A Happy Family!

Good morning all.  I am so very excited this morning:)

I am starting to down size my business.  I have hit the big 40 and beyond, and my body is telling me it is time to do something different.

For those of you new to my blog, I have my own cleaning business.  I have loved the families and the sense of helping others for 13 years now.  I started this business with my oldest daughter who is autistic in mind.  I thought that someday she would be helping me and maybe have her own clients.  Reality had set in and this is not something she would enjoy doing, sue to her OCD's .  Don't get me wrong I have enjoyed it along the way.  I have watched my new families grow up and oh the little one's.  I have cried when the started kinder-garden, an have watched many of their little league games.  Yes I was the crazy lady cheering for the 4 year old picking clovers in the outfield waiting for that one ball hit to them.  I sometimes think that I was wanting my 4 children to stay young, and when the weren't I had my fill with the kids who parents I clean for.


I have let two of my families go and I plan on shutting my business down by the end of my oldest Senior year.  Yes I have a Senior, Junior and 2 sophomores.  We have been so very blessed that my husbands income keeps getting better and better.  The other day he tells me it's not that you have to work, but you have to work so I can keep you out of the shopping malls!  That is true.  I am one of those who spending and purchasing things give me a sense of gratification and it is only temporarily, so I fix that and go out shopping again. Really my husband will tell you that I am the one person that will come out of the dollar store with $50.00 worth of junk.

Today!  I am so excited for today.  I have the next two days off and today a friend is going to teach me how to cook.  We are making several meals and freezing them so that I can just pop them in the oven for my family for dinner.  My little one Hannah is excited too!  This morning when leaving for school she told me to have fun and that she cannot wait to actually have food in the house that she will eat:)

I am so very blessed to have people in my life that are kind and caring.  Karma is a biggy for me.  You know the circle what comes around goes around.  My very dear friend Jackie and I have made that our motto.  A knew one that we are taking on is surrounding ourselves with positive people.  Wow what a difference that has made.  We laugh and look at each other and Wonder why we let negative in.  I guess the old saying is true that misery needs company and we want no part of it.

I am off to learn how to cook!  Have a blessed day everyone.

"no one who truly wants to know Christ and opens up their heart to him will walk away empty-handed!!"

Foster remodel

 WOW!  When you replace your floors in a home you are living in, you pretty much have to pack and unpack your home.

Now softball has been in full swing and hubby and I had a window of 3 weeks to get our whole home floors done.  I was basically a general contractor.  I had to get 3 different quotes, only for our piece of mind. 

While waiting on quotes a neighbor post about her floors being replaced and insurance had covered it.  The light bulb flipped on and I called our insurance company.

  About 2 years ago we were in Chapel Hill NC for a football game and we came home to our kitchen flooded.  The ice maker line kept filling and running the whole time we were gone.  UGH!  Softball was still in full swing so hubby and I dried it and pulled everything away so we could go on with our crazy life.

Life went on and sure enough right under the freezer the hardwoods starts to buckle and turn black. 

The insurance company is paying for our floors to be replaced.  Heck Yea!  That one score for me.

I found a quote that worked out to allow us to hardwood the whole downstairs (excluding living room) WOO HOO!  another score for me.

Then the work started.  I had to pack up our dining room, my craft room and the kitchen.  I had so many boxes and newspaper everywhere.  My craft room was the tear jerker!  I am moving right along because I have compnay coming in from out of town in 2 weeks.  Making great progress on boxing things and my girl friend stops by and suggest that I paint the baseboards before they replace the wood floors. 

Off to home depot to buy trim paint.  I stayed up until 1:00 am most nights painting.  Life was still going on, ball practice, horse back riding, and to top it off I was planning a yard sale for the Charlotte Starz team fundraiser.

While I was going through my stuff for the yard sale (before floor quote) I was placing everything on the dinnig room table.  REALLY!

Pull car out of garage and start pilling things up in there, while taggin everything as I go.  Then!!!  My wounderful hubby suggested that seems how we were prepared to pay for the wood floors why don't we carpet the living room.

