Time Is a-FLYin'

It's like I blinked and all of a sudden it's friggin October! Where HAS the time gone?!

So it's like I don't even know what I have and haven't told you guys. I guess I'll have to read back a few posts and then ponder on what all has happened that isn't included.

BUT until then... this is what I'll leave you with:

Studly got his official orders from the US Air Force - medical retirement it is! He's already on permissive/terminal leave and has been offered a GrrrrEAT job from an amazing company. He'll kind've be doing what he HAS been doing, but they'll also be training him with a new skill set to make it a bit different... hopefully more exciting for him.

We've decided that we're done here... in this house, that is. We'll be fixing up the kitchen, the one real thing we have left to do, and then putting the finishing touches on the rest of the house. Oddly enough, we're not relatively sure what we'll be doing once we reach that point. You see - with the market the way that it is, anything could happen. We'd love to sell it, but that would only work if we got at least what we paid for it originally, thanks to closing costs, listing fees, etc. Then there's always the option to rent our place out and get some good tenants to help pay the mortgage, but then we're worried we wouldn't be able to rent the place for what we currently pay monthly.

Either way, we'll be needing a new home. Since Studly just got his new job, we'll definitely be staying in the area. However, whether or not we rent a place or buy a new home will depend on which way we go with the current home. *sigh So many choices... so many possibilities. Whichever we end up choosing, there's a new wish list that will be forming. Aren't you excited?!

I've decided that I'll be chronicling the process here - with you guys. AND... that means that I'll actually be BLOGGING again! WOO! ha ha

**Crazy Neighbor Update** We went to court about the dog poop issue. (See? It even sounds ridiculous in a blog... how sad is that?!) They decided to postpone 3 months. It was actually for our benefit, but it's still silly. They wanted to be sure the outcome would include the judge saying "This is nuts. Drop it. Don't waste my time." It was actually kind've funny having the prosecuting attorney and Health Department giving us advice outside of the court room. ha ha... They just asked us to take pictures each time we clean up the back yard. So at least twice a week. We'll have TONS of photos come 7 December, but if it'll end this, then so be it. And I'm sure planning to move because of all this will certainly help our case. So stressed and harassed that we can't live peacefully in our own home. Sounds like a case to me, but who knows. I just hope the judge is a dog-lover. :-D

And while we're talking about crazy neighbors, I should tell you that I had another encounter... with the redneck, that is. She's a whack-job. Not that I doubted this fact before, but good GRACIOUS she just nailed it in a few more times. *sheesh

Other than that, i think I'm kind've out of some ideas, right now. Not to mention it's like quarter to midnight and I'm struggling to keep my eyes open as it is. GOSH I'm getting old!

Anywho - that'll update you for now. I know there's PLENTY more, but it'll come in due time. Until then, remember that even though I'm not making new blog posts a priority, I'm still all over y'alls. Seriously, though... and I LOVE it! You guys are the best.

Well, Toodles for now, my Sweets! I'm signing out.

Much love!!

The Plan: Laundry Nook

I mentioned before that we're planning to renovate the Laundry Nook downstairs. I worked with my sister, April, to create a mood board, and I'm super excited about it!

We'll start with the layout of the laundry/mudroom area:

That's a basic idea of the layout of our laundry room (just imagine a window in that door - it leads to the outside). While looking at this (we'll call it a rough before picture), imagine ugly green marble-ish vinyl tile, and really old dated appliances. Now add a few cob-webs (we avoid this space if at all possible) and some yellowing on the ceiling and door. That should do it!

Moving on.

Remember how I mentioned that my sister helped make a mood-board for me? Well, I tend to enjoy drawing things out for dramatic effect, but I think I've done that enough for one day... or have I?

Okay okay, without further ado - here she is!

(If you click the pictures, you should be able to see them enlarged.)

Isn't this exciting?! I can't WAIT for the finished product. Should only be a few weeks (depending on availability and free time, that is).

Alright - that's enough excitement for one day. I would LOVE to hear what you all think of the plans (and I'm sure April wouldn't mind hearing what you think of her awesome mood board).

PS: If you have any advice or recommendations, BRING 'EM ON!!

Yet Another Renovation

McStudly and I are expecting our tax return any day, now. Actually, it'll be deposited on the 12th, according to the e-mail we received after we e-filed.

(Sidenote: Have I ever mentioned how much I enjoy doing our taxes? No, I'm being serious. I really, thoroughly enjoy it! Okay... I know I sound crazy, right now. Movingrightalong...)

