lone.star.livin'

as i sit here typing, the window next to me depicts the serene images of leisurely life at its utmost. the palms gently swaying in the sea breezes, the small song birds happily chirping and flitting around playing a lively game of tag, the hint of saltwater and sand floating on the air, and of course the rousing chorus of the 3 pugs chasing each other, fighting over the most select toy, and all-the-while attempting to breathe through their genetically deformed air passages... [the latter, perhaps less serene...]

yes thats right y'all, im in texas. and on the texas coast to be more specific. home-again-home-again-jigitty-jig.

its been several months since i last updated the ole' blog, and much has changed. most of you that actually read this are close enough that you're already aware of most of the events of my life, however, supposing there are the rare few out there in the entire world [and beyond...?]that might per-chance stubble upon this and decide its worth a read, follow-along as i briefly wrap up the major events of the recent past and set the scene for future-posts.

[the.job.situation]

when last we spoke [er, wrote?] i was embarking on a little adventure of landscaping with my friend from n'awlins and we had completed a few little jobs with some success. well that lasted about as long as you read.

we never ended up getting another job [i think it was really just the seasons changing] even though we bid on a number of them. after a couple of weeks however, i was desperate for cash-flow again and sought some other income situation.

i still had the itt job at this point and was enjoying my first class [and getting the hang of it a bit more as time went on] however the minuscule salary of a new adjunct teaching one class is not something to sustain one's extravagant lifestyle... ;]

so to shorten the longevity of my verboseness in the instance, i posted an ad on the church website boasting my qualifications, and through a series of serendipitous events, i ended up working for jones the florist [the name in florists in the greater cincinnati area] that ended up being a pretty great experience for a few months. i started out doing candy bouquets[if you dont know what that is, just go to their website...] and as it would turn out was quite the craftsman. i picked this little skill up very quickly and in a few days was pretty much the fastest person on production in the place. so i candied for a couple of months while they got through some big seasonal orders and then when the seasonal time was up i inquired about staying on for a bit longer if theyd have me...

meanwhile - in those months at jones, i had been offered and accepted another classes for the following quarter at itt, took up karate in my "spare" time, and then as i looked into extending my stay at jones, was offered and accepted 2 classes for the upcoming quarter and had a couple of promising interviews.

one of the interviews was with one of the biggest architecture firms in cinicnnati [and while i wont play the dropping names game, they're huge and "worldwide"...] and i was very excited about the prospect. this was the dream job in the cincinnati area and since karen and i had resolved to sticking around there, this was a big deal. in conjunction with that, i started interviewing, via the vast world-wide telecommunications network, for a position in a construction firm in houston. [spoiler alert! if you havent yet read the title of the blog.... um.... dont.]

well jones decided to hire me on as a delivery driver because of my mad-skillz and obvious awesomeness and i enjoyed working for them through december. the interview with the b-i-g arch firm was less than fruitful in the immediate present-tense sense of things - although it was a great feeling knowing they were interested and seriously considering me! - and as it would turn out i was offered and accepted the job in houston. [shocker. i know.]

thus begun a whirlwind of activity revolving this drastically life-altering occurance...

[h-t-x]

so... heres the run-down on h-town.

i interviewed for this position for a bout a span of a month's time and on the friday before karen and i were supposed to leave for our annual christmas voyage to the south to see the family, the construction company emailed me the offer letter.

i thought it over [but not for long - this was an amazing opportunity!] and discussed it with family and friends over the weekend, and then first thing monday morning i accepted and we got the ball rolling.

the next day [tuesday] karen and i flew out to texas for our holiday vacation and i stayed in loose contact with my new boss via email - and while we were in texas anyway and so near our soon-to-be-home, we decided to get started on some of the more menial tasks of setting up bank accounts and starting the apartment hunt...

on the 28th of december we flew back to cinicnnati and at this point it had been decided that my start date would be january 10. for anyone not doing the math, thats about a week and a half that i had to be back in texas and ready to start the job with my truck, and any belongings of mine that i would need in texas, as well as helping karen as much as humanly possibly to pack up our house, get rid of whatever we werent taking and generally begin the moving process...

i needed to embark on the cross-country drive by no later than the 5th to have 2 days for the actual driving part and a couple of days to get settled in and ready to start work on the 10th.

so between dec 28 and jan 5 karen and i worked like crazy people to go through our entire house and get rid of anything and everything we could do-without so that we didnt have to move it cross-country.

