blogging can be difficult

when you only have one hand! andrew and i have had our share of injuries and tetanus shots this week.

after andrew punctured his elbow with a rusty nail a week ago, we returned to the house monday to ensure that everything would remain on schedule. we finished tiling the kitchen (for the most part): in preparation for the delivery of our fridge... that was unloaded from the truck, brought up our stairs and into our dining room, and then rolled back out of our dining room, down our stairs, and back onto the truck. though we bought the floor-model of the fridge, we had expected it to be wiped down, wrapped in plastic, and cared for while it awaited delivery, as the salesman told us it would be. however, when it appeared, it was never actually wrapped up (even for transit), and it was completely banged up and dented. for a purchase that expensive, we're not into dents and scratches, and we sent it back. but we did stay at the house to be able to ensure that the dog fence would be finished. aside from a few areas where we'll have to stake down the chain-link into the ground, the fence looks great! and the black vinyl makes it kind of camouflage-y.

so the week progressed, and andrew got his new job!!! and i continued working at oberlin. on wednesday though, when andrew called to tell me the job news, he instead found out that i was at rex hospital being taken care of for a dog bite.

the dog bite wasn't what you'd think though, the dog was going into surgery, had been intubated, and began waking up. he chewed through the intubation tube, and i (not extremely intelligently) tried to grab the rest of the tube before it went down his throat. of course, his chomping, flailing teeth connected with my hand in a less than pleasant way. after dr. wages stabbed me and injected me with lidocaine - which hurt more than the dog bite - and scrubbed, wrapped, and put ice on my hand, crystal drove me to rex. once there, everyone i came in contact with proceeded to tell me about their animals and ask me training advice... seriously people, i just got bit, maybe you could just take care of my hand real quick and we can discuss your cute, furry, "muffin" some other time?! without going into detail, i'd like just say that my emergency room experiences in the past few years have not increased my confidence in our local hospitals. after sitting and waiting for my discharge papers for over an hour, i began making shadow puppets with my splinted hand:

i went back to work and continued to work as well as i could one-handed. my co-workers did a great job of picking on and laughing at my "lobster claw", and after a few days, it looks as good as new (almost):

on an unrelated note, i had an enlightening conversation with a few people at jessi's birthday cookout about the best places to buy certain things... and all i have to say is thank you nordstrom... 32F.

Yay for new jobs

So to fill in the readers who do not know, dormia filed bankruptcy under chapter 11 a week or so ago. They did this so that they can restructure and renegotiate leases at some of their stores. Supposedly they are staying open and operating at normal but that isn't how it seems. Things since then have been interesting at work. We aren't sure whether or not the delivery company is delivering people their beds. We had reports of them telling the customers that they no longer do business with dormia. Lets see, what else. Oh yeah the pay, it's a week late and I'm not hanging around to see if I get my next paycheck. Friday is going to be my last day. The two weeks notice thing goes out the window when I don't know if I'm going to get paid. Corporate is no longer sending inventory to the stores so that's not a good sign. 2 out of the 3 people in customer service have been laid off or quit.
So now for the good news. I was blessed with finding, interviewing, and getting offered my new job all within 4 days. Thanks to everyone who prayed or otherwise helped me in the job search. It is a display builder position with point concepts. They build stuff for trade shows, museums and who ever else wants fancy stuff. You can see some cool projects in the portfolio section of their website. I met the guy I'll be working with, Johan or Yohan (not sure which), and he is pretty cool. The owner, Dan, is also really nice and laid back. He is a state grad which is cool too. So here is to a long fruitful career doing something I love.

dangerous!

so we went out to the house to work today and came across this behind one of the mattresses that was leaned up against the house...

yes, it is, in fact, a black widow

of the female persuasion

protecting her egg-sack

which is apparently the scariest time to be around them, as that is when they are most likely to strike. YAY! we squished her and her nasty little offspring cocoon.

then a few minutes later, andrew impaled himself with a rusty nail. DOUBLE YAY!

so that was the end of our home-improvement afternoon. we've spent the rest of the night laying on couches and watching the animals in our zoo.

