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Dishwasher Finale

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Well, the woman finally called and said “Would it be okay if I dropped a check by your office?” Oh boy. I was REALLY tempted to tell her no, it had to be cash or a money order…but didn’t feel up to the fight, so I said fine. She dropped it off and it was a local bank, so I figured I would stop by Friday and cash it, so I knew it was good. Unfortunately the bank wasn’t where I thought it was and by the time I figured it out, I was too far away from where it really was. So…I just deposited it in my own bank and figured if it bounced, I knew where I could find her! The guys she called to come pick it up came this morning and were surprised when they found out they didn’t have to uninstall it! WHAT? you say. Yes, they thought they were going to have to take the dishwasher from our kitchen. It scares me that this woman is a real estate agent—she apparently is QUITE stupid or CANNOT communicate effectively.

But I have $200 and the dishwasher is gone. YAHOO!

Dishwasher Saga

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So you know we have our old dishwasher to sell. Since I work in a real estate office, I put a homemade ad up on the bulletin board. So an agent from our office calls me at home one night and asks if the dishwasher is still available. I say yes. She says she is working with someone who needs to replace a dishwasher. (I think, from what I remember, that she is referring to the LISTING agent and not her actual client.) She gives me the person’s phone number.

I call her and she is about clueless—or just has no phone etiquette. I left her a message, so when she called back, the conversation went like this:

ME: This is Jennifer, how can I help you?

HER: This is Betty.

I wait for more helpful information and search my brain for her name. And I wait… Finally, after a good 10 seconds when she still hasn’t said anything, I say:

ME: Oh, you wanted my dishwasher.

—Looooooong pause.—

ME (again): I was wondering when you wanted to set up a time to see it or pick it up?

HER: Well it’s not for me.

At this point I realize this is not going to be easy. So, to make this long story short, this dimbulb wanted to know if we could deliver and/or install it. Um, NO. Who do you think you’re buying this from? So she said she’d have to call me back after she found out who was going to pick it up. Okay, fine.

So the next call is even worse. She tells me that ABC company is going to handle the pickup and installation, when are we available? I say after 5 and this weekend. “Oh,” she says, “they don’t work after 5 or on the weekend. Can we pick it up during the day?” Um, hello? I work during the day. And I told her as much. She says—are you ready?—do you have a garage that you could leave it in, and we could just come pick it up? So not only did she want me to take time off work to be home so they could pick up the dishwasher, but now she wants me to leave my garage open instead? I told her that was NOT an option. And she seemed genuinely surprised. So she revisits the idea of picking it up during the day, and I reassure her that is NOT an option—that my husband and I both work. So now she’s got to call back again once she gets more information.

So she calls back and says GOOD NEWS—the company can pick it up on the weekend if that would be better. Okay, fine, Saturday. Then she says “I don’t have to call you again to let you know what time they’ll be there, do I?” Oh, for pete’s sake, I guess not. (I hate to think of the trauma that extra task would have caused her.) So then she’s saying goodbye and starting to hang up and I ask “Is ABC company going to pay for the dishwasher?” WHAT? HUH? You could tell I really surprised her. She said “They are just going to pick it up and install it.” I told her it really had to be paid for. She said “We were just going to pay for it out of the HUD!” Um, NO. I don’t know you, I’m not directly involved with the closing, I know no parties involved…just NO. (I know how HUDS work and I’m sure I would get paid, but not when I’m not involved.) I told her that we weren’t a business—we were just some people selling a dishwasher and we needed payment if someone was going to leave our house with the dishwasher. She was still genuinely taken aback at this thought. She was all stammering about “Well, they were counting on paying for this out of the closing… I guess I can call and see if they have the money…” Um, YES. I told her that would be appreciated.

I can’t wait to see what the next call brings…

Builder Frustrations

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Our builder is making us insane. Yes, they’ve done okay so far overall (and we love our driveway) but they seem to have no control over anyone. There are still some odds and ends they need to finish up and we were told on a phone call that things would be taken care of. Ha. Tom finished up at the range early today, so he was home by 8am (he was out there at 5am!). The builder’s rep called and said that the workers would be out that afternoon to finish up X, Y, and Z. Come 3:30, no one has showed up and…no one at the builder’s office answers the phones! Tom kept calling until 5pm and no one ever answered—and of course no one ever showed! It’s extremely frustrating.

House update and paint pics online!

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We only got around to painting one color this weekend—and I say one color and not one room because it was the downstairs foyer (including the second story part of the foyer) plus the upstairs walls! And honestly, some of it still needs a second coat…but I didn’t want to make Tom do it on his birthday, so it waits.

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And the last edging coat on the second floor was done with a new can of paint…and it’s just a bit off, so I’m thinking a third coat (ugh!) will be necessary. We’ll give it a week or so to see if it ever blends in (you may laugh, but we thought we’d have to do a fourth coat in the dining room, but after two weeks, you couldn’t see the lines anymore). I don’t relish having to do a third coat just because the paint color is a bit off.

I owe the IRS.

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So I got a notice in the mail yesterday…seems they think I owe $175 or something stupid like that for NC state tax. It’s just not possible. I mean, the USMC does our taxes and they use computers and there. should. be. no. errors. So I dig out my 2003 (yes, 2003!) taxes and of course, that was the year I had to have the state portion refigured because Staples screwed up my withholding (they said my entire salary was in NC, when half was in NC and half was in VA). So Tom takes the stuff into the base tax office today and…the good news? Are you ready? WE OWE $146!! They screwed up!! I sort of lost my mind at that point in Tom’s retelling of the story, so I’m not entirely sure what the exact details are, but it was something to the effect of they input the wrong numbers or gave me a NC tax credit for the entire salary amount instead of half the salary. Regardless, it took the IRS TWO YEARS to figure it out. After they already paid me the $200+ in refund bucks in 2003. ARGH! So Tom got a form from the tax office that I have to fill out saying this was our first notice of money due (so we don’t have to pay the $20 in interest). Or something like that.

Like I want to give the stupid IRS $146. That comes out of our honeymoon budget, dammit.

TWENTY-SIX CENTS! NO! FORTY CENTS!

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Last night on my way home, gas at the cheap station was $2.49. It’s been $2.49 for a good week or more. Of course, I didn’t stop because I still had over half a tank. So this morning on my way to work, I see that the price has gone up to $2.75! What happened to price increases of 5c or 10c? What’s up with a quarter jump?

EDITED TO ADD: At 5pm, it had jumped to $2.89.

The driveway saga continues!