we sold off furniture on criagslist, had an extensive garage sale to rid ourselves of smaller items, donated a ton of stuff to the church and local clothes-closets, had contractors come in and do some of the final repairs we just hadnt gotten around to yet on the house and now had no time to do and needed to be done before the move/sale, got the house put on the market and worked with the realtor to figure out the best plan of attack, said goodbye to as many dear friends as i could before i left, and in the end... karen still ended up having to stay in cincinnati another 3 weeks after i left to finish all of the above...

of course that then precludes to the ensuing madness of my driving to texas and staying with josh and cassie for the short-term while i searched for an apartment and a place to move all of our crap, started the new job and got settled in, had miscellaneous issues with the truck that needed to be dealt with [for instance i ended up needing to have all 4 tires replaced after the journey south, or the entire engine maintenance checkup i was 10,000 miles over-due on, etc., etc., etc.... ]...

in the end however. we arrived safely. we got everything moved. we found an apartment. i started my job and have settled pretty well into it. karen has since found a temporary job shes enjoying teaching swimming lessons in houston, while still searching for that perfect career job of her own. and last - but certainly not least - we have had quite the rollercoaster of events surrounding the sale of the cincy-house....

but that my friends... is a story for another time.

and with that - im signing off. hope to post more soon-ish, but with life's many obstacles, who really knows?

god bless texas, and have a good-un y'all. =]

the.chronicles.of....[6.of.x]

christmas

moving

kitchen

new years

craigslist

electrical

roof > remodeling

im really going to try to make this the last installment and get caught up because we're really just oh so close anyway that this might as well be a normal update [instead of a catch-up, hence changing roof to remodeling if you didnt already notice.] 

electrical.

heh, well... this has proven to be a fun one. i think the last i mentioned electrical was when i was installing light fixtures, although i cant remember for sure. since then we've had more... lets say "fun" with the electrical in the house. 

[kitchen] 

it all started in the kitchen when we first moved into the house "permanently." as we were setting up the kitchen we tried plugging in the microwave to the outlet directly beneath the microwave cabinet only to discover that this particular outlet had no juice. well after a trip to the breaker box while karen stayed in the kitchen we discovered that resetting all the breakers did nothing to bring life back to this particular outlet. so plan b, extension cord to the nearest outlet that id have a little juice in it. im pretty sure you arent supposed to plug a microwave into an extension cord [although we did use a heavy duty orange outdoor cord that could handle a larger load, we're not dumb] and the microwave makes sure to let you know its unhappy by moaning and making the most pathetic sounds its capable of so that youre sure its going to give out on you at any moment. its kind of like when youre running out of gas and your car starts whimpering and having a pity party for itself. [damn electronics and their sulking!] so that was part one.

part two started on christmas day. mom-in-law had shipped us a really nice ceramic space heater as part of our christmas presents and it had arrived on christmas eve. well, while we were cooking and having a merry time on christmas day, we decided to plug that bad boy in and see if we could get the rooms we were in a little toastier as well. seeing as how karen was in the kitchen we thought that would be the optimum place for it [i was fine in the dining room near by] and plugged it in. well it kicked on with no problems and started warming up, but after about 5 minutes the circuit breaker tripped and the entire ground floor save the parlor lost power. [which alerted us to how poorly zoned in the breaker box our freaking house is... ugh! blow one and lose everything?!] well karen had just started up the microwave when it happened so she assumed that was the culprit [still pouting mind you] so i headed down to the breaker box and started throwing switched till everything came back and then up the stairs i went, back to my computer, and 5 minutes later... the exact same thing happened. damnit. back downstairs, start throwing switches, everything kicks on, back up stairs, 5 minutes later, you guessed it. this time i decided it had to be because of the heater and the microwave all on the same breaker, that little guy is pretty powerful. so i move the microwaves extension cord into the utility room around the corner this time, and we try again. and the same thing happens. at this point im getting frustrated so i move the heater into the dining room and we try it again, same thing. grrr... no more heater, sorry babe. additionally, ive decided to search the house until i find a shorter extension cord for the stupid microwave because its just getting weaker and weaker sounding [we had it on a 25 footer]. well eventually i found an 8 footer that we'd used at the first apartment for the fridge[dont ask] and the microwave seemed to like that one slightly better. [the longer the cord the more distance the power has to travel obviously]. 

