sorry, no blog tonight... oh wait...

so today . . . there will be no blog. here's why...the move is finally happening. i hope. as you can see, there is still packing to be done. we have spent the last two weeks trying to get everything done in the new house before we moved in, but it has been a nightmare for me! decision after decision after decision. and not making decisions. and changing my decisions... it has not been pretty, people!

the interior painting went well. i only had to have the painters repaint one room. it was the man room. everything else looked exactly like i had pictured it, but the man room was baby boy blue, not the muted turquoise i had in mind. i tried to like it, but i just couldn't. i didn't know how they had gotten the color so very wrong! i went to get more paint chips, chose a new color of blue, went back to the house, put it up on the wall, and guess what? it was the exact same color. i don't know how it could look so different up on the wall, but it sure did. when i told jose' he was going to have to go get another color of paint and paint the room again, he just smiled and said, "no problem!" and so, the painting was completed and the new color looks good. and i only changed my mind once!

i spent several days working on the wood floor that was hidden under the awful carpeting in the master bedroom. i spent most of one saturday just pulling up the tack strips and the staples from the padding--over 1300 inches of tack strips and hundreds of staples. and then i spent the next saturday and sunday afternoons cleaning it, square by square. it was a lot of work and every muscle in my body ached! but when i got done, it looked sooooo good!

last weekend we had new windows installed in all the rooms upstairs. i have never seen windows replaced, but since i was on my hands and knees working on the wood floor, i got to see the process. either it was much simpler than i thought it would be, or those two window installers were just really, really good. either way, it didn't take them long and we had beautiful new windows. although, i learned that i should not watch work in progress. i kept thinking, "oh no! the windows are too small! oh no! the windows aren't level! oh no! i can see that foamy stuff all the way around the window! oh no! these are going to look awful!!" i was feeling a little sick and wishing maybe i had spent the big bucks and just hired home depot. but as it turns out, i am glad i went the cheap route, because they turned out really nice.

we have prairie shutters coming (if i can find a way to get my window sills trimmed down--none of my windowsills are level!) i've scheduled grass for the backyard, and i am currently doing battle with lowe's over carpet installation. (i am mad at them. i will never, ever use them again. but i am madder at home depot's carpet people, and i need carpet NOW, so i don't have a lot of options. if i had taken care of this two weeks ago, i would have had more options. but two weeks ago i was busy making paint decisions and trying to get rid of the leftover furniture the seller's left and degreasing the kitchen--which, btw, i am still doing--and so carpet was not the high priority it should have been...)

i also should have been packing. but rollie had a plan and it seemed so simple. he said to just pack the things i wanted to take, and then after we had all that stuff moved, we would dispose of the stuff we had left. it seemed like a good plan. and i especially liked it, because it didn't sound like it required a lot of actual packing. but it does...

and so, that is where i am right now. packing. this is not the fun part of moving. but it is necessary, so i guess i had better get back to it...

...which is why there will be no blog tonight.

super store? or nightmare at 10:00 a.m.?

so today . . . i went to a "new" wal-mart super store. i felt like the dumbest rat in the maze...

one of the things i love about wal-mart is that they have just a few different floor plans for their stores. i like this. i like that i can go into a wal-mart in long beach, california or woodburn, oregon or orlando, florida, and i know where things are. usually i do not go into wal-mart to shop--that's what target is for! no, usually i go into wal-mart to buy what i need quickly and get out...

but not today. because today i had the unfortunate "pleasure" of finding myself in a wal-mart super store.

i like the concept of a super store. i like being able to go to one store to get groceries, toiletries, dvds, shoes (ok, not really. i don't buy my shoes at wal-mart. but i like knowing i could, if i wanted to!) plants, and car parts. the problem is, in a super store i can't seem to find anything...

maybe there are also just a few floor plans for the wal-mart super stores, but i don't know them yet. this is only the second super store i have been in! the first one was a couple of years ago when we were in orlando. i couldn't find anything then, either, but since we were on vacation it wasn't such a big deal. i wasn't in a hurry. i didn't really have an agenda. i just went in to see what i could find. today was a completely different story...

