Dear Santa

Dear Santa,

In lieu of asking for anything for myself this year, instead I'd like to ask for a gift for my friend Tara.

As you know, Tara's busy building her house, so I don't think that she'd have time to actually compose this letter herself. Also, I think maybe she's too nice to ask for what she needs.

It's not that I don't like her third cousin Billy Bob from Arkansas. Personally, I don't find tattoos with the NASCAR emblem endearing, but I'm not the judgemental type, and you know, to each their own. And bless his heart for thinking of Tara when he brought her a housewarming gift.

I'll admit, I was a tad concerned when he told the story of collecting the last chair; how he ran as fast as he could and leapt over a broken-down lawn mower, and how just in the knick of time the doberman chasing him met the end of his chain. Thank goodness he had the dexterity not to spill his can of Old Milwaukee Light and had it to quench his thirst as he laid there, panting on the ground, thanking his lucky stars.

I don't want to hurt anyones feelings, but it's just that I was sort of picturing a different set of furniture for Tara's living room. Something with, oh, cushions and a place to recline in front of the fireplace.

Do you think you could please bring her a nice set from Pottery Barn? I promise that I'll help her move it and bring out the set from Billy Bob when he gets paroled comes to visit.

Thanks Santa,
Jenn

I Know It's Wednedsay!

OK Betsy! Here's your quick update. :) There isn't a whole lot to update though.

The garage walls were completed this weekend, without the plywood. The big trusses were set. The smaller truss jacks have mostly been put in also. Rick, Bob and Tom were out again throughout the week and on Saturday. Once again, we could not have accomplished what we did without them. Bob came out again to help on Sunday while Rick and Tom enjoyed a Lions' game at Ford Field.

We did have a bit of excitement this weekend. Just a bit of background before I tell you what happened. Dad is the president of the board at the Great Lakes SAFETY and Training Center. He has always been a big safety man. That being said, I have a question for you readers...are you supposed to stand on the TOP of a step ladder? The answer to that question is no, you are not supposed to stand there. Dad was putting some corner truss pieces in when he decided to give us his best impersonation of a chimpanzee! The ladder came crashing down, Dad was swinging on the top of the garage wall by one hand, and the truss luckily was caught on another one so it didn't fall on his head. It could have been a bad situation, but it turned out alright.

Hopefully this weekend will show some good progress. We have 4 straight days of work ahead of us. A turkey, some mashed potatoes, corn casserole, and hopefully some pie will be worked in there somewhere. They are forecasting 2 inches of snow tonight. I'm hoping the weatherman is wrong as usual.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving with lots of food, family and friends. If you're crazy enough to go shopping on Friday I hope you come home unscathed and that you win any fist fight you get in! If you are going to the Midland High football game, cheer extra loud for me. Happy Turkey Day!

Monday, November 19

Sorry there is nothing reported yet. I have a super busy day today, so I won't be able to update this until this evening. I promise I will get pictures and an update up tonight.

On a side note, please send a Happy Birthday wish to my sister if you feel inclined! She would also probably appreciate a prayer or some brain power her way as she trudges through the last 20 some days of undergrad.

One Step Closer

This weekend was a pretty exciting one. Yet another milestone has been started...although not quite completed.

Thursday and Friday evenings Mom, Dad and I finished building walls in the garage at home. If only all the walls could have been built inside where it's warm without any wind.

Saturday morning Rick came out to help us finish standing walls and getting the house ready for trusses. We also finished putting the treads on my basement stairs. So we don't have to use the ladder anymore. About noon I picked up two of his boys, Bob and Tom, to come help out at the house. Grandpa and Mom also came out to help. We finished standing all the interior walls and Rick and Dad started putting on the top plates. Bob and I took a trip to Menards to pick up some more lumber. Remember the story about sorting lumber at Menards awhile back? Well this time I was the one going through stacks of lumber trying to find the straight ones while Bob loaded them in the back of the van. I actually made the guys at Menards get down another bunk of 2x4s because I went through the one on their floor and couldn't find a straight board in the bunch. I'm sure they love us out there...they probably see our van coming and run in the opposite direction now! By the time Bob and I got back to the house the rest of the crew had built a couple garage walls and stood them.