[breaker box]

so the breaker box, as i mentioned is in the basement. i also mentioned that every time id go down id start throwing switches until everything came back to life. im sure you were all thinking that sounded pretty dumb of me, so let me explain. back at home in tx we had a breaker box and when youd trip one the breaker would flip to off and a little orange light would come on. this would alert you to the specific breaker that was tripped, enabling you to reset just that one and regain power. additionally, there is a handy little chart in the door of the box that lists the various zones and the corresponding breaker assignments. this is all pretty standard stuff in beaker boxes, hell in our systems 2 class back at a&m we even had to draw and plan one of these stupid things out, im fairly well associated with how they work. however...

in ciny, our break box trips and nothing changes within the box. none of the switches move to the on or off position, ever, they remain wherever you left them. the little orange lights, never come on, regardless of whether the breaker is tripped or not, they always remain off. and lastly, that handy little chart in the door of the box, is blank except for some chicken scratch on 3 of the lines that appears to say attic, kitchen and upper [all of which do not actually correspond to any of the named locations through our various trials, and keep in mind there are probably 20 something breakers in the box.] so really my only option is to start at the top and keep flipping until they all magically come back. i have figured out that number 14 is the furnace, and i believe is dedicated to it, but other than that, i havent taken the time to remember them. [mostly because im so aggravated and standing in the dark, that im not really in the mood to remember as i curse at the stupid thing.]

[attic]

which leads us to the most recent electrical problem we've encountered, the attic. for those of you that have been playing catch up or have fairly good memories, you might remember that since moving into the house karen and i have been residing in the attic space and primarily use the attic bathroom which has had the only working shower/tub [but not a working toilet - although in our defense we had bought a new toilet and even moved it all the way up into the attic and had it sitting just outside the bathroom door waiting for the fateful day it might be installed, but thats not this story...]. so given this information, i think its pretty safe to assume that the attic power outlets in and out of the bathroom + the bathroom lights are the primary electrical that we use on a daily basis. other than the kitchen theyre the top dogs. well i believe it was the day after new years and karen and i were getting ready for bed. she was brushing her teeth, i was taking out my contacts, i believe one of us had just gotten out of the shower[probably me, i bathe pretty frequently - although karen might have taken a bath, she likes to do that to unwind at the end of the evening sometimes as well] well out of the clear blue[black] the entire attic power shorts out. actually now that im remembering it all, karen was in the shower and i was brushing my teeth, but what we were doing was meaningless except to say neither of us were using the power other than the light in the bathroom. so grumpily... i trotted down to the basement[from the attic mind you] and reset every switch but the main power switch [ive never flipped that one, id really rather not - just seems like a bad idea...] and then back up to the attic. ef. nothing was on. i asked karen if theyd even flickered, and she said no. so while she finished her shower i went back down to the basement[lair] to see if i could figure anything else out. i started inspecting the box, trying to decipher any other words from the chart, and at some point i closed the door [dont ask me why, because i really dont know] and found that hiding behind it was yet another, much smaller breaker box with two switched. hm, maybe the attic was on a different box? would kind of make sense, the attic did have the newest electrical outlets and most likely the newest wiring in the house. so i reset both of those, it was really the only option i had left at that point, and slowly, but more eagerly trotted back upstairs. ef! still nothing! wtf?! well i was out of ideas, there was really nothing else we could reset if none of those had worked. so i went back downstairs to find our 50' extension cord and the standing lamp and then back upstairs and set the lamp up in the bathroom while karen did her best not to trip over, bump into, or fall over anything in the bathroom/closet as she got dressed. it took a while but after trying 6 outlets i finally found one that worked in the second half of the attic [hence two switches, two zones. at least thats my thought anyway] and the light came on. well, its not ideal, but itll have to do. and thats the attic. 

[concluding thoughts]

at this point. we're a bit stumped as to what we should do about our electrical problem. its clear that we have one. but we're doing alright in our makeshift situation for the time being. additionally, we never set aside in our budget and planning anything to do with electrical problems [the inspections before we bought the house never lead us to believe we'd have any] so theres no money to do electrical. since all these problems, ive talked at length with my dad whos currently in saudi arabia [and used to be an electrician for at least a half dozen years] and we've come to the conclusion that its most likely going to take a lot of work to get us in a good situation [like rewiring the whole house for instance]. the most likely resolution for this problem is going to be for us to slowly rewire parts of the house [starting with the kitchen, then the attic, so on and so on as necessary] and get the outlets, lights, appliances, etc. on their own breakers and the right way this time. my dad is going to be back in the states in february or march and he might be able to come to cincy for a few days or something and he and i could attempt to do some of it ourselves, but we dont know for sure yet how possible that really is. 

