This is my first blog posting ever!

Hi, I am Jason, the husband to that web-savvy gal Serina. While I don't have time now to give the full blown update on the house, here are some quick thoughts:

• Arthur Goh, a grad student from Carnegie Mellon is coming over tomorrow to help with the kitchen. It's the THIRD TIME he's come. Thanks, man!
• Our IKEA Pronomen butcherblock countertop (a mouthful!) has been sitting on the dining room floor for over a week, taking up 2/3 of the remaining walking space. I have penciled out the outline of the next piece to cut out. If the weather cooperates, I'll be installing that between the stove and the east wall tomorrow.
• Last week I started to cut a hole through the wall for our stove's overhead fan and I ran into a stud. After talking with some friends who have - between them - years of experience with old houses and a degree in architecture, I've decided to notch part of the stud out and finish cutting the hole tomorrow. The same friends (The Moores) are loaning me a hammer drill to cut through the brick and mortar on the outside portion of the wall. We have about 5 dozen eggs in our refrigerator that we are afraid to cook because of grease issues with no fan. I am hoping and praying for omelets this weekend.
• We put up a stair-top gate for the kids last week. Now Ellery can crawl in the 2nd floor hallway without an adult blocking the stairs. She loves to stand up holding the gate and yell, "Na NAAA!" Look for Serina's comments on the woodwork I did to affix the gate to the wall.
• This morning as I took a shower, I had a flashback to November. At that time, I was frantically working to replace doors, replace craftsman style trim and door jamb extensions, caulk, fill holes and sand the trim, patch wall cracks, paint walls, and paint trim, all between the hours of 8pm and 5am on various nights while Serina and the girls stayed/slept in our apartment a few blocks away. Nighttime work was the only option with a full family and work schedule, and I lost a lot of sleep over the whole deal (not as much sleep as Serina is now losing over Ellery's crying probably). There was so much dust kicked up - and the house has lead paint in it - that I would be showering and changing my clothes before coming home at around 3 AM, night after night. Needless to say, my flashback this morning caused a mixture of pride and nausea. There is still so much to do, and one blessing that has come with our moving in is that I cannot work much at night when the kids are sleeping.
• On a related note, did I ever tell you about the day we moved our stuff from the Roseliuses' home in Butler, PA to our own house? I never want to do that again. The night before was an all out push to get the woodwork for the doors done so we could seal off the lead dust from inside the walls. Given enough time, I'd have finished all door installations, trim installation and finishing, caulking, and the meticulous washing of all surfaces. That way, we could be more sure about no lead dust getting on our stuff or on our kiddies.
  Well, I had been working for days on this door trim. The walls were not a standard thickness, nor were they straight. The pine boards I used to replace the old paint-chipped trim always seemed to want to warp in the opposite direction of the wall. Oh yeah, and when the old trim had been taken out with the old lead-paint doors, it had usually caused some interesting cracks and large jagged holes in the old lath and plaster. So there were a lot of places where I was trying to nail a splitting and warped pine board to a hole in the wall. And trying to make it match with other boards and somehow, to look good. I was losing my hope at lightspeed.
  At 3 AM, Serina and I talked on the phone about what I still had left to do, why it was taking so long, and how we would both be happy if Jesus would come to take us up at that instant. I never did sleep that night. In fact, at about 6 AM I just finished what I could on the first floor and taped off the upstairs with 6 mil polyester and duct tape. After my ritual shower, I drove to Carnegie Mellon's campus to pick up some students, our free labor for the day. Serina and one girl began to mop and scrub the first floor in preparation for the boxes, and I picked up the 26' U-Haul truck and began my trip with students to Butler, PA.
  I actually made it alive all the way to Butler and had fun filling up the truck with students that day (there was about 5.6 square feet of empty space in the truck when we were finished). Driving the full truck from Butler to Swissvale was a different animal, though. I was tired enough to pass out, and needed constant conversation and one break in order to make it home alive. After only about 4 stalls and 1 engine grind (boy those Pennsylvania hills are hard to climb in a full truck with manual transmission!), I somehow didn't do any damage in Swissvale when I had to drive a 26' U-Haul truck along steep cobblestone streets that are no more than 20' wide and have cars parked on both sides. The students must have been sweating blood praying for me not to crash. But, providentially, it all turned out okay.
• I hope Serina can post some pictures soon!

That's all for now. Bye!