When I Get Where I’m Going

 I know I’ve blogged this before, but death is not something I think about. I live my life the best I can, create as many memories as possible and know where I am going when I die. But, in the past 48 hours I have had two people I know pass away. One was not an unexpected death but he was our age. He was divorced and didn’t have any kids. The other death was very unexpected. He had been married 42 years and had a few grown children and lots of grandchildren/great grandchildren. I can say that both men had a quiet, but strong faith in the Lord. I can say they both served in the military. I can say that I respected both men and that they were both kind to everyone. Other than that, I can’t give you a lot of information about either men, despite having them over for dinner (one was technically at our house when I was growing up) on an occasion or two. 

That got me to thinking about when I pass away. So often people are glorified in their death. Everybody becomes their friend (sadly, this seems to be more the case the more tragic the death is). When I pass away I want people to keep it real when speaking of me and my life. I don’t want people to say I was patient or the life of the party. I want people to say I was flawed, but tried to be the best I could every day. I want people to say that there was no doubt that I loved my family and friends. I want students to say that I held high expectations of them but that I respected them and pushed them to do their best. I don’t want people to make me seem like someone I wasn’t. I don’t want “friends” to come out of the woodwork who can’t say much about me. The older I get, the more I realize that having a few true, close friends are more important that having a lot of “friends” who barely know me. As this quote says, 

1. “It’s not what we have in life, but who we have in our life that matters.” — Unknown

Suckers!

If you know me, you know a few things about me:

1. I am my mother’s daughter in many ways (especially with money).

2. I love supporting small businesses….when they deserve it.

3. I believe in hard work and being fair.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way let me give you the story. We wanted to start doing some renovation/updating projects around the house. A lot of them we are tackling ourselves. But some of them are out of our realm of expertise so we asked for recommendations for people to help with those projects. For the most part we’ve had some great people- a landscaper who pruned back a lot of our front bushes, two different plumbers who installed our kitchen sink and fixed a water pressure issue. But we’ve had quite a time finding someone to renovate our bathroom. So when a friend recommended her son, who has his own handyman business, we thought it was a great idea. My first clue that it may not have been a good match for us is when he was over 2 hours late to give us a quote. But, when he did show up, he gave us a very reasonable quote for several jobs and said it would only take a couple days to tear out our bathroom floor and replace it with tile. *sigh* It didn’t happen that way….at all. He was very unreliable and it became clear pretty early on that he wasn’t the expert I thought he was. I’m not going into too much detail about all the chaos that led to a less than stellar job. But I will tell you that I’m always conscientious about money. This time it wasn't necessarily about the money. It was more about the fact that we got suckered into paying  WAY more than we would have for a licensed contractor. AND the guy was paid in full before the job was completed to my satisfaction so our bathroom will not be something I love for the time being. He ruined the door frames and the paint job that I spent hours on. On the flip side, we are going to completely remodel the bathroom at some point. So we will hire a licensed contractor who has experience and hopefully he will fix these flooring issues when that happens. And, on the bright side, Rob and I will basically be the only ones who will see it. So, lessons learned for the future- business with friends isn’t always the best choice, don’t always hire the most reasonably priced quote, don’t pay for the job until it is complete and plan on it taking longer than planned. *sigh* Our new bathroom….

Before….

Before….

                                     During….

                                      During…..

Finished bathroom area….. 🥲

If you don’t look too close, it doesn’t look that bad. *sigh*

Real Life HGTV

 My new favorite channel is HGTV. I watch a lot of “Home Town” and “Love It or List It”…and our boys tease me about it all the time. But, since buying an older, outdated house the ideas I’ve gotten from those shows have been helpful. When we first moved in, I made a list of all the things I’d like to change or fix. I pulled up the list the other day and was pleasantly surprised with how much we’ve already done. Don’t get me wrong, we still have a lot more updating and repairs to complete but it’s really starting to come together and I’m thankful for all that we’ve been able to do already. We’ve done a ton of small things like changing out light fixtures and mirrors, cleaning up the yard/pulling up unwanted plants, changing up the front porch and painting…. to large things like remodeling our bathroom and building a fence. Above are just a few of our DIY home improvement projects:

(Next up….new flooring and a new dishwasher from this century.) 

Quiet Holiday Season...and a Happy New Year

December flew by. Usually it flies by because I jam pack it with as many Christmas festivities as possible. But this year we laid low. There were a couple Christmas parties, a quick look at Christmas lights and a beautiful Christmas Eve candlelight service. The boys and I also did a very quick, but comical "candy cane drop" where we put candy canes on people's car doors for them to find after shopping. (We watched one lady drive off with hers still on her door. Ha!)

When Christmas break started a few days before Christmas I decided that, although I would rather be traveling (albeit not on Southwest Airlines), it was more important for me to hang out with the boys and complete home improvement projects. So that's what I did. We enjoyed a low-key, special Christmas day together. Then P and Rob took off to our deer camp to hunt. E and I went a couple times to do the afternoon hunts. I only hunted one time by myself (on. New Years) and harvested a monster buck. I couldn't believe how I was at the right place at the right time!

I am a firm believer in celebrating birthdays more than on your actual birth day. So one day we went to Louisiana so E could celebrate his birthday with friends. Then, the day of his birthday, we met up with one of his school friends at a baseball facility. After hitting and catching, we went to get rolled ice cream and Boba tea (nasiest thing I've ever drank!) then his friend came to our house to play. We enjoyed a meal of E's choice- burgers on the grill, veggies of every kind and chocolate cake. 

In between appointments, batting lessons, meals with friends and everything in between I painted the shower/toilet section of our master bathroom (I'm bound and determined to get that area done so we can actually use it) and painted E's room. My only complaints about this house is that the floors are so loud (thanks to a floating foundation and having rambunctious boys) and how there's very limited natural light. So I painted E's hunter green room a light off white color to add some brightness. I love how it's turning out, even though it's been a longer process due to having to prime it first. I also did a few other minor projects, trying to make improvements as I can.

The best part of my break was my dr appt with my oncologist. After my examination, I was told that I am healed and released from her care!! I didn't realize how monumental that was until someone made a comment about it. It hit me that 2 months ago, at this time, I feared that I had ovarian cancer. Today I am no longer under an oncologist's care. I decided that P and I had to celebrate so we went out to sushi for lunch and then went on a shopping spree so P could use his gift cards. 

I have one more day off and then it's back to work. I love my job so I am looking forward to seeing my students. I am looking forward to the routine that comes with the break being over. But I am thankful for our low-key, productive break. I enjoyed my time with our boys, with Rob and with friends. I loved the memories and the relaxation. OK, maybe not a lot of relaxation but a lot of memories were created. And now I am looking forward to a great 2023 so we can create even more memories!