I have never experienced an ice storm before...

So, as most of you know we had an ice storm... it all started Monday. They were closing schools early and nothing too bad had happened yet. It started getting a little slick outside, but I was able to pick Tallon up from work and make it home. I didn't sleep well that night because I was worried about the electricity going out and all sorts of stuff... but nothing ever happened. We got up and got ready for work Tuesday morning and I dropped Tallon off at work and then I went to work myself. It just rained all morning... I went home around 12:30 and the roads were still not too bad, but I knew it was going to get worse. When I arrived home my garage door opener wasn't working so I knew we had lost power. Luckily we have a fire place...

When I was driving up our street I noticed some limbs down and some of the neighbors were out trying to clean up the road so we could drive down it... I started to worry about our house because we have some really big trees in out front yard. I decided I was just going to take a nap since I didn't get much sleep the night before. I got all ready for my nap and got the dogs next to me so I could stay warm and then I heard this loud thump, scrape, boom sound. I jumped up and threw on some warmer clothes and ran outside to see the damage. That is when I noticed we have a HUGE tree on side of our house and it was falling to pieces on my roof, the neighbor's roof, my fence and the neighbor's fence... I don't think I ever quite realize there was a giant tree on the side of my house until right then. And from that point on it seemed every few seconds I would hear another limb falling... Have you ever heard what it sounds like when a giant limb falls from a giant trees?? It sounds like gun shots or something!! It was so scary to be home with no power and listening to that. I don't know how many times I ran outside to make sure my roof and fence weren't damaged.

Finally I decided to go inside and just lay by the fire and relax. I called Tallon to see if I could come get him or if he could get a ride home, but I wasn't able to do either. He ended up getting a ride from his brother to his brother's house... they had power at their house. So, I called my mom (she didn't have power either) and asked her how she was and what she was going to do for dinner and stuff. She was actually heading towards the store to get a few items and then I talked her into coming to my place since I had a nice fire going. She finally made and then we realized we forgot a few items so we decided to go to the gas station up the raid... it was out of power and closed... then we decided to go to Walgreen's... it was opened, but the power was out so there was a long line of people waiting for a Walgreen's associate to take them around the store with flash light and help them find what they needed... we decided to go to the Wal-Mart that was right next to the Walgreen's, but it was also out of power and closed... All we needed was some water bottles and some Coke or something with caffeine and we noticed that the liquored store was still opened... So, we went there to get the rest of our supplies and headed home.

We rearranged the furniture so the couch was in from of the fire and we put tables up so we had place for our drinks and food. It was rather cozy... We were able to keep the house really warm. At one point we were almost too hot. I had to take off my sweatshirt and socks. Then we took the mattress from the hid-a-bed couch from the TV room and put in on the floor in front of the fire so we could go to sleep. It was really nice!! I might just sleep by the fire on a normal night. We just woke up every few hours and put some more wood on the fire. When we got up the next morning we wanted to see if we could make coffee... I got a pan and filled it with water and sat on a log in the fire... IT WORKED! We boiled water! I only had whole been coffee so I filled a plastic bag with beans and then smashed with a meat cleaver until they were crunched up. Luckily when you grind coffee for a french press it needs to be a pretty coarse grind. It worked pretty well and we got to have hot cup of coffee.

Around noon we noticed the sun was out and decided to go to mom's house to make sure it was okay and to get some extra stuff for her. Then we went up to Tallon's work because they had hot showers and place to get ready. After we showered and got cleaned up we went to Wal-Mart, but it was closing because they had just lost power. The traffic was CRAZY! So we stopped to have some lunch and wait for the traffic to lighten up. Then we went to a different Wal-Mart. It was PACKED! Apparently it was the only Wal-Mart that had power. We went straight to the deli so we could get some prepared food... there was nothing left! They had some rotisserie chicken cooking and they said it would be an hour and twenty minutes before it was ready... they also said they could reserve some for us... so, we gave them our name and reserved some chicken. We went and did the rest of shopping. We needed food that didn't need to be cooked or cooled... We finally got all out supplies and some book lights so we all could read with out using up our batteries in our flashlights. We got in one of the ridiculously long lines and then mom went to check on the chicken. The chicken wasn't quite ready, but we thought that if we would just let a few people get in front of us it would be ready by the time we got to the register... we were wrong... mom had to wait in a long line at the deli because there was only one girl working there... after about 30 minutes I could see her running towards me with the chicken in hand! But at that point I had let everyone go ahead of me and I was at the end of the line (which wasn't very long) We made it out and then went to pick up Tallon. Now, this doesn't seem like we did all that much, but it took us 6 hours to get it all done! SIX!

