JTOK Chatter > Page 409

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.

I can almost golf!

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With all the new house stuff, I forgot to talk about my golf clinic! I decided to go—I figured I had to, since this would be the decision-making event as to whether or not I was going to continue TRYING TO golf or not.

The first day was spent learning basic golf etiquette and safety, how to grip and putt (45 minutes) and how to grip and chip (45 minutes). We learned techniques for each, and ways to practice (little games), and I have to say I wasn’t too bad. I left feeling fairly positive, although I did let the instructors know they’d have their work cut out for them on swinging (I can’t swing to save my soul).

The second day started by me warning the instructors that it would be a miracle if they could successfully teach me to swing—the farthest I ever hit a ball was MAYBE 25 yards (and that was with a wood). They said they hadn’t had anyone they couldn’t teach yet. I said “We’ll see.” First we started with how to handle bad lies and then spent 1:30 on swinging. Man oh man is that HARD! There are SO many things to remember…keep your head down, keep your arm straight, keep your foot planted, swing like you mean it—just in case you actually hit the ball—all at once. But, I found, if you do those things…you’ll hit the ball! The golf pros/instructors were very nice…there were only 10 of us at the clinic and two pros, so you had pretty hands-on help and coaching. However, I wasn’t quiteup to par with everyone else—by the time they were done with their first bucket of balls, I had only managed to hit about four. But, as the instructor said, I WAS HITTING THEM…so he was right—he could teach anyone to swing! I joked that I should have been more specific—I had to be able to swing and consistently hit the ball! I discovered I either whiffed the ball or made a divot 75% of the time…the other 25% I made contact with the ball. So, I’m definitely better than before…but I definitely need practice. Good thing we now live on a golf course!

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!

ARGH! Golf clinic.

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So, if you recall, it had been tentatively rescheduled for August 2-3, but they said they would call ahead of time to make sure you still wanted to attend. So I waited. And waited. And waited. And no call came. So today is the day and I wondered about it, but didn’t call because I’m really busy at work. Tom just called to say it’s on—he called them to check and it’s today and tomorrow and this is the only clinic this year!! He said they called people yesterday (and of course our phone is disconnected)—BUT WHAT THE HELL GOOD IS CALLING THE DAY PRIOR?! That’s not a lot of notice. UGH.

So now I have to decide if I want to take an hour lunch to go home and get a change of clothes and my clubs…or if I just bag it and wait for a clinic next year? I really want to golf, but this timing is for the birds.

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!

Diet & House Updates

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DIET

The diet hit a few snags…the biggest of which is my TOTAL frustration with some of the exercises. Of course, the video demonstration makes it look SOOOO simple, but there are one or two I just cannot do. I have enough trouble trying to breathe correctly while I do them, and one is purely breathing which makes no sense to me.

The second snag is that the food is just soooo bland!! Tom can continue to eat anything (repeatedly) and I am just not cut out for either totally bland or the same meals (egg whites, chicken, rice, fruit) meal after meal after meal, day after day after day.

The third and final snag is that today we sort of fell off the wagon. We innocently decided to “splurge” on sushi for lunch—technically something we can eat (rice and fish), but the splurge came with the salad (lettuce okay, ginger dressing not so much—I forgot to ask for it on the side) and the miso soup. And we ate more than we should have. But still not TOTALLY awful. (And everything was soooooooooooooooooo good!) We decided that if we did that once a week, we could suffer through the rest of the week. (Tom, bless his heart, is trying to make this as easy as possible for me, because he knows I am about THISCLOSE to quitting and going back to low-carb.) So we went home and he took a nap and I watched some TV and we got a phone call about 4:30 saying “Where are you? We thought you were coming!” CRAP! We had the dates wrong—we were missing our friends’ BBQ at their new house (not friends from the neighborhood—friends from back in Virginia when Tom was as OCS). So it was off to Hampstead—a 50-minute drive—where we entered to find chocolate brownies, cheeseburgers, fried mushrooms, cheese and crackers, hot dogs, corn on the cob…basically nothing LEGAL to eat! So we picked at a few things and were in heaven at the TASTES…but ate too much (compared to what we normally eat) and just about got sick.

