Hello?

I can't believe it's been so long since I've been on here.  Where has the time gone?  More importantly, what have I been doing with that time?  I think this might have to be an catchup post at this point...

In the new house, the biggest thing is I'm supposed to be painting the complete interior.  That I've hit a wall and not picked up a brush in a month is a little depressing but I'll get back on it.  Eventually.  Actually, I need to get on it sooner than later since my finishing the painting is the only thing stopping us from getting new flooring.  After I spent eighteen months removing the grout from the tile a few feet at a time (and never did get it completely done), Mister C decided that we should just go ahead and get new tile instead of re-grouting.  Let it be noted that I originally wanted new tile but someone (ahem) said it would be better just to replace the grout.  If that someone had agreed with me up front, and then told me I needed to paint everything first, we would have been sitting here with new tile and fresh paint for the past year.  But whatever.  I'll get it done. 

Outside the house, the chickens are starting to produce again after a long, hot summer.  After losing eight of them last year on the hottest day of the summer, we got ten new chicks, five production reds and five barred rocks.  One of the barred rocks turned out to be our rooster, Darth.  They started producing in about February, but then slowed way down as soon as it heated up.  Yesterday I finally got a dozen eggs (out of 18 hens), which was the most I've seen in months.  Hopefully now that the monsoon is here and it's cooling off, this will become the norm.   Unfortunately along with the monsoon comes the rains.  I lost one of my girls last night with the torrential downpours.  She was older and always roosted on the floor.  The floor got flooded with six inches of water and she drowned.   She was one of the last two original hens I had. 

As far as real estate, not a whole lot going on there right now.  I sold two homes in April and that's pretty much been it.  I'm still staying licensed and keeping an eye on the market. 

The herd has expanded by two dogs, one of them unintentional, and been downsized by two fish tanks.  I'll have to come back another day to introduce the two newest members of the crew.  Suffice it to say they fit in rather well with the crazy that is our home. 

Training Your Chicken

We clipped the chickens wings today. The whole damn flock of them. All paying because one of them decided to learn to fly.

The problem is that two of the girls are leghorns, which are lighter than the other four ladies. For those not up on chickens, Leghorns are the breed that was depicted in the old Warner Brothers cartoons by the character Foghorn Leghorn (the Southern rooster known for his "I say, I say boy!")

Yesterday I had let the girls out to scratch around the yard while I read my paper on the patio. I had no more sat down than one of the leghorns, I'll go with Peaches since I don't recall seeing the other one, took a running start and lifted off the ground. Which is pretty typical, they all like to fly about two feet off the ground for five or so feet at a time. But this time, she kept climbing in altitude until she landed on top of the fence that separates us from the neighbor behind. A six foot tall block fence I might add. And then she had the nerve to look pretty damned proud of herself.

Of course, I was freaked out that my future egg supply was heading over to the neighbors house because then I'd have to figure out how to get her back. The thing is that if any of my chickens went over the fences on either side of me, that wouldn't be a problem since I could just go over and ring their doorbell and get my wayward pet back. But the neighbors behind me are fairly (okay totally) anti-social. To the point that they removed their doorbell and don't answer the door when you knock. We only know this because Master J lost at least one toy over there that we've never gotten back because they wouldn't answer the door.

Thankfully my chickens are trained. That's right people, I said the birds are trained. Remember back to when we got them how I said I wanted to handle them and make them easier to work with? Well, I have. And now I shall reap the reward of not losing my chickens over the wall.

Because I love you guys, I'm going to tell you the secret of training your chickens so that you too can keep your egg supply in your yard. Or at least get it back to your yard should it wander. Here's how it works...

Step 1: Every time I brought scraps of food to them, I would talk to them. I would tell them I was bringing them a "snack". When it got really cold (for Arizona) I brought them oatmeal in the morning and they LOVED that. I actually told them I was bringing oatmeal each time so now if I say the word "oatmeal" they get all sorts of excited.

Step 2: Once they started figuring out what it meant when I said I had a snack, I started only putting the snack into their coop when I wanted them to go back to their coop. I would tell them I had a snack and they would follow me to the coop.

Step 3: Here's where it gets into the real "training" part. I started telling them I had a snack, then followed that with telling them to "kennel up", which is a phrase our favorite dog trainer used with our first dog. It seemed easier to stick with the phrase I was familiar with rather than trying to say "get in the coop" (while simultaneously trying like hell not to let on to the neighbors that we have chickens in the first place.) I repeated the phrase "kennel up" once the food was in the coop until the last chicken got in.

Step 4: That's it.

Seriously, the girls are trained to get into their coop when I tell them to kennel up. Most of the time they head right in, I always make sure I have food with me because I want to make sure I'm always positively reinforcing the words I use.

Yesterday, when Peaches landed on the top of the fence, I immediately asked if they wanted a snack and told them to kennel up. They all ran for the coop (including Peaches, who flew down from the fence.) I ran into the house and grabbed a bit of strawberry tops from Master J's snack and brought it back out to the coop. I tossed the tops into the coop and closed the door.

