No Stress

"Fully 95 percent of your emotions, positive or negative, are determined by how you talk to yourself on a minute-to-minute basis. It is not what happens to you but the way that you interpret the things that are happening to you that determines how you feel." - from the book, Eat that Frog by Brian Tracy.

It seems like such a simple statement, but it is SO true. Could we be stressed to the max because we just ripped out our basement and we're less than 4 months away from the biggest life change ever? Yes. Could we complain that everything in our basement is currently taking space in the baby's room? Yes. Could I stress because I come home and see a huge hole in the ground? Absolutely.

However, this gets us nowhere. Instead, we're motivated to finish because when this little guy comes and turns our world upside down, we want to be ready to devote 100% to him :o)

Plumbing. Yipee!

My tub. White. American Standard (love the brand). Deep. Wonderful.

And the toilet. American Standard. Cadet. Space Saver. Elongated bowl (a must for the dudes).

Adam turned the bookshelf into a nice organization station for his plumbing needs.

Door becomes a work table. Notice Yuengling in the forefront of the picture.

He has no idea what is happening here. We are doing quite a job to his mad pooping space.*

Gravel from the hole.

Adam's dad let us borrow his big a$$ air compressor.

2x4's and 4x6's; a must for framing.

*Mad pooping space = when the dog gets mad at us (for leaving the house or some other unspeakable action), he poops in the basement.

weekend progress

The demo is almost done...dude. Adam and my mother worked very hard to knock everything out and schlep it out of the house. Next step after some cleaning is finalizing the layout!

Basement Before

Goo! The black hole known as the basement....

I'm going to get back on this horse...

Because we have some exciting rides in 2012! Our first project that will be tackled this weekend is (finally) rehabilitating the basement. I love our house, but the basement is a large, black (and stinky) hole that we avoid like the plague. Jake enjoys it for his bathroom when he's mad at us for leaving the house. I begrudgingly do the laundry in the area, but hate every second (because it's a hole, not because it's laundry). Adam does his stinky...er, I mean, wonderful, beer brewing in the bathroom of the basement. And because that toilet is never used, it loves to provide a pungent, sewer smell that mixes nicely with Jake's business...you get the point. Operation Basement begins this weekend with demolition. Pictures to come.

You may ask why we are motivated to do the basement after 2 years of neglect...well, we need some additional space since the Partee family is expanding! We are expecting a little baby boy in the Spring (I'm destined to be surrounded by dudes) and we couldn't be more excited! I'm 5 and 1/2 months and outside of some all day nausea in the first trimester coupled with extreme tiredness, I feel pretty darn good. He's kicking around in my belly and it's such a surreal process. Thus, we're getting our act together to provide some play space for him (and Adam and Jake of course) and we need to have an alternative space for guests since the baby will take the guest room (now nursery).

All righty 2012, let's do this.