Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Time to open those 'healed wounds'

And by that, I mean its time for us to start work on the house again. We’d focused all our efforts on the inside of the home back when we bought it and moved in (Jan of '06). This spring, summer, and fall are dedicated to the outside of the home. It needs and will get: painted, new sidewalk, new front stoop, roof and soffit patchup, and whatever else comes along.

I think enough time has passed that I’ve somewhat forgotten how mentally exhausting (not to mention physically) it all was. Time to go at it again and see how we fare. I’ve gotten to a point now where I can almost joke about how awful it was, when people say something will cost say $1,000...I now know that *really* means I have no idea but it will probably be at least 5x that. And that my idea of timelines and timeframes have no business in rehabbing. Hmm, I think I’m still a little bitter! Lol.

Seriously though, I’m going to truly try to go into this with a more flexible mindset, so I’m not freaking out all the time when deadlines aren’t met and budgets are seriously blown. Thinking back, almost makes me want a valium-laced vodka cocktail right now, it was that anxiety filled –but Lance and I can get through it, we will persevere!!! (just keep swimming, just keep swimming). It is no secret that I have a short fuse, but when Lance’s fuse got tripped last time....that was big. It takes a lot to get him angry, (one of many reasons he is the ying to my yang) but he got angry. But we have learned a lot about things and will hopefully have better luck with contracts/etc. this time around.

On the positive side, it is exciting to me that the house will now be pretty on the outside. As they say on the TV, its all about curb appeal. And since our renter goes away at the end of this summer and we’ll be renter-hunting, it is only wise to make it appealing to those on a drive by checking the place out.

The scaffolding is in place and the scraping has begun, woohoo! Scraping outside paint, so far, is still yucky work, but WAY better than scraping the 16 layers of paint and wallpaper that was inside the house. Its also no secret that I am a big klutz, so this business of scaffolding has me a little on edge. I once fell off one step and broke both feet – ONE step – BOTH feet, makes me wonder what a tumble off the scaffolding holds.... But we won’t think about that :) Teri reminded me that any time spent on the scaffolding needs to be on the buddy system, advice I will totally heed.

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Spring Break!

This coming week is Spring Break!! Not that it really means anything to me, other than I'll be pretty lonely at work what with all the campus away. As a real student I totally looked forward to spring break, but as a grown up student its pretty much like any other week - boo for me.

The gray is continuing his antics. We've found he loves Grandma Marge and Grandpa Don. In cleaning and sorting we came across a photo of the two of them and because we weren't sure where we were going to put it, it ended up staying on the coffee table. Next day, I'm sitting on the couch and Henry, quick as a flash, jumps on the table, grabs the photo (in his mouth) and shoots off across the room. I chased him and got it away from him :) Hoping it may have been just a fluke thing, I put the photo back on the table, but he went right back after them again. I suppose it is sweet really, he just wants to be close to them.

Thursday, March 6, 2008

On the bed, on the floor, on a towel by the door....

My new favorite song.

though it is a toss up with this one too

I can sometimes really be on the ball, but I'm a bit behind when it comes to these. I'd heard grumblings but didn't pay close attention and didn't know what all the fuss was about. I haven't laughed so hard in a long time, they're freaking hilarious!!!

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

blast from the past

I had a very pleasant surprise a couple days ago - I got an email out of the blue from a long lost friend. Well, he was more of a friend of Lance's to be technical about it, but I'd consider him one of mine too. He's all grow-ed up now and even a father. Its funny to remember back to those years when we hung out, it seems like a lifetime ago. Makes me think about some of the others I hung out with back then and wonder what they are up to. Only a couple of them have withstood the test of time and are still really close friends, unfortunately so many have moved away and we've lost touch. Whenever we start to reminisce and talk about 'back then' I can't help but remember Lori, the cat, and the cupboard. That is a story I will always remember and chuckle at...ahhh, Lori :)

On the school front, I have another test coming up on Tuesday. This weekend will be all about studing, woohoo. Freaking trig, it is almost over though. I just keep thinking of it in baby steps. They've released the schedules for Summer and Fall already, so I'm browsing and thinking of my upcoming classes. My goal is to obviously get this degree done and out of the way as quickly as possible, but I keep getting distracted by all those interesting courses that I would love to take yet have nothing to do with my chosen path.

Now on to the kitties that have lately been referred to as 'those cats'. The gray one is just continually naughty. To his credit, he hasn't eaten any fish since the Betta incident of '07. He has started a new little habit though...he's always had this weird fascination with water. I've always thought cats hated anything to do with water, unless it was in their designated kitty water bowl. This one however, comes running anytime he hears you turn on a faucet! His new habit is following me into the bathroom, jumping up into the sink, and staring at me until I turn the faucet on for him. Once the water starts running, he is happy as a clam - drinking out of it, batting at it, trying to catch it. Then, after a couple minutes of this, he'll stare at me again but with an added purr. I flip the drain plug (because that's what he's trained me to do) and he proceeds to splash in the little puddle. He'll let out another purr-meow when the puddle has reached a sufficient size and I turn off the water and let him have his fun in the sink.

The black one we now know is the official sock stealer. I had blamed Henry for the longest time because it seemed the logical choice. But it is George. We still wake up to socks scattered around the house, and come home to more socks scattered around. I have caught George in the act finally. One night I was sitting up in the den on the computer when I heard George meowing and crying like they do when they've caught a mouse. I went downstairs to see what he had, and it turns out he'd caught a sock. He was circling it and meowing at it. What is especially odd about this is that George leaves Lance's socks completely alone - he only goes after mine! Another thing I always thought about cats was that they were color blind. But George makes me think otherwise because my socks are mostly polka-dotted, striped, argyle, super fun colors and that seems to be what draws him to them. The few brown or black socks that I do have are never brought up from the basement as kill. He must take his time browsing through the laundry basket for just the right sock, lol.

These cats are by far the strangest cats I have ever had...