One Color Down…

Since our focus right now is getting our housing situation ready for our short stay in the area, for future renters, and for long term investment purposes, I suppose that will be the focus of the blog for at least a week or two.  However, if you don’t know us very well, then maybe you don’t know about Matthew’s amazing talents in the home remodeling department.  Of course, it was these talents (and many others) that led to our first term in DRC, but it’s great to see him using them again after a six month break.

Actually, it’s LOVELY to be working again!  The months on the road were hard work, don’t get me wrong, but it was mostly mental.  Constantly being social, in other people’s houses, being prepared for the next stop, etc. – it wasn’t the same as some good, old fashioned manual labor, though.  Matthew and I are doers and we missed it!  Of course, that’s not to say I’m loving it at this point…32 weeks pregnant and seriously quite huge.  I know most pregnant ladies say they’re feeling huge, but if you saw me right now…yeah, huge would not even begin to describe it.  And the first two times around it didn’t bother me, but third time’s the charm – any comments I’ve received usually do not get a warm reply.  I apologize, but then…I don’t, because, is it really polite to comment on how HUGE I am?  Nope.  It isn’t.  Blame the crazy pregnancy hormones, if you must.

Anyway, I digress…the house is coming along well…though, as to be expected, the unexpected things come up.  We have been super blessed to learn that every appliance in the house works (and works WELL, actually, including the heat)!  Painting has been going great and we’ve finished with one color (it’s in two rooms)!  Woo hoo!  We had a cleaning party yesterday with a huge help from a lady and her two teen daughters from church and an adoptive mama I first met in Kinshasa who lives in the area.  It was AWESOME to get so much done and prepped for paint (so. much. ew. the walls were terribly dirty!) – paint is all most of the rooms need to be brought back to their original charm.

Another highlight to my day was meeting our elderly neighbors behind us.  Our backyards meet and they were out tending to their garden while I was forcing sending the kids outside for some get-out-of-our-hair play time.  The yard is fenced, which is lovely, but it was destroyed by the previous renter’s four large and one small dog.  Oh well, wrong time of year to fix that, so on we go without a lawn.  Anyway, their names are Frank and Thelma – they are adorably old, at least 85.  They gave us tomatoes, beans, and cucumbers from their garden and chatted briefly about how happy they were that the renter lady was gone and that we had bought it.  Frank said he was sad that the road had become so busy and dangerous.  I wasn’t aware it was dangerous…

Not twenty minutes later I was back inside painting with the windows open when Matthew and I heard the classic sounds of metal and plastic being crushed violently.  A car accident!  Right out our window!  No one seemed to be injured and our small town brought out not one, not two, but THREE police officers, each in their own vehicle, an ambulance, and a tow truck.  It was quite a sight and a few minutes of entertainment.  But both cars are likely totaled.  And, more importantly, Frank was right: the road is dangerous!

The cable guy came today to set up our internet and told us stories about the house – he has visited three times.  The first, he thinks the owners were living there, and it was very nice, though the paint was ugly.  Then there was the messy dog lady renter – and he talked about how she was completely horrid, made him install all sorts of stuff, had other people in and out of the house, and he remembers six dogs tearing up the place.  He, too, seemed happy someone else had bought the house.  It IS adorable, after all.

It’s fun to be working and fixing up such a lovely old house and something we know is a good investment.  It’s fun to have a new focus after such an adventure (with its own focus).  It’s fun to be able to nest…because, again, at 32 weeks pregnant, I need to do these things.

And now…to sleep.  Because all this work and growing another person at the same time…it’s tiring!