Haunted Mansion?

For anyone that knows John at all, you know he is a bit obsessed with fixer-upper houses and the potential to make them beautiful again (or for the first time)! We have looked at the most interesting houses over the years - one about 20 years ago that used to be a church. It had no running water or bathroom even, so quite a bit of remodeling would have been involved. Of course, we were very poor newlyweds at the time so did not pick up that little gem. On Saturday I found a posting for a historic house for sale and we decided to check it out. We went with the Hartman's. It was getting dark and it was starting to rain. Ok, now you have to make the haunted house sound effects... oooooh. It was a fun way to spend our evening. Afterwards we showed the Hartman's our finished Lacey house (as they had seen the way-before Lacey house) and then headed to Mama Mia's for dinner.

Da Shoes

Audrey had gone up to spend the night with Grandma, so John and I had the evening to ourselves. I had a couple errands to run, so we headed over to Shopko. While in the store I tried on fun shoes, we looked at books, looked at curtains for the living room and then I started looking at the clearance area and John was looking at posters. Earlier I had stated that I wanted to find a muffin tin for the upcoming RS craft project, so I say to him, "I'm going over to the di-shes section. Will you meet me there?" He answered sure and I went over. By the way, the 24-count muffin tin was not available at Shopko. After awhile, I started looking for John. I'm trying to do the Carter-whistle (a unique tune that helps us find each other in big crowds) and still did not find John. It does not help that I am a soft-airy-whistler. I walk back and forth across the section, start heading back to the poster area and finally find John. I asked him where he was. You have to say this how he heard it... in "Da Shoes" section. Go ahead, say it with the accent on the second syllable and Da Shoes sounds like Di-Shes. Of course he tells me I need to enunciate better and I tell him he needs to clean out his ears. And then we leave and head out for dinner : )

Kitty, don't fall!

I had the day off and was working in my office. Our cat likes to be "near" me, sometimes sitting on my paperwork or walking in front of my monitor. But today she was sleeping on one of my scrapbook craft drawers. She looks like she was about to fall off! And then I petted her and she s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d. Good thing I was ready to catch her.

Lacey - Original Owners!

We got the most awesome phone call this week from the grand-daughter of the original owners of our Lacey house. She wondered if she could come tour the house. Enthusiastic yes!! So we set up an appointment for Sunday afternoon. We met there and she had brought her husband, her friend and her cousin (who also wanted to see how the house had changed over the years). What a delightfully fun experience. They were so gracious and so nice. They even brought pictures! This is the picture of the original owners of the home. His brother actually came up from San Francisco and built the home in 1911.This picture shows the dad of the lady we met on Sunday and the mother of the cousin. The porch in the background is the Lacey porch! And the next pictures are of the two girls we met on Sunday standing in front of the Lacey porch when they were visiting grandma's house. Grandpa had worked for the railroad and the had actually rented out the bedrooms on the 2nd floor to earn extra money. So the girls don't remember much about the upstairs except the front bedroom, which was grandpa's room. The bathroom upstairs was not a bathroom, but just a storage room. On the main floor they showed us where grandpa would sit in the front parlour and listen to his radio in the evenings. And the bedroom on the main level was grandma's bedroom. The bathroom on the main floor used to have a claw foot tub. Wish that would have been there when we bought it. The house currently sits on a full lot and 1/2, but used to take up another 2.5 lots. They used to have a chicken coop on the property also. It was fun to get to visit with them and to finally find the history of this home.

Fair

We headed to the fair right after we got home from school/work on Friday. It is an annual event to check out the crafts, photos, animals and fair food. I love second guessing the judges, especially in the craft section. For instance, why did every scrapbook page but one get a blue ribbon. C'mon!! The whole point of judging is to pick the best, right? Not to give everyone the best... Oh well. Audrey likes checking out the professional artists and has a specific artist that she tracks each year. Then we headed over to pick out our food. Audrey & John went for Longhorn BBQ while I tried a new place that served salmon. Pretty tasty, but the best was the coleslaw side (just fresh shredded cabbage but with a scoop of sauce on the top made with pineapple with a cream sauce, perhaps sour cream or mayo or ?). We headed over to the eating area to find a place to sit down. The only tables with spaces were "taken". But then this delightful family waved us over and asked us to sit near them. Bless them!! They were fun to get to know and we really did appreciate being able to set our food down and enjoy our meal. After we finished we got up to throw away our paper plates and saw the Thompson's. We sat by them until they were done eating and then we spent the rest of the evening playing with them. First we headed over to the Tractor Pull!! I'm telling you, if someone said Sam you'll be at the Tractor Pull tonight I would have disagreed, but I had an awesome time!! It really was fun! We watched all the weight classes with the 4x4 trucks and then there was an intermission. So we headed over to the main building. We always have to stop by Debbie's soy candle booth and buy something : ) And I bought one of those funky wrinkly shirts too. Then we went to the frozen banana booth to get my dessert fix. I should have been PAID for all the people that asked me where I got my frozen banana. I was waiting for everyone to get done looking and eating my dessert about 10 feet from the food booth when this adorable 2 or 3 year old just fixated on my banana, never taking her eyes off it. Even after she was well past me. Alas, she did not get one, though her parents did stop in front of the booth. I waited and even hoped for her, but then they moved on. Sorry honey! Then we all headed back to the truck pull as they had all the tricked out vehicles next. You know, the ones where you have to plug your ears because they are so noisy? The ones with up to 2,500 horsepower.

Book Club (Review)

I'm totally plagiarizing. I guess if I give credit, then it is ok? So I really liked Mollie's spin on the Book Club evening. Here is what she had to say: "We had a great book club discussion on Sam Carter's patio, complete with delicious treats, and Audrey's blankets to snuggle into when the air got chilled." Doesn't that sound lovely? I think we'll go with that rendition!!

We were supposed to all share our favorite summer read. Mine was the "Home to Harmony" series by Philip Gulley. It tells the story about a Quaker minister in a small town and all the goof-ball things he has to deal with. It reminds me of the Mitford series by Jan Karon with a twist of Garrison Keillor's storytelling thrown in. He is very funny. I've read 6 of the books so far and find myself reading passages aloud to either John or Audrey, whomever is closer at the time. I would highly recommend this series if you want a good, clean laugh.

Listed the House

I don't think we were cut out for the For-Sale-By-Owner stuff. Even though I think our flyers were top notch. And our yard sign was pretty nice. But the only people that called us were real estate agents trying to get our business. We listed with an agent on Monday 9/8 and "then" the calls actually started happening. I actually got a phone call from someone in Tennessee who had seen my ad on Craigs List. She called right when everyone from the Book Club began arriving and ended up talking to me for about 15 minutes. She then proceeded to call my real estate agent, so seemed kind of serious. We've not heard anything since, but it did shock me that someone actually called off a free ad on Craig's list...