Happy Birthday, Laurel

Today is my sister, Laurel's, birthday.  She is a tiny bit over 2 years younger than me but for most of the years I've known her that hasn't mattered at all.  (It does seem like there were a couple of years in our teens when we didn't have much in common but that was a short time a long time ago.)

In honor of her birthday, I thought I'd share a few things that not everybody might know about her.

And we'll start with the very early years.  She's always been blond but when she was really little, she was a real towhead.  Here she is with our little brother whose birthday is also today and who was born exactly a year after Laurel.

There were two girls and two boys in our family and Laurel and I were almost inseparable during our growing up years.

We grew up on a farm and spent all our leisure and work times together.  We shared responsibility for breakfasts, helping with supper, cleaning up after, feeding the rabbits, and weeding the garden.  We shared hours playing with the kittens and lambs, riding our horse, playing baseball in the orchard, and walking down the field road.

She always carried her babies like this:  (She's 7 months pregnant here)

We spent the most time together as our kids were growing up.  In fact, we used to take turns cleaning our houses.  It was so much more fun with two doing the work instead of one.

 

 She's a mover and a shaker.  She stayed with us a short time a few years ago and we finally got the wallpaper taken down in our hall and living room.  We also re-designed one of our ponds and probably did lots of other little projects that don't come to mind right now.

She bought a house all by herself, improved it (a lot!), and now rents it out.

She has three beautiful daughters and two handsome sons.

 

She's a baby and little kid magnet.  They all seem to fall in love with her at first sight.  (Even my little namesake.)

She's fun-loving.

 

But quiet and un-assuming.

Her legs and hand were once featured on a billboard on I-94.

She's married to a wonderful man who shares her love for almost everything including travel.

She and I took an overnight trip to Missouri and returned on a bus a couple of days late.

And we took a trip to North Dakota and returned on a bus a couple of days late.

We shared an apartment, rode the South Shore together every morning and every night when we both worked in Chicago, dated and later married two guys who worked on the South Shore, and shared every secret, confidence, joy, and pain that two sisters could share.

And most importantly, she's a wonderful person who would do anything for anybody.  She's never one to let grass grow under her feet and has always striven to improve herself and help those around her improve as well.   She's an excellent landscaper, decorator, and even a great golfer.  For all these things, I should be a little jealous, but I'm not.  I know I'm the lucky one.  She's my sister.

So, happy birthday, Laurel.  I hope it's awesome!!!

Reno Week, Day 7

Day 7 was another beautiful day in Michigan City.  We were so blessed all week with the weather.  We had one brief rain shower and with all the open windows and doors, there were no flying insects - no mosquitoes in the bedrooms and no flies in the house.  It just doesn't get any luckier than that.

Right away the guys started putting siding on the east end of the house and they were fast!! 

And with that extra dimension, we were starting to see how it was going to look.
Unfortunately at that point Sarah and family had to leave.  We would miss Mike's hard work and Sarah's meal planning and execution as well as her unparalleled dish washing skills.
The back was wrapped, windowed (except for the patio slider) and ready for siding.
And in front Patty and Katie especially were working hard to get the flower bed ready for planting

 while Anna worked tirelessly on the cleanup.


All of a sudden the west end of the house was prepped for siding too.

 
Here's our hard working crew at lunch.

But the break didn't last long and before we knew it they were hard at it again and just like magic the slider was in.

 Jack and Zac did a celebratory tree hang.

 And the siding experts finished up the west end of the house.

 Patty, David, Katie, and I made a quick trip to Lowes for landscaping plants and Patty and Katie got right to work on the design and planting.

 In back, Chris and Dave were doing the final preps for siding.

And Steve was installing the third amazing porch light.  He's the one who told us about these lights and they are incredible.  They burn a low ambient light which is really pretty from dusk to dawn but if someone approaches, they become a security light - immediately going to bright and intense.

 Here's the one he installed on the east end of the house.

But as fast as things were moving, it was impossible to stay ahead of nightfall and lights were set up one more time. Here Chris and Dave are nearing the end.

 And here it is.....one low key but triumphant fist bump.

And the project was done.  The people who said it couldn't be done had obviously never run into honey badgers like ours.

Reno Week, Day 4 or Honey Badger Don't Care

More than a few people thought we'd lost our minds when we planned to install a concrete driveway and sidewalks, strip all the old siding and put up new, replace 14 windows, and replace 3 doors including a patio slider in seven days but we did it - even after the driveway took a day longer than we'd anticipated.  Like the ferocious, tenacious little honey badger who keeps on going no matter what, our project manager (Dave), carpenter (Chris), and electrician/plumber/general construction specialist (Steve), helpers (Mike and Adam) and runners (Harry and I) kept on going all day and into every night. 

I had planned to post our progress every day but being dog tired took on a whole new meaning for me by the 4th day.  I just couldn't do it so now I'll have to re-create each day.  In my last renovation post on May 1st, we'd pretty much finished the driveway.   May 2nd started with driveway finishing touches like cleaning and sealing it.   As soon as he was finished sealing it, Dave started on the house and he wasn't at it long before my brother Steve showed up to lend a hand.

Here, we've finally removed all the limestone brick and old siding from the front of the house.

Then Steve and Dave removed a couple of the old windows and began the framing that was required for the change in window shape.  We've always hated those old, difficult sliders and were thrilled at the thought of replacing them.  What wasn't so thrilling was the additional work involved but Dave assured us that as long as we went smaller rather than larger with the replacements, it was doable.  I really don't think there's much that can make you feel more exposed than having windows and parts of walls removed.

Steve was an enormous help (especially with the electrical since plugs had to be changed) and for most of the day, it was just Steve and Dave with Harry and I doing whatever we could to assist.

Here's a pretty good view of how the house looked before anything new was installed but after all the old was off including a couple of windows.

Here Steve is cutting the insulation board we used to fill in the places that had been cut out.

After Ken (who helped us with the driveway installation) got off work, he wielded the walk-behind concrete saw that we had rented earlier

while Dave used Duke's handheld concrete saw to make relief cuts in the concrete.  This is done to prevent cracking.

When that was finished, Dave helped Steve finish wrapping the house in heavy plastic which is an awesome moisture barrier.

Next they cut the plastic wrap to install the windows.  And here you can see that more help has arrived in the form of Beth's friend, Adam.  Beth was also an enormous help because she picked up door hardware at Home Depot in Valparaiso before she arrived to help figure out dinner for the crew.

 And all of a sudden, we had two new windows!

Of course two new windows wasn't enough progress for Dave and he decided to start on the front door.  It wasn't long before there was just a hole where the door had been.  And once again reinforcements arrived just in the nick of time.  Our granddaughter and her husband and kids arrived.  Our granddaughter is a beautiful, wonderful girl and we're always thrilled to see her but on this occasion we were even happier to see her husband.  He's not only a licensed carpenter but he's one of the hardest, smartest workers with the best attitude you could ever imagine.

And not too much later, there was a front door.  Unfortunately, at this point I must have thought I was too tired to take pictures because there are none.

Amber and Chris really didn't have time to relax.  It was soon time to put their 4 little ones to bed and, believe it or not, they slept great despite a lot of pounding and other construction noise.

We got to bed late again and were poised for an early start on Day 5.