Beauty

The weather has been wonderful and sunny, showing off oak trees that don't know everyone is listening to songs about snow and rushing headlong into Christmas. It is nice to see nature taking her time. 

Thankful..

for these guys.

 

 

And all their craziness.

Demolition

Once you tear up that first piece of carpet you've committed to at least replacing the flooring. Once the walls and ceiling come down, you're all in. So here goes.

We've had some help from Caleb, but Eric has done the bulk of the work.

The brewery is going in the old wet bar area. There is already plumbing there so that is a bonus.

Flooring and the bar are gone.

Ceiling is down so that more supports can be added to take care of the upstairs floors creaking when you walk on them and to counter 40 years of settling.

Paneling is off the wall because paneling is just gross. And to make way for the new windows. Although this is a demolition picture, you can see the hardibacker down on the floor ready for the new travertine (sunroom) and ceramic tile (brewery).

The Before Pictures

One of the main reasons I picked up this blog again was to document the remodeling project we are working on. Since we don't keep traditional photo albums any more, this blog is somewhere I can keep track of our lives and the changes as they happen. I should have it printed someday.

Right now we are turning the unused, back third of our living room into a sunroom and brewery. This process actually started at the end of July.

Space formerly used as elliptical storage.

 

 

This shows the entire 10x20 space, although it's a little hard to see the dark corner where the bar is.

The wet bar we never used for that purpose. It has been an office, storage space, and "catch all". We were going to try to keep the light, but it has since had a run-in with Caleb's mountain bike and I'm not sure if it is salvageable.

Although it seems this is a never-ending project, looking back at these before pictures it is amazing how much work we've gotten done so far.

Dinner For One

Let me preface this post by saying I have been sick, sick, sick for the past eight days. Today I finally felt well enough to cook dinner.

I knew Eric wouldn't be home because he flew out on business this morning. (Although I forgot he was leaving until I saw him with a suitcase before work. I did say I have been sick.) Madeleine is usually home on Thursdays and I can't keep track of Caleb's work schedule.

I left work as soon as possible to start dinner. It wasn't much of a surprise to find Caleb did have to work. I decided to continue on with dinner. Shortly after I got the potatoes in the oven, there was a text from Madeleine saying she was going out to eat with Chris.

I carried on and had a pretty decent dinner for one while enjoying the season 8 finale of Doc Martin. Yum!

Colleges, colleges

You would think the third time around would be a breeze as far as getting a kid into college. Not true.

Caleb has a tad higher ACT score than his sisters. According to the offers we've received it seemed like he was going to get a much better deal on the price, but not so fast. Colleges are very tricky when it comes to what they are offering and how it is worded. For example, Huntsville offered him 100% tuition. Great! However, there is still room and board and FEES! There are fees for everything. Would you like to breath while you are on campus? That will require a $5,000 breathing fee. I may be exaggerating a bit. Just a bit. Also, they list expenses for the semester and scholarships for the year. So at first it seems that the $13,000 scholarship will cover the $11,000 tuition and some books, but then you realize that it is a $13,000 scholarship toward $22,000 tuition. Gee thanks.

We have narrowed his choices down to three. In alphabetical order, not necessarily his preferred order, are Auburn, Huntsville, and Tennessee. You can see in the screen shot above what Auburn expects us to pay per year. I could switch my direct deposit from work over to them and just barely be able to afford it. Incredible!

After all the math has been done, Huntsville is the cheapest option, followed by Tennessee, and then Auburn. Of course he has his heart set on Auburn at this point. Of course he thinks Huntsville is "a tiny school without much accreditation". And we do have to take all that into account. But we are running out of time. He needs to make a decision by December 1 for scholarship deadlines.

To be continued.

Lunch

Black bean and corn salad

                             

Mozzarella and pasta salad

                                           

Last week I decided to make mason jar salads for lunch. I chose a simple recipe that sounded good enough to eat everyday. It made my morning routine so much easier and I didn't have to think about what to have for lunch. Just grab a jar (and bowl and fork) and go. 

This week I made a more difficult recipe, which still only took about 30 minutes to put together. There are so many recipes for these mason jar salads that I could have something different every week. 

Speaking of, there are only 7 more weeks until summer vacation!