(Oh my, I had no idea I'd write this much lol)

Bit by the writing bug!

Maybe it's an "first time I'm voting in a presidential election I'm moving therefor a newly developed HGTV addict Will's graduation trying to get a job and failing and did I mention I've gained way too much weight in one year" thing. But I want to write. A LOT.

First, gotta say it. I LOVE MY GIRLS! Ugh. You guys. Seriously. It's so nice to hear people I KNOW are from totally different backgrounds having common sense. I'm REALLY not exposed to that here. (IE I went to the local caucus and I heard people praising McCain for being a good Republican... er... does NO one else remember he almost LEFT THE FRIGGIN PARTY a few years ago?!? Just a thought.)

You girls are so refreshing, really. Thank you for giving me some faith in human kind.

I DO have an announcement though. Considering this IS an election year, and I AM political even if I don't fall neatly into either party... I'm making up some commenting rules. I REFUSE to let this place become a comment battle ground. If anyone wants to duke it out they can do so in their OWN space. I'll have details for all the rules posted soon. Basically if you say something I deem just out of line, it won't be published. For now, play nice lol

Today I spent five hours in the basement sanding my desk that I've had for, let's see, oh, six years lol I've been promising to refinish it and I finally started to get it sanded down. It was that really tacky yellowish brown 1960's-1970's stain lol It had the typical lines of the time and some really ew things like very sharp edges, and the cut-outs below the drawers were atrociously shaped so I'm going to cut them out square. I've already softed all the edges with an electric sander and some by hand for the finishing touch on the top piece. I have one side down, the drawer framing, and the front flat panels. Before stopping tonight, I started on the inside side panels and the inner side of the back brace.

When I'm done with it I'll be putting on modern brushed nickel hardware and staining it a really chic dark cappuccino. I'm trying to match it to this bedroom set I've picked out. I'm SO excited to see it done, I've never gotten to do a project this big even though I've helped mom restore furniture all my life.

I've also picked out some fantastic colors to paint the basement room, which will be mine. There's this wood panel wanes coating and great molding around the ceiling. Sad thing is, the previous owner? Painted everything LEMON yellow. Like wow oh my that's yellow yellow lol But what I'll be doing is painting the molding alabaster, and the upper part of the wall antique white. Then for the wanes coating, Sherwin Williams makes a brown calling hopsack, which is really lovely and isn't too dark for the space. REALLY don't want it to be a dungeon lol

Lighting fixtures need some updating too. They have white track lighting and a recessed light that puts out zero light. So what I'm gonna eventually do, is hang pendant lights I found on ebay where the track lighting is and replace the recessed light with a ceiling fan/light combo.

No idea what to do about the floor. It's gray. I think I'll just faux paint it something. Maybe grass mat. I don't know, it's a huge space.

I'm really excited because this is the first time in my LIFE I get to do anything to a room. My parents intend to live in this house for a long long time, so I want it to make a great guest room once Will and I find a place where the dog can be.

We've already settled that I'm not moving out until we can buy a house, even if it's a run down POS. I was born to remodel homes. I have my dad's itch for construction and my mom's eye for design. Yes, I'm blowing my own horn, so what lol It's the one thing I know I'm good at.

Anyway, redoing this room will be a great test run for me to work on small outdated spaces lol (I see visions of my first home buying experience in the distance...)

Also, craigslist and I have become very good friends. The freebie section is calling to me with things that I can refinish or retask. (Retask: to take an item that once had one job, and transform it into something else entirely.)

Tomorrow we do our final walk through on the house before closing. (Closing is 9am on Friday.) We have to measure for appliances (the stove is from 1950 and doesn't work), take account of the things left in the house (such as the piano), see what the carpet in the only carpeted room looks like now, see if there's any damage to the wood floors, etc etc... Just make sure that everything is in order and nothing was damaged in their moving process.

Did I mention the pool is heated? Random thought lol

Mom's freaking out. Dad is giddy. I'm... somewhere in between. Like right now, I'm shivering. I feel like the Taco Bell dog on speed. My nerves are on edge. UGH I just realized I'm grinding my teeth. I'll bite my tongue instead... Oh yeah tongue chewing is way more attractive lol

I know dad is looking at this house almost the same way I am. Which is, "WOW this has to much potential!" And I know mom is doing the other half of me, "Oh god where are we going to put the couch, if I put the tv there the light will hit it, I need area rugs, the dining room table is going to look awful in there, will those bookshelves fit, what about the..." and on and on and on...

This house is a huge commitment. My parents have NEVER bought a house before. We were SUPPOSED to be buying this house. We ended up being part of the biggest case of mortgage fraud in the history of the United States. I'm not kidding, that came from the FBI guy that called my dad. This house was foreclosed on and had never been processed in our name.

The last house, my mom put her heart and soul into. She'd never had her own house before. She painted this giant mural, it took her three months. She completely redid the garden. It was stunning. She made the house gorgeous. Then, the woman that owned the house, who was supposed to give us a two year lease, then an option to buy, decided she wanted to live in the house. She gave us one month to find a new home and get out.

Ninety-nine percent of our issues were naivety. My parents didn't know any of our rights. We were thoroughly screwed over twice. We in result of that, lost thousands and thousands of dollars. We could have already bought a huge house for how much we spent on the last two.

That's one of the ways I feel lucky. I learned to NEVER go in with blinders on. Always do your research, always get legal advice, always use a professional, if your gut is telling you something is wrong SOMETHING IS WRONG. All of my parents mistakes were incredibly valuable lessons for me. They suffered so I don't have to. I'm really grateful for that.

I mean, my parents screwed up a lot lol God bless them but they screwed up their credit when I was little. It's taken them until now to repair it. They made a LOT of stupid choices, a lot of uninformed choices. They've had tax trouble with the state, they've gotten screwed when getting insurance, when filing a lawsuit, and obviously when buying a house. My parents have made every single mistake possible. And every single one of those mistakes benefited me more than anything they could have done.

Whenever I tell people that I want to get into real estate investment and ultimately remodel old homes, such as colonial and Victorian, they look at me like I'm crazy and make a tsking sound. It makes me angry. It really does. Because I know they think, "Here's this kid that doesn't have a clue how hard this is" when I've lived in construction all my life. When my dad taught me how to rewire a lamp when I was five, and the smell of varnish is almost the same to me as the smell of my mother's perfume.

People just don't understand that part of me. Admittedly, it probably has something to do with the way I look. I'm very picky about my hair and my makeup and making sure my clothing is just so. But that's not me when I'm working. When I'm working it's chap stick, a bandana or a rubber band holding back my hair and a pair of torn up jeans. It also probably has to do with my weight too. I don't LOOK strong. But I'm stronger than any of the women I know and I replace one of the guys pretty easy. I don't care if a break a nail, I don't care if I bleed, I don't care if the next day I have a giant black bruise. So what. It comes with the territory.

I've always hated being treated like a girl when I was with the guys because they thought I was too "poofy" to handle it. To me, the makeup, the clothes, the perfume, that's ME because I AM a girl, I'm a young woman I LIKE that stuff. But the dirt under my nails, the mud on my jeans, the grass stains, the bruises, the pony tails, that's ME too, that's the rough and tumble I grew up around mostly men me. That's the really comfortable me. I just don't understand why I'm not allowed to be both. And I know I echo many many women when I say that which is why the issue is even more confusing to me.

Holy cow. I made some funky turns to get to this point lol I wrote way way too much. But I'm posting it anyway.

And I'll post pictures of the desk once I get it done. Other than that I think I finally ran out of writing steam lol

Love ya'll, leave me thoughts.