Did you think the house ate us?

Red, with a hat on.

Well, it almost did. After two full weeks of chipping, filling, sanding, and painting and painting and painting and re-painting the trim since the original color really did look like baby-puke, believe me, I’ve seen baby puke recently, the bedroom is finally finished! When Stephan got home from work we trekked out to the garage and brought in the dressers. That was made especially exciting since it was pitch dark, and the yard is full of pot holes.

Next is the bathroom paint, which should go fairly quickly, if we both agree that purple is the way to go in that room.

Stephan has been working his butt off, almost literally. Last week his only day off was Thursday, and now this week his only day off is Wednesday. That’s a touch schedule for anyone, but he works from 5:30am to 7:30pm or later. Recently he’s admitted that there isn’t time for him to eat anything during the day. I’m having an IV put in him tomorrow so he can just take straight glucose into his bloodstream. He still does like the job, and especially the people, but he’s tired, and overworked, and tired.

I had a great day on Saturday at a Spirit of Women event. It’s a group sponsored by the hospital that educates women about their health, and has a ton of fun. I met a few dozen women, got 23 of them on the chair, and gave away a 60-minute massage as a door prize. Everyone was so kind and friendly, as if we’d known each other for years. AND I got to hear a lot of town gossip. I’m really excited to start taking clients. I got a phone call this morning that my LLC paperwork is ready to be signed- that’s exciting too! We still don’t have internet access at home, which is a lot less exciting, but they say sometime next week the guy will be over to hook it up.

The dogs are good. Besa is green on her right side, from deciding to lean against the wall and slide down it to get comfortable. And just today I saw that Red has orange wiskers. I can only imagine.

Trivia: (kind of) What are the answers to the following: “Never marry a parts man because________.” “Never marry a nurse because ____________.” “Never marry a teacher because ______________.”

FAQ: How do we get a hold of you?

Well, there are a few ways! You can always email us, though Stephan is notoriously bad at responding to electric mail. You can write us a letter to the PO Box, which is listed at the bottom of the page, or you can call us. Now, the deal with the phones is this- when we got to Baker we realized that we get no service here- not one single bar. So we hopped over to Laurie at Mid Rivers and got new cell phones, and new cell phone numbers. Unfortunately, we can't find our old phone chargers, so our phone books are sitting helplessly inside our dead-battery phones.

I know there are many people Stephan would love to talk to, but he's lost the phone numbers, and until we can dig out the chargers from our packed stuff, we don't know how to call you! If you'd like our phone numbers, please email me and I will be happy to send out the number, but for privacy reasons (and piracy reasons) I'm not posting them on the website. I'm sure you understand.


We have plenty of updates for you- The Director of the Montana Nurses' Association personally called me to tell me Stephan's new MT license number. Hurray!!! And now all we have to do is put together the scholarship application! Thanks again to everyone who was sending prayers and good thoughts. I think they really helped soften the hearts of those working at the Illinois State offices.

We moved a lot of our stuff over into the Plevna garage today, with the help of Matt and Kayle's truck. Woo hoo.

The garage we were keeping our stuff in flooded when everything thawed, so Stephan's brag book and all my Healing Touch documentation are sitting out to dry. We'll see later what is salvageable. I have photos, but my camera is being bad right now.

I applied for a business license in the State of Montana today to start my very own LLC here! The name I applied with is Anjali. It is the name of the gesture that often is associated with the Sanskrit greeting, Namaste. The prayerful nature of the name, and my logo, should help me maintain a respectful attitude toward all my patients and clients.

Stephan works Wednesday, Thursday and Friday this week- from 6am-6pm. Long days, but rewarding. Hopefully after this weekend we'll be moved into the house! If anyone sees a cute "The Korubas" sign, please forward it to me, we'd like something other than the Bears Flag to stake our claim in Montana.

I almost forgot! Trivia: How did George Armstrong Custer rank in his class when he graduated from West Point? (I made this one easy, there are PRIZES people!)

