Okay, so we are still waiting to close on the house. It should be around the 15th of October. I am shocked how low the payments will be. Now I know why people flip houses. Not sure I am ready to start doing that but we shall see.

I bought an awesome cast iron sink with faucet, spray hose and soap dispenser for $30 off Craigslist. If you didn’t already know I LOVE Craigslist. That same week I also bought a nice charcoal grill for $10 and brown paper sack half full of beer bottle caps (up coming craft project). Oh, and two pair of shoes from Goodwill. One pair of Born patent leather and leather mix fun shoes $4 and the other pair is an open heeled pair of casual Liz Claiborne’s for $3. Yep, love to bargain shop.

Paint color has stayed the same since last post. Laminate flooring has now changed to solid wood. We have decided the tile in the bathroom is not in good enough shape to keep. So, I think we are going to go with a utility grade hard wood. A little more work but cheap and the finished product is beautiful. Solid wood is probably a better choice for the kitchen and bath anyway.

I found an old newel post last night that we got from some friends before they moved to Hawaii. I forgot it was in a closet. I have the perfect spot for it and can’t wait to incorporate it into the house.

Going to Ikea this week. My mom has a doctors appointment in Ann Arbor and we thought we would hit Ikea in Canton while we are over there. Yeah!

Okay, I can’t take credit for that great title.  I stole it from my friend Abby.  She called our new house that because it is actually located on Diamond Ave.

Here are a few updates:

We could be taking possession of the house as soon as next week.I have found someone to take the kitchen appliances, sink, counters and cabinets.  That was not as easy as I had hoped it would be.  I was hoping to sell everything for maybe $50 dollars but the pictures must have scared people away.  At least everything is going to a good home and will all be removed at once at no cost to us.

I have selected our paint color.  Yes, there will probably only be one color all the way through the house.  In the past we have had very colorful homes and now I think I am ready to accessories with color instead.

The laminate flooring has been selected from Lumber Liquidators.  I love it and it was actual one of their less expensive styles.  I usually gravitate to expensive stuff and then find out it is out of our price range.  So this was a pleasant surprise.

I met another neighbor.  Apparently the house was originally on the market for 45K more then we ended up paying for it.  Yahoo!!!!.  Oh, and the three children that lived in the house were very naughty.  Now there will just be our two very loving dogs that like to bark at the neighbors.

I hope you like the pictures of the kitchen.  Ewww is all I can say about it and the pictures say the rest.

Enjoy!

If you know us well then you know the last 17 months have been more then a challenge for us.  Out of all of this we are purchasing a new house.  This isn’t just any house it is the cheapest house in our 10 years of marriage that we will have owned.  It is also the nastiest house we have ever purchased.  You maybe asking yourself, “why are they purchasing a nasty house”?  Well, for one we don’t want to ever be in the situation we have been in for the last 17 months.  We also think we are pretty handy and think we can do a lot of the fixin’ up ourselves.  Finally, we have an amazing support group that is chomping at the bit to help us work on our new house.

So, without further ado, our new home.

I love this house.  I have liked it since looking at it back in early July.  There is so much that can be done with this place.  I have been working at drawing up the changes to the floor plan and can already envision Craig, myself and our two dogs calling this house our home.  The neighborhood is great.  It is close to our church.  It is close to downtown.  There is a Beaners close.  The list goes one…

I will be using my blog to show the progress of our work.  Look forward to seeing more pictures and stories.

…the Cubicle is turning 40 and so is Craig.

The article below has been taken from WZZM13.com

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -  The oft-derided “cubicle” is turning 40 years old this month.

Having his blog has made me think about design even more then I normally would. I feel like I have a responsibility to write something inspiring or very informative rather then just my daily thoughts. That is probably why I go so far between posts.

Craig and I were having a discussion the other day about what my career in design should look like. Craig is just happy I have a job. I am too but I really feel that ultimately what I do as a designer needs to be giving back to people and society.

It may seem strange to some of you that I am still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. My occupation as a designer is actually the second major career path I have taken. There have been many jobs in between but that is a post for another day.

I am trying to figure out what my future should look like. I can’t see myself designing and selling to people that are totally into over consumerism forever. That is not to say that all the clients I have ever worked with are like that because, that would not be true. But, when someone puts more into their living room furniture then I will make in a year that is a little disheartening.

Where does a girl go from here? How can I be socially and environmentally conscious and still do my job? What area of design should I be focusing on? What resources should I tap into? Are there experts in the design field that feel the same way that I do? These questions and many more are questions that I ask myself daily.

If you have some good insight I gladly welcome it.

Today marks the 20th anniversary of my dad’s death. For those that don’t know, my dad was killed in 1988 by an elderly woman that was learning to drive. He was killed instantly and the police weren’t able to locate any of our family for about 8 hours because my dad had recently moved. His drivers license did not have his new address on it and no one lived at the old address.

