Lowe's owns my soul

Can I just say again how much I love my new house? Not just the house, but the whole neighborhood.

Saturday morning, as Jim and I were emptying out the storage units, a neighbor from down the street came over and introduced himself and his oldest daughter. He handed me a list of all the other neighbor's addresses and phone numbers. He welcomed us to the block and said that if we need anything, to just give a call.

Yesterday the neighbor girl next door came over and offered her babysitting services. I could have hugged her.

We met the guy across the street too. He's thinking about selling, but when he saw that we had two little girls (his daughters are close in age to mine), he said they would probably stay. Then he invited us over for a drink after we got all moved in.

I know we bought the right house.

We spent most of the weekend painting with the help of some good friends and a little pizza and beer.












Girls' rooms (I've decided these rooms need a white wood trim at the top, next the ceiling):


Painting the window and floor trim white next weekend:



Kitchen demo. Suck it, Ty Pennington:



When we took the cabinets down next to the sink, we found this on the wall. Dave Brown sounds like a man defeated:


This Saturday I'm going to tackle painting the second coat on the light stuff in the living room, painting the master bedroom and prepping the kitchen walls for its pretty new color.

In other news of the worst case scenario kind....

Our buyers might be hitting the road.

The home inspector came Friday and suggested that at some point the wiring on the second floor be rewired. They freaked out, and asked that we have it done.

After consulting with an electrician friend of mine, I promptly opened a beer and fought back tears. What they are asking us to do, in the two weeks before the planned closing mind you, is to have done what could cost over $2000. It's not going to happen.

We offered them a little cash towards fixing it, but I have the feeling they aren't going to go for it. We are screwed, big time.

My realtor is supposed to call today to tell me what they said, but I'm not going to get my hopes up. It looks like we'll be putting that motherfucking for sale sign back into the yard.

On the bright side, we'll be living at the new house in a week, so I won't have to worry about keeping the old house clean. Also, that was the only problem the home inspector found with the house. Everything else is piddly stuff that is easy to fix.

On the not-so-bright side, we very well might have two house payments in the not too distant future.

Whiny, tear-laden posts to follow shortly.

This New House

My washer and dryer came yesterday (and so did I when I saw them!). I haven't been this tingly in my girl bits since I bought the Dyson.

Dryer goodness:


Washer love:



I've pretty much mapped out what colors are going in each room, and hopefully I can get all the painting done this weekend. The bedrooms aren't very big, and I think the prep work will be the biggest time suck of the project.

Master bedroom will have a muted aqua blue/brown color scheme. It's a seafoam-ish green now. The mirrored closet doors will, much to my husband's dismay, be replaced with trifold doors:



Mina's room is tan right now, but will be a pale pastel pink:



Audrey's room is a gorgeous blue, but I wanted to 'girl it up' a bit. It will be a light lavender:



The living room is an ATROCIOUS burgundy red--just cave like and wrong for the size of the space. I'm thinking of going against type and doing three walls in a creamy tan-like color, with an accent wall of chocolate brown opposite the fireplace (the girls are in the pictures to show scale, naturally):




The upstairs bathroom needs a whole gut and remodel. It's not that anythings broken. I just changed my mind about liking the wood plank walls. The tile is way 80's, and not in a good way. We're going to do white subway tile up the walls and white floor tile, maybe relocate the tub closer to the window and replace the vanity with two pedestal sinks. I'm thinking citrus orange for an accent color. Before we can rip apart the bathroom though, we have to put a shower in the downstairs half bath. Either that, or not mind hosing off in the backyard.:





Then, there's the kitchen. I wish I got a close up of the cool back splash tile. It's this swirly pattern of blues and some green--very fun. Not that I didn't know that this was our perfect house already, but to add to the serendipitous nature of this whole thing, one of my very best friends has the EXACT SAME tile in her bathroom! Crazy.
The row of cabinets over the peninsula there is coming out this weekend as are a small cabinet over the fridge. I think I'm going to go with a blue-tinted white for the kitchen walls, and maybe light/weathered looking white laminate on the floor.:




I'm going to be working my ass off this weekend, but at least this sweat equity is for our benefit as opposed to all the shit we put into our current house to sell it.

