Going Home TOMORROW!

Drs. Broudine and Seligson both came by this morning and said that if mom has no major set-backs today or tonight, she could leave the hospital tomorrow! Woohoo! This is great news, as we all know that mom will heal and gain strength even faster once she is home at DeTray's house. Mom has been in great spirits all morning and has been up walking on her own ... generally in great shape! Getting to go home tomorrow would be a wonderful start to the New Year!

A Good Morning

After a scary night last night (see Libby's blog for details), mom is doing really, really well this morning! They just extebated her (removed her breathing tube) and while she still can't talk, she looks much more comfortable and relaxed. It will be awhile before she can talk, as her throat is raw from the tubes, but it is just great to see her without that thing in her mouth! Dad, Andy and I were all in the room with her after her tube came out and were talking about her progress. She made the sign for "thank you" and then pointed up. Thank you God. That says it all.

Little by little

Mom keeps improving a little at a time. However, she still has a long way to go and is still very, very sick. Please keep praying for her to heal. Andy and Libby are keeping their blog updated with mom's progress a little better than I am. :) http://hinemanranch.blogspot.com/

Progress

Throughout the day yesterday, mom made slow but sure progress. This morning, the pulmonary doctor was very encouraged. Her blood pressure and heart rhythm are much improved over yesterday. Today, they hope to begin decreasing the oxygen they are giving her and the "PEEP" which also has to do with her lungs. Hopefully by decreasing these a little at a time, if her blood pressure stays good, then she will come off of the ventilator in a few days. She is looking much better, and we are all encouraged! Please continue to keep mom in your prayers!

Prayers for Mom

Mom's surgery on her heart went well on Thursday, but her recovery hasn't gone as well as everyone had hoped. She is still in the ICU and had to be intebated again yesterday. They are currently putting a balloon pump in her heart to help it pump more easily. This will give her heart a rest and help with her kidney functions. Mom has been so strong. She can't talk with the tube, but she has still been communicating by writing and hand gestures. Please say lots of prayers for mom to heal and recover quickly.

Getting Settled

Wow! A lot has happened since I last posted to our blog! I'm happy to say we have been living in the house for over a month now and it has been awesome! Here is what has happened in the last month and a half:

Moving in! ... it started with just the basics, but now we are getting more settled. :) Of course as you can see, most of our rooms are still in need of rugs, pictures, etc.

Ralph checking out his new home! He thinks the stairs are his own personal jungle gym. :)

The view down from the loft ...

Our laundry room! Woohoo! It's funny the things I have gotten most excited about - like having my own washer and dryer!

Below that, you can see that Emily's room is starting to look really cute!

This last weekend, in preparation for what looked like a really cold forcast, Gage got up on the roof to install the chimney (despite 50 mph winds!) It was quite the ordeal, but we got it done! Just in time, too - the weather turned cold on Sunday and turned really cold yesterday - 8 degrees with a wind chill of negative 9 degrees! I don't think our poor little furnace could have kept up!

Amazingly, once we got a fire roaring, we haven't had to turn our furnace back on. In fact it is downright HOT in the living room and loft. We may have to open the windows. :)

After letting the fire die down last night, and leaving the furnace off, it was still 72 degrees in our bedroom this morning - 12 degrees outside! Looks like we won't be using our furnace much any more. We don't have our radiant heat floor hooked up yet - our pump was backordered - but once it is hooked up, we should be able to keep the fire low and have a more stable temp. Otherwise, I may have to start wearing shorts around the house!

Now with the stove in, last projects include: finishing the stonework behind the wood stove, installing interior doors (!) and finishing my kitchen counter!

Here is our cute little kitchen - we got the range hooked up last weekend, and it has been wonderful getting to cook with it! Of course, it will be even better once I have a sink and dishwasher. :) ;)

We also got our lights installed over the island - see picture below...

You can also see in the pictures above and below the walnut planks that Gage has cut and oiled in preparation for installation - it is going to be beautiful!

The only problem now is trying to stay motivated to finish our last few jobs while resisting the temptation to snuggle down in front of the fire and just enjoy our house. :) I suppose there is always time for both ...

My last picture is of the first snow on our house. Merry Christmas!

Maggie Elizabeth Hineman

Meet my new niece - Margaret. :) Had to take a few days off to go see her. As you can see, she is awesome.

Kalo was awesome, too (of course). Boy it was hard to leave them yesterday afternoon. But I will get to see them again in about a week!

While out in Scott City, I also got to go for a ride in Andy and Libby's new plane .... that's me in the passenger seat! Below is a bird's eye view of Scott City and their house. Dylan (co-owner and pilot) had to buzz a few friends who were cutting milo. It was an awesome flight! Can't wait to do it again! Back on the homefront, we had a crew of volunteers (paid in beer and BBQ) out last weekend to help put in the upstairs floor and carpet in the bedrooms. Gage and Roger finish the railing last week, which looks AMAZING!

Carpet in the guest bedroom ... almost ready for company!

Kitchen Cabinets arrived last Friday - I sanded them on Saturday and will stain and seal them this weekend ... exciting.

Emily (our weekend picture-taker) took time off to fish with her new friend Dakota. :)

Staining the Floor

Finally! Staining the floor! It has been a long process, but it is looking awesome!

Gage worked on putting down the polyurethane after staining, which made it MUCH darker (thank goodness ... the stain was kinda orange, which wasn't good). It even made our "mistakes" look better. :)

As you can see, it's kind of a deep reddish brown - amazingly, just the color I was hoping for. The stain was a total crap shoot, so we weren't really sure what we were going to get. We just wanted to be DONE!

Look how shiny! Awesome! Be careful in sock feet. :)

Laminate and carpet going in next weekend - yea!

