Starting to Cherish and to Remember: My Old Home

Thanks to  another blogger (Update:  It was WJ who inspired this blogpost. Thanks!) for the inspiration to do this.  I'm sorry I can not remember the name because I'm totally distracted by Neil Diamond on American Idol while I'm blogging.  I just don't have time to figure out who it was when someone's signing Sweet Caroline...especially Neil!  Good Times Never Seemed So Good!  :)

I figure if I started taking pictures now so that I would be able to get over it by the time we move into the new house.  I'll share inside photos later this summer.  This house rescued me.

I bought her right after I learned that not everyone who is engaged actually gets married. At that same time, I had sworn off ever renting because that was too much of a step back for me.  I needed to have things my way first so I knew what I wanted when I had the chance to have it.

Then along came one dog, two dogs, then another...then another.  All Rescues.

This all happened right after I had just got my first job AND bought my first new car.  A car was something that I had been looking forward to since I first ever had a job at the age of 14.5. I knew what I was going to reward myself with once I had a career.  Just when I thought everything was falling apart...other things were building up for me.  Thank Goodness.

Then...I worked.  See that siding?  I read a book and I did that.  I'm 5'3" and I have to tell you...I surprised the crap out of my neighbors who were men's men that were union carpenter's, electricians and workers.  I'm very much a woman.

I knew I'd have dogs in my new home...but I never thought that I'd have three....or four.  They just came as I slowly healed.

Then......I did something different.  I said yes to a man what truly loved me as much as I loved him.  He loved who I was just like I was.....tomboy, nerd, competitive, sarcastic, hyper, distracted ...sporadic...........everything.  Together we created this.

 

 This is Spyder, a rescue from an animal shelter in Texas, letting Kaylee learn how to pet him.

Here it is.  We brought all those rocks in the landscape  ourselves with the help of our neighbors wheel barrow.  I completely sided the house on my own.  Dustin and I were dating at the time but he let me do the ENTIRE thing so I could say..."I did that"....and he hates siding.  I love it.  See the sign on the far left at the end of the ramp?  Dustin made that.  See that AWESOME stone around the door?  I did that.  My hands got so dry from the cement I can't even begin to tell you what it was like to wash my hands.  See that addition that the front door is in?  We closed in the old porch and made another room together.  See that cedar shake and scalloped siding?  I put that up three different times because the first time, the OSB was rotten and the nails didn't hold. I put up Ferring strips  and nailed them into the roof studs and then  I redid the decorative siding.  That was hard because you have to be very good a measuring to space it out right. The second time the wind caught the scalloped siding and then it slowly peeled off.  Then I had to solve that problem by nailing it much much tighter than I had.  So far it's holding. She's come a long way....just like me.  I will miss her.

Dear New House,  This is where I come from.  I sure hope I like you as much as I liked her. I can only imagine how wonderful the new memories are going to be.  Sincerely, Charissa