Once we picked up Tallon and headed home it was getting dark... it was kind of scary driving through Springdale because all the power was out and it looked like a ghost town... but once we got close to our house we noticed that one side of the street had power, but the other side didn't. When we got home our lights were still out. We unloaded the car, started a fire and unpacked all of our groceries and blankets... and then all of a sudden... THE POWER CAME ON!!!! So, after all that work to prepare for yet another night without power we got power... but I am not complaining.

Then mom decided to get some of her stuff together and drive to her place to see if she had power and... sure enough she did. She got to stay home and sleep in her own bed.

Here are some pictures of out foot long icicles and fallen tree limbs.

Here are the icicles on some plants in the front yard

Here is our poor tree in the front yard

This is the huge tree on the side of our house that I was never really quite aware of until Tuesday... I was really worried about it breaking my fence and messing up my new roof. It might have done some damage, but we are not sure just yet.

Here is Tallon's car frozen solid with limbs that have fallen on it.

Nothing Exciting

Nothing too exciting has happened in the past few weeks.

We haven't worked on our floors anymore... but I think this weekend we will finally tackle the hallway and get it painted. Mainly because I am tired of looking at the old carpet.

I have been working on the wedding plans... but I am not very good at it. I am a very organized person (I make a lot of lists) but for some reason I am not very good at organizing all of the wedding stuff. My mom keeps having to tell me what to do and when to do it. I have been dieting and working out so hopefully soon I will go dress shopping. I think it won't feel like a real wedding until I get the dress shopping done. And this weekend we are going to work on sending out the save the dates and printing the invitations. We have found a location for the ceremony, but not for the reception. Everywhere we have been looking is way more expensive than we planned... but I think we are getting closer to finding the place. So, hopefully it won't take too long to get everything together and we will be on our way.

Two weeks ago Lindsey (the Real Estate company I work for) sent out a memo saying that if an agent didn't make a certain amount of money last year they couldn't have an assistant anymore... well, I work for two agents and one made enough and the other didn't... so now I am only working part time and looking for another job. This has been rather hard since the job market is pretty much at a stand still right now. But I have sent out my resume to a TON of places and had a few interviews. I am hoping that I will hear back from someone this week. In the mean time I have been really cleaning the house a lot... I keep finding closets to organize, blankets to wash and carpets to clean.

Lets... what else... I got my hair cut. It seems kind of short, but I really like it. I am gradually fixing my car... it needed an oil change, a break light, a head light, new brakes, a new tire and as of a few days ago it needs a drivers side door handle... (the door handle broke and fell off... now to get out of the car I have to roll down the window, reach out and use the outside door handle to open the door and then roll the window back up...) I have gotten all of that done except for the door handle... I have been researching how to fix it and I think that Tallon and his dad will be able to do it and I won't have to pay much to get it done.

I thinks that is it. I hope everyone is having a great New President Day!

Scrapers, Dirt, Goggles and Floors

I am pretty good at talking Tallon into doing just about anything... I am not sure where I got these powers of persuasion, but I have them. And most of the time I regret in the… umm... Well I regret it normally right away.

So, over the Christmas and New Year break I was trying to talk Tallon in to pulling up all of our carpet (because it is just so yucky) and staining the concrete floor. I really like the way it looks and I think it is much more durable when you have dogs. He really didn't want to do it, but he finally did a little research on it and he seemed pretty excited to get it done. We decided to try it on one room to see how it goes... The lucky room was our TV room. It is the smallest room we have and it is probably the room we use the most besides the kitchen.

Then finally Friday morning came and we went to Lowe's. We bought some stain, long roller paint brush things and a few other items. When we got home we removed everything we could out of the room and into our living room (what a mess) There was one chair that we were not able to get out and the couch had to be moved out the back door onto the patio because it wouldn't fit through the other door at the weird angle. So, yeah.... for the last 3 to 4 days our couch has been sitting on the back patio... classy... Once everything was moved out of the room we pulled up the carpet. That was the easiest thing we ever had to do. Carpet just comes right up and you can roll it up and put in the garage with hardly any struggle. We were pretty excited about that... we thought it was great start and that everything would be a little bit better from that point on... but we were wrong.

(Here are some pictures of the mess in the living room - Yes.. those are pillows and blankets covering the mess... for some reason Tallon thinks that is better)

We went back into the room to check everything out and realized that the concrete floor was covered in paint, carpet glue and dirt. Also, in the back right hand corner of the room there was a whole in the concrete that went under the wall... NICE.