Birthday Week Painting

I took a "vacation" from work for my birthday week and PAINTED!!! Mom and Dad came down on Thursday and helped paint all day Friday and Saturday - so much help! We got everything painted but one small room. Dad and me painting the guest room ... Time out for a birthday dinner - our first meal in our house! Okay, okay, so I know it's still rough, but it was exciting! Our yellow kitchen ... :) Emily's very bright "terra cotta" room. Dad said it would be like living inside a pumpkin. Emily loves it:) Our master bedroom and door to the bath ... the deck will come in time. :) The massive pile of paint cans! There were a few more inside ... My craft room ... I can't wait to start scrapbooking!!! and finally ... STAIRS!!! After months of waiting to build the stairs, with the drywall in and the wall painted, Gage could finally get started. It only took him a few days to build, but we did have to use math we didn't know we remembered (Pythagorean Theorum, anyone?) Thank goodness for good computing because it turned out perfectly! Part of the wood is from an oak tree that came down on our land, and the other part is oak planks from Roger's old barn that we plained down to the "new" wood. That tree was also from our land ... just 60 years earlier ago!!! This weekend our electrician comes to install our light fixtures. Next week, we will stain the downstairs floor. After that is the upstairs flooring, carpet in the bedrooms, cabinets, plumbing and trim work! We still have a lot to do, but it is starting to feel like we are getting close. Ironically, I'm having a LOT of trouble being patient now that we are so close to the end.

The Legacy Continues!

By chance, I found grandpa Kalo's campaign pin on August 5th, the day of the primary. I knew it was a good sign.

Now that everything is final, I just wanted to say, "We're proud of you, Dad!!!"

Wonderful Surprise!

Saturday morning, Roger surprised us by showing up with his friend George to hang drywall! We had just made the decision that we didn't think we wanted to tackle the drywall ourselves, and were searching for a crew to do it for us. Roger and George took care of that!

After about a day and a half of work over the weekend, the drywall is about 85% hung upstairs!

George and Roger are going to work on it again today after they get off work. With Gage starting school again today, this surprise couldn't have come at a better time! Life is good. :)

Time off to campaign!

Gage, Emily and I took the weekend off to head to Dighton to help dad campaign - so much fun! Vote Don Hineman, August 5th!

http://hinemanforkansas.org/

It was SOOO great to have a break from the house and get to see the family - we miss you guys!!

As for the house, recently a group of Gage and Ted's friends came out for the day to help pour the safe room. What a crazy job! Below - Aaron, Travis and David pouring concrete into the frame. Luckily, the frame held strong - yippee! We should be safe from any storm in our solid concrete room, reinforced with a maze of steel rebar.

Our safe room will be complete with the solid steel door from the old Lane County jail (thanks to dad!)

Speaking of reclaimed and rustic interiors, we are finally working on our "finish work"! Gage and I worked on the second story ceiling this week.

This is sure to be the most rustic part of our house. We cleaned up all of the metal panels (but made sure to leave the rustic patina intact) from Roger's old barn and completed it with the fir boards from the barn, which we plained down to expose the new, yet still rustic-looking wood.

Gage wanted it so that when you look up to the ceiling, it really feels like you are looking at a barn roof. Very authentic! I have to admit, I had my reservations about going this rustic, but it looks awesome! Can't wait to start work on the walls (but not looking forward to finishing the insulation - yuck!)

Heatin' up, slowin' down

I realized today that it has been quite a while since I've posted anything. The reasons for this, I believe, are two-fold:

1. After working in the huge metal oven (aka, our house) during the day, we are too stinking tired to even think about anything, much less do anything

2. It's hard to feel excited about the house after working in the huge metal oven on 90+ degree days.

In a nutshell, burnout has set in. :) We are to the point now where we are doing a lot of the work ourselves, which means things go much slower. (not due to lack of effort ...)

But, it's coming along ... here are pictures from the last month ...

the second floor goes up! The space where I was standing during this shot is open to above - no second floor.

Checking out the second floor loft ... only short people get to stand next to the wall. :)

Koda (sporting his short summer 'do) expresses his irritation daily that he can't come upstairs yet

Here's the breakdown so far:

Most back-breaking job - laying the pipe for radient heat,

Scariest job - measuring for and hanging the rafters (see picture above)

So, I'm not afraid of heights. At all. But doing the rafter work over the opening in the floor scared the tar out of me. We did the rafters about three weeks ago, but we still have four more to hang. The four at the very peak above the opening. Looking forward to that. I think I might dig out our old challenge course harnesses for that one.

Hopefully we won't end up looking like this after it is done:

Oh wait - too late. Yes the personal injuries are abounding. But this one was really scaring so I'm not going to talk about it right now, m-kay? All I'm gonna say is nail guns and faces don't mix.

Happy thought - here's looking at our bedroom/closet/bathroom! Pretty sure I'm never going to leave this space once it's done.

Here is a shot of the closet - open to the bedroom. After seeing all of the storage space we could have in the downstairs ceiling trusses, we decided to frame them all in too. This one is connected to the closet.

Across the loft is the spare room, also utilizing an attached attic/nook space. Diana seems to think she knows exactly what the spare room is going to be for. :) I'm not saying a word about that, either.

Another shot of the spare room and attic space.

Now that the upstairs framing is done, Gage has been working on framing up the safe room downstairs. Our electrician is coming in tomorrow and will work on wiring the house through the weekend. Woohoo! Our plumber is coming in on Monday. Last week, we trenched lines to run water and electric to the house. Now if it will just stay dry so our septic guy can come in, things would be awesome!

Happy Fourth of July, everyone!