Harapnuik Adventures

We painted my room this week. It wasn’t very fun….. But take a look at these pictures.

Before

Before Again

Pouring Primer

Cutting in

Starting to Prime With The Roller

Done Priming

Nice.....

Starting to Paint the Wall

First Coat Doesn't Look That Good

Done..... Finaly

It took three days and two coats of paint and one coat of primer…… Now I can sleep in peace, knowing that I accomplished something.

Tweet This Post

I painted my room this week. Here’s the pictures. Oh and I painted my dressers but I already did a blog about that. Scroll down to see it.

Dad showing me how to paint (even though I know how).

Before

After

Before also

In between

I'm up High :O

Rolling

Taking of the tape

AAAAALLLLLLL DONE

Tweet This Post

My man loves tools. I’m told this is a male-type phenomena.

When we were engaged, we walked through a china display at a store looking for a “pattern” to pick for our dishes. He didn’t get it. We searched, and looked, and his eyes would grow wide at prices and his body would contort to move through the displays so not to brush one in passing. I’d be ooing and ahing over some beauty and he’d just not get it. You’d think I would have understood the same display of awe from him in a hardware store, but I didn’t. I didn’t get the extreme care he took in choosing a paintbrush, oh so many years ago. I couldn’t believe the prices. I can’t remember how much, but not your dollar store specials. Ah, but “with the right tools, it’s so much easier”. We collected a couple of really nice ones (he tells me) over the years. I began to actually hate them. When we were finished a painting project, they had to be cleaned, and cleaned, and cleaned again, till all the bristles were free of the color of the wall. The hairs laid flat and perfect in their cardboard-fold-over-wrap-around-and-tie case again. I would much prefer to throw a brush out than spend the time washing them to perfection (not eco friendly I admit), but so much less time and water!

This week I have appreciated our Purdy and LeHay brushes, because this time, when we unwrapped them from their cardboard cases, they told Levi, Caleb and I a story, a history, of the homes we’ve lived in. You see, as clean as we got the bristles, the wooden handles hold smudges, or splatters, or speckles of walls past. Right there, that’s the color of our foyer in the Edmonton house, our bathroom, the family room. There’s the single color of our Lethbridge home that took so much work to repair all the bb dents caused by our neglect of reigning in the boy’s enthusiasm for their new sport.

So we happily paint new colors into our brushes and will remember another home where two boys/men and their mom and dad spent time in their lives together. Caleb with his Gibraltar Grey (which I questioned him about over and over and turned out just so beautiful) and Levi with his Maple Leaf Red (lovely name for a rich color that is our Edmonton red) have painted their own rooms and have added their colors to our history.

Tweet This Post

Life is different for the Harapnuik family this past week. You see, after camping on the floor for the last 9 months we are now all waking up and finding a new movement necessary for getting out of bed: we swing our feet “down” onto the floor and stand up . It’s really been fun having our beds on the floor; mostly because it makes us appreciate bed frames.

Other cool things: I can do what ever load of laundry I need and not feel like it has to be a week’s worth. I can yell at the kids (yes, they love that) to find out where they are in the house or yard. We wake to silence or, if the windows are open, birds singing. I can take an early morning walk and see the “mountains” of Buffalo Gap. We can leave our home in robes, bed head and underwear to sit on a patio and drink our morning coffee. The boys can be running 4 different projects and not have to clear one away to start another (though that could turn out as a negative somewhere down the line). Our tramp is up and hand hockey has been reborn and taught to a few choice friends. Negative – one accident sent a friend for 6 stitches on his chin…knocked his own knee into his chin. Don’t ask me… he can’t even figure it out. The guitars can be exploding from the back room and you can’t hear them outside. I can pull weeds. The sprinkler is more than a water source for the lawn. Silence at night. The moon shining in our window. The star spilling over the night sky. Sigh. What a gift.

So come on down. Ken and Heather broke in the house to visitors with rave reviews so “it would be so fine to see your face at our door”. I think that’s Carole King/Carly Simon song, So Far Away

Tweet This Post

Waahoo! Tomorrow we empty our storage bin of 10 months and move it all to our home. I’m hoping that we can find space for all our “stuff” and that we don’t regret bringing all the things. Today, after putting some things in the van from storage, I was walking into the house with 2 toilet plungers. Now why did we bring those? We could have bought them on this end. It will be interesting to see my thinking on what we chose to bring and what we didn’t as we unpack the boxes. I hope it’s not a “oh brother” type of experience.

We have 10 strong men to help us and the temp. should be about 30C. We are hoping to get it done by noon and have some lunch and send them on their way for the Memorial Weekend. We are so thankful for the ones who offered to help when I’m sure more interesting adventures awaited them.

Dwayne’s brother, Ken and sis in law, Heather arrived from Edmonton on Wednesday night and have been so helpful in energy and ability. We appreciate them being here for the Canadian connection in our maiden voyage in Abilene home ownership. We’re on the home stretch for knocking out our fire ant problem, garage door problem and weed problem. We are owners of a used “nothing runs like a deere” ride-on that the boys argued about who got to mow what. We hope that argument continues with the “get to” not switch to the “have to”.

