I haven't posted any news in over two weeks...I've just been so darn busy! Labor Day weekend was filled with back-to-school shopping. We also had some distant relatives visit that Monday, which was very enjoyable.
Matt really is enjoying all his classes as an 8th-grader at his middle school. He has a 10th-grade honors math class at the neighboring high school three days a week (because they have an A-B schedule). The other two days he has a study hall period back at the middle school. He also has Health and Fitness (P.E.), Life Skills (required class - home ec., sex. ed., etc.), Honors English and History, and Science.
Missy is a junior this year, and continues with Stage Crew during zero hour for the second year in a row. The school decreased the amount of drama classes available, so she is taking Leadership instead, with the same teacher who taught her past drama classes and current Stage Crew class. She also has a second year of German, Honors English, AP American Studies, Human Biology, and Pre-calculus. The homework load is heavy this year...typical for a junior year. She started working at Cinnabon tonight and will be working three or four days a week, mostly evenings the latter half of the week and on the weekends.
In my classroom, we have only 13 students, none in wheelchairs for the first time ever. Five--or about 38%--of our students have some sort of autism spectrum disorder; three of them quite defined. One of our teachers is out on maternity leave, having given birth just a few days before the school year started. Her long-term sub is a mom of three, expecting a fourth. Two years ago, one of the assistants was pregnant. So we've had a pregnant staff member in our classroom three years running. I'm not drinking the water (or talking to the water boy)! I was able to slip right into the swing of things right away. First period is a combination of Technology and Social Skills (keyboarding several days a week in the library, social skills the rest of the week). Second and third periods are math and reading, respectively. Each of us staff is leading a different part of math; mine is measurement. Fourth is vocational training. We gather the recycling products around the building (paper, aluminum cans) and take care of the rags used to erase the white boards (gather dirty ones and do the laundry; fold the clean ones and replace the dirty ones with them). We also shred confidential papers (those particular students either can't read or can't comprehend what little they can). After lunch, I assist two of our higher-functioning students in a Humanities (Language Arts - Social Studies) two-period block.
Tomorrow our class will go to the Spokane Interstate Fair, something I look forward to every year. We don't do rides; just look at exhibits and animals, and enjoy our lunch. We usually see old friends (students and staff) from other special ed classrooms in the district.
Matt has some sort of injury or inflammation in his right foot. It started Labor Day weekend, and he ended up missing school last Thursday because he couldn't walk on it. I took him to the doctor and he couldn't find anything wrong with it. It still wasn't better on Monday, so I took him in again. His "knuckle" on his big toe was pretty swollen. They took X-rays of both feet for comparison; no fractures. They also ran blood tests to check for arthritis and synovitis (inflammation of the membrane that lines a joint). The results came back negative. He was given crutches to use if necessary, and it seems to be slowly healing.
His bowling league started up last Saturday, and he enjoyed hanging out with his old gang from elementary school all day.
Norm's been putting in his second week of overtime in a row. He also worked a full day Saturday. So not much has been getting done on the house, and I keep telling him not to worry about it; he needs his rest. He anxious to get things done before the cold sets in. He's just about got all the flooring done, so we can use the front door again. I got a new camera, but I haven't taken any pictures yet...I'll try to do so this weekend and get them posted here.
Both units in the duplex next door are filled: a couple on the south side and a mother with children on the north. Everyone seems quiet, so far, and friendly, so we are grateful!
Please keep my mom and dad in your thoughts and prayers. My mom's health has not been so great lately, and I know it is tough for my dad.
My sister just finished her classes and received her LPN certificate! I'm so proud of her! She just needs to take her state exam to be an official nurse. She'll continue on in school towards her R.N. degree.
That's all I can think of. We've been busy!
Showing posts with label house and yard projects. Show all posts
Showing posts with label house and yard projects. Show all posts
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Monday, August 6, 2007
The Porch
On Saturday, Norm's brother Mike and nephew David came over and the guys worked for seven hours on the front porch. How I wish I had my camera working! :-( I had actually asked to borrow my sister's and then she and I both forgot about it...anyway, the guys tore off all three layers of the old porch flooring and frame, 80+ years' worth. The house was build 1907/8 and the porch was not original to the house; it appeared sometime before 1920. Every time the porch flooring rotted during the last century, the current owner would throw another layer of good wood on top of it! We had three layers of rotten wood flooring, and the pillars holding up the porch roof were rotting, too (Norm had replaced two of the worst pillars over a year ago)!
Besides tearing out the old porch flooring and joists, the guys replaced the third pillar, and added more cinder blocks to the crawl space beneath the porch in order to support the new joints, which they nailed in place. The joists are made out of treated wood, so no worries about rotting wood anytime soon! They also cut out some of the plywood that will be used for the new floor, although it needs to be primed and sealed with Kilz before being bolted into place. It's hard to believe all this took seven hours, but there really was a lot of hard hot work to do! We are so grateful for Mike and David's help!
Sunday, Norm and I spent several hours cleaning up the mess. All the old porch wood was piled up on a tarp in the middle of our lawn. He sawed up all the old wood into approximately 3-foot lengths and I hauled them over and filled up the crawl space under the porch with them. That way, we don't have to slowly fill our garbage can or rent a dumpster to get rid of the debris. It'll slowly finish rotting into the soil until the next century. Norm's going to seal off the entire crawl space so we don't get any cats or skunks under there like we have occasionally had in the past.
So there's plenty more work to do, and right now the front door's not usable as an entrance or exit; but I am dreaming of the day when I can sit on my front porch in a comfortable Adirondack chair, looking at my new beds of flowers and enjoying listening to the wind chimes while I read a good book!
