#4 - Baby Steps
There haven't been any major, earth-shattering developments over the past week or so regarding the house, just some small baby steps.
However, Matt did celebrate his 38th birthday on Friday! I love that guy. I'm so happy he was born. There's no one else in the world thatwould put up with him I would rather spend all my days with. My favorite part of the day is when he comes home from work and we have coffee together and catch up on the days' events. It's cliché, but I love him so much more now than ever. We have our ups and downs, we sometimes want to chuck each other into a dumpster, but even the valleys make the mountaintops better, amiright? The girls made him cupcakes. Eliana made the cupcakes from scratch with zero help (Moms of tiny people, you will get to this point some day, I promise!) Camilla iced the dark ones and Eliana iced the others to look like coffee in a mug.
Our dumpster was hauled away this past Saturday (we kept the kids). The patio and bricks are gone and to get completely ready for the foundation to be poured, we needed to get the AC up and off the ground. Matt built a platform on Saturday and we (Matt, his mom and I) were able to lift that heavy, awkward sucker up off the ground using a redneck-style system (Matt's brainchild, not mine. He's the redneck) of first building those towers out of bricks, resting the AC on a piece of nice, strong oak and slowly adding a level of bricks at a time until it was high enough to scootch over onto the platform without kinking the copper tubing -- inside that black foam -- that connects the AC to the house and makes it run (Freon). This was a delicate process. The copper tubing is rigid, so it couldn't be a swift heave-ho movement. It had to be nice and slow so Matt could bend it slowly after adding each brick level during the brick tower process, and then slow enough during the lifting process so he could also bend it.
Credit where credit is due! Matt, Camilla and Ezra built the bottom layers of the Redneck Tower and his mom and I didn't enter the picture until it was ready to move onto the platform. (We were busy doing more important things like yard sale-ing.)
It was hard to get the necessary leverage to lift it just that tiny smidge up onto the platform (or I'm weak. I'm not going to agree to that, but that's probably the real reason.) We also had our first minor totally work-out-able "communication problem." I'm keeping it real. We're regular old people with regular old issues. We love Jesus and try to behave as He would have us behave, but sometimes we just don't see eye-to-eye on where one should place ones hands to lift an air conditioner properly, and we frustrate each other. But we worked it out. We're getting good at having 2.5 minute arguments and then letting it all blow over (I have books about this too! There's always a book.).
Plus, lifting a big metal box connected to a thing that can't be bent a certain way because there's a tube attached that's full of the stuff that can't leak out or we'll have a broken air conditioner in July* and have to have it fixed only to take it out in 3 months (?) because we're replacing it anyway is stressful! It also doesn't help when each of the kids wander out all nonchalant like we aren't standing there holding a big metal box and ask for goldfish, or "hey, mom, can you help me find my spare socks?" I'm sorry. Can you see that three grown-ups are standing here holding a giant metal box trying not to kink a copper tube covered in black foam?!??? Clue phone is ringing. It's for you!
But we managed. There was a 3 minute span of freak-out when we thought the tube broke. But it's fine, and the line is safe and secure. And our house is nice and cool! (Note the brick towers. The wheelbarrow is under there for insurance so if we tumbled the brick towers we would at least have it on top of the wheelbarrow and not have to start from ground level again.)
So here we are! This is the current state of the house. Up next is the foundation!
Until next time.
Happy 4th of July! I'm so thankful for our independence!!
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| (My brother & his fiancé made 6 of these yard dice for us for Christmas and I LOVE them.) |
However, Matt did celebrate his 38th birthday on Friday! I love that guy. I'm so happy he was born. There's no one else in the world that
Our dumpster was hauled away this past Saturday (we kept the kids). The patio and bricks are gone and to get completely ready for the foundation to be poured, we needed to get the AC up and off the ground. Matt built a platform on Saturday and we (Matt, his mom and I) were able to lift that heavy, awkward sucker up off the ground using a redneck-style system (Matt's brainchild, not mine. He's the redneck) of first building those towers out of bricks, resting the AC on a piece of nice, strong oak and slowly adding a level of bricks at a time until it was high enough to scootch over onto the platform without kinking the copper tubing -- inside that black foam -- that connects the AC to the house and makes it run (Freon). This was a delicate process. The copper tubing is rigid, so it couldn't be a swift heave-ho movement. It had to be nice and slow so Matt could bend it slowly after adding each brick level during the brick tower process, and then slow enough during the lifting process so he could also bend it.Credit where credit is due! Matt, Camilla and Ezra built the bottom layers of the Redneck Tower and his mom and I didn't enter the picture until it was ready to move onto the platform. (We were busy doing more important things like yard sale-ing.)
It was hard to get the necessary leverage to lift it just that tiny smidge up onto the platform (or I'm weak. I'm not going to agree to that, but that's probably the real reason.) We also had our first minor totally work-out-able "communication problem." I'm keeping it real. We're regular old people with regular old issues. We love Jesus and try to behave as He would have us behave, but sometimes we just don't see eye-to-eye on where one should place ones hands to lift an air conditioner properly, and we frustrate each other. But we worked it out. We're getting good at having 2.5 minute arguments and then letting it all blow over (I have books about this too! There's always a book.).Plus, lifting a big metal box connected to a thing that can't be bent a certain way because there's a tube attached that's full of the stuff that can't leak out or we'll have a broken air conditioner in July* and have to have it fixed only to take it out in 3 months (?) because we're replacing it anyway is stressful! It also doesn't help when each of the kids wander out all nonchalant like we aren't standing there holding a big metal box and ask for goldfish, or "hey, mom, can you help me find my spare socks?" I'm sorry. Can you see that three grown-ups are standing here holding a giant metal box trying not to kink a copper tube covered in black foam?!??? Clue phone is ringing. It's for you!
But we managed. There was a 3 minute span of freak-out when we thought the tube broke. But it's fine, and the line is safe and secure. And our house is nice and cool! (Note the brick towers. The wheelbarrow is under there for insurance so if we tumbled the brick towers we would at least have it on top of the wheelbarrow and not have to start from ground level again.)
So here we are! This is the current state of the house. Up next is the foundation!
*earlier this summer Matt and I were working outside in the yard an the kids were inside, nice and cool. He turned off the air conditioner to encourage them to play outside instead of taking refuge in the cool of the house. Around 6:30 p.m. one of them caught on, "Mom, is Dad trying to heat us out of the house?" Yes, yes he is. Go outside. Find a shade tree if it's too hot. Kids in the new millennium have life so easy. AC everywhere...not like '80s kids who had to sweat to death in the middle of the night even with an oscillating fan blowing on our face! All that to say--if the AC broke it wouldn't have been the end of the world. But, we're glad it's working.
Until next time.
Happy 4th of July! I'm so thankful for our independence!!
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