in the meantime, we'll make do. =]

well at this point i had originally intended to add remodeling into this blog, but that was when i was intending to cover that topic at the end of last week. then some work stuff came up and i never had the chance to write this blog last week and the story has changed since then. so now, im going to call this point the end of this saga [yes, there is an end!!] and starting tomorrow [i hope] we'll dive into all the fun that happened this last weekend! so in essence... we're caught up! woohoo!! didnt think id manage to do it, did you? oh ye of little faith... ;]

well, lunch time is up and ive got work waiting for me, so i hope you all had a marvelous weekend! have a happy mlk day today[although i dont think its ever been a very significant holiday in my life... im working today obviously. and happy inauguration day tomorrow!!

till next time...

the.chronicles.of.decembria[3.of.x]

the topical blog - noun : 1. kind of like a topical cream, only slightly less disgusting. not to be confused with a tropical blog which has insurmountably more pleasurable weather conditions.

2. a blog formatted on the basis of topics, rather than a chronological story line, in the attempt to create a slimmer, leaner, less verbose blog [for the sake of the readers/the sanity of the author] 

just to hopefully keep me on track, and possibly to keep you guys interested, im going to go ahead and list out the topics that i hope to cover in this blog, and if not, then one or two or however many it takes thereafter... [lets hope i can do it in one, i really dont like being so far behind]

christmas

moving

kitchen

new years

craigslist

electrical

roof

and with that, lets begin shall we?

christmas. 

well last i blogged, i believe i summed up christmas pretty well. we'd just finished christmas day and a wonderful feast and we were quite happy as we retired for the night. already the house felt like home and i dont think we ever had trouble adjusting to the new sleeping situation. 

the day following christmas, we made a terrible mistake. we'd gotten a number of gift cards from various friends and relatives and we were excited to spend them, not to mention i'd heard through an inside source of mine that target was going to be having a pretty sweet christmas sale on all their leftover merchandise and the wife and i were excited about stocking up on goodies for next year that we didnt get this time around. 

so like complete morons, we headed out to do some shopping on the day after christmas. [oh how naive we were...] so our first stop was target and it should have been an eye opening experience if we'd cared to pay attention. we spent about an hour to an hour and a half there leaving somewhere around 10:30 with a basket piled high of christmas decorating goodies we'd gotten for a very reasonable price. but it had been a total mad house in there. there were so many people picking through the leftovers it was nearly impossibly to maneuver a cart through the droves of post-holiday sale victims [ourselves included]. so this should have been our warning, and we should have gone home for a nice relaxing afternoon. but we didnt. 

we spent the rest of the day in traffic and going to forever 21, dillards, and american eagle at the mall and picking up a few items [mostly clothes, but a few accessories] with our gift cards. waiting in parking lots and sitting in mile long lines at stop lights did nothing to hinder our spirits however, and the gluttons for punishment that we are we also went to bed bath & beyond to finally use our wedding gift cards on some much needed drapery and window treatments, and then finally even to tj max for some serious husband torture while the wife took her time going through [and im pretty sure this is accurate] every single rack, garment by garment, and eventually leaving an hour and a half later with... nothing. thats right, nothing. ugh, that was a long shopping visit after we'd already spent the entire day shopping at it was somewhere around 7pm. i honestly cant even remember if we ate lunch in all the madness! lol! if i had the chance to do it all over again, id probably keep my ass on the couch with a movie and some hot chocolate, but we had fun and we did get quite a lot accomplished! =]

moving. 

saturday we made a pact to ourselves that we were going to get out of that apartment that weekend if it killed us, and thats exactly what we did. we got up early, made our way to the apartment with a load of empty boxes and some cleaning supplies and went through the exhausting task of packing up every single last item in the apartment, loading  - what ended up being 4 or 5 trips worth of boxes, the rest of the furniture, and other various items from the apartment - hauling to the house, unloading, and returning to the scene of the crime for more punishment. by the end of the night however, around 9pm, we'd done it. we were completely out of the apartment and only needed to take our keys and drop them off with the manager on sunday afternoon. 

actually, it wasnt all terrible, we managed to take a break at about lunch time to grab a quick bite and make a quick run to the salvation army where we found a couple more awesome hanging light fixtures that we were still in need of, a few more corner cabinets for a functional art project of karens, and [believe it or not] a few suit jackets for me, lol! you wouldnt believe the awesome selection our salvation army has on clothes. it was absolutely amazing! karen actually found what appeared to be a practically brand new express jacket in the womens suit jackets that she swears would have cost around $250 new, and was only 4 bucks! it was awesome. in the mens they had all kinds of name brands that id heard of, but regardless of labels they had just about every shape style and color you could imagine, ranging from the hilarious, to the very cool vintage, to the boring, you name it. we actually had a really good time there and by the time we left we'd only spent 35 bucks for a LOT of great finds! if you have a salvation army resale store near you and youre into this kind of stuff, i seriously recommend checking it out, we are always shocked at the fantastic stuff we find there. 