I got to meet our neighbor on the other side yesterday. A sweet elderly fellow who can't hear very well (probably a good thing considering how loud my family is).

He came over to let me know I left some lights on outside the night before. I thought he was complaining at first, but then he said he didn't want me "wasting any electricity". Unlike most people, I don't mind nosy neighbors. I AM a nosy neighbor. I see it as a kind of neighborhood watch thing. So long as he keeps his mouth shut about the goat sacrificing and midnight orgies, we'll get along fine.

I have yet to take my dogs over there. I should do that today so the boy dog can properly 'mark' every last blade of grass and the girl dog can run into the sliding glass door (her eyesight is not so great).

Work in progress photos coming this weekend!

Home Sweet Home

The closing went well yesterday, much more quickly than I remember our first one going.

Afterwards, we went straight over to the new house to meet up with the friends that were watching our kids to spare them the boredom of watching their parents sign their name 87,000 times. Another couple friends came over with their kids and we ordered pizza and drank a few beers. I suppose that was our first "dinner party". It was wonderful.



We all wandered around the empty house discussing furniture arrangement, paint colors and future remodeling projects. I can't wait to get my hands dirty making all the ideas a reality.



We also got to meet one set of neighbors--three of them from the house next door. Jim went over to borrow a phone book and met the matriarch of the family. When we were leaving, the daughter and granddaughter were outside and I chatted with them for a few minutes.

They seemed really friendly and "mellow"--real earthy type people. I'm not a big fan of hippies, but I'm not going to make any judgement calls here (yet). They offered us a free tree for our front yard! How nice is that?

It's so much quieter in the new neighborhood. No Harley's rumbling down the street, no fire trucks screeching by at all hours, and no bass-thumping asshats rattling our windows.

The backyard is heaven (but in need of some serious landscaping help--as is the front yard. All in good time). I've always wanted a home that I could have gatherings at comfortably, and now I do. I'm so so happy.









The batteries on my camera died pretty soon after we got there, so this is just a little taste of the obnoxious amount of 'before and after photos' I am going to share. Brace yourself.

Move in day approacheth and other weird shit

We close on our new house today!

I called the movers yesterday to set up a time to get the big stuff over there Monday, the 18th. I bought my new washer and dryer on Saturday--decided to go with the LG front loaders--on sale plus 0% financing did the trick. I bought our dining room table (well, really "eat in kitchen" table) and chairs on Sunday. Those were half off at Target--hooray!

All the utilities have been called, the cable/broadband guy is coming on Friday as are the storage unit people. I have a busy weekend of unloading ahead of me. In a way I don't even want to stupid units back (save for some photos and books). It's pretty interesting how much stuff we have done without since January. I plan on having a garage sale before the end of the summer.

And then there is all the painting I am facing. I actually enjoy painting. I didn't when we first bought our current house, and it showed. For some reason, in the last 6 1/2 years my painting skills improved and the fresh coat we through on there over the New Year's Eve holiday looks 100% better than the first.

I have to get the living room and all three bedrooms painted before the movers bring all of our shit over there. The kitchen, bathroom and basement can wait for another day.

We're also having the front of the house landscaped. There is a grading issue right up next to the house, and needs to be taken care of. Luckily we have a friend who happens to be a landscaper and will do it for a lot less than having to hire a bunch of strangers.

Oh, and I have to have some minor surgery on the 22nd.

I won't go into minute detail about what is up, but let's just say there are some unwelcome guests hanging out in my uterus and they are aren't things that will eventually be asking me to fill their sippy cups 87,000 times a day.

It's not the most convenient time for this to go down, but what can ya' do? The best part of all of this is I get to channel Jerri Blank every time I tell someone about it, "I have to go get my uterus scraped." Classic.

Don't worry. I'll be sure to blog all about it. Aren't you excited?

Sometimes my nerditude knows no bounds

Your Score: Eden McCain

You scored 41 Idealism, 62 Nonconformity, 16 Nerdiness

I think you really want a donut.Congratulations, you're Eden McCain! You've got a colorful past, and your persuasive abilities are second to none. In addition, you're a quick thinker with a solid amount of guts. Your best quality: The art of persuasion Your worst quality: A fondness for some stereotypically "bad" behavior

Link: The Heroes Personality Test written by freedomdegrees on OkCupid, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Yesterday I changed the course of history

At my house, smoking is relegated outside to the back porch.

