Winter

Okay, I guess I have more faithful fans than I anticipated. People have started complaining about my lack of posts. Forgive me. Well, since Thanksgiving not too much has happened. Matt installed a more powerful breaker box... and we got it inspected and the cinergy people put in a huge honkin' cable thingy. And that's about all the progress so far.

I make pumpkin rolls and visited our neighbors. The four closest to us anyway. It was nice to meet them. They all seem very kind.

I also have been sick - sore throat and ear infection. The doctor put me on an antibiotic which I believe has made me sick. How fun.

We hope to start making progress on a bedroom in January and the kitchen is our project for February. I am currently in New York - will post more after the first of the year.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

new pictures

Hummer Limo

Okay, So I got to ride in the Hummer Limo on Friday. It was awesome. Very cool. We had like... 18 people inside. There were cool lights all around and like a disco light going. Very fun. It was worth my minimal attempt to sell cookie dough. ha ha. I'll try to get pictures posted tomorrow.

Matt and Tom worked for several hours on Saturday and nearly finished the roof. :-) That is very good. Tom is staying out here until the day after Thanksgiving.

I need to read up on cooking a turkey. Aunt Mern R - do you have any good tips for me? a bag? or not? Seasonings? I'm pretty clueless.

Love you all. Happy Turkey Day!

More pictures

Hi everyone, Here are a few more pictures. One of the still not quite complete bathroom. Some of the leaks last sunday morning. Streams of water. And well, any other pictures I decide to upload. :-) Love you and miss you.

More pictures...

Here goes the chimney. Watch out for this crazy woman!










The whole in the ceiling!












MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!











This is such a "hilljack" picture. ha ha. Matt anchored his rapellling rope to the car. The next picture is of the car lifted off the ground. ha ha. Just kidding. Hope you like the new pictures. I have a few more I'll try to post.

Terrible Tuesday

Well, it is raining! And has been for awhile now. So, we have some more leaks in our house - because the roof isn't finished yet. Oh what fun. Matt worked on rewiring the house to the new circuit breaker box. There isn't much knew news to share. I got lots and lots of Christmas shopping done on Saturday. That was fun. The comment about my pictures were the previous posts. I was in a hurry and didn't have time to make any comment on them. Sorry for the confusion. Have a great day!

Merry Christmas

I am really excited because 94.1 FM has already gone to playing ALL CHRISTMAS MUSIC!! Now, I really have to go Christmas shopping this weekend. Any requests?? ha ha.

My brother is so cool. He likes to get his picture taken by cows. As you can see I got a few more pictures posted. Matt is making good progress on the house. There is an old chimney that runs up through the house and a room upstairs. So, I got to knock it out. It was actually very good therapy. ha ha. Lots of hard work. But, for those of you who have seen that room - it really opens it up. We had a small hitch with the electrical stuff. Apparently before they do an inspection to put in a "bigger box" - you have to have all the wires switched over and the city has to update their part of the electricity. We will see about that project.....

I will be at ACSI - teacher convention in Dayton. I expect to see a new house when I return. ha ha.

THIS IS FOR YOU TONY!!!

My famous brother and the cow.

Thanks to Kristen ... pictures

Attempt #1,453

Life in the lane

Wow! This week has flown by. Matt has been working a lot on the roof lately since it has been beauuuuutiful weather here. 74 and 75 degrees yesterday and today. We bought the molding and stuff to finish off the bathroom. Ummm... so that's all the progress. I feel pressure to get work done so I have news to report in my blog. ha ha. Just kidding. I keep threatening to post new pictures and that threat is still in place. I may try again this weekend or monday. Don't get your hopes up. ha ha.

I work at the nursing home this evening -after I finish teaching. And tomorrow I have class. Busy. Busy. Busy. :-)

Life in the fast lane

Happy Tuesday to you all. I am not sure what is up with my pictures these days. Apparently the signal at school is too low to upload pictures. I am on the 1st floor which is partially underground. So, we do not get strong internet service down here. I may try at Kristen's house. She has high speed. (Kristen, if you are reading this, may I come by and use your computer? hee hee.) Do you computer techies have any suggestions?

Our dryer has not been working right for over a week. Finally, Matt demanded that the people help us out. (in a nice way, of course.) So, hopefully, we will have a dryer today or tomorrow at the latest. Matt got a second coat of paint on the bathroom last night. (And he carried the dryer up from the basement by himself and loaded it in the suv.) Aren't they heavy??

I am sleepy today. I have been working out at the gym for a good 45 minutes every day. I think my body is in shock. ha ha. But, I'm not too sore. So that is good. :-) Thanks for checkin' in. Leave me a comment. Oh BTW, the comments are e-mailed to me so I get it right away. Have a good one.

