Wednesday, September 24, 2008

You might be the BLD redneck if...

Adin's recent transition from a laid-back island girl to a driving force in the military-industrial complex certainly mixes up the status quo here in BLD land, and I would like to continue that trend by placing Lincoln on notice regarding his status as the reigning redneck of the BLD.

Now, Lincoln does hail from W. Virginia, shoots animals on a regular basis, eats meats of questionable origin (scrapple), and probably owns a fair amount of camo and blaze orange. That being said, I believe I am now in a position to mount a respectable challenge. Consider the following:

*I am the proud owner of a double-wide, which has the added attraction of being a fixer-upper.
*I have dispatched a number of furry little creatures to the great hereafter in recent days.
*I was disappointed to discover that the previous owner had taken the two broken down cars that I had previously discovered in the back corner of our property.
*There is currently a broken toilet tank resting in the "yard" outside our side door.
*I am now the proud owner of a lagoon.
*I am also the proud owner of a half-completed metal outbuilding of dubious structural integrity, which had been listed on the real estate listing as a "4+ car garage".
*I am looking forward to working with a contractor to fix some holes in our ceiling who perfectly fits the stereotype you are about to form in your mind as you think of "mobile home contractor". (To help complete the image, you should know that his fly has been conspicuously open every time we've met with him.)
*My home is technically a vehicle.
*I am feeling a strange desire to watch Nascar and possibly chew. (Ok, that one's a lie).

So, Lincoln, I welcome any rebuttal you would like to offer. As for the rest of you, if you might offer up a small prayer to the patron saint of home repairs and mobile homes, I would appreciate it.

7 comments:

Rob said...

Wow Josh. I never knew ye. I think you should start wearing overalls to class for your lectures now.

Kansas Mom said...

Some more highlights:

Josh will have to cut a corner off the kitchen cupboards to fit the refrigerator. (Right now it just sticks out into the kitchen.)

Right now only the kids' room and the bathrooms have doors because they all need to be trimmed to fit over the new carpet.

We have to turn the only working toilet on and off at the water valve because it runs all the time it's on. (The master bathroom has parts of three different toilets spread around.)

The rest of the pieces for that 4+ car garage are strewn about the woods (along with an old swing set, the top of a truck and a bunch of other trash).

I can send pictures of some of the land. Let me know if you're interested. It's really quite nice, other than the trash.

Mazzucco said...

send pics please

Kristin said...

What is your ultimate vision for when you're all done? There must be a plan amongst all that work! Also, should we extra worry now when tornadoes come through Kansas or is your home secured? My imagination is running wild. From what I've heard, though, you have LOTS of room for playing.
Perhaps we should move the annual BLD get-together from New Years to the 4th--we could all camp out on your property...and by "camping out" for me, I mean have marshmallows and make the drive to the nearest hotel. :)

Rob said...

Aw, c'mon Kappy. You were awesome camping out on that FTX! Too bad I stole the dry part of the half shelter and left you sleeping in the rain/water. Oops, sorry. Really!

Joshua said...

Kristin, regarding the tornados, we are going to a storm shelter put in before tornado season in the spring, so no need to worry on that front.

As for the ultimate vision, our plan is to pay off the mortgage in about 6 years, build a house elsewhere on the homestead, and then sell the current domicile to someone who will take it away. All the home improvement work is simply to make it comfortable in the mean time. Even if we lose a fair bit of money on the house, it will have been cheaper than renting for 6 years, we will own our 7+ acres, and we'll have 6 years worth of improvements in terms of gardens, pasture, chicken coops, treehouses, etc. We thought about saving up to buy a real farm house, but on my current salary we would have missed most of Caleb's prime tree-climbing, frog hunting, frolicking in the fields years.

Joshua said...

P.S. Regarding New Years, I won't rule it out, but it would certainly be a bit tight here. Perhaps one year we should go for a "Half New Year's". Once we get some of that stuff done, it should be a cool summer destination for the kids. We'll keep you updated.