I decided sometime yesterday that my goal for this year is to write at least 1000 words a day.  They won’t all be on this blog, but this is going to be where I start.   There’s so much going on in my life, and it really helps to get everything out.

In July, we bought a house.  That’s the good news.  We got a great deal, more good news.  With poor credit, we were able to afford the house still – the house was financed by the seller.

The bad news, the people we bought it from tore out everything because they were going to remodel it.  This means that once you go inside the front door, the walls are down to the studs.  Plus, since it hasn’t been lived in since 2009, kids have used it for a hang-out and have shot out almost every window.

The town we live in has some pretty particular laws.  I understand why, but it’s frustrating.

We have to use an electrician and a plumber who is registered with the city.

While we’re saving to pay for the plumber and electrician, we’re living with family and working on the rest of the house.  For the main part of the house, they changed the size of the windows.  Plus, the city code says that we have to have king studs and headers for all windows and doors.  I had never heard of either of these terms before we bought the house.  It’s all good, we’ve framed in 3 of the 4 walls we wanted to form the rooms, and my husband has slowly figured out how to cut out the holes in the 2×4’s to get the king studs around the windows.

While he’s been working on the inside, I’ve been working on the outside of the house.  We’ve had to trim trees back and pick up nuts.  Know anyone who wants some shelled pecans? LOL with 3 pecan trees in the yard, we’re going to have plenty. I’ve got big plans for the yard, I just need to start by hauling all of the pruned branches into one spot and mulch them.  The yard has been neglected so long that we really need the mulch.  When we bought the house in July, the ‘grass’ in the yard was taller than my hubby.  Granted, he’s only 5’8″, but that’s tall enough!

On top of the work on the house, we’ve had car problems.  Our car with 260k+ miles decided that it was done.  That same week, the ball joint went on hubby’s truck.  We fixed his truck and are selling the car to the salvage yard.

There is still work to do, but it’s getting there slowly.  I’m so looking forward to getting more done at the house.  Today, we spent the day putting up plastic on the windows.  Or rather, I put the plastic up.  The tacks that were included in the weatherproofing kit were about the width of my thumb, so hubby couldn’t hold the tacks and nail them in, his thumb is too big.

With weatherproofing on the windows, we’re hoping it’ll be a bit warmer inside so we can get more done.  It’d be great to get everything done so we’ll be good to go once we have the money for the electrician and the plumber.