2011 - In a nutshell

It's been a whirlwind of a year, and since I never got around to deciding my goals for 2011 -- since I haven't had a chance to breathe in months -- I decided to list my favorite dozen discoveries of the year instead. And maybe I'll have better luck in 2012.

1. Beware of buying new carpet. (You end up doing a lot more than just carpet...)
2. Having an old little convertible is pretty darn fun.
3. Life with teenagers is never, ever, ever dull.
4. It is important to give when you can, and to receive when you can't.
5. It's worth buying Purdy paint brushes and a Wooster cut in brush is indispensible.
6. You might have the gift and the talent, but if you don't have the passion it's not worth it.
7. Don't take on anything new if you can't handle what you've already got.
8. 3D movies are OK in the theater, but amazing on a 3D TV.
9. Hiring movers is a brilliant idea.
10. Some friendships weren't meant to last a lifetime, but those that are are worth their weight in gold.
11. Jesse doesn't understand my vision, but he really enjoys it.
12. If something is really worth it, have the patience to wait for it.

Happy New Year!

12 Inches of Government Acronyms

Well, it's official. We are no longer homeowners. Thankfully, our buyers were kind enough to give us a little extra time in "their" house until we become homeowners again. It's so weird living with bare walls and no curtains, and boxes everywhere. I think it's finally getting to me. I started yelling at boxes last week -- I blew a gasket when the packing tape wouldn't stick. I guess I've had my fill.

In case I wasn't stressed out enough, we got a letter from our lender this weekend.

"The building...securing the loan for which you have applied is or will be located in an area prone to high flood risks that we call a Special Flood Hazard Area (SFHA). The area has been identified by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)as an SFHA using the Flood Insurance Rate Map (FIRM) or the Flood Hazard Boundary Map (FHBM)... The SFHA in which your building...is or will be located has at least a one percent chance of a flood equal to or exceeding the base flood elevation (100 year flood) in any given year. During the life of a 30-year mortgage loan, the risk of a 100-year flood in a special flood hazard area is 26%..."

This surprised us since the appraisal (APPL) ordered by the bank (BNK) included a flood map (FM) and specified that we are not in an SFHA.

But apparently the local appraiser (LAPP)was clueless. As is the listing agent (LA) who lives next door (ND)....

"The flood plain (FP) is a foot (1 FT) into the green space (GS) from our wall we do not and are not required to pay flood insurance (PFI)."

Or the map (OTM) our realtor (RLTR) sent us...



I guess the FIRM or the FHBM indicating the SHFA according to FEMA is top secret (TS) and only available to the underwriters (UW)in OH or FL or whatever.

But until we hear more (BUWHM), we are praying (PRYNG) for those twelve inches (12"). They may save us a lot of money (ALO$).

You're Moving?

Yes, we're moving. The people who just put in plush new carpet and painted the entire house. The people who finally got granite counters in the bath. The people who said that a four bedroom house was more than enough room. The people who claimed they would be buried in the backyard.


What happened? Honestly, we're still trying to figure it all out.


This summer was tough for our family, and Ashley in particular. She had a lot of friend drama, and started to find herself the object of gossip from all sides. We started joking that our family ought to move over to another ward to avoid it. It was mostly just a joke, but a few times we stopped and asked ourselves if maybe we ought to do it. But we always concluded that the grass isn't greener on the other side and if you are moving to run away from problems, you will be disappointed. So we decided to enjoy our recent remodel and our summer.

August 22nd: I put together a reunion of many current and former members of Reedville Ward. The turnout was awesome and it was so fun seeing everyone again. For some reason that night, I decided to go pull a couple of flyers on homes nearby.

August 24/25th: Then I decided over the next few days that I needed to go look at them so that I could say for sure that I am happy where I am. I don't know how I got Jesse to agree to go look at them, but we did.

The first house was blech. Not even worth considering. The second house, though, was a dream house. It looked straight out of a magazine. It felt warm and welcoming, and I fell in love. Enough to think that we ought to move. It was the perfect house to me. But if we were going to buy it, we'd need to sell ours -- and in the current market that was a long shot.


August 27th: We talked to a couple of realtors and the day before we left for Sun River we signed the papers to put our house on the market. Jesse was very hesitant about doing it, but somehow I convinced him that we needed to do it. If we waited until after Sun River, it would push us out a couple of weeks -- and I didn't want to lose my dream house. So we did a crash course in home staging, and left on vacation.

