I'm still alive and Baby's still kickin'

Hi Friends!  It's been over two months since I last checked in, but I wanted to stop by and let you know we're still here.  It feels like life might start to slow down a bit, but then... we're having a baby.  So maybe not.

Here are some updates, if you're interested,

Nursing School

School is winding down!  I just have 45 hours of clinical scheduled (no more classes) before I'm done on December 11th!  Done with the LPN program, that is.  I'm not really letting myself feel like I'm "done" because I still need to take boards, then start the RN program in June.  But the break will be much appreciated!  Two weeks ago it felt like school was trying to kill me, but I've slept some sleep since then, and I'm feeling better about life.

I'm continuing to work as an nurse aide at the hospital, scheduled for 1 or 2 12 hour shifts per week, so that is good experience and reminds me of why I'm doing what I'm doing.  I work with some really great nurses.  Also, I super-appreciate how flexible they are with my school schedule.

In other news, God unexpectedly blessed me with two scholarships!  Praise God from Whom all blessings flow!

House

Egress window installation

"How's the basement coming?"  Well kids, it's coming!  We removed another wall, and had an egress window installed.  Tim is steadily working on re-arranging/ re-plumbing the maze of various ducts and pipes that are hanging from the joists.

My family, all in one place!

My whole family came a couple of weekends ago, and Dad and Tim took down two dead trees on the west side of our house, while my mom and sisters (and Sapphire) had a lovely baby shower for me.  We now have a lot more firewood...and sunlight streaming through our windows. :)  Thanks, Dad (and everybody else).

We had our hardwood floors refinished as well.  No, we did not do this ourselves!  We're not that crazy.  We're happy with the results, and preparing for the procedure to be done involved a LOT of cleaning, pitching, and re-arranging, that we're still recovering from.

Tico guarding All The Things we stored on the porch while the floors were refinished

Baby

"How are you feeling?" Pregnant.  Most of the time good, but sometimes baby likes to roll over and kick me in the diaphragm, which is not so pleasant.  Tying my shoes is quite a chore, but one I'm still able to accomplish.  

"Are you ready?" HECK NO, Techno!  Is anyone every really ready to have a baby?  But besides that, I have no bags packed for the hospital, no clothes washed for baby, and the nursery hasn't even been started.  Am I stressed about this?  It depends on the moment, but my stress is exacerbated by innocent questions from well-meaning people.  I can tell myself that everything is going to get done and be ok, but when someone asks me "so do you have the nursery all ready" and then gives me That Look when I say "Nope, we haven't even started it yet..." I tend to become filled with self-doubt and feel like I'm a mess that will never have my act together.  Which I am, but I'm ok with that... most of the time.

"Boy" votes won at the baby shower

As I said, I had an adorable baby shower in early November, and I have another one coming up in a couple of weeks, so we do have some baby essentials... they're just all stacked neatly, still in their packaging, in the dining room.

So many baby things...

Dogs

Toby has officially gone to live with Sapphire, and for the most part, things are going well.  We've been to visit him, and he's come to visit us, and we're all happy to see each other when we do.  I think Jynx misses him the most.  It looks like he's going to spend Christmas Eve with us, so that will be nice!

I think Jynx and Tico have figured out that something's going to be happening, and they're not quite sure how they feel about it.  I hope everyone gets along once Baby shows up...

Thanksgiving

Due to my work schedule, we were unable to travel for Thanksgiving, which was kind of a bummer, since we can't travel for Christmas either.  However, we were blessed to be able to celebrate with close friends, and we're still working through the piles of leftovers. It actually wound up being the most relaxing Thanksgiving weekend I can remember.  Since I was going to be working, I allowed myself to just sit and rest the day before and after my shift.  Thanks to leftovers, cooking was unnecessary.  Plus, I was way behind on sleeping, so I let myself sleep when I wanted to.

Other Happenings

Me & Lisa, after our excursion to The Moving Target

At the end of October we got away for a weekend to Chicagoland for Tim's cousin's wedding.  On the way I got to visit with Lisa, which (as always) was a much-needed, therapeutic laugh-fest.  We had a great time visiting with Tim's family as well, who were kind enough to shower us with baby gifts.

