No pictures tonight...

Because Pixie ate the camera cord. I accidentally left it on the couch, and in the 10 minutes time it took for Eric to drop me off at work and get home, she completely severed the cord in two. Her teeth are like little razors. We think we have another cord somewhere, but it's in the guestroom, which at this point is the whole room equivalent of a junk drawer. That's this weekend's project. Along with getting Yogi groomed, because not only is he hot and panty all the time (BAD BREATH!), he's just plain hairy. I said we should get him buzzed, but Eric's leaning towards just a nice trim. I say, with any boy haircut, you're going to look weird for a week or so till it grows out. In the meantime, Yogi will be cooler and we'll be dealing with less hair. 

Speaking of haircuts, Eric finally got one. It was getting to be VERY big. His hair doesn't really lay down at all. It stands up straight out all over his head. So when it gets long, it just makes his head look like Frankenstein. But he's looking very handsome, if Calamine-y, over there on the loveseat right now. Unfortunately, he has not yet shaved, so the niceness on the top of his head is negated by the Grizzly Adams thing he's got going on all over his face. I swear, I told him one time that I thought he looked handsome with just a little scruff, and boy, did he take me seriously. 

Tonight, I finished painting my office, and we scrubbed the floor of the master bathroom, which was also victim to the idiot drywallers' decision to not use a dropcloth. Thankfully, plaster is a lot easier to get up off of slate than it is to get off 100+ year old wood. The floor is still pretty yuck, but much better than it was. It takes about 15 passes with the mop to get it fully clean after the scrubbing is done. Down the road, we're going to seal it with some "wet-look" stuff, which makes the colors in the slate come out much more dramatically, and will hopefully make the dust and dirt not burrow down into the crevices of the tile, like it does now. 

Supposed to get some big storms tonight, which should be interesting. We'll see how the kids react to their first big thunderstorm. Gah, I hope they're cool with it. I'm so tired. 

Eric vs. The Great Outdoors

My poor little Eric. He has discovered the three leaves of poison ivy in the backyard, and apparently, wiped them all over his arms, part of his leg, and his cheek. This is the SECOND time he's done something like this. The first time was worse, and I'm not going to tell you how much worse. 

Anyway, he's been itching like a doggie with fleas, and thankfully, we packed the Calamine lotion. Here are his arms tonight.

Meanwhile, I've become dinner for every skeeter in Marion County. Case in point, I got bit three times on my left wrist and once on my calf just while we were out walking the dogs. Speaking of whom, we've got Pix up here on the couch with us, because she's so little--we lose her very easily in this big house. She's a riot to watch fall asleep, because she can't control her face. She nods her head and her eyes droop. Her hair also gets messed up really easy, so when she wakes up from her naps, she definitely rocks the bedhead for a while. Yogi, on the other hand, is just right size for our house. He's so big. He did the lean-in this afternoon and almost knocked me off my chair. He also discovered the joy of hunting squirrels this afternoon during his walk. And I think this is really funny (because I walk with Pixie)--Yogi likes to poop early in his walk, which means Eric has to bag it and walk with it for a while until we find a garbage can. Ha! It's so undignified. I just try not to walk downwind. 

House news: Fridge is FINALLY in the kitchen! And it looks great (though it's deeper than what we had originally thought, so it's not going to fit where we want to put it in our final kitchen design... of course). The old fridge is in the dining room still, but our contractor is coming to take it away tomorrow. The stove is also in the kitchen, but we can't use it yet because it takes a 4-prong outlet and of course, we don't have one. CRAP! There's a line down in the basement, and we could run that up, but we're having an electric guy come tomorrow. He'll be able to do it in about 15 minutes, where it would take us four hours and we'd probably burn the house down. 

Also painted my office tonight, same shade of green as the half bath. The pups tried to join me a couple times. 

Paws + green paint = Disaster 

It's vibrant, for sure, but I figure once I get my bookshelves painted white (they're red right now), and all my books unpacked, it'll look great, I think. Gah, I hope. I'm tired of painting. And we only have about 80% of the house to go... 

Lost weekend...

Clearly, with the arrival of the kids, we did little to no home improvement this weekend. Well, I did wax the floor of the foyer, which has made watching little Pixie play with her ball that much more entertaining. 

This week, we're planning on getting some loose ends tied up--painting my office, priming the master and upstairs bathrooms, washing the floor in the hallway, and maybe knocking some of the nails out of the old trim so we can think about getting it back up on the wall. 