I would have to say that at that point in my life my dad was my best friend. We did a lot of stuff together and our Friday night daddy/daughter dates were a big hit with me. My dad dying left a huge void in my life. This is a void that has never been filled and I don’t suspect it ever could be.

His funeral was the day after Mother’s Day and the day before my 19th birthday. It was very well attended because my dad was just one of those guys that everyone liked. He had lots of friends, especially hunting buddies and was a lot of fun to be around.

I am not sure I have ever been able to honor his life or death properly. I don’t know if there is anyone in this world that could possibly miss him more then I do. While the horrible sting of his death is not as harsh as it once was I don’t think there is a day that goes by that I don’t think of him.

I love you dad.

Robin

We just finished a huge job at work. We have been working on this job to revive and old building since last Summer. This past Thursday and Friday we did the installation. There are a few things left to tweak but for the most part it is done. I did a ton of CAD work for this job. I designed some of the custom pieces of furniture and the layouts for all five floors. Much of the design was lead by the owner of where I work but I was the one that put it into the computer.

I loved this particular job. I loved seeing the empty spaces come to life. Now the job is done. When I walked away from the job last Friday I was sad. I felt like I was saying good-bye to an old friend. This building was a place where I could basically stop by anytime. I attended construction meetings in this building. I helped my boss make design decisions in this building. We met with lots of different people on this project to help sculpt and revive an old building. We simply invested a lot of time and effort into this project.

Is this weird that I feel a little sad. Shouldn’t I be excited that the job is done? In some ways I think it is good that I feel this way. I am proud of my work and time put into this project.

Now someone else will be spending time with my old friend. I hope they like her as much as I do.

The Mayer family is a super cool group of people. A mom, dad and 5 kids (three biological and 2 adopted from Africa). I think that it was the Fall of 2003 when I met the Mayer’s for the first time. We were new to our former church and they were in the midst of looking for a new pastor. I think we met two or three different candidates and eventually voted to extend the call to the Mayer’s.

The Mayer’s came to us from Ohio. Mark (dad) and some if not all the kids came early to Michigan so they could start school. Mom (Missy) and a couple of kids (I think) stayed in Ohio while they waited to sell their house. Once everyone, including several cats were settled into a new home in Michigan we realized what a great family these people were.

The whole family fit into our church nicely. They were a group of goofy people that like to have fun. Pastor Mark’s messages were always on target for things that were happening at the time. He liked using images, quotes, take aways, etc. to get his message across. He worked well with the churches design team and was very open to the needs of the his congregation.

Since I am talking in past tense you have probably figured out by now that the Mayer’s no longer are at our former church. It was in 2006 that the Mayer’s made the announcement that they were looking to serve at another church, not because of anything that was happening with our church but because of some serious health issues one of their daughters was having. Her doctor suggested a warmer climate. They began interviewing at churches in warm climates and accepted a call from a church in Florida called Oasis Church. By mid Summer 2006 we were packing up the Mayer’s and they headed off to Florida.

I haven’t personally had a lot of contact with them because the church we were at dissolved in January 2007 but I get updates here and there from other people and there is always Facebook. I have heard that Mark loves the warm weather, that it has done wonders for his Seasonal Effective Disorder, there daughters health issues have continued and they are still seeking treatment and that their oldest daughter that suffers from Crohn’s has still had problems but will soon be graduating from nursing school.

Well, you can imagine my surprise a couple of weeks ago when I heard that Mark was having some serious health concerns. There are a few people at our new church that keep in touch with the Mayer’s and that is where the update came from. We began praying for updated test and procedures that Mark was going to be having. At first the doctors were thinking that Mark may be suffering from Crohn’s. Not great news but defiantly something this family knows a lot about.

Well, this past week the news came back that Mark has cancer. He has about a 5 inch tumor that has eaten through his kidney. There are lots of blood vessels involved and removal of the kidney is going to be very dangerous. He will be having more tests this next week to check and see if the cancer has spread.

As you can imagine the news is not great. This has shook the faith of people that are a part of their current church, of our old church and is just simply very scary for a family with 5 kids. I think of James 1:2-8 in this instance and try to make sense of how we or anyone is supposed to take joy in this testing of our faith. I guess I need to study that scripture more.

As for all the pictures with this blog. You can put your cursor over the picture and it will give you a description. The two different crosses are from one of our Christmas Eve Services that Pastor Mark lead. It was probably the most meaningful Christmas Eve service I have been a part of.

95% of the time on this blog I will write about design stuff. It is one of the things that I love. Another thing I love is people. I love watching people, getting to know people, hearing people’s stories, praying for people, well, you get the point. The other 5% of this blog I will dedicate to people. Now this is not to say that I like design more then people but this blog was started with the intention of being about design.

This weekend I am going to share on this blog something about a person that needs a great deal of prayer. I am not ready to do it yet. It is late on Friday night and I am getting ready for bed.

Please stay tuned for more information and a picture or two.

Let’s just say that Clark Sorensen gives new meaning to natures calling. I wouldn’t have believed this if I hadn’t seen it for myself. Click on the picture and check out his site.