the oberlin cult

i swear, working at oberlin is like joining a cult. i have only worked there 4 days, and i have managed to totally abandon everything i was working on before. i have not worked on the house, planned for school, hung out with my husband, or spent time with the "kids" since tuesday morning, when i started back at the vet. instantaneously, my family became dr. wages, dr. gordon, and all of the techs (many of them new, that i met for the first time this week) who work at oberlin. they are the ones i've spent groggy mornings, rushed lunches, stressful surgeries, neverending evenings, and even after work de-stressing with. and yet, i'm not completely miserable because i really like stabbing animals!! ok not stabbing per se, but drawing blood, placing catheters, caring for hospitalized patients, running appointments, working with doctors, helping other techs, and figuring out how to make sick animals better! i just wish that working there didn't mean doing nothing else at all.

the girls and i went out last night, and all of them were lamenting spending their whole existence working. now, they all LOVE working there, or they'd have quit already, but it seems ludicrous that it would have to be their whole lives. when i was there full-time, i felt the same way. last night we went to the two-year anniversary of the opening of la riviera because dr. george owns it (dr. george is also the newest hire at oberlin/glenwood). we thought it was going to be like any other night, but special because it was their anniversary, but it ended up being a "red carpet event" - literally. we had our picture taken like 20 times by different people. the night was not just the restaurant's two year anniversary, but it was also the kickoff to the loft upstairs, an spca fundraiser, a big boss (brewery) promotion, and a zspotlight event. i went to the website to look for our pics (i didn't take any because i thought they'd be posted), but i can't find any. perhaps they'll update soon. we had a blast laughing about the ridiculous things that happened this week at work. andrew joined us later, and we all took a trip to visit brian and shannon at their house in garner.

today, i have enjoyed sitting at a coffee shop and doing nothing, sitting at home and doing nothing... and soon i'll have to go back to reality and pick andrew up from work, so we can go finish working on the house. yippee... or something :-P

renovations one-MILLION-and-five

i feel like all i've been doing since before school ended is house stuff, house stuff, house stuff! we went house hunting, house offering, house contracting, house inspecting, house closing, house re-closing, house renovating, house renovating, house renovating... wait, did i say that one already?

holy cow, we've done a lot. i have now experienced my one week of "vacation" at home... and i have no idea how it passed so quickly! we now have brand new carpet (sorry, no pics yet) and beautiful hardwood floors:

new toilets (still in boxes), many new fixtures, doorknobs, etc. and the most recent addition we're working on is tiling our kitchen. here's the layout roughly planned out:

me working... the thinset makes the whole layout thing a lot harder. i am good at spacing the tiles from top to bottom and side to side, but getting them level is another story.

we should be done with the tiles in the next few days, and that leaves painting (for andrew to do!!!)... and moving - ugh! i hate moving!

honestly, in this whole process, the worst part of renovating hasn't been stressing about spending all this money, living and working out of two homes at once, or the backbreaking labor; the worst part has been when we've contracted work out to other people - having to sit in the house ALL DAY LONG and wait for them to do a somewhat mediocre job that andrew and i have to then follow up and actually finish for it to be up to par. i guess it just goes to the old adage that if you want anything done right, you have to do it yourself! which we don't really mind, cause it saves us money and gives us fun stuff to do together. i'm so glad we're both into being active, creative, and resourceful together!

on a totally unrelated note, we had a great time at church this weekend, and i'm hoping to get to blog about all the cool biblestudy/church stuff i've been doing lately. oh yeah! and the 5k my mom, dad, and i did this weekend for the race for the cure! i guess i have a lot to blog about...

