A former full-time teacher living her life-long dream of staying at home.
And homeschooling to boot!
Comments make my day.
Thanks for stopping by!
kimlepper at gmail.com
It's taken a year, but the basement is 90% finished! We added a storage room, put up drywall and my dad showed me how to lay carpet. These pictures aren't 100% current as we've since replaced the fluorescent lights, put up window and door trim, but you can get the idea. It adds around 400 sq feet of living space (one of the reasons we bought the place). The rest won't get done until after the baby comes as we are doing all this with cash, but for now we'll live without a finished ceiling and baseboards.
Before. Notice the need for storage.
After- storage room to the right.
Inside storage room. Jeremy built those shelves and was very proud of them.
Another angle, before
and after.
View from the couch before
and after.Our computer desk is currently to the left of the TV.
The one area I didn't get a picture of was the area to the left. It's slightly smaller than what is seen here due to a random closet. Jeremy has his 6' x 4' gaming table there (he cut it down from 8' so it would give us more living space). I'll have to post a picture later as I can't find the camera...I'm not sure why I didn't take a "before" of the other side of the room...
Anyway, we LOVE it and it's been worth all the exhausting weekends. I really wanted it done so Sam and I would have a nice cool place to spend this summer (it stays 65 degrees down there no matter how hot it gets outside). I keep telling Jer that every time I walk downstairs I feel like I'm in someone else's house!
Today was quite an emotional rollercoaster as I sat on pins and needles with my students and co-workers waiting to hear who the next sucessor to St. Peter would be. I laughed with delight at the fact that NO ONE saw it coming. Although he's older than I thought the next pope would be, I've am falling in love with him the more and more I read about him!
Despite all this, the highlight of my day was hearing Sam re-telling the story after I tried to explain to her what was going on. After I told her that I was listening to the radio to hear what they were saying I asked her to listen for them talking about "Pope Francis." I almost forgot she was in the car she was so quiet and then randomly she would squeal- "Ah! They said 'pope francis' again!"
When we got home she asked if she could see a video of him. She was very interested in seeing the black smoke first, then the white smoke. Every time we'd see a video with him in it she's exclaim, "There's the new Hope Francis!" Later we went to a Mexican restaurant to celebrate our Argentinian pope (my mom's words, not mine...she also kept saying "habeñero papus"). Sam started jabbering on and after a few minutes I realized she was re-telling the story of the "New Hope". I'll try to get it on video later, as it's quite detailed, but the rough transcript is below (I had her retell it a few times because it was just so darn impressive).
"Once upon a time there was an old hope and he was old and got retired and said there needed to be a new hope. So he went to sleep and everybody picked a new hope. First there was black smoke and that means there was no hope, but then there was white smoke and that means they picked the new Hope Francis."
It seems so short when typed out...she repeats lines a lot and elaborates on a few details, but that's the jist. I can't bring myself to correct her anymore as it seems very appropriate to call him the new "Hope".
By the way, for those of you who speak Spanish, below is a commercial he did last year at Christmas. Such a sweet smile!