kitchen.

sometime early the next week [i think it may even have been monday] after a lot of discussion, karen and i had decided that we needed to make the kitchen our next project. most of the necessity arose from finally getting all of our stuff into the house [and it was a disaster by the way] and realizing that we had way more stuff than we had storage space in our kitchen. somewhere between everything karen had, everything i had, and everything we got for wedding gifts, we'd assembled about 2 kitchens worth of kitchen stuff and we only had this tiny little corner of cabinets in the kitchen to put it all in.... you do the math on that one. not to mention we had always thought the cabinets looked like they were in pretty good shape  and  would be perfectly fine to use for some time yet. well once we put on the new door hardware and started trying to clean these things we realized just how disgusting they really were, and as soon as we started putting stuff in them we realized how weak and poorly structured they were... so as a combination of all these things karen and i discussed at length what our options might be and ultimately decided we needed all new cabinets and a lot more of them pretty seriously.

i dont know how much research any of you have done into new cabinets, but we quickly found out that its a pretty expensive ordeal. that monday night we went first to a place in town called home emporium - and it is an awesome place! its kind of a salvage store of sorts and they sell a lot of bulk material and unfinished furniture, wholesale tile, man... it was remodeling paradise. we took our time going through the place and browsing all the different things in the store [and making mental notes for future projects of course!] but were mainly focused on the cabinets. our contractor [i suppose we'll get to him at some point] had told us this place had finished and unfinished kitchen cabinets for a really reasonable price, hence why we'd stopped by. however after we started looking at their selection, none of which was really our style.. it was all very ornate or more traditional looking, and seeing the price tags on everything [which we quickly did the math in our heads on what we were thinking about putting in] and seeing how limited we were in sizes and customization... we decided that these cabinets werent for us. [however, we're definitely going back for tile when we get around to those projects!!] which left our only other real option - ikea. 

i know theres a lot of opinions on both sides as to the quality, value, etc. of ikea furniture, but id always been impressed with their kitchens when id walked through their showroom. to me, they never looked cheap or ratty, and always seemed to have a more modern sleek style that was more in line with my own. so even though it was now around 6:30pm, karen and i decided to detour on our way home and check out what our options would be if we were to seriously consider ikea. well i really had no idea how many options there really were, but the entire process is a bit confusing at first. basically the way their kitchen cabinets are setup is in 3 parts. first there is the skeleton of the cabinets. all of their cabinets use the same skeleton of parts that come in a very wide range of sizes, shapes, depths, heights, you name it. the customization factor is no issue hear, you can really get almost anything you want and create whatever combination you desire. the second layer of their cabinets is in the shell. this is essentially the style of doors and panels that you like. so if you like the ultramodern with ultramodern finishes, or the more traditional style doors with more traditional finishes, if you want glass in some of your doors, if you want metal edges, if you want wood, plastic, the list goes on and on and on. so once you pick the shell, then theres the accents. this is all your hardware, your organizational inserts, that sort of thing. well anyway, it took us quite some time to go through the kitchen showroom and pick out the styles we liked, compare prices, figure out the whole 3 part system and how that worked, and come up with what we thought would work for us. by the end of the night we had a lot of fun ideas in our minds and a pretty good idea of what style we were thinking about getting, but we certainly werent jumping into anything just yet. 

since that initial day weve measured the kitchen out completely and ive modeled it in 3d and we've gone over a number of different arrangement options, color schemes, organization systems, etc. but the most determining factor of the whole extravaganza is really the price tag. and at this point we really just cant afford it - even if we do feel its a necessity. so we've also started thinking of some other more... creative or inventive, ways of dealing with our storage problem. well after some ingenuity and a little thinking outside the box we came up with a pretty slick solution that were really excited about. additionally the kitchen just needed a world of help and painting could do wonders for it aesthetically. 