Here are some additional pictures of Yogi and Pixie:

Mom and Dad, I'd like to introduce your grandchildren...

We have puppies!!!!!!

This morning, Eric mentioned going up to PetSmart to check out the adoption drive. I didn't think we'd get a dog, let alone two. But we did! I'd like to introduce:

Yogi! Yogi is a Bernese Mt. Dog mix, and he's excellent on a leash. He's a bit shy, and hates cameras. He's got a lot of fur. He's a special guy--5 years old, and he's been shuttled around a bit. His family gave him up just last week, so we're sure he's missing them. He'll be right as rain just as soon as he figures out how much we love him already. 

Pixie! Pixie's original name was Sunny, but Sunny has a special place my heart. Pixie is just as good. She is a Border Collie mix, and is not so good on a leash, but she has the sweetest little face, and is very rambunctious. She's four months old. She's sleeping on Eric's feet right now. 

Very exciting day for the Glover-Matsons... All four of us!

Haley vs. Washer/Dryer

It's not an adversarial relationship. YET. We're about halfway through a load of towels, and nothing has gone wrong. YET. I don't trust this thing as far as I can throw it. 

It's a lovely night, following a very lovely day. It was cool and sunny outside, and just wonderful. Of course, I was working, so I only got to enjoy it for a couple minutes when I joined a colleague for lunch. Eric and I went for a walk around the neighborhood when we got home, after he put the smackdown on LOTS of pizza. Poor guy--he was hungry. He had a busy day today. He finished up the kitchen (yes, three coats of paint--tomorrow he's going to move in the fridge and stove), another coat on the dining room, and he also moved a bunch of stuff upstairs. Yea for Eric. 

We're just chilling out with a movie tonight. Good times. 

Paint. Everywhere.

Seriously, I feel like I'm drowning in paint. I dream it. I'm sure I've eaten it.  I find it on odd places of my body where there should never, ever be paint. 

Disclaimer--Eric and I went out for a "Haley-starts-work-tomorrow" dinner at a great place called Deano's Vino down in Fountain Square (Indy-sters, check it out), and I had a couple glasses of wine. Sigh...

Anyway, back to the paint. That has truly dominated our lives the last couple days. We're probably ahead of ourselves with all this painting--there are a TON of other, MUCH MUCH more important things that we could be doing with our time and limited resources. But I think both of us feel that by having a color of our choosing on the wall, we're making this place our home. Neither of us are feeling that yet. I'm not, anyway. I still feel like I'm on vacation (the worst vacation of my life...). Hence, paint. Just as soon as Eric puts a THIRD coat on the kitchen, we'll be able to move the fridge out of the foyer, as well as the oven. That will go a long way in freeing up some space, as well as getting rid of the ridiculous situation of having your fridge and oven in the foyer. 

Here's what we've done so far: 

Downstairs halfbath--All walls are done. We just need to sand and repaint the trim... Speaking of which, the glossy white enamel for said trim had an unfortunate accident this afternoon on the front porch, when I was using it to paint a tall cabinet we liberated from upstairs. Let's just say that half a quart of glossy white enamel goes a long way in making a mess on a concrete porch. I managed to scoop most of it up with the paintbrush, and then scrubbed like crazy on the rest. The result: that spot on the porch looks better than the rest of the porch. Go figure. 

Kitchen/transitional space between kitchen and halfbath: Like I said, Eric's putting another coat on, which I don't think is necessary, but it will eat him up inside till he does it. Eric and I are very different people. He's what I like to call "anal retentive" about stuff like painting, cleaning, and lots of other stuff, while I am what I like to call "laid back." This may or may not translate into "attentive to detail" and "sloppy", but I digress... I'm very pleased with this color. It's wicked bright, but looks lovely in the morning light (east-facing window), and it's going to look fantastic with our black appliances and dark trim. Hooray!

Dining room: I'm still on the fence about this one. Obviously, this picture was taken late in the day, after many hours of grueling labor on my part (which explains the grossness I'm displaying here). I'm much hotter than this, normally. Anyway, the color is darker than what I'm accustomed to, and is very VERY orange. However, I think once we get another coat on, and we get all of the trim that is currently on the floor of the dining room up on the walls, I'll feel better about it. 

