GROAN July 19, 2007

Ever had nightmares about paint??????? I have!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *smile*

As many of you know, this spring Granny J sold her house and moved in with us. We thought we’d live there for a little time while looking for a new house to move into, all of us, together. Wellllllllllllllllllllll, as the paperwork to her other house was taking longer and longer we couldn’t figure out what the deal was. Bother. To make a long story short, a new thing I’m trying, heh heh…..she can’t sell her house for another year or so due to some kind of complicated detail involving Grandpa’s death. Ho hum. So, what could we do???? No one wanted to rent a house that was “tied up in court” and we couldn’t keep living in our house while hers stayed empty for a year or longer.

You guessed it…..We packed up our house and hers and moved into her house!!!!!!!!!! Wow, talk about a surprise and a not in the plans kind of deal. I was rather in shock. The house isn’t very big and we have so much stuff!!!!!!! We quickly learned that getting rid of stuff was a great idea and it began to feel good going through stuff and throwing it out, giving it away and organizing everything down to the smallest detail. One good thing about living in a small house, it certainly sharpens your organizing skills!!!!!!!!! YAY for us!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *smile*

Well, as we prepared to leave the old house we received instructions from the owner. We were to leave the house just as we found it. And this is where the paint comes in…..if any of you have been to our old house you’ll remember that every room in the house was a different color. Not horrible, very nice and quite tasteful if you ask me but still, that’s a lot of paint. It was time to call in the cavalry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mellie and the gals had so kindly offered to come help us paint whenever we needed that done so I called her first thing. It was set….we blocked off a few days to get the painting done and soon the time came. OH BOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It’s no easy job painting an entire 2600 square foot house!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It wasn’t long before more reinforcements had to be called and thankfully we have so many wonderful, giving and gracious friends that put on the paint uniforms, picked up those rollers and joined the ranks of “Paint that House Inc.”!!!!!!!!!! It was GREAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now there are some pretty funny and wild stories that I don’t have time to go into, but take my word for it, it was not an easy or very fun job. Ask Laura Shaffer or Stephen Muldrow……ever just collapse on the groud and cry with your friends??? Yeah, we were at that point!!!!!!!!!!!! In two of the upstairs bed rooms the walls began to peel. Seriously, we were able to peel the entire room down to the very first layer of paint on those walls. The stuff we peeled was a thick sheet of rubbery paint. It was so awful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We later found out that the reason was because someone, many moons before us had not done the job right and put water base paint on top of oil base paint without properly priming it. Our faithful and amazing painting crew (99% dear Mellie and Laura Shaffer) had to wash the walls down, sand them, prime them, and then paint them all over again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BOTHERATION TIMES INFINITY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was horrible and they were literal life savers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, it’s all over and we are settled into the new house. It’s very cozy and I am beginning to love my tiny little blue, aqua and turquoise, feathers and fuzzy pillows, pictures and plants bedroom!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *smile* God is good, ALL THE TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here are some pictures of our painting week and you can see the guys peeling the wall off down there somewhere!!!!!!!!! *smile*