Heroes for Hire

At some point during their 30 years here, the previous owners decided to tack on a second garage to the back of the house. With unfinished walls, a cement floor, about two dozen wall outlets and the curious placement of a water heater, I'm pretty sure that it was used for nothing more than storage and a make-shift workshop. For us, the potential use for this extra 450 square feet has gone from a photo studio, to a home office, to split bedrooms for that sibling group of seven (yes, 7) that we saw on the adoption website one time (call it... temporary insanity), to everything in between. The plan that has probably gained the most traction is to have Justin give up his bedroom for whatever child we adopt or foster (unless they share a room), turn the existing play room into Justin's new bedroom, and convert this unfinished space into the new play area.

In the end, the goal is still unclear (the lack of heating and air is the biggest obstacle to most of our bright ideas)... but for now we're just chugging along with the improvements. Plans or no plans, we're just happy to have good help as we put it all together. There's nothing like unemployed superheroes to get your home project up and running. I guess the economy has been hard on everyone.

Footnote... Over the past couple of weeks, Justin, Jasmine, and Naomi have somehow managed to occupy themselves in this empty room for hours on end without a single toy to play with. The imagination is an amazing thing. The funny part is, I'd bet that if we turned this same space into a play room and moved all of their toys in there... they'd last 20 minutes before whining about being bored and needing sometime else to do. Go figure that one out.

They've also taken to calling this room "the clubhouse"... and I've been instructed that every time someone enters the room, we all have to yell, "Welcome to The Clubhouse!!!!" ... they've either been sneaking in a few episodes of Cheers (Norm!)... or have had their fair share of visits to Moe's Southwestern Grill (Welcome to Moe's!). Knowing my wife, I'd put my money on the latter.