September 1st: The realtor got things going, and we were live on the market. We also offered on the dream home while we were on vacation, but the owners were standing firm on their (above market) price. I wanted to go ahead and offer higher, but after some great advice from our realtor, we backed off and decided to wait until our home sold.


September 6th: We got home on Labor Day, and the following day was the first day of school. We hadn't had any showings over the long weekend, but that wasn't that surprising. I figured we could take it easy on Tuesday as well, since people would be busy getting kids back into routines again. Wrong. We got a call for a showing that afternoon. After 90 minutes of frantic cleaning, we were ready to show. The realtor told us to expect them to be there 10-15 minutes. When we came home 45 minutes later, they were still talking outside our home.

September 7th: The next day we had no showings. But that evening we had a solid offer that had our realtor giddy. It was like we'd been kicked in the gut. We had listed for $10k more than his market analysis, and here we were with a reasonable offer. What was happening? What were we supposed to do?

September 8th: We started having at least one showing a day at this point. But we had a decision to make. I had agreed while in Sun River to look at other homes in our search area after we got back, and the day after the offer we had a bunch to go to. There were 7 homes that fit our criteria. We looked at all of them, and a couple extras. The first home we looked at wasn't everything I was looking for, but was appealing. Jesse loved it -- he had been interested in it for a while. I agreed to put it on the short list. The next bunch of homes we saw were absolutely not for us. Finally, we went to see my dream house again. I was still in love. But as we sat in the home and tried to figure out how we would live in that layout, we couldn't find a way for our life to fit there. I was bummed. But it was obvious that this perfect home wasn't perfect for us. But we arranged to pick our kids up from school and go over to the first home again.


The kids had told us in no uncertain terms that they would not go for any home except the one I had picked out. But when we took them into this other home, they almost immediately said they liked it better than my 'perfect' house. We had agreed that if we could not find a suitable home to buy, we would not sell our house. But this one felt right to all of us. Of course, the prospect of us giving up our home that had our heart and soul in it was a tough thing to consider. By that evening, I wasn't sure I was game for any of this anymore.

September 9th: In the morning, I prayed about it just to make sure I made the right decision. I didn't get an answer on my knees, but shortly thereafter I received an overwhelming confirmation that the Brookside home was right for us. We were supposed to do this. I don't get answers that clearly very often. But it was distinct, and it was right. I knew it beyond a shadow of a doubt.

September 10th: We had signed contracts on both houses -- to sell ours and to buy Brookside.


One day while sitting in a parking lot waiting for Jesse to do bottle returns, I found myself staring at one of the banks we bank at. I had a feeling we needed to go talk to them about the mortgage. I was thinking -- this probably is nothing, but I know I need to check it out just in case. They ended up being the best deal for our mortgage.

Another day, I was sitting in a doctor's office thinking about how tenuous real estate transactions often are, and hoping that ours would go through. I had an unsolicited impression of comfort that I did not need to worry about any of it. This was right, and everything would come together. I don't get those very often, either.

September 13th/14th: Inspection time... scary. But neither home had anything but very minor problems, and all were affordable and quickly fixed. Our home's buyer brought his mom through for another showing -- and I was nervous that mom wouldn't approve and our deal might fall apart. Nope. No problemo.


September 18th: I took Megan to our new ward so she could get her feet wet, and I felt as comfortable as I am in our current ward.

September 19th: A friend gave us a strong recommendation to move Megan to the elementary school close to our home. We had been planning on keeping her at her current school since it's her last year, but after his advice, I went to check it out. So many tender mercies happened while I was there that I knew she needed that school.

September 26th: She was happier after one day there than she had been all her other years at her current school.

And the blessings continue to rain down on us. I never thought I could leave this home, let alone with such a knowledge that it was right. The new home meets so many unfulfilled needs and wishes for us. I never dreamed there was a home that much better for us out there within our price range.


While we had been doing some of the last renovations on our home, I had a feeling that we were not doing it for ourselves. I just filed that feeling away, because the last time I felt a feeling like that it came to pass. But there was no logical reason this one should. Of course not. God's ways aren't about logic -- they are about wisdom and infinite love and what He knows we need in life. I am so grateful to Heavenly Father for leading our family down this path, although we have a lot of questions for why all this has happened. But none of us have ever questioned whether this was right. Because it is. And so we go forward with faith.

Where did my before pictures go???

