Gallbladder is attacking!

Yikes! My gallbladder has been so good lately, I forgot I had a problem. Then all of a sudden I ate a nice healthy salad for lunch and I end up in pain all day and evening. Lots of pain. Usually the pain is only in the middle of my stomach, but this time it went under my right rib and in my back too.
I made some onion soup. A long time ago Rick and I were taking Martha and Maria out on a special outing. We actually hired a babysitter (unheard of for us) and took the girls to Canada. Well I ate a banana before I left town and I was in horrible pain for hours, I felt so bad because it was ruining out special outing. Well we went to a restaurant that had onion soup. Not something I normally like that much, but I loved it that night. It helped so much. So I made it again tonight. It was not very yummy though. Probably because I made it with bullion and not real beef bones.
This picture is of my onions cooking. I love to cook onions and they looked so pretty I thought I would take a picture.

The end of the Dakota house!

The kitchen with the old fashioned sink. Matched very well to my new hickory cabinets.

James was showing the place to you!
Notice the new carpet in the bedroom, new windows, nice doors.

The claw foot bathtub.

Living room and kitchen

Part of the new kitchen, complete with dishwasher.

Laundry room. the whole house was bright and fresh.
Well it was a very interesting first experience on house flipping. It was hard work, fun, and a learning experience. I didn't "loose my shirt" but I didn't make very much money either. I was so disappointed at first. Now I just am glad I made some money. with the economy the way it is, some people are losing money.
I'll give the figures here because I think 20 or 100 yrs from now someone might find the prices very interesting.
I bought the house for a great price of $69,500. I got it so cheap, mainly because there was a huge lump in the living room that had to be fixed.
I spent a total of $7000 to fix up a repair the place. New kitchen and all. It turned out really nice.
have been easy. But this yr is a I thought I should be able to sell the house for $100,000. Last yr I know that would different story. I had an offer right away of $90,000. I eventually decided to go with it, rather then sitting on it for a while. Problem is the appraisal came back at $88,000. Boy was I bumbed out. The only reason it is so low, is because there are no comps. The appraiser said he was going to have trouble, because sales are so slow in Libby right now.
I finally made the decision to sell. the reason? Well I am trying to have more time for my children, lower my stress level, etc. For me to change gears and turn it into a rental would have been very stressful right now. Especially since i had to borrow some of the money to fix the house. So I made the decision. I made only $6500. But if I figured $10 per hour, I would have spent 650 hours working on this project. I'm sure it wasn't that many hours. So my hourly wage was probably pretty decent!
I'm relieved and happy tonight. Next week I'll be paying off 3 credit cards. Next month we will begin again trying to live on what we make! That is always impossible!
Now I get to find my next project! :)

Weekend in Bonner

We had been planning to go to a Retrovuille camp.
We finally got our camp trailer travel worthy. Still needs some work, but at least it's not going to be dangerous on the road.
We headed out for Bonner, MT (down by Missoula) about 5 or 6 pm. It was a beautiful drive and we went slow. Got in to Bonner at 11 pm. We were sleeping in the back of Saint Anne's church.
Retrovuille is a program for marriage help. It's a great program. Rick and I have been to a couple of weekend, but this was just a camp. Children were welcome so we thought we would go, not really knowing what to expect.
We had a few sessions.
1st session was by John Gray. Called the seasons of marriage.
This was great. He talked about how we have our spring of marriage, where everything is lovely, then summer where you have work really hard, in the heat.
Then there is fall, where life is steady, the harvest is great, love is deep. But watch out here comes winter. Winter is when people get divorced. It's hard, cold, think you don't love each other anymore. But if we realize it's just a season, it's normal, then Spring will come. This was great to hear. I always think of marriage problems as going down hill. Things are just going to get worse. But it's not that way, things go round, not down.