at this point [some weeks later] we've completed the design, crafting, and installation of about two-thirds of our new storage system and weve gotten one wall fully painted with two coats, and two other walls painted [literally as i type this its drying] with the first coat. all this after a ton of scrubbing [like you wouldnt believe!], cleaning, plastering, taping, and prepping. but im happy to report its really coming along! we're extremely happy with the storage system so far and the color is just amazing! we love it! as with everything we've hit a few snags along the way so far. the track lighting in the kitchen for example, but we've powered through so far and we're really expecting a great turnout in the end! we've decided we're going to have to make due with the cabinets we do have for the time being, but we really would love to get the ikea kitchen someday in the future, its just hard to say when that might be. anyway, without further prolonging, how about a few before and progress shots of the kitchen hmm? haha, i know you want them! [try and keep in mind that the pictures really dont do the color justice, its really sensational in person!]

yeah, thats right, its peg board! haha, dont hate. it works perfectly on that wall because its too tight to ever put cabinets on, but also allows us to incorporate storage and we still have the space to work on the other walls we are thinking of putting cabinets or shelves on. its really a fantastic solution for our circumstances and we just love it! [i wouldnt recommend our set-up for a novice installation however, mostly considering the pain-staking assembly considerations and preparation, lol! it was a bit of a pain in the ass... to say the least.]

and thats where i think im going to stop. thats my lovely wife preparing dinner in the images and she just finished, so i think im going to indulge in a little of karens chicken chili! 

goodnight!

the.chronicles.of.decembria[2.of.x]

well, i know i promised more, and i like to be true to my word. however, given the length of the last post and the time period it actually spanned... ive been rethinking my options as far as the time line vs. content situation in my storytelling and i think ive decided that straying from the literal time line approach to update everyone would be the best option for us all. [me for time put into narrating, and you for time put into reading, heh]

with that, we're going to pull a throw-back to the old days when i blogged by topic instead of simply chronologically. and to start us off...

christmas | x-mas | festival of lights [or whatever else you call it]

well christmas day was a lot of fun. we slept in seeing as we went to bed pretty late the night before, and it felt great! we did the normal christmas stuff in the morning, breakfast/coffee/presents and boy did we have a nice haul! we got all kinds of awesome presents from each other, friends, and family and we are so very grateful to all of you! [thank you notes should be arriving any moment now!] after the presents and all the excitement, picture taking, record keeping, etc. we called our respective families to discuss the mornings festivities and share some love. and after that we got started on the rest of the afternoon - karen cooking a holiday feast and making the house smell delicious while i... stayed out of her hair. lol! 

well our holiday feast turned out spectacular, its too bad we had no one to share it with[especially considering all the food!!] and heres the menu breakdown:

[appetizers] we had cheese and crackers and some pretty amazing devilled eggs - and more mix!!

[first.course] we had a yummy salmon salad that karen wanted to make. it was really good, but i have no idea what was in it youll have to email her for the recipe if you want it. 

[main.course] well the main dish was a glazed ham drizzled in a peach sauce that karen concocted. now you may be hesitant about the sound of that, but i assure you it was quite flavorful and tasty!

along with the ham was a large dish of broccoli rice casserole[my favorite!!] and it turned out amazing! sooo good. again, mom, im afraid my wife has outdone you - shes got a knack for making the best ive ever had of my favorite dishes! and lastly for the main course was some nice light and fluffy rolls with honey and butter - mmm.

[dessert] now we cant forget dessert! trust me, we saved the best for last... oh man... now karen and i were both extremely stuffed after only one plate of all the delicious first 3 courses, so we had to wait till much later that evening when our stomachs had settled before we indulged in our dessert, but man oh man oh wowie!! have i mentioned how much i love my wifes cooking?! are you ready for this? a made from scratch, chocolate mousse with a chocolate graham cracker crust. oh. my. god. it was.. there arent even words. so light, so creamy, so rich, so chocolaty... i was in heaven. this dessert had to be a sin, and im so glad i indulged in it. by taste buds are singing just thinking about it!

well anyway, while karen was busy creating her masterpiece in the kitchen, i spent those hours nearby in the dining room working on our website. for those of you who remember, we went through all the excitement of naming our firm with you guys on the blog a little while back. well since its inception, the name evolved slightly and in middle to late november we set up our very first version/attempt[failure] of the website and launched it for the worlds unsuspecting eyes. i was never happy with that version of the site and decided [after contemplating on it for weeks] that it was time for a serious upgrade and spent the day creating new graphics, working with a new layout design and adding slightly more content than the... well... lets just say meager origins. anyway, not long before karen finished her feast i launched version 2.0 of the website - the holiday edition. i believe i sent an email to all those on my blog-list about the launch, and hopefully you all got the chance to have a look at my creation. this version, i was actually quite pleased with and maybe even a little proud of [although pride is not something i express very often - but thats not a subject for the present time]. 

