Unplanned

My plan for this week was to work on painting the 2 houses that we have put new siding on. But “The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft a-gley.” ( from the poem "to a mouse" by Robert Burns.) My plans went a-gley. Several months back Sharon went to a garage sale and bought the house. It was an estate. The owner died and everyone had signed off on the sale so we gave a check on Monday at 1:20 pm and went to look at what we had purchased.

Matthew was here from Michigan for 3 days so he started working

All the carpeting had to be cut, rolled up and thrown on the junk pile we started in front of the house.

I removed all the trim around the windows and the floor, while Matthew took up the tack strips.

The pile in front of the house got pretty good sized.

Tuesday morning we made a run down to Menards in Ottumwa and bought windows. Matthew put in the new windows Tuesday afternoon while I started painting. 

Ceilings first. I hate painting ceilings. I used the sprayer to speed p the process.

Walls next. I painted the interior in one day. 

Wednesday Matthew tore out the vanity and sink in the bathroom.

He built a new one to replace the water damaged one that was in the house.

Friday I put the faucet on the sink top and attached the water and drain lines. It is always helpful to have a working faucet in a house when working on it.

Wednesday afternoon Matthew started putting some siding up. We had a few pieces left from the last house and I wanted them out of the garage. Best place to put them was on the house. 

 

We need to put new siding on the house this summer yet so at least part is done.

The doors in the house needed to be updated. They were too dark colored.

Now they are all white. 

It brightens the house immensely 

You can see in this picture some of the patches on the walls. We had to patch the sheet rock in every room before we could start painting. The kitchen light was rusty so I threw it out the door onto the junk pile. 

 

Found a home for the light we had purchased for $5 at the DAV thrift store in Des Moines.

 

Micah laid new flooring. He has 3 bedrooms the living room

and the hallway finished.

I changed out the light fixture in the hall. 

I did not get the exterior painting done that I had planned for this week. We did make a lot of progress I had not planned on. James 4:13 Now listen,  you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.”  

James 4:14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.   

James 4:15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”

In the end what I plan doesn't always happen and that's OK. As long as God is in the driver's seat I am good what ever happens. Yes I could have been a long ways on painting exteriors but we did 2 week's work this week with no plans. I'll take that.

Sharing stories

Started the week with the goal of making a lot of progress on finishing up at the "blue house". There is a lawn shed behind the garage that had never been totally sided. Before the siding could go on the old hot tub had to be moved. I wrote last week that I was hoping and counting on a man to come take it away. He showed up on Tuesday and said he could not find anyone to help him move it. I asked how heavy is that thing. He didn't know. "Lets get the old spare tire and rim out of it and tip out the water and see what it weighs." You know that this was a prime item if it had an old tire on the rim setting in stale water in it. We got the tub tipped up on its side. 

He said he had a wagon, maybe we could put under it. See, I was assuming we were going to load it on a pickup. No! That was not the case. I really wish I had a video of what followed. He had a utility wagon for gardening about the size of a child's red wagon. We tipped the hot tub up and balanced it on the wagon. A woman pulled the wagon while he steadied it on one side and I on the other and down the sidewalk around the block we went. I could not see the reaction of any motorists driving past us when they saw these crazy people pulling a hot tub down the street on a little wagon, but I bet there was a lot of amazed looks and finger pointing. I do hope some recognized me so they could tell the story of the latest crazy thing they saw Royce do.

I did get the siding on the shed once the hot tub was out of the way.

started caulking all the joints in the siding.

The tenant was wanting to move in this weekend so I stopped everything and installed the bathroom light.

I was driving back to the house from lunch one day when I saw the street ahead of me blocked by 8 police and sheriff cars. I was about 2 houses away and I could see the officers had the weapons drawn. Then I saw a sheriff's deputy coming down the street with his shotgun at his shoulder and it was pointed at me. Even though I knew he was not consciously  aiming at me, it was a very uncomfortable feeling to see an officer, who was probably having an adrenaline rush from a dangerous situation, with a shotgun aimed in my direction. There was room for me to make the corner and get out of the "danger zone" and I went. I never did hear what the man in the pickup had done, but the law officers were serious.

I put a little paint on the house to see if I had a good color.

