as.the.mercury.falls[part.finale]

so picking up where we last left off, just a little recap:

the.weekend.of.december.20|21

we've made our way up to this past weekend[dec.20|21]. at this point in the story im getting over being sick, its been pretty freaking cold, so far it was in the teens last weekend and that was the coldest it had gotten yet and we were smart enough to move out of our storage unit in that weather. but we had officially gotten out of the storage unit and had put up christmas tree and decorations at the house. in addition to all of that, the roofers had been making some pretty good progress at the house with shingling and such. 

so a few things i forgot to mention in the last post about friday. on friday while karen was off from work she had the privilege of taking some time to go christmas shopping. up to this point we'd both been so busy with work that we hadnt had a chance to do any real christmas shopping for each other save one afternoon earlier in the week for a half an hour when i was working late that she snuck off and did a little. anyway so friday karen managed to get all the rest of her christmas shopping done and wrapped and all while i was at work and even took all the presents to the house and put them under the tree. and to her surprise there were roofers at the house working on flashing and shingling the rest of the porch roof. so that was pretty awesome as well. 

so anyway, i think that covers all the things i forgot to mention in the last post, so getting back to THIS update...

[saturday]

well friday night we had made a solid decision that we were going to move out of the apartment this weekend[dec.20|21] because we didnt want to end up doing it over christmas and we definitely didnt want to pay another months rent at an apartment. so saturday we had decided to pack up and start moving stuff to the apartment and then sunday to do a lot of the same until we were out of the apartment for good. [hah, things never go quite the way you plan them to...] 

additionally, since i hadnt had a chance to go christmas shopping just yet, only purchased a number of things online, i was going to take some time in the morning to go and do all of my christmas shopping that still needed to be done and karen was going to start packing while i was out. 

well luckily things went pretty smoothly on saturday morning. i went out to do my shopping and got pretty lucky at it. i found just what i was looking for right away at the stores i went to and the traffic was only mildly horrific. after the shopping and a few coordinating phone calls to josh as far as whom was getting what for whom, i headed to the house to wrap my presents away from karens surprise ruining little eyes and was finished with everything by lunch time. 

not a minute after id finished wrapping presents karen called wondering when id be home and telling me that she was starting lunch, so by the time i got the apartment it was practically ready and i was greeted with not only a lovely lunch but also a ton of boxes packed and ready to go. karen had been a busy little worker all morning and had done a great job getting reay for the first load from the apartment to the house.

after lunch we loaded up and again it was getting very cold out and made for a very cold move. by the time we finished the first load we were both freezing and lunch-coma was sinking in so we decided to take a break and snuggle up on the couch for warmth and relaxation. well... that break turned into an evening, lol. and we didnt get much else accomplished on saturday, haha. we got hooked on a tv show and before we knew it wed watched a bunch of episodes and time had melted away. but all wasnt lost, we still had a whole other day to move and we had made a nice dent in what was at the apartment. 

now then, on a sad note, i feel like i should tell you all a side story about saturday as well. as youve all read by now, im sure, we've been attending a church near by since we moved here and pretty regularly at that. well as with most churches this one does a christmas production and apparently its a pretty big production at that. ive spent many years involved in christmas plays back at home in tx, its practically been a tradition in itself for the majority of my life, and id always thought that it was a pretty major event. but let me tell you, comparatively, this thing at our church in cincy was way bigger. theyd been showing us video clips of last years "awaited" and it was some serious stuff. there was all kinds of multi-media flare, pyro-technics, and more.

anyway, karen and i had reserved tickets to go and see the show on saturday night and were looking forward to it until friday afternoon. this is where the story gets sad. on friday afternoon the church released a statement about an incident that happened thursday night and as a result cancelled the rest of the shows for this year. 

basically in all of the production extravagance, there were some parts that involved a lot of people on wires flying around and such, which is pretty cool if you ask me and a great way to really use the huge volume of space that we have in the church auditorium. i dont want to get crazy images in your head or anything, so let me explain. there was one part where three girls, representing the 3 wise men apparently, were wired up and more or less were flying in from the upper part of the auditorium down to the stage level as part of a scene. well apparently one of the girls wires broke or come undone in some way and she fell 25 feet. she was immediately rushed to the hospital, the show for the evening was obviously canceled, and she was listed in critical condition. well as of friday morning, the poor girl passed away and as a result the church cancelled all of the remaining shows. so all that to say we didnt get to go although we were looking forward to it, but more-so to ask that you keep that family in your prayers as this will undoubtedly be a very difficult christmas for them. 

[sunday]

sunday morning we woke up refreshed from our relaxation and ready to work. we knew we had a lot left to do if we were going to get into the house and out of the apartment. so after our morning routine we started packing up and by 10 we were ready to start loading up for the first haul. well, i went out to back the truck up to the door and as soon as i hit the door, the cold hit me, and boy-howdy was it a knock-out! the temperature had dropped significantly outside and it was now most definitely the coldest out that it had been yet. we didnt know it at the time but we later found out that it was about 7degrees out for the majority of the day on sunday! well we were definitely unhappy with the weather turning against us so wickedly, but we really had no other options and began loading all of the largest items we could for the first haul. 

after unpacking and doing some cleaning and re-arranging at the house we went back to get packing for the next load and bracing ourselves for the cold. it was bitter cold out and we were miserable in it, and i was very very unhappy about the whole thing. after about an hour of getting things together at the apartment we talked about the reality of our circumstances and about how the house was really in no way ready for us to move into at that point. so after our discussion we decided the best thing to do was take the load we had prepared and then spend the remainder of the day getting the house in a condition that we could actually live in it instead of making ourselves completely empty the apartment that weekend. we still had some time left before the end of the month and after that second load we had the apartment at about 70% empty, with the majority of our necessities at the house. well after we unloaded again in the bitter bitter frigid temperature of 7degrees fahrenheit, we started unpacking and setting up a little and quickly realized we were going to need to make a run to the store before we could move in. so we assembled a list of the things we needed - namely rods and mounting hardware for the closet in the attic so we could actually put away our clothes, and some other smaller items like contact paper and new door/drawer pulls for all the cabinets in the kitchen. you might thing new door/drawer pulls isnt really a necessity item, but as we had been cleaning the kitchen we realized just how disgusting these things really were in addition to being ugly. it was necessary. 

