Cut off from the world

The title of this is the way I feel when I'm at home now because we have no Internet at our house...yep, you read right (Vanessa, you can understand this!!!!), no Internet. Why? Oh because brilliant me went searching to save some $$ on our monthly cable/Internet bill while adding some services (all home DVR = very nice for Jimmy and Brittany because they don't like to share). However, I forget what a pain in the butt getting everything re-installed in our house is.

• 4 hour time frames detailing when the installer might show up
• 3-4 hours to set up
• Things don't work the way they are supposed to
• You realize that your 50+ year old house doesn't have a phone line installed
• ....which in turn means that Internet you thought you were going to have last week,
• yep...that takes a week and a half (estimated) to get someone to your house to fix it
• then they give you an EIGHT hour window for them to show up
• hours spent on hold talking to one department after the other
• mounds of frustration building up
• whispers saying "I'm going to punch (insert company name, person's name, etc)"
• whispers saying "I'm going to knock out (insert company name, person's name, etc)"
• whispers saying "What was I thinking? Was this really worth the monthly savings?"
  

And there you have it my friends, what I am living through right now. Let's just hope come Friday.....this Internet gets up and going because like Jimmy said, I'm going to go CRAZY without it!!!

P.S. However, I will note that Direct TV came and installed it in our house on Monday and he did a fabulous job, was nice, showed up early, and even though it took forever...it works great!

Mud: How I loathe thee

Last year, around this same time...we were in the process of ripping out our backyard walkway and our front walkway and we had a HUGE dumpster in our driveway to dispose of all the old and worn concrete. So there was mud everywhere when it rained because there was no concrete.

This year, we are running into the same issue..however, 1) this one was not our choice and 2) this time around it might be worse. The city put in new gas lines on our street, which means for the last month or 2 so they ripped up the area of grass in between the sidewalk and the street. It was like that on our wedding day (April 10), if that gives you any reference to how long this has been going on. So recently, they finished that and then put the dirt back into the correct place and put grass seed down to help the grass grow again. Well, that is still mud with little grass sprouts. These things take time people.

We kept getting these notices saying they are going to next rip up our driveway and we wouldn't be able to get in and out of it for 24-48 hours. Well that construction finally started last Thursday. So that means we now have to park across the street from our house and walk across the street to get to our house....where there is no curb or bottom portion of the driveway. And lots of dirt. Lots of dirt. And yesterday, they put a string up (I'm guessing to measure the concrete level??) that you have to hurdle over to get from one side of the dirt to the other side of the dirt. I kept thinking to myself, "this sucks, but at least it's not mud". Apparently that one thought brought me bad luck---because it POURED yesterday in KC and guess what? Mud, the kind you literally sink into when you foot hits it, is now the barrier between me and my house. I ruined my work shoes yesterday from it, and therefore refused to leave the house for the rest of the night. And you can't go to the grocery store or buy big things because you have to jump over the string hurdle and get through the mud to get in...and it makes it a bit more tricky with things in hand. However, there is nothing I can do about it. Awesome.

Our missing curb. And the MUD

The driveway drop off.


No sidewalk for us!

Loving the mud...

On a really really really happy note---our Air Conditioner was fixed on Monday and the two weeks without AC was abruptly halted. It felt so good on Monday night sleeping with it on....and I'm so glad we got it fixed when we did because it has been very humid this week because of the rain...what happened to spring time? I feel like we dove head first into summer and the summer weather/temperatures.

To quickly relate these 2 things...the AC repair man was clearly put out by the fact that our driveway was ripped up and aghast at the fact he would have to carry his supplies all the way from the street. He even called Jimmy to ask him if there was any way to get in our driveway? Not sure what Jimmy's response was, besides no, but mine would have been "Are you blind? There is no way to get in or out unless you want to hire a tow truck to pull your van out of the 2-3 ft hole. Just do your job and carry your stuff in!". I wanted AC that bad I was willing to be rude. However, I didn't get to discuss that with him. Maybe next time. So he suck it up and carried all his stuff from the street to our basement. What an inconvenience we were to him :)

Best wife ever

5:15AM: Found this (thanks to Toby) in our backyard

5:20AM: Dragged Toby inside so he wouldn't do anything with it. Still wasn't sure what it was, but knew it was a dead animal

6:15AM: Breakfast eaten, ready for work, mention to sleeping husband that we have something dead on the ground in our backyard, but for him not to worry because I have it all taken care of. (haha) Only because I know how much he hates rodents and especially ones with tails....long tails....like this one.