today i had a plan. and stuff to do!! i couldn't spend all day exploring and wandering around this new wal-mart!! i just needed a few things--milk bones, toilet paper (for the new house. i noticed the supplies i had already taken over were diminishing...) vinegar (which i had read online would degrease kitchen cabinets. i don't know what those people cooked in that kitchen, but there were some stubborn grease splatters to deal with,) and a spray bottle for the vinegar. i went whipping through the store, tossing my purchases into my basket... well, maybe whipping through the store is a bit of an exaggeration, because the first thing i noticed about this super store was that there wasn't a lot of room between aisles for carts. i prefer to navigate through stores without a shopping cart. but today, even though i was only buying four things, one of those things was toilet paper. and whenever i am forced to buy toilet paper, i buy a LOT of toilet paper, my goal being fewer trips to wal-mart. so i had a cart.

i quickly discovered that today there were a lot of people with carts in wal-mart. i don't know what is the matter with everyone!! didn't they have enough excitement yesterday??? didn't they have company over for bar-be-que or battle the crowds at the park to watch the fireworks or spend the day out in the heat???? why wasn't everyone at home recuperating from the fourth of july?!?!?! clearly, the independence day celebrations weren't celebratory enough!

but i am a big girl. i have lived in the shadow of a metropolis for ten years. i know about crowds. so as i maneuvered at a more moderate pace than normal, through the unfamiliar aisles of the wal-mart super store, i just kept saying to myself, "at least you are not at work today. at least you only need a few things. at least you get to move into a beautiful house in two days..." AAACCCKKKKK!!! TWO DAYS?!?!?! ok, that didn't help. i just needed to get my stuff and get out of there! i had the toilet paper (24 double rolls, thank you very much!) i had milk bones. i headed to where i thought the empty spray bottles would be. but then i detoured through the kitchen section...

(i hear you, wendy. i hear you saying, "why would you even go into the kitchen section? you hate the kitchen. you don't cook. there can't be anything in there that you could possibly need or want!!!" and to that i say, au contraire my friend, because i am moving my stuff into a new kitchen! this opens up all kinds of opportunities for new ways of organizing things--because while i might not like to cook, i do like to organize!)

i started throwing things in my cart. i had a bamboo silverware organizer (good for the environment and HALF the cost of the exact same thing at lowe's!) and then i saw some cool looking black and tan plastic modular drawer dividers (maybe not so good for the environment, but the colors would go perfectly in my new kitchen!) and then there was a RED dish drainer (and before you ask, yes, the new house has a dishwasher, but i find that it is easier to wash the dishes by hand since we mostly use glasses and silverware.) there was shelf paper, because you know, one cannot move into a new residence without installing new shelf paper. and then i started to throw a bamboo corner shelf unit into the cart, when i finally stopped myself. "wait a minute," i said to myself, "what am i doing here! what am i going to do with this cool corner bamboo shelf? just because it is cool, doesn't mean i have to buy it! i probably don't really need any of this stuff. and i have a budget! a budget!! if i buy all this stuff, i am going to have to do without something else! put it back! put it all back, and go get vinegar and a spray bottle! do it now before i have to threaten you with thoughts of no new carpeting!!!"

sometimes i am no fun at all...

so i put all the extra stuff back and went in search of a spray bottle. i thought the logical place to find it would be with the paper goods and cleaning supplies. i had already been back there once to get toilet paper, and i didn't see any spray bottles, but i thought maybe i just hadn't looked very carefully. (i would like to mention here that in a REGULAR wal-mart, not a super store wal-mart, i would know just where to find everything! sadly, i was not in a regular wal-mart.) i did not see any spray bottles. so i wandered a bit more. i found myself in the grocery aisles (perhaps i should tell you at this point that i had not eaten breakfast yet. when i left the house this morning, i was just going to do a couple of quick errands and then treat myself to mcdonald's. it would have been a good plan if the super store didn't currently have me in it's evil clutches!) and i was hungry. i thought it might be a devil donut kind of day, but i couldn't find the kind i like. curses!! so i bought baby carrots with ranch dressing, and apples with peanut butter. and then i threw in a small bag of crunchy cheetos for nutritional balance. and then i happened upon the vinegar, so i tossed that in my cart, feeling virtuous, because vinegar was on my list!