so we bundled up and headed out to the meijer and then the depot to get all the necessary items and spent a little more money than i would have liked for sunday, but we had the things we needed to make the house more liveable. we went home and spent the rest of the night cleaning and putting everything together as best we could. i actually had a lot of fun doing all my little projects: first i hooked up the new chord to the stove, which was something id never done before or even was aware of in my little suburban life back in tx. i didnt know that you could even buy a range without a power chord or that it was remotely normal, lol! anyway, i got that hooked up fairly quickly and what do you know, it worked on the first try! second, i installed on the new hardware on the kitchen cabinets while karen cleaned and started installing contact paper in them. that went very quickly and we're both very happy with the new hardware. lastly i went upstairs and got started on the closet hardware while karen cleaned the bathroom. im happy to report it went very well and i got both of our new 8ft rods installed and level without any hiccups and karen was able to start getting her clothes in there as well. 

by about 9 we were both starting to get tired and karen had settled down to do some ironing in front of the tv and i got to trying to get the tv series wed been watching online to come on. well dont ask me how i did it, but i managed to lock myself out of the damn router and i couldnt remember the passwords to get back in and i was pretty unhappy about it. we ended up watching an episode on her laptop [which was still working] before bed and i would just have to figure out how to reset my router monday after work.

the only other thing to report on sunday was that the roofers were out again! and on a sunday!! while they were there they flashed the porch roof and finally finished the remainder of the shingling, so now all the shingling is done and it looks great! as far as i can tell the only things that the roofers still have left to do is some trip work, some flashing, some painting, and installing the new gutters. but hopefully thatll go pretty quickly, keep your fingers crossed! 

[monday]

haha, well, we spent our first night at the house! and it was a cold one! brrrrrr! we stayed pretty warm snuggled up in the bed, karen is an awesome space heater, hehe, but the morning was ridiculously cold. we still had the thermostat programmed at 50 and we were pretty set to leave it that way to try and save some money, especially since we were only occupying the attic space for the most part anyway. but damn that morning it was cold! i got up and staggered into the bathroom only to discover that someone had replaced our tile floor with blocks of dry-ice! im surprised i havent lost any toes yet to be quite honest. well i turned on the shower and the hot water came on just fine, but the cold water didnt... uh-oh. well we are lucky enough to have the new hot water heater and it gets hot really really well, so well in fact that without the cold water on itll scald you pretty damn easily. so this wasnt good for us. the cold water wouldnt come on no matter how i turned it and on top of that the tub wast draining. ef. so i roused my sleeping wife [much to her dismay, i assure you] and we decided we were going to have to run to the apartment to shower and get dressed and then come back to the house for breakfast and coffee before work. hopefully we wouldnt be late on top of all that. so we got packed up with what we needed and headed over to the apartment [my wife was NOT happy with me, haha, she was just a tad grumpy not getting her usual extra hour of sleep in the morning]. well the kicker here is that the temperature had dropped yet again! it was seriously just ridiculous outside. they informed us on the radio as we were headed to the apartment that it was 3 degrees outside!! brr... i left denver for a reason, and it was it. i do not like it to be in the single digits outside. id prefer it to never get below 40 if we're being honest. [make that 60 for karen, lol!] well we managed to get showered and dressed and back to the house for breakfast and coffee and then off to work and still make it only 5 minutes late. but wow was it cold. it was so cold that it hurt. seriously. my toes hurt like heck and my legs did as well. 

id looked all over for my thermal underwear but i couldnt find them in all the moving madness and could figure out where in the world they might be, so after work karen and i made a trip to target to get some new ones for me and to get her some period because she didnt have any. after that we went home to try and fix our two problems, the shower and the internet. well we got some drain-o for the shower at target and i was ready to call the router manufacturer if necessary. first the shower. we went and turned it on and the cold water was working. actually, by the time wed left that morning it had finally kicked on, but only just before we left. i dont know if it was just taking its time getting up to the attic or if there was a block or a freeze in the line, but it took about 20 minutes to finally kick on that morning - however the tub still wasnt draining in the morning. well that evening the water had finally drained during the day and we had the drain-o so we poured it in and let it do its thing and luckily i can report that it was fixed. next was the internet. well i sat down with it being less tired and having a lot more patience and after restoring the router to factory settings and setting it up from scratch, i had it working properly again and got karen and i both re-connected to our network, problem solved! 

additionally we were blessed to have a number of packages arrive in the mail from my parents and some that id ordered for karen, so i wrapped while karen worked on dinner and we discovered that one of the presents from my parents was broken, bummer... but we're getting that taken care of, so no worries!

[tuesday]

well thats today, haha, and im at work right now. this morning went much much smoother. the shower worked properly and man it was nice. very hot, very soothing, and when i got out i found that there was a literal cloud in my bathroom hanging about 6 inches from the ceiling, so that was pretty interesting. it dissipated pretty quickly, dont worry. the morning was still very cold, especially that dry-ice bathroom floor [we really need to find our bathmats this evening!] but we got back into our normal routine with ease. karen got her extra hour of sleep [and was much happier about it, lol!] and i got lunches and breakfast made with no problems. we left for work on time and we actually made it in right on time! its still frigid out, but the temperature has made its way up into the lower 20's now. according to my internet its 22degrees out right now, which is much better, but its still really cold.

however there is one small probelm. yesterday i promised you all pictures, and i came in with my camera fully intending to deliver. however, after a struggle to get them off[the camera battery is dead and that proved to be an obstacle], i discovered that none of the pictures of the tree had turned out - they were all blurred, probably from a combination of very low battery and low light levels. so i have to apologize for not putting any up, and i promise to try and take better ones this evening when we get home. but for now, thats all ive got to report, you are all caught up to the very minute and i better try and find something to do now at work, haha!

happy holidays to you all, we love and miss you and hope you have a very merry christmas!!

p.s. to those of you that havent recieved our christmas card yet, we promise we'll try and get them to you as soon as we can!! love you!!

as.the.mercury.falls[part.two]

so i think ill just pick up right where i left off..

the.week.of.december.15|19

well it was quite a week, and quite a long one at that. although, when friday arrived it felt like it ended very quickly. its such an odd feeling the way the days can drag on forever but in the end it feels like just the twinkle of an eye. maybe its the monotony of life at times, or maybe im just getting older, either way this week was exhausting at the very least. 

[monday]

we had a project that was going out on wednesday so monday was a pretty crazy day. i spent the entire day working on redlines and put in a few hours of overtime in the process. after working through lunch and up till after 7pm i logged in over 11hours on monday and by the time we got home i was exhausted. 

[tuesday] 

tuesday looked pretty much exactly like monday only instead of a little over 11 hours, it was a little over 10. not that that made it a whole lot better, i just actually took my lunch break, haha. additionally by the afternoon of tuesday i was starting to sneeze a little and wonder if i might be catching a cold. theres been all kinds of stuff going around the office for weeks now, most of it im sure originates with my fellow co-workers kids and gets passed around to all the rest of us. either way, i was worried i might be getting sick, but didnt think too much of it. 

