Gratefulness and Kindness

Holy moly where has the time gone??? I can’t believe it’s been over a month since my last post. With all of the good weather, we have been trying to get as much done on the exterior as possible. As well as working like crazy, we made an addition to our little family:) Everyone, meet Teddy!

Teddy with his favorite hat

My absolutely amazing chiropractor suggested I start looking at pups that were available online. He knew how much Harold meant to us and wanted Matt and I to reintroduce some positive energy in our lives. Thank goodness I listened to him:) Teddy came to us all the way from Texas. He has already brought so much love and joy to us and it has only been a little over a month. We think he is somewhere between 4 and 7 years old. He has a lot of scars and has clearly had a really rough life. You wouldn’t know it by how affectionate and curious he is:) He LOVES to chew on his toys and throw his toys in the air lol. He’s a very rambunctious boy! Clover has had fun playing, but isn’t sure what to do with all of this energy. She is a dainty girl so it has been quite an adjustment:) We love our precious boy and feel so lucky to have him in our lives❤️❤️❤️

In addition to family changes, we’ve also been getting a new garage door! I have hated the old garage door since we first looked at the property. It was old, rusty, and super hard to open. It was also a big reason why the garage was freezing cold all winter. Our new door is insulated and has windows to allow natural light. Matt and I were able to install it over 48 hours (Matt did most of the work). It has already done a lot to improve the look of the place.

Matt taking apart the old door

New door installed

We've also been preparing the stairwell for the laundry machines that we will be installing for tenants and guests. The old stairwell has been unheated and left to rot for a very long time. I tore out all of the wood paneling and insulation. Whew! That was a nasty, dirty job. There were years of rodents and hornets or something living in the walls. Honestly, one of the grossest jobs yet. It allowed us to see some of the original insulation. It had a stamp on there that was from December of 1967. We were told the motel was built in the 1960s so this helped us to pinpoint the year a little better. One of the good things about tearing this out, it allowed us to access the pipes for room 4's bathroom. Thankfully, things look relatively good. We will need to update some things down the line, but nothing too bad. Which leads us to one of our other new developments...

Stairwell before work began

Wood paneling removed

Animal nests etc.

We have a third set of new tenants! A family we are friends with is in the process of searching for a new house. They thought they had found one this past Fall, but the deal fell through. While they are in between houses, they are staying in three of the motel rooms. With only three weeks to get them ready, we moved all of our belongings out of them (two of the rooms were our unofficial storage rooms). Matt replaced three toilets, replumbed one of the showers, and installed a new propane heater; I replaced the outlets and light switches, ordered a new fridge and stove, repaired some of the subflooring, and fitted them out with fancy new light up mirrors. It's been a bit of a nightmare since it's been ages since anything has been updated in that building. Many items needed for repair were in strange sizes that were a special order. It constantly felt like one step forward, ten steps back. However, we persevered!!! Our friends moved in this last weekend and it has been so nice seeing them everyday:)

By moving into our storage rooms, it forced us to make some changes to the bedroom. We have two rooms in our house that have been unused since we have not had time to do anything with them yet. They are the two bedrooms in the upstairs of our house. Someday we will circle back and have time to tackle them. One room will be the library and one will be the craft room. Since the library already had a bunch of my book boxes in it, we decided to install the new floor in the craft room and transport our belongings up there for the time being. Matt and I pulled up the old, nasty, animal urine smelling carpet and trim. Matt glued new linoleum down and installed new trim. It still looks pretty rough in there so I didn't take any pictures. Once we have it set up as a craft room, I'll show some pictures.

We also had our first snow! We had two big snow storms in the last few weeks. The first storm was on Thanksgiving and we had about 10 inches. The second storm probably dropped about the same amount. It really made the property light up and look picture perfect:) Unfortunately, our plow has been having some problems so we've primarily been using the snow blower. We are very thankful to have it, but it does take longer for sure. I've even learned how to do it and was able to give Matt a break for a few days. It's been hard to do with some of the endometriosis pain I've been experiencing, but I'm glad I can do it some of the time to help out.

Our house and office after the second snow storm

I've been dealing with some pretty sharp pain where my remaining ovary is located. I had an appointment with a new very experienced doctor last week. He confirmed what I was afraid of and it sounds likely I will have to have another surgery next year. We are going to try one more round of medication in January. It was really nice to have someone so experienced confirming that I have a really serious form of endometriosis. Sometimes I wonder if I am being a baby or giving into my body too easily. It's helpful to have an outside opinion confirming what my body has been telling me. Anyway, my pain levels have been pretty elevated lately which has made working on the property really difficult. I only mention this because this is a big part of our reason for purchasing the motel. It's been a major player in all of our decisions with the property and I've shared about it in the past. Needless to say, I've been feeling a little bit down after all of this. Teddy and Clover have been great distractions:)

Matt has been working tirelessly on so many projects. One of his biggest accomplishments is finishing the shingles around our front door. I’ll let him tell you about that though;) He is going to be making a contribution to the blog too in the coming weeks!

Well, that is all I have time for right now. I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season and is able to enjoy it with the people that mean the most to you. During the foreseeable future, I will be trying to implement kindness on a daily basis. Our world is filled with so much fear and anger it seems like. So far my kindness plan has worked! I've been able to change one of the grumpiest people that we interact with on a daily basis. With my persistent kindness, he now greets me with a wave and wishes me a nice day almost every time I see him. Kindness matters and it works:) Take care of yourselves and don't forget to rest!