Otis and I have this bottle of Palmolive dish soap that has been around since, I don't know, the Paleozoic Era. We've had it since we were married almost 2 years ago. Before that Otis had it in his bachelor pad. Before that it belonged to the girl from whom Otis sublet his bachelor pad. It's anyone's guess how long she had it, and IT STILL HAS SOAP IN IT. Like a one inch depth of soap in it, as in it's not going to run out any time soon. This bottle is the Never Ending Gobstopper of dish soap.

You may be inclined to think we never use this soap, that we never wash dishes by hand. Au contraire. I use this soap every morning to wash out my french press coffee maker, among other things. It gets plenty of use...at least once per day. We are both so sick of looking at this ugly bottle of dish soap, and we've been tempted to throw it out once or twice. It's faded and kind of grungy looking, but it still has perfectly good dish soap in it, so we can't bring our cheap selves to do it.

The other night Otis announced that, when we move into the new house, we can buy a BRAND NEW bottle of dish soap! One that's clean. And not grungy looking. I am so excited. I may even go crazy and get the pink colored soap this time, since I'm so tired of staring at what is now a weird faded green color. I know what you're thinking...Mrs. Finding Normal is so lucky because her husband is so generous. And my response to you would be, you have no idea.

On Wednesday Otis and I closed on our house. Our first house. It's both crazy and exciting to say that. We are so incredibly humbled and amazed that God gave us this house as our first house. It is everything we wanted, and I am so excited to start our lives there.

We met a few of our neighbors over the last couple of days. They have all been so kind and welcoming, and genuinely excited to have us as their new neighbors. And that is exactly why we wanted to live in this area. It is a very community oriented neighborhood; people are constantly walking and jogging around the neighborhood with their dogs and kids or standing in their yards chatting.

Enter the grating sound of a record scratching, signaling the harsh exit out of fairytale land.

Wow, we have so much work to do on this house. Since Wednesday evening we have been doing various things to the house, such as installing locks and mowing the lawn. Yesterday and today we started on the real work - demolishing the wall in the kitchen and the entire bathroom, prepping for re-model. Then Otis went under the house to assess the extent of the beam replacement so he could knock that out tomorrow, and, I believe the appropriate expression when one finds what we found under there is "oh shit". It's just a bit worse than the inspector said it was, or at least how we imagined it in our heads.

So, we have experienced our first big "gulp" moment. I know there are probably going to be a lot more of them, but I really don't want to think about that right now. I can't think about that right now. I just need to get through this first reality check. I am not going to lie...this is hard and seriously scary stuff. I keep trying to think of someone I can call that will tell me it's all going to be OK and I will believe them. However, I think at this point the only one who can give me what I'm looking for is God. I have to trust that He is not going to leave us high and dry when it comes to this house, and that He is going to continue to take care of us. Right now I keep wavering between that trust and completely freaking out. I believe they call that being human.

* I'll post some pictures of our progress soon.

Well, today was a much better "work on the house" day. After some consultation with others more experienced than us, we found out that things underneath the house are not as bad as they seemed. However, we have decided that we are going to hire a professional to do the beam replacement instead of trying to do it ourselves. I think we both feel more comfortable with that.

We worked more today on demolishing the bathroom, and since only one of us can really work in there at a time and it's freakishly hot in there with no A/C, Otis worked in the backyard trimming some of the tree branches. And, as promised, I took the camera with me today to document our progress.

Here is a set of the house as it was when we bought it (left), and after we removed the ugly shutters and solar screens. Oh, and it has the new roof (right):

Here are some pics of the opening we are wanting to create between the living room and kitchen. First we tried to get a good idea of where the studs where, marked by the tape ticks at the top. Then we taped off a couple of different scenarios to see which we thought would work better. We decided to open it up through the doorway to make it feel as open as possible. On the kitchen side we ripped out the sheetrock so we could actually see the studs and figure out exactly what we need to do. We'll be reinforcing the structure with 2 x 8 boards in the header to compensate for the load we're taking from the studs. We will have to wait on that until the foundation work is done, as this wall sits right on top of the disintegrated beam.

And finally, the bathroom mostly before we touched it (left), and almost completely gutted (right). We contemplated putting a window into the upper part of the shower area (the black part you see is the exterior wall), but after talking with someone, it sounds like a bigger pain than we want to deal with. We may add a tubular skylight eventually, but for now we'll just install a light fixture above the shower.