[wednesday]

yeah i was definitely getting sick. i woke up feeling  a little worse, a slight headache some congestion - but not bad - and still sneezing a little. well, by the time lunch came around i was sneezing my head off, my eyes were watering like crazy and it was very difficult to do my work, and i was really feeling like crap. i had busted my butt all morning to try and help as much as i could with getting all the redlines finished, but by lunch i was finished. i was sick. and i was going home. so thats exactly what i did, after a quick trip to the grocery store for tissues, medicine, and some snacks, i spent the rest of the day on the couch in front of the tv. 

[thursday] 

i woke up thinking i was going to go to work. i got up, got showered, started getting dressed, had a glass of orange juice and soon started having serious hot flashes and nausea... hoping it would pass i attempted to finish getting dressed but soon discovered that the hot flashes were not going to be passing anytime soon and as long as they were around the nausea would be accompanying them. so with at that point i laughed at myself and tried to figure out why i was killing myself to go to work sick, gave up and put on some comfy clothes. after dropping karen off at work my nausea had subsided some and the hot flashes hat extinguished themselves some as well, but i didnt want to take and chances and went straight home and hopped in bed. 

i woke up around 10:30 frantic because id drifted off without setting an alarm and worried i was late with karens lunch. i had promised to bring her some because in all the excitement of my sickness the night before and in the morning we hadnt had time to pack anything. well, relieved that there was still plenty of time to spare i quickly got dressed, loaded up the truck and headed out. now then, loaded up the truck youre asking, with what? well wednesday night karen and i had wrapped all of our presents to be sent to texas and had stuffed about half the envelopes with out christmas card to go to their various new homes. so far i think karens half is all that were done and mine were ready to go but hadnt just yet. 

anyway, the first stop i made was to the fed-ex where i soon discovered that 2 out of 3 of the boxes we had packed the night before with presents were not suitable for transport viz fed-ex, lol. well it wasnt much of a problem to remedy the packing situation and 20 minutes later all of my packages were on their merry way, and after a quick drive through at the post office all of the christmas cards were as well. the next stop was quiznos downtown to pick up lunch for karen and possibly myself if i was feeling up to it by the time i got home. well after i finished at quiznos i made it to karens office at 11:55 and since she wasnt answering her cell phone [as usual] i decided to venture upstairs to drop off her lunch in person. i was greeted at the front desk by the co-worker i previously mentioned [cassandra] and we had a few laughs while i waited for karen to find her way to the front. 

well, by the time i made it home i wasnt feeling up to the sandwich anymore so i let it sit on the coffee table while i tried to find something to watch on tv. i finally ended up watching million dollar baby because karen had it at the apartment [one of the 3 movies she owned, and all of which i miraculously didnt already own] and id never seen it. well i watched it and about halfway through decided to eat the sandwich and made it through okay. the movie didnt go as well, i was very dissatisfied with it but i thought it was a much better movie than id anticipated. id been putting off watching it for quite some time fearing it would really, well...suck, based on the previews id seen and all the hype around it. anyway, it was a pretty good movie but i was really angry at the story. 

so anyway, after the movie i decided i was feeling up to another errand - the medicine seemed to be helping a little as i wasnt sneezing anymore and my eyes were hardly watering at all. so we'd gotten the energy bill in the mail a couple nights before and it was wildly outrageous and the problem is that it was based on estimates only because they havent been able to read our meter. well, they cant read our meter because its locked in our basement. anyway they were estimating our usage on average use and since we werent even in the house and had the thermostat set at 50 we were certain our bill should be significantly less. anyway we called the energy company and asked what we could do and they said we could do our own meter reading and theyd re-evaluate our bill accordingly. so i decided i was feeling up to doing this and taught myself to read the meters via the energy company's website's how-to guide. well i wont lie, it wasnt nearly as cut and dry as id hoped, but after a quick phone call to the energy company and having the woman on the phone with me as i read it off, i soon found that it wasnt nearly as difficult as my feeble mind was making it. anyway, i got the woman on the phone the new reading and it brought our bill down a little, but not nearly as much as wed like, so we're just telling ourselves that the guy read it wrong when he first hooked it up and that itll all work itself out from now on, heh, right. 

well to my surprise, when i went to the house i found the roofers there and working! they hadnt appeared to have done anything for the entire week [mostly because it had been raining, and then snowing] but they were there and actively working. they were shingling the porch roof and were all smiles as i was coming and going. so thats some good news, progress is always good news!

well thats about all the excitement for friday. by the of the day i was feeling only a little better having medicated all day and was hoping that some good sleep would do wonders in the way of healing me.

[friday]

well friday morning came and i was feeling about 75% out of a possible 100%. good enough i suppose. so i went about the business of getting up and dressed and such and made karen get out of bed to take me to work. karen took off from worn friday on account of a dr.'s appointment. dont worry, shes fine, just a check up - the problem is that shes on the schools insurance so she can really only schedule the appointments during work hours, so she had to take off. anyway, so i went to work and then we had a pretty nice relaxing evening at home. 

alright, so that brings us up to this weekend and all of its excitements and ill be happy to share those with you in the next installment of this series, lol! [along with the pictures, i promise!]

goodnight everyone!

as.the.mercury.falls[part.one]

well first let me apologize for how long its been since i last posted and for getting some of you worried about us. i assure you karen and i are fine, we've just been extra busy as of late and then i got sick for a bit on top of that, so i've gotten a bit behind on telling our little stories. so please, do forgive me. 

the.weekend.of.december.13|14

well its been a while and i'll admit im rather fuzzy on all the exact details of what happened over a week ago, but i can definitely relay the to you all the major milestones of the weekend. 

[the.roof]

well as of this weekend[dec13-14], the roof had finally made some progress! on friday the guys had come out and worked on shingles some more and we were really coming along! byt he time saturday rolled around we had shingles on the entire front of the house on the mansard roof, and then the entire back as well. the only part on the mansard roof that didnt have shingles was a strip on the side of the house about 20ft long. and since it was the weekend, we certainly didnt expect to see any roofers out, so we were celebrating in what had been accomplished for the rest of the weekend. 

