The 13th Apostol

How The World Works Best

It's the final day of NaBloPoMo, and someone's going to win a pair of Happy Feet very soon!

Me, I'm waiting with baited breath to hear the words "You can come see the floors now"
My friend Jerry said he went by to check on the house the other day...that's what Jerry does, as an ex Marine, biker-kinda friend...he checks on your house.

Jerry, who's never much for elated emotional outbursts exclaimed, and I quote "The floors look AWESOME!"

We are going to have a "Floor warming party" sometime after the first of the year. Have my Design Team, call the local media...no wait, lets get the house done first THEN call the local media...do a segment on green building, PermaCrete, Impressive Restorations, the house old man Warr Acres built...I can see it now, The Gazette, Price Tower Arts Center out of Tulsa...

Breathe...just breathe.

The house, The Ware Family, it's all coming together as it should be.
Steph commented yesterday "How did you find Impressive Restorations anyway?"
Honestly, I can't remember. I want to say Craigslist.
All I know is the stars were aligned, but most importantly I was willing to let go of the process, trusting others to heal my home.

So many homeowners cannot do this, and I couldn't for a long time...recall?
It took being beaten down by inexperience and vulnerability, leading me to a place of willingness and open-mindedness.

I learned a few things working along side my dad for some years.
He put me to work early on proof reading his copy. To the day dad died he spelled cat with a "K", but the man was an incredible writer. I'll never forget the day he finally bought a new typewriter with spell check on it, you'd have thought they had just placed a man directly on the moon....

My father's Ad Agency could have been huge. The man could have made a fortune capitalizing on his name, taking advantage of the naive business owner, hustling here, hustling there...typical Ad Exec hooey.

My father's Ad Agency however, was not huge.
In fact some months we struggled to keep the lights on...why?
Because dad was out there helping people, just like always. Showing business owners how to stretch their ad dollars, and where they were getting ripped off by corporate vacuums.

Some of the small businesses my dad helped get started, are now extremely successful companies. Dad would spend hours on end with owners, not charging them a dime (this drove my mother crazy) because he believed in them with all his heart.

If you are sick of hearing about Impressive Restorations and The Ware Family, then I suggest you read another blog. Impressive Restorations is worth my money, my time, my praise, and as soon as I get my office up and running again, my dedication to help them become all they want and more.

This is how the world works best, if you don't know this by now it's high-time you experience it.

Pop Quiz Plus Pop Art

How many contractors update you daily via email of their progress on your home?
How many contractors work through holidays to ensure your family gets into your home as soon as possible?
How many contractors work late into the night to achieve the same?
How many contractors meet and greet your neighbors, giving tours to the nosy (concerned) ones?

In an email after midnight yesterday from Stephanie Ware, Co-Owner of  Impressive Restorations of OKC/Dallas, she wrote:

Couple more peeks. And some updates.

"We have the living room finished, but for the clear seal coat. Which we plan to do tomorrow.
The Mer's room is close. Dan needs to pull all the tape and he's waiting for a particular product to be shipped from PermaCrete to finish. We hope to get delivery before the weekend, but this time of year they wouldn't promise anything.   
Still 2/3rds of a remaining room, and also the hallway to go. The designs are on the floor, just waiting to PermaCrete and seal coat.
We got a lot accomplished today, tired, but happy."

More tomorrow....
Steph

At this point, due to the integrity, dedication, consistency, and over all decency of this company...they could throw cow poop on my floor, slap a coat of sealer on it, and I'd love it.

Anyone who's had the nightmare of dealing with contractors knows what I'm saying. Not to mention, trusting people with your home when you cannot be there daily to oversee the work.



Before I reach for my soap box again, let me say one thing about Impressive Restorations...I am, and you will be also, quite inexplicably impressed.

And AGAIN...

Sneek Peak

Here's what everyone's been waiting for...a sneak peek of the floors, Impressive Restorations Kandinsky-ish interpretation!

