The bedrooms

The final leg of the tour are the bedrooms and study.  The bedrooms are all on the east side of the house.  The girls will all sleep in one room and have the other as a play room.  The dark red room will be our study, with a second bathroom.  The third bedroom up front will be ours.  

On to the other rooms.

When you walk through the kitchen you enter an area that runs the back of the house and faces out into the back yard.  If you keep walking and do a u-turn, you'll walk into a second living room.  Not sure what the back section will be.  Perhaps some window seats are in order.  

The second living area (temporarily home to the boy's old washer and dryer) will soon be a library/home school room.  

The second picture looking out is from the second living area.  To the right is the kitchen.  On the far wall, behind the shelves, is the stairwell to the basement...which is currently filled with water...which is why they don't build basements in Texas.

You can also see a glimpse of our little cottage out back.  

The one bathroom I am showing you here is the main bathroom.  It is a gut.  It had major bath tub leaks! At the end of the bathroom is a dressing room with a built in vanity.  It's pretty cute, but will have to go and make way for the washer and dryer. The wall behind the door is filled with built in cabinets!  Where were the washer and dryer before, you ask? Why,  in the kitchen next to the stove of course.  

Well, here it it!

As promised, here are some pics of our new home.  The front, is well, the front. We hope to put a silver tin roof on the house and paint it white.  This will more than likely be a phase B, C, D or E.  Anyhow, the house has two front entries.  The one to the right (you can't see it in this picture) takes you into the living area.  The left (or the one you now see in this picture)  takes you into our study.  I'll start by taking you into the living area.  

The first thing I do when I go into the house is light the candles on our little altar.  I then start praying while I work.  This house needs lots of prayers!  :)

The living and dining are one big room with a fireplace.  Fr. knocked a hole through the wall, which will now take you into the kitchen, where there once was a door.  Not sure why they covered it.  Not sure why they did many of the things they did...

Anyhow, then on to the kitchen.  This is one of the rooms requiring most of the work.  We are reconfiguring the kitchen a bit, so the next picture you see will (hopefully) look much different than this.  

More pics later!

But first!

OK, I know that I promised pictures of our new house, but first I have to say that there have been several major events take place around our house that I should mention.  

First, my little Miss Zoe turned three on Elevation  of the Cross!   I can't believe that she is three! I'm sure I don't have to say that it was a low key evening for us-given all that is going on around here as of late.  

We actually celebrated on the day before, since the feast is always a fast.  So, we went to chips and cheese (mexican food) and then came home for ice cream and presents.  Nice, quiet and memorable-just the way I like it.  

Then, Thea came in to my room late one night and in her quiet voice asked simply "If I swallowed my toof, would you need to take me to the Dr. tonight, or would you wait until the morning?"  

Me:  "I wouldn't take you at all."

T.:  "How would I get my toof?"

Me:  "You probably won't see it again."

T.:  "That's sad.  Nite nite Mommy."

Me:  "Goodnight love."

Moments later she came running into my room excited that she had not swallowed her "toof" after all, it had fallen into her bed.  

So, now Thea is looking more different than ever.  She is missing a front tooth and is about to be missing two.  I'm telling you this growing up stuff is bittersweet for me.  

The girls and I have been attending another area Orthodox Church for Liturgy and their co-op on Thursdays.  This has been a real blessing for us all.  They have set aside Thursday's as a day that all children can sing in the choir.  This is huge for Katherine as she has longed to sing in the choir for as long as I can remember.  We've enjoyed worshipping and fellowshipping with people we rarely get to see.  The girls both love the co-op and playing with friends.  Katherine is attending a class where they are working on "Journaling throughout the Liturgical Year", by Barbara Shukin, and then both Katherine and Thea are doing a Science class, where they are doing "Little Labs". 

Now, about those house pictures.  I haven't taken them yet.  I give you my word, I will do some shooting today.  The sun came out this morning (it's been a bit grey around these parts lately) which will make for nicer pictures.  Believe me, I  need all the help I can get in making our little place look, um, better.  

