I have got to start remembering to take the dogs' collars off before we go to bed. This morning, Yogi woke me up no fewer than 5 times when he moved or scratched or rolled over. And he wouldn't come when I called him. Silly stubborn dog.
So, yes. At a time when I desperately need more than 6 hours, I'm not getting it. Thinking that this weekend may be a lost one, where I watch old episodes of One Tree Hill on the Soap network and don't change out of my jammies until 4:00 in the afternoon. That sounds delightful to me, actually.
The trip deserves a post of its own, and I am waiting for Ashie to send me some pictures and perhaps (GULP!) video of our cross-country adventure.
In house news, basically nothing has changed, but several things have come to my attention that are making me a little anxious.
1) Trim. Eric attempted to put some of the trim back up in the dining room this weekend, and when I called him, he said, "I want to move." Yes, he is a drama-king, but the situation is not ideal. When we had the dining room drywalled, we left our contractor with explicit instructions to build out the drywall so it was level with the old plaster and window casings, simply because we have about a thousand feet of trim to put back up in that room, and making it fit would be a pain in the ass. Well, guess who dropped the ball again. Yes, our ridiculous contractor. How I DESPISE him. Anyway, some of the trim is not fitting, so we're either going to have to get creative and include some new pieces, or we're going to have to scrap the whole project. I vote for the former. Eric, of course, favors the latter. Feh.
2) Electricity. I had the furnace guy out last week after our upstairs furnace stopped working. Normally, I wouldn't care, but the only reason we go upstairs right now (as it is down to studs and rafters) is to take a shower. And it's kind of nice for it not to be 45 degrees when you're taking a shower. So, for $75, he tells me that the furnace is fine, but there's a problem. And that problem may or may not be traceable to our old contractor, though I am of course blaming him because I HATE HIS FACE! Here's the deal. Our upstairs furnace requires 60 amps. The breaker it's hooked to is a 40 amp breaker. No biggie, right? Just change the breaker. Well, yes. The two are hooked up with 30 amp wire, which appears to be snaked through the house with no thought to ease in replacing it. Good lord. Could this get any more ridiculous? My thoughts are no.
3) Security. In our neighborhood, there's a bit of a crime wave happening. We understood this going in--we live downtown, within walking distance from some quite sketchy neighborhoods. However, our street is the safest, it appears, and this is the one time when I don't mind having crazy old lady neighbors, because she's outside all the time, and that is an excellent crime deterrent. We also have a brand new security system with a monitored alarm. I have not yet figured out how to use this. But this is causing a little anxiety on my part, and I am pushing Eric to get the back gate installed so we can have a 100% 6-foot fenced back yard.
We're also looking at some pretty major projects going into this winter. These are not necessarily causing anxiety, just frustration and sometimes despair.
-Bathrooms. Need to get the shower basins installed in both the guest and master baths. We can tile. This has to happen soon. We're also putting up a beadboard wainscotting in the guest bath. This will be relatively easy. And then I will paint the upper wall a beautiful vibrant color.
-Carpet. We were going to wait till we got the ceilings redone to put in new carpet, but I'm not seeing that happening. The carpet we have right now is gross, and is starting to wear on my psyche.
-Attic. Eric, with his infinite enthusiasm for all things man-cave, has destroyed the attic. Serious, we're down to studs and rafters. I believe he's installed the baffles for the vents, but at this point, we have no materials for fixing anything. We're going to do a beadboard ceiling up there, mainly because we hate drywall, and it would be a huge pain to lug all that drywall up 3 flights of stairs. Which we also need to fix... But can't till we get a shower on the second floor.
-Fireplace. I have picked out tile for the fireplace, and now it's just a matter of pricing it out and putting it up. I am very excited about it, as I think it will at least give the impression that one room is at least part way done.
-Paint. I am kind of hating the paint in the kitchen, so I may redo that. I also will paint the guest bedroom.
-Kitchen. This will be the last item on our short list. We've been thinking about it, and it really makes no sense to renovate the kitchen as it's laid out right now. So we're going to move the exterior door into the nook between the kitchen and the dining room, and that will free up SO much space. Eric's been working on a drawing. I'll post it up here when we get closer to K-Day.
In the meantime, we are trying to sock the money away, as well as pay down some credit cards that we opened during our furniture and appliance buying time. I've employed the "one-card-at-a-time" method, where I put everything I can towards the one card with the lowest balance, and then pay minimums on the others. In the last month, I've paid off one full balance, and half of another. My goal is to be 100% credit card free by Christmas of next year.
So, that's my story.
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