so was a spray bottle, but i was having no luck finding one.

i decided my only hope was to find a wal-mart employee and beg for help. i pushed my cart through the narrow, crowded aisles from one end of the store to the other, and i did not see one employee. not one. it's like somebody called ahead and said, "there is a lady in a 2001 red old navy fourth of july shirt and denim shorts (which have seen better days,) looking for help. RUN! HIDE! DO NOT MAKE EYE CONTACT!!!"

ok, maybe i am just slightly paranoid, but i am telling you, i could not find ANYONE in a blue jacket to help me. but i did not give up! oh no i did not! although, i was starting to consider buying a cheap cleaner and dumping it out, just so i could have the spray bottle...

i finally found a guy stocking shelves. before he could scuttle away from me into the next row, i said, "EXCUSE ME!" (i was thinking, "don't even TRY to get away from me. i will run you over with my cart and not experience one second of remorse. i need help! and you are wearing a blue wal-mart jacket and a walkie-talkie. you are REQUIRED to help me!!") he looked at me like i was going to accost him (maybe he could read minds...) but he didn't move. so i continued. "can you please tell me where i might find empty spray bottles?" i said this very nicely, and smiled. he quickly said, "i think they are with the paper goods and cleaning supplies. or you might find a small one in health and beauty." and then he bolted. he was quick.

ok, well i had already looked in paper goods and cleaning supplies--twice--but maybe i had missed it. so back i went. i looked carefully at every product on the shelves, and found exactly zero empty spray bottles. by now, i decided even a tiny, travel sized spray bottle would be better than none, so i took off toward health and beauty. and found nothing.

perhaps i should not have said "might find..."

i had now been wandering around wal-mart for an hour. i was tired. i was HUNGRY. and i had just discovered that when they turned the wal-mart into a super store and added all those groceries aisles, they took out the mcdonald's.

i was not enjoying my morning...

if i was going to get out of this without someone getting hurt, then i was going to need help. serious help. i don't like to ask for help when i am looking for something in a store though, because my friend becky used to be a secret shopper for a chain of grocery stores. i went with her once, and the thing i remember from that trip was that when she asked an employee where something was, they were not just supposed to tell her how to find it--they were supposed to take her there. i remember that every time i have to ask for help. and i hate it, because they always take me from point a to point b in the quickest way possible. what if something catches my eye, and i want to stop and check it out? what if i see someone i know? (ok, i never see someone i know. but it could happen...) what if i change my mind, and they have wasted a trip clear across the store, and then they stand there and look at me like 'really? do you think i have the time to take you on a tour of the store today? i have work to do, you know. serious work. and now you have just wasted five minutes of my valuable time. don't even look at me! i am going on my break!!' but today all those concerns went out the window. i needed a spray bottle, and i needed it now. but the "bait" was no longer enticing me to navigate this stupid superstore maze by myself. i was starting to feel like the rat that says, "the heck with it," and starts crawling over the walls. so i grabbed the first employee i found, and asked if she could help me find an empty spray bottle. and she did.

she took me right to them. they were with the ironing boards. THE IRONING BOARDS!!! i would think a plastic bottle of any kind would be the last thing you would want near a hot iron, but since they haven't asked me to organize the wal-mart superstores yet, i guess that is where they are. i thanked the kind lady in the blue jacket profusely and headed toward the cash registers with my list complete.

i did not pass GO. i did not collect $200. i did not stop at mcdonald's.

i did, however, decide that in the future perhaps i should avoid wal-mart super stores at all costs.

home owners: day 4

so today . . . we discovered that we have sprinklers in the back yard.

our back yard is kind of a mess. among other issues, it has no grass. as someone who grew up in the pacific northwest, this is strange to me. i just think a yard should have grass--otherwise, it is just landscaping...