Family time! #BTTJDNMA

When we got home, my cousin Ariel and her husband Jan came to visit for a few days. (Remember when Kelly and I went to visit them in Germany?  Yeah, good times.)  They've moved to the states for now, and were finishing up a Grand Tour of the western part of the nation before settling down to real life and adulting.  Their visit was a lot of fun, and a huge blessing.  

Ariel & Jan (when they lived in Germany-- I forgot to get a picture this time around)

So now we just need to get a Christmas tree, do our Christmas shopping, send Christmas gifts, get ready for a baby (how do you even do that?!), and see when Baby decides to show up.  I'll probably do a fair amount of Christmas baking in there, too.

How are you doing?  Are you ready for what's around the corner?  Two years ago, going to England was just around the corner for me.  Last year, nursing school was just around the corner.  Now, parenthood (aka Permanent Life Change) is peeking at me from the new year.  I can't imagine what I'll be anticipating this time next year, but whatever it is, I'm sure it's God's best for me.

FAQ's: Nursing School and a Basement Update

Hi Kids!  How's it going?  I don't get to talk to you very often, but when I do, there are some questions that keep coming up, so I thought I would address them here.

First up: the basement.

Q: How is the basement coming?

Big Newses, etc.

I'm breathing a big sigh, and starting to relax.  There are lots of things to tell you.  As usual, a list is the way to go.  For your convenience, the big newses are in bold, other newses aren't. 

Semester = Over

I took my last exams today.  My assignments are turned in and graded, the studying is done for a few weeks, and I am exhausted. What are you going to do now, Steph? Probably get sick, read ALL the books, sleep, bake Christmas cookies, etc.

My Thanksgiving dream came true, and it was a smashing success. At least in my book.  Tim's parent's and sister came, I cooked a turkey dinner, the smoke alarm only went off once, everything was delicious, and it was relaxing and not stressful.  I'm still have leftovers in my fridge.  I should probably throw those out, huh? I took pictures and I was going to share recipes but... those pictures are currently in Anchorage.  So, when they come back, I will get busy with that. Also coming up, advice for a successful holiday dinner!  Keep it simple, work ahead, etc.

Emily has started her new job.  She hasn't worked with BTTJ one single day, since he's been in Alaska. How's it going for her?  She's kicking butt, taking names, etc.

Alfonso won Dancing with the Stars.  And I loved it.  And Sadie made it to finals and was fantastic.  And Mark was a crying mess.  And next season is the 10th anniversary, so it could be pretty major.  Thankfully, I have Downton Abbey coming up in a few weeks to hold me over.  I also realized I am free next spring (2016) to do the show, so I should probably get on that.  Step 1: become famous, etc.

Progress on the basement in the last month: zero.  We still have no stairs.  If you have questions or concerns about this, please address them to BTTJ.  I'll be busy coloring in my blanket fort.

I survived working Black Friday, though to be fair, I got the easy shift--- the one where there were not customers.  Pretty much all I did was clean. It was great.  When I went back on Saturday, everything was a disaster again.

Jynx got a haircut, because she majorly needed one.  She looks cute, but I definitely caught her shivering today-- inside the house. Maybe we should turn up the thermostat?

(Cue the obigatory dog pictures!)

Here she is before (the fluff-bucket at the top)

The Basement: Calling in the Professionals

Hi All.  I know you've been on the edge of your seats for the last week, and I apologize.  My excuses are the usual: life, school, work, blah blah blah, but this week I'm throwing in my first round of tests (3 in one week) and a dogburt with an ear infection (don't worry, she's feeling much better now).

We last left off with our basement looking like this.

Actually, that's I lie.  I just realized I never posted that here... Tim put it on Facebook.  This is Tim scooping the last scoop of dirt from our floor in order to level it.  I would like to point out the lack of stairs (don't worry, I let down a ladder for him, he's not cemented down there).  Also worth noting, I think this picture was taking at about 11 on Monday night.  Great way to start the week.

Midwest Basement Systems arrived Tuesday morning to find our basement looking like this.

When they left Tuesday evening, things looked like this:

What they had done was put a trench (kind of looks like a tray or gutter) all along the exterior walls.  They also applied a moisture-proof cover to the walls that ties into the trenching to help with drainage.  The trenching all leads to a sump pump, which will pump water out as needed.

The cement guys weren't available until Thursday (they were contracted by Midwest Basement... we didn't have to line them up ourselves).  It was kind of fun to watch them get the cement into the basement.  

