Letting Christ Strengthen Me

      So, what do you do when you're feeling completely defeated and incapable of any abilities? What do you do when that moment strikes and you think "Did I bite off more than I can chew?" Or maybe you were saying to yourself “What in the world were you thinking that you could do this!?!?!”

Philippians 4:13 - I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.

You turn your eyes up to the Lord and turn that defeated feeling over to Him. Then He will show you how strong you truly are because of Him!

I did that tonight when I was feeling pretty stupid for attempting this one particular task. I began to talk to God about it. Sometimes I do this by walking around the house picking up little out of place items because my brain will relax and speak more freely to Him. As soon as I did that, I felt that turn completely 180 degrees and realized, it's not that I'm not smart enough. It's simply I don't have the skills to complete the task so therefore, I need to ask and LEARN the skills so that I can complete my task in front of me.

Tonight I will rest comfortably knowing that tomorrow will be a new day and The Lord loves me unconditionally. I know that I will learn how to do this and it will be amazing once I get it finished! I pray for you tonight also, that if you are feeling defeated, you will turn your eyes to Heaven and ask for the strength that Christ gives you. Let that strength wash over you tonight so that when you wake in the morning you will feel refreshed and rested knowing that you will get this done!

Good night my friends!

Wow! What a Weekend!

     Do you ever have weekends that you look back on Sunday night and think “Did I do anything besides watch TV?” I love lazy weekends where we have nothing on the schedule but to just hang around the house. Our weekends are usually pretty quiet but filled with tasks around the house and grocery shopping but this weekend was nowhere near that! I’m thinking I might need a couple of extra days in my weekend to recover from my weekend!

Friday morning I made an offer to buy a house in town and they accepted! So hopefully within the next 4-6 weeks, we will be living in the thriving metropolis of Saint Jo, Texas! Of course, there’s a lot of work to do between now and then but the excitement will hopefully keep us focused on the prize!

Friday evening one of my nephews was getting married to his high school sweetheart after seven years of dating. The wedding was outside at a beautiful location outside of Celina, Texas called Chandler’s Gardens. As beautiful as the surroundings were, they could not compete with the commitment these two “kids” have for each other. A passerby could have seen their love but not only could they see it, they could hear it in their words to each other. After saying their traditional vows, they spoke their own vows. They spoke of the seven years they had spent together from when Curry was a freshman and Katy a senior. He wasn’t even able to drive to their first prom! Even after their years of being apart due to school and college, they never lost sight of each other! More important than their commitment to each other, they spoke of their love for Jesus Christ! It’s not often you hear people speak of their love for God especially in a wedding ceremony! I cried through the whole thing – not only because it was my nephew getting married but because of the amazing love they share for God!

Bobby & his cousin, Kaili were junior attendants

Curry's face was priceless when he saw Katy at the end of the aisle!

Playing with the boys - it looks like Bobby & Asher are talking

I got to meet my first great nephew at the weekend! He’s 7 months old but lives outside of Houston, more than 6 hours away. I’ve watched him grow through pictures but there is nothing like seeing and holding him for real! That boy is so precious and gave me the biggest smiles! I pray that even though we saw each other for such a short time, he will continue to feel my love for him no matter what! Saturday, we spent some more time with the family eating lunch and hanging out.

      The rest of the day Saturday, I spent working on the finishing touches of our laminate flooring we have been putting down. The kitchen was finished except for reinstalling the baseboards and quarter rounds. The master bedroom has two doors that open to the outside where I’m putting laminate flooring. It’s amazing to me that a smaller area like these can cause such difficulty but at least it’s almost finished!

One of the finished floor in the master bedroom

Sunday morning we went to church where I was teaching the Children’s Theater. This is always a special time for me where I get to bring the Word of God to children from kindergarten to third grade. The lessons are written out for the teacher and all I have to do is press play for each of the chapters on the DVD. But getting to see the kids learn about God and how His Word works in their lives is a blessing for me! It’s hard to miss out on the full worship service but knowing I’m making it possible for parents to actually hear what the message is in the service is wonderful! I only miss the service every 6-8 weeks and that’s worth the sacrifice! 

So, here we are on Monday, Memorial Day, May 26, 2014. Bobby and I are home for the day. The laundry is finished and put away. I’m working on the flooring while Bobby chills watching TV and playing with Star Wars Legos! Sometimes while I’m working I like to listen to podcasts from Dave Ramsey and let him inspire me on to staying debt free.

Retire the Weekend Warrior?

     I'm starting to think it might be time to pay someone to mow my yard!
     The first problem you will discover is starting the riding mower. In order to make the silly thing start, you have to connect it to the battery charger. Almost from the time we bought the mower, Michael has had Use the charger to start the mower. As time has gone on, the battery won’t work without charging it for several hours first. This means you have to plan ahead for mowing – no spontaneous “I’d better get the mowing done before the rain hits tonight!” (Not that we have much rain in Texas)
     If you are lucky enough to get the mower running, the actual mowing has never been an easy job. Our house is up on a little hill and the incline is very steep. The riding mower works if you start on the top and go down which means you have to make lots of round trips. A riding can’t go up the hill. Of course there is always the push mower but that gets tiring very, very quickly and in the heat of summer over heating is even more of a possibility with the push mower. I do have a self-propelled mower but it’s still a lot of work!
     This is my second summer to take care of my yard. Over that time, I’ve had problems.