shortly after we were married, we visited rollie's parents in tucson, arizona. i'd never been to tucson before. i didn't really know what to expect. thankfully it was spring, not summer, and the desert was in bloom! his mom and dad did an awesome job of choosing the most interesting things for us to see and do. i still remember that as one of our best vacations! but when we got there, i immediately noticed that lots of homes did not have grass in their front yards. they were landscaped, but with a totally different kind of vegetation than i was used to. as the week wore on, i came to appreciate the beauty of rocks and succulents and cactus plants... as long as it wasn't in MY yard...

when we started looking for a house a few months ago, one of the things that was important to us was the backyard. rollie's job has more than it's share of stress, and we knew that he was going to need a place to escape and regain his equilibrium. we even passed up a beautifully remodeled house on a quiet cul-de-sac because it backed up to a school field, and we knew our pups would never stop barking and the neighbors would hate us because our dogs would never stop barking and how restful would THAT be?!?!?!

so we needed grass. or a pool...

no, we need grass. we have dogs and dogs need grass for, well, you know what for. at least i think dogs need grass. but maybe they don't. one of the houses we looked at had a pool in the backyard. i kind of wanted a pool. i don't know why--i can't swim, and i get somewhat panicky if i am dropped into water where my feet can't touch the bottom, and this pool was really deep. (ok, let's be honest here. if my feet can't touch the bottom, i will die. i can't swim. i've taken swimming lessons, but every swimming teacher i've ever had has been baffled by my inability to successfully propel my body forward through the water. i kick. i pull my skinny little arms through the water. i hold my breath. and i go nowhere. i use a kick board, and i go backwards! i. can't. swim. and yet, i kind of wanted a pool...) what we found was that the houses we could afford that had pools usually didn't have any grass--the back yard would pretty much be filled with water and concrete. but i noticed that there were two dogs living in this one house we looked at that had a pool. so i scoped out every nook and cranny in the backyard looking for the dogs' bathroom. i found nothing. finally i asked, "where do your dogs go to the bathroom?" i thought that if buying this house was a possibility, i needed to know! "oh," the owner said, "they just go on the concrete in the back yard, and then we hose it off!"

ok, we would not be buying THAT house...

besides, by the time we got to the garage, i was pretty sure the concrete in the back yard was not the only place those two dogs relieved themselves.

maybe our dogs are just spoiled. they have always had grass, and a doggie door to give them direct access to the back yard. so even though our new house doesn't actually have grass yet, at least there is a decent sized patch of dirt where grass could be (and will be) installed.

although our yard has no grass, it does have sprinklers--some were buried, but they were there. so rollie decided to test them. he turned the water on, and half of the sprinklers shot water out into the "yard." success! he turned those off and turned the others on, and suddenly our yard was inhabited by "old faithful!" water was shooting up into the air and flooding a section of the yard. clearly, we were missing a sprinkler head... but at least we now knew where the sprinklers were supposed to be!

i think this is a good sign. it means we won't have to dig trenches and lay pvc pipe to get water--we will just have to buy a few sprinkler heads and a timer. so i consider myself lucky!

because i can live without a pool, but i NEED some soft green grass. and so do my pups.

home owners: day 2

so today . . . my new house is a mess.

i knew that knocking down the popcorn ceiling was going to be messy--that is largely why we decided to do it now while the house was empty. but jose' (our painter,) and his helper have been working for most of two days shrouding everything in plastic.they've used miles of tape!! they started by covering all the floors with yards and yards of paper in preparation for painting, but when i said we had decided to have them do the ceilings as well, that's when, somewhere on the planet, plastic sheeting production kicked into overdrive...

while they made my house look like a construction site, i spent the day cleaning in the kitchen. and waiting for the guy from the gas company to turn on the gas...

i've never really paid attention to the utilities before. i flip a switch and i have power. i turn on a faucet and water comes out. i know we pay for the power and water that we use, but i've never paid any attention to all the equipment it takes to get that power and water to me. but when a house changes hands, you don't just automatically get power and water. oh no. you have to jump through hoops and wait around all day and hope that you don't need power or water until the utility guys get there to turn it on.

