Our House Journey

After restoring two other houses, I have learned that for us, there are three ways projects are started.  The first way is the most obvious…we decide on the project.  The second way is the most annoying…the house decides on the project.  The third way is the most surprising…beer and football decides on the project.

When we make the decision, the project is pretty straight forward.  We may decide to paint a room, refinish a floor, or remove some wallpaper…  When we decide on a project, we feel in control, we have a clear idea of what we want, and the project usually goes quite well.  Unfortunately, there are times that the project doesn’t go as planned.  These are the times that the project selection process turns to the most annoying….the house decides on the project.

When the house decides on the project, it is either because the project is 1. not fun or 2. an EMERGENCY!  The house may decide we need a new roof (not fun) or it may decide we need to do some unforeseen plumbing (EMERGENCY!).  I dislike these projects….unfortunately, they are by far the most common.

The third way restoration projects are selected in our lives is due to beer and football.  I am usually the last one to know about these projects.  They may have been swimming around in hubby’s head for weeks, just looking for the perfect level of inebriation to come out, but I am always surprised by them.

For example…

In our first house, the Broncos were losing badly one Sunday.  Hubby is a big time Broncos fan.  His hands sweat during the games, he has to wear a jersey on game day, and the tone of game day is usually quite tense.  Anyway, this was probably in 2000 or 2001 and the game was not going well.  Hubby had a few beers in him and the tension was mounting.  I looked over at him and he was gazing at the ceiling in frustration.  Here’s what happened next…

Hubby – “I think these ceilings were lowered.”

Me – “Oh ya?”

Hubby sits there a few more moments, then disappears to the garage.  He returns with a hammer.  He calmly walks to the entry way, and starts hitting the ceiling with the hammer.

No kidding.

He bangs away for a while…I look over from the couch in disbelief.  All I see is dust and plaster and….a project beginning before my eyes.

Hubby – “Yep, they were lowered, there’s a full foot of ceiling height here and the original ceiling is in good shape.”

Um….horray?

The next year was spent removing the lowered ceilings in the entire house, repairing plaster, and re-finishing every room in the house.

Thank you beer and football.

Recently, beer and football struck again.  This time, it was Broncos excitement, not frustration, that started the project.

Hubby was thrilled that the Broncos were doing so well and was excited about the upcoming playoff game.  He had a few beers watching the game to see who our opponent the next weekend would be and was excited with the results (I know, I know, we ended up losing, but this isn’t about that, okay?  Geeez!)

Hubby:  “Would you rather have a bonfire with the kids before the game next weekend and watch the game as a family or have a bonfire and have people over?”

Me:  “Um, either way, but we always have fun as a family.  Having a bunch of people over sounds like a lot of work.”

Note:  My response is code for “Are you a fucking lunatic?  This house is in no way, shape, or form ready for guests.  We just had the goddamned septic pumped and I don’t know if I want to test it just yet!  We have tools everywhere, unfinished projects everywhere, unpacked boxes everywhere…  NOT TO MENTION that we have nowhere to put that many people in front of a TV!”

Apparently, he thought I said “Guests?  Yes, love, let’s have guests over for the game!  As many as we can stuff in the house!  That sounds grand!” because about 10 minutes later he said….”Ok, I’ve invited over a bunch of people….will you make a Facebook invite up?”

Uh….what just happened?

So, over the next week we ended up filling up another huge dumpster of trash, cleaning up a huge pile of concrete that was in the driveway area, mowing grass for the bonfire, unpacking a few more boxes to make the house a bit more presentable and….wait for it…transforming our dining room into a theater room.  We literally stapled a king sized white sheet to a frame and put it up on the wall to project the game on to.  We moved the couch in, the dining room table out, and voila!  Theater room and seating for 20!

I will give hubby a little credit….he did say at one point “Maybe this party wasn’t such a great idea…”

And a little more credit….even though the Broncos lost, we had a ton of fun with our football fan friends!

Pre-game bonfire!

I just typed the title of this post and giggled to myself a little.  I have a vision of someone typing “thumping and pumping” into their search engine looking for something x-rated and reading the following post…

I posted a few days ago about the little poo problem we were having.  We ended up needing to have the septic tank pumped.  Woo hoo…Paarrtaayyy!

Yay! Septic pumping!