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So when we last visited the driveway saga on Thursday, the concrete guys (while tearing everything up) had completely ripped out the cable line under the driveway. (Luckily, the cable company was able to come out that night and reconnect it.) Tom was told the guys would be back “first thing Monday morning” to pour the new driveway. Well, as luck would have it, Tom was (finally) going back to work Monday, so he really couldn’t take that day off…so I had to take it off. (We normally wouldn’t have to be there for them to pour the driveway, but the garage doors had to be open to get close enough, and we just weren’t comfortable leaving them open with all the workers there.) Of course it rained off and on all weekend, so we had a huge mud pit…and since we were missing our “step” up onto the porch, it was interesting gymnastics to get into the house bypassing the front porch steps (which were no longer there).

Monday morning about 7:30, I see a van of guys arrive and start walking around. I think “Great, things are on schedule.” Then they got back in their van and parked at the house next door. Okay, I thought, they are moving their vehicle so the cement truck can get in. And I wait. And wait. And don’t see the guys anymore. Come to find out, they are working on the house next door—they are NOT there to work on my driveway. Well, I had hoped to just take the morning off, but come 9:30 NOTHING had been done and no one was there so there was NO WAY the driveway was going to be poured in the next two hours. I called the builder’s office and she said maybe they were waiting on the weather (it was overcast). I explained that I was missing work waiting for them, and if she could find out what was going on, it would be appreciated. She called back about 10 minutes later to say they were waiting for a load of dirt, but of course she had no idea how long it would take. Well, amazingly, the dirt arrived about 10am…

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followed by….nothing. No one showed up. ARGH! So I wait. And wait. And wait. At about 11:30 some guys show up to start spreading the dirt. I went out to ask if they knew when/if the driveway was going to be poured since I really had to get to work…and of course they barely speak English so all I got out of them was “uh, maybe…don’t know.” So I made sure they knew my phone number was on a note (I had taped to the door) and that someone would call me if they were going to pour the driveway and they needed the garage doors open. Fine. So off to work I went.

Now, about work. You wouldn’t think it would be a big deal for me to take a day off now and again. Yes, I’m taking a ton of time for our upcoming honeymoon, but I’m not the type of person to call in sick all the time or ask for days off out of nowhere or abuse my boss’ good nature—it’s RARE that I need an unplanned day off. So I didn’t think anything of it when I told my boss I’d need the morning off (and possibly the whole day). I had to leave a message on Sunday, but she called Monday morning after I told her I would be out all day…and it was the grand inquisition! She had a litany of questions for me—she wasn’t pissed, per se, but you could tell she was not happy. Of course, she had a project that she wanted me to do (I can count on one hand the number of “projects” I’ve had in the last few months, but of course the day I need off last-minute is the day she has one for me).

So I’m at work for literally one hour when I get the call that they’re pouring the cement. The guy who called (Kevin) was very nice and I said I would be home within a half hour. I quick finished my stack of work and headed home. I get there, open the doors, and busy myself with stuff around the house.

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I go up to send Tom an email update and…no internet. Hmmm. Reboot. Nothing. Check the TV. No cable. At this point, I have an idea and look out the window and—yep—the cable was just laying there. THEY HAD RIPPED IT APART A SECOND TIME! Needless to say I called Tom immediately and we were both just livid. There was absolutely NO reason it should have happened. The cable was simply laying on top of the driveway—all they had to do was dig a little trench and bury it, then pour the driveway! We couldn’t tell what happened and no one spoke good english, so it was extremely frustrating. As the cement is being poured closer and closer to where the cable line is supposed to go, I finally got through to one of the workers and he understood that the cable needed to be buried and he told me it would be. Okay. So as I’m watching from the second floor, I see the cable in the grass and I see them pouring cement completely past the area. WHAT!?!?! I call Tom again, totally freaking out. In the meantime, he has called the cable company and they say they can come our tomorrow, but if we’re not there, it will be a week or two. A WEEK OR TWO?! I wanted to scream. There was no way either of us could be there for the cable guy. So I went outside again, and Kevin just happened to be pulling up.

Okay, Kevin was NOT what I was expecting. He looked like a total backwoods redneck and smelled like he’d been drinking all day. And you know what his first words to me were after saying hello? He told me how he’d been drinking for the past hour or so and how that probably wasn’t a good idea and that he had to meet someone soon but he didn’t think he should be driving. OH. MY. GOD. So, trying to get any usable information out of him was impossible. He tried to explain about the cable…he said they accidentally ripped it up again. (Okay, I wanted to ask, just HOW could you do this? It was laying across the driveway in plain view!!) So they had installed some plastic tubing so the cables could be strung underneath. Whatever. I could barely stand to talk to him since the alcohol on his breath was bowling me over. But the interesting thing he told me was that his crew had poured the driveway to begin with and when they saw how it turned out, they were going to redo it BUT THE BUILDER TOLD THEM NOT TO! So apparently the builder was hoping whoever bought the house wouldn’t notice it or ask to have it fixed! So, we think even less of our builder at this point.

So I went back inside and tried to keep my mind off everything. When Tom came home and heard the full story and saw what had been done, he was furious. He called Kevin and let him know we were NOT happy. When he got off the phone, he said he could barely understand him because he was totally plastered and I said he’d probably continued to drink all afternoon! The only upside is that when we called the cable company again, they said we wouldn’t have to be there…so hopefully we will have cable when we get home tonight.

Stay tuned.

It’s been a busy week!

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Luckily Tom is still home recovering from surgery, so he’s able to take care of all this stuff! I don’t know what we’d do if either of us had to keep making all these trips back and forth. (These were all little things so I saved them all up for one big post!)

MONDAY

We had someone out to move the water lines for the refrigerator. If you recall from a previous post/rant, the brain surgeon who installed it put it about a foot beyond where a normal refrigerator would be. It was covered up by our trash can, but we had them move it anyway. Now we’re just waiting for someone to come back and fix the hole in the wall.

TUESDAY

We had guys out to fix our front door. It didn’t shut quite right (the top right corner stuck into the house about 1/2″ or so, like it was warped) and would have been an issue for the security system (oh yes, we have a security system—the builder pays for the first year). I’m not entirely sure what they had to do, but all I know is the door is fixed, but we’re still waiting for them to come back and fill all the holes they made.