NEW HOUSE

We close this Friday. We close on our current house Wednesday, so that’s when we (meaning Tom) will start moving boxes into the new garage…so we can hopefully have everything done by Saturday. What am I saying, Hoping? We have to have everything moved out by Saturday at 3pm because that’s when the carpet cleaners come!

We continue to pack. The garage is full of boxes and the guest room is about full. We have packed so much but there’s still so much stuff left! Most of it is big-ticket items like dressers and beds and desks. I can’t fathom us getting it all done, but Tom seems to think we can do it. Of course, it’s supposed to be 98 this week, plus humidity, so it will probably feel like 115. Lovely.

Our first excellent dinner!

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So the food has been ENTIRELY too bland, even with the hopeful addition of Nu-Salt (blech – no salt taste at all). So tonight we tried a recipe from the plan…chili. And man, was it AMAZING, at least compared to what we’ve been eating. Tomatoes (no salt added) for veggies, pinto beans for carbs, and ground turkey for protein. Add some spices, garlic, and onion, and I have a new meal I think I could literally eat every day!!

Body Makeover Update

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Although meals at work went smashingly well, dinner was not enticing at all. AT ALL. Disheartening, if I was to pick a word. Fried potatoes, onions, and mushrooms SOUNDED good, but with no oil, salt, or butter, it was just BLAH (and I came to realize I don’t like fresh mushrooms AT ALL in that context). And the cooked broccoli was even worse—I couldn’t even eat it (granted, it was from frozen and not fresh, but still). It was one of those meals where in a normal world, you would eat, then 30 minutes later you’re prowling for something else to eat because you weren’t satisfied. The best part of the evening was the half of banana I had for my PM snack.

I know we still have more experimenting to do and recipes to try, but suffice it to say that overall I am disappointed thus far. And we’re already through one $14 bag of chicken and we’re only on Day 2. Hoo boy.

I will make it through the first week, then I will be adding SOME salt and SOME oil, otherwise this diet is DONE. I never thought food would be THIS unappetizing without the addition of some seasonings (okay, salt and fat). We have red pepper flakes and lemon juice and garlic powder and cumin and pepper and all that…but THEY’RE NOT SALT. Tom is picking up some salt substitute tonight, so hopefully that will change my perspective.

There is good news, though…I lost 2#. I know it’s mostly water, but still. It’s nice to see 2# less on the scale.

Six week body makeover

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Tom and I are starting a new “diet” today…it’s called the 6 Week Body Makeover (this is the guy who Extreme Makeover uses). Let’s just say it’s going to be interesting. We’re used to low-carb…as much red meat, cheese, butter, bacon, olive oil, etc. as you want. Now we’re switching to NO red meat, NO cheese, NO butter, NO bacon, NO olive oil, and NO salt…but we do get rice, potatoes, and quite a variety of fruit. Hoo boy. The plan is quite regimented, but you’re supposed to lose up to 30# in the six weeks—in addition to reshaping your body (you have a personalized 18-minute workout twice a week). If anything, it can’t hurt us.

Before we ordered it, I read the reviews of it, and of course there were pros and cons. The biggest con (which I already agree with) is that it takes quite a bit of time preparing to eat since you need to eat six small meals a day (breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, snack). And it’s not like oh, grab a chicken breast and a banana for lunch—it’s 2oz of protein (chicken), 1/2 cup of fruit (pineapple), and 1 cup vegetables (green beans)…so everything needs to be premeasured and put in containers. And since we eat three of those meals/snacks at work, we have to have lots of little containers. For both of us. That’s a lot of little containers. (Have I mentioned that’s lots of little containers?) Last night we grilled about 5# of chicken breast, made a huge batch of rice, baked 6 small potatoes, and fried up some bell peppers—just so we can cut out some food prep time for our breakfast and at-work meals.