Before we moved in, we had the septic guy out to check out the system.  We’ve never had a septic system before and wanted to learn more about the proper care and feeding of a septic system.  That and logic: if the house hadn’t been lived in in a year and the house itself was in disrepair, the septic was likely not in great shape.  We had heard good things about one company and called the guy to come out and take a look at the system.  What I did expect was to learn more about the septic system.  What I did not expect was a septic bible study.

Wow, was this guy religious.  Not that there is anything wrong with that, but he was religious in a way that made me uncomfortable.  I don’t even know how religion was “worked in” to the conversation about the shitter, but he somehow made it happen.  Usually, I would say something to stop the conversation from going that way, but this guy had the fate of our poo in his hands, so bit my tongue.

This last time, I learned about Pontius Pilate and his role in Jesus’ death.  Just what I want to hear about while he is pumping 1,000 pounds of sewage out of the septic tank.  But, here I was again….this guy had come out to pump the tank and we were in an “emergency” situation and needed his services.  So, even though I was paying him and was technically his customer, I felt indebted to him….so I was once again a captive audience.  As the fumes of who knows how many years of stale shit wafted over me…I bit my tongue.

After he left, I posted something on Facebook about having the septic pumped and a friend who lives in the country nearby posted about the “poop pumper man who gives you a lesson on the bible” and was grateful that I wasn’t the only one who had experienced the Bible Pumping Poop Pumper.  He really should rename his business.

Holy Shit

We live in a county in Colorado that is very agriculture-based and very conservative.  Gas/Oil drilling regulations here are loose at best.  I am no environmentalist.  I am not very good at recycling.  I drive a car that likes to guzzle gas.  I’m not granola.  Not an eco-maniac.

However…..  when I saw this go in across the street, I got a little concerned:

Crap

This happened just after we closed on the house.  I’ve written before about the noise of the rig.  The incessant beeping of trucks backing up, the machine noise of the rig itself, the lights on at night….24 hours a day.  This went on for 25 days or so…  While the rig was up and running, I tried to be tolerant, but I admit it was tough.  Here we were moving into our dream house after enduring over 3 months living in our camper and suffering through the short sale process and this goddamn rig was keeping me up at night.  Grr.  So, I did some research and found out that our county is one of the only ones in Colorado that allows rigs to drill this close to homes.  Neat.

The day the rig started coming down, hubby was out of town.  I saw the tarp coming off the platform thingie and literally choked up I was so happy.  I immediately called hubby and told him the happy news.  When I came home that afternoon and saw the rig was down, I hooped and hollered and rejoiced.

Then, they started moving other equipment in.  What…the…fuck…   Huge black tanks were put up and water trucks were driving in and filling the tanks 24 hours a day.  Still, this was WAY better than the rig.  I knew fracking was eminent, but I thought there was no way it would be worse than the rig.

Boy was I wrong.

Once the tanks were filled and all the new equipment was in place, the fracking started with even brighter lights and louder noise.  The roar from the fracking was so loud, you had to speak up in the house to hear each other.  I think the lights were directed at my bedroom window.

Thankfully, the fracking only lasted 5 days or so.  Hubby was “lucky” he missed it, but he was working in North Dakota where it was -18 degrees F, so maybe not so lucky.

Another big sigh as the fracking equipment moved.  It has to be over soon, right?

Not quite.

Flaring was the next step.  I’m not quite sure the purpose of flaring…I think it’s to burn off excess gas while they are getting the storage tanks ready, but there may be other reasons for it.  Why are the storage tanks not ready prior to the drilling beginning?  I have no effing idea.  Basically, flaring is a big smoke stack with an enormous flame coming out of the top.  It is loud, but nothing like the fracking or the rig.  Mostly, it is very scary to see the orange glow of fire in your house all night long.  There was one stack that burned across from our house.  The only picture I have looks like this:

Flare fire from the bedroom window

It was only one flare, as you can see, but it felt like this:

How can one flare feel like 5? Dunno, but I’m glad it was only 1.

Now, like I said, I am no environmentalist.  However, when the kids started having red eyes and sore throats, I started to worry.  I called the county health department who referred me to the oil and gas commission.  An inspector came out, but by then the flaring was over (it lasted about 5-6 days) and the stack was down.  He did assure me that he checked all the tanks and the new well heads and they were all fine and by then the kids were better.  Was it the flaring or a cold?  Who knows.