We received our cruise documents today. And I about had heart failure when I saw that the itinerary had changed from what we originally saw on Orbitz!! Normally an itinerary change wouldn’t be any cause for alarm, but we had purchased our Royal Dolphin Swim for the specific day we were going to be in a specific port—and that had changed!! I knew it wouldn’t be a problem to cancel the shore trip and get our money back (you can cancel up to 11 days prior), but of course I think the worst of everything and assume that the other day will be sold out and I will miss my dolphin swim after being so careful to plan ahead! Tom called and spent forever on hold, but got everything straightened out (yes, the itinerary changed and yes, we switched dolphin days). Poor Tom was so frustrated with having to deal with it…and I just said “I’m glad you had to do this. You take me for granted because I’m the one who always deals with this stuff!”

WEDNESDAY

We finally started putting up some personal pictures. I finally have my picture wall! I can’t remember where I got the idea, but I’ve always wanted to have one wall dedicated for framed pictures (all different frame types). The stairwell is perfect for this. I’ll take a picture of it eventually (or when I get home).

We had someone out to install the new dishwasher—finally. (We never thought it would take 1+ weeks.) It’s a KitchenAid. I’d never heard of KitchenAid dishwashers before we went looking and never guessed we’d end up with one! Anyway, we love it—it’s the best dishwasher we’ve ever had! We can actually fit like two or three days’ worth of dishes in it. Large items like cookie sheets and pot lids can fit in no problem. And we can even take out the top tray if we have something really tall we want to wash (which we did last night—I had a 24-quart cooking pot we’ve always had to wash by hand and I wanted to get it really clean). Plus, it’s QUIET!

We’ve solved the cats whining at our bedroom door issue. Remember, we locked them out of our bedroom once we moved in…and it worked for the most part, but Fuzzy would still whine loudly in the morning (we couldn’t figure out quite what for, since he had plenty of food and water). So now they all get locked in the living room/4th bedroom at night. They have water, but no food…but even if they did whine, we can’t hear them! We’ve slept SO well the past two nights!!!

THURSDAY

The guy came to install the new countertops today. We didn’t get the dripless edge like we thought (we got the waterfall [rounded] edge, which is still 100% better than the straight edge we had before) but it looks GREAT! Even though it looks good, it’s strange getting used the new color since I was really used to the purple—and liked the purple. But this new design/color is perfect. The installer said he’d never seen such crappy work before—he told us that the guys who had originally installed the counters had been fired because they did such poor work (after our house, they were on their way to fix another crappy install). So, we’re thrilled to have great new counters.

new counters

The TV repair guy came to look at our TV. (Back story: we got a really great deal on a TV at Sam’s Club last weekend—because it had been repaired. It also had no sound so we got them to knock it down more. We didn’t need sound because we hook it up to our receiver…but turns out it had sound, so…BONUS.) But we noticed that it had a problem near one of the edges—some color squiggles and a black spot that affected the viewing area. Tom called Samsung, they said it was under warranty, we called a local repair guy and…turns out it was nothing major. It was [something like] a piece of foam padding [that sits between the case and the screen] that was buckled or crinkled, which was affecting the rear projection. So, it was a quick an easy fix and we have a brand new TV for a great price!

The Heating & Air guy came to check our system. It actually started about two weeks ago (or, shortly after we moved in). It seemed to always be VERY cool in the house, even when we had the temps set to like 79. Now, I know what 79 feels like—at our old house, it would have been sweltering—but in this new house, when the thermostat SAID 79, you’d still be CHILLY. I was positive something wasn’t right, but we decided to wait it out a bit since they had JUST fixed the a/c and we thought that might have something to do with it. Well, we just got our first electric bill last week and WOW, it was a doozy. I mean, we knew it would be more since it’s a bigger house (plus it had the $25 connect fee), but it was the same price for two weeks as our old house was FOR A MONTH (in the height of summer, $130-140). We didn’t think it should be THAT high for just two weeks, so I convinced Tom we had to call. I mean, we thought we were doing so well trying to keep the temps warmer to conserve energy/save money, but no matter what we did, it was cool in the house (not always COLD, but enough so that you’d get goosebumps some times). So, the guy came today (which surprised me that it only took a day) and guess what? The calibration was off by SEVEN DEGREES!! And there were holes in the freon line so we had leaking freon!! I’m not sure of the mechanics of it all, but the guy assured us it all added up to a higher bill than we normally would have had. And everything is now fixed so that’s good. And I’m reassured that I am NOT crazy and the temps were out of wack.

JUST WHEN I THOUGHT I WAS DONE WITH ENTRIES FOR THE WEEK

Tom just called to say…the guys are there tearing up the driveway! (Oh yes, did I forgot to mention that we talked to the agent and she said they’d replace the driveway?) There was no advance warning or phone calls…they just showed up and started in with a backhoe. We have no idea how long it will take to finish, either—we’re guessing quite some time, as we’ve been driving them nuts with it and they probably hate us! But at least they’re sticking to our agreement of “by the end of the month.”

AND AN HOUR LATER…

Tom just called to say “GUESS WHAT?” While tearing up the driveway, they completely ripped out the cable line, so we have no internet and no TV. And when he went out to confront them, they suddenly don’t speak ANY English (they’re Mexican, but you know they know English). Now Tom is trying to call Time Warner to get it fixed and he’s trying to call the builder’s rep to let her know what happened and also that they will be paying for any repairs.

I wonder what else is going to happen???

The Nerd? Geek? or Dork? Test

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http://www.okcupid.com/te…030990046738815

My results?

Joe Normal
34 % Nerd, 17% Geek, 17% Dork

For The Record:

  • A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.
  • A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.
  • A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.

You scored less than half in all three, earning you the title of: Joe Normal. This is not to say that you don’t have some Nerd, Geek or Dork inside of you—we all do, and you can see the percentages you have right above. This is just to say that none of those qualities stand out so much as to define you. Sure, you enjoy an episode of Star Trek now and again (I do!), and yeah, you kinda enjoyed a few classes back in the day. And, once in a while, you stumble while walking down the street even though there was nothing there to cause you to trip (that’s SO me!). But, for the most part, you look and act fairly typically, and aren’t much outcast. I’d say there’s a fair chance someone asked you to take this test. In any event, fairly normal. Congratulations!

The test tracked 3 variables. Here’s how I compared to other people my age and gender:

I scored higher than 7% on nerdiness.
I scored higher than 14% on geekosity.
I scored higher than 8% on dork points.

What if Microsoft Built Cars?

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Every time they repainted the lines on the road, you’d have to buy a new car.

Occasionally your car would just die on the motorway for no reason, and you’d have to restart it. For some strange reason, you’d just accept this, restart and drive on.