• Got the mower stuck and couldn’t get it out. Luckily, a friend happened to drive by and helped me get it out.
• Mower has completely stopped because the blades were so bogged down from grass. Smoke was coming out of the engine (called the neighbor to help that time)
• Couldn’t get the self-propelled mower to start (Dad took it home and worked his “magic.”)
• Couldn’t get the gas trimmer to start (Dad bought a new filter)
• Couldn’t get any of the grass mowing devices to work – riding mower not charged & bad gas

     Today might be the straw that broke the camel's back for me. As I have found dead limbs, I have either put them on my car hauler trailer or on top of the cellar. As I was mowing past the cellar, a limb was sticking out and I needed to move it. Not a problem! I got off the mower after setting the brake so that the engine wouldn’t die. The limb wouldn’t move so I started to attempt to break it. As soon as it broke though, another limb popped up into my face! It hurt but the next thing I knew, blood was gushing from my nose and I thought it was broken. While applying pressure to my nose, I drove the stupid riding mower back into the carport before I killed the engine.
     The good news is that I didn’t break my nose. I now look like there’s a tick on the end of my nose. There’s a scratch down the right jawline and another scratch down my upper lip
The next several days should be interesting. I’m not sure there’s enough makeup in my house to cover this up. And really, is it worth trying to cover it up? I don’t think it’s worth trying to cover it up. Oh well, another lesson learned! At least, I hope I’ve learned something from this recent adventure of the “Weekend Warrior!”


(By the way – anybody want to volunteer to mow my yard?)

What Happened to the Bathroom Rehab?

     So, the last time I updated on the bathroom progress, it was January 8, 2013 and it was Part 1! If you were to judge the progress by the postings alone, it would appear that no work has been done since then. Well, I’m here to tell you that, thankfully, that it was not the case at all! My dad and I have been working on the bathroom. During the time of the bathroom rehab, Bobby and I had something almost every night and most weekends. By the time I would sit down in the evenings, there was no energy left for blogging. The good news is that we did take lots of pictures throughout the process. I promise not to post them all at one time!

    For this post, I will start simply with the shower area! The first post showed the removal of the original tub.

    Now for the next step:

    We began removing the original flooring from under the tub because it was rotting in some places and had mold in other places. I got to use the skill saw for the first time! (Love learning how to use new/different tools!)



    Between the two floors was a paper very similar to tar paper that we removed to reveal the subfloor which was in excellent condition.



    We placed a liner between the subfloor and the new marine plywood to protect the subfloor from any possible water damage in the future but unfortunately, we have no pictures except this one showing a cutout from the drain hole.



    On to the walls surrounding the shower stall – We ended up removing the drywall completely in that area because of the mold. I even got to use the sledge hammer to destroy some of the dry wall! That’s an awesome feeling if you ever get to do that!



    The old plumbing was removed and instead we used a product called PEX which allows for expansion due to frozen pipes and also uses a crimping tool to join the pipes to joints. It allows for easy pipe repair also!



    The new green drywall is installed:


    Now, to install the shower:

    Pieces of 2x4” were used to brace the shower walls to the wall while the Liquid Nails dried.

 
    The completed shower!



    So, there you have it - part 2 of the rehab! Hopefully, it won’t be such a long time before I post the next part of our bathroom rehab project!

Bathroom Rehab: Step One

2007

When we first moved into our house, neither one of our bathrooms had a shower. So at first we had to take baths (which strange as it may be to most people, I don’t like). Until Michael changed the faucet to allow a hand held shower head hose to be attached under the spout. I was so excited that finally I was able to stand up and get CLEAN!

Through the years, there were a few tiles that would come loose and Michael would put them back up with caulk. A couple of tiles he even used the mortar from Bobby’s bathroom which was a reddish brown color. After each shower, we would wipe the water off the tiles off with our hands. We knew the water was beginning to leak through but were not aware of how much damage was really happening under there.

Fast forward 5 years…

2012

The tiles around the tub were getting looser and looser. I would do the same thing Michael had and use caulk to reattach them. But eventually it became apparent that the current method was no longer sufficient. It turns out the wood and the dry wall under the tiles was rotting. I kept an old hand towel and a washcloth on a towel rack in the shower that I would place on the shelf surrounding the tub area. I also had a large cup to catch any extra dripping water from the shower head. In order to reduce the possibility of water seeping through the tiles any more, I covered the tiles with plastic wrap. What a joke that is! But I was grateful to have my shower and I have been making it work.

In this picture you can see where the tiles had come off.

2013

January 4^th & 5^th – Dad and I began removing tiles from the wall. Most of them came off without any problem because of the state of the drywall. After removing the tiles and some of the drywall, the ‘wood’ used became visible – WOOD PANELING! Why in the world would someone use wood paneling for that?

This is a picture of the P-trap. Evidently, our tub had been watering the dirt under the house for quite some time!

Some of the wood structures had to be cut with the sawzall but it’s all out now! Taking the tub out of the house was interesting but with the help of a two-wheel dolly and lots of talk about every step and turn, we did it!

One of the boards that was cut off by a sawzall

It’s interesting the things you find in the crawl space of your house!

A random piece of 4 inch PVC piece of pipe found under the floor unattached from anything!

So for now the tub can be found in the carport and I will have to use Bobby’s bathroom for my showers. But that’s a small sacrifice for a new non-leaking shower!

I always knew the tub was small but now I have proof! It was a 4 ½ foot tub that was made November 7, 1966.

We have some planning to do from this point but I’m excited about the first step.  

Here are a couple of random pictures:

Yes, that's mold that you see from leaking tiles!

The hole for the drain that was open like this under the tub!