The rig moved down the street, but isn’t close enough to bother us anymore.  They are still pumping water from the tanks down to the new rig, but there’s only one spot light and minimal noise.  I think we are out of the woods and hope we don’t have to endure this again.

I’m not opposed to gas/oil drilling in our country, but it would be nice if the drilling still had to abide by noise ordinances (they don’t), had to drill at least 1000 feet or more from homes, had to prove ground water/air quality after drilling, and found an alternative to flaring.  I had NO opinion on any of this prior to living across from a rig.  I may become an activist, but probably not.

Last weekend I took a cheese making class with some friends where we learned to make mozzarella cheese.  The instructor was odd, to put it mildly.  She was very scattered and flighty and uncomfortable presenting to people and really should not be teaching a class about anything.  Thankfully, the group I was with made it enjoyable and when the instructor went into one of her long winded, totally unrelated stories….we just started chatting or went and filled our wine glasses.  We did learn how to make mozzarella cheese and we had plenty to talk about over lunch after the class.  Like how the instructor kept saying “rennit is rennit” or “and so….” or “push away the whey”.  We were also entertained by the fellow student who said “shh shh shh” when she laughed, so every time she was laughing you thought she was hushing you.

Cheese making class batch of mozzarella

We didn’t make enough cheese to take any home, and I was excited to try some fresh mozzarella on my homemade chili, so I got all the ingredients needed to make a batch when I got home.  Unfortunately, I forgot to add the rennit and the batch did not turn out…bummer.  I guess I shouldn’t have been making chili and my very first batch of mozzarella at the same time.

Oops.

Today, I decided to try again.  I remembered to add everything and ended up with more cheese than the crazy cheese lady and things were going very well indeed.

I should have stopped while I was ahead.

First off, I learned that if you want to keep the whey after it separates from the cheese, it is best to have a funnel to pour the whey from the ginormous bowl to the teeny tiny neck of the milk jug.  Second, I learned that if you want your cheese making to be successful, follow the instructions you learned from crazy cheese lady and don’t try to go beyond those instructions.  The crazy cheese lady drained the cheese and stopped there.  I wanted to go further.  I wanted the shiny, pretty ball of cheese you buy in the store.  So, I tried to cut the cheese (snicker) and give it a hot water bath in order to form it into the ball.  As soon as I poured the hot water on the cheese, it turned into something that looked more like cottage cheese and less like mozzarella.  Dammit all to hell.  All the instructions I read said to “knead it like bread”, but there was nothing to knead….just a clumpy mess of blah.  Discouraged, I turned to Dr. Google and searched for an answer.  I could find no answer.  So, I poured it back through the cheese cloth and hung it up again.

We’ll see what happens with this one.

So, who knows.  I may end up with mozzarella in the morning.  I may end up with crap.  As I went to put this giant pot in the fridge, I noticed that the pheasant breasts I have in there waiting to make pheasant tortilla soup (yum-o) had somehow leaked juice all over.  Here is lesson number three of the evening….when you have a bowl covered with saran wrap, there is a chance the juice will seep down the saran wrap and make a mess in your fridge.  9pm and I’m cleaning the fridge.  Fun.  After swapping out the ever-so archaic saran wrap for the high tech wrap that sticks to everything, I put the bowl an a plate.  Double coverage, baby.

Lesson number three of the night.

I would love to post a successful cheese story some day.  Maybe even with instructions and a recipe.  Today, sadly, is not that day.  Maybe the pheasant tortilla soup will be worthy of a success story…but that would be no fun to read about would it?!

UPDATE:

After letting the cheese drain all night, I ended up with something resembling ricotta.  Lasagna is in our future.

Hubby has a vision.  A John Deere vision.  It may be silly and unreasonable at times, but it’s harmless and makes him happy, so I don’t judge.  I poke fun at times, but I support the vision.  It seeps in to the kitchen and outside to the mailbox.

We’ve known since the beginning that we likely needed a proper tractor.  There is so much clean up to do and while we could get it done without a tractor, having one would make life much easier.  That and the light in hubby’s eyes when he talked about a tractor would warm anyone’s heart.  Still, $20,000 for a tractor was just not in the budget.

