I can understand teenagers not wanting their actions seem at times. But all that means is there not doing the right thing! Same with some adults.
I’m still amazed how many times God comes up in conversations with people around here. I think that makes it so much easier to have my actions be God-oriented, or at least be seen in the light of not being judged by the world standards. We have few liberals here so I don’t need to worry about that so much.
The only thing I really worry about here is coming across as too materialistic. People here, at least out in the country where I am, are definitely not that way! I’m pretty amazed with the lack of upgrades people live with. We remodeled our entire house, but have tried to downplay it to the neighbors. But I really can’t stand all the dark paneling and tiny windows, especially with my bad vision . So that was my excuse! and the floor was quite wobbly, so it needed reinforcing. So of course we had to replace the flooring on top of it! Only thing I didn’t have an excuse for was replacing the 70s kitchen completely. Boxes of cereal must’ve been no taller than 9 inches back then! Every cabinet was short. And the oven was tiny. But I did love the dishwasher! It was built before the environmental Nazis were in charge apparently . It actually dried the dishes, and had a heating element! Happy times ;)
I don’t think people here saw our house is a fixer-upper, although we certainly did! Every room is being redone, we are now on the second and third bedroom and almost finished. Other than painting the paneling in the basement white. What are you doing to your house?
We bought an old house that in the 70’s was converted in a half way house by a priest. Eventually a counseling center bought it and it was s group home for many years. When we bought it two and a half years ago it was like living in a 1970’s office with an old church kitchen. The pass through had fake wood accordion blinds (or whatever they are called when you can pull them shut horizontally across the counter). It was added onto so it’s a gigantic two story square. We had (still have in much of the house) drop ceilings with fluorescent light panels. We even had pull down fire alarms and big lighted exit signs.
The plus side is that since it was a licensed group home the “guts” are pretty good. Most of the changes are cosmetic. It’s a big house-9 bedrooms plus three offices. Perfect for us space wise. Just pretty ugly.
We are starting with the back section of the first floor: disconnected the institutional smoke alarm and sprinkler system, then removed the false ceilings from that part, reworked the back hall to created a mud room, had the lighting rewired and sheet rocked the mud room, what will be our pantry hall, dining room and middle hall (kind of a room/hall). My husband cut down salvaged boards into widths needed for farmhouse style trim for doors, windows and cased openings. So today we will be priming (still cold, but windows will just have to be open as oil based primer stinks) the faux ship lap wall in dining room and the windows. It’s a huge undertaking, and it’s only about 25% of the house. He has his own carpentry business so our project isn’t top priority, but the horrible spring weather has gifted us time for our house. But no income:-/. Soon he will build the new kitchen cabinets (I bought my farmhouse sink last year just so we’d have it before funds ran low!) and we will tackle that. Then our beautiful new flooring can replace the awful asbestos tile that is in this part of the house. Then a breather for a year or so to save up funds to tackle the front part of the first floor and maybe the basement family room.