Mornings, I sit out here with my coffee, cigarettes and laptop and ease into my day. I live such a charmed life, yes?

A few days ago I snuck out for a quick smoke break to find a butterfly frantically flapping its wings against the window, trying to find its way out. It was freaky, and this thing did not want to give up.

Two days later, the thing was still aflappin' at the window pane. "A" for effort, man.

It had been at it for so long, its wings were starting to fray, but it was hellbent on breaching the unbreachable.

I couldn't take it anymore. I set aside my disdain for touching any type of insect and carefully grabbed one of its flappers and threw it out the door.

What's that saying about a butterfly flapping its wings in China...

Freelance Hair Bitch comtemplates new direction in life

Sometimes I'll read a book or watch a television show and get so manically inspired to do something it invades my brain like a bad 80's pop song. Most of the time the feeling passes or a piddly little thing like reality steps in to bring me back down to earth.

My latest in a series of inspirational forays relates to my obsessive viewing of Shear Genius.

I'm a sucker for ridiculous reality TV. If one were to scroll through the saved recordings on my DVR, one would find everything from the spin off of Flavor of Love : Charm School to The First 48. It's all about balance, doncha' know.

Shear Genius was different from all the rest though.

I know it's because it's the first reality show that I could actually see myself participating in. I work pretty well under pressure, and can get along with almost anyone. I don't think I necessarily could have won the contest, but I think I'd at least have made a fair showing.

And here's where I decide I am inspired to step out of my comfortable bubble and do something. Cue dramatic soundtrack...

I'm seriously considering going back to cosmetology school to get my teacher's license.

I know I could do it, and Sallie Mae already owns a good chunk of my soul from my extended, yet unfinished experience at college. What's another few thou on top of the pile?

The only thing holding me back is finding the time to go. If I wait until my youngest is in kindergarten, I could pull it off easily but that's still two years away.

I could go at night, but a big reason I quit work outside the home was because I wasn't getting enough face time with the fam. However, from what I remember the teacher's program isn't that long (500 hours as opposed to the 1500 it took to get my regular cosmetology license).

I could talk myself in and out of this for hours on end.

If I do actually go through with it, what then? Will I be satisfied just accomplishing the goal? Do I really want to teach a bunch of would be Hair Bitches?

Yes and yes....sort of.

There were three main instructors when I went to beauty school. One was the owner, Julie. Julie was loud, flamboyant and her wardrobe would put even the most over-the-top drag queen to shame. She would sit back in her office, smoking her Virginia Slims in between roaming the floor, telling everyone how "pretty and talented" they were. We all knew she was full of shit. All she cared about was getting that tuition check every month. I don't know if it was the shoulder pads in her favorite turquoise Lycra jumpsuit or the way her hair crackled when a breeze came through, but we all loved her like a haggard, alcoholic great aunt.

Then there was Lori. Oh, Lori.

Lori was a small town girl with a penchant for eyeshadow. She sold Mary Kay as a second job and had zero self esteem. One time she decided to channel the Spice Girls and color the back of her hair a washed out red and put a hunka chunka of bleach through the front. One of my favorite memories of beauty school was the morning she walked in with this monstrosity of color and spent the first 15 minutes of classroom time going around the room to get our opinions of her new 'do. I'm pretty sure a lot of us had bitten a hole in our tongue by the end of it. Her painfully terrible self image combined with a barely passing knowledge of reading and writing skills made her my least favorite of the staff.

The third instructor was Patty. Patty was the task master of bunch. She should have been the one running the show, but was instead relegated to a second tier position. On orientation day she introduced herself, then told us that she does not, under any circumstances, take any shit from anyone. If we didn't like it well, the door's right there. She was instantly my favorite.

I figure I'll give a ring over there and see what all's involved in this potential time suck. I could step one foot back in the place and decide that I have enough crazy to deal with at home, and turn and run the other way.

Of course, it could be just the thing I need to get out of the house on my own more and also make a bit of my own dough.

Most importantly, my blog would become infinitely more interesting. That's all that really counts, right?