Dad's watch

The inscription reads: From Doris to Floyd 10-10-62. That was my Dad's 46th birthday. On that day he was 13 years younger than I am today. I was 11 and just that June we had moved to the ranch in Yucaipa. I remember sitting next to Dad in the little church on 1st Street watching the little second hand go around and looking at his hands. His hands were large and rough. The hands of a life-long farmer and rancher. Hands that worked hard and were proud of what they did. They were tanned from working outside and there were some age spots beginning to show. His hair was dark and there were callouses on his palms. He used to look at my hands and tell me I should be proud of having callouses, they were the sign of a real man. I used to tease my friends because they didn't have callouses. Dad and I worked together on the ranch and when he talked (he was usually pretty quiet) he would try to teach me what it took to be a man. Mostly, he said, it takes a lot of work. He taught me to be proud of my work, to sit back and admire it when the job was completed. "Don't rush off, take a look at what you have done". Even to this day, when I get done with a project, I sit back and enjoy what I've done. Sometimes I will just pull up a chair and look for awhile. That is actually one reason I like to put on this blog the projects that I am working on.

Today is Christmas eve. We don't have any family here today. It's kind of quiet and lonely. But we get to spend Christmas morning with Tyler and his amazing family and that will be great. I have worked on a little project for his girls. The paint is drying in the workshop. I will post pics when I get it put together. So I have been reading my kid's blogs and taking a look at what my family has done. I'm pretty proud of them all and hope they all have happiness thru the Holidays and forever. Life's not easy. It takes a lot of work. But they are all working hard at making a good life for my grandkids.

I think now I will put on my Dad's watch, his golden ring, and go enjoy Christmas eve with my beautiful wife. She just brought home a rib eye roast, so it looks like we'll have a good Christmas eve dinner! But before that, maybe I'll go out to the yard and see if I can work up some callouses. Because that's what a real man does.

October 3, 2010... click here to see when this adventure began. Remember that room?

Our back porch/laundry room serves as a main entrance to our home. Since we park toward the back of the house, and since we use our back yard so much, we use the back entrance the most. So it should look decent, right. Well it is 99% done, just some touch-up to do.

It's hard to get a picture of it all, but here are several views.

Here's the washer/dryer Tyler got for us out of a house he was selling. We'll leave our old white set over in the Little Red House.

So, these aren't as cute as our kid's blogs with pictures of our grand kids, but hey, you blog what you got.

One more day!

I took a day off work to try to get this finished before Sunday when Di's family is coming.

Here is the new entry door to the kitchen. It's kind of a ribbed glass thingie. It's all in and painted... just need to touch up the paint. This is a custom order door and they actually cut it a little too narrow... I had to take off the trim and shim out the case so it would fit. Nothing is ever easy in an old house, but it doesn't help when they don't make the new part right either!

From the kitchen side.
Putting a shelf above the washer/dryer.
Kind of dark, but this is the new floor from outside looking in.

Putting in the floor... I think my pictures went in upside down.

Cabinets installed and painted.

Stopped while painting to get a pic. See the ceiling above the cabinet? Nothing level, plumb, or square in this old house. There is no way to make this look good, it will get trimmed as is.

1 coat primer, two coats paint. Easy when the room is empty.

I don't remember what I was doing when Di took this pic. But see all those spots? That's dust on the flash. I must have been stirring something up!

This is doing the plumbing... under the floor and up the walls. It was easier to cut access thru the floor than work in the 2 foot crawl space. That's the new sub-floor leaning on the wall behind me. After I was done with the plumbing, I put the patches back in and covered it all up with another layer of sub-floor. There were already 3... now there are 4.

So, tomorrow is Saturday and after I take the Scouts down to sell mistletoe for their fund-raiser, I'll be back to install the baseboard, move the Coke machine and washer/dryer in and be DONE!