anyway, the rest of christmas was spent enjoying each others company and taking some much needed relaxation time from everything that had been going on with the house, moving, work, etc. [all of which will be covered in future topics] i think we may have even watched a few more episodes of nip/tuck online during our christmas festivities, hehe - love that show! [probably not parent or grandparent appropriate... a bit gory at times...]

crap. even trying to do it by topic i still got too long winded and my lunch break is over... grr... maybe ill sit down tonight and finish this, the rest should be a little easier to do on a topic by topic basis, lol!

miss!

the.chronicles.of.decembria[1.of.x]

well it appears i am once again playing hooky on blogging, however it has been for us [just as the rest of the world] a very busy holiday season and as a result blogging was moved down on the priority list rather considerably. however, i fully intend to try and earn retribution with the best of my ability over the next series of posts and try to get you all caught up to the new fun and exciting things going on in our lives at present. i do apologize for the lack of communication, but hopefully you can all understand and forgive me. if not, well, thats okay too. ;]

ill admit that when i sat down to write this post [seeing as its lunch time at work and all, lol] i honestly had no idea where we'd last left off and had to do some re-reading of my own to find myself. in an attempt to save you all some of this, ill quickly recap for you.

basically, i last posted on dec. 23rd, and karen and i had just partially moved into the house. wed had a bumpy first morning with the plumbing but after the second night in the house we'd gotten some of the kinks worked out and things were going much smoother. we'd also moved completely out of the storage unit the weekend before and were about 70% moved out of the apartment. as i said before, it was dec. 23rd, so christmas eve was the following day and at that point we'd decorated for christmas for the most part at the house and had gotten the majority of our presents for each other wrapped and under the tree as well as sending off all of our presents to tx for the fam. we'd had some advancement on the roof and it was looking pretty good so far, and the temperature here had been quite cold to say the very least - making moving and life in general that much more fun, haha! i think thats probably enough at this point to catch you all up and from here we can get back to the story telling. 

[tuesday | december 23, 2008]

well ill b frank and honest with you all, its been some time since ive last posted and theres no way im going to remember all the details exactly and times exactly but i can touch on as many of the milestones as i can possibly remember for you. 

on the evening of dec. 23rd, i know that karen and i did recieve a couple of presents in the mail and were able to wrap those and get them under the tree. other than that, i couldnt say for sure. i believe there had also been some work done on the roof that day, but again... its been a while. lets skip to christmas eve.

[wednesday | december 24, 2008 | christmas eve]

well like a lot of unlucky people out there, karen and i both had to work on christmas eve. however, i only had to work a half day. why, you ask? well, in the morning i had arranged with the dodge dealership we bought the truck from to finally go and get that drivers side mirror installed. theyd gotten it in on monday i believe and we were excited to get it on, so i was taking a half day to go and get that done. considering they were only open during regular business hours [the same ones i work] i was going to have to take off from work to get it done no matter what, so why not christmas eve? so in the morning i dropped karen off at work and then got on the highway for the hour drive out to the dealership.

 [ - let me add to this that i just remembered that the evening of dec.23rd proved to be an extremely icey event. in the afternoon that day it started drizzling and the temperature had dropped enough that by 4-ish the roads and sidewalks were a mess. we had to salt our sidewalks at work and everyone was very worried about the roads. karen and i made it home okay, but we did encounter some icey conditions that we're glad we'rent too bad for us. however, there were terrible conditions all over the tri-state area and there were reports all over of accidents and people sliding off the roads, and boy it was not a great way to start the christmas festivities.-]

well on my way, you would not believe the number of cars littering the sides of the road. there were cars, trucks, you name it, [some even piled high with packages] all just abandoned on the side of the road or in some ditch half over-turned. it reminded me of something out of one of those environmental catastrophe movies... luckily the weather had warmed up considerably since the night before [somewhere in the low 40's] and the roads were no longer icey at all. the weather however, was less than ideal. the entire day it rained. sometimes it drizzled, some times it poured, there were times it let up and was just barely coming down and youd think it was going to clear and then a torrential downpour would come along and dash your hopes... it was a dreary day. so anyway, i drove to the dealership in the rain, in awe of the roadsides, but with no problems whatsoever. when i got there i ran inside to try and stay as dry as i could and the guys met me at the door. theyd been expecting me and were ready to go as soon as i got there. so i handed over the keys and waited for about an hour as they replaced the mirror and decided to repair some seals on the windows that they noticed were loose. by the time i was ready to go it was about 10:30 and i got back out into the rain and on the road home. the drive home was again un-eventful although i did see a few wreckers attempting to pull up-ended vehicles from ditches on the way back. right about 11.15 i was getting close to the oh/ky border and my phone started buzzing. it was the wife looking for a status report. so i told her about the morning and how fantastic it was to have a mirror on the drivers side and we discussed the rest of the afternoon. 