And today, Mister C and I learned how to clip chicken wings like professionals. Did you know that Youtube has a video for everything? They do. Including how to clip your chickens' wings. I grabbed each bird from the coop and held their wing out while Mister C clipped the fight feathers. It took about fifteen minutes to do all six and that's for first timers. I'm betting next time we can get it under ten. Mostly I'm just happy that I won't have to worry about them disappearing over the fence any time soon. I say, I say Boy! That makes me happy.

Today's Accomplishment

Did I tell you that we hired out the painting of the pergola that Mister C built? My original plan was to paint the parts before the guys built it. The thought process being that once it was all together, it would be easy to just touch up the spots where needed and I wouldn't have to figure out how to crawl all over the structure. That was the plan. You know how well those go.

The main problem to working out the plan was that Mister C never actually purchased the parts until the day they built the pergola. Obviously I wasn't going to get away with having everyone wait around while I painted everything so it got built with the raw wood.

At the end of the very long weekend I looked at that pergola and and I thought "There is no way in hell I'm painting that thing!" I mean seriously, I had zero desire to figure out how to paint the top side of the lattice pieces with a brush. Realizing that his painter was rebelling, Mister C made the (only viable) decision to hire out the painting.

I did try to call Mark, the guy that painted our house a year ago. Mark was a neighbor that had a painting business and we'd seen plenty of his work in our neighborhood. He did an awesome job for what I would consider a really good price. He ended up short selling his house not long after he finished painting our house and moved to the other side of town. But I still had his number and I thought that surely I could have him come back to do this project. But unfortunately his number now goes to a message that says it's no longer in service. Sigh.

So I asked around and got the name of another painter, George. I called him and he said he could come out in a few days to give me a quote. The very next day he rang my bell and introduced himself. I figured, wow, this guy is on the ball!

The first thing he said was that he couldn't do the job for less than $500. Which seemed a tad high for the amount of work he would be doing. More so because Mark had done the entire house for about four times that amount. But I understand, he needs to keep his guys working and he has to pay them a certain amount. So fine, I tell him to send them out and get it done.

Fast forward a few days.

Now it's Friday afternoon, around 2:00, and suddenly there are four guys standing on my front porch. Sadly, only one of them speaks (minimal) English so the entire conversation consists of singular words and pointing. Awesome. Oh and here's a side note that I know from previous experience: Don't ever let workers start a project on Friday afternoon. Why? Because all they really care about is getting to Friday night and their favorite beer. And the only thing between them and that Friday night beer is your project. Which they will rush through and cut corners on. Seriously. I've had enough guys do piss-poor work on Fridays that I should know better than to even let them start. But they are here and they have paint and I think "Surely it will be different this time..."

It is not different this time (nor will it ever be.)

They come to the front door less than an hour later and announce (in singular words and with gestures) that they are done. And I need to go check out their fantastic job so they can go. So I send Mister C out to do so. And he is forced to point out to them that they have missed several areas.

Fifteen minutes later they are back at my front door. Mister C is now on the phone so I am the one to go out and check their work so they can be released to their beer. I go out, look at the area where Mister C had previously pointed to problems and it looks good (or at least somewhat painted.) Then I drag the guy's ladder over so I can see what the top looks like. The painter looks a little panicked at that but at least he holds the ladder. I get to the top and realize he hasn't painted the top of the trim board. At all. Not one lick of primer or paint. Oh, did I not mention that they were supposed to both prime and paint this structure? Yeah, that comes back up later. Anyway, I climb down from the ladder and the painter goes back up to paint the top of the trim board.

Five minutes later he's at my door again. Something strikes me as wrong but I can't pinpoint what it is so I head back outside to see what he's done. I see that he has "accidentally" taken the ladder to his truck. I mention that I need to get my ladder to see the top and he laughs about his "mistake" and goes to get his ladder. I climb back up top and see that there's paint on the top of the board. Yay! It looks like they finally get those beers after all. We give them the check and send them on their way.

At some point in the middle of the night I wake up and realize what was bothering me about the trim board with the missing paint. When I noticed it, I was looking at raw wood. And he was at my door within five minutes. Which means there's no way in hell he primed the board before painting it. Which means there's no way in hell he primed any of it. Grrrr!

The next morning I have Mister C get out our ladder and I go up to view the top of the pergola from different angles. From the front side (where I was the day before) it looks okay. But from the other side, it's very obvious that they only sprayed from the front side and didn't do it from all angles. And it also very obvious that I'm looking at bare wood, so no primer was used at all. Which really pisses me off.

