Last night in the Apartment

It's been a really nice place to stay for almost 10 months. The location is perfect, the management is outstanding, and it's a very nice apartment. And the best part is the killer laundry room! But this is the final night, we'll be in our home tomorrow night.

We have our new desks, which are really nice, phone service (although the voice mail still isn't fully functional), and the internet is set up. It's a totally new way for us to work. After three decades, we're hoping we can make the transition to the new digs. Dave set up the closet organizer in the office and it's going to work out really great for us. We're finally going to make full use of this new technology of digital records. We will no longer be tree murderers.

Our kitchen is so spectacular. The oak tree, which is a center of the Arterburn family photos, feels like it's right in the kitchen. The view is amazing. We may even enjoy washing dishes.

We're still experiencing snubbing from the neighbors (clothesline haters) but we're expecting this to pass. It's just not good for their physical or emotional health to carry around that much hate. Edie continues to pray daily for reconciliation, Dave not so much.

Today was Sally's last day. She will be greatly missed. She's been a daily part of our lives for so many years and we'll miss her. But we're pretty sure Fred has plenty planned for her time. Plus they're in the middle of their own kitchen remodel, and we hear the bathrooms are next.

Our plan is to be pretty much settled in the next week. Then Edie can begin working in Jessica's classroom. Our sweet daughter can have one day on the job where her long-time ardent defender will be backing her up and taking orders from her. Well, we'll see how that taking orders works out.

So our house is done and we still love our contractor, who knew? Just ask and we'll tell you what a great job they did. Better yet, just ask and we'll show you.

It's getting closer....

This is the last Tuesday in our apartment. Dave made a great meal, but we ate with little forks. We can hardly wait until we have our plates and flatware. This adventure has lost luster and we're ready to move up the hill.

If we had it to do all over, we would have tossed out all our stuff instead of storing it, and then buy all new stuff. Here we are, two people that milk the last use out of anything, and we're just ready to walk away from everything and buy new stuff. New stuff is so cheap and easier than packing the old stuff away and paying to store it for months. We can barely remember what it is we have in storage. And the stuff we can remember, we're thinking won't even fit in our new home! We are not sure if we've moved beyond stuff, or we're just tired of all this moving.

Now our office, the only constant in our lives, is totally torn up. We've switched our e-mail from DSL (which is not available on the hill) to Comcast (which now has a business level service). Our phone service was moved today and we switched from our long time reliable Custom Communications voice mail. The service is attached to the house, but not completely wired through the house to our new office phones. For now, we're not really certain where our calls are going. And we're not calling to ask, because Edie spent over 3 hours arranging for our home AT&T service to transfer from the apartment to the hill. And she was not her sweet self after all this time on the phone.

But we now have 7 door mats that are perfect for the house and were found by Sarah at Target at an extremely low price. Does it get any better than that?

Casbah Baby Shower

Saturday was Dave's first baby shower. It wasn't a typical baby shower, more like a family gathering. The stated purpose was a baby shower for Ashley & Spencer's baby, Lexi Rose. They're the daughter and SIL of our very good friends, Sabrina & Michael. Ashley's big sister, Jessica, was the hostess and she is the hostess with the mostess. She goes overboard and we are the lucky ones to have all the fun.

Mom likes it

Her two favorite things about the house are the back patio (we all figured that would be the case) and the garage floor (who would have thought?). Now about the garage floor...we hired Premier Garage to install cabinets and finish the floor with a hybrid polymer. It's basically tricked out. Edie thought it was a waste, but now agrees it was the thing to do. The old garage floor was old and stained and looked terrible next to the floor of the new 3rd car garage. We thought it was a guy thing where they just stop, drop their jaw, and carry on about how cool it looks. But Mom was really impressed with it. We'd post a photo, but you just have to see it.

We Have the Key!

it's official, we now have a key to our new home. And it is a magnificent and substantial key!

Tonight we took a bottle of wine and our outdoor chairs up to Casa Naca. We sat on our patio and just enjoyed the scenery and the sound of our fountain. We are in complete agreement that this has turned out far beyond our expectations. We love our house and can hardly wait to make it our home.

We are so pleased and at peace with our choices. Everyone we have worked with has been creative and wonderful. We feel as though we've expanded our family to include so many wonderful people, even if for only a season.