The next session was on personality's.
Rick and I are always very opposite on these.
He is very strong on the Driver end, I am very strong on the Amiable end.
Drivers act with confidence, speak and act directly, act independent of the rules, don't seek the input of others.
The Amiable person is sensitive to others, are good listener, focus on feelings more than facts, is open about their feelings, try to please everyone, are easily swayed and always obey the rules!

Those are marshmallows and spaghetti, it was an example of how the different personality's do things. Besides it was lots of fun trying to build a tower with marshmallows and spaghetti.
Monica took tea and coffee. Meals were great. Just everyone pitched in. it was very relaxed. They had someone there to watch the children and there was a big playground right next door.Sunday we actually went to the church at Saint Anne's. I haven't been to a catholic church for many, many years. I was surprised how much scripture they quote.
Then later we had one more session on "men are like waffles and women like spaghetti." It was funny to listen to, as it was so much like us.

camping neighbors

On the way home we saw a sign for Vogel Dr.






A picnic on the way home.

We got home and with in minutes Jon was at the piano
Monica the computer.
Frisky was glad to see us!
Picked up a box of cherries on the way home. I paid $18 for the box, and I think it weighed 20 lbs. the guy selling them didn't know. They were 2nds, but really good.
The mess after every trip!

Painting

We are very, very slowing getting somewhere on our upstairs project We moved Jon out of his little bedroom and let him take Gina's room. Not that she is officially moved out, but she is hardly ever home either.
So we are making the little room upstairs the official guest room. I'm really excited about it. Because it's going to be one clean, organized room in the house. It will always stay clean! :)
It will be ready for company at a moments notice!

It's a really little room, maybe 7 x 10 feet. But it will fit a queen size bed and a dresser in it. So in the 4 drawer dresser I'm going to put:
1. company towels (yellow). By giving them their own color everyone knows they are only for company.
2. pillow cases
3. queen sheets
4. twin sheets.

Then I got a little end table with 6 little drawers in it. In these drawers I'm putting:

1. stamps, stationary (do you remember what that is?) It's not in style anymore and hard to find, and pens.
2. tooth brushes, toothpaste, baby powder, mouth wash etc.
3. birthday cards
4. thank you notes and blank notes
5. misc cards
6 envelopes

Not that all these have anything to do with company. I just lay in bed sometimes and think how I can organize my house. One day I came up with this idea how to organize cards so they would be easier to find and send one. I thought of little boxes or drawers and was looking for one. I think the guest room is a good place to keep this little drawer with my card organization idea.

On the top of the dresser will go some thing pretty and a bible.
That's all that will be in this room. Nothing to mess up, easy to keep clean.

We (Jon actually) is putting laminate floor in tomorrow.
Anyways, back to the paint subject. I found a really neat trick.
Tint your primer. It made it so much easier. I wish I had done this in the living room.
I had to do so many coats in the living room because the white kept showing through. If the primer was tinted I wouldn't have had this problem. It was so easy to to paint in this little room. In my living room I get little scratches in the paint, if my primer was tinted I bet only the deep scratches would show.
So take my advise and ask them to tint your primer. I actually tinted the primer a little darker then my paint. Not on purpose, but I was making a quick decision as I was tired of Walmart. Well my quick decision was a great one this time.

Kendra's birthday

Kendra for her 10th birthday wanted more then anything else to come up to our house for her birthday party! She wanted to make a cake with Grandma.
Last time the girls were up visiting we did lots of cooking. Kendra loves to cook and bake.
Monica, Kendra, and Mark actually made the cake. It was a chiffon cake and it was especially good.



When Maria was little, she always wanted chicken and mashed potato's for her birthday dinner. The day Gina was born, I was in light labor and I didn't feel like making her birthday dinner. Maria remembers being a bit demanding about it. Well it's funny because Kendra was the same way. This is her birthday and she wants it this way.
Maria said to me, "funny thing is, your still making the chicken the dinner, but now it's for my daughter instead of me"

We had chicken legs, mashed potatoes, gravy, cornbread. She wanted corn but I was out of corn.