We are hoping to remove the toilet and tub this week and get quotes (and hopefully start) on the plumbing, foundation, and electrical work we need to have done. After that it's sheetrock and painting and putting the bathroom back together. Oh yeah, we can TOTALLY get this done before we move in. Right?

I keep forgetting to take the camera over to the house, which is really annoying me. I "promise" to remember it tomorrow. I really want to take pictures and show you the progress we've made. We have EVERYTHING out of the bathroom now, thanks to MDM. It's just studs and floor. We also discovered that they weren't lying when they said our house was built in 1950, as when we pulled the tub out it had the manufactured date stamped on it: 12/8/49. I'd say whoever paid for that definitely got their money's worth out of it.

Otis also created a cool manifold type device for the plumbing underneath the house, and so far it looks like it's working. No leaks yet (knock on wood). I'm SO proud of him for doing this. It's quite an accomplishment. He also cut out a section of the floor in the kitchen to expose the disintegrating beam. He and a skilled carpenter will be jacking up the house this weekend (literally) and replacing the beam. We will both be so glad to have that done, as it's the one thing that is both holding up a lot of our other work and also weighing heavily on our minds.

The sheetrock guy will have the bathroom re-sheetrocked and the bedrooms patched and textured by Saturday, which means that we will have plenty for my parents to do when they come in this weekend. We will begin tiling the bathroom and painting the bedrooms (ideally). FINALLY we are putting the house back together instead of ripping it apart.

Oh, the electrician is coming tomorrow to install the new breaker box/grounding plate and drop the new plugs. If you haven't guessed yet, a LOT is going on in a very short period of time. This is good as we have 2.5 weeks until we move in. It's also completely insane because we've both been trying to make all this happen while still working full time jobs. The insanity is starting to get the better of me, so I will probably be taking a day or two off over the next couple of weeks.

And now I'm off to bed because I am completely exhausted.

We found Abigail crashed out in our room about 20 minutes after we returned home from a long day of working on the house. I totally feel her.

I'm just going to come out and say it - remodeling the house has been hard. Much harder than I anticipated. So hard that I now feel that raising kids will be a breeze compared to this. I'm sure reality will slap me in the face with how brazenly stupid that comment is some day, but for now I'm going to find comfort in it.

The complete insanity of all we're doing and how much time we have to do it in has taken a toll on me, and let's just say I haven't dealt with it well. As in the last couple of days I feel like I'm one very fine line away from being committed to a psych ward. Yesterday, after a series of disappointments and roadblocks, I completely lost it. Once the tears started flowing I couldn't turn them off, and I've been either crying or on the verge of crying ever since. Maybe it's just the stress. Or maybe it's hormones. Whatever it is, I don't like it. I hate feeling out of control of my emotions, and right now I feel like I'm not just out of control, but that I've spun off into space with nothing to stop me from being propelled straight out of the galaxy.

Don't get me wrong...good things are happening and things are getting done. We're even under budget (yay! and knock on wood). People keep telling me I'm going to be so happy with it when we're done. I know they're right, and I'm trying so hard to find hope and energy in that. So, if you're praying, pray for my perspective to change to a more positive one and for us to find a way to get the work done so we can move in.

The home improvement continues, blah blah blah, you're tired of hearing about it I'm sure. It's T-minus countdown as we are supposed to move in a week. All we really have to get done to move in is get the bathroom tiled and the toilet in. Speaking of bathrooms, people are so paranoid about water. In the bathroom. THE BATHROOM, PEOPLE. Did you know that in Asia they have bathrooms you can completely hose down? With water! Now THAT is living on the edge.

My parents are driving me crazy with the waterproofing this and water barrier that. Geez! If water is SO horrible to have in a house, why do we even have indoor plumbing? I'm so annoyed with all the paranoia that I actually considered, if only for a brief moment, building an outhouse. Because that would solve all of these problems. After question number 582 from my dad about did we do this to waterproof the floor and did the sheet rock guy do that I finally said, "Hey, it didn't have X on it before and it lasted 60 years just fine. I'm not planning on even being alive in 60 years, so I think it will work the way it is."

