Van Etiquette

We are having our "week-off" between roadtrips. Roadtrips with a screaming banshee - even more accurately described as a Nazgul. This is just one HECK of a year to travel 3,884 miles. Thomas is at the worst age for traveling and among children of this age he is the worst. Ever. It's sort of like strapping a canon ball into a 5-point harness and then lighting the fuse and watching the fireworks. For 5 hours. Or 9 hours. Or 14 hours. And then throw in a couple of over-packed "vacation" days with late nights trying to sleep in foreign quarters and a return trip with 14 more hours of Nazgul-canon-ball-Thomas and what you end up with is a spilled-sour-milk smelling, chicken nugget rotting (I'm pretty sure those don't actually rot though. Which leads me to wonder if they are even digestible...ewww) van littered with bits of ripped up books and melted crayons. Not to mention the crushed bags and boxes that are evidence of the aforementioned McD stops. Or the box of CDs into which a milkshake spilled and covered the CDs which, of course, were not in cases.
This is why I am giving you this piece of van etiquette: When getting into someones child-carting mini-van just keep your eyes forward. They will appreciate your discretion.

The Attic:low - medium glamour jobs

Over the summer John has been finishing our attic with the help of some of the more handy men of our acquaintance, most notable his stepfather. Do you know how hot is has been this summer? Have you noticed the humidity and the temp being in the high 90's? Well, if you haven't then it's because these guys have noticed your share for you.
Up until this point they have been doing a lot of low-glamour background work like fixing a broken condensate pipe on the AC, running all the electrical, pulling up floor boards for insulation and drilling holes in the floor (apparently called soffits) and solving many problems that have crept up along the way. They have done some medium-glamour work like getting all the framing up for the new walls, turning one switch into a three-way switch, and running the new AC ducting up (unfortunately all that cool air still flies straight up through the ridge-vent). So far the highest glamour job we ended up hiring out. We had 2, 4ft skylights installed. I don't know why no one but me thought it was a good idea to scramble around on our 43 degree slanted roof. i still maintain that I would have done it myself except that I have no skilz. You need a crazy person with skilz to do that work and I'm only crazy. The last steps are the high glam jobs like insulation and drywall and painting! But if I only did a post when that's all done then the poor low-glam and medium glam jobs wouldn't get their due. So this post is for them.
And for the men who have been sweating their guts out in the first circle of Hell.
In the Beginning...Then there were walls and light and AC and...SKYLIGHTS!

This is my skylight face

My first view of the mountains FROM my house!The ever-present soffits...only 20 more to go.

Notice the tip of that nose....

Glen, the step-father who can do it all...

Getting lumber up into the attic requires thinking outside the box sometimes...

Nature Study...Ahhhhh.

"She will point to some lovely flower or gracious tree, not only as a beautiful work, but a beautiful thought of God, in which we may believe He finds continual pleasure, and which He is pleased to see his human children rejoice in." ~Charlotte Mason