Well, this year we're planning to finally renovate the laundry area downstairs. Can I hear a "woot woot"?! Yeah, it's pretty exciting...

When we bought the house, we figured the laundry area would eventually need to be updated, but it was pretty low on the list. Even though it came with the original washer and dryer, they still worked. That was over a year ago. Not long after we moved in, we realized that it took running the dryer about 1.5 times to really get things dry. Now that we've lived here for a while, we're up to running it 2.5, sometimes 3 times just to dry the laundry. And on top of that, we can't really wash a whole lot of clothes at one time - these aren't exactly high capacity appliances, ya see.

Along with old, dated appliances, we have this really crappy vinyl tile on the floor. By really crappy, I mean poorly installed, and horribly selected (obviously not in that order). It's this really gross green (again with the green... this woman was nuts for it!) and half of the tiles don't even stick anymore. It's just... not cool.

So here's what we're hoping to get done, down there:

1 - Appliances: New Washer/Dryer set. We were originally planning to go with a regular top-load washer and electric dryer, since we're not huge front-loader fans. However, the more we thought about it, the more we realized we'll need as much additional storage and work space as we can, down there. So now, the plan is to probably go with front-loaders (more info on that, later).

2 - Walls: There's this gross geometrical-style border just above the baseboards that needs to be removed. Then, we'll clean and paint the walls - probably the same color (by Valspar, Eddie Bauer's "Wicker") as the rest of the living room, to give the house a flow.

3 - Flooring: That old non-sticky vinyl tile has to go. So we've been researching a few options that will stand up to the high traffic and use of the laundry room (it's also the only passage to our backyard, so we're always taking Austin out through that space). Right now we're between regular tile (which wouldn't be easy to keep cleaned in that space), vinyl hardwood planks (looks just like hardwood, and water resistant, but not a "selling" feature), and really anything else is still a possibility. But we also need to replace the carpet on the stairs, so we're actually planning to put in some outdoor carpet (to stand up to the mud our dog sneaks in with occasionally) in a dark-ish color (to help hide the dirt Austin seems to track in with each trip outside).

4 - Railing: The stair railing that is going down those stairs is... eh... not good. It's wood at the top, and partially painted white near the bottom. And now it's gotten worn down from when Austin was little and we tried keeping him down there instead of in his crate (it didn't work out, since he chewed on the railing and tried to pull up the stair carpet!). So we originally thought about refinishing that railing, but have since nixxed (is that a word?) that. We'll be replacing it with a new railing that will eventually match the railing upstairs (when we get around to replacing that one).

5 - Door: The downstairs door does it's job... but that's about it. It's yellowed (thanks to our chain-smoking previous owner) and isn't the prettiest. So we're going to try maybe painting it and hanging blinds in front of the window (but secretly, I'm not above just replacing the thing!).

6 - Heater: We have a baseboard heater downstairs, and it makes me nervous. It's old (though it does still work) and it's an ugly brown/tan color. Ideally, I want to replace it, but I'm not sure if we can. And honestly, I'm not sure that we could find anything safer to put in it's place. Baseboard heaters in general make me nervous, so getting another one probably won't make me feel any better, but I'm wondering if we can get one that at least won't be such an eye sore and will look a lot better when we go to sell in a few years.

7 - Storage: We have NONE! Unless you count putting stuff on top of the dryer, there's no where to put anything. This may seem like it would have a simple solution, but unfortunately it's not that simple. On the left wall is a set of three water valves that need to be easily accessible. In a perfect world, we could hang a shelving/cabinet unit and cut a hole to fit the valves inside... we have a fuse box on the right side. So we can't just cut a hole for something like that (obviously) and definitely can't make it hard to access. And hanging something just to the left would look awkward (take my word for it), so that's not really an option, either. So we basically have one solid option: shelves. I'm good with this option. I am. BUT (you knew there'd be a "but", didn't you?!) just hanging shelves means that you'll have to look at those water valves and fuse box, also. I'm pretty sure they'll stick out even more once the walls have been painted, too, so we're researching a few options for covering those bad boys up.

Anywho - that's the plan, for now. It's a big one, but it's still doable (that's what she said). Hopefully in a month or two, we'll have some after pictures to show you all (not without some good before shots, that is). In the meantime, my sister is helping me put a mood board together (and by "helping", I mean I'm giving her the info, and she's making it... just to clarify), so look for that in the next few days. Hopefully, having this info and the mood board will convince McStudly that my plan is awesome and my genius shouldn't be doubted.