We're feeling like it's our Home

The house is really cleaned up and it felt, for the very first time that all these people (so many trades were working today) were wandering around in our home. We walked around the kitchen and talked about where we were going to put things. That's really odd because in our other homes we just put stuff away. When we moved in to our last home our nephew, Brandon, helped put things away and he was around 13! We never really moved anything after that.

I was so worried because the three light fixtures we purchased off the internet had issues. I am VERY happy to tell you that things are working out fantastically. I called and the most kind and considerate people helped me. If everything works out as promised we should be fine in 2 weeks. They say 1 week, so we double it to manage our expectations.

The garage doors are so awesome. Dave planned and managed this part of the job. They're going to put on another coat of stain, and then add the hardware. Dave likes to call the rings "knockers", his adolescent boy charm.

It looks like a house!

     We were at the house this am and it still looked like a construction zone.  But when we returned this evening it looked like a house.  Yeah!  We're even talking about the allocation of bathroom drawer space...it's really going to happen.

     The light fixtures we've been selecting for months are going up.  The dining room fixture is missing 4 ball screws so we'll need to track down those; one of the glass panels in the Moravian Star broke; and the chain and wire for the Armillary Sphere is too short.  And I'm certain there will be more things to tend to.  But it looks absolutely spectacular.  All this time planning, and dreaming and it's looks so much better than we had ever imagined.

   The big test is this weekend......Mom comes to inspect and critique the new digs.  We're pretty sure she's not going to like it, and that it will be very emotional.  Stay tuned....

Dinner with the Magic Couple

We had a delicious dinner and lovely visit with the Magic Couple.

Our only disappointment was that we didn't play any games.  The big news....we're to become grandparents!  That's right, they're looking to adopt 2 dogs.  Not my favorite  breeds, but we'll learn to love them.

And Kitty Witty looks to be over the worst part of her urinary tract infection.  Good news all around.

Today I bought a pea trap

Do you know what that is? I didn't until today. It's the curly pipe under a sink, I thought it was called a drain, or an elbow. But since I have selected a pedestal sink, the pieces and parts can be seen. The guys thought to tell me that if i wanted something prettier than the general industrial look, I would need to select a pea trap and, get this.....2 compression angle stops with a flange. Sounds pretty intense. It's the shut off knobs for water. And since I have an old style home, I'm looking for cross hatch knobs. Who knew?

So after one call and visits to two plumbing supply places, I know what I want but it must be "special ordered", my least favorite term. And those knobs? Anywhere from $30 to $120 a piece. For pretty sink knobs.

Way too many choices to make.

But I'm making great progress on the wedding album for the Magic Couple!

Sunday update

It was so nice having the Praise Team back this week.  Many of them were in Birkina Fasu, Africa on the mission trip.  They gave a wonderful presentation of their trip with a slide show.  It was all before communion, so it's okay to have the females speak.  It was an amazing and life changing trip for the group.  Greg gave the lesson and used one of those stories that get circulated on the internet.  I don't like those stories, they strike me as manipulative.  But the story did fit the lesson and it was thought provoking.  The lesson was calling us to be a light and encourage others, and consider how our actions and words affect those around us.

I rode my bike to worship and then got on the back for a lunch ride to Walnut Creek.  Dave's bike is in the shop so I was a passenger.  My Dyna is not nearly as comfortable as Dave's Road King when I'm on the back.  I keep expecting a new Road Glide to show up in the new garage.  Another good meal at Hub Caps, a short ride, and then a tour of our home for Donna and Bret.

I like to see how others view the house.  We're so accustomed to everything because we're always up there.  We forget how grand it looks...already.  Not ungrateful, we're just eager to get moved in.

That's about it....I just can't make this interesting.

The Ladies

We have received advice, guidance, and nagging from The Ladies.  That's what we call Yvonne King and Sarah Retsch.  They helped with our former home and now they have helped us with the Casa Naca.  Once we get the right words and or photos to describe things, they make it work.  I don't think anyone got the tile idea until I met with Jackie at Siena Tile.  Then when she recommended volume 2 of our home designing bible, I could explain it to Sarah.  Then Sarah went nuts.