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hello

Sunday

Hello,

Not much progress this weekend. I tried to post on Friday but it wasn't cooperating. I worked at the nursing home on Friday evening. Matt worked on the bathroom a little more. We had a Primerica meeting to go to on Saturday. Then, we ate a Johnny Rockets - we had a coupon and a gift certificate. Not too much else happened. I went for a jog. Matt vacuumed the car out. We went to a few stores on our way home. We were both kind of lazy in the evening. We made our living quarters more manageable by running a phone cord and setting our computer and printer up. This will help me get my homework done.... maybe.

Not much knew news on the house. But, stay tuned. I have some pictures I'd like to post but it hasn't been cooperating. :-)

Sorry

For all the fans out there - let me offer you an apology. I have not been able to upload the pictures here at school. The signal strength for our wireless web is low today. Maybe that's why. Anyway. Hopefully by this weekend we will have the bathroom painted. That's all the news.

Oh, and happy birthday to everyone in the McCasland and Straight family.... because I will be lax on sending birthday cards/anniversary cards so consider yourself wished a happy birthday. :-)

The progress

Hey all,
There hasn't been much news to report so I haven't had anything to post. Our roof isn't leaking but it sure ain't finished. There is wood up there but no shingles. I am going to try to post pictures tomorrow morning at school. Our bathroom is slowly coming along also. And we are working on getting our box switched over or something. We have to wait on the electric company. AND - our dryer quit..... so tomorrow the guy is coming by. Fun. fun. I am going to stop by an all women gym. I think Kristen and I might join. It's only 10 dollars a month. Thought that might help me to be positive. ha. ha. Check in tomorrow for the pictures.

Friday

Howdy ya'll! Matt and Matt tore off a lot of the shingles last night. And.... of course..... it started to rain. There were large drips in the bedroom (which we aren't using) and the eat in kitchen area. So, they went out and moved the tarp around... it definitely helped. Nothing much else happening here. Pray the rain stays away. I snapped some pix last night and forgot my camera & laptop at home. :-( Maybe soon..... ha ha. We are also trying to get a new box put in for the electric. I guess the one in has low watts or volts or something. That's all the news, sports, and weather. From Cincinnati, Ohio this is Tara McCasland.... signing off. Good night.

Monday AM

Well, I don't have much news to report. We had a set back because of a leak outside. I guess there was water leaking near the meter so Matt worked on that for a few days. Thursday Matt M. and Matt R are going to start working on the roof. I'll try to get some pictures posted of that. :-)

News

Good morning... all you wonderful fans out there in cyberspace. ha ha. Well, this weekend we put the flooring down and matt put up quite a bit of sheet rock. Actually this picture is a tad outdated now. The sheet rock is all up in the bathroom. We bought our paint yesterday - timeless blue (light light) and another color for the trim ( a darker blue). We also bought a pantry thingy from target. That will be very handy right now. Have a great day.

THE PICTURES ARE HERE!!! heh. heh.

House Pix

Sorry

Nope. No pictures yet. I tried to upload them last night but with dial-up it wasn't working very well. So, I dropped them on a cd BUT.... on my way to school I realized that I had forgotten to make the cd compatible. So, .... all you anxious fans will just have to wait. THOUGH - I did shower in my bathroom this morning. :-)

What a marvelous monday! No big progress over the weekend. Matt and I "shoved" the tub in place. He just needs to hook up the pipes or something. We looked at flooring at Home Depot - but didn't see what we want... we'd like the vinyl tiles - a dark blue or marble blue. Any suggestions? We don't want lines because the room ain't perfectly angled and it would probably look yucky. We also think we will paint the walls - a sky blue or something with a hint of blue. This will go with our fishy theme for the bathroom.

My good buddies, Kristen and Dorie sure surprised us this weekend. They invited us over for dinner (like a month ago.) Which I thought was a little strange. But, whatever. They said it was the only time they could get their schedules together. Are they THAT busy?? ha ha. Anyway. When we walked in the door - (I guess the look on my face was priceless) - because I was so confused by the number of people in the room - it took quite a few minutes for it to register. Anyway - we had a little house warming party. All of our friends were extremely generous. So I am very thankful. We are going to go to Wal-mart today and buy a microwave. And I'm finally going to buy my Wet-Swiffer. (I have a coupon for it too. I love coupons.) The gifts aside, I was most thankful for the timely encouragement. It was greatly needed and appreciated. :-)

I will do my best to get at least the bathroom pix posted tonight. So, check in tomorrow. :-)

Hmmmm...

There wasn't much more accomplished yesterday. I think Matt is about ready to put in the new shower/tub. I worked in the living room (bedroom for now) and hauled boxes so we now have some living space. Matt put some brackets on the wall so we could hang our clothes up. Otherwise, not too much else. We decided just to be "safe" we would let off a "bug bomb." I'm not sure if stuff will be covered with anything or not. It said to cover up food and dishes... so I guess everthing else will be okay. I probably won't post anything over the weekend... unless great progress happens. Thanks for checkin' in. :-) Maybe I can get some pictures posted... of my new toilet. ha ha.