Sunday morning we finished putting the top plates on the walls. When this was finished Rick finally got to show us what he had been prepping us for all weekend...he kept asking if we were ready for the show...the gun show. Trusses are beasts and very difficult to handle, but with Rick and his guns we had no problem muscling them into place. Ok, maybe a few problems, like a couple people tripping and ending on their butts on the ground, a few trusses temporarily offset from where they are supposed to be, and some interesting work getting them into the house and on the roof. All in all it went well without any injuries. Bob climbed up to stand on the top plates and hold the trusses while Dad and Rick set them into place. I was really glad that Bob was ok doing that, because that meant I wouldn't have to.

Words cannot express enough how thankful I was to have Rick and the boys out at the house. They were a tremendous help! Tom was great when there was work for him to do, and when there wasn't he was content to sit in my office and built a house for his guinea pig, which was a pretty impressive finished product. He also made a boat. If it floats upright for a minute Mom owes him $5. Unfortunately we did not have a place large enough to test it. We'll have to test it at home some night. I think Bob learned a lot this weekend. He did a little bit of everything for us. He measured for top plates, nailed top plates, hauled lumber, sorted lumber, held trusses, whatever was asked of him. Even though his dad kept critiquing his hammer swing, I thought he did a fantastic job. Rick is another person who knows construction, has patience, and can work with my dad. He also can keep the atmosphere light and fun. I know we couldn't have accomplished what we did this weekend without them.

It's Starting to Look Like a House

As you can see from the picture, all of our outside walls are up, minus the garage. Most of our inside walls are up too. The entire south side of the house has the walls up. We have some more walls to build for the laundry room, bathroom, kitchen and a couple closets on the north side. They are pretty small for the most part though. Mom was going to try to go out today and build those if the weather permitted today.

We had a great weekend to work. The sun was out and the temperatures were not too cold. They were kind of chilly in the morning, but as long as the sun was shining they were tolerable. I'm not going to lie though...I did have my Underarmor and ski socks on all weekend.

We had Mom, Dad, Vic, Grandpa and myself out working for the weekend. Vic and I kept to our job of building walls. Two Michigan Tech engineers building walls can be rather interesting. At one point we were putting cripple studs under a door header. This involves one person moving the stud up and down to flush it to the one next to it while the other person nails the stud to the neighboring stud. I was the nailer, and in Vic's words, he was the derivative. Wow...I told him he was a geek, but assured him that I was as well since I understood what he meant.

Vic, Grandpa and I were out to the house a bit earlier on Saturday than Dad was. So we started building the walls that were laid out ahead of us. In trying to stay to Dad's standards of wall building, we took our time getting the stud exactly flush and on the line. During that process Grandpa asked us if we were building a china cabinet. I guess my dad didn't get his sense of perfection from his dad! It was a good laugh.

We had what could have been our first bad injury on Friday afternoon. Luckily it turned out to be only slightly bad. Dad was using a pipe clamp to hold two walls together on one end. On the other end he was beating on the top plates with a sledge hammer. Mom, Vic and I were laying out a new wall next to him. The pipe clamp came off and hit Mom in the back of the head. I thought we might be taking her to the ER for stitches. Luckily it was only a big lump, although I'm sure it still hurts quite a bit. She's a trooper though and continued working. Although, she's added it to her list of injuries to sue me for. :)

Steve put our electrical service in last week also. We should be getting an inspection some time this week and hopefully Consumers won't take too long to come hook up the power. At that point we can stop using the generator. That will quiet the site down a bit, and we won't have to worry about lugging the beast around and keeping gas in it.

The trusses should be delivered early this week. I don't know how long it will take to finish the walls we have to build inside as well as the garage. I think we're hoping to set trusses this weekend. I'm not 100% sure on that though.

This is going to be a sad week. Daylight Savings Time ended this weekend, so that pretty much shoots any hope of working in the evenings. We are also losing Vic to Tennessee again. It was a great time while it lasted and made building walls that much more fun. I do understand that Lisa would like to see him again though, and that maybe he should go home. Thanks for all your help Vic...once again, we would not have made as much progress without you!