Occasionally, executing a manouvre would cause your car to stop and fail to restart and you’d have to re-install the engine. For some strange reason, you’d just accept this, too.

You could only have one person in the car at a time, unless you bought a “Car 95” or a “Car NT”; But then you’d have to buy more seats.

Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was twice as reliable, five times as fast, twice as easy to drive—but it would only run on five percent of the roads.

The Macintosh car owners would get expensive Microsoft upgrades to their cars which would make their cars go much slower.

The oil, engine, gas and alternator warning lights would be replaced with a single “General Car Fault” warning light.

People would get excited about the “new” features in Microsoft cars, forgetting completely that they had been available in other cars for many years.

We’d all have to switch to Microsoft gas and all auto fluids but the packaging would be superb.

New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.

The airbag system would say “Are you sure?” before going off.

If you were involved in a crash, you would have no idea what happened.

They wouldn’t build their own engines, but form a cartel with their engine suppliers. The latest engine would have 16 cylinders, multi-point fuel injection and 4 turbos, but it would be a side-valve design so you could use Model-T Ford parts on it.

There would be an “Engium Pro” with bigger turbos, but it would be slower on most existing roads.

Microsoft cars would have a special radio/cassette player which would only be able to listen to Microsoft FM, and play Microsoft Cassettes. Unless of course, you buy the upgrade to use existing stuff.

Microsoft would do so well, because even though they don’t own any roads, all of the road manufacturers would give away Microsoft cars free, including IBM!

If you still ran old versions of Car (i.e. CarDOS 6.22/CarWIN 3.11), then you would be called old fashioned, but you would be able to drive much faster, and on more roads!

If you couldn’t afford to buy a new car, then you could just borrow your friend’s, and then copy it.

Whenever you bought a car, you would have to reorganize the ignition for a few days before it worked.

You would need to by an upgrade to run cars on a motorway next to each other.

I miss Mongolian BBQ

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There’s a new place here that just opened which is similar to bd’s Mongolian BBQ found in Michigan (and other states)…but nowhere—NOWHERE!—near the same. My bosses and I went there for lunch today, and it only made me more sad because it SO wasn’t the Mongolian BBQ I am used to… No tortillas, frozen meat, no eggs, NO DRY SPICES AT ALL, very few oils/flavorings (and the ones they did have seemed really watered down), they added water to each bowl when grilling, and they only did one order at a time—and they just walked it around the grill—there was none of that cool stick work. Hmph. It was decent, but now I have a hankering for the REAL stuff…

Living Room Pictures

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So the living room is done. THANK GOD. This room has been a nightmare, including the original flat paint not covering in two coats, having to buy an additional two gallons of eggshell, my initial paint spill, Tom’s multiple paint drips (by the end of painting, I think we had gotten equal amounts on the carpet)…and this morning, right after I said “This does NOT feel like a day to paint…” Tom’s mini paint can slipped out of his hands and got paint all over the tarp (which bled through onto the carpet), on the white entertainment center (which had to be repainted in spots), on the carpet, and on the audio equipment! FUN FUN FUN!! The good news is that coat #3 was the lucky one, and that was all she wrote.

There was one upside—we learned that eggshell is MUCH easier to get out of carpet, so we will NEVER be painting with flat again.

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I am ready to scream!

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UPDATE: We’re on coat #2 of Palomino From Hell and we can already tell we’ll have to do another coat. THIS ROYALLY SUCKS. We’ve never had this much trouble with paint—ever. Our last house had light peach, dark peach, turquoise, light green, hunter green, tan, wine, butterscotch, and lilac—and we had NO issues with ANY of them EASILY covering in two coats. This house, we started off well enough with orange, blue, four colors of sage green, and plum…but the deep red dining room and now this deep orange living room are killing us. I’ve heard that reds are hard to cover…but orange isn’t even a red (it’s a brown, I believe). This is RIDICULOUS. And add to that all the paint we’re getting on the carpet (even with the stupid canvas) I am ready to scream. SCREAM, I tell you. It’s not been a good morning. And now we have to go to Lowe’s for Gallons 3 AND 4 (if we have to do coat #3, we will need another gallon). GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

If you thought the office was orange…

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…wait until you see the living room. My god, is it orange. The office looks tame in comparison! Right now, while we’re painting, it sorta honestly looks like nacho cheese—exactly the effect we DIDN’T want. You can see when it dries (where my strokes have overlapped into two coats) it’s a nice deep orange, though…Dark Palomino to be exact. Phew. Unfortuantely, it’s off to Lowe’s tomorrow: we need to buy Gallon #3—one gallon didn’t even make it around the room once! That sucks. And that’s two rooms now where we thought ahead to buy two gallons and ended up having to buy a third. And does anyone else think it shouldn’t cost $60 to paint one stupid room?? But I guess that’s what you get when you don’t want to live with white. But it’s worth it…it already looks SO much better with one coat (even though the one coat looks absolutely horrible—as first coats usually do). So much warmer and homey looking. The room looked cavernous before—now it looks like a living room. Pictures will be posted tomorrow if all goes well after the second coat!!

Driveway Update

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It’s been an ongoing saga… Tom talked to one of the builder reps (the secretary, basically) and she said the original guy who poured the driveway has NO intention of coming back to redo anything…the guy that came out and looked at it a week or so ago was the replacement guy…and she didn’t seem to think ANYTHING would be done with the driveway. I DON’T THINK SO!! So we decided to go straight to the agent (she was the Listing Agent and she is the builder’s representative—she signed the agreement saying the driveway would be fixed by August 31) to see what she has to say… and gently letting her know that the contract she signed says if the builder doesn’t fix it by August 31 we can have it fixed at THEIR expense.

Fast forward a few hours… Tom talked to the agent/rep and she said it looks like the builder is opting to REPLACE the entire driveway. Excellent! And now that I know this, I’m not so adamant on having it completed by the end of the month, but I still want it done ASAP. But now I feel a little guilty about asking them to replace a few rows of dead sod…I don’t want to bitch TOO much about our “contract” because technically, our contract says all the builder is required to do is fix the driveway with the epoxy coating…and I don’t want to get into a technicality match over $100 worth of sod vs. an $8,000-$10,000 driveway.

