What a busy time this has been.  Things have been nonstop since before Memorial Day.  Memorial Day weekend, Dave took Gavin up north with his best friend and his daughter who’s about 6 I think.  Anyway, with husband and child out of the house for 3 days, my mom and I redid our bathroom.  That was ajob and a half.  We scraped the walls, pulled up the carpet, replaced the lighting, faucet, all door/drawer hardware, we spackled, we chaulked, and yes we painted.  There were 2 particular challenging areas. These were the areas of the wall next to the tub.  The original chaulking around the shower door was not doing it’s job and as a result the wall was water damaged pretty bad.  It was bad when I moved in with Dave 5 years ago and had gotten worse and worse. My mom and I tackled it with gusto and I have to admit we did a pretty darn good job.  But of course, you can be the judge.

The right and left side of the tub is seen here as it was before:

And the after pictures as seen here:

You can click on the pictures for a more up close view. I still have some minor touching up to do, some new chaulking on the floor and cleaning up some paint off the tub, but you have to admit it’s quite an improvement.  In the before pictures, those are gaps next to the tub, at least an inch gap.  We bought some of that expanding foam and sprayed that in the gaps. Once the foam hardens, you can cut away the excess, even sand it, then we spackled over it.  And who knew I had such beautiful custom tile work under that old nasty grey carpeting.  I spent over a good hour scrubbing and scouring and the result was some pretty nice tile work that I think goes wonderful with my new "Gothic Amethyst" paint color. I put some black floor rugs down and got black and white towels.  I feel so much better walking into that bathroom now.

And now for the reason of my post subject.. "All Grown Up"  That is referring to Ray, my first born, my baby.  Last week was his graduation commencements.  I can’t believe he’s all grown up.  It was such a proud moment.  He was a great student. Made the honor roll several times, he was in the ROTC all through high school. He often got straight A’s in his card markings.  Wednesday was also special because his grandfather (on his dad’s side) graduated with him.  He was in the Marines and after he finished high school was called into the Korean War, never recieving his diploma.  So in the beginning of the commencement ceremonies, the principal gave a wonderful speech about how he served our country, fathered 10 children and that this evening he was to finally recieve his diploma with his grandson.  Ray joined his grandpa onstage and everyone cheered.  He recieved a standing ovation. It was quite a tearful moment for me that’s for sure.  I had no idea Ray’s graduating would affect me so much.  I see a man now. Sure he turned 18 back in January, but now he’s done with high school.. his juvenile days are gone. Here he is when he was 18 months:

And here at 18 years, a high school graduate, that’s me in the first one and the second one he’s with his grandpa.

Sorry for my lack of posting lately.  As I mentioned, things have been quite busy.  I’m throwing Ray’s graduation pary this Saturday, and then next Saturday his dad is having a party for his side of the family.  We even had a huge weekend garage sale in between all this, it was quite a success.

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