WEEK SIX UPDATE - $1,000 worth of yard work

Everyone loves a good before and after pic! To see more be sure to visit our gallery.

Here we are at the halfway point and it is hard to see a hope of making the deadline before we have to move out on January 1. The greatest challenge seems to be finding someone willing to advise us on how to proceed. We have friends that have been giving us advice gained from their own home projects but we have some questions that even they can't answer.

With no money for materials and being stuck on what to do with the house itself we decided to take on the back yard. Chris' best friend, John, offered to pay to have a yard crew come out to clear out (no landscaping just clear out) the back yard but when they looked at the yard they said it would $1,000! I nearly swallowed my tongue. So the great news is with the help of a couple of friends (THANK YOU Flying Eagle and Flo!) we accomplished almost $1,000 dollars worth of work this weekend by tackling the yard ourselves.

GIFTS FROM GOOD FRIENDS
This weekend we received wonderful gifts from two sets of good friends: a couple of cabinets in wonderful shape that we can use in the kitchen, bathroom or even the laundry room (if we ever get that rebuilt) and many very specific home remodeling tools that we never would have been able to afford on our own. Now we have a clean out, stripped out house and tools to work, even a decent amount of folks to help us but we are stymied by a lack of materials. 

Flo takes on a $1,000 project.

WEEK SIX HEROES
Flying Eagle and Flo. You both show up over and over again and throw yourselves into the dirtiest, hardest, most back-breaking work. All the while you are both smiling and telling us that we can do this. You are both true warriors with great spirits.

Folks from the Sacramento Bee came out to hear our story and were very kind (and brave! LOL). To Chris (the reporter) and Randall (the photographer) and the Sacramento Bee we wanted to say thanks. (My husband just ran out in his pajamas to buy several copies.)  ;-)  Please go out and buy a Bee today. I know you can view stuff online but just this once, do it Old School. Grab a Bee and a warm beverage and take a minute to really read something.

Bill & Danielle. These two have been very wonderful and brave friends through so many years. They have helped me through some very tough times even when it was risky for them personally and are here yet again lending a hand (complete with tools!)

Shannon & Roger. Two amazingly giving and funny people who look me in the eye and tell me that we can do this and stare me down until I have to smile and agree. Thank you for the cabinets, the advice and most of all the offers of driving me places to take the pressure off of Chris having to be my driver all the time. (And the food at our wedding so many years ago was AWESOME Shannon!)

My daughter Cassie & my mother Daisy
For support, love and taking care of Jax this weekend so I could go jump into piles of berry vines with Chris! They also gave a break to Leah & Becky who have been welcoming our children into their home weekend after weekend even though they are two beautiful ladies with lives.

Groves vs Blackberries, Round One

So this weekend has left me exhausted and covered in scratches, punctures and insect bites that I wonder if I should have looked at but the wild jungle is being tamed and I am seeing the beautiful yard of my youth re-emerge and I am in love all over again. What a beautiful place this will be someday. What a wonderful home for our children, we can't give up no matter the obstacles. This is our dream.

Tomorrow's Blog - Frugal Tip #4 Clearing Out Blackberry Vines Yourself. (No, seriously!)

LEARN MORE ABOUT WHAT WE ARE DOING AND SEE MORE PICTURES OF THE PROJECT AT OUR WEBSITE: WWW.GROVETRIBE.COM

We have also added a new THANK YOU page to the website this week! Take a look!

Giving Back - A History in Brief

Dawn manning a solar telescope until time came around for evening objects (insert) at a free public sidewalk astronomy event at Giovanni's Pizza on Folsom Blvd in East Sacramento.

Earlier this week the Sacramento Bee sent a reporter to interview us (article to be published in this Tuesday's Bee) and as he interviewed my friend Flo she made a statement about "how much they [Chris and I] have given to the community". A lot of our personal friends know what Flo is talking about but I figured some folks reading this (and perhaps the Bee article) may not so here are some examples:

American River Clean-Up
My own history of volunteering started young when I would participate in river trail clean-up efforts as a child along the American River. I admit that to me it was like going on a fun treasure hunt in the woods but I was fortunate that those early experiences helped solidify in my mind that volunteering could be a fun activity.