So, in other news, I start work tomorrow. I'm very excited about it, but very much missing my pals at the Mass DHE--I surely hope that the people I'll start working with tomorrow are even half as lovely and professional as the ones I left in Boston (sob). Seriously, I cried like crazy when I left, embarrassing not only myself, but everyone else in the office. I walked home the back way from work, even, so I wouldn't run into anyone until my face de-puffed. 

Going to watch some episodes of 30 Rock right now. I'm hoping that tonight is less eventful than last night--we had a thunderstorm to end all thunderstorms. In all my life, I have never EVER seen lightning like that. Wild. 

No more sombreros...

The bisque and La Fonda Sombrero are OUT, and Buttery Apricot is IN. I had a revelation this morning when I thought about how I would feel, psychologically, walking into an orange kitchen. It seemed, at least in my imagination, that I would feel a little bit like I was in a circus. So, we went with a somewhat vibrant, deep yellow. It was a little manic going on the walls, but it's mellowing out during dry-time. The bathroom is very, very green. Less sage-y than I was going for...

This is all very new to me--I'm a member of the school of "eggshell is wild" painting. We branched out a bit in Boston, when we did an accent wall. This was brick, and about halfway through we vowed to never ever try to paint brick again. Anyway, I'm sure it's going to be great. All I want is to put my dishes away. We had cereal tonight for dinner, and the only bowls we had out were our little ones. Listen--we painted for more than 6 hours today. We needed BIG bowls of cereal. So I went on a little treasure hunt and dug up some of our nesting bowls. SWEET. That was a lot of Golden Grahams, but I'm feeling satisfied. 

We had a busy day today, besides the painting. This morning, we ventured down to the City/County Building and filed our mortgage and homestead exemptions, as well as an appeal for our assessed property value to be the amount we paid for the house, instead of dramatically higher. We visited the Historic Preservation Association, where we found out some more information about the house (namely, that the soffits and gutters needed fixing in 1992... Hummm... Guess whoever did that work didn't do a very good job!). Then we went to Lowes for the 5th time this week and picked up the paint, and then up to Bed, Bath and Beyond to get some window coverings. We finally moved into the master bedroom, so I taped up a sheet and a curtain. Of course, it fell down last night, so I awoke this morning to sunlight and a clear view of the street. And a clear view from the street into the house. No wonder our neighbors are being so friendly!

Our camera is out of batteries, and I have no idea where to find the ones we packed, nor the energy or inclination to go over to the drugstore. Thus, pictures tomorrow....

Busy Day

We were painting fools today. Luckily, we were joined by two enthusiastic members of Eric's family, and they were such a big help. 

So, here's what's new around the house:

New furniture. Whoo! It's so nice to have somewhere to sit. 

Primed walls in the dining room, half bath and kitchen. UGH. I hate priming. I keep thinking that if only there was a color, it would be better. Anyway, it's done and I'm terribly pleased. 

New washer and dryer installed! YEA!!! Eric and Matt, his cousin,

worked for a portion of the afternoon installing the W/D. Here's the story. In our guest bath on the second floor, there was a tub. We ripped out the tub, built a shower stall (which has yet to be even remotely addressed), and kept a space for the stackable unit. We also had the water and electric put in at that location. OF COURSE, the contractor put in ONE plug, not two. We only told them like fourteen times that we were going to be putting washer AND dryer in that space, and that we were going to stack them, not buy a stacked unit because those are too deep for the space. Anyway, Eric's cousin went to college for "electronics" which he told me while assuring me that he and Eric could definitely put in a

nother socket for the dryer. Um, it's not the same thing. However, it looks like a real plug, so I'm optimistic. We've decided to wait till tomorrow to try to run it, because if things go wrong, there will be people working who can come and fix it. 

Paint colors... Here's a poll for you. On the left, we have La 

Fonda Copper, which we're using in the dining room. On the far right, we have Cottagehouse Green, which we're using in the half bath. Two in-between colors are Tomato Bisque (left) and La Fonda Sombrero (right). One of these will be our kitchen color. The Sombrero color is a little oranger than it looks in the picture, and the Tomato is a little less yellow, but you get the gist. We're leaning towards the Sombrero, perhaps using some of the Tomato as accent. I'd love your opinions. We just want something bright and cheery and that will look nice with our dark trim and black appliances. 

Boy-o, it rained like the dickens this afternoon, making our pitiful gutters and no downspouts that much more obvious. It did cool things off significantly, though. 

We're back!

