Problems

Okay, this computer is giving me some problems all of a sudden. I was unable to fix the pictures in the previous post or even write comments about them. How odd. All the family is gone now, so we are living in some peace in quite. I am very greatfull for my family coming and helping with the moving in process. They were a tremendous help and I got all things accomplished that was on my list. Now my days are filled with getting more organizing completed and things put away. I am ready to start work next week though, it gets me out of working on things at home. In the previous pictures, you can see Mikki who was really wanting to go for a car ride. She did not want to get out, I had to chase her around inside the car to get her out. The garage is now fixed to be able to fit the cars into their proper place. As you can see by the pictures. We have worked at finishing one room at a time, so the library (guest room) is now complete and so is my bedroom. Well almost finished, there are no curtains yet and no pictures on the wall, but I am still in the deliberation phase with those. Well all for now, I must get back to work.

Al Lot Accomplished

Christmas Day

Christmas day was a very busy day. Both Josh and Christy stayed here last night, along with the Fehrman family. As you can see from this picture, Mikki is getting a little tired of the company. Josh, Christy and Lauren like to keep her running. Time was spent jumping on the trampoline, that is next door, and opening presents. Dinner was delicious and I got to carve the turkey this year. It was quite fun.
Here are the kids with part of their Christmas presents from me. I thought they were cute.

An Exciting Christmas Eve

This was a very exciting Christmas Eve this year. It start out like any other day this past week. We were working on painting, putting things together and arranging some furniture. One good thing, is that all the painting is now complete, which I am very grateful for. This afternoon was going on schedule and then the chaos started. Mom came running into the house, tossing Christy, and screaming, "The neighbors house is on fire." We all took off running to the house and starting to take our turns swatting at the flames. The smoke was getting very thick and getting lower in the garage. My neighbor, Amy stated that she was in the shower when the alarm went off, the dryer was on fire. I threw a bucket of water on the fire, but it only kept going higher. One of the neighbors from across the street came running with a very small fire extinguisher. It did nothing for the flames. Finally we got the water house hooked up and started putting the water on the fire. Finally the fire department came, but we had the fire out. One of the guys from the fire department, stated that it was good that we had gotten the hose or the house would have been gone. Needless to say, everyone was fine, the house has some damage, but Amy and her kids are all safe. Now onto the rest of the day.

My very small Christmas tree. Next year, I will definitely have something bigger.
Here are the kids while they put on a Christmas eve program for us. They did the manger scene, while, my cousin John read the Christmas story. It was very cute.

The First Supper

The purple paint is gone. You don't know how happy I am. I did this room all by myself in 3 hours. It was a beautiful day today, so we were able to have the windows open for a fresh breeze. Thankfully everyone has now arrived here safely and found places to stay. Tomorrow is another work day with some fun plans for the evening. Thankfully, no more crazy happenings and I am triple checking the doors before I walk out.

So here is the table set for the first big supper in my new house. The table was extremely cramped, since there was thirteen of us. The worst part was that I did not have enough chairs, so my uncle had to sit on a step stool during the meal. Let's just see how we are going to sit for Christmas dinner. Maybe it is not smart to have the family down for Christmas when you have nowhere to put everyone.

Purple Be Gone

The purple is on the way out the door. Thank goodness. It took almost two coats of primer to cover really well, and today I will be putting up the main color. You will have to wait and see what it will be. Try sleeping with the smell of paint fumes, you get a little high during the night.


Living room furniture is in its place now, so we have places to sit. I still might do some rearranging, but at least there are couches. Unfortunately, I found some spots on the hard wood that are damaged, but they are small and I just have to learn to ignore them. Cleaned the ceiling fan, that was horrid, a half an inch of dust all over.

So I decided to paint my bathroom a wild color. But after purchasing the paint and putting a small spot on the wall, I said no way. It is way too pink. I ended up taking the paint back to Wal-Mart and getting something more neutral. I just cannot do wild colors.

Yesterday, my Uncle and his family arrived for the Christmas weekend and to help with things around the house. So we should get a lot more completed in the next few days. I might not have time to post for some time, so I am wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Another Day Done and Still More to Go

Last night, while looking through some boxes, I found Mikki's favorite toy. For those of you have been around the Graham house during the Christmas season, know why this is her favorite toy. She immediately began to enjoy her time with Rudolph.


