Our New Home!

We have been in our new house since mid-November and we are finally starting to get settled in.  Many people have asked for some pictures so I'm putting some into this blog post.

Like I said, we closed on our house in mid-November.  Everything went pretty smoothly.  The seller was willing to put a new roof on the house prior to closing which was great but there was still a lot of work we wanted to do to it before moving in.  We took 2 weeks to work before moving in and ended up moving in the Saturday after Thanksgiving with the help of our families.  Throughout this whole process our families have been AMAZING!!  They have helped so very much so a HUGE shout out to them.

Front

Back (for clarity, the grill is not mine) :)

So what did we do during those 2 weeks?  Well the first and dirtiest job was removing the popcorn ceiling from the downstairs ceiling.  This was a messy job but actually was not as difficult as I thought it would be.  It took a little more than a day's work to scrape off about 1400 sq feet of ceiling and then the next few days to patch, smooth and paint.  It is a huge improvement and worth the effort but I wouldn't do it with furniture in the house as the mess would be incredible!

All in all we completed the following upgrades:

• Removed pop-corn ceiling
• Replaced all the downstairs lighting fixtures
• Painted the kitchen cabinets and added hardware (knobs added, new hinges put on)
• New Kitchen Sink
• New Dishwasher
• Ran gas line and installed new gas stove!
• New Microwave over range
• Painted (yes painted) the white refrigerator black (they actually make a spray paint specifically for this purpose)
• Painted the entire downstairs
• Installed new vanity in master bathroom (previous one had only 1 sink and was really low)
• New 2" blinds throughout the house

I might be forgetting something but that's the gist of it.  Now here are some before and after shots!

In addition to the renovation pictures, here are a few random pictures of the rest of the house:

The room over the garage (Play room)

Caleb's room in its natural state!

Evelyn's room (still working on decorating and furnishing it!)

The new chandelier that took 3 men and 3 ladders to install!

 We are finally starting to feel settled in now that the Christmas decorations are down and the house is beginning to feel familiar.  Of course we have a huge list of things that still need to be done soon and a wish list of things we hope to do in the future but can't afford at the moment.

So that's our new home! We have plenty of room now so please feel free to call us up and come visit sometime!

New "hobby"?

So recently I've developed a new "hobby".  Why do I have quotes around the word "hobby"?  Well because I'm not sure you can call it a hobby but it is one in some ways.

I have recently been introduced to "Wet Shaving" with a double edge safety razor.  It's the old school shaving method that they used before the cartridge razor was invented.  It uses a nice solid razor with disposable double edge blades to cut with and a nice brush and soap to lather up your face with.

This is what I use to shave now!

Shaving as a hobby?  Really?  We yes, it is in some ways.  Its funny how since switching I look forward to shaving in the morning.  It may wear off eventually but I like refining the technique, the smell of the soap, the feel of the brush, and that manly feeling you get doing it the old fashioned way.  The draw of this type of shaving is actually really growing and there are a lot of communities online to share tips/techniques etc.  A lot of people go way overboard (in my opinion) with what they have coined "Acquisition disorder" where they basically collect the various razors, brushes, soaps to the point where they could never possibly use them all.  Because this type of shaving has been around for a long time it is fairly easy to find old razors that are still very usable with a new DE razor blade put in them.

So why did I get into this?  Well the biggest reason was that I was tired of the crazy cost of my Gillette cartridge razors.  I was using the Gillette Fusion Proglide which cost about $3-4 per cartridge.  That cartridge lasted me about 10 days before it dulled.  With the DE razor the blades coast about $0.14 each and although they only last about 3 days that is still significant savings.  I can shave for a year on about $15 for razors whereas before that $15 would last me about 2 months.  I may spend slightly more now on the shaving cream because I can't stand the stuff out of the can but even that is not much more.  For $6-7 I can get a tube of cream that will last me several months, and there are cheaper soaps/creams out there that I have not tried yet.

I've been shaving this way now for about 3 weeks now and it's still fun for me.  It takes a little longer in the morning but it's kinda relaxing now rather than just a chore to get done.  I even got an extra razor that I don't put a blade in so that Caleb can shave with me sometimes :-).

Major News

Its been awhile since I posted here but some things have happened that have brought me back here simply because it's the easiest way to keep everyone up to date.