6:30AM: I am a woman on a mission. I have rubber gloves in hand and 3 plastic grocery bags

6:32AM: I realize I don't want to actually have to touch the thing @ all. So I get a small shovel

6:33AM: I immediately nix the small shovel idea and go into the garage for a very large shovel

6:34AM: Incessant gagging, vomit noises, deep breaths, closed eyes, peering at the bedroom window seeing if these noises are loud enough to wake Jimmy up and make him feel bad (no luck on that), and moving the shovel around so I can get the large rat on it

6:35AM: Rat is in plastic bag, I carry outside of the fence. Trash day isn't until next Thursday, so not sure what to do with it until then.

6:36AM: Willy figures out what is going on and comes to check it out- too late luckily, but he can still smell it. I will need to hose that all down.

6:38AM: Pack my lunch, make my coffee and off for the day.

7:01AM: Arrive at work, send Jimmy the picture of the rodent via text. He makes gagging sounds (via text). I tell him, he's not allowed to do that since I took care of it. And that I deserve the best wife ever award. He agrees, as he should.

The inevitable...

We closed on our house a year ago on Saturday (happy year anniversary as homeowners to us!). On Saturday I told my dad how our home warranty expires that we got with the house and we hadn't gotten around to renewing because we were looking to use another company. That never happened. Either of them. So I told my dad, I bet you that the minute our home warranty expires...something will go wrong.

What do you know? We tried to turn on the AC on Saturday when we got back from dinner because the temperature had shot up and it was really hot/humid. Yep, it doesn't work. Just like it didn't 3 times last year, conveniently on the hottest days of the summer. Just like Saturday- the hottest day of 2010 so far in KC and we have no air. And no home warranty to cover our defunct AC.

Not Jimmy's fault, not my fault but our fault. However, because I'm hot, sweating and cranky 24/7 now...I'm betting Jimmy wished he would have just renewed it :)

We shall see how the rest of this story plays out........

My dad would be so proud!

One thing that I can guarantee you after the snow falls in KC, no matter how soon after the snow stops, if I go over to my parents house, their driveway will be perfectly clean. My dad is crazy obsessed with shoveling snow right after it falls. Being a resident at his house my whole life, I just always expected a clean and clear driveway right after snow. Well, Jimmy and I quickly learned that with a house comes a huge responsibility of shoveling our LONG driveway. In December when it snowed a ton, we didn't do it right away because in our mind, it was going to just keep snowing, so what was the point?? Hm, bad idea. The more we drove on the snow, the more compacted it got, then the temperature dropped and it became ice. So on top of snow in our driveway, we had ice as well. Needless to say, I was just praying for the temperatures to hit above freezing so it would FINALLY melt!!

It melted and then life went on. But then on Friday, February 9 it randomly decided to snow- a lot more than I thought it was. So on my way home from work I was chuckling at the people outside already shoveling their driveway! No way did I think it snowed that much. But as I pulled into our driveway, my car could barely make it in! I had to go to Artisans and Angels right around 5:30...and I have never shoveled our huge, long driveway myself, but I knew the more I drove on it, the more icy it would get. So I did it. I took on the challenge of shoveling the whole driveway. With our new shovel in hand, it actually wasn't TOO hard. I was about ready to pass out after it was over though because my arms were killing me!!!

Check out the new shovel....



And the cleared driveway...







Me, so proud of my shoveling skills :)



After I finished, I quickly got ready and headed to the wonderful fundraising event----but had to call my dad and tell him on the way that we were the FIRST house on the block to have a cleared driveway. He wasn't home, but I talked to my mom and told her to tell him immediately. I knew he would be proud!!! Keeping up those strange family traditions! And the best part was how happy I was with my "accomplishment" every time I drove into the driveway that it was free of snow/ice!! Yeah!

And as I'm writing this, a week and 2 days later, it's snowing again in KC...guess it's out to the driveway for me :)

You won't let me poop on the floor!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, that may seem like an odd title to post, but then again you are reading a blog this is written by me, so not sure what you expect.  However, that title does have some meaning to it.  I don't even know if Jamie or Liz read my blog regularly--but if they do, I'm sure they will get a good laugh out of the title.  Just a side note to explain, then the real post.  Sophomore year, first semester living in Pi Phi, Jamie, Liz, and I were rommates.  For some reason, one night we thought it would be funny to start yelling and get in a fake fight to see if other people would hear us and start freaking out that we were yelling.  So we start yelling stupid stuff like-- "you never clean the room", "you use my computer" (I won't go into detail about that one Jamie- as she is still bitter!!), and for some odd reason I yell out "you won't let me poop in the room".  Now I have no idea sometimes what is going to come out of my mouth and why....that is a perfect example.  Liz was like "WTF mate?" and we all started laughing.  End of story.  Maybe it was one of those "you had to be there" stories?  Maybe not.