Food Deliveries to Struggling Families in Oak Park
As I got older I would participate in community relief efforts by helping to deliver food boxes to families in some of the more impoverished areas of Oak Park. I was one of the few people willing to escort the community worker to these areas. I grew up going to High School in Oak Park so I was familiar with the people there but I can still never forget visiting the homes of families as they all crammed together in tiny loft apartments with cement floors and a single bed. That vision alone helps me to accept that we are downsizing our own family into a modest two bed one bath house.

Natalie Leonard Award and a Service Award

I became involved in the Sacramento Valley Astronomical Society and worked with them for over a decade trying to inspire and awaken an interest in science and astronomy in our next generation. More than that I

was hoping to bring hope to kids who may not see a future for themselves. I wrote a piece about it called, "Why We Do What We Do" maybe you can take a moment to peek at it. Through my efforts I organized many free public outreach events and earned a Service Award in 1998 and (the highest honor the SVAS gives) the Natalie Leonard Award in 2004. I took astronomy to the streets all over the Sacramento Valley and even with John Dobson on the corner of Haight and Ashbury in San Francisco. My outreach efforts even led me to work as the Coordinator for NASA's Night Sky Network.

Healing Hands

Before CFS forced me to retire I was a massage therapist. (I even taught massage therapy at Bryan College, I am proud to say that before illness forced me to retire I was Teacher of the Year in 2007.) In 1991 I began my career as a certified massage therapist and the greatest joy I have received was when I donated my skills to those who could not afford massage therapy who needed it so very much. I have donated my skills to the United Way (they raffled off my gift certificates), I helped a single mother with an amputated leg get free from pain, I worked with a new mother who was in so much pain she was not bonding with her baby, once she was feeling better I taught her to massage her infant and watched the loving bonding process begin. I could not help all the people I wanted to help, giving away free massage was risky when it was my livelihood but it was well worth it for the positive changes I saw it create.

Folsom High School Cycling Team & Sierra Nevada High School Cycling Organization (SNHSCO)My husband and I were on the first board of directors for the (SNHSCO) and participated in incorporation and fundraising efforts to help encourage local youth in getting out there, getting healthy and having some good, clean fun. My husband was a ride leader for the Folsom High Cycling Team.

Sometimes, It's Personal
A couple of years ago my beloved bike was stolen so when I found out that a deaf college student who was struggling to find work had his beloved bicycle stolen it was very personal for me. My husband and I started a campaign at first to find his bicycle and ultimately was able to gather donations to help him buy a replacement. Seeing him find joy with his new mountain bike certainly made all the hard work worth it! Sometimes folks, there are happy endings.

Susan G. Komen Relay for Life
In 2011 I raised $250 for Team Kinney at the Relay for Life in Folsom CA. I continue to try to help my Good friend Christi Hara who is doing the massive 60 mile Susan G. Komen 3 Days for the Cure walk. She is one of my personal heroes so if you can please follow this link and please make even a small donation to the cause!

Volunteering has brought me closer to my community, taken me on a lot of adventures and even got me a job within the arms of NASA. I am blessed to have had so many wonderful experiences in my life and so many of them came to me when I gave of myself.

STALLED OUT (and Frugal Tip#3)

So now we are out of money and we have almost a week until my husband gets paid.  Even then we won't have much more than $100 to spend and I am wondering how in the heck we are going to get this done in time. This weekend we will just try to accomplish whatever we can without buying anything. We have to keep moving; our landlord has made it very clear that she has several parties waiting in line for the house we are renting now and has been laying the pressure on thick.

We ran into some friends last weekend who had done some remodeling and had some of their tools left and offered to come take a look to give us some advice and let us borrow the equipment. Then yet another friend of ours read our blog and said she too had just finished a remodel job and had some really specific tools that we needed and we could use. So far tools have been killing our budget so it has been great to get these offers. I am just not sure what to do with things like drywall tools when we can't even afford to buy the drywall itself. I get scared and despondent and force myself to calm down, take a deep breath and... clean.