when the electric company came, she just read the meter and left. they hadn't actually turned the power off, so that one was easy. when the water guy came, well, i don't know exactly what he did, because that was yesterday and i had my hands kind of full with the locksmith, shutter guy, and carpet guy. i just know that i didn't have water, and then i did.

but the gas company was another story. i guess it's because gas can kill you. the gas company guy was not fooling around! he checked out all the places where we needed gas (and there seem to be a lot of them,) and then he said, "come with me. i need to show you some things..." uh oh. this can't be good. he didn't say it in a "this is your lucky day" kind of voice. he was using the "voice of doom."

did i mention that this guy was HUGE!! he was tall. he was hefty. he looked samoan. he had facial hair. and he looked serious!! i was pretty sure he was going to tell me that our house was just about to blow up if we didn't pour major money into the gas lines...

he proceeded to tell me what he was going to turn on and what he was not going to turn on. i didn't know there were options, but apparently there were. the result was, i would have hot water, but no heat until a fixed hose was replaced with a flexible one, and i couldn't use the fireplace until the damper was removed. this is ok with me. it is june. it will be a little while before i need either the fireplace or the heater...

and he didn't even want to talk about the spa equipment...

remember the spa? the 11 x 7 foot in-ground spa that is now buried under the deck?? suspiciously??? yes, well, all that equipment runs on gas, but since the spa is filled with dirt instead of water, he decided to pretend that it wasn't there at all.

ok, we were making progress!

and then the carpet guy arrived. a new carpet guy, thank goodness. one who did not know my previous history with keys and locks and locksmiths. we went upstairs to measure the bedrooms for carpeting. i waited, and he measured. i waited, and he wrote down numbers. i waited, and he went over to the corner of the master bedroom and pulled up the carpeting. i waited, and he dropped it back into place and moved on to the next room...

when my mom found out that our house was built in 1967, she told me to look under the carpets before i had them replaced. she said that when they built their house, they were given the choice of hardwood floors or wall-to-wall carpeting. they chose the carpet, as did a lot of people. now she wishes she had chosen the wood, but you know, it was 1967... who knew that 45 years later she would have to pay big bucks to get wood flooring. in 1967, wall-to-wall carpeting probably seemed luxurious. and she had two kids with bare feet who played on the floor...

and so i had planned to look under the carpets, but i'd been kind of busy and had just forgotten about it. so when the carpet guy left, i went back upstairs, held my breath, and pulled back the carpet. and guess what? it was my lucky day after all!!

it was wood. there was wood under that awful carpeting! and the part i saw was in really good shape! of course, it was a corner. a corner wouldn't get a lot of wear and tear. so i pulled back some more. it still looked good. i pulled it back about a third of the way into the room. it was dirty, but when i wiped a few squares with a damp cloth, it looked really good! it was smooth and unmarred and shiny. it didn't look like it had ever even been walked on! i couldn't believe it! i immediately texted rollie and my mom and a couple of friends and posted a picture to facebook. i was so excited! not only had i found a wood floor, but it was a wood floor in excellent condition! i was not going to have to sand and refinish it before we could use it. i was not going to have to pay for new carpeting--and let me tell you, in a 500 square foot room, that was a big deal!! i was just going to have to vacuum it and wipe it down and it was going to be beautiful.

and then i thought, what about the walk-in closet? i grabbed some pliers and headed into the closet. and guess what?? yep, more wood flooring in the closet. i was feeling lucky. i was feeling like i had won the lottery!

and then i thought, i wonder if the other two bedrooms have wood... so my pliers and i raced to the small bedroom. i held my breath, lifted up the yukky carpeting, and saw... blonde faux wood vinyl tiles. UGLY blonde faux wood vinyl tiles. i went a little more slowly to the third bedroom, lifted up a carpet edge and found more... ugly blonde faux wood vinyl tiles... which were probably glued firmly down over lovely wood parquet floors.

now i felt like the i.r.s. was after my lottery winnings...

but you know what? even if the i.r.s. takes half of your lottery winnings, you are still left with more than you started with! so i went back into my bedroom and sat down to admire my free bonus wood parquet floor. the more i looked at it, the more i loved it! and i felt lucky again...

...because while you can't win them all, sometimes, you win one :-)