I then brushed some on the garage. It is a look I can live with . I will see if I can get everything caulked and fire up the sprayer next week.

We left on Friday to spend some time with the boys and their wives. We rented a house for the weekend in north central Iowa. 2 nights take a lot more baggage than one would assume.

We went to Ledges state park. There were several times when the boys were younger and we might have gotten lost on hikes. The boys have not forgotten. See Joshua checking the map?

See Joshua checking his phone while Micah checks the map? I guess they don't trust dad.

We waded in the creek. With the temperature over 90 the water felt great.

 

I am not sure how Tony got the recliner at the house to tip over backwards. One moment he was sitting beside us the next minute he was flat on his back.

We ate at restaurants.

Pondered some art.

And had a good time having the whole family in one place.

I started the week doing what I do every week. Working on a house. I feel I am called by God to do that at this time in my life. The end of the week was spent with our sons and their wives. We spent some time sharing how we see God working and controlling our lives. 

Tony prayed a prayer of thanksgiving for our family showing him God. It was one of the great moments of my life.

When our sons were young, Sharon and I were foster parents. I have always wondered how that impacted our sons. We were moving these foster boys in and out of our house and those boys brought a lot of problems. 2 of our sons told us they were going to be taking classes  this year so they could be foster parents. I was blown away.

All shared how they have seen God active guiding them. 

I would encourage every one to have conversations about how God is at work today with your family. It is always a highlight of my year. 

A freebie

I was overjoyed to finish the last siding on a house this week. Now the joints just have to be caulked and the house painted.

All that is left to show that there was a pile of supplies is the dead grass.

I could concentrate on the next siding job, except of course for the texts that come in from tenants needing something. I had a tenant text me, they had a tree limb on their yard and they had no way to cut it up and haul it away. I appreciated that they at least thought about getting rid of it before contacting me for help. I headed over to the house and as I was driving I went past one of our houses. I thought "hey they have a big tree limb down in their yard" That was when I realized I was going to the wrong house. Good thing I had chosen the street I did or I would have wondered why there was no limb when I arrived at the house I thought had texted me.

By the time I had it cut up and loaded, the pickup was over full. I suppose it would have been difficult for the tenant to fit it in the trunk of their car.

We got a bonus when we purchased the blue house. Look a hot tub. It was under a roof that was fallen in between the garage and the lawn shed. A neighbor asked a couple of months back if he could have it. Oh, yes, please haul that thing away. He never did, much to my dismay. then he showed up this week again and once again asked if he could have the hot tub. Oh, yes please haul it away. "I'll get it tonight." It was still there the next morning. Oh bugger. He showed up Friday afternoon with a large hammer and a flat bar and tore out the rotten roof and the walls around the hot tub.

He added a lot to our pile to go to the landfill. I had thrown the tarps we took off the house roof in the building with the hot tub, now they are filled with shingles and rotten wood. The rest of the building is on the pile in front of the garage. I had hauled away 2 loads and it was starting to look manageable. Now I am back where I started.

 "I'll get it out of there this evening" he declared. As I write this Saturday evening it is still there. If he went to all the work of tearing down the building around it, he is surely coming back to get it isn't he? Oh, please may he come back to get it. 

The rest of my week was putting up siding

and more siding

and more siding (yes we still need to put steps by this door. Right now the first step down would be quite a doozy)

and more siding.

We are about to the end of fixing up the houses we purchased back in November. It has been a long haul. It was great when someone just showed up one day this week and did a demo job for us for free. I suppose it is too much to expect that to happen on a regular basis, but one can always hope right?

As I was putting up siding I would see that falling down building and realize, I have to take some time and get that thing torn down. No I don't, it was torn down for me. There may be residual on the junk pile but the awful shed is gone. It was a freebie.

My life is like that. It has a lot of awful things in it. Sin. Well someone showed up and paid for my sin with out me asking him to do it. There is still residual in my life but the sin has been taken care of. I watched a man struggle and carry heavy sheets of plywood with shingles still attached and throw them on the junk pile. Jesus did that for me too. He picked up my sin and carried it himself while I go on with my life.