Stay tuned.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

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This has a happy ending, but earlier tonight, I was PISSED. When we were packing up the house, I threw a $25 restaurant gift card and a $50 bill in a box (it had been in one of our cupboards—our mad money). It seemed like a good idea at the time—by the time we got around to needing to open that box, we’d appreciate the restaurant card AND the $50. So, we’ve been here two weeks and…no money, no gift card. Crap. We’d unpacked all the kitchen boxes and it wasn’t there. I couldn’t figure it out—It. Just. Wasn’t. There. The only thing we figured is that we must have somehow thrown it out in the packing material. But I could have SWORN I put the items IN something, like a bowl or basket or whatnot. So we tore through every last box that still had stuff in it—regardless of what the box had listed on it—to no avail!! $^%#@* At least, I reasoned, it wasn’t really OUR money…the gift card was a Christmas present from my boss and the $50 was “found money” (remember, I found a wallet a few months ago with $100 in it). So I was storming around the house, all pissy. I mean, PACKING the stuff SEEMED like a good idea at the time…but how could I be so stupid? Why didn’t I just put the stuff in my wallet like a normal person?

So, the happy ending? There was a Rubbermaid container sitting on the island with some odds and ends in it…along with the gift card and $50 bill.

Pictures are online!

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You would think with ALL the work we’ve done and ALL the painting we’ve been doing (two rooms just this weekend!) I would have more pictures…but of course I’m only showing you the best ones!

The cats exploring and getting comfy in their new house:

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The office, which is just off the fourth bedroom–or our living (tv) room. It’s much more cluttered now!

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The living room / sitting room / fireplace room! We have curtains to match the furniture and blinds for the center section.

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Don’t mind the mess in the kitchen…

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The blue paint, depending on the light, can look anything from gray to blue to periwinkle.

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I LOVE THE BEDROOM! I’ve wanted that quilt for over a year, so it was the inspiration for the color scheme (the bath is purple). We saw the idea for the color block wall on HGTV (for someone who didn’t have a headboard, as we don’t) and thought it would be perfect. I didn’t realize until AFTER we decided that it would be perfect with the quilt design, as well!

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The master bath. We took down the big wall mirror and put up the medicine cabinets. We still have some tweaking to do (i.e. a shelf for some of the clutter). I LOVE HAVING TWO SINKS!

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The jacuzzi tub on the left…and my lilac shower curtain!!

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The dining room. The chair rail and crown molding look great…but are a PITA to tape/paint!

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Notice the peeled paint on the tray ceiling…thanks to the bad paint job (dust not cleaned off before the builder painted), our paint peeled right off. So much for the hour or so of work it took both of us…and the hour or so it will take Tom to fix it. We plan on putting a large mirror (that used to be over our fireplace) on that back wall.

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House Updates

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DRIVEWAY

The driveway repair is suspect at this point. And by suspect, I mean that two people have looked at it and basically said “Uhh, I wouldn’t do the epoxy. I would redo the entire driveway.” Luckily, one of those guys was the epoxy guy the builder sent, and hopefully he will tell the builder the exact thing. Basically, it would be so much time and work to do the epoxy coating that it would be better to do a new driveway. So we’ll see.

COUNTERTOPS

The counters won’t be installed until the end of the month. But, we’re really looking forward to it, since we’re also able to change the edge style from straight block to dripless (which means the edge had just a bit of a ridge on it so liquid won’t run off the edge). I never knew such a thing existed until we went looking at new countertops.

DISHWASHER

We will be replacing our dishwasher. We hate it that much. The good news is that the store where it was purchased will take it back and give us credit towards a unit of our choice, plus $100 to do the uninstall/install. Our other option is to buy the one we want from Lowe’s (yes, we’ve already found it) then sell ours on our own. In actuality, the cost of both are probably about the same (if the store price-matches Lowe’s), but if there ends up to be a huge price difference, we will do whatever is the cheapest. Tom is finding out today if there’s any way around the $100 install charges AND if the appliance store can get the unit we want.

SITTING ROOM / LIVING ROOM / FIREPLACE ROOM

We still don’t know what to call this room…it’s a living room, but our actual living room is upstairs with the TV. I like the idea of calling it a sitting room, but then what do we call the very front room with the chair and small TV? It’s the room with the fireplace, but fireplace room sounds stupid. So, whatever room it is, it’s painted. It took about 5-6 combined hours last weekend, but it’s done. Well, almost done. We planned ahead where we wanted to stop the paint (so we didn’t get into the 2-story foyer walls), but now that it’s painted, we see there’s one more regular wall we have to do. And…unfortunately…we will end up having to paint the 2-story walls. One wall goes up the staircase, which opens into a 2-story stairwell. We had tried to just go straight across…and it wouldn’t have looked TOO awful, except the tape we used pulled off part of the wall, so it has to be fixed. We just have to figure out how to paint it now…we have a ladder that should help, but it makes me nervous since it’s ON the stairwell. I told Tom I don’t want to do it and I don’t think I want to be there when HE does it!

FOYER

We decided to try and paint the 2-story foyer/entrance (not sure when, just that we are going to do it). We weren’t sure we could, but when Tom found out how much it would cost to have the painter guys do it ($150 or so), he decided we could try first. We had an easy time with the color, although I can’t describe it well (grayish tan? medium mocha? cocoa?) so you’ll just have to wait to see the pictures—or the paint chip if I scan it and post it. We didn’t want it to clash with the red dining room, so we picked the neutral color that appeared on the same “design” card. It will also go nicely with the smoky blue living room/sitting room/fireplace room!

KITCHEN ISLANDS

We have two new islands (as told in earlier posts). They aren’t perfect (the kitchen looks a tad cluttered with the big stainless commercial rack, but there’s no way around it) but they hold our stuff and gives me more counter space. The big commercial rack will hold our pots/pans, so we won’t have a pot rack. We’ll see how this works…we may end with a pot rack if we don’t like the pots/pans on shelves!

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MASTER BATH

This is our project for this weekend…wish us luck!

WE’RE BACK ONLINE!

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FINALLY! We’re back online! It was touch-and-go today, however… We’ve had our appointment scheduled for about a week now—sometime between 1pm and 5pm today. So Tom made sure he was home (he has lots of errands to do now that he’s home—that honey do list, you know). He called me at 4:58 to say “THEY HAVEN’T COME YET. And guess what? They were at our neighbor’s house earlier today!” Oh, we were FURIOUS. If our neighbors got their cable a day after moving in and we’ve been calling and waiting for two weeks and didn’t get ours… But by the time I got home at 5:20, the cable guy was here…and by about 6:30 we had our six cable outlets hooked up! We had to make a trip to town to get the necessary connector for the Tivo ethernet cable (high importance, believe me!) and now we’re back to normal…we’re both sitting in front of our respective computers. (Now we just have to clean the office and add more conducive light for working.)