Besides tearing out the old porch flooring and joists, the guys replaced the third pillar, and added more cinder blocks to the crawl space beneath the porch in order to support the new joints, which they nailed in place. The joists are made out of treated wood, so no worries about rotting wood anytime soon! They also cut out some of the plywood that will be used for the new floor, although it needs to be primed and sealed with Kilz before being bolted into place. It's hard to believe all this took seven hours, but there really was a lot of hard hot work to do! We are so grateful for Mike and David's help!
Sunday, Norm and I spent several hours cleaning up the mess. All the old porch wood was piled up on a tarp in the middle of our lawn. He sawed up all the old wood into approximately 3-foot lengths and I hauled them over and filled up the crawl space under the porch with them. That way, we don't have to slowly fill our garbage can or rent a dumpster to get rid of the debris. It'll slowly finish rotting into the soil until the next century. Norm's going to seal off the entire crawl space so we don't get any cats or skunks under there like we have occasionally had in the past.
So there's plenty more work to do, and right now the front door's not usable as an entrance or exit; but I am dreaming of the day when I can sit on my front porch in a comfortable Adirondack chair, looking at my new beds of flowers and enjoying listening to the wind chimes while I read a good book!
Friday, August 3, 2007
This Week's Update on the House Project
Norm has been working very hard these last few weeks on the prep work for the house painting project. He tries to put in at least an hour every day between breakfast and getting ready for work, and as long as it's not too hot on the weekends, he puts in quite a few hours those days as well.
He spent a long time prepping the front window next to the front door, because that's the main window the public sees as well as visitors to the front door. It had a lot of little nail holes in the frame back from when this place was a rental and people would tack up plastic over the windows in the fall to keep out the cold (the previous owner seems to have been a bit of a slumlord). Norm filled in the holes with wood putty and sanded it down, then applied several coats of Kilz primer and sealer to seal the wood and cover up the old rose trim color. He then put several coats of the off-white trim and dark red counter trim on the frame. He also has cleaned and prepped the aluminum storm window and primed that frame with Kilz. He needs to finish painting the frame and after the porch has been rebuilt, he'll put the storm window back in place. He only has a couple more windows to do; most were done last year or the previous fall when he first started working on this project.
Norm has also applied a coat of Kilz to the entire first floor of the south side of the house (including the aluminum screen door), since it receives so much direct sun, as a way to preserve the paint he'll add later. He also has put Kilz on all the other sides of the house from the ground up about 3 feet, where the water has splashed off the roof or from the sprinklers and has taken the old paint and primer off the siding.
Another thing he's done is borrowed a Dremmel tool and clipped off all the roofing nails that protrude through the underside of the eaves so that it will be easier to scrape and paint them. Speaking of scraping, my very small part in all this has been to begin scraping the porch ceiling using a scraping pad attached to a drill. It's a lot harder than it sounds, because the steps on the ladder are either too high or two low for me to reach the ceiling just right. So I either have the power tool very close to my face or have to reach and operate it with less control and more discomfort to the shoulder. It takes me about an hour to scrape a 2 x 5 foot area. And by the time an hour's up, I'm hot, sweaty, and covered with tiny flakes of paint...more than ready for a shower!
Tomorrow my brother-in-law and nephew will be coming over to rebuilt the front porch. It will be so nice to have a safe, nice-looking porch for really the first time since we've lived here (10 1/2 years)!
He spent a long time prepping the front window next to the front door, because that's the main window the public sees as well as visitors to the front door. It had a lot of little nail holes in the frame back from when this place was a rental and people would tack up plastic over the windows in the fall to keep out the cold (the previous owner seems to have been a bit of a slumlord). Norm filled in the holes with wood putty and sanded it down, then applied several coats of Kilz primer and sealer to seal the wood and cover up the old rose trim color. He then put several coats of the off-white trim and dark red counter trim on the frame. He also has cleaned and prepped the aluminum storm window and primed that frame with Kilz. He needs to finish painting the frame and after the porch has been rebuilt, he'll put the storm window back in place. He only has a couple more windows to do; most were done last year or the previous fall when he first started working on this project.
Norm has also applied a coat of Kilz to the entire first floor of the south side of the house (including the aluminum screen door), since it receives so much direct sun, as a way to preserve the paint he'll add later. He also has put Kilz on all the other sides of the house from the ground up about 3 feet, where the water has splashed off the roof or from the sprinklers and has taken the old paint and primer off the siding.
Another thing he's done is borrowed a Dremmel tool and clipped off all the roofing nails that protrude through the underside of the eaves so that it will be easier to scrape and paint them. Speaking of scraping, my very small part in all this has been to begin scraping the porch ceiling using a scraping pad attached to a drill. It's a lot harder than it sounds, because the steps on the ladder are either too high or two low for me to reach the ceiling just right. So I either have the power tool very close to my face or have to reach and operate it with less control and more discomfort to the shoulder. It takes me about an hour to scrape a 2 x 5 foot area. And by the time an hour's up, I'm hot, sweaty, and covered with tiny flakes of paint...more than ready for a shower!
Tomorrow my brother-in-law and nephew will be coming over to rebuilt the front porch. It will be so nice to have a safe, nice-looking porch for really the first time since we've lived here (10 1/2 years)!
Saturday, July 7, 2007
Projects: Wall, Porch, House Painting
I'm very excited because next weekend, Norm, his brother, and his nephew will begin rebuilding our front porch! This weekend, he's finishing up the retaining wall he built around the back end of the shed next to the driveway of the duplex that was recently built. This is to prevent a vehicle from running into our shed and storage area, as the driveway is pretty narrow and about four feet above our property level. We also purchased the rest of the paint we'll need for the house. Right now my digital camera is unusable; I'm hoping to get a replacement next week so that I can document the work as it is done and post it here for you all to see. It's a tremendous amount a work, and I know that Norm and the others will do a quality job!
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