Yep you guessed it off the home depot I go.  Get a quote for the living room and Then!!!!  my wounderfull hubby suggested that he really would like all the carpet in the house to match.  Now I get a quote for the stairs and all rooms up stairs.  When getting a quote you have this 4 hour window that they come out to messure and then they take forever to finally leave.

So I am rolling right along.  I have the wood floors scheduled to be installed on Friday.  I am ready and they were here on time and so off towork I go.  Here are some of the pictures of the install and husband calling almost every hour wanting an update.

The picture above are from the old cabinet that held all my crafting stuff as you can tell that the whole thing fell apart while I was trying to move it away from the wall to paint the baseboards.  So I took it all apart and pilled it up ready for the dump.  I still have to pick the kids up from school so I loaded it up and took it to the the dump that afternoon.

This is what the wood floor looked like before.  YUCK!

Here's what the carpet looked like.  Under the cabinet looks really good right!

Packing up and getting ready for new Hardwoods.  The hardwoods there look pretty good!  I hated to tear them up.
Still packing.  Chairs are upstairs in son's room!

Now moving everything into living room

Here we go Wood has arived

Now time for the install, after of course I put the desk, filing cabinet and stove and refrigerator on craig's list.

OH did I mention the amount of DUST!  It was incredible and everywhere!

My husband went to Home depot and picked up 3 of these.  I had to dust every wall in the home!  Dust was everywhere.  And life, school, softball everything was still going on while we were working on this. 

Now almost done with the cleaning!  We have ordered new furniture for the office/craft room and this is where we are sitting to watch tv and put together new furniture.

 

The wood floors were installed on Friday.  I had the yard sale on that Saturday and hubby had recuriting video's for the girls that weekend, and I still had to get a couple more pieces from IKEA.

 

The carpet for the living room is scheduled to be installed on Monday between 11:00 am and 1:00pm.

 

Yep you guessed it more baseboards to paint.  I think I finished the baseboard around 1:00 am.  We argreed that hubby should get to bed at a reasonable time so that one of us is working with a level head. 

Now that the new carpet is installed hubby would like to replace the living room furniture.  Off to rooms to go we go!  With in 3 hours we had picked out new living room furniture and it was set for delivery on that Thursday.

Thursday was the day!   I had to order a new refrigerator and of course he wanted that to match the stove so now I bought a new stove.   Really those who know me, know how much I love to cook!  Not I have burnt the cardboard on frozen pizza with the new stove.  There are so many buttons I have a hard time just turning the right oven on top/bottom UGH!!!

 

They arrive on Thursday and guess what..... The carpet for the upstairs come in.  Oh yeah it was a solid 3 days of painting baseboards.  In the middle of all this my daughter would like to change the paint in her room.  We were up painting and around 11:00pm our friend the hubby of my friend stops by and grabs a paint brush and helps out a bunch.  Around 1:00am we are done.

Now the alarm clock goes off at 5:30 for me.  I get kids off to school and then carpet people arrive and then right behind them rooms to go arrives.  Two hours go by and in comes the new applicances.  I am so tired!

Here is the photos of the progress!

This is the half bath with all of my autisic childs stuffed animals.  Yes that is the shower and by the time I added all the boxes from the rooms upstairs you could not get in the bathroom and it was to the celling with boxes.

OH did I mention more dust!!!

new stove and frig are here.

Carpet is in and now all the beds I broke apart and everything boxed up is now unpacked.

Somehow I managed to get the house unpacked and Yes the Hubby had to go buy 2 new flat plan tvs for the kids room and wall mount those.

 

Now my company came in Friday evening.  It reminded us of the movie of risky business when they get the house all cleaned up after the wild house party.

 

We had a softball tournament this weekend and the weekend after that I had a last chance yard sale.   We both have been assuming the tunnel vision! 

 

Have a great week everyone.  I know we are going to slow down here at the Fosters!!!