Meet Stitch!

So we have 4 major home improvement projects we want to get done – soon! And yes I am proud to say that 2 are almost done, even after a major delay from the household handyman (that would be Don). The story begins with project number one, the sidewalk. Our lovely track home didn’t come with a sidewalk connecting the front yard to the back yard. I guess they just expected you to carry your lawn mower from the front to the back. When we first moved in we made a path with this stuff called breeze (which I would never recommend for anyone to use), but now we have a beautiful new sidewalk on the side of our house. I never thought I would call a sidewalk beautiful! The most exciting part was when the cement truck pulled up in front of our house, Tanner was in seventh heaven! And now he loves riding his scooter on the new sidewalk, we should have installed speed bumps!

So, our gate was now scrapping our new sidewalk and handy Don decided to fix that problem when he did this.

Ouch! An ER visit (his first visit ever!) and 14 stitches later Don now thought he had a great excuse to get out of doing dishes (and changing diapers!) Seriously you don’t realize how much you use your left hand until you can’t use it! The worst part was that Don couldn’t grip anything so he couldn’t even pick up Brynn much less button his pants! I was a single mom with 3 kids for about a week! Yeah, it was a long week for ALL of us! And Don’s new name is now Stitch. Have I mentioned how much fun it was to quickly pack up 2 kids (during nap time) drive 30 minutes to the hospital and hang out in the ER waiting room for 2 1/2 hours (with 2 cranky kids). Really, an experience I will never forget! And I must mention that Don was quite the trooper. He was so mad that when he got home from the hospital he put a glove on his hand and finished fixing the gate – only this time he used the jigsaw instead of the knife. You can’t say he doesn’t learn from his mistakes!

Don was planning to start tiling our bathroom that afternoon when the little accident happened. We knew that no tiling would be happening for awhile now. Remember my bathroom was looking like this and I hadn’t had a working toilet in there since December, so we gave in and called the professionals! And now my bathroom looks like this and we didn’t have to pick up one piece of tile. Hum, I’m thinking this hiring out thing is sounding better and better . . .

Isn’t it pretty!! Of course like all good home improvement projects you can never just replace ONE thing. I now need (okay want!) a new shower curtain, granite countertop and sink. So we can’t call this project officially done. But I have a working toilet, so I’m happy for now! But no rest for the weary, we still have two more projects to go (and two to finish!) – let’s see if we get them all done this year!