[moving|remodeling]

so when i last updated you we had moved a large part of the storage unit out and we were pretty pleased with ourselves. well over this weekend[dec13-14] we were able to officially move out of the storage unit. and with good timing too, haha, it was pretty much a necessity considering we would have had to pay rent again on the 15th. but after 2 more trips we were able to get every last scrap out of the storage unit and move all but the empty boxes to the house, the empty boxes went to the apartment to be used at a future time for packing that up. also, while moving everything out of storage, we were able to get the majority of it onto the second and third floors and into the rooms that the things will be living in either temporarily or permanently[well, as permanent as we can imagine this far in advance anyway].

additionally, we made some strides in the remodeling sector of things over this weekend[dec13-14] as well. no, we didnt actually get around to any projects, but we did get out to the depot for our weekly meeting [it feels like remodeling-anonymous at this point, i swear it...], and we're able to get some much needed advice and a few accessories as well. for starters paint - we discussed the issues we've been having with the paint-pro at home depot and he tried to help us figure out what changes we could make to fix our problems. first of all the application, when painting with this shade of paint [its a red of sorts] its a good idea to never "roll out" or "dry roll" your roller before re-wetting it. the best way to do it is to always "roll wet" and use very light pressure - good to know. secondly was the product, we were pretty unhappy with the thin-ness of the paint and with the sheen, even though its only a satin sheen, it was still showing every little bump and "character flaw" in our hundred year old plaster walls. when we mentioned the sheen the first thing he asked was if we were painting plaster, and when we nodded dumbfounded, he chuckled and suggested we switch to a flat enamel instead of the satin latex we were using. so hopefully with these changes in our panting schematics, we can successfully finish this entryway with under 3 coats.[keep your fingers crossed anyway...]

the next major thing on our depot agenda was the attic bathroom. if we were planning to move into this house any time soon we were going to want that bathroom fully functional - which meant fixing or replacing the busted toilet currently residing within. well considering the professional plumber attempted to fix it to no avail and i have no experience with plumbing of any kind we opted for the replacing option and decided to look at pricing toilets... just what were we getting into? well it turned out that they had 2 options within our price range and after discussing at length with the toilet-pro we decided on the higher priced of the two options and got all of the necessary accessories for installation - new wax ring, caulk, caulk gun, etc. again, we didnt actually install the toilet, but we bought it and got it in the house so that was a big step! the majority of the weekend was spent moving everything in what was the coldest weather yet at that point, somewhere around 19degrees out. it was bitter cold and mixed in with moving we were trying to do some cleaning in the kitchen and other rooms as well as we went along. 

[christmas]

well over this weekend[dec13-14] we had two christmas-related events take place. first was that we finally decided to go and buy a christmas tree and ornaments and start the decorating process at the house, and second was karen and my christmas parties for work. karens party was pretty fun i guess. it was fairly small maybe 15 people from her work, i think it was just the section she works in - retail - and a few other people who were there. they played a little white elephant with a craps twist and in the end it was actually fun. i met a co-worker of karens, cassandra, who was pretty funny and i liked her, so thats always a plus. 

my christmas party was a polar opposite to karens. first of all it was huge. everyone from my office was there - roughly 35 people total - plus all of their spouses and kids. it was pretty insane, i wont lie. there must have been at least 30 kids running around ranging in age from newborns up to i think 12yrs old. it was the first real christmas party id ever been to for work and the only one id ever heard of with kids invited. but my boss is a real softy apparently, he went all out for the kids. first the party was held at the cincinnati fire fighters museum so there were tons of displays and fire-fighter memorabilia for the kidos to run around playing with. and second, he must have spent a fortune on gifts for the little rug-rats. ever single kid got a 10 dollar gift card to the museum gift shop and then they each got a pretty nice present from him as well. i mean like high quality laser-tag gear kind of presents. i was a little jealous, lol!

lastly, the decorating. well we'd been discussing getting a tree for a while and while we werent wanting to spend a lot of money on one, we definitely did want one. so karen had done a lot of looking on craigslist for a while and hadnt really come up with much. there were a lot of options but they were all going really fast. every time shed call they'd already be gone or they wouldnt return her calls, so we kind of gave up on the craigslist thing. my thought was biglots. i know that id seen stuff like that there before for really cheap, so i figured it was our best bet. places like walmart and target that wed already looked at were in the 60+ range for a small tree and we were definitely not looking to spend that before ornaments and stuff - of which we had nothing. well luckily there was a biglots nearby and even more luckily we were able to find a tree for 20 bucks! its nothing spectacular, just a little 6ft pre-lit tree and honestly, after we put it up we laughed at how sparse and pathetic the poor thing really was. we'd fluffed our hearts out on this poor tree for only god knows how long trying to make it look fuller, but there was just no hope, lol! well after the tree at biglots our next stop was the dollar-tree. haha, yeah, we're cheap, and yeah we're broke. but 30bucks later we had a ton of ornaments, tinsel, and other decor and it really didnt look like ghetto crap. the only other stop we made was at burlington coat factory because when we'd been there the time before id noticed a big container of ornaments for fairly cheap - luckily they still had one and it had 50 ornaments for only 9 bucks! thats a bargain in my book for sure, and these were definitely a few rungs up from the dollar-store stuff in terms of quality.

well after decorating and adding some christmas light that i had in storage and that we'd gotten over halloween the tree honestly did look amazing. you cant tell for a single second that that little tree is a piece of crap because it is hiding in the emperors clothes, i assure you. we are honestly astonished at the transformation and what we were able to pull off with just those really cheap decorations from the dollar store, lol!

well friends and family, thats all for now. i know i only just barely started, but ive gotta get back to work now. 

i promise to update more soon and add pictures!

love and miss you all!

frozen

howdy all,

so its that time again for another weekly update. sorry ive been so quiet lately but things have been pretty calm and we havent had a whole lot to write an entire blog about. but now i guess ive accumulated enough over the weekend to put together something with a respective length. 

last week.

the only real thing to report from last week is on the roof situation. for those of you that are only reading this for the first time or have just forgotten everything previous to this post, we're doing a lot of roof work at the house. the entirety of it i cant even begin to tell you and the seriousness of it all, well, fairly severe considering the fate of the certificate of occupancy is hanging in the balance and all. so anyway, recently weve hired a roofer for a hell of a deal, they got of to a huge start and then because of weather conditions and material availability the work all but came to a complete halt. however, last week things finally picked back up. on monday i talked to the roofer and he was going to get us some shingle samples to look at and leave them at the house for us to make a decision on color then call us on tuesday to get our answer and get going. well we went to the house monday after work and there were no shingles. hm. maybe he got busy or something. we decided to check back tuesday and still nothing, and hadnt heard from him either. wednesday for some reason i cant remember we got busy and didnt get a chance to check at the house, but having still heard nothing we just assumed they wouldnt be there anyway. thursday we went by after work yet again and aha! not only were there shingles but there was finally a change in the state of the roof!