Renovations #4 complete with frustration

So even though we don't have a 2 and 3 this is technically 4 based on what Emily has already posted. I figured I'd blog about the most recent things we've gotten done since it's right up my ally. Yesterday Emily and I spent the day at the house finishing up the sub floor. This is a necessary step b/c the previous top layer of sub floor was particle board which is not an acceptable underlayment for hardwoods. We had to measure, cut, and screw down 10 more pieces to complete the project. Despite what she thinks, Emily was a big help in measuring everything and getting it all laid out. She was also great and generally watching me and stopping me from making stupid mistakes. I knew it was going to be a big project and it sure was. Poor Emily kept hurting herself wether it was banging her elblows or cutting a gash in her hand she just couldn't catch a break.
I'll sum up the day from start to finish. We got up and went to the Home Depot in Knightdale which is a full store unlike the one in Garner which carries limited stock(who knew?) They have such a better selection of everything. We found the 97cents/sqft laminae floor we will probably end up putting in the office upstairs. After buying the thin set to put down the kitchen tile we went to pick up the tile saw and various other tools from Jerry. He has the saw from a previous tile project he had done. From there we went to the house to finish the sub floor(see above.) We had to break for dinner which was Mellow Mushroom and a quick run to the Cupcake ShoppE right before they closed. After we digested we went back to the house and stayed until 11ish to finish the sub floor. Emily cleaned the place up so it doesn't quite feel like as much of a construction site now. There are still 14 boxes of tile and 19 cases of hardwood sitting around though.
Tomorrow the hardwoods will get installed and then the carpet on Thursday. After those two things occur it will start feeling like a new house and we can start moving things in. Yay no more skanky floors!
I'm sure I've left some stuff out but that is the general progression of things yesterday. (I'll let Emily post the pictures since they are on her camera.)

i am taking a day off

of renovating.

that is all!

BUZZ SAW

these two days have been a haze of renovation psychosis. on sunday after andrew went to work, i picked up the hardwoods, met my parents at the house, primed the bedroom, showed my parents the neighborhood, we all met up with andrew for dinner at ruby tuesday's... and then craziness ensued.

we stayed at the house last night until literally 3:30am working. i continued priming, andrew broke hardibacker, unloaded the hardwoods from the car, and laid more osb. then, we decided the best idea would be to begin installing the hardibacker (which is like a water barrier that goes under ceramic tile) with the thinset, in the middle of the night. we got about 3/4ths of the kitchen done before we ran out of screws and had to call it a night... or morning, or whatever.

this morning, it was up and at 'em bright and early. apparently when andrew told me to get up, i uttered something to the extent of, "brain says yes; body says NOOOOOO!" i vaguely remember this.

we set the dogs up with lots and lots of water, and after some much needed starbucks, we headed out to our morning hardware store trip for more supplies. we had to rush back to meet up with the amerigas guy, so he could do stuff to the propane tank/piping, and later for the fence guy. while we waited, andrew and i removed the sink from its location in/on the counter to replace it with the basin and faucet that i bought at the restore. after several attempts - including sawing part of our cabinets with a leatherman blade and a bread knife - the sink fits in its hole. then there was an argument with the calk, and though the sink sits, caulked and assembled in its new home, it does not yet actually have water running to it. but if it did, that water would be hot! cause the gas man hooked the gas up to the cool tankless water heater!

the fencing guy measured for an estimate, the carpet people and fridge delivery people have both locked in times to deliver their wares to the house, and the kid down the street began mowing our field for us. we completed the hardibacker, picked up the tile from lowe's, and even bought a "line trimmer" - better known as a weed whacker by normal people - to try and work on the landscaping disaster that is our yard!

so far, we have been very busy little bees, and tomorrow should be no exception. on the list: PAINT PAINT PAINT, move some stuff to the storage in the eves, finish osb installation, learn to whack weeds, and tile kitchen floor! by next weekend, we hope to have this house in move-in condition! but don't worry, i'm a buzz-saw :-)

my "vacation" has begun!

friday was the last teacher workday, so that evening after work, i headed over to the house to prime some more walls... only i didn't prime any walls haha.

before we could get there, monica, andrew, chicken, and i went to lowe's to pick up the osb for the dining room floor. the subflooring in there is too weak, but we had to take out the particle board, so osb is a sufficiently sturdy (and cheaper) substitute for plywood to strengthen the floor before the hardwoods are laid (which will happen thursday of this week!). since andrew and chicken had begun laying the osb, i decided they'd need to lay the stuff in the hall too (since it will also be hardwoods), so monica and i ripped up carpet, removed trim, and pulled up the particle board in the hallway and the closet.

after all the grunting and celebrating at our awesome woman-strength, monica needed to head back, so i took her to her car (at lowe's) and then returned to continue working. i proceeded to rip up the carpet square and particle board at the base of the stairs, which will have hardwood there to act as a sort of faux foyer.

once that was done, i was totally beat. andrew finished screwing in the osb he was working on, we pulled the replacement sink (from the restore!) out of my car, and then we drove back home. i was so tired from the softball, packing, and floor removal that i think i fell asleep in the car.

