To Care and Not to Care

Sometimes we have moments (5 seconds, a minute, a night or weeks) in our life when our hands are torn from over our eyes and we realize something. In my most recent "moment" I was more reminded how little control we actually have over our lives. Within the past 5 months, the couple that we were living with and remodeling this house with, have gotten a divorce. Amy has moved out and on with her life, while Jay still lives with us - committed to finish the remodel. The past 5 months have consisted of a lot of tears, confusion, anger, hard work and bouts of rest. And I am consistently running into grace. It's everywhere. Invading my life and the lives of others. It's a beautiful and crazy thing. I believe that this grace is God whom i trust and doubt  with my life. When you believe such a beautiful and crazy thing, one has no choice but to throw their hands up and stop trying so hard. It's like everyone is so "worried about the hurry and less about the harm....

ladies and gentlemen, i am pleased to announce that my brother, luke streckfuss, has re-entered our house. therefore, he has been chipping in with his handy skills and quick wit, often providing comedic relief for us weary house-remodelers (is this done yet? no? oh.) these days, we welcome a good hearty laugh and i'm sure you do too.

I turned 30 yesterday and posted my “30 while 30” list, a list of 30 things to accomplish while I am, you guessed it, 30. 19. Take a bath. I have a super delightful cold on this day after my birth, so taking a bath sounded like a great plan for tonight. As I was cleaning the only tub in the house, the tub in the main bathroom, the bathroom right off the living room. I remembered and exclaimed (something like), “We don’t even have a plug for this thing! I totally forgot! I can’t take a bath!” and tossed the rag down in disgust. Janell, like lightning, was in the bathroom, “NO! No, no, no, no, no. You WILL take a bath!” and started looking for a plug. I went downstairs to see what I could possibly scrounge up (if you have been down there, you know there is a lot that could possibly be scrounged up). When I came up, Ben, who had been busy working on the computer (I know he was working and not playing because he had his big brown headphones on) had taken a break and become involved, ...

Our kitchen has, well,  undergone some "changes" recently. Upon seeing the new kitchen, the lack of familiarity may be startling to some, unwholesome to others, and downright obscene to a few less prepared souls.  In order to prevent any vomiting or other mass hysteria,  we have compiled a brief video to act as a guide for folks who may need to understand how such a change takes place. We did all of the work ourselves, from installing all new appliances, Hardwood cabinets, custom concrete countertops (not shown in this video, those are for later), new flooring, new walk-in pantry, new lighting (we had one all-or-nothing light switch,  now we have 4 separate options), new window, new sink and faucet; and the kicker is, it all cost less than $5000.

Well. The day has finally come. Goodbye nasty, peely white cabinets. Goodbye fake floor. Goodbye tiny pantry. Goodbye formica counter tops. And hello to living off of take out food for the next 4 days/2 weeks!

A friend recently told us that we didn’t blog enough. Actually quite a few of you have in fact stated that we don’t write enough and I think it is true. We started with a bang walls were coming down, carpet was being thrown out of windows, lots of blogs were posted and things were crazy (or at least novel)… Now the novelty in our eyes seems to have faded a bit and we’ve slowed to a snails pace in the blog-o-sphere. Sorry… hmm. I started this blog in order to explain but now I guess I just apologized instead. oops. Well in case you wanted a bit of explanation here it is: It is really fun to show a before picture and then a dramatic after, or to start recording right before a wall falls. However, I don’t believe that anyone here (well, maybe our parents) would watch the blister inducing nail pulling, bark shoveling, and wire pulling. Sooo… What if the work that we(you) do all day doesn’t produce a dramatic after photo or a witty video? Is that work worth talking about? Reading ab...

Oh wait! There's more! I believe I said there would be 2 videos in the last post, but there was only 1. Oops. So here is another Strategic Tool Implementation video demonstrating the, uh, push barrel. And because of the genius contraption of the Push Barrel, our backyard patio is almost finished! We acquired a ton of flagstone (for free), in which included a lot of good, hard work and the guys using their spatial skills. Jay built a fire pit too. (In which we may or may not be burning all sorts of "scraps" in...) Perfect for roasting mallows. Amy, our resident master gardener/green thumb also has made our garden quite the bountiful feast! (Well...and the 6 truck loads of aged-manured we dumped and tilled into the dirt!) On 1 pepper plant alone, she counted 15 (15!) peppers. One night, myself, Amy and Debbie had a washing, dicing, blanching and freezing party. We had turnips and rutabagas come out of our ears. So with a little help of Elton John and some old sch...