...a girl can dream, can't she?!

Blurred Vision

Between training class, homework, painting, visiting family, and just pure exhaustion I have been quite the blog slacker.

My bad!

I don't ever mean to slack off this much, but one day turns into 3, which becomes 5 and then before I know it, it's been a week and a half with no blogging!! Holy goodness!

This week, McStudly and I vowed to do absolutely nothing beyond what was absolutely necessary. Needless to say, we've only been doing dishes in the Puhl household. We worked so stinking hard the last couple of weeks that we are pooped! So this week has been relaxing, catching up on our backlog of tv shows (our poor DVR was at 96%, which I didn't think was possible), eating yummy meals at home again (after eating out so much due to our rush), and just enjoying each other's company.

It's been so nice. It's already Thursday and I am SO glad we've spent most of the week relaxing. We didn't get everything done that we wanted to before his mom got into town, but we were close! I know I'll be forgetting something, but here's a quick version of what we did in just 2 weeks:

- prime everything

- paint living room

- paint kitchen

- paint spare bedroom

- catch up on laundry that's WAY overdue

- new faceplates on all outlets and switches (except in the master bedroom)

- fresh paint on window sills and doorways in the kitchen and living room

- switch up a bit of the decor for fall (and to go with the new orange wall)

- dust EVERYthing (also long overdue)

- vacuum everywhere

- BIG bathroom clean downstairs

- TOTAL bathroom wipe-down upstairs (again - long overdue, but our toilet is kept clean, I'm not that gross!)

- dressers de-cluttered

- kitchen table de-cluttered (it collected quite the random mix while we were getting all of this work down around the house)

And, as is with any Puhl House remodelling project, we ran into a few setbacks along the way (thankfully, there was no need to call the Home Owners Insurance this time around):

- primer was spilled on the carpet (have I mentioned how clumsy I am?!). We had to stop everything we were doing to clean that junk up... scrub. Rent a rug doctor from the local grocery store (thank goodness someone had thought of that) and steam the rest of that mess outta there. Luckily, we acted fast and furious and you can't tell ANYthing was spilled, now - SCORE!

- Austin, our McPup, was spending one of our paint days over at my parents' house with Luke, their Labrador, frolicking through the backyard care free. Well, apparently something either bit him or somehow infected him, because he came home with a bump on his side. We checked him for ticks, and found nothing. Then, a week later, the hair feel off on that spot. Eek! Then it seemed like it was getting a little bigger. I took him to the vets immediately and they thought it may be something as simple as ringworm and gave me some ointment to put on his boo boo twice daily. It seems to be helping a little, and I think the hair is finally starting to grow back, BUT the samples they took turned out negative for ringworm. Who knows what it was! He never really reacted to us touching it or anything, but I'm glad he's finally getting better. My poor little puppy!

- I bought some white touch-up paint for the ceiling and trim and such. Well, I didn't pay a ton of attention and accidentally bought sating finish, instead of flat. Needless to say, the ceiling now has a few shiny spots. It's a little weird, but it's only temporary. I finally bought some flat paint and we'll be fixing that oopsie pretty soon. Nice, huh?!

- I bought the wrong size blinds for our windows. :-( My bad. Luckily Lowes is awesome and I just returned them for the right ones, but it was still a bummer, for sure!

- We didn't even think to check for the studs in the wall when putting up the curtain rods. Let's just say it ended up not happening, and we now have 4 new holes to patch and paint over. Awesome, right? yeah... we didn't think so either. And we're way tired of our nosy neighbor looking into our house through our deck door. Creeper!!

We still have a little bit of work to do, like painting the trim and window sills in the spare bedroom, and replacing all of the outlets and switches (we ended up just putting the faceplates on the old ugly ones to save time last week). And the blinds and curtains need to be hung, too, so we'll have to get that taken care of sometime, too, I guess.

Basically, a TON has been done, but there'e still a lot left to do. I will leave you, today with pictures of our yucky old green kitchen. It looks like green threw up in there because it was EVERYwhere! Way too much green, and not the nice pretty green, either. Check it:

Lou... Lou... Skip To My Lou

No really... Skip is in the bathroom right now... as I type.


Who's Skip?


He's the head of that painting company that we had issues with. He come to the house today and saw everything. Apoligized profusely for the mary-j "cologne" and vowed he doesn't put up with that stuff. In fact, while speaking to McStudly on the phone earlier this week, his reaction was somewhere around "So I wanted to talk to you about what happened before I terminated someone." Whoooaaa there Bessie! They really DID take it seriously! And that's a good thing, too.

