Oh the overwhelm. I think I’ve got a handle on things but it is true that it gets worse before it gets better. The house is a disaster and I’ve been distracting myself from reality.
I decided that I spent way too much time following the lives of others. A few blogs here and there, fine, but to spend so much time scrolling through Instagram stories and the like was messing with my head and a waste. So I’ve been social media free for almost a week now. That has left a vacuum though. What did I fill it with? Books. I’ve disappeared into worlds with pirates, thieves, good guys, bad guys, and of course, the necessary (clean) romance. Its been a good break. I’ve even cut out a lot of the political talk shows in favor of the adventure that doesn’t involve me.
Alex and I told the kids they need to get off technology and read more books. I haven’t been to the library in months. I don’t like dealing with the covid measures. The last time I went the library doors were locked, you had to ring the bell, wait for them to come let you in, wear a mask, and only two people allowed in the library at once (excluding the librarians). Too much hassle and so I stopped going and just read the books I have on my kindle. Michael said there was a book he wanted to read and the library does have it but its checked out until February 6th. He was miffed he would have to wait that long. Patience, kid. Guess we’ll start going to the library again.
We had the Sister missionaries over for Family Home Evening last night and they shared a message about Christ. We all had paper and pen and we took a minute and a half to write down all the names for Christ. I was surprised at how good the kids did. It was a good little lesson. We then had Oreos and a quick game. It was fun.
After the missionaries left Alex and I got to work. Just one “little” project a night. I spent a bit of the day prepping some of the stuff so Alex’s job would go faster. I got the insulation put up in the ceiling in the living room from the leak back before Christmas. Yes, we procrastinated. It literally took me twenty minutes but I kept putting it off. Story of my life. I measured and cut the sheet rock and brought it in. It was too heavy to put up on the ceiling by myself but we got it up quick when Alex was there. That should stop the melting and ice issue we’ve been dealing with.

I also measured and cut a few pieces of baseboard and put them where they go so that it just needed to be nailed up. We also got the front door trimmed! It was so ugly for so long. But it is fixed and I still need to paint the door trim and the walls but it looks a million times better. I didn’t have a before picture that was easy to find but here’s the before (pre-paint) picture.

We still have three closets and three other doors to trim out and that takes care of that part. I won’t list here the amount of stuff that still needs to be done. It is daunting but the list is smaller than it was nine months ago.
I was looking at pictures of the house before we moved in. Michael said if he didn’t know they were the same house he wouldn’t know.



It is really a huge difference. I’m excited to do a post about the whole things with all the pictures in one place. It will be fun to see.