A blessed day to you all!

"Here comes the sun..."

Ok, I'm back.  I often find that when too much is going on and I have too much to think about, I shut down a bit.  I've been thinking about blogging lately, I just can't find the words when I log on.  This tells me I should be praying more and talking less.  

So much has gone on over this past month.  I'll bring you up to date later in the day.  For now I have a date with my girls to make waffles and go to "Build A Bear".   Our first field trip for the school year.  ;)

I'm taking pictures of the house today to show you all.  Fr. Justin gets back this week and the demo begins.  Pray for us!

A blessed week to you all!  

Just call me Alice

Have you ever felt like life was a dream?  Like, things were surreal and moving really fast or really slow, or both?  Have you ever wondered when exactly you fell down the hole, and why some things make no sense what so ever and why other things that should be going along at a nice pace no longer are? 

For the about the last couple of weeks things have gotten a little wacky around here.  Fr. Justin and I got the keys from our renters on the 1st and had a our first real look around our new home.  When I find the right words to describe the house in addition to the ones that I've already used to death, such as:  disgusting, flea bag, roach motel, uninhabitable, I'll describe it to you and maybe share a few pictures.  I'm trying to find more positive words to use these days.

Our young men, however many that were living there, essentially just packed up a couple of their favorite items, and left.  Yep, they just walked right out the door and left us with an entire house full of...stuff.  

So, Fr. and I spent last week moving them out.  (Did I happen to mention that last week was the first week of school for us?)  After the first couple of days of walking around and dreaming about how great the house was going to be, we spent the rest of the week wondering what the heck we had just got ourselves in to.  We spent the time asking ourselves if it is a genetic malfunction when people, such as ourselves, want to buy falling down homes and make them livable again.  (Be kind, dear friends, if you plan to comment on this question).

By the end of the week and several trips to the dump as well as a load to the thrift store, we began to talk about the work involved in making our new home habitable.  We've gone from gutting two bathrooms and a kitchen, new cabinets, new awesome 6 burner stove, moving the water heater, sanding the hardwood floors and painting, down to gutting one bathroom.  The rest is looking better every day. 

Yesterday we had our Labor day picnic here at the church.  It was another wonderful day of fellowship with our own parishoners,  those from surrounding churches, and visitors.  However, I would find myself having a wonderful conversation with someone and then all of a sudden drift into thoughts of the bathroom in our new home.  Should we gut both or just one right now?  Should we move the hot water heater now, or wait until later?  It was like a mosquito that followed me around all day.

Last night Thea woke up after having a nightmare.  I lifted her into bed with us and snuggled up to her.  She started snoring immediately, but I began thinking about flooring, tile, counter top material.  I immediately grabbed my prayer rope and entreated the Lord to save me from the insanity!  

In all seriousness, the house really is, well, could be, nice.  We met with a GC today to get some words of wisdom and perhaps a little help.  Fr. and I were thinking it would take a little over a month to get in.  He said we'd be lucky to get in by Christmas.  Bummer.

We met with a fence guy today to talk about getting the yard fenced in.  His estimate is about what we have to spend on the house.  Double bummer.

Soooo, we'll be spending the next couple of months working on our new little chateau.  It's gonna be a challenge.  We plan to bless the house and hang icons there tomorrow.  We'll need your prayers.   

It's funny though, as overwhelmed as I feel right now with the house and everything else that I'm trying to keep going in one direction, I'm still loving our little house down the way.  It's pretty cute, well, could be, maybe will be, cute...some day.  

I still feel that the house was a blessing.  We prayed, we entreated, we waited and God provided.  We are thankful for our little casa.  Perhaps this house is just what we needed to help us pray a little more.  To cultivate some much needed patience (on my part).  So many opportunities for perfection in this life of ours.  Thanks be to God.

Now, if I can just figure out how to work homeschooling into gutting a bathroom I'll be in business.  

Oh, and most importantly, S Pradznikom!  A joyous feast of the nativity of the Theotokos to you all!    A most blessed day this is!