Weekly Wrap Up 2/25/22-- Building a New home

 Wow there is so much that goes into building a new home!  We have always bought pre-existing homes so never gone through this process before.  We are building in a new development and we have had several meetings over what we want to include in our home, colors of the floor, door handles, tile work, color of the outside of the house, the front door and even whether to have ceiling lights in which rooms.  While it is exciting it is also very overwhelming trying to predict where to have certain things place in a home that does not exist.  I am not very good with imaging where my furniture will go based on a 2 D drawing, and therefore where I need outlets, computer portals and even a phone jack (why do they even put in a phone jack anymore, who uses house phones these days)!

After several meetings and changing our minds several times, everything was finally approved and all the permits have been granted and the building process has begun.  The company we are using has a system where they send you pictures of every step of the building process, which I love since our house is in another state and we can't simply drive up to see progress.  My husband and I do plan on making a road trip sometime in March for the pre dry wall inspection and to bring my glass work to a storage facility.  

Some of the progress so far-- the project manager so far has been excellent in explaining the progress and answering questions.  

staking out our new home and finding out whether we will have a walk up or walk out basement.  We were thrilled to find out it will be a walk out basement.  

leveling out the ground and getting more good news in that our home lot is not going to require any more than 1 or 2 steps at max to enter.  Since this is our retirement home I am wanting to have minimal stairs to enter and a completely first floor living plan so we won't have to worry about any stairs as we get older.  The basement is being set up for my oldest to have as a mini apartment and the second level is also being set up as a mini apartment for our youngest.  they will still have to share our kitchen and laundry room but they will each have their own space for as long as they like.

Preparing to dig the basement and begin the concrete work.  I did have to ask what the pile of dirt was for in the front of the house. I was told that is where the garage will be.  

Pouring the concrete footings for our house

the molds are up for the walls of the basement -  someone who knows more about home building will better understand what is going on here than me!

Pouring concrete to form the basement walls

Waterproofing the cement

beginning to see plumbing going inside the house

Now we just wait until the cement cures (I don't know how long that takes) and the foundation to pass county inspection.  I will do another post on the building process bit later.  

Weekly Wrap UP 2/18/22-- Snow Days!

The weather kept hyping up a huge snowstorm but since they usually get it wrong I never worry too much about it.  the first day of the so called snow blizzard was a bust, not much happen except for icy rain.   Everything shut down because of the ice but there was very little actual snow.  

The second day we woke up to about 5-6 inches and throughout the day another 3-4 inches fell.  I love watching snow fall, while inside nice and cozy.  However I am not a snow bunny and don't like being outside in the cold.  So after this day, I am more that ready to have spring arrive!  

MarioFan talked his Dad into more money for shoveling  snow.  We advised him to do an early morning shoveling and then a late afternoon one in order to not be too overwhelmed with the snow. 

this is the amount of snow that fell over night and it was about 5 to 6 inches

I went out to help for the first part because I felt bad  that he had to do it on his own, he still wanted all the money from his Dad though;)

the second shoveling had another couple of inches and we were all glad to see the snow stop

Dad went out to help do the sidewalks since MarioFan and I missed them in the morning..  I didn't help for the second shoveling, instead I made brownies:)

It has been very cold the last week or so and I am ready for spring now!  I like one good snow fall a year as everything looks fo pretty with freshly fallen snow.  However after a day or two, it is ugly with all the salt, dirt and slushy, icy mess that I am more than over it!  

Weekly Wrap Up 2/11/22-- 100 school days

 We have reached the 100 days mark and MarioFan is getting closer to the end of his Senior year of High School, yikes:)

At around this time period I do a quick recap of everything accomplished and see if we are ahead or behind in any areas.  this allows me to make adjustments to our schedule to make sure we get our required hours in for every class.

Literature and Comp (grammar and vocabulary) 1 credit -  We have complete 5 books (Things Fall Apart, Lord of the Flies, Outsiders, Slaughter house Five and Great Gatsby) and 2 papers this semester.  He is also doing a lot of reading in his other classes so I haven't overloaded him with as many books this year as I have in the past.  I just realized I haven't done any poetry this year, oops! Since MarioFan is doing a lot of writing and research in his other classes I have allowed a huge reduction of writing after reading each assigned book.  There are plans to do at least one more writing assignment before the end of the year! We have plans to read at least 3 more books before the end of the the school year (I am Legend, Ready Player One and the play A Street Car Named Desire). I wish we had more time as there are so many books I wish we could read, oh well, hopefully MarioFan will continue to read on his own.  We are more than half way done with his grammar and vocabulary books -- On Target except for poetry which I will try to fit in