Today a very day event occurred, I had to take the FSU license plate of my car, and put on the NC plate. I am going to have to think of another way to show my FSU pride.

The living room is just about done. About half of one wall is left and whatever touch ups need to be completed. There is still plenty more painting ahead of us when my family gets here. I bought the paint for my bathroom today, but I don't know if it is going to work or not. It is really out there. We will see.

One More Room Complete

Here is a picture of my front door. At this time, the wreath is the only Christmas decoration that is up and in place. I do plan on putting my little tree up before Christmas, but I want to have it out of the way right now. I have this wonderful decoration due to the generosity of my best friend Talena. Thank-you. It looks great and it smells wonderful whenever you get near the door.


The dining room is finally complete with furniture in its place. Now I can start unloading some more boxes so the garage can be used for better purposes.

Just another angle in the dining room.

No big catastrophes last night. Yeah!!! I was messing around with the garage door again today. I found out the I had the vacation lock button pushed, so I fixed that. Unfortunately that did not fix the door. The chain moves but the door does not. So as my wonderful cousin Ty already pointed out to me, I can use the pull to open and close. Which I have been doing, but I think my doing the pull myself is what made the door not work. Oh well, it will stay as is until my Uncle gets down here and can figure it out. The carpets got clean today. I ended up getting them professionally cleaned because of how dust and dirty they were. They look great, unfortunately they are also still wet so I cannot put furniture back in them yet. Tomorrow hopefully a bit more of an easy day, going to do the driver's license stuff. Yes, I wanted to do that today, but going with a baseball hat was not going to work.

Another Day Completed

Here are two pictures more pictures that were taken today. My new washer and dryer and refrigerator are now in place. They are so pretty. I was supposed to be the first on the list for deliveries today, by ten o'clock I had heard nothing about the delivery. I went to Best Buy and inquired about when the appliance would be delivered. The delivery guy decided to change the schedule and complete the route how he saw fit. Eventually the appliance were in place and have been used. The washer and dryer work wonderfully, you can barely hear them. That is except for the song that they play when they are done their cycle.

So now let me tell you about last night. The lesson that I learned was, "Don't work to until you are exhausted, you don't make good decision." The reason for the aforementioned lesson is that I locked myself out of the house last night. The locks on the door are very different here, you can open from the inside without adjusting the lock. But that does not mean it works when coming back into the house. So last night at 9 o'clock, with no jacket on, I got locked in the garage. Oh, I should also mention that I broke the garage door, so you can only manually open the door. So here I go running down the street to find a neighbor to see if they will let me use their phone to call a lock smith. Cellphone was in the house. As I was explaining to neighbor guy (he did tell me his name, but I was preoccupied), his wife mentioned that if the door did not have a deadbolt there is a way to break in. So back down the street I go with neighbor guy and some tools. My tools of course were in the house, where else would they be. He tried to pop the lock, but his tools kept bending. While rummaging through boxes I was able to find a pair of children's scissors. Pushed the button just so and pop the door opened. Needless to say, I now check the lock about three times before the door closes. Call me paranoid, but I don't care. More painting and priming completed today and I got someone to come and clean the carpets tomorrow. Well, let's just pray that the next few days goes a little bit better, or by the time that my Uncle and his family get here the list will be too long to even think about what to do first. On a side note, the phone line is hooked up here at the house, but I have no idea where the phones are, except that they are in a box in the garage.

Pink Paint Be Gone

So this is my first supper in the new home. Technically last night was, but it was nothing to write home about. It was a little overcooked. Tonight's dinner was pizza, applesauce, and caramel corn. Great combination isn't it. But this was an improvement over the day before.


I started out the morning early to get a start on some painting. Note to self, make sure you know where some dishes are so you will be able to eat some food. I will have to write Starbucks and let them know that their cups work really well as cheerios bowl.

So here is the after shot of the laundry room. It is much better I do believe.

Here is the before and during shot of the laundry room. Much to my surprise, it only took one coat of primer and one coat of the paint. Yes there are some touch ups, but not too bad.