CLEANING AS THERAPY
Whenever I feel like the world is out of control, I clean. It is a great way to perk yourself up (a dirty house is pretty depressing y'know) and if you have a lot of excess upset energy it is a great constructive way to burn it off. Cleaning is also a cheap way to occupy your time while getting a visible accomplishment to help you feel like you are getting something done. Right now I am cleaning the rental house we are in and thinking about how we are going to get through the week without being able to go to the store for anything. As I am thinking about expenses I reach for my favorite cleaner and it struck me that I should write about my favorite cleaner as Frugal Tip #3.

Fill bottle with Dihydrogen Monoxide. Spray area. Return in 20 minutes and wipe away! Pretty!

FRUGAL TIP #3- The world's cheapest, safest and most versatile cleaner!
Dihydrogen Monoxide. Sure, there are warnings and it can be fatal if used incorrectly but in reality I use it every day and I sometimes even bathe my kids in it! Now you may be shocked by my use of this chemical compound on my own children but hey, my parents used it on me and I turned out just fine! (twitch, twitch) Our government has been using it on their own soldiers since our military first formed. No better voucher than our own government right?

Okay, okay. I give. Dihydrogen Monoxide is also referred to as H2O or more commonly known as WATER. There are some websites and emails that circulate making fun of the little used chemical name of water (saying it is deadly with the underlying reasoning being something like folks can drown in water, etc.) here are a couple of links to read more and share as a joke with your chemist buddies. http://www.dhmo.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dihydrogen_monoxide_hoax

But seriously, with CFS I have a lot of chemical sensitivities and have to be careful of what I use to clean. Combine that with how we continuously slam our environment with tons of household chemicals and the fact that a can of "Scrubbing Bubbles" costs several dollars it was well worth it for me to explore the world of more natural cleaning methods.

I do use stuff other than just water. I LOVE using baking soda in my bathtub as any residue just results in conditioning for my skin when I take a bath. I use Dawn dish soap when there is grease involved and I do keep Clorox wipes on hand if I feel the need for an extra boost every once in a while. I am not a rabid environmentalist; I just try to steward the Earth as best I can while trying my best to care for my family.

Back to the subject though: the handiness of pure water in cleaning. If you are like me, one of the jobs you hate the most is cleaning the stove. In a perfect world I would wipe down the stove after every time it is used but with a house full of kids (one being a toddler) and the fact that I cook A LOT it just doesn't work out that way and I end up with tough stuck-on crud all over. (Cream of Wheat and oatmeal are HIDEOUS to clean after they have dried into glue!) I used to load on the spray cleaners but found that even with their powerful formulas I had to let them sit and soak for 15 or 20 minutes while fumes filled my home and my sensitive nose. Then it occurred to me. Is it the chemical goo that is loosening that stuff or the moisture itself?

I decided to get out the water spray bottle that I used for ironing and try that instead. I misted my stove top, waited the same amount of time and 90% of the crud wiped right off my stove! No smell, no expensive cleaners, no chemical burning my skin and leaving a residue to burn off and stink the next time I cooked. I started using it on my counters as well. I discovered boiling a cup of water in the microwave and letting it evaporate softened most of the stuck on mess and I could easily wipe out my microwave no matter how long stuff had been crusting up in there (and it reaches the ceiling of the microwave!).

To tackle any grease left over I will first do the water soak and wipe everything down then I will do a follow up with a hot, damp cloth with a couple of drops of Dawn dish soap worked into it. I know have squirt bottles in the bathrooms to loosen old toothpaste off sinks and to pre-treat other surfaces. When I am doing a major clean I just go through the whole house with a spray bottle full of water and mist everything down; counters, stoves, sinks, sticky spots on cabinets, walls and floors. By the time I have gone through the whole house I can start wiping down where I started. I will then do a follow up as needed with Dawn or baking Soda or a Clorox wipe as I deem necessary.

At the end my house is very clean, doesn't reek of chemicals, I can breathe and I saved a lot of money on cleaners. So next time your stove is looking back at you, crusty and stained, tag it with some water and just walk away.

