When It Rains, It Pours

When people say they have a "Case of the Mondays," it must feel something like today. In the past 24 hours, things have been not so good, to say the least. I must begin by saying the basement has been coming out wonderfully. I have been very busy and haven't been updating as much as I should. To begin with, Matt and his dad finished the ceiling and my Uncle Paul did a fantastic job with the recessed lighting. We weren't sure it was going to work out, but he made it work and I love it. We've just about finished the trim and the rest of the basement as well. Matt and his dad spent all day redoing the stairs so that they could be stained to match the rest of the basement. I spent all this time in Home Depot with some guy in the paint department (not my usual Sal or Gary) and he supposedly matched the floor as best he could. It turned out like this...

And Matt HATED it. It was much too dark and he couldn't stand it... so off I went to Home Depot where Sal tried to save my butt by giving me this stain stripper stuff. I spent about 45 minutes on the first stair with my hands in elbow-high rubber gloves and my goggles on... The stair color went about 2 shades lighter.... and I mean 2 very, very slight shades lighter. In the end, we tore up the stairs and Matt redid them. We got all new treads and started over. This
time, I'm staining and polyurethaning them a lighter color which matches the rest of the trim in the room. It will have to be better.
In the meantime, I told you that when it rains, it pours... and I wasn't kidding. Yesterday morning, Matt mowed the front lawn, finished up, headed around back, and the mower seized up. We bought the mower the second week we were here, around the first of May... brand new... and now it doesn't work. Matt has to take it back to Home Depot and hope they'll help us out. Then, this morning, my friend Tom comes over to replace our hot water heater. He goes to shut off the water at the water valve and the valve breaks. I call a plumber to come and help us while Tom decides to come back next week to do the hot water heater. While all of this is going on, the refrigerator stops keeping things cold and Comcast stops working. In less than 24 hours, it has poured, literally outside and figuratively inside. Hopefully, ALL of these issues can be reconciled without too much pain or money on our ends!!

Happy Father's Day!

I just wanted to take a minute to thank the dads out there who have done so much for Matt and I. We've been very lucky to have so many helping hands on our house. There have been more than a few dads here. My dad, Matt's dad, Matt's uncles Mike & Kevin, my uncles Paul & Bobby, my grandpa, our friend Eric... we have been truly lucky to have so much help from so many of the wonderful fathers in our life. Each of you have been so wonderful to us and we are very lucky. Thank you for all you do and all you are.

Making the Pieces Fit

Things are finally coming together nicely. After a month and a half, I have finally caught up with all the laundry. All the clothes that needed to be washed from storage are finally clean and most are put away. The house has been coming along as well. Matt and my father have been putting up trim around the basement. We really only have the stairs and the storage cabinet to do before we can put down all of the trim. I think they maybe could have used one more coat of stain but we got impatient.

On Friday Matt and I put the mirror and shelving back up in the bar area. A piece of it got broken, but we're going to trim it out so that it's not noticeable. Matt and his dad put up the rest of the grid for the drop ceiling yesterday. Matt's dad tiled our downstairs bathroom with this great Canyon Slate tile that I absolutely loved at Lowe's. The wood floors bring out a tint of red in it while the paint color brings out a little green and a little brown. I really love the way it looks.
For some unknown reason, blogger won't let me turn this picture, but it's the best view of the flooring so I'm posting it aToday my uncle Paul came over and put up our recessed lighting. We were worried about it but I think it ended up coming out really great.

Team SuperGuts

Well, last night was the walk for Crohn's Disease and Colitis. Mom used to do daycare for little Brian and now he's 10 and living with Crohn's Disease. Last year was the first year the CCFA held their Take Steps Be Heard for Crohn's & Colitis walk in Boston. I didn't walk with Bri but I know that his team raised about $1200 last year and we were hoping to beat that. Brian really loves his super hero stuff so after a lot of thinking, he came up with the team name of Team Super Guts. It's really quite adorable. This year, Matt, Mom, Dad, and I joined Brian and his family and some friends to do the walk around the Boston Common. We tried to get everyone we knew to donate just a little. I really only expected $5 donations from most people. Somehow, as of Saturday, we (the four of us) were able to contribute $455 to the team. This year's grand total, with money probably still trickling in a bit, was $1680. I was ecstatic for Bri. His enthusiasm is catchy, as is his adorable attitude. Hopefully next year we can raise even more! I'm hoping to get a picture of the family with Brian to post up here from Elaine soon! Thanks to everyone that donated. I can't tell you how much it was appreciated! And if you still want to donate, feel free to visit www.firstgiving.com/mariaclifford!