They brought this truck that pumps the cement through a long hose.  As you can see, the hose had to go all the way over our tree-- it was higher than our house!

When they finished, things were looking MUCH better.

Someone asked if we put our hand prints in the concrete.  No, we didn't.  We didn't even thing about it, actually.  I would have hated to mess up that nice shiny surface anyway.

On Friday Midwest basement came back and installed the sump pump and finished things up.  

Right now we still don't have stairs, and have no motivation to build them either.  Now that we're over this hurdle, we'll take our time starting to finish the basement.

The Basement Weeks 6&7: Ugggggh

As I write this I am sitting with a heating pad on my back and wonder if I will ever move again.  As that shirt on the Pinterest said, "My everything hurts."  We skipped our church's annual retreat this weekend to get the basement ready which was a major bummer at first, but... it turned out all right.  Tim and I spent a lot more time together than we would have otherwise, and (here is God at work) we got along all weekend!

I didn't update you last week because, well... life.  You know, classes, work, both of us came down with nasty colds, we had out of town company (which was FANTASTIC-- thanks for coming, guys!) Tim got sent on a business trip at the last minute...so we are down to crunch time.  And we got SO MUCH DONE this weekend.  In fact, here is a summary of what has happened since the last check-in (all of this did not necessarily happen this weekend):

Tim leveled the landing.  It was pretty bad.

See the bubble all the way over there on the left?

 The old cast-iron drain-pipe has been replaced with PVC.

This is a before picture

Jynx dug the trenches for the plumbing.

Tico did the plumbing.

I filled the trenches back in.

Tim is leveling the floor.

I have a couple of loads of rubble to take to the dump between classes tomorrow, and we need to finish leveling the floor (we've done the worst of it).

When I get home from work tomorrow night, we're going to take out the old stairs and set up a ladder for the construction guys to use.  And we will be done... for now.

In just a few days we will have a waterproofed basement with a new slab!  I can hardly believe it...

The Basement: Week 5- The Plan

Holy moly! Suddenly it's 8 pm on Tuesday night and I owe you all a basement update!  So what do I do when I get on the computer to write this post? Get caught in the swirling vortex of Facebook.

Sheesh, Taylor.  Get it together.

I know, I know.

You will all be happy to know that you won't be seeing picture after picture of our torn up, damp, dirty basement tonight.  The reason is simple: things look pretty much the same.  Do not, however, think that this means no progress!  Last week involved a lot of consulting and researching and head scratching and clicking and squinting and grunting and moaning.  And the result?

Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me to present The Plan!

Big Time Timmy Jim put it together (all of that clicking and grunting and head-scratching was him).  Didn't he do a fantastic job?  His talents know no bounds, am I right?

Let's do a tour of this basement, shall we?  Starting in the top left and going clockwise we have the stairs.  These are right off of our side door and currently have a treacherously small landing.  Trying to get around the door too get out the door, especially when you're carrying something big and heavy is like taking your life in your hands on a daily basis.  So we plan to extend the landing for a little more room, which will push the steps out into the basement further.  To ensure proper headspace, we will end up taking out the toilet closet that is off of our breakfast nook.

To the right of the stairs is the new bathroom.  We plan to have a full bath with a shower (but not a bathtub).  In the upper right-hand corner of the bathroom you see a closet.  A rack will go into this closet to house our server and other computery-networky things.  This closet will also provide access to the breaker panel.  Everybody has a rack in their basement bathroom, right?  We're finally going to be normal :)

To the right of the bathroom, you see the kitchenette in the home theater room.  We plan to have a fridge and a microwave and a sink.  We also have plans for a bar-height table where people can sit and eat at a table and still have a good view of whatever is on the screen. This table will be right along the back of a couch on a platform, aka stadium seating.  In front of that and a little lower will be the front row couch (or possible sectional) placed at ideal viewing distance from the screen.  Tim's a professional, so he knows all about optimal viewing angles, etc.  

The room to the left of this will be a bedroom for guests, although Tim and I might move down there in the summer to keep cool. The space the stairs open into (between the bedroom and bathroom) will be our new laundry area, complete with a utility sink that we can fit a dog in!  Dog baths just got so much easier.