WEEK FIVE UPDATE

Saturday afternoon the rain and cold puts renovating on hold and we visit the ReStore.




Ummm.. $720.00 for a dresser at the ReStore?

  Not What We Bargained For

Being able to afford materials is a big issue for us and we received many recommendations to check out the Habitat for Humanity Restore.  Since the rain, cold and childcare situation were making it difficult to work we decided to drive out to the Restore off Florin Perkins and see what we could find. What we found was pretty disappointing for us.



There was a complete hodge-podge of items from stuff that looked like it belonged in a Macy’s furniture gallery to stuff (trying not to use the word “junk”) that we were amazed they were even trying to sell. What seemed consistent was the pricing, way too high. It was actually pretty shocking for us and our hopes fell for the ReStore as a resource. From what we observed, the ReStore could be a good resource it you had the time to blow to check it out often (couple times a week) and snag a good deal right when it came in. We had neither the time nor the spare gas to make trips way out to the ReStore in the hopes that something may work. (Did I mention there is a No Returns policy?)



$75 for a dirty, ancient range that we
don't even know works and can't return.



It seems like with the tough economy a lot of us are looking to second-hand solutions for our needs and those selling second-hand (thrift stores, ReStore, even many craigslist posters) know it.  With the used market being so hot right now so finding actual deals is harder and harder. I was at a thrift store looking for clothes and found some prices for the SAME EXACT article of clothing was the same or even more than the sale price at the regular retail store! Some used cars end up being more expensive than a stripped down new car. In this economy retail stores have become motivated sellers. Sometimes used can save you a lot of money but don’t assume that going used is getting you a better deal folks, you may get less than what you bargained for.

Excited to see a yard sale with flooring and
windows until we saw prices. We saw better
deals at Home Depot the night before!

NOTE: Habitat for Humanity is wonderful organization that does great work in the community and we hope that our readers will support them. We plan to donate any of our extra materials to their organization. We also believe that good deals can be had there but it just isn't time and cost effective for us to keep going there.

 

Adventures in Babysitting
Our son, Jax, just turned two years old last week. He is such an amazing, beautiful boy. He has the brightest smile; loves to give hugs; is so amazingly intelligent, active and strong. He is a gift, a joy and our personal tormentor. Chris had two boys previously and I had two girls previously so collectively we have done the “Terrible Two’s” four times before Jax came along. NOTHING could prepare us for handling this little guy.



Jax in his car seat. Chris entertains
him while I fix the lock on the front door.



To this day he still wakes us up multiple times a night (renovating on a few hours of sleep a night SUCKS! Especially if you have CFS!) and when we try to go shopping it is always sheer terror. He wants to run around and will scream if we put him in a cart, try to carry him or hold his hand. We even attempted those goofy, backpack safety strap systems with him. Unless he is running full-tilt through a store with no concept of his own mortality he is screaming at the top of his lungs. He will scream for HOURS without ever getting tired, I have NEVER seen that before in my life.

In short my husband and I are “whipped” by our toddler and with both sets of grandparents elderly and physically unable to handle him we have very few options for babysitting. Our saviors have been our 58^th Street neighbors (and friends for well over a decade) Becky and her teen daughter Leah. It has come to the point where they have helped us so much that I feel guilty and that I could never repay their kindness.

I just finished installing a new lock.

When we arrived at the house Saturday morning, I could not move from my seat. I felt hot tears spill from my eyes. I knew with the cold and the rain that if we hoped to get any work done we needed to find someone to watch Jax and so far it seems like our only viable option was Becky and Leah who just last weekend had him at their home (albeit with Cassie there helping) ALL day Saturday and ALL day Sunday. Now it was just Jax with no older siblings to help. I just could not bear to make the call to see if Becky and Leah would watch him yet again. I sat there crying in the car. Chris watched me for several minutes until he finally asked me if I would call them. My chest felt heavy but I knew he was right, if we wanted to get anything done we would have to push ourselves onto Becky and Leah again. They have been such wonderful, supportive friends over the years that I fear that pressing on their kindness too much may strain the relationship. These are two extraordinary women that we are lucky to call friends.