Pet peeve for the day!

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We bought a new commercial stainless steel rack system thingy at Sam’s club (since we need more counter space in our small kitchen, in addition to the other new island we bought earlier this week) but it only comes with one shelf. I go to the site to see about ordering another shelf and I can—it’s $24.99, not too bad. But guess how much S/H was? Cheapest route, via UPS Ground, was $29.00!! MORE THAN THE ITEM ITSELF! I’m sorry, that shelf CANNOT cost that much to ship and/or handle. So if we get it, our cheap $109 unit turns into $150+. UNACCEPTABLE.

Painting, painting, and more painting!

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The painting is neverending. I mean, I knew there would be a lot, since we bought about 13 gallons for the whole house (and that wasn’t even painting all the rooms), but even though we keep painting, we don’t seem to be getting anywhere!

I painted the office the first weekend we moved in.

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This past week and weekend we finished the bedroom (four colors—I love it!) and the sitting room…about 12 hours worth total, including taping. I am so sore today! Sitting and standing are okay, but the getting up is the hard part! My knees are also very sore…kneeling for 4 hours on berber carpet really gets to you.

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Rooms left to paint: Kitchen, Dining Room, Half Bath, Master Bath, Guest Bath, and Living Room.

But the hard work is worth it—everything looks great so far and it’s much more homey and inviting now with color… I just can’t wait to get all the rooms done!!

Decisions!

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COUNTERTOPS

new countertopsNothing really struck us at either Home Depot or Lowes. There were a few we sorta liked, but nothing that I really liked as much as the purple. Then we saw a larger sample of one we sorta liked (at right, Antique Roca)—and liked it better as a larger sample—so we’ll probably switch. It’s not as dark (we liked the contrast of white cabinets and dark counters), but it’s a neater pattern that will go well with the floor—and it’s more neutral. I think it has the look of an old-world discolored yellowish/orangish cement with pits and cracks. I’m certainly not describing it as great as it looks as a full-sized sample, so you’ll all just have to judge for yourself (it will probably be at least two weeks before it’s completed, so pictures will come then).

DRIVEWAY

We’re STILL waiting to get the samples so we can pick a color. The guy was supposed to show up yesterday and never did—and we haven’t heard BOO from him or the selling agent in the meantime…so Roger said it’s time for us to get estimates from local places—maybe that will kick them into gear into getting it done. They have until August 31 to get it done (according to the post-sale addendum) before we can have it fixed at THEIR expense.

New Countertops & New Driveway

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COUNTERTOPS

So we have a pretty big scratch in one section of kitchen counters, another section where there’s an odd strip of discoloration, and one edge section where it chipped in a few places and they colored it in with a marker. So the counter guy was just at our house and basically said he’d have to replace almost the entire thing to fix all the separate issues…so, if we wanted to change the color, we can! It would cost us $30 in materials, since there is one section he wouldn’t have to replace if he just replaced it with the same color we have now.

Don’t get me wrong—I LOVE LOVE LOVE the purple and it doesn’t look bad AT ALL—but something less, um, colorful, might be good for resale. (Although I was sure people would have a heart attack when they saw our old green/peach/orange kitchen, but they didn’t.)

So…it’s off to Lowe’s tomorrow to see if we want to change colors. It’s funny. I was sort of upset that we didn’t get to choose ANY options for our house…and now that I technically get to choose our counters, I’m sort of wishing we didn’t have the option because there are too many to choose from!

DRIVEWAY

So when we were doing the walk-through about two weeks ago, we noticed that the driveway was really splotchy (for lack of a better word). Roger said it looks like they poured it and it rained (or somehow got bubbles in it) and then it dried and the bubbles popped…so now we have an entire driveway of spots where the cement just chips away. It’s horrible. Obviously the builder can’t replace the entire driveway (he said it would be $8,000—-$10,000) so instead they’re going to grate it and seal it with some sort of colored epoxy material. We’ve seen some cool samples where they paint it to look like bricks or stones (see here for examples) but I think we’re only going to get to choose a color. We don’t want anything that will really stand out, but we hate to stick with plain gray/concrete color since we’re being given the choice. So now it’s another decision…and it will be rushed at that, since the contractor is out-of-town and will be coming in tomorrow morning to give me the samples, I pick a color right then, and he goes and does it that afternoon! Tom could normally come over from work, but he has a dentist appointment tomorrow morning! ARGH! So, the good news is we’re getting our driveway fixed, but the bad news is I am freaking out about picking the color!

More (minor) Frustrations

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USPS

So I turned in our change-of-address/forwarding information about a week ago, thinking that was plenty of time. Nowhere did I read how long it would take, so I assumed a week would be appropriate. Not so. You know what happens when you assume. So it’s been three business days and we haven’t received any mail…and I was getting worried. So Tom just called and guess what? It can take UP TO 10 DAYS for the mail to start forwarding (stopping starts immediately, however). Not a big deal in the grand scheme of things (it seems I’m saying this a lot lately) but it would have been nice to know—somewhere along the lines of filling out forms!

DISHWASHER

Man oh man, our new dishwasher is SMALLER than the last one! I didn’t think they could get any smaller except for teeny tiny apartment ones, maybe. We can only fit maybe (MAYBE!) one day’s worth of dishes in there. It’s awful!

Definite trade offs

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We knew there would be trade-offs with the new house, but we’re starting to experience them on a first-hand basis now…

THE KITCHEN

We could tell the kitchen was smaller. We had a square kitchen with a bar/island in the old house and this is more a galley-style kitchen. However, we counted the cabinets and saw that all we would be missing (storage- and counter-wise) was the island…which, granted is quite a bit of space, but we didn’t think it would be that drastic. Key words? DIDN’T THINK. Wow. The counter space we have is EXTREMELY limited: we have four sections that are maybe 18″ each (one on either side of the stove and either side of the sink). This leaves barely any room to set plates out for dinner and chop something at the same time. Or put the rice cooker and a plate on the counter, let alone chop something. So, our first purchase is going to be an island of some sort, probably rolling, so we can have more workspace, plus a little more storage space. OH, I almost forgot…yes, we do have about the same number of cabinets (minus the island, of course), but guess what? They’re ALL smaller in width! Where we used to be able to fit the mixing bowls next to the measuring cups, we no longer can! Each cabinet is at least 3″ smaller than we are used to…which adds up over an entire kitchen.