yesterday, i had big plans to actually go prime some walls, when i decided instead to be lazy! i spent the day laying around, hanging out with the dogs, and piddling in the house until it was time to join up with monica and dave for dave's birthday party. andrew met up with us later, and we did not return home until LAAAAATE last night. we did manage to get up and get to church - after making coffee in my new french press! - and now andrew's off to work until 6, and i plan to do a few things around here, pick up the hardwoods from home depot, and then go to the house and ACTUALLY prime some walls! my parents are also going to see the place for the first time, which is cool :-)

"Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer."
~ Psalm 19:14

re-closing and renovations #2

teacher workdays began wednesday. since i had a lot of packing up to do but not a lot of moving (they won't let us in the new high school building yet), i boxed most of my stuff up, went to a meeting, and then we went out to the house. we decided to tile the kitchen, which means - yep you guessed it - ripping up more flooring! this time, the floor was glued to plywood instead of particle board, so while we didn't have to pull up the particle board this time, the laminate also stuck better and was quite difficult to rip up. when, in a frustrated rage, i finally pulled up the last of the floor, i think andrew was a little scared.

here's the floor without laminate and dishwasher (we'll be installing our own).

yesterday, i went and boxed up the remaining stuff in about 10 minutes and occupied myself with redoing our renovation notebook and other such nonsense since i had to be there but had nothing to do. andrew's schedule was messed up at work, so he went in just to find out that he had been changed to the evening shift. he came by the school and picked up the stuff i'd packed to take to the new house. then he worked on some more painting and scoring/breaking the hardibacker board for the tiles. then, we had the joy of going to the attorney's office to re-close on the house.

it took two hours because we wanted to wait there until the something-or-other number had been created for us (basically the proof that they can't prevent it from going through again), and the lenders kept requiring more and more stuff, but finally we came home. by that time, i was too tired to go out to the house, so we came back here, and andrew went to work.

then, this morning, i went to play softball with the high school team. i did not have fun :-( i was not very good, and i got all frustrated with myself, so one of the other teachers asked me to "watch her baby" -aka- gave me a reason to not have to play. her baby was cuuuuuute! after that, we had a cookout, i picked up my last few belongings from EWA for the summer, and i left. ::sigh:: one more year down for the teaching fellows!

i stopped at the restore on the way home and picked up a new kitchen sink for a grand total of $15, what a deal! now i'm just waiting for andrew to get off work so we can put down plywood, lay and screw in the hardibacker, prime more areas, and get the place all painted before the hardwoods go in on thursday.

renovations #1

[EDIT: I wrote this blog on monday, before we went through all the closing stuff. i'll complete it and post it today though so y'all can see all the fun stuff we're doing]

i figure there will be lots of renovation blogs, so i just went ahead and numbered this one.

we began renovating saturday, when i turned these pepto-pink walls

into semi-pink walls by covering them (sort of) with primer. paige helped too. i painted the living room and staircase walls but haven't taken pictures yet. i'll probably wait until they're not just primed, but actually the color we intend them to be. we decided that also on saturday. the living room/staircase will be "incognito" - you'll see what that means in paint color world when we finish. andrew finished up the evening spackling and putting on some of the new schlage door knobs/locks we got. since he worked at dormia while we primed, we left him to work while we went to patrick's cookout.

we woke up this morning for an awesome church service at v21 (thank the Lord, tyler's back!), where we found out that will and jennifer did actually get to move into their house - woohoo! after church, we went to lowe's (our daily trip, it seems) and looked into some stuff, picked up a few supplies, and headed to the house.

then, we turned the dining room, which looked like this

and ripped up the laminate so that we could put down hardwoods (note huge pile of balled-up laminate behind me)

since the floor had particle board on it, and you can't put hardwoods over that, we had to pull it up too. unfortunately, instead of being logical and using screws to put it down, the lovely homeowners used nails and the occasional square-head screw - ugh! but we are totally buff, and we pulled that particle board up! i felt like a beast.

after that, we'd planned to eat dinner and then paint more, but after dinner at will and jennifer's, we had no energy (and it was 10pm), and we came home.

whoo! home-ownership is fun!