well we looked at the shingles, the choice was between a green and a grey [karen wanted the green and i wanted the grey] and after looking at the actual color of the shingle [as opposed to a picture on a website that was fairly small and not very detailed] we decided to go with the grey. as for the roof itself they stripped almost all of the slate down and had put up fresh felt paper over the areas they had removed the slate on. it was really exciting to see this huge progress, not to mention the huge piles of slate scrap and dust! friday i actually got another call from the roofer asking if wed made a decision on the shingles, so we told him what we wanted and he said great, theyre starting today. awesome! so friday after work we checked out the progress and while it was getting pretty dark out we were able to tell instantly that we had shingles on the front half of the roof! amazing!! needless to say we're pretty stoked about the progress of the roof at the end of last week and we really hope to have the more of the same this week as well!

the only other thing worthy of much mention from last week was that we went to see quantum of solace for one of karens classes [city&film something or other] and i left with very mixed feelings. actually, last week i watched a few movies [because we finally switched our netflix from tv series for a little break] and ive had a lot of mixed feelings about them. i might have to dedicate a blog specifically to this topic later this week, but for now we'll jump into this weekend's status report.

saturday.

well... saturday we woke up a little late. we'd been up till after midnight the night before watching episodes of the office on netflix online and cuddling up on the couch with hot chocolate. its been getting cold out and friday had been the worst yet at that point. the high had been in the lower 30's and the low was somewhere in the upper 20's - which makes for a frozen karen and warrants lazy nights on the couch with hot chocolate and lots of blankets. anyway, we'd been up till nearly one and we were exhausted [karen had actually not slept the night before, pulling an all-nighter to finish a paper before work that was due friday - she actually passed out at about 11, lol!] and probably got our lazy butts out of bed somewhere between 11-11:30am.

to our surprise we woke up to somewhere around a solid inch of snow covering everything outside and still falling at a pretty constant rate. aggravated at the weather conditions, cold, and turned off from going outside in that mess, we decided to continue our couch-mongering from the night before. now i dont take pride in admitting this, but we didnt leave the couch till 4:30pm, lol! at that point we finally made ourselves venture outside to test the weather and for karen to build some miniature snowmen in the now 3inches of snow that had accumulated and was STILL falling. annoyed, but determined to get SOMETHING accomplished that day, we ventured to the grocery store in the "blizzard" as karen put it. [she exaggerates a little sometimes, heh.] anyway, we went to the grocery store and came back and when we got back it had actually let up a little finally and was clear out now that it was dark outside. well by the time we finished putting away the groceries that had changed and it was now falling out harder than it had all day long. ugh. we retreated back to the couch, lol! anyway, that was pretty much the remainder of our night. ;]

sunday.

after saturday's disappointing [but oh-so-fun & relaxing!] day of getting nothing REAL accomplished, we were determined to get a LOT done on sunday and still have a little downtime sunday night before the work-week began.

first things first [obviously... ive never understood this adage...], we made sure to get up and make it to EARLY church. i think we were 2 out of maybe a hundred that made it to the early service, so we were quite proud of ourselves. keep in mind this church is easily a 2 or 3k attendance every sunday. anyway, after church we decided to hit the target nearby to pick up our gift for the child we're sponsoring [see last weekend's post for more]. it was actually a lot of fun [and frustration] going through all the toy isles trying to find the right gifts. we ended up getting some pretty cool stuff [at least in my opinion] and we really hope the little boy enjoys his new toys. =]

after target we headed home for lunch, to change quickly, and to drop off the target stuff. and then it was straight to the storage place to pick up the first load. the major goal for the near future is getting out of the storage unit because we dont want to throw money away on it again [and its due the 15th] when we have tons of space at the house. so anyway, we loaded up the first load for the day which only took about an hour - not bad really, especially considering the weather was still gross and freezing even though it had stopped snowing. so we took that to the house and started unloading. which actually proved to be rather difficult considering the snow we were tracking into the entry-way turning it into a make-shift [and completely un-necessary!] slip-n-slide. i just about busted my arse so many times i cant believe i didnt dis-locate a knee or something. we tried putting down some carpet wed torn up from the stairs a few weeks earlier, but that just got wet and then started sliding all on its own. ugh.  luckily we finished unloading fairly quickly and took a break from hauling stuff to clean things up. if we were going to get another load we had to clean up the sloshy mess in the entryway anyway. we ended up taking a couple hours to clean up the entry, take-down the painters tape that had expired the week before[did i mention that the paint STILL looks like $h!t after 3 coats on top of a primer coat?! ugh!! so aggravating!!], and then karen started giving the kitchen the first of several needed cleanings while i got the shop-vac busy on the second floor & stairs - so we didnt slip on any of the left-over demolition debris that was currently covering, well... everything. 

after about an hour into it karen went and got the laundry to get it going while i continued my battle with the shop-vac [which has been by far the most useful wedding gift at the house so far, lol!] at about the 2 hour mark id finished and she had gotten to a stopping point with the laundry and the kitchen so we decided we needed a real break before the next haul. we went home to cook "supper" at about 4 and rested for about a half an hour before venturing back out for the second load of punishment. this one loaded up pretty quickly as well and we were back at the house by 6pm. well im pretty sure ive mentioned our cool neighbors, now let me upgrade their status to awesome! they decided to come out and help us unload this haul [completely unsolicited, theyd just seen us unloading the first one and volunteered!]. well i will tell you what, it probably took us 20 minutes to unload everything with the extra hands - and lucky too because the temperature was seriously falling fast! after thanking them profusely and giving them a short updated tour of the house we decided that we were done for the day now that we were frozen and sore. we changed out the laundry and then headed back to that couch for the evening. it ended up being a really pleasant evening - we got home around 7pm and actually got our downtime! not only did we get our downtime, but thanks to the internet we were able to catch up completely with the office and we're now anxiously awaiting the next new installment! haha, i know thats not really of any real importance, but it is pretty fun for us ;]

well then. i guess that about does it for last week and the weekend. good thing too, because my lunch time is up and its pretty hectic around here today!

stay tuned!!

conversations.with.my.wife

k - "did you turn the heat down?!" [flabbergasted! reaches over and cranks it back to full]

c - "yes! you're smoking me out over here!" [cranks it back down to 3/4... where it was. pauses for a second]

c - "sweetie, you don't have to bake in the truck." [forcefully, intending to persuade]

k - [nodding yes for a few seconds] "i don't want to get to work raw."

c - [silence, then out right laughter]

--

what do you say to that?

these little moments happen all the time, and this one was particularly adorable, so i was inspired to start sharing these more often. 

i love my life. =]

weekend.adventures

i dont have any witty preface today, so ill just get to the meat[turkey of course!] of the post. 

saturday[11.29.08]

well we were awoken at about 9am by the phone ringing in my ear. brutal... anyway, it was the car dealership, so i rubbed my eyes a little and discussed with him the financing situation. it turns out that first thing that morning a bank had gotten back to them accepting our application and offering us a loan. good news right? ha, not exactly. the interest was 12.6% over 24 months! gah! thats ridiculous, we would have ended up paying like 2000 bucks in interest alone, and considering we didnt even necessarily need the loan in the first place, there was no way we were doing that. so i told him thanks, but no thanks, they could keep the up-front check. 

