An idea that grew out of control....

As many of you know, my hero recently left on a 15 month deployment. He starts his journey at Ft. Polk in Louisiana to do combat skills training. Due to Army (he is Air Force, but will be working for the Army for the next year) regulations he will get the opportunity to return home for about a week before shipping out to his final destination in Afghanistan.

To help mark the days I decided to make Miss M a paper chain that she can remove a link each day. The bulk of the chain is red, white, blue, and yellow. However, on the guesstimated dates of his return home in July and then again for mid-tour R&R I placed a green link. I can move the green links as needed.

The chain quickly grew to such great lengths that there is NO WHERE in my home to hang the entire length without cutting across doorways and stairways. So I draped the tail end across the bay window in my dining room and put the rest into a laundry basket on top of the nearest kitchen cupboard.

Each morning we remove a link...each morning we are one day closer to having him home.....

Hurrican Meghan

Every morning my family room is hit by one tiny unnatural disaster called, "Hurricane Meghan". She swoops in, dumps out all the toys, spreads them around, and spends the rest of the day playing with her "new found" treasures. Hours of fun spent dressing up in Disney princess shoes, building with blocks, sorting through her many trinkets, playing with her dollhouse and the occasional "coco" party with her tea set...at the end of the day we usher our sleepy hurricane through her bedtime regime of teeth brushing, allergy medicene, reading of stories, prayer, and her protests over going to sleep. When all is settled mom and dad swoop in to do a better job than FEMA of cleaning up, just so that the little hurricane can strike again tomorrow.

First Rose

Having grown up in the "City of Roses," Portland, Oregon, I love roses. We have a flower bed at the end of our deck that was empty. The previous owners of our home had two little boys, and every time we toured the house there were dump trucks and other boy paraphenalia in the flower bed. It was obviously a little boys dream come true.

However, it was not this big girl's dream come true. I had a dog and a toddler that LOVED to make a muddy mess in this empty flower bed. Me, I did not LOVE the muddy mess. Thus this flower bed had to become a true flower bed. Early in May we planted five rose bushes, Gladiola bulbs, and some other bedding plants. I have five rose bushes, all different.



My peace rose is planted closest to the house, the peace rose is one of my all time favorites. I love it's yellow flower with the edges of the petals kissed with pink. Next to the Peace rose is a pink rose that I can not remember the name of. In the middle is my red rose. On the other side of the red rose is my Queen Elizabeth rose, another favorite which is a pink rose. The fifth and last rose bush is my second all time favorite the Tropicana, I just love the salmon color of it's flowers. Understandably my roses went into shock and for awhile there we were not even sure if any or some would make it. Alas, all of them are starting to come out of their shocks and the last remaining shocked rose has new shoots on it. My red rose is starting to bud and bloom. The rose bushes are still too small to support blooms so I cut the bloom off and brought it inside to enjoy.

Home Improvements

Well the home improvements to the Wheeler home are under way again.

Last Friday we ordered interior shutters for almost all of the windows in our home. The only windows that won't be getting shutters are the huge arched window in the living room, the window above the kitchen sink and the window in the back door. I love the light that comes into my living room and because of the arch that window would have been almost $1000...I think not. The window over my kitchen sink is really deep and I rather enjoy being able to look out and watch Miss M and Emma play, and I also enjoy having a view of the beautiful dogs that live behind us. (That and I have yard envy over the ladies who live behind us, their yard is so lovely!) Miss M and Emma love to look out the back door, so shutters would not be a good idea there. Instead we are tossing between buying a whole new door, the kind that has blinds sandwiched between the glass or just buying an after market add on that does the same thing. Our shutters will be white with a divider rail at about the mid point for all the windows. We did this because that is something Hero's parents mentioned they wish they had done when they had their shutters installed. This will allow us to let a little bit of light in, but maintain privacy, because we all know I am an exhibitionist. :0) They should be done and ready to install before the end of the month. I am UBBER excited to get rid of these NASTY dingy, sun yellowed blinds we inherited with the house. Hopefully the shutters will set our house apart when we go to sell in 2011.

ALSO...and I am UBBER excited about this as well....we are having a company come out to do a window well cover f0r the one window well we have. I fear every time Miss M goes out to play that she will trip or get caught in the exsisting pseudo cover there is now. We are going with the mesh cover because we think Miss M could still get a foot or arm caught in the other metal one and the polycarbonate one will scratch easily. The lady I spoke to today said that once they do the template it only takes two to three weeks to get it done and installed!! YEAH!!

NEVER, EVER in my life did I think I would be so excited about shutters and window well covers! Guess that's home ownership for you!

Home Repairs (continued)

A few months ago I mentioned that we had a few minor home repairs we want to do to our house before we put it up for sale in 2011.

We painted just about all of the interior walls and baseboards before we moved in; the only ones we didn't paint are the bathroom and bedroom in the basement. Once the weather warms up we plan on taking all the doors off the frames and painting them as well. Hero replaced the locks on the exterior doors. In November, Hero replaced the kitchen sink faucet and installed the remote control for the garbage disposal. In recent weeks Hero has begun to replace light fixtures. He replaced the light fixture on the back patio with a motion sensored light, the two lights on the garage with motion sensored lights. He is working on the front porch light, but he needs to get some wood to finish that one because the sensor light doesn't fit properly against the house. (I'll get pictures of the front outside lights when he is done with that.)