THE OFFICE

Granted we could have put our office in one of the bedrooms, but we chose to put it in the “sunroom” off the fourth bedroom (or bonus room) so we could have a dedicated guest room and a dedicated way-in-the-future nursery (besides, we wanted the office off the living room). Anyway, we thought we had a small office at the old house…but this is about 3′ shorter on one side, so we can’t fit quite as much stuff in as we did before. It will work, but it’s a little cramped.

BUT ON THE FLIP SIDE…

THE MASTER SUITE

We have a REAL honest-to-goodness master suite now, with a nice-sized bathroom we can BOTH fit in at the same time! With a double vanity and drawers (oh, to finally have drawers again!). And we haven’t finished arranging the bedroom yet, but there’s lots more space in there as well—not just a walkway around the bed! And we have a gorgeous 118″ triple window.

THE FOURTH BEDROOM

Pure and simple, we have a fourth bedroom which we didn’t have before! We are using it as our living room (i.e. room where the TV is) because I didn’t want a TV downstairs.

THE GARAGE

It’s larger than our previous garage, plus it’s nicer (has a brick foundation), plus it has TWO garage doors instead of one (so Tom can keep his side closed to hide all the woodworking stuff).

THE DINING ROOM

We had a dining room before, but it was small. And even moreso when the table was fully extended. Now we will have the table fully extended at all times (or so we think—we haven’t actually tried it yet) and no one will hit their head on the pot rack anymore!

So…there are trade-offs. You’d think spending as much as we did on this house there wouldn’t have to be any, but I don’t think there is such a thing as the perfect house—unless you have it custom built (speaking of—dad, get ready for when we come home to Michigan!). We looked at houses on the same street with much better kitchens, but there was always something else about the house that turned us off. So, hopefully the island will take care of our kitchen issues and we’ll be all set! Now it’s just a matter of finding one the perfect size that isn’t $400!

Many gas stations closed

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On my way to work this morning, my regular gas station was closed. Word on the street (i.e. floating around the office, from people who have been out in traffic) is that there are quite a few gas stations that are closed, and the ones that are open have lines OUT INTO THE STREET.

This is just insane. I can’t wait to see what the prices are on my way home.

Wow. Just, wow!

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Long story short, we’re moved in to the new house. Long story long, it wasn’t without some annoyances and trauma. As you know, it started with our power being turned off Friday morning and it only got better from there.

Not house-related, but we had an appointment at lunch Friday to go visit a cat that we were considering adopting…a fully declawed Tabby that we were REALLY excited about (I really really want a Tabby). However, he is almost 20# (not a problem) and unfortunately as we discovered while visiting him, a nipper (a problem). We did not want to bring home an alpha male that bites/nips. So that was disappointing—it’s rare to find a fully declawed cat. Now on to house stuff.

I had called last week to find out about switching our water service. They told me it had to be done in person. Fine. Annoying to have to make the trip, but fine. So Tom had been meaning to get to it while he was home packing and moving, but never made it. So Friday afternoon, after closing (4pm), I went. So I get there and wait in line for about 15 minutes, and…they tell me they don’t service the new address (ARGH!) so I had to go halfway across town at 4:30 on a Friday to start service! (Yes, it was my fault for not asking and merely assuming the new house TWO miles away would be the same water…but annoying.) Anyway, before I left, I asked for a letter of recommendation for the new water place so I could hopefully avoid a deposit. She said “just have them call us” — okay. So I get to the new place and ask about avoiding the deposit and she said they need a letter. I said “They said just to call them to get the reference” and she said “Yeah, we don’t do that. We need a letter. And they will charge you $5 for it.” I said “You have GOT to be kidding me.” She assured me she wasn’t. I told them “You two water companies should really talk to each other. I can’t be the only one this happens to.” Then I wrote out a $45 deposit check. ARGH. (I will be getting the other water deposit back, but still.) Oh, and I asked about when I might be able to get my deposit back… “Once you have lived here for five years…” OMG! FIVE YEARS!? I was not a happy camper. Not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but stuff like this just rattles my cage.

So I get home, still fuming, and run into Tom on the road, taking a trailer of stuff to the new house. I tell him what happened with the water. So I was getting dinner ready and Tom seemed to be taking forever but I really didn’t think much about it. He finally comes in and says “I can top your water story” and proceeds to hold up the plastic tray from our grill and says “This is all that’s left of the grill.” Our $600 grill. I literally said (pardon my French): “You are fucking kidding me.” Apparently the strap broke and the grill went FLYING off the trailer doing 40mph. Luckily no one was in the opposite lane where it landed (although he did have to stop traffic to gather the pieces). And of course we can’t afford another $600 grill and I don’t want a cheapie grill now that we’ve had the best. UGH. We’re laughing about it now, but man, that just sucked hard core. (Actually, the grill really isn’t in pieces…but the smokestacks are crushed, the lid is buckled so it doesn’t close, and the knobs and such are missing. Apparently the gas line survived, along with the gas tank, so Tom and Roger think they can try fixing it.)

More utility fun. Tom called LAST WEEK to switch cable service (internet/tv). It was supposed to be turned off on Saturday at the old house and ON on Friday at the new house. Saturday morning…neither had happened. I called and…oh, wait, I didn’t call from our home phone because they turned that off Saturday morning, apparently at the crack of dawn (I scheduled it for Saturday, and they tell you “sometime Saturday” but it’s apparently first thing). So I had to waste my TracFone minutes ON HOLD forever while they told me…they didn’t have a disconnect order OR a connect order for either residence! YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME. And it gets better. Apparently the lines haven’t even been run to the house yet (“Are there painted lines on your lawn? No?? Hmmm.”), so it could be UP TO TWO WEEKS to get service. No one told Tom this when he called to switch service A WEEK AGO. ARGH!!!!

And did I mention that the A/C was NOT WORKING at all on the second floor (we have two units, one for each floor)? We discovered this Friday after closing when Tom first walked in, about 5pm. Like you could get anyone to come fix A/C at all this time of year, let alone a Friday afternoon! But Roger came to the rescue and managed to find our contractor (who he happened to see in the neighborhood) who called the A/C guy…who, of course, happened to show up Saturday morning WHILE WE WERE GONE. Another call and the guy was scheduled to come back out Sunday! Phew! (So, this is jumping ahead, but our first night in the new house was spent on the air matress on the first floor where the A/C was working.) Apparently what had happened was the builder had the A/C set SO low that it froze the line.