Justin and his crew at Custom Tile were a little overwhelmed when they got the drawings and legend that Yvonne drew up and the brochures and web page print outs.  But now they're totally in to it and love it.  I feel like they're family.  Today Zane finished up what he could do, so we parted with fond words.  Justin will be back to do the last part.

And it looks fabulous!

Review of Landscaping

The landscape designer, Teri, came to the house this afternoon. Of course we waited until the hottest part of the day and the temperature was up to 100! She was very pleased, but did have some comments and suggestions. I forgot that she took photos of the "before". I'm really glad she did because I wasn't even thinking about the landscape 9 months ago. I was moving out of our 3 month stay at Camp Castlewood (my name for the "before" housing situation) and wedding planning. We had forgotten everything we've been through since we met with Teri the first time.

We were reviewing all our photos and we were shocked that it's been almost 2 months since work on the landscaping began. Each day seems as if not much happens, but when we review the photos, we're reminded of everything that's been done. This is also the case on the house. It just seems to creep along. I guess everything just takes so much longer than you think it will. I figure how long it will take if everything goes just right, and of course it rarely does.

Still, they thought they'd be ready for the final today and spend 2 weeks on a punch list. I just think they've padded everything and we'll move in over Labor Day...with everyone running around us for a few more weeks. This should be chaos!

Construction update

The appliances arrived today! They are going to be installed tomorrow. It looks like we will actually move in at the end of the month. At first it seemed so far off, and now it's just around the corner. Matt is just about done with the closet in our bedroom. I can even imagine it with all my clothes and shoes in there. Although I still think Dave should have let me have more shoe racks.

Justin has his crew working on the tile. He's doing an awesome job on the tile in the niches in the entry way. Sarah did an awesome design and the Tierra y Fuego tile is magnificent. There was a little glitch with the design for the bottom shelf, but Justin had a solution that's even better than the original. One call and it all works out. Great crew. Zane is plugging along in Bathroom #3 which is a tile saga. It is the exact look I was hoping for.

The Magic Couple came up to take a look. They hadn't seen it in weeks and were really impressed. Jessica is really sick, so the tour was short. Until the gate....it seems the porta-potties were moved in front of the gate and now it wouldn't close. Wills figured out to put the potties on a sheet of plywood and ski them down the driveway. it worked and we got the gate closed and we all went home.

They told me how to do italics, but I can't seem to get it to work.

What I learned today

I actually got my lazy butt out of bed early enough to go to Sunday school. I do not like to get up that early so it was an effort. It was a new class for me and the lesson was on Jesus' role as a rabbi. I felt really silly, but when they asked for praises and prayer requests I asked for help with the neighborhood situation. Just when I thought this was all going away, it rears it's ugly head again.

Then on to worship today, which was based on Phillipians 4:4-9.....

Rejoice in the Lord always, I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me--put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

Since God orders our footsteps, I know this is meant for me. Since I went all Jesus on my emails to the clothesline haters, I must now be careful to be the light and be really loving and respectful because everyone knows I'm a Christian and will be watching. Sort of why I have never put a fish on my car.....I'm pretty sure my driving is not Christ like....although I'm working on being much better.

Oh, and that I should move on and think about other things. The preacher, Steve, read a snippet from the Randy Pausch book where he summarizes life according to Winnie the Pooh....you can decide to be a Tigger or an Eoyre....and I want to be a Tigger and I think that's what God wants us to be. Steve mentioned how we can pick out one thing about worship that we really dislike and then ignore the other 99 things that were really great. What you choose to think about, dwell on, will affect what happens in your life, walk with God, etc. And if you're dwelling on the bad stuff, what happens to all the good stuff? Don't deny the bad stuff, but enjoy the good stuff that God brings in to your life. This opens up your life to God. You should deal with the problem and then turn your focus on what is going right.

Where's your focus?

Home Construction

We are three weeks away from moving in to our home. This has been a very long process and not always fun. I am so thankful that our marriage is still intact. And it's actually grown to be even better. Bret, our good and long-time friend (those are the only kind that can tell you stuff that's oh so true) has figured out how we did this....because we have a common enemy...clothesline haters!

My First Posting

I'm enjoying Jessica & Wills update, and I see that others enjoy them too, so I think I'll try this out. A blog will make it much easier to post while on vacations and road trips. I found I was missing people on my email list when I sent out tales from the road. So we'll see how this goes...and if I keep it up.