Progress!

We haven't had many updates lately, but that's because I wanted something drastic to show you on the house. We started working on fixing our garage before we moved in. Of the ten-page code violations that came with this house, fixing the garage was the most urgent since it was falling over and had holes in the roof. People looked at this and said, "Tear it down." But we didn't have a ton of money and we like old things, so we decided to restore it, one small step at a time, with lots of help along the way.

As purchased. It came with the tarp (and raccoon) and everything. 

The first step was to protect our neighbors. We hired our friend from church (Shawn Gray of Home Elements) to get it structurally sound. He does great, beautiful work (check out the pictures on his website). I don't think our project made the cut for his website because it was still an eyesore, but guess what?! It wasn't going to fall over and the holes in the roof were gone. Shawn and Edy (you'll see more of him) also ripped off the garage extension. At the end of that project, it looked like this:

Straight as an arrow and new cedar siding where the extension once protruded.

Lots of peeling paint to scrape on the backside. 

This version was luxurious. We could actually store things in the garage. Shawn even fixed the broken window and the raccoon had been relocated. We operated with this lovely version for over a year. To prepare for the monumental task of painting the entire house, we decided to use this little garage as our testing ground. It was our chance to work on our prepping skills - scraping, stripping, sanding, caulking, puttying, and priming. This was labor-intensive and we couldn't have done it without Edy's help. Here we are at work:

Man of my dreams and the hardest worker I know. That window behind him is on its way to amazing. 

He makes me laugh too, which is a good thing because when I'm hot, I get cranky.

Don't be deceived. Most of the work was done by Paul and Edy.
I included this picture to show you the true state of that 100 year old siding. 

Poor Edy. He did a ton of work, and we did not do a good job of documenting him at work. I will correct that in the future (as there is still an entire house to prep for paint). I'm especially disappointed because Edy looks so handsome in his work suspenders.

This is a cheat; he's actually working on our house. But those are the suspenders. Also,
Paul informed me that it's hard to get a picture of Edy because he moves so fast. 

Edy primed the whole garage. Look at this. It's so pretty.

We didn't get a picture of it, but those windows got a lot of love an attention, stripped down to the bare wood.

I was tempted to paint the whole thing white and be done - it was such a drastic improvement, but I'm glad I didn't.

Now to an insecurity confession: I was incredibly nervous about picking paint colors. I love, love design - reading design blogs and books, looking at magazine pictures, drawing sketches, pinning images on pinterest - but choosing exterior paint colors FREAKED me out. There were tears. What if I hated it? What if we had to do it all over again? What if? What if?

So I turned to one of my real talents: research. I narrowed it down to about nine potential base and trim colors. Then I bought samples in rounds (I forgot to take a picture of this stage). Here's the crazy thing, I ended up loving the very first base and trim color I chose. The rest of the samples just confirmed that they were my favorite. All that was left was the accent color. I did another round of samples and ended up choosing my neighbor's suggestion (thank you, Susan!), which I absolutely love. Here are the color winners:

Base color.

Main trim color - to match the gutters.

Additional trim color.

Susan's pick and our "pop" color.

After getting the garage ready to go (did I already mention how labor-intensive that was?), we had another church friend (Dave Lano of Lano Services) do the painting. This is fresh in my mind because it happened today. We absolutely can't stop staring at the finished project - AND - he and Mike did this in about six hours. It's perfect in every way. The garage is done.

Action shot. Paul turned around after taking this picture and they were done.

Look at that beauty! It reminds me of a doll house, a sophisticated one, of course. Props to Mr. Lano for suggesting that the amber color trim the inside of the windows. It is so cheerful.

A much prettier backside now. You can see the dovetail color under the eaves. It didn't get a lot of play on the garage because it doesn't have the same kind of Victorian detail the house has. Don't worry, it will get to show off soon.

Freshly painted garage door too - looks brand new.

One more for good measure. Plus, this is a little truer to the actual color,
which is darker than some of the other pictures show.

This post got kind of long. Let's just remember what the before looked like:

BEFORE

AFTER

Now for a day off - to sip a drink from the deck and admire our garage.

Reading

I haven't blogged since January. That doesn't mean I didn't think about lots of things to share with you all. It's just that doing those things got in the way of reflecting on them and uploading photos and videos to share (sorry, Grandma!).

Usually, I try to blog about things I don't want to forget, which almost always involve Caleb. Remember when I told you about his ABC Obsession? Well, the consequence is that he loves to "read."

I put that in quotation marks for several reasons. First, the child has an uncanny memory and wants to read a story five times - not just once. Second, he has sight words that he nails all the time and never tries sounding them out, words like: and, the, with, for, it. The other reason I qualify the use of the word "read" is because he is still working on sounding out letter combinations and grouping sounds.

Regardless of what constitutes independent reading, we're amazed. He's going to be three in August and has been "reading" since he was two and a half. Before you start feeling bad that your child doesn't sit in a corner with a book, listing every letter on the page and then going back to sound them out, you shouldn't. In my mind, this is the result of an obsessive personality focused on letters. We didn't do anything special with Caleb. This is just a part of who he is.

That doesn't mean that we don't encourage his love of letters and words. We certainly do. Ms. Tomi, who watches him three times a week, takes him to the library for a fresh load of books once a week and is willing to read the same story to him three times in a row (not happening with this momma).

