Welcome to Wordle. This site is really cool. Wordle is a toy for generating "word clouds" from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. And you can tweak your cloud with different color schemes, fonts, and layouts.
For my Wordle, I put in the link to this blog. It took all my posts and produced this Wordle. So, you can see which words I have used the most!! And we all know, I WANT MY NEW HOUSE DONE!!! Funny....nice little breath of fresh air during this stressful, depressing time.
Just wanted to share this with you all. If you make your own Wordle, be sure to share it with me!! Thanks to my friend, Chris, for sharing his fun find!
We went to the house last night and A LOT got done yesterday! They finished up the stairs to the deck, started laying the sod, repaired the driveway, cleaned half the house, installed the bathroom mirrors, installed the shower doors and did some more touch up painting. There are still some things to finish up and we are going back tonight to see what else gets done. I took a few pictures, so enjoy! I'll report back more later tonight.
Sorry I haven't been around in a while. No, I haven't been so busy moving I haven't had time to blog. The truth be known, I am just plain depressed about our whole house situation. So, can I complain a little?
The house is SO close to being done. But, it is NOT. We're SO ready to get out of this apartment. The walls move in a little more each day. And the first day of school for Rachel is looming close. My main goal this whole time was to get in and settled before school starts. As it looks right now, I will have right at two weeks. And that is if everything goes as planned for RIGHT NOW.
I'm depressed because I want everything done and perfect. I know, people have said that building a house is stressful. Check. I've been stressed. And like I have said in a previous post, this whole process has been smooth sailing. That was correct until about the middle of July. Then it seemed everything came to a complete halt. No one was showing up for work. Almost a week went by without anything getting done. Then, this past week, everyone has been working frantic. Working so fast and rushing, that mistakes are being made.
I don't want to be nit picky, but no one would buy a dress with buttons missing or a zipper broken. No one would pay top dollar for a car with parts missing or a shabby paint job. Why should we expect less than perfect on our house? Sometimes it seems like people think we expect too much and should be able to look over imperfections or little mess ups. What do you think? And I do know everything won't be perfect, but are we wrong to expect things to be NEAR perfect when we are spending this much money?
So, where are we know? Well, we extended our lease at our apartment for one more week. So instead of closing this coming Tuesday (7/29), we're hoping to close on Friday (8/1). I've rescheduled the movers for Monday (8/4). Let's pray I don't have to reschedule them AGAIN. We still have two typed pages of things that need to be done. Most are small things, but some are large...like lay sod and finish the landscaping. Grrrrrrrrrr....
Today we participated in Cabot's annual Avenue of Dreams. This is our third year to be a part of the tour of homes. We have enjoyed doing this every year. This year we had hoped to enjoy it just as much. It was fun, but seeing all these nice, new, FINISHED homes just made me want to be in mine all the more. It also showed me that some of the "imperfections" our house has...can be corrected and/or done better than they were.
Oh yeah...and to add to it, the weather man just said that these next two weeks will be our hottest weeks of the year!! Yeah...just the right time to be moving. As I told Jon Paul a few days ago, I think I just need to crawl in a corner, curl up into a ball and cry for two days. So, there you have it. Thanks for letting me throw myself a little pity party. I feel a little better. I will feel much better once I am in our NEW HOME!! I'll try to post some photos and give a more positive update soon.
Thank you Summer Quest. Thank you for giving my daughter, Rachel, a wonderful outlet for her creativity. Thank you for teaching her all about Egypt and Broadway. And lastly, thank you for introducing her to High School Musical. Yes, I thought my little girl could go a few more years before joining that bandwagon. I thought she could enjoy a few more years of princesses. But no, she is now obsessed with the movie. She wants EVERYTHING High School Musical. And for that, I say THANKS A LOT!!! So, enjoy a few photos of her last day at Summer Quest. The first is from her Egypt class. She made a canopic jar, Egyptian paper, a necklace and a sarcophagus. Here is a shot of Rachel and her sarcophagus. Hers was the smallest in the class!