We’ve been married nearly 14 years, so I knew from the tone of his voice when he called me last week that he was excited about something.  We discussed a couple things about work, then I heard him take a deep breath and say “I was leaving an appointment and saw a tractor parked in front of a house like it was for sale…”  Oh, dear, here we go.  He proceeded to tell me about the tractor, his interaction with the homeowner (who was not the tractor owner), the message he left the tractor owner, more about the tractor…..the most important detail being that it was a John Deere.  Tractor research, budget, and negotiations commenced…

Aaaaannnnndddd……Two Days Later…..

Hubby backing the new tractor off the trailer.

So, we are the proud owners of a *new to us* tractor.  As soon as it was off the trailer, hubby started moving gravel around in the driveway and a couple days ago, he taught me how to drive it.  It’s amazing how much fun driving a tractor can be.  The power!  The strength!  The hydraulics!  The smell of diesel as you putt around!  Awesome.

The lawn mower….I mean lawn tractor….has been upstaged.

Our 9 year old son is a picky eater.  I’m not talking about him not liking brussel sprouts or broccoli.  I mean his diet consists of 5 or 6 things.  Total.  It’s maddening.  I don’t know why he is so picky.  He use to eat anything I put in front of him.  Now every meal is a struggle.  I’ve grown so sick of the what-will-he-eat game that I taught him to make Easy Mac so on nights he doesn’t like whatever he is served, he can make something for himself and I feel less like pulling all my hair out.

Easy Mac, in case you didn’t know.

A couple nights ago, we went to dinner.  Dining out is always a crap-shoot.  He will eat pasta with butter and parmesan (don’t add sauce or seasoning or he won’t touch it), cheese pizza, or grilled cheese at restaurants.  That’s it.  No chicken strips or hamburgers like “normal” kids.  Oh, and they better not jack it up or he won’t eat it.  We tried a new Italian restaurant and he decided to get the cheese bread.  Simple, you think, right?  Just bread with cheese melted on it, right?  How could they screw that up?  Oh, in many ways, my friend.  For some reason, their cheese bread comes with marinara on the bread before it is topped with cheese.  I have no fucking clue why, but I guess that is why I am not a chef.  When the waiter brought the cheese bread out, you would think that they had served the boy arsenic covered worms with dog poo pudding.  Ugh, what a fuss over a little marinara.

Anyway…..  we got home and I told him to make himself some Easy Mac.  He prepared it and came in where we were watching TV.  After a couple minutes, I told him to go check the microwave and as he entered the kitchen, he started screaming “FIRE!!!  FIRE!!!”.  Hubby and I jumped from our seats and raced into the kitchen.  I saw the fire in the microwave and immediately my mind started forming an exit plan.  What exit we should use, how to get the pets out of the house, what items I should try to save while we waited for the fire truck…  Meanwhile…..hubby walked (rather calmly) to the sink, filled a glass with water, opened the microwave, and tossed the water on the fire.  Crisis averted.

Funny to me how our minds went different directions.  His went to solving the immediate problem, mine went to total crisis mode.  Not like I’ve ever been known to overreact before, mind you.

This is NOT MY picture…I was too panicked to take a picture. But, apparently this has happened to other people and they have their wits about them enough to take a picture. Original image: http://allfinancialmatters.com/2008/07/30/this-is-what-kraft-easy-mac-looks-like-when-you-forget-to-add-water/

I got a new microwave out of the deal and learned how to get the smoke smell out of the house (vinegar in bowls left out over night, light a couple candles, and Home Depot has an air freshener designed to remove the smoke smell).  And….we all learned that 9 year olds need to be monitored while using the microwave.

The next day, we went to Home Depot got more fire alarms and a few extinguishers.  Hubby had the fantastic idea that the kids should be trained to use the extinguishers, so we set a couple safe fires outside that they got to put out with one of the cheapie extinguishers.  They thought it was pretty cool, I thought it was a pretty good lesson.

Another good lesson?  Always remember to put water in the Easy Mac before nuking it.

You ever have one of those days/moments where you feel you deserve an award?

“I just survived an hour with ___fill in the blank___ and didn’t kill him/her…..I deserve an award!”

“I just parallel parked into that teeny tiny spot….I deserve an award!”

Sometimes, the accomplishment is bigger….

“We just celebrated our ___ year anniversary – we deserve an award!”

“I just filed my taxes on time, I deserve an award!”

We say that our kids get too many awards.  Awards for participating and not winning and such.  But I say, maybe we don’t get enough awards.