We were both a little afraid of being hungry. I mean, we’re used to pretty much eating however much we want as long as it’s low-carb but now we’re restricted to very small portions. I estimate that I get the equivalent of a medium- to large- sized chicken breast over the entire day (I think it’s 8oz of protein). That’s quite a difference from having one chicken breast for lunch and one for dinner. I was especially worried about the two measly scrambled egg whites and pineapple I had for breakfast…but come 11:30 I was just starting to get hungry so I ate my snack and probably won’t eat lunch until 1:30 or 2:30, with another snack around 4:30. So…so far, so good. I can’t wait until we’re more comfortable with it and can experiment more. Right now, we’re more concerned with the basics, so it’s chicken three times a day, plain fruit twice a day, the same veggies twice a day, and a cup of rice a day. Boring, but hopefully effective.

The worst part is we have a pantry and freezer full of low-carb stuff we can no longer eat. (That’ll teach me to stock up.)

Wish us luck!

Mmmmmmmm. Chocolate cake!

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So yesterday afternoon, someone was walking around eating a piece of grilled chicken that everyone thought was chocolate cake (trust me, it really did look like chocolate cake from a distance). After that moment, I was CRAVING chocolate cake. Of course I wasn’t going to buy one or make one, but I kept thinking about it. Fast forward to today when I find out someone has a birthday today…and…they requested chocolate cake!! Oh my, was it deeeeelicious!!

It’s really happening!!

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We got the appraisal on our house Monday and unfortunately, it was $2,000 short. This was a HUGE disappointment, since we couldn’t really afford to lower our selling price any—we need every penny in order to pay off my car, which is a contingency of our new loan. We had thought it might come in low—by $500 or $1,000 at the most—so being two grand off really put us in a funk. The problem with the appraisal coming in low is that the sale is a VA loan, and the VA will only loan what the house appraises for!

We discussed our options, but none of them were able to get us in the new house without borrowing money. The good news is we had offers from both my mom and dad to loan us the difference, but I had never borrowed ANY money from either of them up until now, and I didn’t want to start (well, I borrowed an apartment deposit from dad once, but I paid it back within a month). I didn’t sleep much that night, wondering what we were going to do and running through various scenarios. What we kept ending up with was that we didn’t want to give up the sale because (obviously) we still really wanted our new house…and…we also sorta had half the house already packed in boxes! Ironically, had we not just decided to take our honeymoon (and already paid for half of it, with the other half due this month), we could have afforded the difference.

So we went to the selling agent asking if there was ANY way the buyers might pay an extra $1,000 and we’d drop the price $1,000. Since their loan wouldn’t cover it, their extra $1,000 would be out-of-pocket…something probably not easy for a young couple. We also felt guilty even asking since they are already paying ALL the closing costs…and we didn’t want to scare them off and lose the sale. Well, we were lucky…they REALLY wanted the house and eagerly accepted our offer. So, it’s a go. We close on this house on August 10 and will hopefully close on our new house August 12 (we can’t close the same day since we have to wait to get our money, then take it to the bank to pay off the car). We are borrowing the difference from my mom and David (thanks again!). We should be able to store stuff in the garage of the new house before closing, and Tom is certain we can be fully moved in by Saturday morning (13th), so we should officially be in our new house at 108 Birdie Court on Saturday, August 13. ONE MONTH FROM NOW. HOLY SHIT—it’s really happening. 🙂

Caroline is such a cutie!

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We had a neighborly get-together for dinner and as soon as I saw Caroline, I just wanted to eat her up! She was soooo cute in her little denim dress and matching hat!! And as you can see, she is growing like a weed! Just look at us having a grand ol’ time… Well, she is certainly a cutie, but in this picture I look like the devil, what with my red eyes and crazy laugh!

Talk about frustration!

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I’m trying to grow my eyebrows out. EEEEK do I look scary! 😯 It started innocently enough when I had to send in my tweezers to be resharpened and then I thought “Well, I might as well just try to grow them out.” I’ve been wanting to do this for years, but I am TOTALLY ADDICTED to tweezing, so it wasn’t something I really wanted to do. The only problem now is that all the hair isn’t growing back (since I’ve been tweezing for so long). So I may end up just tweezing all the same hair out again. We’ll see. Stay tuned. 🙂

No fireworks for us

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We decided to skip the fireworks tonight. We had actually planned on going (a big deal for us, since Tom doesn’t like them) but then it started raining and we didn’t want to deal with that. So, it was another year without fireworks…maybe next year??