Just Chris and I this weekend,
pulling up particle board floor.

Finally, I asked (after my husband entertained Jax in the car for a half an hour while I replaced a door lock he (maybe both of them?) was sick of being cooped up). Becky urged us to come right over and for several hours on Saturday Chris and I worked alone in the freezing cold house continuing to pull up crumbling particleboard floors, cleaning and taking the last remaining items of my parents to their storage unit while Jax could enjoy the warmth and love of our friend’s home.

Becky and Leah, we know the huge debt we owe you. If you ever need us for anything; from helping you give your cat a bath to driving out to the depths of Oakland in the middle of the night because your car broke down –and we won’t even ask what the heck you were doing there in the first place- please never hesitate to ask it of us. We are forever in your debt, not just for what you do for us but for the love you show us as you do it.

Catch 22



Sometimes realizing one dream means sacrificing another. (Chris races Sea Otter spring, 2011)

 The cleaning and clearing out phase is almost over and it used up a lot more money than we had thought. Now we find ourselves stuck and not sure how to move forward. We are caught in an impossible catch 22 situation: we need to make the 58th street house livable before we move into it but we won't have any money until we stop paying rent at the home we are currently at. To do that we have to move into the 58th street house right away. We are stuck.

My husband and I may be inexperienced but we are willing to put in the hard labor. I know we could do this but with no credit there is no way that we can afford all the bare essentials (flooring, replacing broken windows, fixing the electrical, etc.) that we need to get the house in a state where we feel good about moving the kids in.  We have already sold so many of our things to get this far and now my husband (whose one passion in life is cycling) is looking at sell one of his few beloved possessions. He told me today that he was going to sell his bike. The exact words that burst out of my mouth were, "Hell No! you won't!!!" but now as we are getting heavy pressure from our landlady and the rains are coming I am afraid we may have to do just that.

For some folks it may not seem like a big deal ("It's just a bike.") but for my husband cycling is so much more than just "riding a bike". It is a family legacy, a health plan, psychotherapy and his one true joy when everything else becomes too much to bear. He had finally realized his dream to race bicycles last year and was just getting into top form, even starting out this late in life. Seeing how much joy it has given him in the past year has meant so much to me and that is why I had such a strong negative reaction to his statement of selling. He has already given us so much, sacrificed so much for us, I had wanted this one thing for him and now it looks like he will be sacrificing that too. He is out in the garage right now cleaning his bike up to sell. My heart is breaking.

Dawn walks with Chris after Cal Aggie Criterium (late winter 2011)

Link to the craigslist posting for bike: http://sacramento.craigslist.org/bik/2689619736.html

Waste Not, Want Not (Frugal Tip #2!)

Chris thought it would be cool to snap a pic of me from the "Monster Pile's" perspective.
I, however, found it annoying. No woman enjoys having her picture taken in a state like this.

Race Against The Rain! (or "Why are we here on a Tuesday?!?!")

Too tired even for power tools. :(

With CFS, recovery time is incredibly important. It takes me the five weekdays to recover before the weekend of hard labor starts up. When we found out there was rain in the forecast near mid-week we knew we were in trouble. Even though we got a great deal on the waste container if we went over 5 tons they would have to charge us an additional $40 per ton. If the items in the container got wet, especially the carpet, the cost could shoot up. Since we blew through all of our yard sale funds, this was a big issue. We called the waste container company and scheduled the pick-up of the container for early Wednesday morning. Chris had to use one of his precious few remaining vacation days at work so we could go up and try to get as much loaded into the waste container as we could before it was gone. We had no idea when we would have enough money to get another one so we had to make sure to load as much as we could into this one, especially those big, awkward bulky items. With only one day to recover, I was desperately tired and weak but the knowledge that THIS HAD TO BE DONE kept me going for hour after hour. By the time we stopped for lunch my lips were dry and my throat was hoarse, I could barely see and I was shaking. What little strength the sheer physical effort had not sapped out of me, the screaming wind gladly took.  I promised myself I would be extra kind to myself for the rest of the week just let me survive today!

