Recap

To begin, lets recap the last year...
John's mom passed away in November, leaving him her home. After some initial resistance, I conceded and we moved in in March.  "Moving" is quite a project! It took us nearly two months to empty every closet and drawer, throw out the oven, (which had mice living in it) clean EVERYTHING and give every room a fresh coat of paint..(Phew!!)

Just as we were finishing the inside, it was warming up and getting beautiful outside; it was time to tackle the yard! Harriette had been in-firmed toward the end of her life and hadn't spent much time outdoors in a decade- obviously.  Rusted out trailers, dead car bodies, old rusted bikes, broken chairs and mounds of refuse had to be cleared; weed-eating and slash-burning till John had blisters! I'm sooo proud of him, it looks beautiful! We will have a very nice spring this year.

Mark cutting out the wall

Super Dad lifting carpet!

 As the summer ended, we turned our attention back indoors. With my "nest" recently emptied (Elizabeth started Job Corps in Yakima Washington on September 7th), I was looking for a distraction.  We started on the remodeling projects we had been putting off. The first order of business was to pull out that nasty carpet and put in hard wood floors. We also needed to remove a wall and make the living room more spacious. We hired John's friend, Mark, who is a professional contractor and has been absolutely invaluable! Remodeling in November is quite a  juggling act. We had to pull carpet from each room one at a time, lay hard wood then move everything out of the next room, and repeat. At one point we were sleeping in the kitchen; then a few days later we were sleeping in the tv room! One freak winter blizzard and two major holidays later, we were FINALLY done with the floors.