Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Tuesday--the last day of January

Can you believe it--another month has gone by already?? It seems like only a week or so ago was Christmas and the new year, not 30 days ago. Where does time seems to go? Tomorrow is February--and here, the temperature feels like March into April, and we haven't seen a drop of rain in over 100 days. With my luck a spring deluge right when they open our existing roof to build the addition. If that happens--you all will hear about it! :)

Other excitement for the week, not really anything. Just hanging on and waiting for the weekend.

Monday, January 23, 2006

It's over

After several weeks, and one really maddening week of real work-9 hours, work at (or on) home--5 hours--the appraisal is over. OK--so you ever get the feeling of being let down. There has to be more to an appraisal then... "I'm going to take some pictures, measure the house, and then I will be done." I need some praise..."Your house looks great...love the colors...something." I would even take "...like the flowers." But nothing. All I got was, "this house is completely square", as he was measuring my back patio. OK--yes that's right we live in a completely square box.

Either way, the house looked super. Especially with clean carpets. C and I started a trend to take off our outside shoes at the door, and put on slippers "that you can only wear in the house" on. Hoping that trend continues.

Other positive things that came out of this appraisal...
  • De-cluttered my house. Threw out, gave away, or disposed of absolutely everything that we haven't used in at least six months, not to mention years.
  • Organized my house. Yes, that's right. Put everything where it belonged, or created new bins, etc. if it didn't really have a home.
  • It's manageable--now I just have to keep the house up. As both C and I work things get way out of hand at times. If I just take 15 minutes in the evening, and clean something, anything, I am hoping everything won't get so out of control.

I should now go around the house and take the "before" pictures. That way, once the construction starts and finishes over the next six months, I can remember a completely clean and happy home. Post the pictures up here over the next week or so.

Sunday, January 22, 2006

Sunday and all is good


Its Sunday, and all is good. The house is completely put together for the appraisal tomorrow. So everyone keep your fingers crossed that we only have to do this once, and we can get all the things constructed all at one time. I went to Trader Joe's today, and these flowers just screamed out at me, "Buy me, Buy me, and I will make you happy." A quote from Ali..."these flowers make me happy." They are bright, but there colors are very, very rich. I tried a couple different settings on my camera to try and capture the vivid yellow and rich oranges. Hope you get the idea. Thought I would share...Have a great week.

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

One final thing...

Love the fact that I have so much ribbon...but one final nail in the proverbial coffin for the Tuesday...towels that I hunted for all over the city and finally found on the internet were delivered last night by a hot UPS man. These towels are perfect for my bathroom--I have the hand towels, but I wanted bath ones too. Found them on the internet--ordered, and then they showed up last night--so happy, and a great ending to a horrible day. Try again. Opened the package, and the tag said the exact towel that I ordered, should have guessed because of my day...but they weren't the towels I thought I ordered. The picture on the internet didn't match the towels I received. That figures, and now they go back, and for this pleasure I owe $6.95.

Today was much better though...

Yesterday

Don't you ever have one of those days when you tell the world to stop, so you can catch up? I had many balls in the air, and many of them came crashing to the ground yesterday. So, let's summarize:

