The Lundy 5

Well Allen and I made it safely from 13,000 feet back to the ground! We went skydiving today, and this time the clouds cooperated, with only a few visiting to make my decent thru them very awesome. Here's proof: To quote myself as seen on my video "HOLY CRAP!!!!!" Yes my parents were very proud of th at moment. It was so unbelievably, incredibly, amazingly better than I ever imagined! If you've ever considered trying it, just go do it. Now. Really. Why are you still here? Seriously, we thought we'd do it once and have that one experience, but it's now officially our annual anniversary trip. We'd do it every week if we were rich. My goodness it's so much fun. And strangely, I was never once scared or in fear of my life. Even leaning out of the plane, I just thought, well here we go. And freefalling, man, I just thought how cool is this?! Wheeee! Gliding down with the parachute, jeepers. Beautiful scenery, fun doing 360s, just peaceful and awes...

tired of my misadventures yet? i sure am. they never end though. here's the next chapter in my must-be-written book. my hand hurts. my son and i got locked out of the house. allen has a key and is only a half mile away, but we don't have time. late for an appointment. there's a basement window. you have to crawl thru our "secret room" which must have been a place to store coal or something back in the day. it's a high window. it's a small window. it's been done before. twice. in the room untouched thru time, i can't decide if i should go, leaving 3-yr-old josh in that room alone, or lower him through the window and see if he can manage to climb the stairs and open the door at the top in the dark. still deciding, and banging on the window, my hand goes through the glass. ouch. hmm. now there's the issue of broken glass to consider. leave josh with it in one room or make him walk through it in another. ugh. guess i'll stop and pick ...

Lessons Learned by a Lundy about Painting Please note that I'm not a designer (I just play one on the internet). These are just things I've learned recently while painting our house. Thought some might be useful or at least give you a chuckle. Most people get a laugh out of my pain. Ü Margie 1. First, if you have a large house, especially one with high ceilings, learn to love the existing wall color. White can be beautiful. Old wallpaper can be nostalgic. 2. People who say it’s best to remove all the wallpaper layers either haven’t done that themselves or have a different definition of the word ‘best’ than me. 3. When people say older homes have character, that usually just means it’s going to cost you a lot of money to fix all the problems building over a century. 4. Layers of paint and wallpaper over plaster walls soaked with water from a roof leak stink when removed. 5. Don’t think you can get 30 gallons of paint mixed at Lowe’s in a few hours. Plan to spend the ...

I don’t know what it is about our family, but we seem to experience the most ironic, odd, or extreme circumstances. Whether it’s water gushing from the ceiling from a leak in the pipes above (on our third night in our new home), or taking out the ceiling only to have the leak mysteriously disappear for three weeks (while we went without our only shower), it’s always something. And it’s usually something strange. Yesterday I learned about our new neighborhood. It was trash day, and like every week before, I took out the trash. A can, a bag, and a few boxes full of 70-year-old wallpaper bits and broken up plaster. We’re redecorating. Bye layers of paint and wallpaper, bye chunks of plaster left on the ceiling, hello mess. So it’s trash day. I clean, bye mess, hello headache. Apparently one of the boxes (left over from our move) was labeled yard sale. Apparently that was a mistake. People stopped to ask what was in the boxes. Trash. What kind of trash? The kind I’m throwing awa...

Just wanted to share our good news in the continuing saga of our ceiling/water leak. After a torturous 2 weeks of looking at a partial ceiling and some attractive 100 year old pipes hoping water would soon pour out again so we could locate/fix the leak with no luck and wondering if someone's just playing an elaborate joke on us, the rain finally came. Outside it was a beautiful spring day, while inside - el nino! Anyway, more of the ceiling came down and we found the elusive culprit. With our insurance check in hand, we can finally go forward and get this house back in working order! Not many would appreciate the waterfall in the dining room, but at the Lundy home it's a cause for celebration. It's almost a shame it has to be fixed. Yeah, I think the lead paint dust has gotten to my head. Anyway, just wanted to share. And of course this will find it's way into my scrapbook soon.

Well, I keep saying I should write a book. Our family just has the most bizarre things happen, and always all at once. If I believed in luck, I'd say ours was bad, but it always turns out good somehow. So here's yet another chapter in the life of a Lundy. We bought a new old house, built in 1908. Big, beautiful, but old. So it fails every inspection and we fix gas leaks, roof leaks, termites, etc. So all is well. We move in 3 days ago. One toilet doesn't work, the sinks have very low pressure, no place for the microwave or fridge, one sink leaks easily and floods the floor, tub drains very slowly, some phone jacks don't work, etc. All little things DH can fix, so no problem, just inconvenience. So tonight we came home to a serious rainstorm in the dining room. I mean pouring through the ceiling with serious force. Something happened in the upstairs bathroom, but there's not a leak. Minor issues (there are always issues with us) with the hom...