My parents keep him supplied with fun new reads too. Like this one:

                                  

It probably helps that we don't have a t.v. and our down time looks like this:

Before you start wondering how socially awkward our two year old is and whether he talks with a British accent and goes to local book readings and quotes scripture memory verses at anyone who looks his way, you should know that he also does things like this too:

We love this kid. It's such a joy to be his momma.

On the Seventh Day, He Rested.

As much as this weather makes me want to curl up and hibernate under my covers, there's too much going on for rest. Paul's real estate practice is hopping, and I have been working on Saturdays - in addition to the rest of the week - to get ready for an important event coming up at school. Once the baby is down for the night, we pick right back up where we left off. More work. Then we're up the next morning and at it again.

Except for Sundays. 

Paul and I have long discussed our mutual desire to observe the Sabbath, to be intentional about protecting time for reflection and rest. If there has ever been a season where we might have excused this practice, this is it. It's also the time we most need it.

Here we are, alive and sane in the midst of a busy season. "Then he said to them, 'The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.'" Mark 2:27.

Working by the fireplace.

Caleb is studying penguins with Ms. Tomi.

Daddy's fellow cold-weather adventurer.
"Are you cold, Caleb?"
"No. I'm a Haske."

Adorable and color-coordinated.

Train day with friend Anthony.

Kids, cool dads, and a nice train conductor.

Adding a new element to our nightly Bible reading - the head lamp.

Playing inside because it is -10 degrees outside.

Friends from supper club. I look forward to watching these kids grow up together. 

That's all for now folks. If you're feeling worn out, take a Sabbath. 

Theme Song

Christmas is a celebration of the One I love, who daily meets me and calls me to Himself. There's no one like Jesus.    

"Before me no god was formed, nor will there be one after me. I, even I, am the Lord, and apart from me there is no savior." (Isaiah 43:10b-11)

This has been a year of uncertainty, a year of provision. Many days this song moved me, encouraged me, stirred me, calmed me, reminded me of the One who has numbered all of my days. 

This is my version of my theme song for 2013. I did not remove the imperfections, the wrong notes, some pitchy-ness in places, because I wanted you to feel like you were sitting in my living room, and because this is what it really sounds like. 

The song is by Hillsong United and is called Oceans.

Humbled

This is me in college. 

That's me on the far right with two very memorable faces from my days at BU.

English major. Dreamer. Career plans? Higher education. More specifically, literature professor. That's how much I enjoyed the professors I had at Belmont University.

Like this lady

or this lady.

But there's one English professor who had the biggest impact on me. 

This lady

Meet Dr. Monteverde. 

She's as dedicated as they come, and I took more than one of her courses - including an entire semester on the legend of King Arthur. Not only is she part my story of meeting Paul (we first met in her History of the English Language class), but she was a major voice in my professional journey. I like to think of her as my reality check.

I hadn't done any research on job prospects for literature professors. I just knew it meant a lot of school (which I loved) and reading a lot of books (which I also loved). But in a quiet session in her office, Dr. Monteverde sat across from me and shared her story, her path to becoming a professor, the sacrifices, the student loans, the uncertainty. Her approach was loving but direct. It's an awesome job, but it's a long hard road.

There has been a lot of in-between from that day in her office, and I did not continue in literature when I pursued additional education. Instead, that boy I met in her class married me and convinced me to go to law school with him.

We practice law. We have a house. We have a baby. We moved back to my hometown, where I started teaching at the local community college. It has been two years since my first class at Elgin Community College, but I am happy to report that they are taking me on full time.

It's official.

I'm a college professor. 

Sometimes our dreams follow us, just in a different form. 

p.s. I'm on top of the world! But not literally, like Dr. Monteverde is.

 

Run for your Life

"I hate running." This is always my first thought when I'm tying my shoes at 6:00 in the morning. Bed is the perfect temperature, the pillow perfectly shaped to my head. The invitation to crawl back inside raised to a level of shouting. Outside, quiet. A few birds, an occasional bark from a restless dog.

Pit stop. A sip of water. Earphones. Pepper spray.

For three months I hit the pavement at least three times a week. The external motivation? A 10K race. The internal motivation? A new full-time job and a toddler. For most people, this sounds like a crazy conclusion: things are as hectic as ever, so I should start running. But I knew that if I didn't make that time count, my fitness would go down the tubes and so would my morale. When you have a two year old who's clever at moving chairs to reach whatever he has his eye on and who also likes to talk 99% of the hours he is conscious, alone time and quiet exist only in the pre-dawn moments.

I used a training schedule and tapped into two more experienced runners who took me with them for long runs on Saturday mornings. I never did remember to take a before run picture, but here's an after.

I'm so grateful for these ladies. They were with me when I set new distance records for myself. As of today, my longest run was just over 7 miles.

This morning was the big day. My boys woke up early and took me down to Sycamore, Illinois, where I ran in the 10K Pumpkin Run. My personal goal was to finish under an hour.

Sleepy, cuddly little boy at the starting line.

A wave before the gun went off.

Final Stats: 

Miles:   6.2 miles

Time:   54:45

Pace:   8:49

My relationship with running has changed. I think about it when I'm feeling stressed or over-worked. I picture myself commanding my feet to move forward. I see my breath in the morning air. I watch the sunrise and think about how thankful I am to still be moving.

   

Jesus Loves Me