Gains and Losses

It has been a whirlwind couple of weeks which has slowed the blog posts.  For those that follow my Facebook you will see that I have been vocal about some pending legislation in the state.  H.B.3619 would have legalized horse slaughter in TN. The thought mortifies me.  When I found that the rescue that I was involved in would not take a position statement on the legislation, and in fact some members were in favor of slaughter, I resigned from all involvement in the rescue.  This weekend will be my last in assisting.  I will sidebar that there were additional issues for my departure---individuals in the organization were extremely rude to others in the animal welfare movement in our area, and I firmly believe that in these types of matters we all have to work together....the adage of divided we fall could not be more true.  My departure spurred the departure of others, and one member preceeded me. 

This leads to an exciting gain---we are forming a new rescue.  Middle Tennessee Horse Rescue will be formed by our little group of like-minded, hard working people, and we will be taking a firm and direct stance on animal welfare issues---slaughter, soring, Premarin and the other issues in Equine well-being.  We are very excited to be starting the new organization from the ground up.  We are, of course, seeking volunteers, so if you read this and want to be involved, just let me know.

We did however, have a big loss this week.  Jewel, our adopted mare, was pregnant at her time of seizure in October.  She was due to deliver at the end of July, but miscarried Wednesday night.  The foal was stillborn.  Jewel seems to be fine.  We are still sad for the loss of the baby who we were making final preparations for.  Just this week we had designed her foaling stall and paddock and purchased rubber mats to make it as comfortable as possible.  As I write this, I am very sad for Jewel's loss, and the loss of the first foal that we would have had.

In the midst of everything at home and in the periphery, work has been rigorous.  I have been extremely busy with the Philippines project and am almost wrapped up on it.  I have a meeting in an hour to discuss my next chapter here, and have been told that I will be asked to take a bigger role.  Yeah!  I love when hard work pays off. 

I am hoping for a happy weekend, and even though it will be busy, I am looking for some emotional calming.  With so much on my plate, I have been losing sleep at night and not able to let my brain quiet down.

Inspection Passed

We got to the point of needing the final inspection on the plumbing and other fixtures in the hall bathroom, and the inspector was difficult indeed.  However, we were told that we passed....This guy checked everything, from the level-ness of the marble tile to the supply lines for the water to the sinks.  He is a tough critic.....

but oh, so snuggly, too.  Here is inspector Sebastian, in action:

Happiness Flows In A Circular Motion

In our home we always adopt.  Of course, we anticipated that statement to apply to our pets, but it will hopefully apply to our one-day child as well.  We first adopted Sebastian (if you ask him, he likely believes he is our biological child).  We then adopted Nugget who introduced us to Golden Retrievers and what gems they are.  After lost Nugget, Charlie followed (my heart is still broken at his loss), and while we had Charlie we brought in his sisters, Lady and Molly.  Once we bought our new house, we started fostering horses, and that brings us to Checkers.  He has a therapy horse temperment.

Reflecting On Learning Of Christ

Some of my hardest earliest learning experiences were of what it means to be reverent.  As a child, it was so hard to sit still in church, and to not wiggle constantly.  When very young my mom offered distractions during our church service to make it easier---a bag of cheerios, a coloring book picture of Jesus.  Something to help me learn to sit quietly for the little over an hour each Sunday.  As I got older it went without saying that I would sit up and pay attention to the message given each Sunday.  In all honesty, I had a strong academic knowledge of the gospel during my teen years, but not a lot of testimony.  I was going through the motions, without a lot of effort or faith.  My sister was the opposite---her testimony of our savior's love was always strong, and she did and does believe that our Heavenly Father is always watching over her, leading her, and guiding her.  I wish I had been gifted with her seemingly effortless faith.  I know I would have made many different life decisions.   However, the choices I did make led me to my husband who I love with all my heart and soul.  15 years later, I still know we were meant for each other.

I can't say what the catalyst was...there was no groundbreaking changing moment in my life, but as I have grown as an adult, the testimony has slowly come.  Now, we are on the precipice of having a child come live with us, and we want to raise her to be a righteous daughter of God.  Unlike my childhood, raised in the church; our child's background will be very different.  We are looking at children up to 9 years old, and they may or may not have even had any biblical teaching. 

Obviously a lot will change when we adopt.  I only hope he or she can enjoy the changes, and that they will understand that in the quiet and reflection they will have at church that they can hopefully start to truly feel and understand God's love for her.  Even if we only spend 10 minutes a day on it, we will start with daily scripture study at home--starting with the New Testament because it will be the easiest starting place for her (especially since we use the King James version of the Bible).  Please pray for us.  This, among other things, will not be an easy transition for us when we adopt.