Since we're talking about the plan, I wanted to offer a brief word on why.  So often with remodels it is easy to become selfish and worry about keeping up with the Jonses, and I really don't want this to be like that.  We wanted to make better use of the space we had--get rid of stuff and make room for people.  This setup will make it much easier to host people, and much more comfortable for our guests as well.  We hope this will enhance the x-box party nights Tim has with the high school guys from church, and hopefully we can use it to minister to and encourage more people.

Since we don't have kids, I sometimes feel left out when people share Psalm 127:3-5 and talk about how "children are a blessing."  I know that it is true, but I also realize that not having children is a blessing as well.  While we are in this stage of life, we not only want to enjoy it as much as possible, but use our situation for God's glory. We have both felt that God is calling us to "enlarge the place of our tent" (Psalm 54:2) to make room for more people in it, and this basement project is a big part of that.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: our friends have been such a blessing through this process!  I have never had a home project feel so... annointed.  It's hard to explain, but God really is just making it happen, and it is so cool to see!  I am glad He choses to let us participate in His work.

So where do we go from here?  Tim has taken this week off work to get ready for Midwest Basement to come, and things are looking good. Last week I listed what we needed to figure out, and here is a little update:

• How to remove the concrete under the water heater, and leave the water heater in a place where a new slab can be poured underneath.  My definition of the Simple Elegant Solution for this does not involve 2 weeks of cold showers, but we'll see if we can find that solution. Midwest Basement came for a site visit yesterday and said we can just leave the concrete there.  Yay!
• How to remove the concrete under the stairs while still supporting the stairs because, well... we kind of need them. Midwest basement said we DON'T need them... we can take them out and just leave a ladder to the basement for them.  This is really good news as well!
• How to cut out the old cast-iron drain pipe so we can hook in new plumbing.
• Where our new plumbing needs to go (Simple and Elegant is OBVIOUSLY the desired solution on this) As you can see from the plan above, we are a lot closer.  Now we just need to start putting pipes down...
• How to keep from losing our minds.  This is still a real concern.

Thanks for hangin' in there with us and for checking in.  Your pageviews are so encouraging!

The Basement: Week 4- The End of the Brute Force Era

In the past week, we've made a lot of progress getting rid of the old slab.  Let's take a look, shall we?

Here's where we were last week:

And here is where we are currently (no visible progress has been made yet this week).

The Basement: Week 3- Unearthing the Chamber of Secrets

Sorry I'm  a little late on my weekly update.  "Day late and a dollar short" seems to be my MO lately.  I blame my basement...

I left you with a  bit of a teaser last time, so let's start there.

In the large room of our basement was a floor drain that was perpetually backing up.  The concrete we were removing in that area was very very soft--almost like clumpy sand-- because it was so wet.  As we uncovered the pipe leading away from the drain, we found our issue.

The Basement: Week 2- Breaking Up and Moving Out

Hi everybody!  I'm sure you've been waiting all day to hear about progress on our basement, so let's not waste anymore time.

Last week, we got A LOT of stuff out of the basement.  Most of it went into the garage.  A lot of it also ended up in the trash.

LAST WEEK:

THIS WEEK

The Basement: Week 1- Home Theater to Sandbox

Once upon a time, these two crazy kids fell in love and got married.

Remember that?  It was fantastic.

While we were in Michigan celebrating with them, a funny thing happened.  Back home, we got 13 inches of rain in 24 hours.  This conveniently happened after Jynx had (once again) decided to remove the downspout extentions from the house.  The result:

Not fantastic.

Major water in the basement.  Mass chaos and pandemonium.

Real Life with the Taylors: The Fence and Fence Fairies

We are about to begin a major home project (The Basement) which I am hoping to update you about weekly.  Sometimes we see what people post on social media and extrapolate that to the rest of their lives.  For example, when they share about a project that they are doing, we think "Wow... they're so productive!  They have such gumption, such energy, such creativity!  I don't understand how people can get stuff done, because I have had projects sitting around for years waiting to be done/finished..."

Not that I think my weekly posting will induce such thoughts of comparison and inadequacy, but as a preventative measure, I attempt to give you...

PERSPECTIVE

This, my friends, is another episode of Real Life with the Taylors.  In today's episode, we will revisit and incident that happened long ago--- a year and a half ago, to be exact.