I must say I have no clue where in my home these images are! The Mer has a few ideas, but nothing for sure...

The Team is having so much fun with this project, it makes my heart happy, happy, happy.

To know so much love has gone into our home. Restructuring, resurfacing and finally redesigning the floors, makes me love the final product sight unseen.

After viewing these images late last night, I had trouble falling asleep, I was so excited.

It's really happening, and it's just stunning.

This is What a Greek Woman In Her Prime Looks Like.

More "Impressive" Each Day

My Impressive Restorations Design Team informed me via email, they have one room completed minus the clear coat! The others are in progress, as the "Kandisky-ish" design is taking a painfully slow time to tape off.

These people are dedicated y'all.

You have no idea how hard it was yesterday not to go peek in the windows...achingly hard. The Mer and I were near the house on an errand, but both agreed to wait and see the finished product.

I love the fact we are all on the same page, testing the limits of Perma Crete, pushing the product to see just what can be achieved artistically, while at the same time dealing with some pretty big structural issues my poor floor has.

They have sealed cracks in key areas, making the home overall more tight and warm.
These are things no other product but the Perma Crete line could do.

Daniel, their design specialist, has taken charge of The Mer's room. I saw a sketch he did one day last week. I'm not sure how old Daniel is, or when he started on his artistic path, and I've said it before, but this guy is talented.

I hope to help Impressive Restorations succeed as the number one Perma Crete installation company in OKC/Dallas within the next 12 months. When I believe in a product I stick my neck out there. When I believe in the people behind the product, the sky's the limit.

Perma Crete can do for people, what NO OTHER product can. I'm all about green building, all about saving our communities, our neighborhoods, our schools...this product solves a multitude of structural problems. Perma Crete and Impressive Restorations qualified, licensed, installers, is the only combination that could restore and beautify my 60 year-old home.

If the combo can do THAT, imagine what it can do for your basement, the kids play room, the guest house, your broken up driveway, the hazardous walkway in front of your office, that privacy wall you want to build to muffle the next door neighbors NINE kids...it's CRAZY what you can do with this stuff.

Any imaginable color, any imaginable design...the only limits are in your mind.
I LOVE THIS CRAP!
Stuff, I LOVE this STUFF.

Soap Box up.    

43rd Birthday Dinner For a Later in Life Mama

Last night, after two days hawking non-stop, on my feet, taking care of a sick child while I was home, then back again to hawk some more...the children, mine and the daughter-child who lives in "The Big House", were scurrying about, being many kinds of secretive in their comings and goings.

My presence was requested, via telephone, by the mother of the daughter-child, for dinner at 8:00 in "The Big House". Of course I declined, being many kinds of tired...I was then informed my presence was expected, for dinner at 8:00 in "The Big House".

"Oh" I replied, to the mother of the daughter-child. The daughter-child, busily scheming, sneaking, and planning BIG THINGS, hand-in-hand with The Mer. "Then I shall be there at 8:00 sharp - with, as they say very little anymore, bells on."

My first clue that something was not quite right in the world last evening, was the Cabana door bursting open, not an unusual event in and of it's self, yet this bursting forth, brought with it not only leaves a plenty from the menopausal dogwood, but two impish children bearing gifts of freshly folded laundry, warm and toasty from the basement.

The dumb-struck look upon my dually spectacled face, I'm sure was a sight. For the imps grinned wide-ish grins exclaiming "What?!" again and again in unison. Then as if directing like a Greek Yia Yia, told me "STAY HERE UNTIL WE COME AND GET YOU!"

I dared not move an inch, Yia Yia's pack wooden spoons and wield them like shrikens at any given moment. Except for mine, she packed a Derringer.

Moments passed, then multi-moments, and just as I was deeply engrossed in an article on Japanese Micro-Homes, tsubomi's in particular...the whirl wind that is the children I love, came cold and excitedly through the Cabana door - demanding my eyes, all six of them be closed tight.

