Autumn in New Albany

Life's been pretty busy these days and I haven't been able to post stuff as quickly as have wanted. As part of my "catching-up," here are some pictures of my trip to Indiana back in October.

Since my sister and her family were not going to be in the country for Christmas this year, they planned a trip home to celebrate Birthday Week. (My mom, dad, and brother have their birthdays over a span of four days at the beginning of October.) I decided to drive home to join in the fun and see everybody (okay, primarily my niece and nephew).



My parents just bought a RV and wanted to take us all camping at Clifty Falls State Park in Madison, IN for a weekend. I actually brought my own tent and slept in it. My niece LOVED to play there during the day (and night), which made this aunt really excited! She also loved to wear my flip-flops (picture above).



In addition to my parents and my sister with her family, my dad's sister and her partner also camped with us, while my dad's brother and his wife rode their bikes (with power-assist motors) over to visit. (They only live a few miles from the park.) We had additional visitors on Saturday, too--my grandparents and cousin (with her kids). As is customary with this side of the family, the musical instruments came out pretty quickly.



Before we left the park on Sunday, my parents and I went on a little hike to check out "Big Clifty," one of the waterfalls for which the park has been named. Unfortunately, the lack of rain this summer and fall had taken its toll, leaving us with only a slow drip for viewing.


We did find this interesting "Cake Rock" on the path...appropriate for the birthday couple:)


My brother wasn't able to join for camping us because of his work schedule and (as we discovered later) a little birthday present he bought for himself...


...but we did go out to lunch with him on his birthday at Cracker Barrel.



On a more somber note, I spent time with my mom's side of the family on Monday evening when we had a memorial service for my great aunt who had passed away in September. It was a good opportunity to hear more stories about her life and look at some old pictures. Having lived in Idaho for the last many years, I didn't know her too well and only visited with her and her husband a few times--once at their llama ranch and a few times in Indiana (most recently at my sister's wedding).

As always, the visit ended too soon and I was back driving to Pennsylvania.

Laundry room update and other projects

So you've seen the "before" shots of my laundry room. At this point, the construction guys have finished their work (they've actually been finished for over a month now) and I only have a few things left to take care of. So far, I've taped and mudded all the drywall seams (walls and ceiling), primed the walls (especially needed to cover the lovely orange and electric blue that was in there before), and painted the ceiling. While the insurance covered the cost of painting the walls, I still need to paint the trim and doors, as well as some touch-up spots on the walls. I am also planning to install channel covers to hide the electrical wires in the room. Here are some pictures of the work in progress...the second one shows the room in its mostly-complete state.


After all was said and done, my out-of-pocket expenses for the repairs came in around $2500, not a small amount, but better than it could have been. Plus I have a great-looking laundry room now:)

All of the construction work in my laundry room has motivated me to work on some other projects in the house, too. My parents were able to come up in September to help me work on replacing my old wood-burning stove (that I couldn't use because it didn't conform to safety codes) with an electric fireplace insert. I had originally planned to install a vent-free, liquid-propane powered one, until I found that it also wasn't up to code in my town.

After removing the old stove and its flue, my dad was able to patch up the hole in the ceiling/roof. He also built a platform to hold the new fireplace. My mom and I got to lay the tile. Again there was mudding and taping to be done...I'm getting pretty good at this by now. I still have the painting to take care of, but here are some picture to give you an idea of what things will look like.



The third on-going project at my house right now is my living room. That's right, my living room--where last Thanksgiving my parents and I were putting down the new floor. Ten months later, I've finally painted the walls (a nice light shade of yellow that my friend, Jenn, also has in her living room). I've also installed a new door bell and vertical blinds, but still need to stain, varnish and install the baseboards. Unfortunately, that task is dependent on the completion of the laundry room. Once that's done, I can move the cats' litter boxes back there and I can use my back room for the staining and varnishing.

It's been a lot of work...and there's still more to do...but the end results are very satisfying. I'll be glad to show some of it off this Thanksgiving when some Tessa, Mo and the kids come for a visit.