bedfordlandings

I often hear music in my head.  Tunes stick with me.  Jack and I are singing with the Lakeside Singers (concert is June 7 & 8 if you want tickets!) and we rehearse on Tuesdays.  This year we are singing a great variety of  music including show tunes, Beach Boys, Abba, patriotic and more.  After rehearsal, I may have West Side Story (“I want to live in America”) or Wizard of Oz (“Ding Dong the Witch is Dead”) in my head.  On Sundays after church, I get the anthems that the choir has sung stuck in my head.  Bill Weisser calls these “ear wigs.”  Well as we have been working on the house, I have movie “ear wigs” too.  OK, so I am a bit (well maybe more than a bit) OCD, but now that the chorus of the 17 year cicadas is growing louder, I hear myself saying a line from “Silence of the Lambs” Remember that scene? In this clip, Lectern touchs on an unpleasant memory for Clarice, then later haunts her with the phrase “Can you hear them Clarice?” 

Anyway, The singing cicadas make me think, “Can you hear them?” We are finding their little bodies laying around.  I haven’t tried to fry them yet but I understand they are a delicacy in some countries.

17 year cicadas have been underground for 17 years until now!

It was so wet this week and still raining today.  Muck boots are all that will do when it’s like that.  The mud is like quick sand!

And we have to stabilize the ladder with contraptions like this. Don’t try this at home!

Balancing uneven ground to stabilize the ladder

 Despite the mud, yesterday and the day before, I was on ambulance duty in case Jack had a chain saw accident as he reduced the height of the desk posts to accommodate the deck joists.  But it reminded me of the scene in Christmas Vacation where Clark Griswald saws off the newel post.  As each post top falls, I hear in my head, “fixed the newel post!”

Each time Jack dons his protective gear and takes the chain saw up the ladder, the portion that is sawed off, spins and falls just like in the movie!  Sorta funny but highly dangerous!  Again, don’t try this at home!  We were lucky. No injuries and all the posts are cut!

Note the rope tied to this post going up the center of the picture. A skilled photographer with a rope in one hand and a camera in the other took this!

ok- so I have a perverted sense of mindfulness and entertain myself in my head.  Don’t you?

As well, this week, we are signing contracts on all of those estimates I have been getting.  We contracted with New Design Stone (Sandy Shelton) for the chimney and enlisted Elegant Designs by Sheryl for the kitchen.  Tomorrow I am visiting Prosource in Roanoke to relook at the flooring I thought I wanted 8 months ago and today I am hoping to visit with the propane people and sign a contact with them for running gas for fireplaces in the rooms.  I had to look high and low through my old photo albums to find a picture of the mantle I had refinished several years ago.  It is in storage and now Jack needs a measurement to frame the wall for it.  I finally found its before and after on Facebook!

I found this old mantle for $50 and refinished it.

Here is the AFTER photo. It will be used in the room called the Fourth room which is white decor.

This weekend, we are headed to the Indianapolis 500.  We will meet Jack’s two brothers there.  His younger brother, George writes a popular blog with all of the facts you would ever want to know about the race.   Maybe when we get home, it will stop raining and I will have the earwig “Back home in Indiana”  (sung by Jim Nabors) in my head!

Mainly this week, we have been busy getting 3 estimates for each big job coming up: roofing, siding, and stonework.  Also, Jack has erected a mess out back that he says someday will be a deck.

Decking framework

And he is ready to cut holes through our beautiful guest room ceilings to put in vent pipes.

The Heating and Air Conditioning crew from Cundiff has been in running HVAC on all floors.

Shawn came again this week to help finish framing in the Master Suite and we got garage doors.

I started staining the front door and I like it although this photo doesn’t do it justice.  It will all some together soon.

I am not a big bird fan and we have had several birds try to nest!  We gotta get those windows! (see last week’s blog re: The Window Debacle)

Bird droppings in photo. Ick! We had baby Carolina wrens and now we have red head barn swallows.

This weekend is Mother’s Day.  Friday, I got a bit of nostalgia about my Mom on Facebook and thought I would just share it here too.  Many of you know Mom is in assisted living in Roanoke, VA.  She’s a trooper but in remembering Mom’s Day, I just had these thoughts.

Even though she doesn’t know my name
I can see it in her eyes that she loves me.

For many years, I had to think up special gifts to show my love. But now gifts mean little. She even has difficulty even figuring out how to open a package.

She is still alive and for that I am thankful. She doesn’t know it’s Mothers Day. She doesn’t know that March 22 was had 83rd birthday or that March 7th was my birthday. She doesn’t know that she has grand children and great grand children who are making an effort to reach out to her this Mother’s Day.

She can’t tell you who the President of the United States is or the name of her daddy. But she still can show emotions; she has a twinkle in her eye and a dance in her step. She calls me ( and about anyone else) “baby.”

She taught me to be proactive and organized. She taught me to complete tasks and be honest. Not all aspects were positive. She held grudges, she angered easily, and she had some biases. But it is even through those examples that I learned how to form my own values.

One thing I do know is she would fight tooth and nail for the rights of her children and work really hard to sustain important relationships. I miss my mom and who she was. I honor her for facing Alzheimer’s with honor and dignity and only hope that someday I can look in the face of Cancer like my Dad did… with strength; or look into the face of Alzheimer’s with the ability to continue to step one foot in front of the other and still smile and call strangers “baby.”

Happy Mother’s Day to all moms. xoxox

This week, we have made some great progress and have lost a little bit of ground at the same time.
This is what has been accomplished
1. Installed exterior doors and windows (except for 7 windows. Why? The wrong size was sent. Now we have 7 windows that we can sell for a great price!
Here is my ad: Please consider this bargain!

They are Anderson A 400 series double hung , low-E glass and Smart Sun coating.  Two are tempered.  They are tilt wash. The sell for $312 each and we will sell them for $212 each if you can use them.

Clear pine interior jamb
Standard lock in stone (color)
Insect screens
Exterior color- white.

RO=3’ 2 1/8” W x 4.4’7/8” H
Unit size: 3’1 5/8” W x 4’4 7/8”H

2. Poured a patio where we will eventually have a hot tub for the guests.

3. Poured 20 footers for porch and deck posts.
4. Tyvec-wrapped the house
5. Completed more interior walls. I love this one of my sunroom that is part of the Master (Owner’s suite).

6. Love, loved, loved having Shawn (my son) here for a day to pitch in and help build walls.

Below is the only timber post in the house with 4 knee braces. We call it the TREE!

7. Chimney building crew worked on framing in chimney

8. Met with various estimators for
a. Concrete vs blacktop driveway
b. Wiring for a future generator
c. HVAC system
d. Roofing and siding estimates
e. Yard grading
f. Central Vac
g. Wrought iron
9. Both of us had out teeth cleaned!
10. Both of us went to Lakeside Singers practice. Our concert is June 7-8!

I am juggling work with Va Tech and contractor estimates. Jack is working every day on site!  What a guy!