Remember that time we went to Honduras right after Christmas?  And we had about 24 hours between when we got home from Michigan and when we left the country? And how in that time we had discovered someone had driven through our fence?  And how we patched it up to get us through until we could replace it?  Yeah...about that.

Real Life with the Taylors: Kitchen Cabinet Update

Hi Kids!  I hope everyone had a good weekend.  I spent mucho time with friends, which is always lovely.  We also made great strides in our kitchen cabinet makeover. In fact, let's take a moment for another episode of Real Life with the Taylor's.

The cabinets got painted months ago, and then in one very tense evening before Bunco, I tried to hang the cabinet doors by myself.  This method is not recommended.  Thankfully, Autumn came to my rescue and we got 'er done.  But they've been sitting without knobs and pulls for about two months now.  Until Sunday night, that is.

Operation Odor Elimination Part 2: The Battle Continues

As I mentioned Monday, we've been having trouble with the dogburts, specifically one.  To make a long story short, our house-- particularly the living room carpet-- stinks.

Monday night we tried using a steam cleaner and a 50/50 combination of water and vinegar.

Here's the thing I'm noticing about vinegar: People seem to think it's the miracle-eco-friendly-works-amazing-solution-to-every-life-problem.

Here's my question:  Vinegar has been around a long time and if it was really all that why would people have bothered making new products?

What I'm trying to say is this: it didn't work.  BUT, in vinegar's defense, we didn't use much mixture, because we only had so much vinegar, so maybe we didn't soak the carpet enough.

Regardless, we're changing our tactic.  Tonight I went to HyVee and came home with this:

4 boxes of baking soda (two for sprinkling, two for setting out ), Febreeze Pet Odor Eliminator carpet freshening powder, Rug Doctor Pet Formula carpet shampoo, and Sensodyne Pro-Namel toothpaste.  I ran out a couple weeks ago(I've been using Tim's normal toothpaste in the meantime) and my teeth have been taking a toll, which is really inhibiting my ability to enjoy leftover Halloween candy.

Real Life with the Taylors: Pet Odors

As you all know by now, we have three dogs.  While we love them, they do come with certain...challenges. 

Recently one of them in particular has been causing trouble.  I think its because (s)he doesn't want to spend the time outside to do what (s)he needs to do out there.  After all,  it's cold outside!  So (s)he thinks it's ok to do it in the living room.  

We beg to differ.

Since (s)he's done it before, and (s)he smells it, (s)he thinks that's his/ her spot and (s)he can always to that.

We're fighting back.  We borrowed a steam cleaner, and we read on The Google that using a 50/50 mixture of water and vinegar eliminates odors.

Tim's doing the heavy lifting tonight.

soggy

Well kids...its time for another episode of Real Life with the Taylors.

Junk piling up in the dining room to get it out of the basement.  Doggie camp always wears these kids out.

In today's episode, we will talk about water in the basement...the awesome welcome home we got after a weekend of weddingness.

checking in

Since Pumpkin Week drug on ad-nauseum, you faithful blog-readers missed out on a few important things!  Like Thanksgiving.  And this little party we threw my parents.

Friday Night

I don't know what a typical Friday night looks like at your house, but ours started out relatively normal.  6 teen-aged guys (The Guys) coming over to play X-Box.

Things really kicked up a notch when Tim executed a pre-meditated project.  And by pre-meditated, I mean he thought about the fact that it could get done.  Not so much the particulars of how it would get done.

Trying New Things: The Last 3 Days

So...it has come to this...

...The last 3 days of my month of new things.  Is it just me, or did this month fly by?  The other day Mindy said "How is it November already?!"  And I said "Because we just skipped right from August to November.  October really didn't happen."

Except it did.  In a major kind of way.  I did LOTS of things in October.  Here are the last 3 days.

Whew!

The past 3 weeks have been CRAZY-NUTSO around these here parts, but we've been having a lot of fun.  Here's a bit of a recap.

This & That

The measure of a good "this & that" post is the number of labels you can legitimately assign to it, right?  Let's see how good I am.

There's lots of stuff going on around here.  The most exciting is a secret project I am working on that I can't wait to finish and show you.  I'll give you a hint: it involves my sewing machine.  I'm super, super excited about it.  But don't get excited... its really not that exciting.  I get excited about little things.