While in the midst of the home projects, we reconfigured the girls' rooms a bit. Ashley asked to have a classic white vanity table in her room, and luckily we were able to find the perfect one on craigslist. It wasn't super expensive, but it wasn't a bargain, either. Fast forward a couple of months, and I see the EXACT same table sitting in a Goodwill outlet store. It looks like it has had much better days, but it was priced right. I decided to try my hand at a makeover for it and the chair, and hopefully make a little money on it. I have high hopes because as beat up as it looked, I got two compliments on it leaving Goodwill. So now it's on Craigslist while I sit and wait for someone to buy it and take it to a new home. I'll be sad to see it go -- it turned out so cute! -- but hopefully it will be the first of many turnarounds I do.

The Accidental Bedroom

When we moved into our home, everything was builder white. The counters. The carpet. The walls and trim. The linoleum. EVERYTHING.

Slowly, we changed our Clorox house. After a couple of years, we painted our room a lovely shade of periwinkle.

Bedroom #1


We enjoyed that for a while, and then I wanted something a little more cheerful. So Jesse painted it soft yellow for my birthday.

(That was the ultimate gift because he hates to paint. He hates every. single. stroke.)

Bedroom #2 (it looks a little extra yellow because of the lighting)





I loved my yellow room. A lot.

It was one of the few rooms we decided not to paint before the carpet was installed.

Then came the disaster. The night before the installers came to do the second half of the house, I got out the touch up paint. I put it on the spots that needed it, then watched it turn brown. I tried not to panic, and grabbed a newer gallon of the same color. Brown. I shook the paint and shook it and shook it and Jesse shook it. Brown. By now, it was about 11 pm. We had already had too many late nights for this project, but we were in big trouble.

We did NOT want to paint our room over new carpet. The only thing we did have was some green paint I had picked up off the mis-tint cart, so we tried it on the wall. We decided it would do, especially since we could get the room painted that night. We stumbled into bed around 6:00 am--but we were up by 8 to put on the last coat (after I grabbed another gallon at the paint store). The installers showed up at 9:30 and practically carpeted while the paint was still wet.

This had to be the worst moment of the whole project.

But we love how it turned out.

And the last shall be first...

At one point during this whole process, we agreed that our master bathroom ought to be repainted. Although I was rather fond of the periwinkle color, I was in the minority.


(here it is in our master...)

So while at the paint store one morning -- on one of my emergency runs -- I saw a gallon of Devine paint marked down from $45 to $15. I snapped it up, even though it may not have been the first color I thought of. Little did I know that it would end up being not only the bathroom color but also our bedroom color after the touch-up paint fiasco the night before our room was carpeted.

Unfortunately, we also didn't know that "painting the bathroom" was just the start of what we would do in there. And all because of a mirror. But that story will have to wait for another day.

After a couple of gallons of paint, a new granite counter top with new sink and faucet, an experiment in tiling, painting the old cabinets and adding some new linens and art, we now have Master Bath 2.0 in House 2.0.

Where did we go?

In case a carpet guy ever offers to include moving furniture, demolition, and debris removal in the total price, just bite the bullet. Or else you may end up doing this:



This is what you realize you need to do BEFORE the brand new clean carpet gets put in. Just remember that the night before the installers show up to do a room, you will discover at midnight that your touch up paint does not match your walls anymore. And you will be grateful that you picked up the discounted Devine paint and just pray you won't mind a green room...



Just try to find a place to sleep in my room... I dare you!



Away with the old, awaiting the new...



This is what you may find yourself painting on your walls after 13 years of living with "builder white."



Before and afters to come... I promise, Jolene!

From My Daughter to All Her Friends

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland:

Preoccupation with [physical appearance] is more than social insanity; it is spiritually destructive, and it accounts for much of the unhappiness young women face in the modern world. One would truly need a great and spacious makeup kit to compete with beauty as portrayed in media all around us.

I plead with you young women to please be more accepting of yourselves, including your body shape and style, with a little less longing to look like someone else. We are all different. Some are tall, and some are short. Some are round, and some are thin. And almost everyone at some time or other wants to be something they are not! But as one adviser to teenage girls said: “You can’t live your life worrying that the world is staring at you. When you let people’s opinions make you self-conscious you give away your power. … The key to feeling [confident] is to always listen to your inner self—[the real you.]” And in the kingdom of God, the real you is “more precious than rubies.” Every young woman is a child of destiny and every adult woman a powerful force for good.

We should all be as fit as we can be—that’s good Word of Wisdom doctrine. That means eating right and exercising and helping our bodies function at their optimum strength. We could probably all do better in that regard. But I speak here of optimum health; there is no universal optimum size.