Roofing Situation

Update:

I posted a few days ago that it seemed as if we were getting a new roof for free. Yeah, well, it kinda doesn't seem as if that's going to happen anymore. We talked to the inspector who missed the fact that we ILLEGALLY have 3 layers of shingles on our roof, and he said it wasn't his job to catch the error. Which basically means he got himself out of the situation AND wrote it on our inspection booklet to cover his hiney.

He did say that he would put a new roof on for us IF we found him 4-5 other men to help him put the roof on. This still poses a problem because we don't know 4-5 men who would be willing to crawl around up on our roof in July for little pay. Therefore, we're still praying that we'll find someone who is willing to do the entire roof for the $2400 the insurance company gave us to get the back of the roof fixed; not the $4800 they're telling us it will cost to get the whole thing done!

A First Time for Everything

Well... tomorrow night is going to be "the night". The hubster and I are going out on our first "date" since we had the kiddo a year ago. We've only had someone watch her two other times besides going to the babysitter every day while we go to work. The other two times were when we had to be at school until 7 p.m. for parent/teacher conferences. Since both of us are educators, we work in the same school system, and the sitter closes at 5:30; we had no other option. But, tomorrow is the first time we haven't been forced to leave her with someone. The chick babysitting even offered to keep her all night long if we wanted her to! BUT... Mommy is NOT even close to being ready for that. Like seriously NOT. CLOSE. AT. ALL! That will be when she's 4 or so (or maybe 10) ~ not 1!!

I think it'll be nice to get a little alone time with my boy. We haven't been out together for a really really long time. I'm kinda looking forward to it. Another perk... the meal is going to be free thanks to Uncle Bill's Lonestar Steakhouse gift cards for Christmas! Date night and a free meal! That rocks :)

My 1 Year Old!

As you look at this face, I don't think I need to do one ounce of explaining as to how much joy this precious gift brings in to our lives! It's so hard to believe we've been blessed enough to have her in our lives for a year already... I can't wait for a ton more! <3

Father, I Thank Thee

We went up to Pennsylvania this past weekend to have a birthday party for our princess. I love going to Pennsylvania for a few reasons: 1) seeing family that we don't see often enough 2) I LOVE the area where my parents live 3) My dad is a pastor, and I just can't seem to find a church down here that I love as much as hearing my own dad preach. It's just not the same, and I'm never completely content with the church we're in. Anyway....

My dad's sermon yesterday really hit home. As I mentioned in the previous post about all the drama we've had in the last year and a half or so, I tend to have a negative attitude about a lot of things that happen to us. We've had sicknesses, surgeries, major car troubles, financial troubles, house troubles... you name it, we have more than likely had it to some degree between the three of us in the last year and a half. But, my dad's sermon was to always remember to thank God for what we have. There may be people out there with nicer stuff than what we have, nicer stuff that we are jealous of, but there is always someone out there that has it worse than you do. As humans, we tend to want things that we really don't NEED. We want brand name clothes because they look nice, we want a big name car because it's what everyone else has, we want a nice house because what will people think if our house isn't as nice as theirs is? When it comes down to it, is all that REALLY necessary? Shouldn't we be thankful that we have a car to drive whether it's a BMW or a run down Ford, that we have clothes to put on our body, that we have a roof over our heads that keeps us warm when it's cold out and cool when it's too hot out? People get too caught up with "keep up with the Jones'", and become unappreciative for what they have. Who cares if you pay $90 or $25 for your jeans? Shouldn't you be happy that you HAVE jeans to wear?

So.... before you go and start whining and complaining, or say "I HAVE TO HAVE......" because it's the bet brand there is; stop, and think about all of the people in the world that would give anything they could to have the life you do, and would give anything for the cheapest version of what you're about to buy. Then, thank God, and be thankful for what you have.


I hope this post makes you think... think about being thankful for little things. I also hope that it makes people realize that there is always someone out in the world that has it ten times worse than you do, and what do you do? Bellyache because of how bad your life is (I will totally, honestly admit that I am 100% guilty of this). Just remember to think about the wonderful stuff you have before you complain and become ungrateful!!

Did You Say Almost FREE???

A total drama seems as if it's going to turn out to be a total plus for us! We've had our fair share of drama in the last year and a half, and all I want is for everything to be over. So.... let me establish the base of our latest drama, and then tell how it all pans out to look like it's gonna be pretty freakin awesome!

A couple of weeks ago, we had a very bad wind storm. I'm talking 50-60 mile an hour winds bad. As we're sitting in our living room, (with a very LARGE picture window... I'll have to show a pic of that at some point) we see shingles flying off the roof left and right. Immediately we think... oh crap, another thing that is going to need repaired. (We JUST spend $5600 on a new heat pump a few months ago, mind you, and this was just another thing to add that needed to get done that was going to take a crap load of money to fix) My husband goes out to start collecting all of the shingles that were in the yard and driveway; then he decides to inspect the roof :o(. Out back, there was a piece of roof about 6 feet long and 4 feet wide that was getting ready to blow off. Thank goodness it didn't get to that point!! So, my husband put the nice little pile of shingles in the carport (in VA hardly any houses have garages!), and we decided to call the home owners insurance company to see what we could have done. Seeing that we had been told our heat pump was struck by lightning, and was going to be covered by insurance, then it ended up not being that at all and came out of our pockets..... we were just a tid bit skeptical as to what was going to happen!

I think I may be digressing a little.... so back to the point: We call the insurance agency, they send a dude out to inspect, and he tells us our roof isn't up to code. There are 3 layers of shingles, and a MAX of 2 layers are allowed. Therefore our roof is technically illegal! It's going to cost $2600 (minus our deductable) to fix just the back of the roof; which is getting paid by the insurance company. We call our realtor today, and find out that the inspector SHOULD have caught the 3 layers of shingles BEFORE we bought the house. In that case, we would have NEVER bought the house without the roof being fixed!! Our realtor is flipping out because she thought she hired a great inspector ~ guess not!

So... when it's all said and done, we may end up having a FREE roof (except for the deductible) because we will probably take the inspector to small claims court to get the money to fix the rest of the roof. I don't want to be hateful, but we can't afford $2600 to get the front of the roof fixed, and he should have caught that. We would not be in this house if we knew the roof was illegal, and we'll NEVER sell the house down the road if it's illegal!!

Hopefully this will all work out, and we'll have a brand new roof for next to nothing :o)

Oh Baby!

I was browsing the net, and came upon this pic. It is of Michael Johns... the Aussie rocker on American Idol. I think he is delectably gorgeous. Plus, he can really rock! I think he's my favorite reason for watching Idol this year!!

Hey There Chickadee!

We're growing our very own chickies in class!! We got the eggs today, and they're in the incubator. We have to wait 25 days, we get to candle them while they're developing, and then we'll have chickadees!!! We even get to keep them for a couple days to play with them :) My kiddos are SO excited! We're growing butterflies next!