Baby Chick Week

This week has been such a QUIET week!  Miranda and family and the Merrill family left early Sunday morning. They really cleaned up a lot of their "footprint," so there was just a little laundry and bed-making to do.  We found an odd sock and the extra cell phone cord.  Anybody's???

Then it was on to new adventures.   I went out twice this week to help Tom with the new house.  I slavishly washed walls, ceilings, and woodwork in two bedrooms. Then I sluggishly started painting the baseboard.  Man, it went SO SLOW!  I couldn't figure it out.  Saturday, I stopped to get more paint.  I tried pre-sanding the woodwork so the paint would get a better purchase.  Finally I decided to try the new Behr paint that has the primer in it. Oh! World of difference. I did the baseboard in the second bedroom in a fraction of the time.  About that point Tom said, "Maybe it's because that old can of paint froze." Hmm.

Tom was busy fixing the board fence, making doors for the crawl holes under the house and doing drywall.  He patched up the kitchen, laundry room, and bathroom very nicely.  And he moved some wiring around.  It's the little unplanned things that sometimes take so much time.  There was a wire that cut across from wall to ceiling that had been hidden by the dropped ceiling.  It took time, but now you can't see where it was.

Ray came and replaced the garden faucet knob on the bath tub with an appropriate faucet.

Tom stripped off the tub surround and we are debating tiling or something else to replace it.  Most of the deconstruction is done.  So hopefully we'll see it looking better and better every time we go out now.

I had my teeth cleaned Monday.  Look Ma, no cavities. Tuesday I went to lunch with a friend. Had a nice visit. Wednesday I worked at the house.  We came home and checked the chicken coop.  Sure enough.  There were some baby chicks.  Eventually we counted 4 of them.  Are you familiar with the book Heather has Two Mommies?  I think the babies think both black hens are their moms.  They'll go into both nests.  One is still sitting on eggs, so there's less room there.

 Thursday I had a meeting with Rebecca Rice about her book. I'm hoping we are on the last of the revisions. Friday I drove to West Plains and had a meeting with the Relief Society Presidency.  I waited to get through with the trek to dive into the Fall Women's conference, but now I feel behind. Saturday Tom and I spend a good part of the day at the house.  We had the missionaries over to dinner in the evening.

I have been doing private lending through JWB, a company that buys and renovates houses in Jacksonville, FL. It's kind of nice. 10% interest paid monthly, and principle returned when the house sells.  While you don't have capital appreciation, you also don't have to worry about tenants, repairs, property taxes and insurance. The house I loaned on sold, so my principle came back.  They have another loan opportunity so I will wire the money back on Monday. This will be my third house.  This is the first time it's been new construction.

My writing projects continue to be slow.  I'm doing the book with Rebecca and learning about product launches and applying for Elance jobs.  It's not that there isn't other things I could be doing.  I just need to manage my time better.  But all is good.

In a few hours Rebecca and her children will come and settle in for the month.