Anyways, he took a look around. Talked to us frankly. Said he was personally going to get the paint up and off of anything and everything he could.

THEN, in a typical Extreme-Home-Makeover-"this-is-what-we-wanted-to-do-for-you" kind of tone, he said "And" ...waitforit... "I'm gonna paint your bathroom for you."


McStudly: "That's really not necessary"

Oh, but I want to do that for you guys, because I'm so sorry for all of this."

McS: "No, we appreciate it, but we actually just painted it ourselves, so it really doesn't need to be painted."

Oh... [awkward silence] well, let's go take a look at it.


Poor guy. He was trying to be so nice. ha ha... anyways, he went up and looked around and decided that he would paint our ceiling for us, which worked out perfectly. We needed to paint it anyways, so... wah-lah!

Anywho, he said he was going to touch up other things, too, and even once the carpet and everything was installed, he wanted us to give him a call and he would come touch up anything else that they may have messed up, or whatever.


Fantastic.


He said he could get the paint off the furniture, since it was latex (good to know!), and then he'd even "run some pledge over it for ya." Uh... thanks?!

It is all VERY dusty, don't get me wrong. We have a sub-floor that's called "gyp-crete". It's a mix of this stuff called gypsum, which is similar to drywall, and concrete... and it SUCKS!! I mean - it muffles sound really well and it does it's sub-floorey job, but it kicks up this AWFUL dust!


I tried sweeping it, and the dust is SO fine that I could hardly sweep it all up and it just kicked up everywhere. When I finished sweeping, there was even MORE dust on every single flat surface... AND the sweeping itself had created more dust from the floor.


Who MAKES this stuff?!


Anywho, our allergies have been SHOT lately (like we need help with that in this area... HA!) and no matter how often I wipe down countertops and shelves and tvs and bookcases, etc., the dust returns in... waitforit... about 10 minutes.

No lie.



Have I mentioned that I'm SOOOO ready for all of this to be done? Yeah. I thought I might've.




Well, that's where we are now. And the best part? The tilers and carpetters are going to come while we're on vacation next week. SCORE!! So we'll get to come home to our "complete" house!! I mean, we'll need to clean up more dust, I'm sure, but that'll be the LAST TIME we have to deal with all that cruddiness! HOORAY!!!



We are SOOO excited! :-D Eeek!!!




Oh yeah... and that's when you get PICTURES!!! :-) Now I know you guys are excited! :-P

Naa-Nee Naa-Nee Boo Boo

So I tattled on the painters today.

They were subcontracted out by the main contractors we were working with so I called them - the main contractors, that is. And he was NONE too pleased with what he heard.


I kind've felt bad at first because it sounded like I was a little 7-year-old tattling. But I got over that in a hot second and spilled the beans, man. Oh - and he really liked the part about someone smelling like Marijuana. That's for sure!

Anywho, they said they'd take care of everything. So there you have it. I'm not paying for it, but if I was, I'm sure they'd be doing even more. We've had SUCH a great experience with this company, I didn't doubt that they'd take care of everything right away. And I was right - they're being awesome about it.


As for the subcontractors... I'm not so sure that they'll be called again, but... I guess I have to say that's not my problem.



I'll be honest. I was FURIOUS! Still am pretty ticked at the shoddy job they did in our home. I mean- I wouldn't come to THEIR homes and do a craptastic job. Right?! We LIVE here! This is our HOME, for crying out loud... it's not like it's some ego-run company (not that even that would excuse it). But I did have a split-second of hesitation when I considered that someone could lost their job because of this.

I don't know - call me a push-over, but that does worry me. With the economy the way that it is, I'd hate to be the cause that yet another person is out of work. But at the same time, does no one take pride in their work? I mean... I didn't tell you to become a painter. Heck - if I'd have ever seen you paint like this, I probably would've suggested that you NOT become a painter. But... get another job if you don't like it. Ya know?


Anywho - hopefully no one loses their job, but learns a good lesson. These are people's homes. You don't screw around with people's homes!



...I guess I'm done. I just wanted to let you know that I did talk to the company. And once they've fixed everything, we'll let you know how it goes.


Toodles!

Uh Oh Bunny!

I'm glad I didn't write this post yesterday. Why? Because yesterday, I was INFURIATED!!





... and that's putting it mildly...





You know how there are times when you get upset and it almost seems like you're yelling at someone that's not even the problem? Like, you're talking to your husband about what happened practically knocking him over because you're SO worked up over it, but it's not even his fault?



