Keeping up with Fred-n-Sara

Fred’s been bugging me about posting here, since the last few posts have been from him.
But I have a good reason for not posting!
Two weeks ago I started a long term substitute job teaching kindergarten. The teacher I am taking over adopted a baby. As of right now, I’ve got the position until the end of this school year. I’m hoping that this will lead to a permanent position next year. Keep your fingers crossed for me!
As for now, I love the students in this class. I’m really having a great time, it’s like having my own classroom again.

In other news…

Fred (and Andy and Fred’s Dad) worked their behinds off this past week to remove all the furniture in the bedrooms and office, pull up the old carpet in the house (throughout the 3 bedrooms and hall way) and seal the floors with Kilz (just like in the living room). Then after the carpet was laid, they put all the furniture back (and cleaned up so I wouldn’t have to!).
** It looks great, I’ll post pics soon!

Fred and I repainted our bedroom, it’s now a nice robin’s egg blue!

I started another Grad class, so that’s 2 classes and the tutoring I’m doing one hour a week to keep me busy now.

Oh yeah, and the big news:

Fred finished his Graduate work! Soon he’ll have his Master’s of Education degree from the University of Phoenix Online in Curriculum and Instruction. He’s just waiting on his grade for his final class now. I’m so proud of him! He’s really worked hard for the last 2 years (almost) to get this done, even though he didn’t want to. I’ll post more about this too later, when he’s officially finished. But feel free to leave him a comment of congratulations or email him (he’ll check them when he’s not busy catching up on video gaming!).

Again, sorry it’s been a little slow around here, but I promise to post some updates in the next week or so. Just keep checking back!

… there wasn’t so much snow to shovel.

Yesterday around noon the storm started and it was so bad that it forced many businesses close early on Friday.

I shoveled about 6 inches of snow (some spots deeper and some lower because of drifting) Friday evening only to wake up to about 8 or so more inches this morning. At 9am I shoveled those 8 to 10 inches and finished just in time to eat and watch the Cavs at 1pm. After the Cavs game I was out shoveling another 6 to eight inches, give or take a few because of drifting. We will see how much more I will have to shovel when I wake up in the morning.

This is nowhere near the Ohio’s blizzard in 1978 when I was three, yet this may be the most snow I have ever had to shovel from one storm.

This is the pile of snow that has accumulated from shoveling the back third of my driveway.

Nina is the only one who does not mind the snow…
…even if she has to hop around in snow that is too deep for her to walk in.

This snow is nasty. Here you see it trying to eat me alive!
It’s sheer depth was almost to powerful to escape.

Check out More Images of the Snow Around Our House!

I just found a picture of the old kitchen floor:

This is a good spot on the floor (and our Nina); over by the refrigerator there were some big spots that looked burned or melted and by the entrance to the hallway and living room there were some huge gouges and tears.
Oh, and I wanted to post a better picture of the finished living room (with our new rug!):

**Yay, we got a new camera!

Over the last weekend Fred, some wonderful helpers, and I got the kitchen and bathroom ready for our new floors to be installed. Then, on Monday the work began, at the early hour of 8 a.m.

Here are some pictures of the work on Friday…Fred and Andy tore up the top layer only of the old kitchen floor.

It looks like Andy was having fun! We really appreciated all his and Maggie’s help (she basically painted 3 walls and the ceiling in the kitchen)!
Fred also took off all the base boards. He and his dad worked on Saturday sanding and restaining them. They look great!
Here’s the finished floor after Monday with the finished base boards back up:

I just realized we don’t have any pictures of the kitchen floor before, but trust me, it was pretty bad!

Next was the bathroom. Fred and Andy didn’t have to take up the old floor in here, but they did have to remove the toilet (it was yucky)!
Here’s a picture of the finished floor (again, we don’t have pictures of the old floor, but it was yellowed and had a few holes):

Originally we were going to go with tile-like laminate flooring in the kitchen, but we decided against it because of all the cuts and corners and potential problem spots that could arise. We went with vinyl flooring and we’re actually pretty happy with both rooms!

Next on our list is re-carpeting the bedrooms and hallways. But, just like with the living room floor, we’ll have to seal the hardwood floors to keep those pesty odors from seeping through anymore.

Looking at the pictures of the kitchen and bathroom, I really think that we’re going to have to do something about the cabinets…they just don’t look right now! Maybe I can talk Fred into refinishing them…
Oh, and the tile in the kitchen has to go…or maybe I’ll paint it, I think I read about painting over tile somewhere…hmm, I’ll have to research it!

Fred worked hard for about 3 evenings to complete the floor.  It looks great!  We also added new curtains and very soon our new rug should be arriving as well, but here’s a finished picture of our new room.

It took me a while to get the finished picture up because my camera stopped working (and Fred left the memory card for his at school).  It no longer turns on at all, even with new batteries, so, if you’re wondering what to get us for Christmas…

Next on our list is the kitchen.  We need to touch up the painting and we’re going to take out the old vinyl floor and install tile-looking laminate.  The plan is to do this over Christmas break…we’ll see how it goes!