Has Jesus picked up your sins and carried them to the junk pile? Oh, he has. Jesus death paid for the sins of the whole world, question is do you accept his sacrifice for you. If you don't see your life is rotten and needs to be torn down and cleaned up, then Jesus death isn't paying for your sins. It's that simple. Let someone bear the burden for you for free!

Just an average week?

Sharon likes to see fireworks. I could care less. We had friends over on the 4th and went to the patriotic band concert in the square. I kept waiting for someone to say let's go watch the fireworks but no one did. Sharon and I went home and a little after 10 were calling it a night when my phone rang.

Never a good thing when your phone rings after 10 pm. It was Chris calling, "Royce, I want you to know that the (mumbled word) is on fire. It's really blazing." I thought she was telling me her house was on fire. That really got my attention. She finally calmed me down by saying it was the dumpster not her house and the fire department had just driven up. So if any of you are wondering why the fire department and the police and the ambulance all quickly left the fireworks show, it was to go to one of our houses. Sharon and I left to go to the scene. As we were driving past the hospital, the fire department emergency pickup pulled in front of us. I said to Sharon, "I bet we will follow him right to our dumpster fire" and we did. So we got to see the fireworks off to the north as we drove across town. The above picture does not do the scene justice. There were a couple of police cars and several fire department vehicles parked in the driveway and along the street all with their flashing lights on.

I walked up the driveway. The police are always looking at you with justified suspicion as you walk up to these situations. I have found the attitude changes quickly when I say "My name is Royce and I own these properties." Their "what are you doing here" immediately changes to "come, lets talk about this". 

The fire was quickly put out and I now know that the fire department dumps a dumpster after they put out the fire. We went back the next morning to pick up all the charred stuff and throw it back in the dumpster. A tenant called me on Saturday to apologize. One of her children had put a hot sparkler in the dumpster. 

After righting the dumpster and cleaning up around it, Sharon and I headed down to Kansas City for a wedding of friends' daughter. We were trading off driving and neither one of us was watching the gas gauge. I was driving when I heard this ding sound. Oh, Oh, we only have 50 miles of fuel left. No problem right? 50 miles is a long ways and we are close to where we get off the interstate, we can make it just fine. 20 miles later I am thinking, "you know maybe we should not have passed those exits with gas stations. A couple miles later and panic is setting in. Sharon is desperately trying to find the nearest gas station on our GPS and on her phone at the same time. Both are searching and neither is encouraging. They keep giving these maps with us traveling miles in circles to find gas. 

We made it to a gas station. Our car has a gas tank rated at 17 gallons. I do not know how accurate that is but I do know I pumped in 16.34 gallons. I don't want to do that again in a major city.

It was a beautiful wedding and it reminded me once again how much weddings have changed since Sharon and I were married 33 years ago. We were married in Sharon's church and the reception was in the church basement where ham buns and chips were served. Hey, we are still together and I wouldn't change a thing.

We stopped at an arboretum on our way back to Iowa. We had to flee the mosquitoes.  One would think those gold fish would keep the bug population down.

     I did get a little work done earlier this week. This house still needs some siding put on in small areas (notice side of the porch roof?) before it is ready to paint, but progress was made. Earlier after we shingled the house I asked Meghan if she knew of anyone that wanted the pallets the shingles were on. She said she wanted them. I wonder if that is one, leaning against the house. Nice job Meghan.

     So this week Sharon and I heard patriotic band music, saw fireworks, flashing lights brighter than the fireworks, had an adrenaline rush searching for a gas station, attended a beautiful wedding, were chased by, and provided food unwillingly for mosquitoes.  Yep just another week.

     At the moment we are terribly busy. A lot of work still needs to be done before the summer is over. I am looking forward to a little slower pace when fall arrives. Last year, a couple of weeks later than this, I was bored enough that Sharon told me I needed to buy a house. I don't think I will be at that point by August this year. 

     Sometimes it is enlightening to look back. This summer I have seen some attempted purchases on our part fall apart and not happen. We have one purchase that is waiting for some mortgage release resolution. When I step back and look at the big picture, I can see the hand of God. He knows I have enough to do right now and I do not need any more and he is making that happen. 

     I do not know where you are at in your life, but turn everything over to God. It makes for a lot less stress and everything works out so much better. (Especially if I am not in charge. I have trouble just having enough gas in the car).