I get that my little piddly pergola painting job isn't a high end money maker for anyone. But I already overpaid for it in the first place, why eff it up and go cheap on it? Why cut corners and do a half-ass job? Why piss me off? As a homeowner there's always a ton of little things that need to be done, chief among them are painting projects. House exteriors in Arizona are generally repainted every five to ten years. But beyond that, I have neighbors that I talk to, friends, family members. And most importantly, I'm a Realtor, I have clients and I know a ton of other Realtors who are always looking for good references. All of whom could have gotten a glowing review from me of your company's work. Conceivably hundreds of potential clients for your painting company now didn't get your name because you screwed up. Because you hired some guys that probably aren't really painters at all but just the guys you could hire for the least amount of money. Maybe they're really plumbers or electricians or veterinarians (not joking about that one, I had a client from Ecuador that was a licensed vet at home that worked for the local garbage company.) Whatever they are or were, they weren't painters.

After I got done yipping to Mister C about the shoddy work, he went ahead and called and left a message for George to complain. In his defense, George did call back immediately and promise to make it right. He insisted that there was primer used, just that he had it tinted to match the paint color. Which, I call bullshit on because I know the difference between raw wood and wood that has been painted but whatever, he says he's going to make it right so I'm good.

And he does send that same crew back out the next day. And they do whatever it is they do for at least thirty minutes. And when I check it out, it looks like they've at least got paint on anything. At this point, that's about all I'm looking for. So I send the painter on his way. And today, I went out and painted the end of one board that they completely missed, and repainted the trim boards. Because at this point I just wanted it done and done right.

And I will never recommend George's company to anyone as long as I live. And if anyone asks about his company I will tell them to avoid him like the plague. And if I have nobody else to recommend for them, I will at least tell them to make sure their project doesn't get started on a Friday afternoon.

Finishing up the Backyard

So if you remember back a few posts you'll remember that I promised to take pictures of the big pile of dirt on my patio. Well, I've waited long enough that now I can just do the update for the (almost) grand finale of the backyard project. That "almost" is there strictly because we haven't actually put all of the plants in. We're still missing our vegetables. But anyway, pictures!

Here's the pile of garden soil on my patio. It's not as full as it was because the day I planted the berry bushes I took about seven wheelbarrows out of it for the berry gardens. Also, the smaller pile in the background is the stuff Mister C pulled out of the berry garden so he could redo the irrigation. Which is somewhat messed up due to over abundance of sprinkler heads. But that's a story for another day. But anyway, look, dirt.



Here are the raised garden beds that Mister C and I built with our own two hands. Ignore that they are not lined up correctly and look lopsided. We hadn't lined them up and leveled them at this point in the process. I was just taking pictures as we went along. As you can see we built three beds, each one is eight foot by four foot for a total of...I'm not doing math so assume a lot of room to plant.



And here's Mister C admiring his newly filled in raised garden beds with their (over abundant) sprinkler system. What a beautiful sight, a freshly filled garden bed, ready for planting. But hang on, it looks like something IS already in the garden...



Ah hell, guess who found the nice soft dirt in the raised garden?



Mister C was not impressed with the girls antics. The dirt was flying for a few minutes while they all dug down little holes in which to bath themselves and then settled in for a nap. Like we spent building the beds, putting together the sprinkler and hauling three yards of dirt over just so they could have a place to hang out in style.

Wait, we didn't build this for the girls enjoyment? I'm shocked!



More pictures eventually, as soon as I move the strawberries from my kitchen window out to the garden and put some actual vegetables out there. Currently? Still a chicken playground.

Latest Backyard Projects

Last weekend Mister C invited a friend over to hang out. Okay, not really. What really what happened is that his friend drove over sixty miles across the valley just to help Mister C build our new pergola. His friend was even kind enough to bring his fourteen year old apprentice, aka his son Wes. Mister C has nice friends.

Anyway, here's a picture of the before...



And here's the end result.







I think they did a fantastic job, especially since I didn't have to lift one single board.

Today on the other hand, Mister C and I put together three raised garden bed frames and I did have to lift many heavy boards. But in the end it worked out pretty well since here's our final product (sans dirt currently.)



It should be noted that we moved the three boxes around several times (more heavy lifting) and ended up right back where we started. I guess I can't complain since I'm the one that had grand ideas of how they should be arranged. Sadly, I'm also the one who originally suggested the configuration that we started and ended with.

The girls found very the boxes very appealing.



The plan is to fix the irrigation tomorrow after church and then start filling them in with the three and a half yards of dirt that was delivered Monday. I had a picture of the pile on my patio but it disappeared so I'll retake it tomorrow as part of the garden finishing post.


At the end of the day I sat down on the front box and was almost immediately approached by Rocky who was looking for a place to roost. Unfortunately for her I had to get dinner ready so she was out of luck tonight.



And finally, there's been a lot of feathers floating around the place lately. I suspect there's some kind of molt going on. There's certainly a lot of fluffing and cleaning of feathers going on. Like this...



I'm fairly sure Wedge is giving me the evil eye for my lack of sense in taking pictures of her backside. Ah well, I'm sure she forgot about it less than two seconds later.

