We've decided recently to start staying out at our property during the week more, to try to get more accomplished. The frantic loading of everyone on Sunday mornings to stay the day there is exhausting, and we seem to not get very much done. As Jeremy headed off the work this Thursday, I began preparing to meet him out there after work. The kids and I ate breakfast, finished homeschooling, ate lunch, and then packed everything into the van. It is surprising the heavy bags that those boys can load into the van! They like doing it, and it helps me a lot!
I've also decided to stock the pantry/dorm fridge at the property so that we aren't trying to pack up loads of food for our stay out there. I've been going shopping just as we run out of food, which seems to be often, since that fridge doesn't hold very much. I tried to plan meals around foods that didn't require refrigeration, and I was successful in that we did get meals fixed and didn't eat out, but the processed foods and minimal protein started taking its toll! My hands were swelling, which they hadn't done in a long time (only a handful of times this pregnancy, and I'm now 32 weeks), and one night while walking around Wal-Mart getting some things we needed, I got really nauseous and faint feeling. I was adding up what I'd eaten on that (very busy) day, and it wasn't much, esp. not in the way of protein. So I went straight to find snacks, paid for them, and then walked around finishing our shopping while consuming everything I'd bought! I soon felt better. Yet I didn't feel completely better (as in, no swelling and not hungry all the time) until I got home today and could eat our usual foods. I'm so surprised how much difference the right nutrition makes, esp. in pregnancy. I bought a box of Nutrigrain bars, and I seriously could eat at least a half box at one sitting and still not feel full, probably because it just doesn't provide the kind of nutrients my little growing baby is needing. Next time I will be bringing my Bosch so that I can make homemade bread and smoothies! I have to eat twice (or more!) as much store bought bread as normal bread to get full, and it doesn't have all the nutrients. And it is hard to find healthy, tasty options at Wal-Mart sometimes that don't have refined grains and/or extra sweeteners, and there aren't too many close shopping options besides Wal-Mart. So next time I will bring a cooler, too, if need be, and just cook my normal meals so that I will feel well, and save the pantry stuff for emergencies. At least now I know.
As far as work on the property, we got some transition strips between the different floors installed, a threshold and some trim around the door to make it look so much better, a deck partially installed (I'm SOO thankful that THAT, as it was getting really hard to make it up our temporary steps), and the carpet cut and laid down for our bedroom. We don't have the carpet pad yet, and it isn't installed, but at least it is down, on the floor, so that we aren't getting that particle board dust all over our feet, beds, etc., and now the roll of carpet is out of the kitchen! One less thing to trip over. :) And while the kids were napping one day, I painted our bedroom (yeah!!), and Jeremy helped finish it up when he got home. And then we proceeding to scratch it up with the carpet "installation". Oh well. Another repair for another day, I suppose.
I was so excited to find a great thrift store not to far from our property, too. I'm going to miss that about where we live now - tons of thrift stores with lots of great stuff, all not too far from our house. Yet having one good thrift store will help, with some others a bit farther away. I was able to find a wooden highchair for Faith, and we negotiated the price to $12. It didn't have a tray, which I didn't care too much about, since we were planning to just slide it up to the table, and it was wobbly, which Jeremy fixed with some wood glue. Clothes were half price that day, too, so I was able to find a few things for the children for $1 each. And we found some great Bible story books for my nieces birthday party that weekend! The neat thing about thrift stores is that they have things that typical stores do not sell, and for a fraction of the cost of the things that typical stores DO sell. For example, we bought a last minute shirt for Jeremy since the weather was colder than we thought, at an outlet store at 75% off: total price - $12.50. I told him that the shirts at the thrift store were 75% off of that store's 75% off price! Maybe I'll convert him to my thrift store ways someday.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Monday, February 21, 2011
Enjoying the Simple Things
Since Jeremy had president's day off, we decided to stay Sunday/Monday at the property to get some work done. The weather was soooo beautiful! We still have no AC hooked up, and we haven't been too worried about that, since it's been so cold, but this weather warming up has made us start to think about it. One of our first projects was to buy and install some ceiling fans in the living room and bedrooms. We went with Hunter fans for the bedrooms - they are just SOOO good! We have one in our bedroom now, and all you can hear is the sound of the air moving. We've slept in too many rooms with noisy fans to go cheap on them. Some cheap things are worth the savings, but not fans, in my opinion! The ceiling fan installations were a team effort: Jude handed me fan blade parts, I assembled them, while Jeremy did all the wiring and attaching to the ceiling. We went to bed pretty late that night, since they seemed to take a LONG time to install, esp. on funky mobile home ceilings!
We also had a wonderful friend who came and helped install the drywall in the bathroom, and what a blessing that was! It is finally finished! The drywall, that is, not the bathroom - we are still a long way from that, it seems. :) I'm now 7 months pregnant, and I'm no help when it comes to carrying heavy sheet rock, and not much help with anything involving bending over (esp. the getting back up part of bending over!) or lifting. The master bedroom now has a coat of primer and we have the paint purchased for it for next time we are out.