ANYWAYS, fast forward 4 years to the present time.  I had a stomach ache on Wednesday night from eating cookie dough (from the pumplin cookies) so I walk up the stairs to the to the medicine/random crap closet next to Lauren's bathroom to get some TUMS.  As I'm walking up the stairs, I start smelling poop.  I was like- man maybe Lauren just stunk up her bathroom?  Haha, sorry Lauren.  But I really did think that, then I was like no, I bet one of my dogs decided it was a good idea to poop upstairs instead of outside.  I dont' turn on the light in the hallway, but just in Lauren's bathroom so I can see inside the closet.  I get a few TUMS, start chewing and then head to the guest room on the hunt for the poop.

Then I suddenly realize that the smell is following me.  I flip on the hall light, look down, and see a huge thing of poop on the bottom of my slippers that I have now trailed onto the hallway carpet.

Well that's awesome.  Off my slipper goes, I start to scrape off the poop, pick up the remains to flush, spot shot the carpet stains, gag several times while on the phone with Jimmy to make sure he knows how sick this is and what he's missing, and then start scrubbing the carpet.  I realize at that moment how happy I am that we do not have carpet all over our house.  We at least have 1/2 a floor with hardwoods.  Our carpet is SO dirty now and needs to be cleaned, but as I was on my knees scrubbing it I realized I'm going to do everything in my power not to get new carpet.  Simply because it will just get really dirty again.  I was so angry.

Then, last night as I was on the phone with Emily and the dogs were outside....all of a sudden Toby pushes open the back door and streaks through the house because he heard Jimmy's car door slam and he's obsessed with Jimmy in a sick way.  I try to catch him to wipe his paws off before he hits the carpet, but it's too late.  Again, for the 2nd night in a row I find myself using the Spot Shot and scrubbing the carpet.  Really?  Is this what my nights are going to entail when we are married??  Needless to say, Jimmy's plea via email that took place yesterday for us to get another dog....did not even need to be addressed in person.  I think it's safe to say by the look on my face-he realized that will not be happening.  Then Toby woke me up at 3AM because he felt like going outside.  Not ok.  Kennel for him the rest of the night...then Jimmy caves, feels bad and goes to sleep in the guest room with him.  And you wonder who is going to be the disciplinarian with our children?  What a week.......but it does seem as though the Moore's might have had a similar issue with Franklin based on THIS post.  So I guess it's just kind of that....join the crowd in cleaning up your dog's poop?

When do you break down and buy a new one?

Two of the things that Jimmy and I were in need of when we bought our house were a washer and dryer. Luckily, we got a free washer from Carly, who had got if from Mike and Lindsay Carter, who had got it from the Gower's (for those of you that are thoroughly confused now...Lindsay Carter used to be Lindsay Gower, who yes, is Vanessa's older sister that is married to Jimmy's older brother. If you are thinking fast you will realize, yes- Vanessa's sister and I will be sister-in-laws. Still with me?) when they bought new ones. We got a dryer for $75 on Craigslist and called it a day. After having Evan install some new plumbing and hook up new Hot/Cold water pipes - we were in business and the residents of 5209 W 79th were able to do laundry.

Within the first week, water leaked all over the basement from the washer. We figured out it was from a hose that wasn't tightly fastened. Roger to the rescue (after Jimmy and Brittany attempted- now if you saw that you would really laugh) and problem solved. Next the knob on the washer falls off, but we can work with that and do.

Then comes the dryer issues. The latch thing that locks when you close the dryer door, well at some point that got messed up so the door doesn't latch. If the door isn't closed, the dryer obviously doesn't work. Then comes the cardboard that we shove in there to lock it in. That worked for a while. But at the beginning of the week I was doing my laundry and 60 minutes after I started the dryer and walked back downstairs, to my surprise I found an open dryer door and wet clothes. I figured it was a fluke and tried again. An hour or two later, back to finish up laundry. Still not dry, door popped open. This is obnoxious!! So I ask Jimmy to see if he can fix it. He walks back upstairs and informs me he fixed it. When I walk back down stairs, this is what I see:

Yeah...that whole duct tape thing is just not going to cut it for me. With that going on, I just figure it's a sign we need to buy a new one. Conveniently enough, I just finished paying my TV off that I bought from Best Buy when I moved into my condo with 18 months no interest. Is this the universe's sick way of letting me know that the expenses are never going to stop and that $100/month or so I was paying cannot be stashed into savings but needs to go to a new, energy efficient, front loading washer and dryer? I think so. But really, look how beautiful they are. If I decide to snatch some up this weekend, I just MIGHT start enjoying laundry. Probably not, but you never know!