HOA Red Tape

So Mister C and I made the leap to getting a whole house solar system installed. We live in Sunshineville where there's about three hundred and sixty days of sunshine a year. Solar just makes sense.

A few years ago our state passed a law stating that HOAs could not interfere with the installation of a solar system. Effectively, they couldn't say that any homeowner couldn't install one, regardless of what their CC&Rs stated. It did say they could have some "reasonable rules regarding the placement of a solar energy device if those rules do not prevent the installation, impair the functioning of the device or restrict its use or adversely affect the cost or efficiency of the device."

The guy doing the install did have to send the HOA a request for permission to do the install but this is really just a formality and most HOAs just send out a "go ahead" notice the same day they get the request. Because at the end of the day they can't legally stop people from installing a solar system.

On Friday, the roofers arrived at five in the morning and started removing the roof tiles to set the posts that will ultimately support the framework for our panels. We are so excited about getting this done because not only is it an environmentally good thing to do but it should save us quite a bit of money over the long term.

Yesterday we got a letter from the HOA telling us that they were sending the request on to the architectural committee to get their input. It would be at least thirty days before they would even consider giving us approval. Additionally, they made sure to tack on that if we started doing anything prior to getting that approval, they would force us to undo what we had done and fine us on top of it.

Are you kidding me?

The side yard project

My new trees arrived today! You have no idea how exciting it is for a desert rat such as myself to have a tree added to their yard that adds instant shade. Seriously. It is so awesome I cannot even begin to tell you.

When we bought this house, the west side of the house (you know, the HOT side) looked like this...



Lots of concrete and gravel next to the block wall. Always an effective landscaping strategy to keep things cooler.

The lone green thing in the foreground is supposed to be an orange tree. They must have planted the seed when they built the house in '98 because that's about how big a tree of that age would be. Why someone would not plant decent trees on the west side immediately, I have no idea. Also, that "garden" looking boxed off area? Yeah, huge litter box. I so wish I were kidding about that.

So, Mister C and I went ahead and ordered some trees for the west side within about a week of moving in. We put in a ficus, a lemon and a navel orange. You can't see the ficus in this picture, but you can see the lemon and the orange.



The only problem was that the two citrus trees were the same size when we planted them and as you can see, the orange tree hasn't done so well. In case you're wondering, the orange tree is the tiny greenish/yellow thing hiding behind the awesome lemon tree. I'm not sure, but I think it may have shrunk since we bought it. Also, the dirt you see strewn across the sidewalk in front of the lemon is from my idiotic dog Izzy who has no manners and hasn't figured out that exposing tree roots doesn't enhance their growth in any way.

Either way, we planted trees because we wanted shade. We planted citrus because we wanted fruit. But nobody told us that orange trees grow so dang slow. So a few days ago Mister C & I decided to go ahead and get a larger tree put in where the orange tree was and then move the orange tree elsewhere.

After talking with the guys at the nursery for awhile, we figured out that it was going to cost us about $200 to have a specialist move the orange tree and they wouldn't guarantee that the tree would even survive. So we decided to just buy a new one and have the original one pulled out. Which made us kind of sad, because honestly neither one of us cherished the thought of killing a perfectly good tree just because it was slow growing.

After thinking about it overnight, I called my folks and asked them if they would be interested in the orange tree if I helped dig it up. Of course, no guarantee that it would live, but at least it wouldn't cost a boatload of money and there was a chance it would survive. They gladly accepted and I started watering the tree to help loosen the soil. Long story short, I mostly dug up and loosened up the tree and then my dad and uncle came over and pulled it out. They dug a hole back at their house and stuck the tree in the ground. We're really hopeful that it will take but we'll have to just wait and see.

In the meantime, my new ash tree arrived this morning and got planted in the place of the orange tree. It immediately started shading the place up. Now my side yard looks like this...



And from the opposite end you can see how much nicer the west side is now. You can see the ficus tree at the far end of the sidewalk in this picture. Behind it, in the corner, is our grapefruit tree which was the only decent sized and healthy tree in the back yard when we moved in.



And here is our new orange tree. It's already bigger than our original one and I'm hoping that having it away from all of the concrete might help it do a little better as well. Eventually, it should block the view of our neighbors roof and give us some nice fruit.




Now, I'm heading out to brave the one hundred degree heat just to go look at my beautiful new shade tree again.

Catching up...

Kind of left you hanging out there, didn't I? Yeah, sorry about that. So, air conditioners...

After leaving a message with the warranty company regarding our broken ac unit, Mister C sat on the couch mumbling things like:

"Every damn house!" and "Just paid off the balance this morning!" and "Ridiculous!" and "Had enough of this!" and on and on. Eventually I figured out that he was actually considering replacing, not just repairing, our air conditioner. It boils down to a few things.

When we bought our home twenty one months ago, we got a really good deal because it was a foreclosure that had been bought by an investor. No doubt the investor made money on the deal, but we got a good deal. And then the market continued to drop. So now, twenty one months later, it's definitely worth less than we owe on it. In other words, we're not going anywhere any time soon.

