Getting Started 9/30/2008

I feel that it is time for me to enter the blogging world. I can't promise that I will be great but I will try to post a few things here and there so that you can follow the progress of our family.

It has been a crazy couple of weeks. Matt's Grandma passed away three weeks ago at the age of 88. Grandma Fluffy was diagnosed with colon cancer two years ago.

With the help of Helen's cousin Lynn and Matt's sister Rachel, we are trying to clean out her house. I have spent two of the last three weekends at her house in Pittsburgh sorting and cleaning. Grandma Fluffy was quite the photographer and also quite a saver of pretty much anything that came through the door. So there are thousands of pictures to be sorted. We have taken about six van loads of paper to recycling and by van loads, I'm not talking filling the seats, I mean floor to ceiling, no seats in the van. There is still a lot do, but we are making progress. Lynn has been doing a lot of the sorting on her own, spending countless hours on the process.

Meanwhile, two weeks ago after spending the weekend in Pittsburgh I came home to find that Hurricane Ike had decided to strike most of Ohio and especially the Southwestern corner where we live. Ike took down many trees, blew off siding and roof shingles, and knocked out power to over a million people in our area. We were without power for four days, the kids missed school for three days and Matt had two days out of the office. We actually enjoyed our time without power and spent the days outside helping neighbors clean up the trees that fell in their yards. I never miss a chance to use my chain saw. Matt's office had to be re-roofed after loosing many shingles. We were very lucky and had no damage to our property. After spending another week without phone, cable or internet our lives have pretty much returned to normal.

I have also been able to complete a couple of projects during the last couple weeks. I have slowly been redoing our master bathroom since last fall when I found a leak that had destroyed the subfloor. Since then I have tiled the floor and the bathtub surround, refinished cabinets, had a counter top installed, fixed plumbing, installed new light fixtures, put on new hardware and painted.

Before Pictures:

After Pictures:

Last week I helped a friend rebuild a firepit in her back yard.