So our stuff in on it’s way and we can spend some time figuring out the new configuration of our life of things. My best buddies, my books, will soon be resting in boxes on the garage floor where I can peek in and pull one or two out before we find a shelf for them in our home. I’ve missed you G. K Chesterton and Milton. “Love is not blind, that’s the last think it is. Love is bound and the more it is bound, the less it is blind.” and “When I consider how my light was spent…”. Ah, precious words.

Much of what we will be bringing will be remain in boxes until the walls are painted and the flooring changed, but it’ll be under our roof in one way or another. The apartment is clean, the smell of Lysol is now only a weekly thing, not an hourly thing, the dog next door loves to bring his toys over for a toss and a run and we received our immigrant visa cards in the mail! We are legal and the kids and I will get Social Security Numbers so we can be more than temporary aliens. Whew, what a week.

Night all. Hope you have a great weekend.

Tweet This Post

On day six of creation, God announced to his archangel underling, “Today we’re creating a place called Canada. Pull out all the stops. Give it beautiful mountains, lakes, plains, forests, and sandy beaches. Under ground, give it oil, gold, etc. Oh, and plenty of fish and wildlife.

“Sir” interjected an archangel, “aren’t you being overly generous to these Canadians?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll balance it out,” said God. “Wait ’till you see the neighbors I’m giving them.”

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

An American couple get hoplessly lost while driving through Canada. Over the objections of her husband, the wife calls out to a pedestrian, “Hey buddy, can you tell us where we are?” The pedestrian smiles sympathetically and says, “Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.”

After she rolls up the window, her husband says, “I told you it wouldn’t do any good. They don’t even speak English up here.”

Tweet This Post

As the title says WE BOUGHT A HOUSE YAHOOO and so on. The address is: 7825 Saddle Creek Rd. It is the nicest subdivision in town and you can look at it on Google earth but if you don’t have Google earth here is a few pictures

This is when you are entering Saddle Creek.

This is the house from the end of the driveway.

This is from the front of the yard.

We would like to see your face at our door.

We will update the photos when we are done painting, panting and cleaning.

Tweet This Post

It all happened last Friday night while Dwayne and I were trying to get our Canadian taxes done. Nothing like waiting till the last minute. We been trying to narrow the search down between 3 houses all week and finally got to the last two on Friday afternoon, but thought we’d wait till after taxes and the weekend. The tax incentive to buy before the end of April would be off and maybe some prices would drop.We thought.

Our realtor called us at 8 to say that she thought we’d qualify for the tax rebate cause Dwayne was a resident worker and this would be his first home purchase. She also said that one home had come back after our verbal offer with an offer of $5000 more than we offered and we jumped at it. So by 11:30 that night we had bought a house. We did all the paper work from home then got back to the taxes. We wanted to have them ready to send by midnight via netfile and 2 minutes to 12 we sent them…rejected cause we were sending them from America…sigh, oh well. We won’t be penalized cause we won’t be paying, but we had to laugh about how we burn through stuff when we don’t need to.

The next morning Caleb and Dwayne drove into Dallas to scout for some roller blades. While I was doing some paper work, a notice popped up that our visas had been approved the day before(Friday) and were in the mail. One of our hesitations about purchasing property was that if we weren’t allowed to stay (everyone said that was highly unlikely, but still…), what would we do with a house in Abilene? I guess it was a confirmation of sorts that the day we bought a house was the day our visas were approved.

Everyone we needed to talk to on Saturday to give our apartment notice weren’t around, so we knew we were off the hook for that till Monday. On Monday morning I went to talk to the manager and she said there was a line up to get into a 3 bedroom, so whenever we decided on the house, it was fine with them. The buyers contract allowed us till last night to back out (5 Days) and we used them. On Monday we had building and foundation inspectors, paint salesmen, and a flooring salesmen all at the house at the same time to give us the info we’d need to confirm our choice. The next day the termite man and the airconditioner man met us there. The AC wasn’t working so yesterday a man came out to clean and service it. Definitely a requirement in Texas is a quality air conditioner for the Canadian family. We decided last night that it was the one for us, so today we are in shell shock. After 9 months of looking, the search is over. Now my Sunday afternoons will be free. Maybe I’ll have to take up airsoft with the boys

The home needs a lot of elbow grease, paint and some tender loving care, but I think we can manage it. The shop is such a find and will be so beneficial for all the tinkering Levi, Caleb and Dwayne do on bikes, guns and projects yet to be named. We’ll be getting a ride on mower for the one acre lot and I’m hoping the boys will also use it to serve the neighbors. I am so excited to get the trampoline up with a sprinkler on it so Levi and Caleb can enjoy some memories of the past. They have privacy for target practice (not on each other), ramps for their bikes, and whatever else they have up their sleeves.

I’ll be a busy month and once again I’m so thankful we home educate. I need the muscle and the excitement to help us along.

Tweet This Post

We are not getting the house we almost bought. It was just to far away from ACU.

Tweet This Post