(These are pictures of the floors once we pulled up the carpet)

At this point we were a little freaked out. We had just tore up the carpet and there was no going back. We tried pulling up the little boards with scary nails in them and we tried scraping the paint off the floor... but nothing we had was working. So, we made another trip up to Lowe's to ask some questions. Everything they showed us required 2 men, floor buffers, a heavy duty rinse and not to mention masks to prevent us from breathing in the fumes. We had no idea what to do.

Luckily the day before when we were at Lowe's looking for supplies we ran into the family I used to nanny for. The dad of that family is in construction and has done a lot of work on his own house... So, I gave him a call to ask what we should do. He gave us a name of some stuff to use and offered us some tools. We went to their house and picked them up. He let us borrow some hand sanders and very durable scraper/putty knife thing. Then we went back to the house and worked on it some more. By the time we got home it was like 6pm and we were worn out and frustrated.


We were able to get all the boards and nails up and we started scraping up the paint and stuff but nothing seemed to be working... not the sanders or the scrapers. I finally decided to call the guy who worked on our roof to see if I could pay some one to prepare our concrete for staining. He said that he would come by the next and take a look at it. So, Saturday we pretty much spent the day waiting around... he never called and by 3:45 I was tired of wasting my day... So, I called him. He came right over and looked at our mess. He showed us how to scrape it (it wasn't much different than what we were doing the day before, but for some reason it worked for him) He also told us to use some water and that we didn't want to pay him to do it (sounds more like he didn't want to do it) Once he left we got to work.

(This is me working and the dogs taking my seat because they don't like the cold floor... they really didn't help out all that much)

The water made a huge difference and it cleaned up a lot of stuff we thought was stuck to the floor. Tallon called his brother, Dillon, and asked him to come help. This was nice because I got to just watch his kids while Tallon and him did all the work. Dillon brought over some razor blades and that made a huge difference. Then they boiled water and put it on the floors... they also added some detergent to the mix and used sand paper... Dillon was there a couple hours and they cleaned up a lot! We just had the edges to worry about at that point. But the adhesive was on the edges so it was still a lot of work.

I went in there and started scraping up the adhesive after Dillon and the kids left. Tallon decided he was done for the night and went to bed. I stayed up until almost midnight scraping and scrubbing. And to my very tired and frustrated eyes the floors looked pretty good. So, I decided to sweep and mop so the floors were clean and ready to be stained in the morning. I took a nice long shower and had a nice long sleep. Then next morning Tallon and I go look at the floors... well, they were not quite as I remembered them... also, we still had not taken everything out of the closet or pulled that carpet up... So, we still had a lot of work to do. I sent Tallon to the store for more razor blades and razor blade holder things... because Tallon and Dillon were just using the blades and they were not in any type of holder until I found one around the house. I continued to scrape up all the adhesive. While I was working on the adhesive Tallon worked on the closet (which was COVERED in paint)... By this point my hand feels as if is going to fall off because it doesn't want to work any more. I am not even kidding... my hand was shaking and I could barely hold on to the razor.

It was still morning, but we were so frustrated and angry at this point that we decided to go to Barnes and Noble to look at some books and use the internet to do some more research on cleaning concrete. We decided we would research acid washing and see how dangerous it actually was... it's pretty dangerous for two people who have no experience with or knowledge of acid washing. We nixed that plan pretty quickly. The next plan was price flooring. We decided to go to Home Depot and get some pricing. And at a very weak moment we decided to apply for a Home Depot credit card... during this major credit crisis... not a good plan. Anyway, we decided not to go that route either. We went looking for some sort of solution... maybe a paint thinner or less dangerous acid wash type thing. We found this stuff ( I don't even know what it is called) but it said it would get up dirt, paint, grease, oil and more off several different types of surfaces including concrete. So we bought it... along with some rubber clothes and goggles (because it said we needed them.) We got home and suited up for some more cleaning.

(Me in my goggles and a lovely picture of me "suited up" - this was taken by Tallon and I thought it was quite funny)

The stuff we bought was already mixed so we didn't have to dilute it... you just poor it on, let it soak in a little and scrub/scrape. Tallon used it in the closet and I used it around the edges... it worked great! We were feeling much better at this point. We got up everything we could. We cleaned the floors a few times and then let it dry for an hour or so... Once it was dry we decided to go ahead and get to stainin'. We put on one coat and let it dry... which only took like 30 minutes. Then I went in with a paint brush and put two coats of stain around the trim... then Tallon put a second coat on the floors and while that dried we cleaned up the house (as much as we could.) We went to see if it was drying nicely and Tallon decided to put once more coat on it because it was really dark in some places and not so dark in others...

So, after a several very weak moments and quite a few I-am-so-angry-I-will-never-speak-to-you-again moments we completed our project. And we are very happy with out come. We are even going to start on the hallway tonight.

Here is our finished product!