Everyday I look forward to turning on Safari and seeing what my friends have written to entertain and teach me while I have breakfast or lunch.  It's rare that no one has a new post or at least few new comments to share.  I really appreciate that.  Then I think about what does duckfamily.net have to offer... sometimes nothing new for days-or gasp, weeks!  How boring.

So, I'm not making any promises-but I'll try to do better at putting something out here a little more often.  

Tonight Alan and I discussed the following: turning off our T.V. (as in shutting off Digital Cable)...but what about LOST. Selling helicopter parts on eBay, painting street addresses on curbs as a part time job, refinancing the house (again) and not paying for me to get my hair colored at the salon. Yeah, we talked about finances.  It stinks.  The more we have the more we spend.  We have never lived well below our means.  It's something we are bad at.  Somethings we do well.  This is not one of them.  We like stuff.  -See Alan's blog about stuff.  We like to eat out with family and friends, to spend money on vacations and birthday presents and all sorts of stuff that just seems to add up.  Arrrggg.  So tonight Alan said, "when can we just move to Kenya and get over all of this."   Hmmm, so we want to move to Kenya -where we could worry about being KILLED instead of wondering how we could reduce our monthly spending habits a little-I'm not sure that's the answer.  I know he meant that it would be better to worry about how we can further the Kingdom of God than just pondering whether or not we "need" HDTV.  And I agree.  So many people have a lot "deeper" thoughts than we seem to have sometimes.  I really admire their courage and character.  

I know that Alan and I want to live for Christ and for our children to be instilled with those morals and values.  What will it take?  I pray that all that we have will be used to the glory of God.  That we don't ever take for granted Alan's good job and the luxuries we have (a nice home, working vehicles, enough money for food, water, clothing, heat and A/C).  I pray that I can keep using these gifts for the Lord.   I pray that where I don't need to spend, I won't. I pray that I will honor God by being generous with all that I have and that when He calls us we will be quick to listen and obey.

How better to spend a Monday night ... err, Tuesday morning, than listening to the rhythmic, repetetive mechanics of an Epson printer busily churning out 100 printed audio CDs for a recent memorial service? Glancing to the bedroom, it appears an infomercial is touting some housewares. I know the dog is probably pretty desperate for 1) food, and 2) elimination. Lucky for me, he doesn't have the problem the cat did, termed ...

<take out printed CD, insert blank one>

... inappropriate elimination. We don't have a cat any longer.

Hmmm... 1:08 a.m...

<take out printed CD, insert blank one>

And the last two weeks should have been a great time to write something meaningful; today was my first day back to work since November 17. I even had "Write a blog or two" on my Alan's End of November To-Do list.

<take out printed CD, insert blank one>

The list got about 50% completed. It also started about 50% smaller early on in the week. I'm quite guilty for adding things to it. I thought I had plenty of time. Things not done? Install last windowsill and casing in the girls' room, Burn and label all new instrumental CDs for NFC, Update online photo album, run new ethernet cable to living room, and more.

Well, my CD drying spot is full of 12 freshly printed discs. It's now time to wipe off the small excess ink which gets sprayed beyond the printable surface. Just one of ...

<take out printed CD, insert blank one>

... the small quirks of printing directly to the CD instead of using a label.

Wow, that's some randomosity up there... 1:20 a.m.

Things are slowly getting back to normal around this place. Furniture is not parked in bizarrely innapproprate locations. Thick (saw)(drywall)dust no longer coats every surface in the house, thanks to a long day of vacuum dusting by my lovey. Fresh paint or other compound containing some type of solvent no longer is the scent-o-the-day. The family computer no longer has the keyboard and monitor on the floor. I don't care what you may say, but I do not find that sitting criss-cross-applesauce or laying on my stomach to be a comfortable position to type from.

The remodel certainly took longer to finish the final few tasks that I expected them to. We're way off the schedule. Hah! What schedule? The last two weeks have been full of evenings of seemingly endless ticky-tack work: the small things that don't seem to add much towards the completion of the project. And yet, without them, it's not really finished. Like the last couple summary paragraphs at the end of an essay: it's already all been said, so rephrasing seems so ... pointless.

The need for some centering and reflecting and more time with God is strong. I've been so focused on work and ... work at home, that attention has been seldom focused elsewhere. Michelle and the kids have been great during the project. Putting up with so much noise, contractors, disarray, and me. Listening to me go on about how a contractor didn't do this or that right, or, at least, how I think it should have been done. Sawing molding past bedtime, followed by the thwump of a pneumatic finish nailer, and then the surprisingly loud compressor. Not getting the cars washed in weeks.... Oh, ok, months. The grass got mowed a couple times since June. And not by me, either. Thanks, honey. :)

Normality has nearly returned in full-force and I am looking forward to relaxing when I come home from work. Or, at least, having something normal to do, rather than remodel work.

In case you're wondering, the webcam has not found a new purpose yet. I've been too occupied to pay it much heed.

The construction cam might be down...but that certainly doesn't mean there isn't anything being done around here. Alan is working very hard on getting doors and trim done on the house. This is a huge project. Time consuming and exacting work. He's done an amazing job as General Contractor and all around house handyman/painter/finsh carpender. Yep, I'm bragging big time about my husband! Sometime...ok, I'll be honest, most of the time, I look around and still see the mess or piles of things left undone and I become undone. I feel grateful, and yet I still struggle to be "still" during this process. I complain way too much. I don't like this about me. The construction cam might be off...but God sees there is much work to be done in my heart.