Stupid kittens…or are they?

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So I said to Tom last night, “When we move into the new house, we should lock the cats out of our room so we can sleep better.” I mean, I love nothing better than seeing a cat curled up on our bed, but at night…well, they walk on you and wake you up (those little kitty feet, although small, can really hurt), they start crying and nudging you at 6:30am (weekday or not), and they often fight and/or play with each other at the most inopportune times. And the previous night, I had been rudely awakened by a kitten actually jumping on the bed and landing square on my back—not how you really want to be woken up. So I wanted to try locking them out at the new house—figuring a new place, a new routine. Well, Tom suggested we just try it right then. So we did. (Well, we left Fuzzy in because he was under the bed and he’s usually good for the whole night.) I didn’t have high hopes, because we’d tried it before a few times and they always (ALWAYS) end up crying in the middle of the night. It wakes me up but Tom generally sleeps through it, so he thinks it was successful… But I was game to give it another try.

As always, the first few hours went fine…and then in the middle of the night, you start to hear the whining. And the crying. And then you hear the door handle jiggling (seriously) so you know someone is up on their hind feet trying to get in. AND THEN (and this is the most hilarious of all), you hear them actually running headlong into (INTO!) the door. By this time, Tom and I are both (yes, BOTH!) awake and laughing at our stupid cats trying to get into our room by butting their heads into the door. It’s 2am. So we try to ignore it (very hard for me) and then we hear the ultimate in can’t-sleep-through-it noise: Fuzzy getting ready to puke. If you’ve heard it, it’s UNMISTAKABLE. And then we hear him actually hack something up. Well, now we’ve GOT to get up to find it and clean it so we don’t step in it (having forgotten about it by morning). Well, this means we have to open our door and now, yep, the kittens rush in and Fuzzy rushes out. The kittens curled up on the bed, totally content, and fell right asleep. Tom and I laid awake for probably an hour. After finally falling asleep, Charlie—right on schedule at 6:30am—starts crying and nudging me. ARGH! About that time, Tom got up and chased the cats out so I could sleep in peace awhile longer.

Like I said…new house, new routine. We’re keeping our fingers crossed.

Clearance center, my ass!

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So we were out gallivanting and decided to look at some headboards—mostly for ideas (since headboards are outrageously expensive) but also just in case we saw anything in a decent price range. All furniture places have clearance sections/rooms/areas so we always go there—you never know what you will find. So we went to a new furnture store we’d never been to, looked around, and got REALLY excited because there was a gorgeous headboard set that we loved—but of course it had no price on it. So we had to actually hunt down an employee (exasperating, since at our usual furniture store, there’s always someone within sight that offers help or you can go to for help). We told him we were interested in a piece in the clearance room but it wasn’t priced—and guess what he told us? “Oh, it might be a new piece. That’s where we unload freight.” I looked at him like he had three heads: “So you’re telling me you unpack ALL your NEW items in a room specifically marked CLEARANCE? That’s not very customer-friendly.” He said they didn’t have anywhere else to do it. Of course, the headboard we had noticed was indeed a new piece. We asked him to point out what items were indeed clearance, and there were about four couches in the 14×60 room. Clearance room, my ass. We will never step foot in that store again.

We have an offer!

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Two couples came to look at the house this evening, and we could tell the one couple was absolutely hooked when the girl asked “Would you leave the shower curtain in the master bath? I love the lilacs!” So we weren’t terribly surprised when we got a call from our agent saying they were making an offer and the paperwork would be done in the morning. The best part? It was for the full asking price PLUS all closing costs! (The “no closing costs” had been one of our contingencies—the market is just so hot [especially in our price range] that sellers can pretty much ask for whatever they want.)

Now we just have to hope the house appraises for our full asking price…it’s going to be close, if not VERY close.

Golf Clinic Rescheduled

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It’s too nasty again weather-wise today, so the clinic has been rescheduled for next month. Crap. This means I have another month to wait without playing—or another month to teach myself bad habits! But, on the plus side, it’s sooooo damn hot and muggy lately that I wouldn’t really want to be outside anyway.