I have bragged about this before.  But my husband is amazing.  He operates under the assumption that he can do anything.  And aside from dentistry and obstetrics, he does.  In the east we’re experiencing arctic weather.  It hasn’t been above freezing for days now and that means exponentially high power bills for us.  We have a fireplace with an electric blower that could heat our house but we haven’t put a fire in it yet because we’re afraid of burning down our house since we don’t know when the last time the chimney was cleaned.  I have been suggesting that we get a chimney sweep, but BJay resists such practical suggestions because he honestly believes that he can do anything that I think we should leave to the professionals.  This would be annoying if he was the type of do-it-yourselfer who gets the kitchen sink apart and then destroys it  before conceding to a professional in the end.  BJay does not do that.  There is no job that he can’t master.  And I love that.  So today when we revisited the idea of a fire in our fireplace and getting someone to clean our chimney so we don’t inadvertently burn our house down–Bjay put his chimney sweep cap on an went to work.  Before I knew it he was on the roof and then pulling the fireplace piece out with all kinds of utensils and a shopvac. I don’t know why I doubted him.  I mean if you can drop an engine in your mom’s backyard and completely rebuild a VW vanagon engine from scratch, cleaning a bit off soot and creosote from the chimney can’t be that complicated.  I will definitely let you know if our house burns down over night.  But I have no reason to think it will.  My husband rocks.  He is an eagle scout, after all.  And I believe he is right about the importance of learning to do something yourself.  I mean, there are a few jobs I am going to always leave to the professionals.  Namely dental work and medical care.  But if it is possible to learn how to do something yourself before hiring someone else to do it, you’ve won twice.  You’ve gained knowledge and experience and saved a wad of cash.  And those are things that are getting to be very important these days.

Step in Time!

To save money we decided to buy our kitchen cabinets and countertops at Ikea. It is much cheaper because we have to pick up the cabinets and assemble them ourselves. We also had to measure and design the kitchen ourselves. Here are some things we have learned in the process:

1. Measure 5 or 6 times before you buy

2. Measure 5 or 6 times before you cut

3. Don’t trust designing software

4. When making a kitchen order through Ikea, make note of which items are “self-serve” because if you don’t pay attention you will get home without purchasing any drawer pulls.

5. It takes twice as long to jerry-rig a kitchen sink as it does to actually install the kitchen sink

6. It is going to take forever to assemble all those cabinets

7. It is going to take forever to install all those cabinets

8. After we tally up the cost of gas for two trips to ikea and the time spent assembling and installing all these cabinets…we probably aren’t saving any money.

9. It looks so easy in the video

10. If we ever get this done, it will be beautiful

*(Ummm… I don’t know where the spell check went… Now you can see how bad my spelling is.)

We went to my sister-in-law’s house last night for games and pizza. It was fun and we stayed too late. As we were driving home a storm was coming in and we were awed by bright flashes of lightening and low rumbling thunder. The radio announced that there was a tornado watch for our area. I found myself wishing that we’d come home and find our house had been destroyed by a fallen pine tree. We have a whopper of a pine tree in our front yard. Anywhere it falls it would pretty much take out the house. Isn’t that a funny thing to wish? Of course I’d want the destruction to happen when we are all somewhere else. But I think we’d have a lot more fun on weekends if we were rid of this money-pit of a fixer house. Every weekend is a project and if we don’t do anything on the house I feel like we’re slacking and move back my expected date of completion another year. Luckily for me I don’t have any stuff that I’d be upset to lose either. Stuff that is. I think our neighbors would be thrilled too. Our sister ugly house in the neighborhood was purchased by a well-to-do retired couple at the begining of the year and they’ve completely remodeled and painted (with the help of about 20 different contractors). So our house is the sad lonely ugly duckling of the neighborhood. We have so much to do to finish the inside we haven’t really done much to the outside. Every other yard on the street is well-manicured and pristine. I have to laugh sometimes. But I wonder if my neighbors are wishing a tornado to drop down on our house raise property values for the neighborhood. Its funny. I guess.

Sunday afternoon I was making brownies, went to check on them and the oven was stone cold. The brownies were still batter. It had been warm when I put them in, but 30 minutes later, nothing. I have a brand new oven–just over a year old so I was super annoyed. Mostly because the warranty just ran out. The digital display wasn’t doing anything, but the stovetop worked. So we headed over to my mom’s, cooked the brownies and came home late. I fully expected to have to either pay for a really expensive repair or buy a new oven. But once again, I underestimated the fixing abilities of BJay. After locating the breaker to the oven outlet and a $6 trip to Lowes, my oven is good as new. Brilliant. We have never in our married life payed for a car to go to a mechanic. Nor did we have to hire an electrician like I thought we would to install lights in the family room where there was no overhead lighting. The ability to fix things is supernatural to me. I just don’t get how things work. So I am always amazed when BJay is able to tackle blown head-gaskets, tiling the bathroom and kitchen, repairing non-functioning cars, computers, ovens. I really think he’s a genius. I wonder how much money we’ve saved over the years. Now if he could only figure out how to do our dental work and deliver babies. Totally kidding!

BJay spent all last Saturday putting up new lights

Before

After

After a year with shoplights in the family room, these new ceiling fans are really nice!

Guess what BJay is doing in the background of these pictures?