I decided that I was tired of all the packing and moving practically our whole house in order to stay out there any length of time, so Seth and I went on a little excursion to purchase lots of these items. We got the cheaper quality stuff (hello, Dollar Tree!), since we don't need it to last forever, and while I was against getting duplicates of things at first, I now think that if we got them cheap enough, we can just donate them to people who need them when we are finished with them. No more loading up the entire van; problem solved (mostly!).
I also decided to get some food while we were out that would be healthy, but last at least a month, just in case we weren't able to come out there for a while (if some of us were sick, or something like that). So, our little dorm fridge is packed with food! I'm glad it has a little freezer, too, so I can keep some meat out there. Packing food is the hardest thing for us, so that will save us some trouble.
It is amazing how much one appreciates simple things after doing without for a while. For example, I kept forgetting to bring a spare pair of scissors out there, and oh, the many things that are made more difficult by not having pair of scissors! Sure, one can sometimes substitute a knife, but scissors work so much better. :) Not only that, but we are really learning what bare necessities are for us. We don't typically bring things out there unless we have noticed a lack, so that the things we have out there are things that we specifically decided that life was better with them. I know that I have things in our current home that we probably wouldn't notice too much if they were gone, so it is nice to enjoy a little simplicity.
Lately I've been enjoying reading Habitat for Humanity's "How to Build a House" by Larry Haun. I definitely recommend that book to anyone interested in home building! It is written for the average Joe who knows NOTHING about building a house (yep, that would be us). If you think about Habitat for Humanity for a moment you'll see why it's a great book: they utilize lay volunteers (folks who don't know how to read a tape measure - yep, that's in the book, too), so the book is very detailed, yet simple to understand; they are building low cost housing (that's right up our alley); and they focus on simple to build, small homes (in reality, that is what we want, too). The book is very easy to read, and the author seems to have as his purpose convincing everyone that they can ACTUALLY build their OWN home - and I'm convinced we can do it! Good thing, too, since that was our plan from the beginning. :) The main difference we want in our home that most homes don't have is a bigger laundry room! Our family is really growing, and we already do lots of laundry, so I want space for more than one washer/dryer if we need it, places to fold, iron, sort, etc. But other than that, I don't want our house to be very big. I like how close our family is in our little mobile home we're preparing to move into. I will definitely want more storage space in our house, though, than the mobile home has!
We also had a wonderful friend who came and helped install the drywall in the bathroom, and what a blessing that was! It is finally finished! The drywall, that is, not the bathroom - we are still a long way from that, it seems. :) I'm now 7 months pregnant, and I'm no help when it comes to carrying heavy sheet rock, and not much help with anything involving bending over (esp. the getting back up part of bending over!) or lifting. The master bedroom now has a coat of primer and we have the paint purchased for it for next time we are out.
I decided that I was tired of all the packing and moving practically our whole house in order to stay out there any length of time, so Seth and I went on a little excursion to purchase lots of these items. We got the cheaper quality stuff (hello, Dollar Tree!), since we don't need it to last forever, and while I was against getting duplicates of things at first, I now think that if we got them cheap enough, we can just donate them to people who need them when we are finished with them. No more loading up the entire van; problem solved (mostly!).
I also decided to get some food while we were out that would be healthy, but last at least a month, just in case we weren't able to come out there for a while (if some of us were sick, or something like that). So, our little dorm fridge is packed with food! I'm glad it has a little freezer, too, so I can keep some meat out there. Packing food is the hardest thing for us, so that will save us some trouble.
It is amazing how much one appreciates simple things after doing without for a while. For example, I kept forgetting to bring a spare pair of scissors out there, and oh, the many things that are made more difficult by not having pair of scissors! Sure, one can sometimes substitute a knife, but scissors work so much better. :) Not only that, but we are really learning what bare necessities are for us. We don't typically bring things out there unless we have noticed a lack, so that the things we have out there are things that we specifically decided that life was better with them. I know that I have things in our current home that we probably wouldn't notice too much if they were gone, so it is nice to enjoy a little simplicity.
Lately I've been enjoying reading Habitat for Humanity's "How to Build a House" by Larry Haun. I definitely recommend that book to anyone interested in home building! It is written for the average Joe who knows NOTHING about building a house (yep, that would be us). If you think about Habitat for Humanity for a moment you'll see why it's a great book: they utilize lay volunteers (folks who don't know how to read a tape measure - yep, that's in the book, too), so the book is very detailed, yet simple to understand; they are building low cost housing (that's right up our alley); and they focus on simple to build, small homes (in reality, that is what we want, too). The book is very easy to read, and the author seems to have as his purpose convincing everyone that they can ACTUALLY build their OWN home - and I'm convinced we can do it! Good thing, too, since that was our plan from the beginning. :) The main difference we want in our home that most homes don't have is a bigger laundry room! Our family is really growing, and we already do lots of laundry, so I want space for more than one washer/dryer if we need it, places to fold, iron, sort, etc. But other than that, I don't want our house to be very big. I like how close our family is in our little mobile home we're preparing to move into. I will definitely want more storage space in our house, though, than the mobile home has!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)