Then we had been running late on packing, what with the 4-hour Friday power outage when Tom couldn’t get into the house (no keys, garage door opener didn’t work), but we were still aiming on being done by 3pm when the carpet guy came. But in the meantime, we were still loading stuff into the new house. (Actually, Roger and Tom were loading and hauling stuff to the new house, Dick [my bosses partner/myold Staples manager] and I were hauling boxes into the new house.) Anyway, around 2 we went back to the old house to get the last of the little things, still trying to beat the carpet cleaner and, of course…he was EARLY! In retrospect, we should have said “Sorry, you’re going to have to wait until 3!” But instead, we just piled all that was left into the garage, kitchen, and back porch (all areas he didn’t need to clean). Technically the house was ours until midnight, but we wanted to be DONE by 3. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out quite like that. Anyway, by this time we’re just exhausted but we have to finish. So it was power washing the garage floor and loading last-minute outside stuff like hose reels and hanging plants.

So around 5:30 we were back at the new house to shower to go have dinner at Roger and Ursula’s (which was fine, since we didn’t have much food available). So I have to find the shower curtain and liner and I get it all together and hang it up and…it’s too short. There was a good 6″ of space between the bottom of the curtain and the bottom of the shower. (We have a shower now, with just a little lip on the bottom.) I was about ready to cry. Not that it was a big deal…I was just exhausted and my entire body hurt and we were upstairs without A/C and all I wanted was a simple shower! Luckily the rod wasn’t screwed in—it was just a tension mount—so we could move it. Well, actually it wasn’t a tension mount because we couldn’t change the width—all we could do was slide it down the wall…which worked, but now it’s out about 4″ too far so the curtains are at an angle. And I still managed to get a huge puddle of water on the floor. And we had the crappy showerhead because we didn’t have the plumber’s tape to install our own showerhead. OH YEAH—I forgot—we also didn’t have hot water since no one had turned the hot water heater on—but luckily it was SO hot upstairs that we didn’t want a hot shower—cool was just fine.

This isn’t directly related to us, but just an update: we talked to the buyers on Saturday afternoon (they showed up while we were there), and he was asking us THEN where he had to go to turn on water and power. This was after I already told his agent THREE WEEKS AGO and she told him, plus I told him personally about the water because I had to give him directions, plus the messages she left about the power issue on Friday. He is a nice guy, but totally clueless.

So Sunday Tom had to go back again to take out the laundry sink…and stuff we forgot in the kitchen like my purse and the vacuum (I thought Tom was loading everything into the car and Tom thought I would at least grab my purse). Hoo boy. I’m glad we at least know the buyers a little and they’re nice enough to not destroy or steal anything!

The A/C guy came and fixed the A/C. Now it’s working like a charm. I painted the office…I didn’t really want to paint so soon, but we wanted to get that room set up, and once all the computer stuff is in and all the cords are all over, it’s IMPOSSIBLE to paint, and we didn’t want to have to set the room up twice…so I painted it. It wasn’t too bad—the painter’s tape I used this time did its job wonderfully…but we somehow ended up with a dime-sized blotch of paint on the carpet. OH MY GOD. I wanted to scream! I blame it on Tom, LOL, because I had everything covered with a drop cloth (because I was PARANOID about not getting paint on the carpet)…and at the very end, he came in to help fold up the tarp and… later when we’re setting up the office, I noticed the paint. Hoo boy. It never fails.

Sunday dinner I start making something…and realize the plastic utensils we’d been using are just not going to cut it for this meal…so we go on a 20-minute hunt for silverware. Of course it’s not with all the other kitchen stuff because I totally forgot about it, so it’s in an unlabeled “last-minute item” box. Or so I thought. Turns out it was in a “kitchen” box—actually in the kitchen that I’d already opened—I just hadn’t fully unpacked it.

Oh, and the cats. OH MY. They are soooooooo confused. They didn’t like being in the carriers of course, but we only let them out in one room (with their litterbox) while we went to dinner at Roger’s. We let them out when we came home and oh my, the crying and meowing… They freaked out whenever we left them and they couldn’t understand the upstairs and downstairs and got especially confused with the balcony. They would be downstairs crying and we’d call them from the balcony and they just meowed louder and louder, never looking up. It was like they were crying for us to come get them and lead the way. It was so funny. It’s better now after a day, but the first night, Fuzzy started crying in the middle of the night and Tom had to go find him and he carried him upstairs to the litterbox—that was what he wanted. He apparently got lost or couldn’t find it or didn’t remember… now, a day later, that’s been okay, too. It’s been an adventure.

So that’s where we are. Now we just have a ton of unpacking and painting to do….

Stressed out and pissed off

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So we’re in the process of moving. We closed on our old house Wednesday and are closing on our new house this afternoon. We are “renting back” our old house for a few days so we could move all our stuff to the new house.

In preparing utility switches, I had the power set to be turned off today, figuring since the new owners would be moving in over the weekend, they would have the power turned on today. (You can only have this done on weekdays.) I honestly had forgotten all about it, until Tom called me saying the power was off.

Long story short, new owner obviously hasn’t had power turned on in his name (nice guy, but he thought he was going to get his EMD back, so he’s a few bricks short of a load). We still have tons of stuff to move, painting touchup to do, appliances RUNNING, yada yada yada. You cannot move out of a house without having the power on. Oh, and did I mention NO AIR CONDITIONING???? Luckily it’s only 80 right now, but with the temps like they’ve been lately??

Granted, we were renting from them, so the power should still be on in our name. But I figured since they were moving in over the weekend, they’d put it in their name. It sounds logical.

To make matters more annoying, I tell my boss about it, and she says “Well, just live at the new house!” Um, yeah, think about it…we’re still MOVING OUT. It’s not like we’re CHOOSING to still live there for the hell of it. UGH.

It’s not like $25 is a great deal of money in the grand scheme of things, but we don’t need to spend an additional $25 to turn the power BACK on when, in my opinion, it should be on. So, I’m pissed off that I didn’t keep it on until Monday (just to be safe) and I’m pissed off that the new owner didn’t have it turned on already. (And don’t get me started how every utility charges about $25 just to flip a freakin’ switch to turn something on and off.)

We’re official renters!

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We officially became renters at about 2:45 this afternoon! We ran into a few small pitfalls along the way (like the buyer’s lender telling us at just about the last possible minute that we needed a notarized letter from a contractor saying our fireplace was vented correctly!), but everything ended up going smoothly.

Tom has been moving boxes to our new house all day (just the garage, actually, as it isn’t offically our house until Friday afternoon). Poor guy—the heat index for today is about 115. He started at 6am, though (when it was only 85), and is taking a break during the worst part of the day. I can’t wait to see the empty garage when I get home!