Poor McStudly.



That's how I was on the phone with him yesterday as he was filling me in...







As many of you know, we've been having a teeny (ha!) bit of work done around the house, lately, due to "The Incident". Well, said work around the house, though stressful at times (meaning like 95% of the time, but who's counting?!) has been slowly progressing.



Yesterday morning, the painters arrived. It was finally starting to feel like things were getting done! We picked out this grey-beige color for the Master Bedroom, a color called "biscuit" for the hallway/stairway, and a color for the living room that they aren't actually painting... bu we got a little carried away. *bats eyelashes*



It was FINALLY happening! That BLUE (not "blue"... "BLUE!") color on our bedroom walls was finally going to be g-o-n-e, and those awful, sorry-excuse-for-a-patch-job spots weer going to disappear under our fresh coat. Gone forever!





Alas, things are never so simple.





I talk to McStudly around Noon-ish, and he informs me that me much anticipated bedroom color looks like a lavender purple color instead. *sigh* But maybe it'll go away aw it dries... our bathroom color looked pink while we were painting, but now hasn't the tiniest hint of pink in it. So I remained hopeful.



On my way to Physical Therapy, I talk to him again. He was now returning how where the painters were gone for the day.





Lord help us all... I wish I had pictures.







DISCLAIMER: I am well aware of the fact that some of this may sound petty. It's stuff that's very easy for me to get over, and, in fact, and not nearly as tiffed about today as I was yesterday. But the fact of the matter is that these people are professionals. They do this stuff for a living. They were subcontracted out to paint, and so you'd think they would do a good, professional job of that, right? So this is where the majority of my frustration comes in, and some things may seem a bit forgivable. But for someone who's lived in a pathetic mess of a house for almost a month... I am ready for this to be over, and I anticipate those involved to do a thorough job!







McStudly arrives home to find trash left on our floor. No... not typical "we just painted your house" trash - I mean they left their candy bar wrappers and lunch trash ON OUR FLOOR! Yeah... that's just super professional, now, isn't it?



It gets better. And I'll even say it slowly for you, so you can really get the full effect.





There. Is. Paint. On. Our. Hardwood. Kitchen. Floor!!





There were spots of paint in at LEAST 10 places on the floor. I stopped counting then, because that's when I found paint on our STAINLESS STEEL trashcan. You know - one of those $130 ones that you buy at Bed Bath & Beyond so that your insanely curious dog can't get it open?



Yeah. That one.



FYI - the ONLY thing they even PAINTED downstairs was the ceiling. It's not like they had to maneuver around all of this furniture or anything...



Oh yeah. All of our furniture was left in a pile on TOP of each other in the middle of the living room floor. No, that's okay. We don't LIVE here, or anything. We can just sit right on TOP of our PAINTING!





So let's take a walk upstairs, shall we?



*this one is my fault*



My bedroom color is purple. There's no getting around it. It looks like it's about to be turned into a friggin' baby girl's nursery!! Oy that sucks. So McStudly and I will be painting our Cathedral bedroom ourselves, this time...





... this is where we continue even more...



There's no clean line. I mean, you know that clean line you expect from professional painters? Where there's a clean distinction between wall and ceiling? Or, heck, wall and baseboard? Yeah. Not there. It's on the ceiling, the baseboards... it's very... umm... purple in there.





But don't worry, they painted the top half of our LIGHT SWITCH to match it!



That pretty nice little touch-pad that can turn the fan up and down, as well as dimming the light? Yeah... they got friggin' paint on that too... and the electrical sockets. So don't worry - it may be purple, but at LEAST it's coordinated?!?!





And it's a freaking good thing we're getting new carpet, cause there's paint on the floor up there, too... in several places.





My favorite part? You ready for it?



You remember that brand new bedroom furniture that we bought just a few months back? Yeah. You guessed it - paint on the edge of the headboard and along the mirror on the dresser (at least it appears they were nice enough to at least attempt to wipe it off for us).





How thoughtful. *blank stare*





And... there's paint splattered on the glass of one of the bedroom windows.







I'm just so irritated!!!





So this morning, one of the guys returned to finish the job - you know, paint the hallway, etc. We didn't say anything to him - because he was kind've strange. OH... I TOTALLY forgot to mention what happened with him the first day. But let's just say that my dog apparently could moonlight as a drug dog, cause this dude WAY smelled he just smoked a doobie, and Austin did NOT appreciate that (nor did I!). But what can you say to someone like that? I'm not all that intimidating in person. Over the phone I can hash it out with the best of them, but when they look at me, I lose all momentum.