Ahhh, sweet internet... How I love thee... 

Seriously, we've been totally out of the loop in every which way for the last 5 days or so, and while I haven't missed the television at all, I have SO missed being online. But all that is over--we're all up and running. I'm pleased. 

And I'm pleased to be here. It's been a totally rough week. And I was being serious as I can be about never moving ourselves again. That was one of the more unpleasant activities I've ever done. Between renting the truck, gas, and hotel, it was probably more expensive than just hiring someone to do it anyway. Feh. Thankfully we were able to get a couple of our workers to help us unload the truck. What took us more than 3 hours to do ourselves took these guys (and us) less than 45 minutes. Of course, most of our crap is still sitting in boxes in the foyer (along with the fridge... more on that later...). 

Thus far, our experience has been dominated by several things:

• Manual Labor 
• Dust
  
• Being Hot
  
• Not being able to find anything
  
• Sleeping Poorly
  

and

• Being really REALLY glad we're here
  

Manual Labor

I just want to take this opportunity to say THANK YOU to our drywallers, who treated our 108-year old hardwood floors with such care. You are masters of your craft.

NOT!  UGH!!!!! I've never been so pissed (okay, yes I have, many times, but I was really wicked angry). We got here the day after the drywallers left. Our original contractor had run out of time (we only told him three dozen times that we were arriving on the 15th--of course, he thought we were coming on the 29th... Yet again confirming that he doesn't listen to a word I say...). Anyway, since he couldn't finish in time and he knew we would be pardon-my-french ripshit if it wasn't done by the time we got here, he hired another crew to finish. They did a fantastic job on the walls, but neglected to PUT DOWN A DROPCLOTH.  Anywhere. We got new drywall in at least 1/3 of the House. That is a lot of floor to be covered with plaster. Anyway, yes. This situation has required me to get down and scrub away like crazy. It's vexing.  I'm smiling in the picture to the left, but I wasn't happy. 

Dust

Aforementioned drywall work has created more dust than I ever anticipated. You can lay something down and pick it up 5 minutes later, and there's a layer of dust on it. I keep wondering why everything looks so hazy. Um, it's because my glasses are covered in drywall dust. Eric has gone all Shop-Vac crazy. 

Being Hot

For some reason, my memories of Indianapolis don't include the times I must've spent sweating my butt off just sitting around. I know they had to have happened, but they're blocked. Seriously, it's crazy hot here. It's a more pleasant hot than in Boston, simply because there are no piles of garbage or dumpsters nearby, but I have a feeling we're in for a rough summer. My plans of bringing walking-everywhere back to Indy have just flown out the window. 

Not Being Able to Find Anything

We have a Brita Water jug that I would really like to use, and I know it's somewhere within 20 feet of where I sit right now, but I have no IDEA which box it's in. Note to self: next time you move, label the boxes. I kept thinking to myself, as I was packing, "Oh, that box has a green marker on it. You'll remember that it has all of your silverware in it. After all, you'll unpack that box in 4 days...." HAHAHA! The silverware, of course, was one of the first things we needed, and I opened all of our boxes looking for it--did I remember the green mark? Of course not. And of course, it was in the last box I had to open. Sigh. 

Sleeping Poorly

There are a lot of birds here. And they are early risers. 

Being Really Glad We're Here

Here's a picture of our street, and one of Eric sitting on the front porch. We've been taking all our meals out there (mainly because it's cleaner than inside, and because everywher

e else in here is just chaos), and people wave as they walk by. So pleasant. My aunt and uncle 

dropped by a nice table and chairs set, and some herbs--SO nice. Despite the fact that we've been living on sandwiches and cereal since we got

 here, I've enjoyed fresh basil daily. Which is nice. 

Tonight, I do believe we're going to buy a new washer/dryer (thanks, Mom and Dad!), as well as some paint. We've got some relatives, aka slave labor, over for some painting tomorrow. More to come...

Haley

NEVER AGAIN!!!

Seriously, I'm still excited about the move, but next time, we will hire people to move all our crap for us. We're both beaten and bruised, dirty, and dog tired. Thankfully, though, we found a nice hotel room in Rochester, and a nice soft bed never felt so good. 

I don't have much energy to be witty, but I wanted to share a couple photos from the last couple days. These aren't terribly interesting. I will be back later with more as events unfold. 

Our cute little overpriced apartment, post-move. I never noticed those weird spots on the wall till now. Good thing. 