This morning, I felt I deserved an award.  I was awoken by the youngest at 4 am because he had a bad dream.  Comforted him and he was back to sleep in minutes.  Award number one.  I wasn’t so lucky and couldn’t manage to fall back to sleep.  I took advantage of this by getting up early while hubby was getting ready to go hunting and make him a hot breakfast, put snacks together for him, and get the dogs ready to go with him.  Award number 2.  Then, I got the kid’s lunches ready, made them breakfast, made myself breakfast, and even tidied up the house a bit.  Award number 3.  Just as I was feeling very proud of myself for how great I was, I heard a trickling of water.

That’s never a good sign…especially in a 100 year old house with a septic system.

Putting my detective ears on, I wandered the house in search of the trickling sound.  I ended up in the mud room and thought (hoped) it was snow melting off the roof.  Just as I reached the back door, I found the source of the sound.  A drain pipe that sticks out of the floor that is not yet attached to anything was squirting water through the tape that covers it all over the walls/floor.  Apparently tape is not the proper way to cap off an unused drain pipe.

In a panic, I dialed up hubby as I ran to the downstairs bathroom to see what was going on with the drains there.  Hubby answered the phone just as I saw the water rising in the shower basin.  “You need to come home NOW!” I exclaimed.  “There’s water squirting up in the mud room and the shower basin is full of shit water!”  He assured me that he would be home quickly.  I screamed up the stairs and ran into the upstairs bathroom where the eldest was showering.  “Get out of the shower NOW!” I hollered.  She quickly started to step out of the shower.   “No, rinse of quickly, turn the water off as fast as you can, then get out!”  Apparently the panic in my voice made her think the house was on fire.

Then I realized that perhaps, just perhaps….I was overreacting just a tad.

After the shower was turned off, the water downstairs started to recede, the exposed drain stopped actively squirting and I started to feel just slightly embarrassed.  I called hubby back and told him he didn’t need to come home, I could handle it.  We talked about what I needed to do (go buy drain cleaner), I assured him all was well.  I went up to check on the eldest and instructed her that there was no fire, that she could actually dry off before putting her clothes on.

So, now I am feeling like I deserve not so much as an award, but maybe a world record….world’s fastest time going from self-pride to humility.

All in a day here at the farm.

Wow, been a long time since I’ve posted.  Sorry about that.  I have excuses, but you don’t want to hear them.

Hubby left just after Thanksgiving to work in North Dakota for 3 weeks.  I was seriously shocked at how much busier I felt after he left.  See, we have a very “traditional” relationship.  I cook, clean, do laundry, run kids around, and take care of all the very stereotypical “wifely” duties.  I didn’t think this would change much with him gone.  I do it all anyway, you’d think it would be EASIER with him gone.  One less person dirtying laundry, one less dish to wash at night, one less person leaving stuff lying around for me to pick up, etc.

Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I think hubby doesn’t contribute.  He does.  He works 60 hour work weeks to keep our business going to put food on the table so I CAN be a “traditional” wife.  I am very thankful for that and appreciate him more than he probably knows.

But I do admit, I thought my daily wifely duties would be much easier without him around.   I had high expectations of myself when he left.  I thought I’d finish the table I started building.  I thought I’d build the storage bench I designed and bought wood for (4 weeks ago).  I thought I’d get a bunch of boxes unpacked.  I thought I’d get some touch up painting done.  I thought I’d blog every day.  I thought I’d try new recipes I didn’t think he’d like.  I thought I’d start cleaning out the barn.  I thought I’d solve world hunger….okay, maybe not that one, but all the rest for sure.

HA!  WRONG!

I may have had two fewer loads of laundry over the three week period and 10 fewer dishes to wash, but it did not make up for all the extra stuff I had to do.  From the little things like feeding the dogs and taking out the trash to the big things like running kids around, hubby’s actually quite a contributor to our daily routine.  I was surprised at how overwhelmed I was on a daily basis.  How at the end of each day I felt like I hadn’t gotten hardly anything done that I’d set out to do.  It was actually quite shocking!

I have a new respect for military wives and honestly don’t know how they go for months without their spouses.  I am far to selfish and needy….

He is home now and I forced him to sit on the couch Saturday evening and all day Sunday with us watching TV.  He didn’t put up much of a fight.