Counting Our Blessings

The boys from our church that helped us move last Saturday came back this week to help us move everything from our garage to our basement. While they were moving stuff, I open each plastic tote or box to see if anything had been taken and told the boys what still needed to go in the house and what went to the basement. That is how I realized that the box with my jewelry box in it was missing. That box also contained an iron, a Longaberger tissue box, and a few other odds and ends.

The night after we moved everything to the basement, I couldn't sleep and started thinking about the iron. Why would they take an iron? They took very minimal stuff that they could sell at a pawn shop for some money. They would get nothing out of my iron. Then I thought about the Longaberger basket. Sure it was valuable. Actually, they could probably get more money out of it then some of the other stuff they had taken, but why would they take that Longaberger basket and not the three other baskets that were sitting out. They actually took our video camera out of the Longaberger market basket. I also had a lot of Longaberger Wrought Iron pieces sitting around that were worth a couple hundred dollars and they didn't take any of it. It really didn't make since to me, but stealing doesn't make since to me either, so I let it go.

The next morning, I went down to our basement to find something of Amelia's that I had put down there by mistake. What I also found was the tote with my jewelry box, iron, and Longaberger basket. The boys must have moved it before I had the chance to check it. What a blessing.

Through this whole situation, Matt and I have been trying to count our blessings. There really are so many it is impossible to count them. We just praise God and thank him for one more to add to the list.

Amelia and I are visiting CJ and Michelle right now and then we are off to Disney World with the Gaiser clan. I will post more pictures when I get back.

The Thief Returns

After moving a majority of our stuff up to our new house on Saturday, we went through and secured all the windows and doors in the house and the garage. At least we thought we did. It turns out that the windows in the garage look locked when they really are not. So we think on Monday night, our thief returned and took off with some more stuff. This time they got a box of baseball cards, my jewelry box (not the one with my wedding ring), a super Nintendo, and our video camera. We are not very good at taking video, but the camera did have the only tape we have ever taken of Amelia in it.

Needless to say, the windows are now nailed shut in the garage and all other windows were checked and rechecked yesterday. I will be going around to pawn shops today to look for our stuff. Please pray I find something so we can catch our thief.

The Unexpected

Yesterday was our first big move day. Matt's parents "hired" 6 boys from our church to help us. Matt had his truck and a flat bed trailer and I had our Excursion and a large box trailer. We made two trips with both vechicles and got a majority of our stuff. We were very excited about this day because of all the help we had. The new house was not quite ready for everything, but our two car garage was emptied out and ready.

When we arrived at the house with the first load of stuff, I right away noticed something was different. We had been keeping three big trash cans out front to fill with trash, but the trash bags were on the ground and no trash cans. I got up to the back door of the house and it was standing wide open. Now let me pause and say that this is not out of the norm. Matt sometimes gets working outside and will leave forgetting that he left the door open. What was not normal was that the front door was also standing wide open. There was a small pile of trash inside the back door that had also been in a trash can. Now I had the feeling that something was wrong. I went down the hall to Amelia's room and it looked like a tornado had gone through it. Her room was the only one that had any stuff in it. It was also not all her stuff, but mostly stuff that had been in my car that I didn't see any reason in moving twice so I had already dropped it off at this house.

I went outside and told Matt and he said he didn't know what had happened. A little while later, he came back and said someone had definitly been in the house and garage. Most of his power tools were missing and some random little stuff. Our best bet is that they emptied the trash out of the trash cans and filled them up with stuff and took off. Needless to say our house and garage are now locked, but we are still sad that someone came into our house and took stuff.

Moving Again

I have just spent the last four days packing up my house and updating my Facebook when I needed a rest from packing. (I may have also caught up a little bit on the last season of Lost which I completely missed on television.) When we moved here in March, I knew that it would not be forever, but I had no idea we would be moving again this year. If I had known that, I would not have been so quick to unpack my boxes and burn all the empty ones. The only good thing about having a month to move is that I can unpack my boxes and repack them.

Aside from that, I am really excited that Matt and I have found a house that we both like and property that we love. It is a 3 bedroom, 1 bath on over 6 acres just North of Athens in a town called The Plains. The Plains is not known for much, but it does have a few Indian mounds. Our property has an Indian mound on it, but someone dug through the middle of it. We think they used the dirt to fill in the swimming pool. Ok, I realize for those of you who have not seen it, you are like....."hold on, Indian mound and a filled in swimming pool!" Most people who know us though realize that it would not be a home for the Gaiser's unless it is unique.

So here is the rundown on our home. It was built in 1935. It had the traditional living room, dining room, kitchen, 3 bedrooms and 1 bath on a full basement. At some point, but probably a long time ago, the owners added another room that provided a back entrace into a sunroom and another living room. Under that room they added a one car garage and cut through the existing basement wall so they could park and walk up the basement steps into the kitchen. Later, they changed the basement garage into just a regular entrance and put a wall and door over where the original garage door was. We don't know when, but a two car garage with a breezeway was added to the bedroom end of the house. There is not an entrance to the house from the breezeway. Neither the basement "garage" nor the two car garage have doors that are high enough to park any of our cars. So, we hope to later turn the two car garage into living space.

The bedrooms are really small and the bathroom is even smaller, but our plan is to finish off the breezeway into a bathroom/laundry room and small office and the garage into a Owner's Suite with walk-in-closet and bathroom. That will give us a 4 bedroom house with 3 bathrooms. That is one room for us and one for each of our "kids," Alla, Amelia, and baby boy Gaiser.

So that is the plan. When it is done, I will post pictures for all to see. Here are a couple before pictures. I really wish I would have taken more because the place was really scary when we started on it.

This is a picture of the living room. The carpet is now gone and the original hardwood floors have been refinished.

This is where the kitchen was. As you can see, there is nothing left of the kitchen at all. All cabinets and appliances are being replaced. Matt and his dad are making the kitchen cabinets. Matt and our friend Adam are working on the wiring and plumbing in this picture. The whole house has to be rewired.