Kendra, Lynette, Gina, Mark

pool

Mark has been working all spring on trying to get this pool up that Rick bought them last yr. It's one of those with one blow up ring at the top. He finally got it up and then next day it was down again.
So I called Pamida and asked if they would possibly take it back. Then we saw a great sale on pools. For $400 we could get a real decent size pool. $400! That's a lot of money. But all the children offered to chip in, plus they all said they would give their owed money from the Dakota house towards it, and with the refunded money it won't be too bad.
The boys are working like crazy to level the ground. Leveling a spot is a big deal. Our yard is anything but level!
The pool is 18' round, and 48" high.
Hope we can keep it clean and take care of it well.

bats

I was at the birth center today with a new client. Visiting nicely when Karen shut the sliding door. I look up to see 2 bats in the corner of the door, stuck between the screen now and the door. Then I look at the curtain, inside the birth room and there was a little bat there too.
What a lovely thing for a new client to see!!!!
Yuck!
I hope I don't have any in my attic!

Kootenai falls

I can't believe we live in such a beautiful area. It amazing me almost every day. Every time I drive into town, I am just amazed at the beautiful mountains.
Joe and Moriah had relatives here for a visit. So we all went to Kootenai falls and then to the dam for a picnic. It was lots of fun.
Mark

Monica


Monica, Jon, Eric


I have always hated these stairs. They are metal and you can see all the way down. It's hard to step down when you can see all the way down.

TV and our lives

We went from an old round TV when we were first married, to no TV from about 1981 all the way to a little TV to watch a few videos in 1991. We watched videos rarely until about 2003. At that point we got a bunch of TV's for school. Still only watched a few times a week, maybe a couple movies on Friday evening. then in 2005 we got dish.
It was only family channels, and it was lots of fun to have cooking shows, house shows, Matlok etc. Kept that for 1 yr. and Joe and Moriah gave us a huge TV.
Now we wanted to cut down on TV, so we got rid of dish, and found we were addicted again. So now we were watching DVD's, series of shows, ER, Stargate, library movies.
Again we decide to cut down. So we give Michael the huge TV (on loan) and discover you can watch all sorts of old shows on off the internet. So here we are again, watching as much TV as when we had dish almost!
It's a frustrating cycle.
You may wonder why we care to cut down! Well the difference in children is amazing.
Children ( and grownups) tend to read more, we tend to do things as a family more, (picnic's, drives, watching trains) Children get creative, I like to spend time in the yard etc. Plus TV becomes their teacher. The way they talk the way they think things are acceptable.

just found the lost.....

I knew I would find the lost DVD. I thought I had looked everywhere! But no.
Today I found the disk that I had to buy. The one that cost $90. I was telling Rick that I'll just have to watch it alot to make it worth it.
Maybe I could sell it on E bay.

I still have my $25 library book to find. If I find it the library will give me the money back.

3 births

We have had 3 births in the last couple weeks.
Not just butter births! Each one had it's exciting, tense moments that make you wonder what you are doing taking on this huge responsibility of someones life.
I'm so thankful that it is God that gives life, and that he brought these 3 new lives to existence.
Sherry has been my right hand, and I so enjoy working with her. These were her primary births, so she did most of the work ( the shoulder dystocia!)


Sue whose skirt got splashed during the birth so she borrowed a jumper that didn't match the blouse. A little humbling when we had to make a quick trip to the hospital!
Baby number #2
Baby #1
"Little" boy
( he was 10 lbs 1 oz)
Baby # 3
Little girl

Baby #2
Such a beautiful family
We have had 3 births in the last couple weeks.
Not just butter births! Each one had it's exciting, tense moments that make you wonder what you are doing taking on this huge responsibility of someones life.
I'm so thankful that it is God that gives life, and that he brought these 3 new lives
Sherry has been my right hand, and I so enjoy working with her. These were her primary births, so she did most of the work ( the shoulder dystocia!)