  • Monday night, 8:30 pm, appraiser for the refinance called and wanted to show up at my house the next day. The answer: No, let's try for next Tuesday.
  • Next morning, 10AM, loan processor calls, for some additional info. I tell her about the late phone call, and idiot appraiser. Her response, is how rude, but you do need your home appraised by the 23rd (the absolute latest) because we need ten business days to complete, otherwise you owe more money, and your rate can't be locked in. So what is with this 30-day lock in rate when I have to have everything completed within 15 days? Panic mode sets in because my house is in no condition to be appraised--that appraiser would be laughing, " you want that much for this dump?"
  • 11AM, husband calls, claiming he has a deathly illness and will die by sunset. Men...why can't they just suck it up? I threw up for four hours on Saturday night from some mysterious illness, and the next morning I ran all my weekly errands and housework. Love my husband, hate the helpless person he turns into when he doesn't feel well. There goes any chance of slave labor for the day.
  • 2pm, boss says, the $2.6 million project I have been madly trying to finish over the last week, needs to be completed because the $30 million project needs attention. Not to mention, another co-worker promised a set of documents for this project with a VERY unrealistic deadline to the client, and she didn't consult me on the timeframe--I was playing hookie that day, but that is besides the point-- I am the one that will complete the docs--and she can't help me.
  • 4:55pm, one of my subconsultants on the $2.6 million project has now gone MIA. He is the one holding me up, and I can't get a hold of anyone in his office of 20 people, and that's not for a lack of trying. Didn't anyone realize that 4:55pm is still 5 minutes away from 5pm, and the receptionist should still be answering the phone?? Hello??

So, to summarize my day--it just sucked. So to finish off the day, I spent the next five hours at home scrubbing walls, fixing little dings (so they can be painted today), and threw out five garbage bags of crap. My motto last night: haven't picked it up in six months--then it gets thrown out--don't even look back, and don't second guess yourself.

I ended up organizing my scrap room last night as well--and who knew I had so much ribbon?

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Days like this...

My mantra for the day is the serenity prayer...please let this day end...

More later...

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Buddy


Well, this weekend was going to start off wonderfully. C and I were going to get up and get this house together to be appraised. We need to have the house completely put together, so our refinance and expansion plans can proceed with at least no financial hiccups. That was until Saturday morning at 7:15 am. I fed the cats as usual, but when I went back into the house, and back to bed to lay down for another half a hour, I was brought back to awake by my oldest cat crying outside. I thought that was strange, so I got up and went back outside to see him crying in pain. I inspected his back leg and notice a huge gash in his skin on his back leg by his tail. To make a long story short, C found an emergency vet, and I quickly bundled Buddy into the cat carrier and off we went. A half an hour later, the vet told me that Buddy has had this wound for several days and it was severely infected. He didn't think that he could save his tail, not to mention his life. Buddy was almost twenty years old, and I had to make the decision to put him down. I hate those decisions. So, if you ever met Buddy, he was just a friendly cat that just wanted some attention whenever you were around. He was happy just following you around the yard, and sitting in the shade watching you do your yard work. We adopted him two years ago, and he walked into our little family, and he will be greatly missed.

Friday, January 06, 2006

TGIF!

This week is the best and worst of all weeks. The holidays are over--insert small cheer here because the "family time" is over with, but the week at work after the holidays, to put it in one word--sucks. Time drags slower than molasses, and yet you work on so many things to catch up but you can't stand sitting at your desk more than 10 minutes at a time. Go figure.

On the house front, C and I finally started on the road to refinancing. We are totally excited, but have lots of work to do on the house to make it presentable to the appraiser. UGH. Forgot about that part. So its cleaning and minor fixes for us for the next couple of weekends. Once that is over with we can sign the papers for the remodelling to begin. YEA!! Keep you posted on that one.

Other than that, have a great weekend. Gotta get back to work and finish the hour or so.

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Back at Work again...

I have survived the Christmas at my brother's house. Actually, it was fun. The kids were great, and our gift to my nephew went great! All we heard for the remainder of the visit was: "Uncle C, Uncle C will you be my train engineer and build me another track?" He is such a cutie. Promise to upload a picture or two when I have a chance this week.

I can't believe another year has passed. It was twelve years ago since I graduated college--can you believe that? It feels like yesterday in some ways, and in others literally 12 years ago. My life has changed so much in those years, and for the better. I have a wonderful husband, and a kick-ass job or a job that kicks my ass (depending on the day), three wonderful pets, and a house that is planned to go under some major overhaul in the spring. There is only one thing missing--and I don't know if that will ever happen--so I will be happy with what I have.