JTOK Chatter > Page 408

Triple Birthday Party

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We just got home from the Mitchell’s house (Roger, Ursula, Virginia, and Caroline). They threw us a triple birthday surf & turf bash – to celebrate Tom’s birthday, my upcoming birthday (since we won’t be here), and our other buddy Tom’s birthday. We had lobster and shrimp and crab legs and steak and homemade macaroni and cheese (I had one small scoop—I couldn’t resist!) and cole slaw and I made my broccoli salad and sugar free jello with cool whip and then we had an ice cream cake for dessert! So much food but all soooooo good! We had a great time! Of course, the boys drank too much and ended up making fools of themselves (as usual).

We also got the news that Karen (Tom’s wife) is pregnant! YEA! They’ve been trying for quite some time now and are just THRILLED!! Unfortunately, Tom is getting ready to deploy and will be gone when she’s ready to deliver!!! I just cannot imagine that! So, we’re her backup!! Ursula will probably go to lamaze with her and both households have been tapped for rides to the hospital! Congrats, Trimbles!

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.

Totally amazing weather!

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The windows have been open all week, day and night. It’s so cool in the mornings that I sometimes get the chills, but hell if I’m closing the windows! I LOVE IT! If the weather was like this year ’round, we would live here until we die. Honest. So good thing for our families that this weather is rare!!

The amazing weather continues!

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We left our windows open all yesterday and last night and now this morning…and it’s simply wonderful!! It’s 64 right now and nice cool breezes are wafting through the house…anad it feels like we’re home in Michigan! I only hope this weather continues and means we’re done with the extreme heat of summer (I don’t actually think this is the case, I just hope it to be true).

Low-carb strikes again!

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I started again today. For real! I’ve been feeling like crap lately, so decided it was time. I feel better already, and it’s only been two meals! 🙂 I just want to lose about 10-15# or so before the cruise (to prepare for all that I’m sure we’ll eat!).

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.

Ray

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We finally got around to watching this tonight and WOW, it was good! I’m so glad Jamie Foxx won the Best Actor Oscar for his performance. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a must. Run out right now and rent it. I promise you will not be disappointed!!

Unbelievable weather!

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For the first time this summer, we have turned off the A/C and opened all the windows! It is still 84 but amazingly only 40% humidity. I never thought I’d say 84 was unbelievable…but it is. It’s so great to have fresh air blowing throughout the house.

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.

Amazing Weather

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Yesterday was the best day we’ve had (weather-wise) in a LOOOOONG time. It was probably 80 at the most, with relatively NO humidity. In the evening, it was actually so cool outside I was chilled. We even opened a window in our bedroom for the night! This morning is amazing as well—it’s barely 70 at 8:30am! I had forgotten what REAL weather was like! We’re not sure how long this is going to continue, but I’ll take as much as I can get!

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.

Has it been four years already?

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It’s our anniversary today…woohoo! Four years. It doesn’t seem that long at all…but on the other hand, it seems like we’ve been together forever (but not in a bad way)! And I vaguely recall saying/thinking the same thing last year and the year before. That’s a good sign in my book!

We didn’t do anything especially special…what with the new house and all. Without going into the whole loooong story, we couldn’t decide on where to go out to eat as usual, so guess what? We ended up getting Chinese—which, if you remember, is what we always end up eating, since that’s what we ate the night of the wedding and what we ended up eating on our 2-year as well. I’d have to dig through my journals, but I’m sure we ate Chinese on year 3, too…so why not just make it a tradition and stay with it?

We can grill!

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Tom messed with the grill again tonight and finally got it working! It’s not pretty and we still need to order some replacement parts (knobs, smokestacks, etc.), but at least we can grill again!!! And most importantly…we don’t have to buy another $600 grill!

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.

Tom’s Surgery

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For those of you who weren’t up-to-date, Tom has had a bump on his wrist for some time now (I think it appeared after he broke his wrist) and it has recently become painful. He went to get it checked out (at my urging, of course, since he doesn’t like to admit to pain) and they said it was a ganglion cyst and should be removed.

So yesterday was the surgery. We had to drive to Wilmington (an hour away) so I had to take the day off. (I was actually looking forward to the waiting time, since I had postponed starting the new Harry Potter book for this occasion.) It was a loooong day for him—he had duty the night before, so he came home at 8 and we left by 8:30. He didn’t have to be there until 10:30, but I wasn’t taking any chances of being late since you never know about traffic or weather (it’s been stormy here lately). So we got there about 10 and after he was prepped for surgery I got called back to sit with him…for an hour and a half (12:30). Such a waste of time, the waiting. There was no need for it. (I guess we were there early in case the doc was ready earlier?) The doctor was’t sure whether the cyst was attached to the bone or nerve (I think) so depending on which it was, they may have had to scope the rest of the wrist. Anyway, he got out of surgery at 2, and I sat with him while he woke up. I never got to talk to the doctor again, so I have no idea what actually happened—where the cyst was connected and/or if they had to scope the wrist. So, either the doctor came out and just talked to Tom (which I doubt) or he forgot to come talk to us at all. And I was too into making sure he ate his crackers and drank his Coke…and forgot all about asking for the doctor!

At one point shortly after, the nurse came over and asked him “So, how’s the pain?” and he said “Not bad.” She asked, on a scale of 1 (no pain) to 10 (extreme pain) what level it was and he said, “Oh….7.” She laughed and said “Seven? Not bad is seven?” I said “He’s a marine.” 🙂 He felt really groggy and sick (said it felt like the worst hangover ever) and easily took the pain meds offered. We tried to leave about 3:30 but he wasn’t too steady on his feet and he turned green (or so they told me—I had gone to get the car) so they hooked him up to get more fluids and I got to read more Harry Potter!

We ended up leaving about 4 and we were both starving (I hadn’t eaten since 7:30 and he hadn’t eaten since midnight the night before) so I asked if he felt okay enough to go sit down and eat somewhere (he was still quite drowsy from the drugs). He said he was, so we stopped at Macaroni Grill. He looked and felt much better after eating a good meal. So good, in fact, that he suggested going to World Market (in the same plaza) to see if they had any islands for our kitchen…and they did, so we ended up buying it. (It’s not the perfect size, but it was close enough and we were able to see it in person, which was what Tom really wanted. We had found a bunch online that we liked, but he was afraid the quality wouldn’t be good.) So he slept on the way home and didn’t want to take any drugs when we got home. He said he didn’t like taking drugs and didn’t want to be foggy…but come this morning, he was taking the pills!

So he’s home from work for (I think) ten days or two weeks. If I remember right, they wanted him to take off some insane amount like 30 days to recoup but he can’t do that. For the next week, he just can’t lift anything heavier than a can of pop, but it hasn’t stopped him from doing stuff around the house already! He put together the island (he assured me he only used one arm to get it into the house) and he’s unpacking boxes!

What a trouper!