A Year Later ...

Wow it has been almost a whole year since I put anything up here ...

A lot has happened in my life in the last year:
* First of all last March (25th) Grandpa died, that was a rough time :( Looking back over my past blogging I realized I skipped over posting anything about that time. A lot of family, a lot of crying, a lot of memories, but it was a bittersweet time because Grandpa is now in Heaven! ... most of us gathered for a memorial weekend this year.

* Then there was my bedroom remodel, which I did blog about.
* After that was Marshall Mann, my newest and now 5 month old nephew. He is getting SO big! He sits up mostly by himself, and he's starting to scoot around.

* We also remodeled the Living Room ... that was almost worse than my bedroom. We had to remove paneling and wallpaper then paint. We also removed the carpet and Dad laid a laminate wood floor (which he is still working on because the sub floor was so uneven). We also painted ALL the dark trim (including the ceiling beams). The room looks amazing now. Grandma keeps saying how she likes it lighter :) (photos for this section curtsey of Rachelle)

* I was transferred to MSU's Apartments Leasing Office early in Dec. Honestly I like it a lot more than working in the residence halls. They give me more to do. 
* March Birthdays-Trip to Chuckie Cheese was on March 19th ... that place is always so crowded, I don't know why we go ... It was fun though, until we started gathering for cake and presents and Tommy decided to start throwing up ... LOL :) We quickly gathered everyone, turned in tickets, got prizes and continued the party at home ...

*Willie made his second trip to the emergency room ... so far he's the only one that's had to go ... all of the Norton children have had pink-eye for the last week or so, and Willie's got so irritated it burst a blood vessel or something. Beth said it looked like his eye was blistering, so they took him in just in case.
*Susie and Alex are getting married in August! Exciting!!! 

*It's spring again which brings more kittens :) So far we have 4 grey ones this year!

*Tommy is learning how to draw ... He drew this pig in Sunday School, pretty amazing for a 3 1/2 yr old. (yes, he is 4 now)

* Mom wants to start working on transforming the Dining Room/Kitchen. She has BIG plans, and expects a lot done ... but I have limited time, and so I think it's going to take longer that she wants. Maybe by Christmas-time.

I guess that's all for now. I'll try to be better about posting this year ... but we'll see ;)

End of Week 4 - Beginning of Week 5

Here it is!!!! I'm finally "finished" ... well at least moved in and things have begun to be put away ;) and I am still in the process of collecting accessories. I am happy with the way things turned out though.

Before ...

 The white wall was covered with green shag carpet (and therefore filled with staples).

After ... (drum roll)

I made the bedspread in my Sewing for the Home class at Bob Jones.

I hung the shelves mostly by myself ... the first one I tried it fell off the wall as soon as I put books on it. So Dad helped me a little.

Dad also hung the mirror for me ... which is a lot streakier than I thought (guess I'd better clean that).

   

I'm hoping to create a gallery-type wall here ...

So that's it :)

Remodel Week Three

So here we are at the end of the third week into my little project ... And I'm so close to having my room ready to move into now!!! Hopefully by the end of next week it will all be finished and I'll just be settling things into their new homes ;) I have finished painting the room ... (I still need to find the closet which is FULL of Mom's junk .. Mom isn't helping out very much because its spring and she has planting to do), I'm almost finished painting my daybed frame (it was a pastel pink ... didn't work with my plan).

Here's what's left on my to-do list:
1. Finish painting my bed frame
2. Clean out the closet so I can remove the ugly baseboards and carpet strips, then paint
3. Hang the mirror and shelving
4. Figure out how to temporarily cover the floor (Dad is going to eventually re-floor the whole house with wood planks)
5. MOVE IN!!!
Oh yeah and I need to get Dad to cover the hole under the window. And trim the windows and door

That's all, I think I can do it within the next week ... But I work all of next week at both of my jobs, so we shall see :)

As soon as I'm finished I will post before & after pictures :)

Room Remodeling ... Week Two

I know this is the first post on this project ...
I am in the midst of re-doing MY bedroom! Mom and Dad moved into the master bedroom (formerly our living room -which is now downstairs where it belongs) It is a ... process ... Since I am at work or on the road for 12+ hours a day, there really isn't much time to do the work in my room.
I have accomplished a little bit though, such as pulling the carpet staples out of the wall (carpet should NOT be put on a wall, never, ever!) And I pulled the floor-to-ceiling paneling off two of the other walls, all the trim is down, carpet is up off the floor and out of the room. And there is so much left to do.
Be prepared for future blog posts (hopefully with pictures) as this chaotic process continues :)

SNOW, SNOW GO AWAY!!!!!

I'm so sick of the snow already! Why can't it be spring?? Just last week I was driving with my windows down because it was so nice ... and now I have temporarily  killed my car because of the snow! Poor car :( I was trying to stop at a red light in East Lansing, and my poor car slid across two empty lanes of traffic (a one way road) into a parking lot, hit the unlucky car parked there, and kept slidding to the sidewalk on the crossroad, where my car died. Praise God! I only bumped the other car doing minimal damage to him, I ended up in the hospital parking lot so security filed the report and no ticket was necessary, and Dad was working nearby so he could come help my car.

Okay I think I'm done ranting about snow for now ;)

Long Time

Wow it's been a long time since I last posted. I just don't ever have anything to say.

Not much has happened; I started work at Dairy Queen again, not getting a lot of hours yet. Still working at MSU too. It's still disgustingly white with snow outside. I hate driving in it, but there's not much I can do about that, because I have to work.

Only "new" thing is my phone ... Mom randomly decided to upgrade our phones, and somehow convinced Dad to get unlimited texting on the plan ... something I've been asking for for oh about 4 years ...

and Mom gets it in a random visit to the Sprint store.

That's really all ... so now you know why I haven't posted ... my life is boring :)

Holiday Season

I just love this season!!! All the family-time, relax-time, doing-nothing-time, it's the greatest! We have our traditions (just like everyone else) Christmas is split into 3 "parties" ... the Bishop Party Christmas Eve night --Family who tends to only show their lovely faces at this time of year -- BLTs (oddly enough this is about the only time of the year that I eat BLTs ... I ate 2 this year! -- Aunt Jill's Lemon Poppyseed Bread, the Winebrenner/Norton (immediate family)Party Christmas morning -- Orange Cinnamon rolls (I set off the smoke alarm while baking them this year) -- Opening presents in order of age Willie-Mom one at a time (actually Willie, Stevie & Tommy opened their without the "rotation" kinda hard to make a 2-yr-old wait til its his turn again),  the Winebrenner Party whenever it fits into the majority's schedule (this year it was the day after C-mas) We missed out this year due to sickness ... usually its a lot of sitting around doing nothing,  not being talked to (fun ... not)--  We take up an "offering" for a family in need, it's really a great idea. -- Aunt Sally's cheesy potatoes.
New Year's Eve/Day -- we rent a bunch of movies usually all featuring the same actor/actress (kids, chick-flick, drama, thriller) and watch them way into New Year's morning. Of course we take a break right before midnight to watch the ball drop in NY. This year we chose to watch Robert Downey Jr movies, but then switched to Sandra Bullock on New Year's Eve when we went to rent the videos ... but we couldn't find a thriller or kids movie with her so we really only had 2 with our "feature actress".