so at this point we still didnt want to wipe out our savings, but werent sure what options we even had. you know, as independent as i am, i dont mind asking for advice when i dont know what to do. and seeing as how my parents have usually experienced exactly what im going through, or something similar in most situations, i tend to call them first to get their point of view on things. now karen is extremely independent, and she doesnt like to do this, shed rather figure things out on her own instead of admitting her parents might have the answer [haha, as smart as they are, they always do!]. well generally ill sit back and wait and appease her ego and a lot of times we can figure out whatever it is on our own, but in cases where no matter how long we attempt to figure out a solution  it wont matter, i just skip to calling the folks while karen rolls her eyes at me[haha, oh-well, we dont necessarily have to take the advice - it doesnt hurt to get another opinion, right?]. anyway, all that to say, that this was one of those times and so i called up my folks. mom answers and i relay the situation, she agrees the interest is outrageous and that we shouldnt do it, and then says she wants to talk to my dad and she'll call me back. okay. 

anyway, so now that we had that all figured out, we were feeling much better about the truck and decided to jump into our day with both feet. first things first, breakfast - oh yeah, i DID have a piece of cherry cheesecake for breakfast, lol! [jealousy. i can see it all over your face. if youd tasted this cheesecake youd have done the same] haha, so anyway, while having our "breakfast" we made our to-do list for the day and then got started soon after. 

the big thing on the list for saturday was getting me an ohio drivers license... ive been putting this off for a while, but my car insurance is on my butt about it now, and with the new truck im going to have to be licensed here to get plates here [and yes mom, i checked into it, i DO have to get my own plates, the dealership doesnt provide them]. well since im an out of state-er, ohio is making me take the stupid drivers exam again... ugh. so i had my little book and while we were running errands in the morning i was going to read through it[it was only about 60 pages anyway] to freshen up on all of ohios laws. 

first stop in the morning was at the old truck [still parked in a shared lot near the mechanic’s shop] to retrieve 3 little items id forgotten when i cleaned it out wednesday night. second on the list was walgreens for a few items, then ace hardware for a copy of the new truck key, and then straight to the dps to get this license business taken care of [they closed at 2 and it was going to be noon by the time we got there].

well luckily, i finished reading the book right as karen parked at the dps, haha. talk about great timing. so anyway, i went in and did the normal eye test, hearing test, forms, proof of identification, etc. and then the woman sat me down for my exam. well karen had psyched me out a little before hand, because she apparently only barely passed hers when she took it because they put a bunch of stupid questions about jail time and fine amounts and stuff on there. well i am proud to let you all know that i only missed one question, haha, and thats only because i mis-read it. had i read it again i wouldnt have missed any =] so now after a little longer they took my picture and i am now an officially licensed ohio driver... yay.

after the dps i wanted to spend the rest of my birthday cash on some new clothes, so that was what we decided to do. having finished all the things we needed to do on the list, it was time for a little fun so we went to the mall. the first stop we made was american eagle because ive grown rather fond of their jeans in the last couple of years. they fit really well and theyre very comfortable... well, this year... apparently american eagle is only selling jeans with a dozen faux rips in them. grr... okay, now i understand fashion has its trends, and everyone wants to be trendy, but this thing with the fake holes and rips has gotten completely out of control. its surpassed "fashionably fake vintage" to the point of "fashionably homeless person." i cant wear that crap to work, nor would i even want to, it just looks trashy. so confounded and frustrated we left american eagle and after looking around the mall a little we checkout out forever 21 for karen [because when husbands get to go clothes shopping, no matter the occasion, wives get to as well. the quicker you all learn this, the easier your life will be, i assure you, lol!] well we didnt end up getting anything there because karen felt i wasnt in the spirit of shopping for her [like i said, if id just learned quicker, my life would be easier..., haha] and she got frustrated with me. oh-boy, so after i explained that i was really just hungry and that it had nothing to do with her shopping, she was satisfied, and we made a last stop at express on the way out. i shop at express for work clothes because ive found that theyre the only place that has "nice" clothes with a modern fit that i like. anyway, it turned out they were having a great sale on their slacks and i got 2 new pairs, woohoo!

at this point we were both starving and decided we really wanted olive garden, for whatever reason [probably something to do with our proximity to a mall, lol] olive garden sounded really good so we attempted to find one on our cell. well that wasnt working and i spotted an old navy across the street, so i called up my dad to see if he could find an olive garden on his blackberry while we did a little shopping at old navy. old navy has the best deals on thermals, and well... in the winter months thermals make up about 90% of my wardrobe, lol! anyway, im still not sure what happened with dad and the olive garden thing, but we never heard back about it, and by the time we left old navy with a couple of new thermals for me, we were so hungry we didnt care where we ate. well we spotted a "la rosa's" and decided to give it a shot. this is like a little italian place that they have up here in ohio, thats kind of on the same level as a fazolis - but not really. anyway, karen had had it once when she was in undergrad and didnt really like it, but we decided to give it a second chance. it turned out to be just okay in my opinion. id much rather have had fazolis... or olive garden. anyway.. so after lunch we headed back towards home and well... made another stop at target on the way, lol! i know, we're ridiculous, but i still had a lot of money to spend [because im an awesome shopper and i always find the best deals!] and i ended up getting a couple pairs of jeans and an argyle sweater [finally! been wanting one for weeks!] and karen finally found a few items of her own. haha, so now that we were satisfied with our shopping excursion we headed home [now that it was like 7pm, lol!]. 

well the rest of the night wasnt anything spectacular, but it was fun for us. we cuddled up on the couch and watched two netflix - the remaining disks of the complete series of the black donnely's and the first season of the big bang theory. i dont know if anyone else out there is as addicted to renting tv series from netflix as i am, but if you are then you totally understand. i love both of these shows, the big bang theory brings out the true nerd in me and i laugh the entire time and the black donnely's is like a mild sopranos that i cant get enough of. sadly, they only had one season before the plug got pulled for some unknown reason [it definitely wasnt ratings, this show was huge when it was on primetime]. 

well by the time we finished up it was midnight, so we hit the sack to rejuvenate for sundays activities. [did i mention i made turkey quesadillas for dinner? haha, yummmmm...] 

