Week- with pictures

This doesn't seem to be a dramatic week.   Monday I was still recovering from the RS Women's Retreat and then branch conference. We did go and buy flooring for the Gassville house that day.

On Saturday, when I was exhausted, I got an email from the person I thought I was rooming with for PLF Live in Scottsdale Oct 9-13-- who said, oh... I'm not sure this will work out.  Can you find someplace else?  AKKK!  After I was sure I'd had a room, I'd given up the two other reservations I'd made.  And I knew places were booked.

The blessing of kindness came back to me.  A friend said she was going and so I emailed her and asked her if she wanted my room reservation.  She did, so we made the hand-off.  I called her to see if she needed a roommate.  She had just that day decided she couldn't go.  So I got the room back... but no roommate.  I asked on a bulletin board for roommates, and got one by Friday.  So all is well... after a bit of stress.

I worked on some spec challenges for the AWAI Bootcamp I'm going to  Oct 14-18th in Delray Beach FL. (I'll be taking a red-eye between the conferences.)  And I've been learning more about product launching. I've also been trying to learn about fulfillment.  This is when you have books but you want someone to store them for you and ship them out when they are sold.  In this case, we also want someone else to be the "book store" to take the orders and the money.

There are many places happy to do this.  They just charge varying amounts of money.  That's why books cost so much. Everyone takes a nibble.  Amazon charges $3.53 in total charges just to take your order and send it on to someone else to ship it.  Do we want simple, cheap, or easy? How much are we willing to pay for easy? Fortunately I collect the information, and someone else makes the decisions.  It's been interesting.

We are just about done with the house. It's turned out cute.  I wanted to show before and after pictures, so here's the before:

  Here is the after-- cleaned and repaired siding, shutters, painted porch, new front windows:

 Bathroom before-- wall paper, splotchy paint, dropped ceiling, offset cabinet.  After has fresh paint, new light fixture, centered cabinet.... still needs crown molding.

The original tub surround was broken, so Tom put tile in.  I like his zig-zag insert.  I thought the grout would be more gray than brown.  oh well.

 

Kitchen before- green paint, dropped ceiling, curled vinyl flooring.DIRTY stove.

 New paint, new floor, cleaned stove, coving over cupboards, new lights... soon to be new window.

 Family room: window a/c, metal rod to support roof, brick fireplace backing and hearth, broken front window, carpet removed, staples left on floor.

Beam reinforced so support could be removed, brickwork removed and patched, walls painted, new window, plank vinyl flooring put down, baseboard.

We may have mentioned that Rebecca's rental had a HUGE oak tree that was dying and needed to be cut down. It had limbs hanging over the house that were becoming brittle. We had professionals chop it down. Then Tom went over with a friend and a log splitter and got to work.  I had him stand by the wood pile today to get a picture.  He said he usually doesn't cut wood in this attire.

 And these are two of our adolescent chicks. I still can't tell if they are male or female.  A friend said the males will disguise themselves-- even to not growing a top comb if there's another rooster around. Eventually they must come out of the closet, I expect.

 Rebecca sent me her old Nook.  I downloaded some of the books I had on the computer onto it.  I hope I can spend some time reading and enjoying.  I want to get the scriptures onto it.

Saturday we had our annual fish fry at the ward. We took chocolate cake and a green bean salad.  Both were well received.  They had leftover fish and chips.  After they gave as much away as they could get people to take, they were going to toss the rest.  I brought it home for the happy hens.

The hen that was nesting but playing musical nests after she'd sat on her eggs for a week or so, finally gave up.  We'd been taking her eggs for a while. She wasn't happy, but neither was I with her for wasting her eggs.

I enjoyed the Women's Broadcast last night.  It focused on making and keeping covenants.  It was very international in flavor and very uplifting.