Well, we'd been very blessed this past week+ with awesome remodel weather. As is typical for the 4th of July in northwest Oregon, however, it rained today.

I was still lying awake in bed when I heard the sound of someone using a large concert band bass drum somewhere nearby. I thought about the parade at the St. Paul rodeo, but it was still too early and I don't think the sound would travel from St. Paul that well. I looked outside and saw the lightning and then booked downstairs to check my favorite mashup weather site and saw a severe-rated rain storm coming up from the south. It was just making it's way through north Salem. Oh, goody.

Even though it looked like it would mostly his McMinnville and Dundee, I got on the horn, and finally, after about 45 minutes, had my framer and a 30x60' tarp ready to spread. Now, let me hand out some free advice: a 6/12 pitch roof may be relatively easy to walk on in general, but if you try to walk on a tarp on that roof, you will not stay in place. You will slide and you will see flashes of your family and friends as you scramble for a foothold, or to grab the rumpled tarp with your fingers. Oh, and if you're holding onto a handful of nails or a staple gun, it's ok to drop them first. Here's another bit of information, not advice though, but just a so's you knows: a large tarp is hard enough to unfurl on the ground. On a roof, with a bit of wind, lightning and thunder, it's enough to nearly make you curse aloud at the inventors of the machines which fold those dastardly things in such a way that no mere mortal can understand.

So, in the end, my house was covered with a relatively short shower of rain which looked something like this to the weather radar folks:

So, now I have a really nice blue tarp roof. Like the kind Jeff Foxworthy talks about. Sorry, I have only one dog and he doesn't sleep under the front porch. And I don't even own any cinder blocks to prop up my car with. Aren't those storm clouds to the west, after the rain passed through, just dark and nasty-lookin'? I'm sure it dumped hard on McMinnville.

In two days, the plumber will be here to disconect the supply and waste lines in the girls "old" bathroom in preparation for the full-scale demolition. All those pipes need to be stubbed out lower than the floor so that we don't get real messy when the walls come tumblin' down. So we removed the vanity, cut out the sheetrock, and removed the insulation to expose the pipes.

I tried the jigsaw, but the only blade I had in the house snapped off after just a few seconds. In drywall... wimpy blade.

Woman Sawzall Michelle takes to the sheetrock between the toilet and tub, stopping for nothing!

Peek-a-boo Alan works around the back of the toilet, from the attic.

In less than two hours, we had a bathroom full of chunks of wallboard, dust everywhere, and a clear view from the bathroom into the attic space where the new room will be built.

Michelle is now feeling quite anxious about the project, having seen her bathroom ripped apart. It's too late to turn back now, baby!

Regular visitors to the construction cam page should notice that there is a largish object covering the grass. It is, in fact, a 9 (or larger?)-person tent, in which the family will sleep I will be treated to hours of giggles, jumps, running, Stop it!'s, Be quiet's, and zippering sounds this evening in celebration of the end of another school year.

And how handy and thoughtful is my wife, huh?! Putting up a very large tent all by herself is not easy with Wild Ones and a large black lab running around the yard.

Oh, did I mention I also get to make cinnamon roll dough this evening, after a birthday party, but before going to the Tent of Sleeplessness, and also get up and make the cinnamon rolls prior to leaving at 6am for work? ... I pitty the person getting their annual review from me tomorrow.

This page will contain some various timelapse video archives prior to and during the house remodel. See below for an archive history.

Tech Note: Because of the awesome job it does at compressing the video, I have chosen to use Apple's H.264 encoder inside the Quicktime wrapper. Soz to the WMP fanboyz, but QT rox. This also means that to view this video, you need at least QuickTime version 7. If you don't have Quicktime 7, you won't see anything below.

The Latest

Downloads

Downloading allows you to modify playback, go full-screen, and more easily stop-frame. You usually have to right-click (ctrl-click or click-and-hold for the Mac users who haven't bothered to get a real mouse) and select "Download link" or "Save Target As" depending on your browser.

After being verbally assaulted by Michelle for not reading let alone posting a blog here.. I figured I should crank one out.  So here I am.. recently back from spending 3 weeks in Italy.  I had a lot of fun, saw a lot of sights, did some work for the Navy, and missed my wife being with me.  She could have gone, but I didn't know how much time I was going to be off.

Anyway, I have to get going to work now.  Hope you enjoy my first blog. 

The Construction Cam is online, well two weeks ahead of scheduled demolition and reconstruction activities. Even though the Middle of the Night doesn't allow for viewing of much, you can still enjoy the occasional glimpse of the moon or a bright star, wind-blown tree shadows, and random bits of multicolored static well after you should have gone to bed.

Construction cam picture: Cleverly camoflaged webcam in a nice weather-resistant Pelco housing.

Until the start of demolition on June 25, the camera will capture a generally serene scene of a large parchment-color vinyl-sided wall. There will also be appearances by family and friends, mostly the kids, who will likely be visible mostly on the grassy area. We try to keep the children off the wall and roof as much as possible. Oh, and, of course, Toby the black lab will also be frequently observed looking dead ... as he warms himself in the sun in the mornings and cools himself in the afternoon shade. Don't worry, he looks like that a lot.

For the techie-types out there, the web page is being served up by the feature-full EvoCam v3.6 using a custom, rather bland html template just for the purpose of emedding within the duckfamily.net site. The camera is a wired ethernet TRENDnet TV-IP100. The Construction Cam page is just an iframe (w3.org, HTMLHelp) which pulls the original web page source from my G4 running EvoCam at home. The frame rate would be better if Comedycast supported more upload bandwidth ... bring on FIOS, Verizon.