Here is some very important advice, "Don't get food poisoning when you have a lot of work to do and lots of painting to get done. It makes the day a lot longer." I underestimated last night the extent of the cleaning that would need to be accomplished. The walls had a layer of dust, the master bathroom took two hours to clean, the kitchen was disgusting and the floor under appliances was horrid. Needless to say, some areas are clean now and some need to be worked on. Taking a break for the night and going to start putting away some dishes in the kitchen. That is if I can find everything.

Now Coming to You from Aberdeen, NC

Well I finally made it to my new home. It took around 13 hours to drive from Flint to Aberdeen. I left last night (friday) due to a snow storm being predicted for the Flint area on saturday and not did not want to deal with the snow on the roads. I went as far as Akron, Ohio before stopping for the night. It then took eight hours to get here from Akron. I arrived to find that the old owners did not really do a great job of leaving the house in a clean condition. They had a medically fragile child, so why is there dust hanging from the walls, actually I should say coating the walls. The floors are covered in dust and something that I cannot figure out what it is. I spent sometime tonight pulling out all the nails and hooks from the walls so that I can fill them before the walls get painted. Also the previous owner did not do a good job with the wallpaper boarder, because half of it came down with one tug. Which is a good thing because it saves me some intense scraping. In a little while, I will be heading to Wally's World (Walmart) to go and pick up the primer and the paint. What got quickly added to the list is a vacuum and broom (mine were in left behind during the move). I did take a picture of my car once it was all packed, but it was so full you cannot you figure out what you are looking at, so no picture post. Maybe tomorrow after some primer and paint gets on the walls.

Flint Christmas Party for the Kids

Here is the group of pediatric therapists at Hurley Pediatric Rehabilitation Clinic. This is prior to the party for the kids, after the party, we did not look as good. We had one of the dads be Santa Claus, we had live reindeer, and presents for all the kids. It was quite an event.

This is what happens when you give therapist a marker and a dry erase board. We decided to put out names with our snowmen. Each snowman was supposed to represent something that we do in our profession. Being a speech pathologist, I am holding a spoon and a cup for working on pediatric feeding disorders.

Moving and Canada

So this was a very busy weekend. Some friends and family were moving my belongings and I was with family in Canada for the last time this year before moving. It was not the smartest weekend to go, because there were numerous winter storm warnings. It still was lots of fun, going and playing cards with friends and spending time with family at the farm. It will be hard not being so close to home again, but North Carolina is definitely closer then Florida.

This is taken at the Woodstock rest area and you can see the weather was not that great. The snow was off and on the whole way from Stevensville to Flint, here being the worse part. It did not help that the wind was blowing over 40 mph with gusts even higher. My arms are very tired from fighting against the wind to keep the car on the rode.

One of the great things about being from Canada, especially Ontario, is that we have great hockey players. This is taken just outside of Brantford, which is the home of Wayne Gretzky, better known as the Great One.

This is just up the hill on the 402 going past Hamilton. It was really snowing. For those who know the area, going across the Skyway in St. Catherines and Burlington was not fun. The wind gusts were incredible. It normally only takes 3/4 of a tank of gas to get from Flint to Stevensville, today with the wind it took 1 1/2 tanks of gas.

So, while I was spending time with family, everyone else was moving my belongings into the new house. Closing did take place this past Friday and Andrew went and got the keys for me. This was, I do not have to go to Florida and then back to North Carolina to move. I can just go straight to North Carolina.

Thankfully they just put everything into the middle of the rooms, so I can just get in there and start painting right away.

Everyone laughed when I said what size of truck that I got, but it was packed right to the back and right to the top.

I think that this might take me some time to sort through. Thankfully the Fehrman's are coming down for Christmas and helping me with the unpacking and painting.

More Snow Pictures

Here is some more pictures from my drive around Swartz Creek. Snow is still coming down off and on throughout the day.

Happy American Thanksgiving!!

So this is what I woke up to this American Thanksgiving. We are under a winter weather watch, here in Michigan until around midnight tonight. The worst part, is that it rained for the last two days, so the ground is wet and made the snow very slushy. This is not the first snow of the season (it snowed two weeks ago), but this is the first to stick to the ground. Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving with their families. Since I already had a turkey for Canadian Thanksgiving, no turkey for me today.