Additionally, this is the second time we've had to repair this air conditioner. In talking with our neighbors, we figured out that it had already been repaired at least twice prior to our buying the house. At this point, it's only twelve years old yet it's already broken down at least four times? That doesn't seem right.

And lastly, it's undersized and inefficient. It strains to keep the house at a steady temperature and it seems to run constantly. Loudly at that.

So, the debate was between fixing the ac (again) for the short term, or replacing it altogether with a correctly sized and much more efficient new one. Since it looks like we're going to be here for at least a few more years it seemed like getting the new one was the way to go. We'll never get our money out of a new air conditioner but at least we can enjoy consistent cooling and lower utility bills while we're here. And, since one of the main reasons we have a home warranty is to cover an air conditioner break down, we can drop it and save the monthly fee.

Okay, so now we've made a decision and it's time to move on it. Mister C works with a gentleman who recently replaced his ac after spending literally months debating the pros and cons of various manufacturers and units. He shopped around for the best deal on the best product and replaced his in January. He got a really good deal. Mister C called this walking consumer reports/salesman's nightmare and got the name and contact information of the guy he had worked with. Mister C said he would call the guy. On Saturday, this guy called Mister C. He said his co-worker had called him and convinced him he needed to give us the same deal he got. And he agreed. Now, we did want a slighter different unit because it fit our needs better, but we still got a heck of a deal. But the best part was that they could install it on Monday.

So basically, by the time the warranty company was getting around to calling us back, we already had the new ac being installed. I was able to start basking in the cool happiness that is good air conditioning in Arizona in July by Monday afternoon. Better yet, it is so quiet I don't even know it's running! And that in itself has been worth it.

The day the a/c died...(again)

We played this tune last year around this time as well. The a/c went out, we called the warranty company and they sent someone out to fix it. Of course it takes a full business day for them to call back just to set up the appointment. Luckily it happened early in the week. So last year we went to Lowe's just before they closed and picked up two window a/c units. One for our room, one for the room where Master J would be sleeping. And then we buried ourselves in our respective rooms until the main a/c got fixed two days later.

So here we are this year. In sunny Arizona. In July. Aaannnddd....yup, the a/c failed again. We got our two units from last year's breakdown out and started them up right away. Because this time, the failure happened late on a Friday. Which means we won't even get the call back to set up the appointment until some time on Monday. Which means we won't have an appointment until at least Tuesday or Wednesday and it could be Thursday or Friday until it's actually fixed. Which means we went back out to Lowe's and purchased two more window units because it's going to be a long six or so days of 110+ degrees outside and 90+ degrees inside. Excuse me while I go sweat underneath a ceiling fan.

What's wrong with this picture?

Before:



After:



The first picture is of our home in Nebraska after we did a minor renovation. We replaced the hardware, the appliances and the counter tops. We also spent three days scrubbing the black filth off the cabinets to reveal surprisingly pretty solid oak. And when I say "we", I mean "I". Mister C was ready to replace the cabinets because they really did look done for. He went on a work trip and I got out my bucket and started scrubbing. The cabinets were so disgusting that I had to change the water in my bucket every other door. And that was just the outsides. I spent another day rubbing lemon oil into the wood and then replacing all the handles. We did the rest of the renovation almost a year later.

The second picture is of our current home. Where we haven't done anything except replace the lighting. We need new hardware, new appliances and new counter tops. We also would like to eventually replace the cabinets because these are cheap and not very attractive. So effectively, it's a major renovation.

I hadn't really thought too much about the downgrade in my kitchen when we decided to move back to Sunshineville. We were moving back to an area that we loved and were willing to look past the less than lovely decor throughout. And honestly, the ugly cabinets aren't exactly the most glaring issue in this house. The carpets that look like they previously lined the floor of a motorcycle repair shop are probably the most stand out item for renovation.

But I was going through my photos looking for an example of the granite to send to some friends of my folks and found the first picture you see above. And then I looked at my current kitchen. Ugly cabinets. Cheap and ugly hardware. Cheap and ugly laminate counters. Original (1996) appliances in my least favorite color of bisque. And then I checked to see how much money I've made in commissions this year and I realize it's going to be a loooong time before the "before" picture becomes the current one again. Bummer.

New Lighting

Check out my new, under soffit lighting! How cool is that? I love, love, love the way it looks. Also, I did wash all the cabinets and counter tops down so there is no more filth (for today). And oh yeah, please ignore the chaotically cluttered refrigerator. It does look better during the summer when all the school menus and schedules aren't all over it. But either way...I love, love, love my new lighting!