sunday[11.30.08]

well, sunday morning we woke up pretty late - right around 10am. but having missed the last 3 or 4 weeks of church i was determined to go so we got dressed and ready and made it to the last service at 11:45. well by the time it was over, half the day was gone, but it was good for us. at first i wasnt thrilled with the message the series they were starting - christmas stuff. ugh, why is that as soon as thanksgiving ends the entire world goes into christmas overdrive? id like a couple of weeks to finish one holiday before i get inundated by another... or maybe its just that for whatever reason i dont care all that much for christmas. i cant explain it, so dont ask, but for a long time now i just havent felt the "christmas spirit," and i dont know when or if i really will again. anyway, the service wasnt just "the christmas story" as i originally anticipated, it was actually pretty good. so i left there feeling a little angry with myself for judging so quickly until karen tugged on my sleeve and mentioned she wanted to sponsor a child, and i forgot all about it. for someone who isnt very churchy, this girl really amazes me with her sense of charity and the size of her heart. well, id thought about it a lot during the service when they presented the program they do each year giving gifts to children with incarcerated parents, but when karen mentioned it my heart melted. i hadnt wanted to bring it up right away because i wasnt entirely sure howd she feel about it given our financial situation, but apparently that wasnt a problem. anyway, we went to the little booth area and learned about the program and ended up finding a little boy to sponsor; hopefully we can make his christmas a little brighter without a parent there to spend it with. 

after church we went home to have a nice thanksgiving leftovers lunch before gearing up for the days housework. well we decided what all we were going to do and then loaded up the new truck with a load of tubs that we were ready to move to the house. and its a good thing they were tubs because we found it was freezing and drizzling out when we were ready to load up, ugh. well by the time we unloaded we were freezing, but ready to work.

the projects for the day were to put another coat of paint on the entry walls [hopefully the last!], to do all our laundry [without having to go to the laundry mat! woohoo!], to start thoroughly cleaning the attic [where we plan to live while we re-do the second floor, then visa-versa], and as a small side project - to install the new front porch light. well karen got started on the laundry while i got started on the front porch light [while there was still daylight out] and man, it was a breeze. i guess all those hanging fixtures have made me a bit of a light-fixture aficionado for the time being or something, but this sucker went on quick and worked perfectly.  well by the time i was finished with the light karen was already getting started on the painting, so i joined her. and about an hour later we were satisfied with this coat of paint, and pretty sure it might need yet another... ugh. yeah, we're out of paint, guess we'll have to get some more...

anyway, we switched out the laundry and then headed upstairs to the second floor to do a little re-arranging and tidying up, and then onward to the 3rd floor. the first thing we did was remove all the materials we ripped down from that stupid partition wall and made a nice storage room out of the second floor "office" temporarily. then we got started with the vacuuming. karen took the regular vac and hit the room in the front while i got the shop-vac and started sucking up all the chunks of drywall that littered the floor. well.... not long into it we managed to set off the smoke alarm with all the dust we were kicking up. so i sprinted downstairs to try to turn off the smoke alarm or bypass it or something - but to no avail. long story short we had to apologize to the very speedy truck of firemen than showed up and also to the security company before we were able to get the alarm situation figured out and were able to finish vacuuming. however, the floors looked great when we were done! and hey, now we know that the security system works, right? lol!

well it was about 8pm when we left with 2 loads of laundry finished, one in the dryer, and one ready to go into the dryer. we went home and karen made the best dinner for me - a thanksgiving leftovers enchilada casserole, it was awesome! and then throughout the night we ended up going back to the house twice more to get the rest of the laundry as well. ugh. anyway, we ended up in bed by 11pm with all 4 loads of laundry done and a nice full belly of awesome food. 

well, thats it folks. i know it was long winded, but i figure most of you dont mind. josh is the only one that ever complains about the length of my blogs, lol! 

happy 1st of december!

 

tg.madness+

well happy belated turkey day to you all, i hope everyone gave thanks for the invention of stretchy pants, haha, i know i did!

well when last i left you, we had just had some pretty fantastic news, my truck was broke again! awesome! [anyone sense the sarcasm dripping off that?] anyhow... tuesday and wednesday were normal days, nothing to report really, we didnt do anything special, normal week stuff. all i can really say is that we came to the solid conclusion that we did not want to put anymore money into the stupid piece of sssssuh... truck and we were definitely going to find something else. we spent a little time here and there looking at trucks on craigslist, autotrader, carmax, and other various websites to see if we found anything in our price range [not to mention deciding for sure what our price range was] that matched what we wanted. 

tg.thursday[11.27.08]

well turkey day had finally arrived, gobble-gobble! we spent the morning looking up trucks online determined that we were going to try and buy one thursday if possible [which it totally wasnt, nothing is open on tg] or friday if possible... if neither of those worked out... well this weekend we had to get it done, there were no options there. we'd called wednesday night to extend the car rental through friday and we really didnt want to keep renting it after that. 

so around 11am wed exhausted ourselves looking at trucks and making phone calls to no avail. it just wasnt going to happen. oh-well, theres lots to do on thanksgiving, haha! so while i had been making phone calls, karen had been researching all the recipes that she was intending to use to cook the thanksgiving feast extraordinaire and which items we needed to get from the store. 

so around 11:30 we went to the grocery store - except not just any grocery store, we went to the brand new kroger in kenwood. and wow... this thing was nice. there was literally a wall of cheese wheels that i know my father-in-law would have loved to have seen. [if we'd had the camera thered be pictures, i assure you.] well, we spent the next hour and a half and waaaay too much money at kroger getting all the little goodies that were going to be prepared for me when we got home. [i was so excited! and so was karen!] the last little stop on the way home was at walmart where i got to spend a little birthday money on two dvd's - hancock and iron man [thanks mom & dad!] so now i was totally set for the afternoon, haha. 

so we went home from there and both got started on our tasks for the next 4+ hours. karen got busy in the kitchen, and i got busy staying out of her hair, lol! i had a blast watching hancock and iron man and karen was really having fun, totally in her element baking and cooking in the kitchen. occasionally she'd bring me a little snack or a fresh beer [i really do have the best wife ever!] while i sat lazily on the couch entranced in my movies. 

well what ended up being closer to 5 hours later, karen finished dinner [i have no idea how she had the energy!] and we were ready to go. this was our first thanksgiving alone together and the first one karen had ever made and it was really spectacular. she went all out, even making a nice little menu and printing out for me with all the items of the nights dinner. there was turkey and stuffing [obviously], some redskin+garlic mashed potatoes, gravy, two kinds of cranberry sauce [one was her mom, anne's, recipe for what she called a cranberry relish], honey-butter rolls, my grandmother's recipe for sweet potato streusel, two pumpkin pies from scratch [we decided to make one to give to our new neighbors that have been so sweet to us!], mulled wine [which id never had before and i have no idea really how to explain it, sorry], and last but not least - a from scratch cherry cheese cake that was omg delicious! [sorry mom and grandma, but karen's cheesecake has got to be the best ive ever had!! and sorry to jello too, you cant compete, youre way out of your league here...] so without further adieu, here are a few shots of our thanksgiving feast extraordinaire! [click to open the full-size, mouth-watering image]

by the time we finished eating we were totally stuffed [after only one serving each!] and spent the next hour and ahalf together cuddled up on the couch watched the remainder [id started it when karen needed more time on dinner] of superman returns - kevin spacey is awesome as lex luther, i dont care what anyone says. after that it was time for bed, there was still a lot of weekend left ahead of us. 