One Step Off

I want everyone to know that I was raised with a very healthy respect for contact paper. Contact paper is a woman's version of peeing on a house to claim it for her own. It stays in the cabinet, usually for years. It gets layers upon layers of other contact paper on top of it. At the end, the layers of contact paper are like the rings of a tree- you can tell much about what the kitchen has been through when studying the contact paper.

A few layers later, including the one I've featured today, I found that the kitchen cabinets are probably the original ones that the house was built with. In a few places, under the contact paper is just a few 1"x6" boards nailed together.

The last time I had to unload my stuff into a kitchen my mom and Travis were there to help. They put everything where it was supposed to go. I missed that this time. I kept changing my mind about where I wanted dishes and food. It may still change a few times before I'm done, but I really miss the time when I came home and my kitchen was just set up perfectly for me. I have a few more cabinets and drawers to clean out- but all in all I have a lot more space now than in Arlington Heights.

Stephan worked all day again today- and is on the schedule for Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday this week too. It's possible he and Matt might get motivated to move major furniture at night this week, but I doubt it. There's plaster repair in the bedroom and then painting in the bathroom and bedroom before we can move in. That's about it from out here.

Happy birthday Beth Anne and Sam! Stephan forgot to call you last night, but I'm sure he'll call tonight (I'll make him!)

Struck Again

Take a look at our Flickr site for the details on this auto-phenomenon...










Friday we took the crazy trip to Miles City, leaving Stephan's license up in the air, waiting to float gracefully down onto the desk of whomever God deems qualified to fulfill our needs.

Yesterday we stopped at the hardware store for supplies to start cleaning up OUR house! The drive out was impressive, lots of blowing snow across the road. But, undaunted, we got 'home' and dug in. Stephan sprayed the perimeter for bugs, helped the water-leak problem with a little tape, and discovered that it was actually snowing in the basement. There's a crack in the foundation large enough for blowing snow to accumulate!

There are a variety of realizations we came to yesterday about 'our' house, most of which were quickly dismissed in that glowing way that buying your first house together dismisses all imperfections (like the bedroom window missing, um, missing a pane of glass and covered up with newspapers and a quilt stapled directly to the window frame). I've been married for less time than it took me to clean that fridge, and Stephan took an equally lengthy amount of time chipping at the plaster walls in order to fix the cracks in the bedroom. Yes, the walls are all plaster.

I have vague memories of my parents deciding to renovate the Palatine house when I was little. I remember hitting the wall with a sledge hammer, wearing dust masks, Dad getting blood poisoning, pink foam insulation, and wall-fairies. What I don't remember seeing is the part that must have happened at some point- my parents looking at how much there was left to be done, and looking at how much money they had left to do it, and the inevitable, "Let's go to the bar because I need a break." Our house is perfect, as each of us are, in its own way. It's perfect for us, just as every house is perfect for its owners at the time it's being lived in.

What has "struck again?" Well, I hit my head last night and attributed the resulting dizziness to the blow, but today Kayle took a look in my ears and saw that a eustachian tube has done something it's not supposed to do (flattened or sucked in or something medical) and is causing my balance to be off. It's an ear infection basically. So I'm on antibiotics and Dramamine and sitting in bed today, with one foot on the floor and one hand on the wall (remember that, Jimmy?) to steady myself. The painting will have to wait until tomorrow.

Baker/Plevna

Okay. Wow. Okay. We spent yesterday between the credit union, the county offices, the credit union, and home, with a stop in Wiboux for a great lunch. We were holding our breath to see what a qualified professional would find wrong with the house. BUT he didn't find anything major! He gave us some suggestions on how to fix the leaning garage, along with a clean bill of health for the house. Laurie is getting a contract together, and we may move in as soon as two weeks from now!! (Assuming her nephew can move out that fast)

This morning, while we were holding our breath, we travelled out to Medicine Rocks, AND the Fallon County museum, the home of the World's Largest [Stuffed] Steer! Actually, the museum is the subject of a whole nother post. Look for it early next week.

In the meantime, check out the Flickr site for more photos of the house, the garage, and chicken coop!