Help Arrives!

Flying Eagle arrived a little after one and was shocked at how we had filled the 40 yard trash container, Chris and I had loaded at least 75% of it just on our own. There was a thin layer of room left but I just could not bear to do much more work. Flying Eagle and Chris decided to get working on the demolition of the kitchen cabinets to try and get them into the container before day's end. I spent about an hour in the van with Jax trying to get him to take a nap. Chris and I would then take turns while the other helped Flying Eagle -which I had nicknamed "Iron Man" because his initials correspond to the periodic table abbreviation for Iron (Fe)- take apart and toss cabinets and shelving. As we uncovered crazy patch jobs, quasi-remodel attempts and about 50 different shades of paint used through-out the decade I was able to muster up enough juice to try to take out shelves. Emphasis on the try, I was so fatigued that I did a lot less than I had wanted to. Flying Eagle and Chris continued to be the MVP's of the effort and we managed to stuff the container full and empty out everything but the kitchen sink.

Frugal Tip #2 - Maximize your waste container space!

That is one crammed container!

I mentioned this a bit in the previous blog but thought it was worth expanding on. If you are on a budget but need to get rid of a lot of trash, it becomes more cost effective and time effective to rent a waste container. Here are some things that I learned:

* Determine your need. First off, you will always have more garbage than you think you have. If you are trying to decide between a 30 yarder or a 40 yarder. Go bigger. It also helps to consider what type of garbage you have. Lots of big pieces, hard to move pieces, etc. definitely call for a container instead of trying to do your own dump run with a truck. (Remember, dump runs cost gas, wear and tear on you and your vehicle and most importantly TIME! When we have precious few hours every week to spend a dump run eats up too much time to do ourselves.)

* Know what you can and can't trash. Many trash container companies will not accept some items like large appliances, chemicals, rocks, dirt, concrete, etc in their containers.

*Always get quotes! Call many places before ordering your container. Get big companies and little companies and price out a couple different sizes. Write down the prices, the name of the person at the company that gave you the prices along with name of the company and phone number and keep these in your records. Call at least four places, compare all the charges (see below) and make an informed decision of who to go with.

*Make sure to talk to local companies! Let them know what your financial situation is and what you are trying to do. They are trying to make a living too but they are more likely to massage prices to give you a break. Knowing how much the big boys charge will help give you an idea as to how much of a deal the local company may or may not be giving you. Tell them what the big company(s) quoted you and they will likely try to beat it.

Chris loads more carpet.

*Understand all the charges. One company may have a cheaper initial price but other factors may mean that they are not the company for you. Other factors can include length of time, in our case we can only work on the weekends (with a weekday thrown in once in a while) and often there is only one or two people loading. There is no way we could have filled the container in the 7 day time limit some companies have. Another factor is how many tons are included in the base price some companies say that as little two tons are included in the base price, some include as much as five and then charge you an additional amount per ton afterwards. A company may initially look cheep but if they charge you after only two tons and the per ton overage charge is high you can end up paying a lot more! Always ask how many tons are included and how much per ton is charged after that.

*Know what you don't have to throw away! It's better for your pocketbook and better for the environment to try to find new homes for a lot of your "stuff" that you want to get rid of. Put recyclables like cardboard to one side and post an add to craigslist offering the cardboard to the first person who can come pick it up. We posted an add and within 30 minutes we had someone taking a massive truckload of cardboard away that we didn't have to haul (and lose time on). The same works for metals, there are folks out there who will come get your dead appliances and other scrap metal to be melted down. This can free up a lot of weight from your trash container and helps keep the landfills a little less...well...filled. You would be amazed at what folks will come and pick up!

So many pretty colors...NOT!

Here are a few lessons of what we learned, if you have any to share please feel free to comment below! (We gladly read comments in the hopes of getting some money-saving hints ourselves.) We added more pictures to WEEK FOUR of the photo gallery tonight as well!

LEARN MORE ABOUT WHAT WE ARE DOING AND SEE MORE PICTURES OF THE PROJECT AT OUR WEBSITE: WWW.GROVETRIBE.COM

FRANKENHOUSE!