Not such a bright idea after all

We live in a house that was built about twelve years ago as part of a large subdivision. If you've ever been in a subdivision home, you'll note that unless the first owner went all out, most of the fixtures aren't exactly what you'd call "upgraded". Or even "up to date". No, most of the time it looks like the builder went scrounging around in the clearance bin at Wally World. Especially the kitchen lights. Every kitchen in every home that we've bought in Sunshineville has the track light from Hell. You know the one, it's about three feet long, with four huge spotlights that can be aimed at strategic places. Like the wall above the microwave. Or maybe, out the window over the sink. Or the far corner of the kitchen where no one goes. Really, if I could get someone to rotate them around to music I could probably put on a pretty good "island dance" if you know what I mean. And if you do, I'm sorry I just put that vision in your head.

Anyway, in one of our previous homes we hired guys to replace the stripper spotlight with can lights throughout the kitchen. That house was really small and the hanging lights (along with the space ship chandelier over the eating area) really made it look smaller. When the guys were done, it looked really nice. It looked bigger and less chaotic. I loved it.

Fast forward two homes...when we bought this home fifteen months ago one of the things I hated was that it had the same damn light. It didn't look any better in this house either. I did manage to get one of the lights pointed in a semi-helpful area of the kitchen but generally, it's just a pretty worthless and ugly-ass light.

Three days ago, Mister C came into the house and said "Hey, John the electrician is here to talk about putting in lights." It was the end of a long day, there are dirty dishes in the sink, the dust bunnies are holding a rally around the island and I had already taken off my bra for the day. So, "Thanks for the three second notice sweetie, we'll chat about this later. Promise." John the electrician proceeds to talk with us about what we want done in the kitchen.

At the start of the conversation, all we wanted done was to replace the stripper light with two can lights and the three pronged "chandelier" that is currently installed with another can. As a side note, why do I always end up buying the house with the freakiest looking kitchen chandelier? The previous owners of all my houses seem to be trying to "modernize" the homes, and failing miserably in the execution. Moving on. After some discussion we decide to add two more cans in the kitchen in line with the one over the eating area to bring more light in and make it look better. Sounds good to me.

Then Mister C asks John the electrician if he can put some smaller lights on the bottom of the soffit so that we can have lighting directly over the counters. He can and we decide to do that as well.

The conversation then turns to our hallways and the lovely sconces (gack!) that currently only sort of light them up. Sconces made out of adobe and painted brown. It's a look. John the electrician can clean that ugliness up with only five more can lights. So now we've gone from three large lights to ten large and five small thereby doubling the original estimate in the span of thirty minutes.

Fast forward to this morning, when John the electrician showed up to start working. I had places to be most of the day so I missed his actual arrival but I stopped in a few times though just to see how things were going. By the end of the day he had removed the old ugly lights and installed the five can lights in the kitchen. He had also installed the small lights under the soffits. He's coming back tomorrow to do the hallways.

I have to tell you, it looks really nice. I love the clean, none cluttered look of the ceiling with the flush lights. It's amazing how much bigger and brighter it looks in there. And the lights under the soffits? Absolutely awesome. I can't wait for the hallways to get done.

But there is one, minor issue. Now that I have all this incredible lighting? Especially the lights shining oh so gently onto my counters? Holy shit do I need to clean.

When Electricians Get Lazy

I meant to post this earlier, but never got around to it.

A few weeks back I noticed that the metal plug in thingies for my Ipod charger were slightly askew. I assumed it was that way from the factory and didn't think too much of it.

Then came the day that I plugged it in and it sparked. That worried me enough to tell Mister C about it. He came into the kitchen and pulled it out of the socket and went "Holy Sh*(!". Huh, that's a bit extreme for a simple spark right?

He showed me the charger and said it had melted and that we needed to get it replaced. Evidently there was a recall on some of them and even though mine wasn't on the list, he was thinking it had the same problem.

Then I started looking at the outlet it had come from and noticed that it had some dark marks on it that looked a tad suspicious. So I had him look at that as well. The next thing I know, Mister C has shut off the power to that circuit and is pulling the outlet out of the wall in order to replace it. But once he got it off the wall, he realized that it was a whole lot worse than we thought.

Evidently, when the electrician had wired the outlet while the house was being built, he hadn't bothered to make sure it was done right. He had left the connection really loose. Over time, it got looser and started sparking. Inside my wall. The heat from it had burned the wire insulation back a good four inches. But scariest of all is that this particular outlet is about as far from our bedroom as possible. And fairly close to Master J's room. If this thing had started a fire at night, the odds of us realizing it in time to do something about it would almost be nil.

Thankfully for us, Papa (my dad) is an electrical genius by trade. He came over and helped Mister C fix the wiring and replace the outlet. Of course now I want Mister C to pull off and check out every outlet in the house so I can sleep better at night. So far he hasn't done it. But he will.

And now it begins in earnest

The studying that is. I took my last class today and am scheduled to take the school exam next Tuesday evening. I've been having Mamoo quiz me the past two days on the questions in the practice books and I have improved. I think between my walk with Mister C tomorrow morning and Master J getting out of school in the afternoon, I should be able to get a few hours of studying in. I may have to bury myself in my bedroom this weekend for hours at a time to get anything done while he's home though.