Anywho - he returned this morning to finish the job (minus the mary-j cologne, this time). But we discovered why my bedroom may look purple -





He started painting the hallway... MINUS PRIMER! He never primed it! Remember how dark my blue walls were? No WONDER it looks purple. youfrigginidiots





Needless to say, the minute he walks out of my house today (McStudly's supposed to call me) I will be calling the company that subcontracted to them.







UNACCEPTABLE!!





So go ahead. Let me have it. I know some of that was completely ridiculous, but the camel can only hold so much straw - eventually... even the lightest littlest feather can break it.





And I'm pretty sure I had a LOT of feather weighing that puppy down!





*******



So I need advice - what would you do? what would you have done during the painting? What should I have done differently, or what should I say when I call the main contractors?

Friday... FINALLY!

So it's about TIME that Friday got here. And it's GORGEOUS outside! Seriously! I did NOT want to walk into this drabby building I work in, this morning. I wanted to stay home, get some work done in and outside of our house. And just BASK in the awesome-ness of the weather.


*Sigh


Maybe I'll leave early. I already have cabin fever and it's ONLY 11 o'clock!!

This is nuts. Am I the ONLY one stuck at work while the weather is amazing? We've had rain for like... as long as I can remember (I am no elephant, folks) and now we have this amazingly gorgeous day and I can't enjoy it! Ugh.


We also have Game Night with Oasis tonight - that's where our Young Adult group at church gets together with the Senior Adults group and we have a game night. They cook, we provide the fun.

Now, don't get me wrong... I love old people... but have you SEEN how gorgeous it is outside?! I mean seriously folks. I'm trying to find an excuse to get out of it.


McStudly and I had plans, last night, to go up to Target and Lowes and get some stuff done. The plan was:

Lowes': Check out and decide on the new vanity for our bathroom. Peruse vanity-top options and begin the decision process on those as well. Pick out color ideas for the bedroom, since the fixer-uppers are painting that for us, as well. Buy new vent covers for the floor-vents in the bedroom.

Target: Stock up on all things organizational. We need cubbies. baskets. storage bins. shoe racks. DVD holders (like the ones we fell in love with at Bed Bath & Beyond). Pick out and buy new curtains, and curtain rods, if they have some nice ones (maybe at Lowes'?). Check out the bathing suits.

And if we had time, we were going to go by Bed, Bath & Beyond.


None of that happened.


Long story short, I'm irritated with someone in particular (just to be clear, it's not McStudly... it's someone else), and our entire night was shot. Not ONE thing we planned was executed like it was supposed to be. All because there's this one person that....

Nevermind. I'll leave it alone.


BUT it took forever to get that done, so then we didn't have the time OR the energy to be able to get ANYthing done that we NEEDed to get done. We're pretty busy a lot of the time, so when we finally get a night to ourselves and can get "stuff" done, it's SO nice to be able to do that! But nooo... not last night!! Noo... of course not!


Sorry. I'm done now. ...I think... But seriously, does that ever happen to you? You have this perfectly awesome night of relaxing while getting some things done that need to be done around the house, and then because of insufficient planning on someone else's part it gets totally shot? Am I the ONLY one that gets all irritated and worked up over that?

I know it seems silly, but I was SOOO glad we finally had a night to do this stuff. Ugh!!




ANYwho - My cabin fever is kicking into overdrive. I'm going to go see if I can get someone to go get lunch with me. If I go alone, I'll take forever, and then find a reason not to come back. And we don't want that to happen, now do we?!



OH YEAH

I almost forgot - McStudly and I finally bought tickets to go see his family. We got a STEAL of a deal on plane tickets. Long story short, we're flying from where we live, ALLLL the way to where they live for a GRAN total of $320. Umm, that's how much it was per PERSON last time we flew. And FYI, it's about an 18+ hour drive to get there from here. So you can imagine it's a good flight.

I'm SO looking forward to seeing them again. I'm going to have a sit down with McStudly and explain to him the importance of taking LOTS of pictures this time that we're there. I hardly have ANY good pictures with and of his family. I need to correct that. I need them on my walls, too, right?!

Anywho - we're both pretty excited!




Still to come on the blog: An update on the house. What's been done, what's going to be done soon, and all the extra stuff that we had NO idea they were going to do for us!!


Stay tuned!

Slackie McSlackerpants

I know... I know. I've been super busy!