Cybersecurity  1 credit - MarioFan is on lesson 10 of 16 lessons (each lesson is several weeks long) -- On target

Pre Calculas 1 credit - Again progressing very nicely in this area and about 3/4 of the way through the book -- On target

Physics 1 credit -- Online class and progressing -- On target

Spanish 1 credit -- Online class and progressing -- On target 

Personal Finance .5 credit -- Online video class with a friend and we are on lesson 18 out of 20.  We had hope to be done before Christmas as this was only to be a 1/2 credit class but we had had to miss a few weeks due to varying things that have come up and it is the easiest class to push back when we have needed too. -- Slightly behind but will finish well before the end of the school year

Social Justice was a .5 credit but now upgraded to a 1 credit -- class taught with a friend.  In this class he has also read 3 books (Stamped, Broke in America and Just Mercy).  We had anticipated this class to only be a half credit but the boys are really diving into these topics and the Moms decided to make this a 1 credit class due to the amount of hours the boys are putting into it.  -- ON target with adjustments

Human Geography 1 credit -- Class taught with a friend We are progressing nicely with this class as well and are well into the needed hours for this course that we are thinking of upgrading to an honors level.  We are using the book "The Cultural Landscape" by Rubenstein and a great course video lectures series called "Understanding Cultural and Human geography"  by Professor Paul Robbins.  He is also reading Guns, Germs and Steel for this class -- On target 

Drivers Education .5 -- Continues his weekly driving lesson with the goal to take the exam in March.   His driving instructor thinks he is more than ready to take the test, but I still want a little more time to prepare to have another driver in the house -- On target or behind depending on who you talk too:) 

Piano .5  -- Continues his piano lessons and daily practicing and music theory.  Has not been able to paritipate in music festivals or recitals due to the pandemic -- On target 

Mariofan will be participating in a Homeschool graduation ceremony the end of May and then we will be leaving and moving to our new home in another state.  Exciting times are ahead for the whole family 

Weekly Wrap UP 2/4/22 -- Retirement and Moving process

 My husband's last day for work last Friday.  His retirement ceremony will be this Monday.  He wasn't planning to retire quite so soon but the mortgage company wanted his retirement papers and retirement income in order to clear us for the new house.  We had less than 3 weeks to prepare and organize a retirement ceremony.  Just a tad stressful but it is done and he is officially retired.  

But don't think he will be resting too much as we have compiled a "honey do" that is quite long for him to work on during the day while MarioFan and I work on school.  MarioFan is mostly independent but I still have lesson planning and grading to do for a couple more months.

The house is a complete mess with piles of boxes for moving and more piles of bags to give to charity.  I was trying to give things away on the free cycle site but that got tedious and I got fed up with the number of people who never showed up.  

This is the pile going to Charity.  They are picking it up next week the table and stain glass lamps are NOT going to Charity:)

Since we got rid of the dinning room set we have been using the dining room as a place to put all the packed boxes.  It is about 1/2 way filled.  

I so far have been able to secure all the moving boxes from other people only having to buy bubble wrap, tape and packing paper, which is still expensive.  We only have the garage and stain glass room to pack up.  I am paying to have the movers pack up the kitchen as I want them to use the correct boxes and supplies to minimize breakage.  

I have been obsessing over packing my stain glass windows and how to get it to the new house with no damage.  Normally when shipping to people commission work I sandwich the glass (wrapped in bubble wrap)  between plywood and screw it together with spacers.  However doing that would weigh a ton and cost a small fortune.  So instead I have been carefully individually wrapping all the glass windows and putting them in individual boxes and currently they are in a coat closest to make sure they don't fall over.  

I have a lot of glass panels :). 

Luckily I saved two of the wooden crates we shipped the glass lamps in over to England, the crates were so big I was able to put 2 glass lamps shades in each box. I have securely package up the lamps and will allow the movers to take these two on a truck.  I still have two glass lamp shades 3 drum lamps and 2 guitar lamps to figure out how to box up so they arrive safely to the new house.

The plans are for my husband to drive down to our new home and carry my glass in the car and rent a small storage container to put them in until we get our household items delivered to the house.  That way there is no chance of any rough handling.  It has been quite a process.

We have one more room and bath room to paint and then carpet cleaners are coming in and then we stage the house.  We have three weeks to get it all done!