black.friday[11.28.08]

well friday morning we woke up a little late, but we really cant be blamed for that, its all the turkey's fault. but immediately got started on the truck hunt. this proved to be quite a long day, but for the sake of brevity i'll only touch on the highlights. [youre welcome josh...]

first we looked up all the trucks we knew we wanted to see and mapped them all out on google and printed everything out. second we went to the bank to see about getting an auto-loan. we decided what our budget was and were going to stick to it, and we had the funds available in our savings account. but because of all the house repairs we're currently involved in as well the combination of the truck and the house repairs is going to completely wipe us out of our savings, so we thought putting half down and paying the rest off in a small auto-loan would be the best way to go. well the bank went fine, they took all our information, it was painless enough, but the manager couldnt tell us immediately if we were going to be approved, it had to process through the central headquarters [or whatever evil empire lingo the banks use these days] and she's call us as soon as she heard from them. 

so we got on our way to the first location, map in hand, we hit the road. haha, well not 15 minutes later my trusty navigator informs me that she thought we'd missed one of our turns and it turned out she was right... so where it should have taken us 20 minutes to get to the first stop, lol, it took about an hour after we detoured way out of the way on what ended up being a two lane highway with road construction for a large chunk of the trip, lol! oh-well, theres no one else id rather be lost with, heh. 

so we got to the first place on our list and man, this truck was a beauty [well, at first anyway]. it was a blue 2003 dodge ram 1500 crew cab & short bed and boy it was pretty. it had 70k miles on it and it was the one i liked the most on the list. however... the tiny little lot it was on was closed... so we called the numbers and got one of the owners but he was out of town and was going to call his partner and call us back. well... half an hour late we still hadnt had a call so we gave up and moved on to the next one on the list. on the way we decided to stop at a dealership that was across the high-way and see if they had anything in our price-range, because after all, they were right there. 

well they had 2 trucks and i didnt like either of them for various reasons, so we said thanks but no thanks and got back on our way. no sooner had we gotten on the on-ramp than the phone was buzzing and it was the bank. however, it was not a great call. wed been denied the loan because neither of us had a job as long as they liked to be considered steady. [2 years! are you kidding me?!] great, oh-well, we'll figure it out as we go... so i hung up and by the time we were getting off the highway to go up the road a little for the next truck my phone was buzzing again - it was the other owner from the first lot telling me he'd be at the lot in about 20 minutes. haha, alright, well i told him we'd moved on, but we'd keep him in mind. so we go to the second lot and after a few turn arounds to actually find the place we check out the truck - a white[gag!] 2004 dodge dakota with extended cab. the guy was really nice, offered us financing with only 5% interest [awesome!] and let us take it for a test drive. so while we were out i looked at karen and told her i really didnt like this truck even though it was nice, how did she feel? well she agreed. we both felt it was too small, especially compared to the "hearty and robust" as karen put it, dodge ram we'd just looked at. so we went back, thanked the guy and decided we'd head back to the first lot and take that ram for a spin. 

well, we got there and the guy handed over the keys, so we popped it open and got on our way. however, we soon started falling out of love with this truck. after seeing the dakota which was in great shape, we noticed the ram's tired were pretty much bald - ugh, not good. secondly, it didnt have automatic doors and windows which my 95 freakin truck had, and was going to be a but of an inconvenience. we also noticed other little qwerks with it like the interior, some scratches on the exterior, the lack of a tow-package[which we've used more than a few times recently on my 95 and has come in really handy] and a few other things... well crap, now what? there were two other places on my list but they were in opposite directions from where we now were. one was in indiana and about an hour and a half away, the other was in kentucky and an hour away. well believe it or not after all this driving around and only having looked at 2 trucks seriously, it was already passed 3 in the afternoon... 

so i decided to call the place in kentucky and find out what they had available while karen talked to the guy at this lot a little longer. i found out that the kentucky place was an actual dealership and they ended up having 3 other trucks that were in our price range besides the one we knew was there. not to mention the one we knew about had some of the things this blue one was lacking according to the guy on the phone. so we said our goodbyes, got on the road, and headed to kentucky. well, about an hour and 15 minutes later [we had to stop for gas] we arrived at the dealership and found the guy from the phone he took us out to the truck and we carefully inspected it from the outside having already done this twice. well this thing was immaculate, if youd told me it was brand new, id have believed you. he handed us the keys and we took it for a test drive, and now i was determined to really test it. so i gave the breaks, engine, and other features a thorough test and we were very satisfied with the way it ran. 

when we got back to the dealership we were sold. we looked at the other options on his lot that were in our price range just to make sure, but we were definitely sold on this truck. so a few hours later after all the paperwork, we'd gotten he process started for financing, but the banks were all closed for the night. we ended up writing a check for the full amount up front pending the results of financing on saturday morning, and at a little after 6pm i drove off the lot in our new truck with karen right behind me in the rental car. at this point we were headed straight back to columbus to return the rental [3 hours away] and then back home again [another 2 hours]. we finally got home at about 1am and we were both completely exhausted and just collapsed into bed for the night. i think i still had some of my clothes on, lol!

so at the end of the day [yeah i guess i went into a few of the finer points, sorry josh, deal with it] we had a new truck!! so here are the details. its a 2004 dodge ram 1500. bright red [shiny as can be!], crew cab, long bed. it has 80k miles on it, tires with over 60% tread, a tow-package [and it even includes a towing drive setting for hauling stuff, sweet!] it runs like a dream and everything on it works like new! so we now have a new[to us] "shiny, and hearty, AND robust!" truck! [which we have aptly named sahara because of - look at it for a while and youll figure it out...]

so again, without further adieu, here are the pics! [again, click for the full-size, mouth-watering image, heh]

some of you may notice the mirror on the drivers side is missing. the deal with that is that it was cracked and they were in the process of ordering a new one when we bought the truck, so when it comes in theyre going to replace it for us. other than that, the only little downfalls with sahara are that she doesnt have power doors and windows and she needs a bed liner. but thats okay! id like to put in a security system anyway, and i think you can get power windows and locks as an option with those now-a-days, and we can get a spray in liner pretty cheap too! no worries!

well, thats all for now! check back soon for our saturday and sunday adventures!

gobble-gobble!