The Grandparents' Visit:



They're gone, now, but it was SO great to have them in town. McStudly and I felt horrible that the house was such an awful mess while they were here, but we still had a good time with them. I took off work early a few of the afternoons so that we could spend some time together and it was lovely!



We went to downtown Annapolis and got some yummy Ice Cream. Walked around the docks and just relaxed in the beautiful weather. We also took Grandma out to dinner for her birthday on Tuesday. Happy birthday!!



McStudly was able to spend a lot of quality one-on-two time with them (haha) and it was really good for him to be able to catch up as much as they did. They'll be back in the area in a few more weeks for the results of the testing that brought them into town in the first place, and hopefully by then we'll have a nice put-together house for them to stay in. At least that's what we're aiming for! :-)





The House:



Speaking of the house, it's still in the same condition that it was last week. Carpet chunks missing. A walkway of bathroom rungs along the floors And I still can't walk around without shoes on, for fear of hurting my tootsies. No fun! But we at least have the companies lined up to do the work. One of them has already completed their estimate and are waiting to hear back from the insurance company to get to work, and the other should be coming out to make an estimate sometime this week, we believe.



Keep praying for us - having the house the way it is has proven quite stressful, and allows for Austin to constantly be getting into things. Ugh!! Hopefully this will all be over soon, and we'll be better off than we were before "the incident". ;-)





Youth Convention:



The trip to Virginia with the church's youth group proved to be quite an adventure. You get that big of a group of hormonal little humans together and there's bound to be some kind of drama. All in all, though, it was a lot of fun. I got to know some of the students a little better and think I built a little more of a relationship with them...



And a few of the girls seemed to really enjoy getting to meet "Bon Qui Qui". (my version of the Bon Qui Qui from that old MADtv skit. If you haven't seen Bon Qui Qui and King Burger, then you definitely need to check it out: "Esscuze me?! Don't you see dat I'm havin a convuhsation? Don't innarupt. Rude!" Oh... good times).



I have to admit, though - during the concert on Saturday, by The Afters, they did a little mini-Beyonce. No really. They started going "Alllll the single ladies..." and yes... they did it. And it's been stuck in my head ever since!!



The kids especially liked how I knew the little dance she did. I don't think they expected that. "Sarah, you are not white!" (I think that was supposed to be a compliment? Any other thoughts?!) We were laughing... and I was just a dancin' fool. It was good times, though. When you're sleep deprived and surrounded by teenagers, you tend to do some crazy things, that's for sure!!



We all got back in one piece, and there wasn't too too much drama to speak of. Thank the LORD!







Anything/Everything else:



Not much else is going on. The NFL draft is over, and Dallas drafted a WR from Oklahoma. That's the perfect mix of our favorite teams. Cowboys and Sooners... what a combination! :-)







And I almost forgot!!! A little over a year ago, My Dog Ate My Phone. No really... I'm not even kidding you. It was ruined. It was my favorite phone ever!! I got the original EnV before it was cool. AND it was orange. I LOVED that phone!! For real, man! But after the dog ate it, since I didn't have insurance on it (I know... I know: ALWAYS buy insurance!), we couldn't afford to pay full retail price for any of the Verizon phones (do you know how inSANEly expensive they are at full retail price. It's riDONKulous!). So I bought my Pap Bear's old Pocket PC (which I hated, btw) and used that until McStudly got a new phone. Then I used Mcstudly's old phone...



...until YESTERDAY!!!!!



I FINALLY got a new phone! And I LOVE my new Blackberry Storm. It really is awesome. I never tend to pay $200 (thanks to my two-year agreement) on a cell phone, but after going a year and a half with old hand-me-down phones, and not liking ANY of them, McStudly and I both thought that I had earned it.



We thought that we could do the whole "Buy-one, Get-one-Free" deal that they were having and get him a new phone as well, since he's not crazy about his Dare, but there's a catch (if course) to that deal. You have to either be adding a new line, or have both phones up for an upgrade. Since neither of those applied to us, my McStud will have to stick to his only one-year-old phone for another year until it's his turn.



But for now, here she is:

Meet Hally. (As in Berry - as in Blackberry... see? I'm pretty creative, I am I am.)

Isn't she pretty? I LOVE it! So far I have yet to figure out how, but I am also allowed to put songs onto my phone from my computer.. and don't worry, I DEFinitely bought insurance on this lil' lady. I am SO not playing that again! That'll save some money on not having to download ring tones, eh? :-)

And it really is neat how the screen clicks. *sigh* Yay for Verizon's two-year renewal agreements!! Soon I'll be purchasing a little silicone case-age for her as well. Probably pink. Of course... cause Pink, like Berry? I know... I'm awesome. :-P

Well, that about updates you on most things. How are things with you guys? I'm trying my best to catch up with everyones' blogs. I can't believe I went so long without reading/writing anything.