One thing that has happened is the saga of our house.  To start at the beginning, Sarah and I sold the house we bought when we were first married.  We put it on the market and it sold in about 45 days which is a huge blessing in the market.  We wanted to sell our home to upgrade to a larger home to make way for the possibility of expanding our family in the future. While possible to do in a  bedroom home we felt we could afford a larger home and it would make life a bit easier.  This all happened last Spring.  Originally we looked around town for an existing house to buy but couldn't find one that had everything we were looking for.  We finally decided to build in a neighborhood near Sarah's sister, Ashley.  The house plan was great and we fell in love with it.
They started building the house in late July and after they had the foundation poured Sarah and I both realized that we both were feeling like we shouldn't buy this house.  The big reasons were 1) the yard was teeny and 2) with interest rates going up we felt like we should get a home that wasn't quite so close to our "budget limit".
So with that decided not to build that house after all.  It wasn't a custom house or anything so the builder allowed for us to back out knowing they would sell it to someone else.  We did lose our earnest money but we felt that was better than the alternative of living in a house for 15-20 years that we did not really like.  So we went back out on the hunt for a already built house that had everything (or at least almost everything) we were looking for.  Over labor day weekend we found that house.  Today we officially put a contract on the house and will close in mid-november.  While that is a long way out we are very excited to finally have a house to move into.  While living with Sarah's sister (I left that part out - yes we've been living with Sarah's sister for the last 3 months) has not been bad at all, it is always nice to have a space of your own.
The house is beautiful, with a large backyard, a small basketball court, a neighborhood pool/playground right down the street!
So...by Thanksgiving we will hopefully be settled and moved into our new home.  We will have 3 bedrooms and a large FROG (Finished Room over Garage) so please come visit us sometime.
And that is the saga of our house.  Please pray for smooth inspections and closing process.

Our future home, Lord willing.

New Blog

Awhile ago I told Sarah (my wife) that I wanted to start making dinner Saturday nights.  Why Saturday? Well usually the dinner I make takes awhile and therefore since we eat an early dinner I wouldn't have time to do it on week nights.  Well, it turned out that we ended up dropping this on the wayside.  Life got in they way.  Well, starting in 2013 I'm going to make this a rule again.  And in order to help me stay on top of it, I figured I'd have some fun with it and blog about each meal.  Most of the meals will be found online in various places and so I will give the source but I will also likely make changes to them as I go.  Most people won't care about what I make for dinner but I know a few who might be interested in what new recipes I'm trying so this blog is for them.  Click the link above "The Pantry Blog" to see the new blog.

Clean

A year or so ago a friend of ours introduced us to a product line called Norwex.  Today I used one of their products (the Envirocloth) and some water to clean the carpet in my office.  I have no idea what the person before me ate/dropped on the carpet but it was nasty looking.  Enter Norwex:

Before Norwex

Close Up BEFORE Norwex

Lots of nastyness on the carpet.  With just the cloth, water, and about 15-30 seconds of rubbing...

After Norwex

Close up After Norwex
 (still some spots but I didn't want to sit in my office on my hands and knees for too long)

Not bad huh?  I love this stuff!!!

I wish more parents would understand this concept...

Dad teaches a useless lesson in how unspecial children are:
From Cyanide and Happiness…

What do you do?

Since starting my new job a few weeks ago a lot of people have asked me, “What do you do now?”  That’s not a simple questions to answer so I usually respond with my title and a joke about how “it’s complicated, but basically I help people with Intellectual Disabilities get services in the community rather than in institutions.”  That’s such a watered down definition of what I do that I figured I’d take a moment to elaborate here on my blog for the few people who care about what it is I do…exactly.

To tell you what I do I’ll have to give a little bit of history…

First to help clarify terms the term Intellectually Disabled is a fairly new term in this field.  Prior to that the term Mentally Retarded was used.  Their definition is the same.

Prior to 1981, people in need of long term care services could only receive Medicaid funding for such services when the services were provided in an institutional setting such as a nursing home.  In October 1981, the Social Security Act was amended to allow states to choose to offer Medicaid funding for long term care services when those services are provided in the person's home or community.  This became known as the Home and Community Based (HCB) Waiver or Medicaid Waiver option.  This program saves the government (and tax payers) money by getting people out of the high cost institutions (nursing homes and institutional care facilities for the intellectually disabled) and allows them to live in the community, at home or in group homes. 

The state of South Carolina currently has 8 different waiver programs.  4 are operated by the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) through Community Long Term Care (CLTC).  DHHS also administers four waivers that are operated by the Department of Disabilities and Special Needs (DDSN), where I now work.  My specific job is the Intellectual Disabilities/Related Disabilities Waiver Program Coordinator. 

Anytime new policies come around from either CMS (Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services – Federal), or DHHS (state), or the higher ups at DDSN, it is my job to get the policies implemented through adjusting the waiver manual that is used by our providers.  Our providers consist of various entities around the state that get paid to actually do the service coordination.  They meet with the people using the waivers, monitor their needs, and ensure they get the services they need.

Of course my day to day duties consist of more than updating a manual.  I’m involved in proving to DHHS and CMS that we are following their standards and ensuring that our providers are following their standards.  I participate in meetings in which various policies are discussed and changed, and then there are the other various tasks that are assigned by my supervisor. 

In addition to my job as the waiver program coordinator I am working as the IT liason for my department.  This consists of being a “translator” from IT jargon to common speak :-).  I’ve also been given the role of our agency’s HIPAA Privacy Coordinator which means if anyone in our agency has questions involving the privacy of protected information they will come to me.

That’s it in a nutshell, for the 2 of you that didn’t fall asleep. :-) I’ve learned a lot about my role in just the few weeks I’ve been here and look forward to continuing on.  

For more info on the SC waivers opperated by DDSN and to see the waiver manual you can go here:

http://ddsn.sc.gov/consumers/medicaidwaiver/Pages/default.aspx