Vision Manifests In Its Own Interesting Fashion

We are now smack dab in the middle of two bathroom remodels at the same time. One is winding down, the other in full swing. It is fun....and dusty. I actually really like these types of projects when I get to come home and see the progress every day. Here are last night's photos.

Starting at the top, this is back to the master bath---the shower faucet is now installed, and looks great.  It is a small shower, so we did a big wall mounted rain shower style head.

 I saw the granite slab Joel picked out for the first time.  He did good.!  It looks beautiful. 

Another angle on the granite and tiled backsplash:

Closeup on the granite:

This is the Master Bedroom, just outside of the bath.  It has gotten more than its fair share of dust during this remodel. Friday we sold the queen size bed that was in this room via Craigslist, and this weekend we are hoping to get our furniture moved up and start using this room as our bedroom.

On the way to the hall bathroom now, This gorgeous huge piece of technology is actually her shower faucet.  It is a column mount with 6 body sprays, thermostatically controlled water temperature, the shower head, body spray and tub spout.  I may occasionally have to sneak into her bathroom for shower:

The bathroom floor before did not have hardi-board in it.  The tile was actually installed direct to plywood.  We are getting everything done correctly, and fully mold-proofed.

The tub is set, and the hardi-backer installed around the entire perimeter of the tub:

Another shot of the bathtub:

A wider angle shot showing the hardi-backer improvements ont he floor.  You can see the sink and toilet plumbing, which we redid freshly with new copper.

The hardi-backer floor as you enter the bathroom:

This is the glass tile that will be in the shower surround.  This is what we had to go all over Nashville for, but we got everything we needed plus 10 square feet of overage just to be safe.

Looking down at the tub--I asked Joel to make sure he got an extra deep tub, since I find trying to soak in a shallow tub to be completely miserable.  We ALMOST went with a jetted tub, but decided to go for depth over jets and got a 19" deep garden tub for the room:

Here is our mountain of tile for the hall bath---the install started about 30 minutes ago.

The Remodel Grab and Dash

As luck would have it, we picked out our tile design for the hall bathroom about a month ago, and now that we are ready to move forward with the project Home Depot decided it was time to discontinue the mosaic we had picked for the tub area.  This is the first time in our life we have picked blue tile--the first time we have picked glass tile.....and that we are certain is the reason it was discontinued.  So, in an effort to keep the project on pace last night we hit every Home Depot in Davidson County that had any left and took all of it.  This morning Joel tackled Sumner County, while I handled the two in Williamson County over lunch.  As I write this, Joel is on his way to Wilson County to get the last remaining 3 square feet that will give us enough to finish our project.  Thank goodness we live in a metropolitan area with a dozen or so big box stores, or we would have to do an 11th hour re-plan of everything because the tile guys got ahead of schedule and gutted the bathroom completely yesterday.

As a reminder, this was the "Before" photo of the bathroom:

And now, on to the gut photos---the cabinets are still installed in these photos, but came out today.  We were slightly appalled at the hideous wallpaper on the walls that was uncovered when we removed the backsplash.  Apparently at one time this room had blue stripes on the wall with orange fixtures...I am seriously thinking the former owners were colorblind.

A Redneck Frontyard at night :-).  Actually, Joel and I can't help laughing that even though we got a construction dumpster the guys working on the house are taking every single thing they remove home.  Our dumpster is virtually empty.

The Final Countdown

Within two more days the Master Bath should be done (except for paint).  The granite countertop will be in, the shower doors will be in, and the faucets will be installed.  I just need to get myself busy with wrapping up the wallpaper removal.  While I could have done that this weekend I ended up very busy with other people over.  Though they would have helped,  I didn't want to set them to that kind of manual labor, and honestly, I don't trust anyone with a wallpaper scraper, but me.  I have a knack for not gouging the walls, so we don't end up needing drywall repair. 

So far, I am thrilled with how the bathroom is looking:

A close up of the detail on the shower wall:

More shower wall detail:

The Jetted Tub fixtures --re-installed and no longer polished brass:

The tub as seen from the bedroom:

Another shot of the tub, showing the medallion from a distance:

The tub inside---still needs to be cleaned, but again, no more brass jets:

The vanity as seen from the shower---this needs to be polished up with some old English, and we have new hardware for all of the doors.  We are not refinishing it---it will stay the same walnut color that it is, and just get spruced up.  Joel says it looks amazing with the granite......which he knows because they came to install the granite on Friday, but had cut the radius wrong, so had to take it back to get it cut correctly. 

The tile around the glass block window.  There is lots of really nice detail in the cuts and install around the window.  Tony spent WAY more time with this window than he intended, but he made sure we will not have any water issues there.