Holding their hands (and peeking now and then at my feet for safety) We made our way to "The Big House" . There was blue grass on the stereo, I could sense the darkness like a pool of thick black cool water.

Still holding impish hands, I was directed to "NOW!"

What "Now" beheld was my surrogate family, circling a table set for royalty. There was impish hand scribed place cards, candles lit, antique silver ware to eat the fresh Autumn vegetables in the homemade chicken soup...mostly, there were two angels, one holding my right hand, one holding my left.

When I opened my gift from The Mer, I was reminded my baby has not lost his vision, his ability to see the glorious in the mundane, to find, through this sense that which cannot be found/seen by so many. I was reminded my child loves me regardless of where we're living, because we are family.

 

 

Happy Birthday To Me...I'm A Mom-ee!

Don Your Combat Boots, Tis Black Friday

It's 4:00 a.m.
I wont be late for work this year.
I must be crazy, it's 23 degrees inside the cabana.

Who needs a flippin shower?

Blessings Can Be Hard To See Without Bi-Focals

The coldest morning so far this year, very THANKful The Mer spent the night at his buddy Indigo's house, back in the old neighborhood.
I suppose that really means your baby is growing up, when they stay over at a friends on Thanksgiving Eve. Thanksgiving Eve only exists in the world of codependent, overbearing mothers. It's not really an "Eve" as "Eve's" go. And I'm stopping to find my rhinestone studded Jimmy Crystal Readers...if I'm going to get old, I'm going in style, thank you very much.

Today is slightly hard. Feeling, since I'm sure The Mer is warm and toasty with a REAL family, that I am a complete failure as a mother. (yes, again) That no matter how hard I work there will be no way to get "Home" by Christmas. How I had first promised by Halloween and Trick or Treating in the old neighborhood, then "I promise by Thanksgiving honey, for sure by then"...now it's Christmas...and I see...

No way to get stuff moved in, organized to livability, a tree set up and decorated, by myself. That's who he depends on...me, and I can only do so much alone, not having allowed too many people in since losing Athena. Most definitely not a "Him", and "Him's" (or the equivalent there of) are who one depends on to do so much "Her's" cannot do alone.

This post is going down hill fast. It's a combination of the holidays, my birthday on Saturday, and this silly little thing called: In-the-eyes-of-my-big-fat-scattered-Greek-family-I-have-failed-at-everything-period.

And yet, the Abundance in our lives is beyond measure, the strength my child possesses, his resiliency during the last 90 days of Gypsydom, his shining hope things will get better, all remind me our situation is temporary. However The Mer has his mom, reminding him so, and so, and so...while I on the other hand, occasionally and briefly...run flat out of steam.

This is merely an occasional, brief, steamless, moment.  I know far better than to set deadlines and expectations. I will be let down, the world doesn't spin this way.

We have been blessed by the presence of an AMAZING family in our lives, who coincidently, and becoming more of a side note the more I get to know them, are Perma Crete installers, technicians, and artist's.

Meeting Jorge and Stephanie's son Daniel yesterday, and seeing this kids artwork - blew my mind. This family, these people, work as a team right down to design work. Their married daughter Diana became excited about the project, and is now on board.

I have given Impressive Restorations (aka The Ware Family) carte blanc on my floor. I have done this for multiple reasons, some of which I'll mention, some are of a more personal nature. The degree to which, were I to divulge publicly, might warrant an emergency psychiatric detention order by a Judge on Holiday. Judges do not like to be bothered on Holiday, in order to detain wacky Greek women with sparkly bi-focals who live in pool house's. They just don't.

So here are the sane reasons I've given Impressive Restorations carte blanc on my floors:

They are as excited as I am about getting to do something artistic as opposed to mainstream.

They...I afraid that's all I can share at the moment. Enjoy the pictures, and have a Happy Turkey Day!