, our contractor has been on Jury duty for 7 or 8 days and that has greatly affected the progress. I am sure hoping he has my bedroom finished by the time my outage is over. Susan has taken a few more pictures this week and I am thinking next week I will have some new points of interest to show on the house. I know they hung some of the doors on Friday and that the new front door, washer and dryer and a cabinet that goes where the old washer and dryer are in the kitchen was delivered at quitting time, and that Pat is carrying the door knobs and some ceiling fans to them today. Can you believe we spent $1000.00 on door knobs, geeesh I was shocked at the cost.





The removed the windows and door from the dining/kitchen area and will be reconstructing this wall. From what I understand they have the 2x4's in place and the new door cut but no sheet rock yet. I would ask Pat to send me a few extra pictures but he has had such a rough day getting there that I will just have to wait. Possibly I can get pictures before I post this. The week has been pretty calm and uneventful until today.

They did get the ceramic floors sealed. Also we got the estimate on the carpet and think we will be ready for it in "2 weeks".... hmmm that is the contractors motto, so maybe I better not get too excited about that.

They also got the steps made on the patio, the pavilion and the front porch. However we still do not have any trusses up so I can see what the front porch/ entry is gonna look like.

The kids here are on FALL BREAK next week so Pat left early this morning taking Brooke to Anniston, Al to meet Holly and then he was gonna go on to the lakehouse for the week. I slept in until about 8 after seeing Pat and Brooke off, then off to Walmart for my weekly shopping. I was surprised to get a great parking spot and it the 1st Saturday in October. I went in to get a few things and had been researching LCD TV's all week because I think we need a bigger TV in our den to watch football on. As I was checking out the TV's I got a call from Pat and he was about 20 miles this side of Tuscaloosa and broke down... the old truck had quit. I had to leave walmart and get a plan to rescue him and Brooke. I stopped to fill my van 1st thing and was gonna call Randy my brother to see if he could help. I could not get him and geesh my phone was dead. I could not get the car charger to hook to my phone... man I was pissed.. so now I had to drive to the house to get Chris's cell phone or something before I could head to get Pat. Realize I have to be at work tomorrow morning at 7 and Chris has to be at work tonight at 6 so ummm I guess I was headed to Bama. He is actually about 80 miles from the lake, and I am thinking gosh I have a long day ahead of me. As I drove home I thought of a plan... maybe Chris's Dad could go get Brooke and meet Holly and then I could get someone else to get Pat and the truck. So I made a few calls, got Randy and he got a wrecker headed to get Pat and the truck and called Tiny and he headed to get Brooke. When I finally got Pat on the phone I guess he had panicked and had called the contractor, Larry to come get him and Brooke and had called Holly to meet them at the lake. HARD HEADED MAN HE IS!!!!... I had told him just wait let me see what I can do and I will call you back in a few... well anyway... we went with my plan and Holly did not have to drive that 2 hrs to the lake, she met Brooke at Tiny's. It was the busiest day of the year for traffic though with the Talladega 500 race going on and the Alabama game in Tuscaloosa. I think all got to their destination safely.

I went back to walmart to continue my shopping. I went back to the TV's and made my selection and bout some groceries and even got me and Chris a steak. When I got home Chris helped me hook up the TV and then he grabbed a nap so he could watch the Bama game. I have basically done laundry and watched TV the rest of the day other than cooking the steaks. I think Pat will enjoy the TV but I did not tell him about it, he was so stressed I figured it might be more than he could handle, lol. Dang I sent my camera with him and can't even take a picture of it.