"It's ALIVE!" but trying to make sense of all the patched together pieces and parts is certainly a haunting proposition. In the past almost eight decades this house has had many lives as we discovered as we started digging in deeper to the mystery of the 58th Street house.

Here you can see the door frame,
redwood shingle and "brick" layers.

Judging a book by three different covers?
When replacing the back door to the home we were shocked to see that the house had not started out with a plaster exterior. Directly underneath the plaster was a layer of what looks like thin brick but under further investigation was fake brick made of some sort of tar-paper substance. Yet it didn't stop there! Underneath the brick-ish substance where painstakingly layered redwood strips in nearly perfect condition! We are hoping to start going from neighbor to neighbor in the hopes of finding pictures of the house in it's many disguises over the years.

Donny completes his project!

It all started with a door.
The very first glimpse of our new house came in the form of a crisp, white back door. Our friend Donny took over the whole project and while Chris and I spent hour after hour pulling crud from the house and tearing down disintegrating particle board shelving. It was a tough project because the door and frame where odd sizes and crooked. A whole new frame would have to be installed. When Donny called us to his his efforts we were elated. Sure, a door might not seem like a big deal but it had a lot of emotionally charged symbolism for us. With help, we could do this and we were taking our first steps on our adventure but the door and tools needed sucked away the last of our yard sale funds.

Now we are not sure what can even be done with no money for materials so Chris and I just focused on what we could do, continue the massive clean-out project. By the end of the day on Sunday the huge 40 yard waste container in the driveway was completely filled and we realized to out horror that we would need another container but had no money to get one. Can't think about that now, we will figure something out I know.

Paul and Chris talk in the shade.

A visit from a new friend.
Saturday we were given a welcome respite from our labors (and worries) when Paul Romo from Inside East Sacramento stopped by. He was dispatched by the editor to learn about our story and what we hoped to accomplish. Paul was incredibly brave as we gave him the tour, venturing places even I was hesitant to go. He took pages and pages of notes and his questions were thought-provoking, helping us to really solidify in our minds what our vision is, as well as get some emotions going for me. It was kind of embarrassing for me to stand there covered in filth with my hair looking like a rat's nest fighting tears in the backyard full of weeds and junk but I think Paul did a lot for us that day. I was still scared by what we were taking on but I now understood that this project was so much more important to me than I had even guessed.

Stuff Flo was dealing with!

A visit from an old friend.
One of my closest friends (and Donny's wife) came by on Sunday despite her incredibly packed schedule. She came bearing gifts that were so welcome but the greatest gist of all was her positive energy. While I sat down to eat lunch she scooped up a pair of gloves and dove into the basement bringing up arm loads of moldy books and files and heaven knows what else. She was smiling and positive and happy and my greatest blessing on Sunday when I was so exhausted and fighting back a migraine. To top it all off her farewell was a neck and shoulder massage (did I mention she is the BEST massage therapist in East Sacramento?) which chased away my migraine and enabled me to work several more hours that day. (Note to self: try to get a picture of Flo for the blog.)

WEEK FOUR HEROES

My daughter Cassie for watching her fussy little brother all weekend. Your love for Jax makes my heart fill to overflowing and I am so proud of you!

Our good friends Leah and Becky for opening their home to Cassie and Jax all day Saturday and all day Sunday so they could be safe and then refusing any money for their trouble!

Yet again, Donny and Flo! You guys are amazing and such a blessing!

The nice gentleman who carted away a lot of old metal and ruined appliances so we wouldn't have to pay to trash them.

The equally nice gentleman who carted away our giant truckload of cardboard so we could save room in our trash container as well as saving the time and gas going to a recycling center.

Paul Romo for the insight into our quest.

My never faltering husband.

Our bright and shiny new door! The first milestone on our adventure thanks to Donny!

LEARN MORE ABOUT WHAT WE ARE DOING AND SEE MORE PICTURES OF THE PROJECT AT OUR WEBSITE: WWW.GROVETRIBE.COM