On a cool note, my new camera arrived today while I was at school. Yay!

Of course, I haven't taken it out of the box yet. Why you ask? Was I studying my eyes out? No. No I was not. I was scraping the old grout out of the shower in our bathroom. Why would I do that? Well, about a week and a half ago I spoke with the guy that we've used previously as our handyman. He does great work at reasonable prices and he always shows up when he says he's going to. At least he used to. He was supposed to show up last Saturday to give us a quote on caulking the shower and running some wire for Mister C. On the day I spoke with him, I had started scraping the grout out because I thought I or Mister C could re-caulk it ourselves. Thinking that Handyman would be showing up, I decided to stop the project mid-way. And we commenced to taking showers in Master J's bathroom. But now, it's been over a week and a half since I spoke with him and almost a week since he was supposed to show up. I'm giving up the dream of having someone else do my work and am just going to do it myself. It's a pain to remember and take everything I need from one end of the house to the other just to shower. I cannot tell you how many times I have been forced to run like hell past the open front door either topless or in a shirt but sans pants. Apparently I need a checklist of items just to shower because I get distracted and need reminders on what is required to dress myself. Besides, I'm sick of having to sort through legoes and matchbox cars just to shave my legs.

Consequences of clutter

My house is not perfect. I have some clutter. Mostly my clutter consists of books and Master J's school work but there are a few other things (such as toys) laying around. I really try to keep certain rooms clutter free. My guest room is clutter free. My bedroom is usually clutter free. My dining room and living room look pretty good as well. My kitchen however, is another story. My counters seem to collect growing piles of books and stray paper. I do go through Master J's school papers weekly and recycle about 95% of them but there's still a lot left. I think the schools could save millions of dollars just on paper if they quit sending every notice five times over. But that's a different story. The story today is about my kitchen clutter. The past two days at school, Master J has had an exceedingly difficult time being respectful. Yesterday he got to see the principal, which is never a good thing. Mister C decided that an appropriate course of action would entail Master J writing a sentence about being respectful multiple times. We had a bunch of running around to do yesterday and didn't get back until after 5:30 so Master J didn't get started on writing his sentences until almost 6:00. At first he did pretty well. He needed to do three pages (about 24 lines each) of writing and he got the first page done in about 15 minutes. He started the second page and got about 5 lines in when Mister C came home after getting new tires put on his truck. Of course Master J wanted to see those new tires and I made the mistake of letting him. He never got back on track. So by 7:30 when it was time for him to go to bed, he was exactly no further along in his task. So he had to start over this morning. And here's where it gets interesting. When he started working on it, he was very fidgety. He was talking, making noises, swinging his feet, etc. Since there's no point in leaving the room when he has a task if I want it to get done, I decided to start doing some cleaning. I put away the clean dishes, emptied the sink of the dirty ones, put some lotions back in my bathroom and recycled a bunch of papers. I noticed at this point that he was working diligently and better yet, quietly. I kept clearing and cleaning. I collected up his library books that were going back today and neatly stacked the remainder. I put away all of his toys that had been sitting around. It was when I was wiping down the counters that I realized he had been sitting quietly working for 45 minutes. He got done with his writing and calmly went to read a book. So I asked him about it. Did it help him to focus when there wasn't a bunch of stuff laying around. And he said he thought so. I think what's going on is that for him, every little thing in his line of sight is distracting. This is where I believe his ADHD kicks in. He hyper focuses on all the clutter that's around. It's kind of like if I were trying to concentrate on reading a book that I wasn't really interested in anyway and all around me people were talking loudly, with a lot of body animation. Only for him, the way his mind is wired is what makes those inanimate objects seem so distracting. So I guess the main point here is that I'm thinking that if I have less clutter around, I should have fewer problems with distraction. Which kind of sucks because I've spent a lot of years just to get my clutter down to the point it's at today.

Finally got around to it

When Mister C and I were trying to stage our house in Nebraska for sale, I used some calendars of tropical scenes. I took out seven different pages and put them in black frames that I got from Target and hung them up. They looked really good for a staged house. Not that I think they helped sell my house, but at least I didn't have strangers staring at pictures of my family (I know, how stupid, I write a blog, come on in!)

When we moved into our home in Sunshineville, I hung up those same framed calendar pages on the walls in my dining room and family room. It's not that I loved the pictures, I just wanted to get the pictures up off the floor before they got broken.

For the past few months I have been thinking that I should really go ahead and print out the photos I wanted to put in there instead, but I never got around to it. The few times I did try just happened to be times when Mister C, for whatever reason, had me blocked from the photos. I did put two of Master J's school photos up about a month ago.

Today, I finally got around to printing out three pictures and putting them in the frames and hanging them back on the wall. I am so excited. Not because they are necessarily fantastic pictures. More because they are photos of places one or both of us has been and either we or someone we love took the photo. They are a reminder of what is important to us, not just pretty pictures of places we'd like to go.