And here is our drama queen in action. Her Broadway class performed a short scene from High School Musical, which included the song, We're All In This Together. Here is a photo of our star:
OK, I'm making another TO DO list. Again, more for me, but if it's here, I'm accountable to you and I save a tree. :-) I have arranged for the movers to be here to move us on July 30th. So, I have 14 days to get everything done and ready to move again! Wish me luck... 1. Call storage building office. Get unit for table and chairs. 2. Call new phone company, order new service plus internet. 3. Call current phone company, cancel service effective 8/7. 4. Call electric company, cancel service effective 8/7. 5. Call gas company, cancel service effective 8/7. 6. Call bank, order checks with new address. 7. Call fence companies, get estimates. (Sexton) 8. Call alarm company, set up for installation. (7/31) 9. Call sound system, set up for installation. (7/31 at 9am) 10. Pick up Rebekah's head board from furniture store. 11. Look for night stand for Rebekah's room. (get after move) 12. Call DirecTV about moving satellite service. 8/5 12-4pm 13. Get boxes out of storage building. 14. Clean/organize toys in girls bedroom. 15. Pack up girls bedroom. 16. Pack up kitchen. 17. Pack up living room and office area. 18. Get estimate for closing costs. 19. Deliver Rachel's school enrollment forms. 20. Secure childcare for moving day (8/4). 21. Pick out stain for front door.(SW's Aged Oak Gel Stain) 22. Pick out stain for deck.(SW's Covered Bridge Semi-Trans.) 23. Get 8 new can light CFL's and take to house. 24. Make master list of things to get done at new house. 25. Pick up Rachel's pictures at Walmart SC. 26. Get name/number of developer for Shadow Creek. 27. Call Overbrook, see if apt. has been rented. Ours til 8/7 28. Get with realtor. 29. Meet with EIFS men about EIFS touch ups. 30. Call developers about street signs. 31. Reschedule home theater set up for 8/5. 32. Reschedule alarm system set up for 8/5. 33. Reschedule movers for 8/4. 34. Reschedule appliance delivery. Set for 7/31 35. Lowe's (light bulbs, box for Jon Paul) 36. Complete change of address forms. 37. Call storage building about move out date. 38. Call new phone company about 7/30.
And here is a view of our house from the end of our cul-de-sac. You can see the garage door here too. Oh, and you can kind of see some of our landscaping that was done last week.
Our front door...is in Memphis. It is supposed to leave Memphis tomorrow and be in Cabot on Tuesday. So, it might be installed either Tuesday or Wednesday. Starting on Wednesday, there should be a flurry of activity around the house.
The following should be done by the end of the week: hardwood floors, tile back splash in the kitchen, tiled shower and bath tub in the master bathroom, deck built out back, yard sodded, rest of electrical done, house cleaned and an estimate for our wood privacy fence. Pray all goes smoothly and gets done as planned.
The following week I have scheduled our blinds to be installed (7/22) and our new appliances to be delivered (7/24). Yes, I said appliances. I GOT MY NEW FRONT LOADING WASHING MACHINE AND DRYER!!! I am so happy and cannot wait to use them. This is my new washer. And this is my new dryer. I also got the 15" pedestals to raise them up. I think they will look great in my green laundry room.
As of now, we are tentatively set to close on the house on 7/29. We will hire movers to help us move on 7/30 and will be out of the apartment by 7/31. We're cutting it close! I just like the idea that we only have about 16 days left in this apartment!
And last, some Rachel news. I'm mainly putting this here so I have it written down somewhere. And her baby book where I would normally write it, is in storage. Her news...three out of four of her six year old molars have broken through her gums!
Oh, and I'm over half the way through listening to book #3 in the Twilight series. I'm still up WAY too late at night listening to it. Now, I just have to be patient and wait for book #4 to come out. It will be nice to read it in our new house!!!
OK...I've been away for a while... I've been deeply reading (actually listening to) the Twilight series books by Stephenie Meyer. They have taken over me, unlike anything I could have imagined. These books are SO good.
And, the fourth in the series comes out August 2nd! I cannot wait. (Like my new countdown on the right?)
So, this will be short and sweet. I must get back to my vampire... er...uhm... I mean... MY BOOK!
Can someone please bring some meals by so my family can eat???
I cannot believe that six years ago today I became a mother. Rachel was born around 8:30 pm after thirteen hours of labor and an emergency c-section (which I'll save all the details for another blog post!). She came into this world screaming and hasn't stopped talking yet! :-)
Today we spent the day as a family. She opened her presents first thing this morning and was so excited to get several High School Musical things and some Tinkerbell/Fairies toys. We went to see the movie Wall-e, which was OK and Rebekah enjoyed it (it was her first big screen movie). After the movie, we went back to Build-A-Bear to get an outfit for their animals. Upon coming home, Rachel found her last gift...a brand new, big bike! She was so excited. For dinner, we went and ate with Granna and Grandpa. Oh yeah, we also watched High School Musical 2.
In honor of the birthday girl...here are six things I love about Rachel.
1. I love that she looks like me. She is the brown hair, brown eyed little girl I always dreamed of having.
2. I love her outgoing spirit. She has never met a stranger and is never afraid to go up and introduce herself in order to make a new friend. She definitely doesn't get this from me.
3. I love her creativity. She loves to put on plays. Her imagination amazes me.
4. I love her eagerness to learn. She is always asking questions, among her favorite, "Why?" And as much as it gets on my nerves, I know this is why she is so smart.
5. I love how her brain is like a little sponge. She takes in everything and forgets nothing. She is so smart. Reading at age four...reading chapter books at age five...what next?
6. I love her nurturing heart. She loves to take care of people. She is very compassionate and wants to make people happy.
Rachel, thank you for making me a mother and thank you for being you. I love you!
