Weekend in the 'Ho

I spent the weekend in Idaho, working my butt off.  You see, Tyler (the fiance) let his ex-wife live in his house for a little while after they split up.  Now I'm not going to say this was a stupid decision, but given the fact that she was (and still is) a drug addict who neglected her children and any form of cleanliness, it may not have been the best idea.  One of the reasons I love Tyler is that he is one of the kindest people I have ever met.  I fully appreciate that he didn't want the mother of his children to be on the streets, so instead of saying what I would like to say about this woman, I am going to choose to focus instead on how big his heart is.  Sometimes, though, a big heart leads to a house being destroyed and turned into a shit hole.

So that's what I spent the weekend doing.  We borrowed his brother's horse trailer (that holds 6 horses, mind you), and filled it completely with stuff to take to the dump.  And there's more still to take out.  The couches that were in the living room still need to go as they are disgusting and who knows what has happened on them.  All of the walls and ceilings have to be repainted.  We ripped up a bunch of carpet that was nasty.  Fortunately, in the bedroom that will be ours, there was wood that will look amazing after it's been sanded and stained.  In another bedroom we pulled the carpet out of, we expected to find the same wood but instead found a weird linoleum.  So . . . now we have to find new carpet to put down in there.  We're hoping that the carpet in the basement can just be steam cleaned and be ok, but I have my doubts about one of the rooms.  I guess we'll see what happens.

Part of the basement is also unfinished, so we need to put up a wall to close off what will be my gloriously large food storage area.  The ceiling also needs to be fixed in most of the basement.  When I say fixed, I mean that there isn't actually any ceiling up right now-it's just exposed beams and pipes.  There are also other things here and there that need to be done, so we're looking at a ton of work over the next month and a half before I move in there. 

One of the best things about the house (which used to be one of the nicest on the farm), is that we've got plenty of land to use.  There's another old house on the property that is falling down and I'm hoping that we can tear it down and use the materials for other things.  There are also several sheds, one of which will be perfect for chickens.  We're also looking at getting possibly a cow and pig.  We'll see.  There is also room for a massive garden, which will be awesome since there will be six growing children to feed.  The land needs quite a bit of work as well.  We walked around it yesterday and found several rhubarb plants, which made me happy.  Hooray for strawberry rhubarb crisp!!!  There's a fire pit right out back, which will be fun.  There's also a cool semi-hidden away area in the trees that will make an awesome fort area for the kiddos.  I was pretty excited about it-I may have to be a kid for a while and play in the fort too.  There are lots of lilacs and some peonies too.  The lawn desperately needs to be sprayed for dandelions and we need to reseed some areas where the grass is no more, as well.  Oh, and we're going to put in raspberry starts this year, so in a couple years I'm hoping for raspberries galore. 

Despite all the issues, the house and land have amazing potential.  I can't wait until it's all done (or at least the major stuff is done)!  The house is going to be super cute and cosy and I've always wanted to live on a farm!  His parents live just down the road, which will be great since I'm going to need massive amounts of help getting used to having six kids.  I think there's another neighbor somewhere north of us, but there aren't many people nearby.  Oh, and by the way, once you walk past the row of wind break trees in the backyard, all you see is acres and acres (like hundreds, maybe thousands) of fields.  I can't remember if it's hay or wheat right now.  The green is gorgeous, though.  I want to set up a little table and chairs back there so we can watch the sunset over the fields. 

I'll be going up again next weekend to work.  I picked out a paint color (everything is just going to be a neutral color), so I'm hoping maybe a room or two will be done by the time I get back up there.  If I'm really lucky, maybe my bedroom floor will be done too!

I'm guessing this will be the first of many posts about the progress about the house and land.  I did take before pictures of the disaster the house was, but I don't know if I can bring myself to post them, they're so bad.  And I don't want them to reflect badly on Tyler!  I know it wasn't him that did it (he and the kids weren't living there at the time), but still. 

The ring

It still has to be sized, so I won't actually have it for another week or so.  Sorry the picture is kinda crummy-I took it with my phone at the last minute so I wouldn't forget what it looked like!

Fine, I'll do it!

I just guilted a friend into updating her blog and I didn't want to be a hypocrite, so lucky you, you're getting a blog post today!  I apologize for my utter failure at blogging about my trip.  One of these days I will post more pictures and tell you about what else I did while in Dublin and London.  That day isn't today, though, unfortunately.  Until then, here's what has been keeping me busy:

• I'm engaged!  Surprise!  
• Surprise #2 is that he's a farmer in Idaho and he has . . . wait for it . . . six children, all under the age of 9, and he has sole custody of them.  So in a couple of months I will go from single to married with six children.  That should give me plenty to blog about!
• A few weeks ago I had surgery on my elbow.  I've had tennis elbow for a couple of years now and when they went in, they found that part of the tendon was bad (what that means exactly, I do not know) and part of it was detached.  They cut out the bad part and reattached the other part, then drilled holes in the bone to encourage growth.  I had a fun mummy arm for a couple of weeks.