[that brings us to monday, so i'll have to post another one soon to update what we've done since then!]

quick update

ok so we will have to "re-close" on the house, but it will not require the previous owners coming in or turning the house over to them as expected. if we do it thursday, which we've now settled on, the closing costs and such should be the same, so we shouldn't lose any money. the deed is in our name already, so we do actually own the house (apparently though without paying for it haha), and we can continue renovations.

so all in all it's great news. we will be inconvenienced by resigning everything, but at least it seems, the biggest issue will just be writing our names... and writing them on ALL of the papers!

thanks so much for all the prayers and support you guys have sent our way. we certainly felt them.

sorry if i haven't called you back yet - today was the last day of school for the kids, so it's insane right now with teacher workdays, trying to pack up to move rooms, closing the 6th grade chapter of my teaching book, opening the 12th grade one... oh yeah, and re-buying a house.

a hitch in the road

a minor setback
a delay
an error
a problem
an issue

call it what you will, i'm sick of this shit, pardon my language.

we have endured all kinds of setbacks in this house buying process, from bad real estate agents, to loan issues, racing the clock, to the waiting game, crazy homeowners and their non-wife homeowner counterparts, people late on signatures, etc etc etc.

but when they told us rainy dew signed and we owned the house, i thought it was all behind us. we worked all weekend. i killed myself ripping up flooring and covering up pink paint. i lost about 20 lbs in sweat trying not to asphyxiate in the house, and battled the "stairmaster 2000" -aka- going up and down the stairs to try to prime the endless walls. we spent money at lowes - over and over and over again, and we joyously did all of this because we finally owned the house.

or so we thought.

today, as andrew worked on the house, and i worked at school, everything came unraveled because of one piece of paper. somehow the "pest report" (or paper from the termite inspection, stating we have no pests, and that we paid for the inspection in full, of our own accord, separate from the contract negotiations) was supposed to be signed and included in the loan paperwork. it wasn't.

we rushed home to sign and scan and fax it, but once we did, we were told it probably wouldn't matter, and we'll probably have to re-close. which apparently means the house is turned back over to the sellers and then all the paperwork must be done again.

i tell the closing attorney, who is taking no responsibility for this, despite the bold, capital letters that say: IT IS THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE CLOSING AGENT TO OBTAIN PROPER SIGNATURES, that i am "not thrilled about what's happening, and she hangs up on me.

maturity at its finest.

she proceeds to call andrew back and try tell him how i had "gone off on her" (or something, she worded it another way that i can't remember), so she had "gotten off the phone very quickly because that wasn't the time to be dealing with that," until andrew told her that he was sitting right beside me when we'd spoken on the phone, and he didn't appreciate her hanging up on me. suddenly, her tune changed and she "definitely didn't hang up on me." whatever. she also admitted that the paperwork the lender had sent her required the paper to be signed, but since she'd never seen the inspection paper, she didn't do it... and still took no responsibility for it, blaming the lender for "trying to screw us all" or something. now i know why in LAWyer and LIAR are so similar. how do these people sleep at night?

oh and our real estate agent, of course, is still not going to be upset with the big-boobed, divorced attorney, because he's still trying to take her out for margaritas. he still didn't come through on his word to take us out for drinks.

i don't have anything to celebrate anyway.

so we're in limbo again, only now we've already worked on the house a ton. i was writing a blog about it all before this crap happened... i guess there's no need to post that and rub it all in. andrew is, as ever, optimistic that everything with just work out.

i just keep crying.

i don't know what will happen or how long it will take. we won't know if sending in the signed paper late will be ok until tomorrow. if it's not and we have to re-close, i think either way, we're already losing earnest money we were supposed to get back because of the pushed-back closing date. if we have to re-close, we have to try to do it before friday because that's the day our loan rate is locked in until, and rates have gone up/reprocessing takes a while/etc. if we have to extend that loan rate, even if they let us, it'll cost money. if we have to re-close, it means more paperwork, another meeting with the clueless closing attorney, and hopefully that the sellers would come back in and sign again. and that took several days last time.

i tried to sleep, but the phone kept ringing.

i cried and my eyes are puffy.

i can't occupy myself with the stuff i've been working on for months, because it all has to do with renovations and the house.

i don't want to work on the house, cause knowing my luck, we might end up losing it still.

i give up. i don't know what to do anymore.