At this point my life is so deeply entrenched in home improvement that even my fantasies of ending it all and putting myself out of my misery involve things like drilling a screw through my skull. Is this what it means to be an adult? Because if someone had told me that being an adult meant visiting home improvement stores at least once a day I would have lived my younger years a lot more dangerously.

I would just like to tell the world that we have placed all the tile in the bathroom. Every. Single. Last. Piece.

Behold.

Also, we now have a toilet, which means we could actually live in this house. Grouting and caulking will be completed this evening. We should be able to use our shower by Saturday!

I haven't posted anything for a while because over the last week we have been scrambling to get the house put back together and get moved into it. As of noon yesterday we are officially moved out of our apartment and the house is now our home. Or at least the place we sleep at night. I'm struggling to feel much at home in it. We still haven't finished putting the bathroom back together, and the kitchen is virtually unusable. Although I did make some mighty fine tater-tots in our gas oven the other night.

On Sunday evening we finally tested out our bathtub drain and the shower plumbing. The drain works perfectly. The plumbing, well, I almost can't even say it. We think it may have a small leak. We are checking it out again tonight, and are praying that 1) it wasn't a leak but instead what we saw was water splashing through the holes since we hadn't yet put the faucet plate on yet, 2) was a freak occurrence, or 3) if it was a leak it has miraculously fixed itself and we won't have to take out the dishwasher and rip out the wall on the kitchen side of that wall to fix it. Ripping out the tile in the bathroom is not an option. Or if it is, I have already informed Otis that I will be staying somewhere else while that happens and we pay someone else to fix it. Because I can't do that again. We are both really praying that this will be something we don't need to fix or is something that will be super easy to fix. We encourage you to join us in that prayer.

Thank you to all of our friends and family who have helped us get this far. We could not have done this without you. Seriously. I may be dropping off the radar screen for a bit. I'm overwhelmed with the state of our lives right now, and I feel like I can only operate in a tiny microcosm of my life if I hope to get through this without a breakdown.

This morning, after a late night of shower plumbing repairs, Otis and I slept in a bit and then, wait for it - we took a shower. In our very own bathroom. It was truly glorious. I've decided this is why life royally bites sometimes. Otherwise how would we ever be able to appreciate the simple things in life, like not having to bathe in a kitchen sink?

Tonight, for our early anniversary dinner, I made these along with charcoal grilled New York Strip steaks and salad with baby portabelas, tomatoes, and balsamic vinaigrette dressing. I highly recommend the sweet potato fries...they were delicious. We also enjoyed a bottle of Family Red from the V. Sattui winery we visited in Napa Valley this past January. It was the perfect celebration after a long day of unpacking and working on the house.

Tomorrow Otis leaves for Portland. He was so sweet and worked all day to get plumbing and connections for the washer and dryer, dishwasher, and bathroom sink working before he left. I am so grateful and amazed that he desired to leave the house extra-livable for me before he left. It definitely makes this first time alone in the house less ominous. (Dear God, please don't let anything break while he's gone).

I got a good chunk of the unpacking done today, and our kitchen is actually usable/not oppressive. I think I've also come up with a color scheme to make it attractive until we can afford to remodel it in a couple of years. It's finally starting to feel like a home. Imagine what it will feel like when we have pictures on the walls!

I wish that I could tell everyone how awesome our house looks. Oh, wait. Hey everyone, our house looks AWESOME!

I would take pictures and show you, but I'm pretty sure the awesomeness lies in the eye of the beholder, and in this case the eyes of this beholder are definitely a bit biased. Yesterday Otis and I got an astonishing amount of unpacking and organizing done (surprisingly, it goes much faster with two people), and our place looks phenomenal. We are finally able to see all that space we saw that made us want to buy the place.

Last week I discovered that all of our closets already had elfa shelving systems installed in them, which was completely astonishing considering that every other thing the previous owners did to this house was the cheapest, crappiest thing they could have done. Granted, they did a horrible job of functionally using the elfa system, but it was there nonetheless. I purchased a few items from The Container Store to make the systems functionally efficient, and I have to say that I am amazed at how much stuff we managed to fit in our tiny little closets. elfa is magical.

We're looking forward to getting back to working on the house, like making the outside of the house look as great as the inside is starting to look. All in good time. Starting Wednesday I'll be lounging on the beaches of Northern California and hiking through Redwood forests. I'll worry about life when I get back to it.