Exciting news.....

Praise Jesus! I had a working toilet today!!! Yeah! It is nice.... with my b-day toilet seat!! :-)

Not much news

There wasn't much progress yesterday. Except that our neighbors left us a "nice" note on our door. The noise from Matt working late Monday night woke them up. They informed us that they both leave for work early in the morning... blah blah blah. So, I felt really bad about that. But, that's life. You can't keep everybody happy. We will do something nice to make up for it - since we'll be neighbors for a while.

Monday 26th

Yes, Yesterday was my birthday. Matt gave me a nice wood toilet seat and toilet for my b-day. ha ha. Thanks to all who remembered. :-) Matt worked pretty much all day and night on the bathroom. It is totally destroyed now. His friend Jerry helped him put in new pipes and take out galvinized(sp??) pipes. And they tried to put in the tub but it wouldn't fit in the bathroom. Ooops. So... Matt may be ripping out part of the wall??? It is a one piece tub and that is what we really want. The two piece get gunk along the caulking - in our opinion. I need to learn how to spell all these construction words. So, since the water is turned off - I brushed my teeth and stuff here at school this morning. It is turning into quite an adventure. We are picking out the flooring tonight for the bathroom. It will really help "motivate" and "encourage" me when I see one room finished. :-)

Progress??

Well, I don't know how many people will check back in to this site. Here is the weekend progress. We went to a used appliance store and found some pretty good deals. We bought a fridge, flat top stove, and dryer for about 600 dollars. It will be a start. Not the best but it's what we can afford. So, about 1 hour after we bought them - they delivered them to the house and hauled away the nasty ones in the house. So, that was the good news. There was a little problem with the water valve. So, Matt worked on that Friday evening and Saturday. Saturday evening the water was turned on. There is some gunk in the lines so we'll have to see about that....

Tiffany came out for my birthday weekend. Unfortunately, we didn't know that we would be so busy working and cleaning. The poor thing. ha ha. Friday night, Tiff and I cleaned some more in the house. Tiff wiped down the kitchen cabinets while I cleaned out our fridge. Both were pretty big tasks.

Saturday we had breakfast at IHOP. We weren't that impressed. Except that all the meals are HUGE - TONS of FOOD! Tiff and I split a breakfast entree. Then, we took a break from cleaning and saw Magnificent Desolation at the IMAX. After that, we cleaned and cleaned and cleaned some more in the old house on Foraker - to get it ready to leave. (While Tiff was cleaning the top of the cabinets - her head got on the way of the fan. Ouch. I guess her job was more hazardous than mine.) All while Matt was working over at the house on Church St. Tiff and I took another break in the evening. We got cleaned up and went to hear the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Tiff was quite impressed. There was a serious violinist as a guest and he got a standing ovation... which finally turned into an encore. It was cool.

I guess that's all the updates on the house. Keep checking in. Oh yeah. And pictures will be coming.... but, the cord for my digital camera is in .... um..... one of these boxes.

OUR NEW HOUSE!!!

Well, Matt and I made our first Gigantic purchase on Monday September 19th. And we are now home owners. We were so excited that Monday after we yanked the key out of the realtor's hand (before he changed his mind) - we went over to the house. We walked through it again and then, we just started working like crazy. We ripped out all the nasty carpet. We swept and mopped the downstairs all the way through. I am quite sure that we used a gallon of lemon scented pinesol. :-) That was day 1.

Day 2: We went back over to the house and I cleaned the upstairs rooms - cobwebs, swept, vacuumed, and mopped. Then, I started attacked the bathroom. Yuck! Matt was working in the yard - trimming trees and mowing. Dorie and Kristen showed up and they wiped down walls and cleaned windows. Finally - exhausted, we headed back to the Ghetto.

Day 3: We had 1 truck, 2 suv's, and 3 cars all lined up with the trunks facing the side walk. I should have taken a picture. It was quite humorous. We loaded tons and tons of junk. (Literally - Matt has lots of junk - hee hee.) And we had a nice caravan over to the "new" old house. Rachael & her b-friend, Kevin, Beth, Dorie, Kristen, and us of course all unloaded the stuff until about 9:30. We went to pick up a loveseat and we returned home once again EXHAUSTED!!!

Day 4: That would be today. We hope that finally that water will be turned on today. We plan on doing a little more packing - mostly the kitchen stuff. We desperately need to buy a fridge ASAP for the new pad. Or we could just lose some weight - that'd be good too. Anyway. That is where the story ends as of today. Check back in and we will try to upload some pictures. :-)

My first blog

Well, summer is about half over. The time has flown by. I recently read the book The first days of school by Harry Wong. It is an awesome resource.