Crickets.

Can you hear them? You know that repeating, blaring, chirrping sound that often signifies empty or excessively quiet space, aka this blog.
I let the Holiday madness get the best of me and I forgot about my chronicles.  In hindsight I am regretful however, if you learn nothing from your shortcomings they are in fact failures.  If you learn something they are experiences.  So, this is me learning something from my epic failure  learning experience/ blog absence.
I really do enjoy the time it takes to plan, write and edit these blog posts.  Time was very thin this past month.  Ya know why?
Well.....
1.  The mister and I hostedThanksgiving
2.  Preparing for holiday traveling
3.  Going to every wrestling match for C
4.  Working on a BIG project at work that kept us at the office until all hours
5.  Tediously creating, planning and constructing in the basement.... 2/3 done by the way!!!

I know the first one is old news, but it was 4 days of a full house and all the mayhem that goes along with that.  Good mayhem, but mayhem nonetheless.  We spent 6 days in Florida over Christmas and that seriously was a month in the works.  Getting the house ready to be empty, planning for boarding the cat, etc...  The wrestling season is officially in full swing and we spend alot of time hollering from the bleachers for our #1 son.  When we are not cheering on the IB Tigers we are at work.  Working.  Working on a big project that requires many late nights.  Getting home at 7 pm and trying to cook and launder is AWFUL!  But.....Remember that inspiration board for the basement that I posted here a while back?  Well we are 2/3 of the way through making that a reality.  Wanna see?
Well the basement was a concrete jungle blank slate.  This is code for, "I don't have before pictures."

First step was to wall off the laundry room.  Pictures of this will come later as it is a disaster zone at the moment.  Second, we took out the old wood burning stove and replaced it with a 42" Fireplace.  I cannot even tell you how easy this was.  I went to Chicago one morning and when I got back the next day it was done!  But seriously, this was a fireplace kit that was all prefab'd.  Mr. Dubetter did awesome work getting it in place and what not!

My apologies for the photo quality.  This was taken on my Crackberry.  You can see over next to the french doors is the old Ben Franklin style stove.  The new fireplace is not only prettier but SO much more efficient.  The amount of heat this thing puts off prevents the furnace from kicking on hardly at all.  My pocketbook is pleased.  Where you see the studs around the fireplace and to the right is all new and will be drywalled.  To the left of the fireplace is where the real magic happens.  The media center!  Before this weekend it looked like this....

See all the unsightly wires.  I HATE that!  We brainstormed long and hard about how to solve this problem.  The results made the time spent sooooo worth it.  See for yourself.

Of course there is still lots to do.  Drywall, painting, more decorating.  But this is a HUGE improvement to the cold concrete.  The insulation is making a huge difference.  You could literally see outside through some of the cracks... New meaning to going green, huh?  The media includes the new monster of a TV, Sound receiver that is also a DVD player and I-Pod dock, digital media storage for all of our music and movies, and the X-Box.  Plenty I think.

Can't wait to share more progress.  I have lots to blog about and will do so regularly.  I swear it. 

Did you tackle any projects over the holidays?  Or maybe you dreamed up some for the new year.... do tell!