How did I EVER manage?

Making Some Progress

Not much, but some progress has been made on the bathroom project.



The walls have been completely rid of wallpaper, and as much residue as we can muster has been scraped off the walls, as well. We've washed, spackled, sanded, and are now ready to prime the walls.



That means: We're SO CLOSE!!





We did make an executive decision and decided to replace the toilet altogether. That thing was just NASTAY!!! The majority of the nastiness was NOT from us. There's not way we could have accomplished that much in the 6 short months we've lived in this house. And seeing as how the toilet has probably been there since the house was built, it was just time.





So we pulled out the old toilet, and took it to the landfill about 15 minutes away (thank the LORD we have an SUV!). We took the long windy drive up the "landfill mountain", dropped that sucker off, then wound our way back down to normalsville for a trip to Lowe's.



We seriously spent about 45 minutes debating on which toilet to buy. And I must say - the one that said "Able to flush an entire bucket of golf balls" was just SCREAMING for me to call it's bluff. But alas, we decided on a nice new throne and loaded it up for the trip home. It's not sitting in it's box on the middle of our bathroom floor, waiting for us to finish painting, etc. I just wish we could do everything now... not just painting. It would be SOO nice to tile and replace the molding now, too, but one step at a time, right?



*sigh*





We'll get there. But this will be a VERY nice change, that's for sure!! A new toilet, a nice paint job, a new light, and a new mirror... I'm pretty sure it'll chance the look of the room drastically, and that's what we're looking forward to, for now. At least his grandparents, when they come to visit, will have a decent bathroom instead of the poor excuse for one we've had thus far.





So there you have it. We've made as much progress as we could make before priming and painting. so hopefully, it's all downhill from here. Wish us luck!! I'll take and post a few pictures soon. I'll try to get some mid-way pics and then some after pics... then eventually you'll see it through the whole process. But right now, I can't find the pictures.


:-(









Seriously, though... you'll get to see just how fabulous that wallpaper job really was. Trust me - you'll see why we were so eager to fix it.


Toodles for now!

I'm Tired and Bored

For real. I've been dealing with people all day that have reminded me that "common sense" is none too common. And it's exhausting.


I just wish I was at home priming my bathroom walls. It's all I really want to do. Is that so much to ask?

I'll be sure to post pictures when the bathroom is complete, but it'll be a pretty long time before that happens. We're just trying to get it to "semi-complete" status before McStudly's grandparents get here in a few weeks. So far so good.

We've accomplished the following since Saturday:
- remove all wallpaper
- remove almost all remaining wallpaper adhesive (thanks to the tip to try using fabric softener diluted in water - works like a charm when combined with a little elbow grease!)
- sand walls where needed
- patch/spackle nail holes and any other places as necessary
- take down ugly huge-mongous mirror
- remove medicine cabinet
- take out ugly bathroom light that's been with the house probably since it was built (ick!)



What's left to do before his grandparents get here? Well, let's see:
- prime
- paint
- hang pretty new light
- replace old mirror with new one
- replace medicine cabinet
- purchase and set up shelving
- temporarily take out toilet and replace wax ring
- remove all wallpaper and adhesive from behind the toilet, prime, and paint
- put toilet back and set in place with new bolts and bolt covers (my dog tried to eat the old ones)
- buy new bathroom rugs
- buy a few candles, etc, to put on shelves

- buy and hang a hand towel holder

- buy and hang a toilet paper holder

- buy and hang a "regular" towel holder

And what else we'll do in the long run:
- re-tile the bathroom floor and replace quarter-rounding
- eventually (probably) re-tile the shower walls
- replace vanity with a darker wood colored double-vanity (which will require plumbing changes, etc, to include a new second sink and new faucets, etc)
- possibly replace bathtub with a nice new soaking tub
- replace all molding around doors and floors


I think that's it for the bathroom. We've got a long way to go, but not too much work to do before it's at least looking at lot better than it was. I'll post before and after pictures when we get to the "okay" point, and then pictures when it's completed later down the road when it's... well... completed. Ha!



Anywho, I should probably go find something else to do... something OTHER than blogging since I've been randomly doing so more than I should've already today. What about you - any remodelling plans or ideas coming up?