well i was planning to go home and relax for a while and have lunch and then go to work around 1 so that my half day would end at 5 when karen was getting off work. well apparently people in her office were leaving early so she was thinking we could leave at 3:30 instead. well that meant i didnt get to go home and relax for a few hours, but it was still do-able if i went straight to the office. so i headed into work on got there right about 11:30, perfect. 

well work was slow, very slow. half the office had taken the day off, and the work load was very light to say the very least. well after 2 hours i was bored out of my mind and there were even less people still in the office, so i said my goodbyes and ditched work early. at first i was looking forward to going home to take a nap, but when i got there i changed my mind. the house was a wreck. we'd moved everything from the apartment and storage unit into the house pretty quickly, and while a lot of it got relocated to a suitable place in the house, a lot didnt. so i decided as a christmas gift to my wife id do what i do best, organize. i spent the next 2 hours cleaning, straightening, and moving furniture around the house to try and get it suitable for a proper christmas in the new home. im pretty pleased with how well i did to be quite honest. i was able to clear out the parlor almost completely, the only remaining items were the christmas decor, a coffee table, a couple of chairs, and a stack of boxes in one corner that were full of books [that were going to be living in the parlor permanently and were waaaay too heavy to be lugging around all over the house for vanity's sake.] the dining room got cleared of almost all the clutter which included a very large amount of remodeling supplies that we'd just been keeping there temporarily while we worked on projects. so all the paint, paint supplies, base & crown mold, and other various material clutter was all relocated upstairs to the "craft room" [heh, just for you cassie] and i also moved into place our cabinets and hutch that were to store a lot of our kitchen items. and lastly, in the kitchen i was able to unpack a few boxes and move a lot of stuff into the cabinets and hutch and clear out some of the clutter in the kitchen as well. well by the time id done all that and rearranged furniture a little i was worn out and it was time to go get karen from work anyway, so thats what i did. 

so i picked her up right on time and my wife was very pleased to see me [as always] and even more excited to get home and start the christmas festivities! well, i dont condone lying to your spouse, but for the sake of keeping the surprise i told her id just taken a nice nap for the last 2 hours and when we got home, wow, her eyes lit up. she was so confused, lol. she noticed almost immediately that everything looked different [and almost immediately is really really good for karen to notice anything, lol!] but i could see the confusion of her face. "wait, what happened here, did you clean?! i thought you took a nap, you did this and took a nap??" haha, i love her so much! after explaining that i hadnt taken a nap at all and that was just a lie to keep the surprise and about 30 seconds for all of that to register the look of confusion faded and i got big hugs and kisses. hehe, shes really cute sometimes. and my early present was a big success. she was very excited to have all the clean space - organizing is definitely not karens gift, lol! [so much so in fact, that her nickname around the house is quite often "path-blocker" because she is constantly moving stuff around to get to whatever she needs or to move things from one room or the other and 100% of the time will put everything directly in what would be the path of movement. a lot of time shell actually stack things in a semi-circle around a door opening and when you walk through it youre immediately stopped by a wall of objects, lol! the best part is that she doesnt even do it consciously! lol! shes really adorable, and very much a path-blocker...]

well that evening we had a great time making grandma's special recipe party mix and some home-made spiced rum while we watched some nip/tuck and relaxed a little for the evening. we had agreed that christmas eve and christmas day were going to strictly be relaxation days and give ourselves a break from all the projects and remodeling for at least 2 days. [oh and also, the mix turned out amazing! its a christmas tradition in my family, we have it every year and my dad always does a great job making it. well this year i wanted to share that tradition with karen and im so glad it turned out sooo good. id never made it before but it ended up being an especially good batch and karen loved it! shed never had it before, but after she got used to the spiciness of it shes totally hooked. i think we're actually making another batch tonight because weve polished off the first one, lol!] well we got entranced by our nip/tuck episodes and ended up going to bed after midnight after losing all track of time, haha. it was a great night and the rain still pouring outside was nice and soothing on the skylight and put me to sleep very quickly. 

well... with that... my lunch break is over. if i keep going at this rate, this series is going to have a lot of parts until im caught up, lol! ill try and get more in on the next round, but for now ive got to go! merry christmas eve!

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!