On the left: Eric's shirt, post-move. Yes, it rained, but no, that is not rain on his shirt. 

On the right: Eric's shirts, pre-move. This man could clothe a hundred people with his button-down collection. 

For my mom

My mom left a comment on the previous post, asking why in the world a picture of Carl from Caddyshack...

I recognize now that not everyone in the world has memorized Caddyshack. So, mom, here goes.

Carl is explaining how he once caddied for the Dalai Lama on a golf course in the Himalayas. He's holding a pitchfork.
"Big hitter, the Lama..."
"The flowing robes, the grace, bald... striking."

And he says to his friend,
"So, we finish the eighteenth and he's going to stiff me. And I say 'Hey, Lama, how about a little something, you know, for the effort.' And he says, 'There won't be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness.'"

And then Carl says, "So, I've got that going for me. Which is nice."

Obscure, I know. But perhaps it's time we spend an afternoon watching this together. There's a Caddyshack reference for many many situations.

One of those nights...

I can't sleep. It's 1:00 in the morning, and Eric went to bed at 9:15. I joined him at 10:30, tossed and turned for an hour, and I've been out here on the couch ever since, chilling in front of the A/C and wishing that the tiredness I feel deep in my bones would just travel up to my brain, which won't stop thinking about things like budgets, the move, new jobs, etc. Sigh. 

We'll see how long I last. Work is really going to stink tomorrow. 

So, we're selling a dresser on Craigslist, mainly because it's heavy and we don't want to carry it during the move. Kid claims it right away, and then shows up tonight to pick it up with a Dodge Intrepid. Yes, a sedan. He borrowed a tape measure and was thinking he could stuff it in the back seat. Not without tearing his door off, he couldn't. So he reneged. This dresser is a beast. Joey and Jayson tried to take it the other day, until we determined that it's too heavy to carry up 3 flights of stairs. I also got a request for someone to buy it if we deliver. Yeah, it's not fitting in the Golf. 

So, it's sitting in the hallway right now. I'm hoping that some muscleman with a pickup wants it. That would be great. 

In House news, we've determined through numerous conversations with our contractor that we're nearing the end of this first phase of home improvements. Here's what we've done:

• Plumbing - 100% fixed. We found nine leaks in the pipes. NINE. Stupid bank--even I know that you're supposed to flush the water out of the pipes...
  
• Wiring - 200 amp service restored to the house. Don't ask me how a 2700 sq. foot house was being serviced by 100 amps... 
  
• Wiring - All faulty/poorly installed wiring replaced. 
  
• New water heater
  
• AC Units moved and rehooked, and coils replaced. It's apparently working very well, and the workers really like coming to our house. 
  
• New venting for upstairs bathrooms. No joke, original vent in guest bathroom was being done through a piece of duct that was taped to a section of downspout (yes, downspout) and vented into the wall. At least they used duct tape. 
• Roughly 3 tons of drywall, plaster and blown insulation (GROSS!!!!!!) removed, along with a tub and a shower stall
  
• Exterior walls in half the house insulated 
  
• All drywall replaced
  
• Damaged drywall skimmed and mudded
  
• New shower stalls framed out
  
• 2 new windows
  
• New fence along the back of the House. Necessary. Alley is totally creepy. 
  
• New appliances for the kitchen
  
• Trim salvaged and replaced
  
• W/D hookup installed

Phase 2 will include:

• Interior paint
  
• Exterior paint (see below. We're going with the brown and green)
  
• New gutters and downspouts
  
• Rebuilding/tiling master bath and guest bath showers
• Fence around entire backyard, for our doggies
  
• Deck off the back door
• Sand, repaint the fence in the front yard
• Refinish floors
• New carpeting

Yes. And that, quite frankly, barely scrapes the surface. We don't have a kitchen or a garage! Daunting. 

But it could be worse. I've joined up with this network of people on www.houseblogs.com, and there's a guy who writes a blog about this old Queen Anne that they salvaged in rural Arkansas. They call it The Devil Queen. It's a riot to read, and the author should get a book deal out of it or something: www.thedevilqueen.blogspot.com. It definitely makes my little lists seem pretty easy. While I'm daunted, I do love our house and I'm confident that we're making the right move. It's not perfect right now, but it's not a Devil Queen. 

So, I've got that going for me. Which is nice. 

Chaos

Ridiculous. Here is just a glimpse into what was once our cute little apartment...