Then this weekend he replaced the light above my kitchen sink and the light in my kitchen. I wish I had taken a picture of the light in the kitchen before he took it down. It was just your standard fluorescent light, only we broke the cover when we painted. The light cover cracked when we took it down to paint and then someone stepped on it, making it impossible to hang back up.

This is the ceiling after Hero took the old fluorescent light down. He had to patch the two screw holes that held it in place and then paint because the new light is slightly smaller.

Side view of my new kitchen light. I am not usually into the modern look, but when we saw this light we knew we had to have it. Now this light has set the tone for the rest of the lights....

The new light as I stand under it.

The old light above the kitchen sink. All we really needed to so was by a new shade for it. The glass shade that was original to it was another fatality of our painting adventure. We decided to change it out because we felt that if we replace all the other fixtures for the brushed nickel look and left this one undone, it would look just like that; undone.

My handy man

The new light above the kitchen sink.

Next month we hope to begin changing all the rest of the lights....Hero says they are easy to change out. We would like to put a ceiling fan in our room and possibly the family room, then there is the chandalier to replace in the dining room. The more expensive lights like those may take us a few months to change.

Once the lights are all changed the next big project is to order shutters and have them installed.

Violation of child labor laws?

Miss M LOVES to help mommy clean up around the house. I try real hard to let her, something that is hard for a virgo and perfectionist to do.

Every time I open the pantry door Miss M goes for my swiffer sweeper handle. Last night I let her have it; figured I would just let her have fun "helping" mama. Then I got the bright idea to put on a wet swiffer pad on it. If she was going to pretend, might as well let it work in my favor as well.

My husband, My plumbing hero.....

We have this list of minor fixes, well some not so minor, that we would like to make to our house in the next 2 and half years before we sell it(hopefully it will sell). Things like replace all the brass lighting fixtures with brushed nickel, replace all the brass door knobs, and do the finishing work on the bathroom and bedroom in the basement.

Earlier this month Hero did what I believe may have been the most important repair to me. The old kitchen faucet was worn out and the sprayer didn't work. After thirty minutes spent scratching our heads in the plumbing department, we finally decided on a rather GORGEOUS faucet, well gorgeous in my eyes.



Since my new faucet is a sprayer in itself we knew we would be left with a hole to fill in the sink. Hero thought about getting a faucet with a soap dispenser. In my toes I KNEW I would NEVER use it, so I finally spoke up and showed him what I really wanted to fill the hole with.



That my friends is a remote control for the garbage disposal. I know some of you are shaking your heads and wondering what this world is coming to. You see, I am of the Ricketts stock. We are beautiful people, but we ALL suffer from short-arm-itis.



Short-arm-itis coupled with the fact that the switch for my disposal was literally in another world in relation to the sink made this remote a necessity. Even if I am leaning up again the dishwasher I had to strain to reach the switch, and forget even trying if the dishwasher was open! Now all I have to do is push the button on my sink and "wala" rufage be gone!

Cleaning Lady

So yesterday I had MerryMaids out to give me an estimate. And those of you reading this who know me well enough are laughing because you know that I was cleaning like mad before the cleaning lady got here. I was really rather shocked at the cost...and a good shocked at that! To have them do my kitchen, living room, family room, master bedroom, Miss M's room, Miss M's bathroom, and the master bathroom, the hallway upstairs, and all the stairs in the house ( I am not having them do my craft room, or the rooms in the basement.) is going to be $130 every four weeks. I am seriously considering doing it! Let's figure this out.....if I spend three hours everyday cleaning, (and still don't get to everything they would do once a month) that's about 21 hours a week, and 84 hours every four weeks. But if by having them come out once every four weeks I could cut that back to let's just say 42 hours by doing maintenance type cleaning. That is 42 more hours spent with my family or on my hobbies.....looking more tempting......now if I could only convince Hero it is just as tempting.  

Getting Settled In

Miss M and I arrived in Utah on July 7th, Hero and Gibbon followed on the 12th. (He made the 3000+ mile drive from Eielson AFB in Alaska to his parent's home in Herriman, Utah in three days! Wowzer!

Once our little family was reunited we hit the ground running looking for a place to reside. We thought about buying, thought about renting, and for about 1 millisecond we even thought about living on base. In the end we decided to take the bull by the horns and buy. Once we decided to buy we looked into buying an existing home versus building a home. In the end we decided that since we are supposed to be here only three years we would buy an existing home. Thirty-four tours of homes later we decided on a comfortable tri-level home in Clinton, Utah.

We signed away our lives and first ten children on the 27th of August. Two days later the Wheeler's got to work painting the entire inside! Thank goodness for Hero's parents, without them we would still be trying to paint. We painted every room, but Miss M's a creamy beige color. Miss M's room is a soft green color. The plan is to add wainscoting and a chair rail in white to Miss M's room.

During the inspection process we learned that the stove did not work properly. After some discussion we decided not to push the issue since we were planning on replacing all the appliances within the next six months. Instead we replaced all the appliances and installed a water softener before moving in on the 14th of September.

The process of unpacking and getting settled in is still ongoing. I have learned that it takes longer to unpack with the help of an active toddler. However, I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Thursday, October 16th, was a day of celebration here. After dealing with issues from the phone company due to the previous owners not paying the bill we finally have a phone and internet connection! But that is another post.....

Once we are a bit more settled I will post pictures.