So, for your viewing pleasure, I have included the three photos.

This is Mister C hiking down into the Grand Canyon on the Boucher Trail. I believe our good friend D-Man took this.



This is a sea arch off the coast of Hawaii. I had to hang over the edge of the rock wall that's supposed to keep you from falling in the ocean. I am horribly afraid of heights.



Mister C took this photo of Havasu Falls on one of his many excursions down into the Grand Canyon.

Bird of Paradise

This was blooming outside my front door today. It's things like this that remind me why I love living in Sunshineville.

Have I updated you lately?

I don't think I've updated lately about all the goings on in our life. Here goes...

First of all, we got the rent check from our new tenant on time for the December rent. He included the check for January's rent as well so that seems to be working out okay. We did have a minor glitch in that he hadn't actually moved one of the utilities into his name. We figured this out when we got a bill. I called him and he said he would take care of it but two days later he still hadn't. So Chris called him and (hopefully) straightened it out.

I filled my new (used) bookcase with all of my books and it looks great. I am thrilled to get all of my books off the floor and in order. I hung up 85% of my pictures and know where most of the remaining ones are going. We ended up buying a beautiful entertainment center from our neighbors for about 1/4 of what it would cost new. It's gorgeous and it holds my important items so now my dining room table is clear as well.

I finally found some clown loaches to add to my tank. It took several weeks of repeatedly visiting all the nearby fish places to find them. Evidently they've become very popular lately because people figured out they could put them in a variety of environments and they're pretty fun to watch. When I finally found them, I bought all five that they had in the tank. They were absolutely TINY! I mean, about 3/4 of an inch long and they can get up to 12 inches. In the week that they've been here, they've already grown noticeably. I also had my first tank death when one of my plecos went belly up. Even in death though, nobody tried to eat him (which is rare, fish are pretty cannibalistic). I pulled him out and exchanged his body for a live one since I'd only had him for a few days at the time. So far, so good.

We got a letter from the school confirming what we pretty much knew about Master J and that is that he qualifies for gifted services. They tested him on his sixth day in his new school. Unlike Loser Elementary, they actually included his test results with the letter. I still am not completely convinced that Loser Elementary actually tested Master J. I know they said they did, and they certainly sent a letter saying that he didn't qualify, but all things considered I'm not convinced.

I finished all of my Christmas shopping and got most of it wrapped. I'm still waiting on several packages to arrive from Amazon. I wrote my Christmas letter, but I'm not sure I'm going to get around to sending it out. I have the cards sitting on the counter, but I haven't even started to put together a list of who I would send them to. I also managed to make one batch of fudge so far. I thought I had enough ingredients to make more, but I forgot I had given my big bottle of vanilla to Brandy before moving out here so I could only make one batch. I have the supplies for gingerbread cookies sitting on my island, but haven't gotten around to making them either.

Mister C is done traveling for the year and I'm looking forward to not going anywhere for Christmas. The farthest we're going this year is over to my parent's home for Christmas Eve dinner. That will be the only place I can get a proper ham dinner. Mister C believes that Christmas dinner is turkey. I disagree wholeheartedly. I was raised (properly) with a Christmas ham. Mister C and I have had a long running battle about this particular topic. With our three year rotation schedule (1 year with each set of parents, 1 year at our home) we're each guaranteed what we want once every three years. The year we do at home is the one we fuss the most over. The compromise we've come to this year is that my mom makes a ham dinner for Christmas Eve and I make a turkey dinner on Christmas day. We can both live with that.

I think that wraps up everything that's recently gone on. With Master J home from school for the next few weeks, I'm sure I'll have something more to write about sooner than later.

Did I tell you about my high priced bookshelf?

I've been searching on Craigslist for a new bookcase for a few weeks now. I put an ad in their "wanted" section describing what I was looking for. I got a few responses that were not at all what I was looking for. Apparently, when people read the wanted ads they don't really "read" the wanted ads. Evidently the phrase "no oak please" is indistinguishable from the phrase "I really want oak" to some people. Anyway, I didn't get any usable responses to my ad, but I did find a bookcase. It looked like almost exactly what I wanted so I contacted the guy and arranged to go get it on Sunday while Master J was at my parent's house. It was quite a ways away from us since we are located on the far Northwest side of town and it was on the far Southeast side. But, it was only $95 and with the price of gas dropping it seemed to be a really good deal. Enter Mister C. Did I mention that we live in an area that employs those wonderful photo enforcement cameras? You know, the ones used to catch speeders? Yeah. Mister C would have almost been doing the speed limit, if he hadn't been in a construction zone. Unfortunately for him, in a construction zone he was doing 12 over the limit. I had just leaned down to pick up something off the floor when he cursed. I popped up and he was shaking his head, complaining about the camera going off. I looked at his speedometer and said "Well of course it went off, you're doing 12 over the limit." To which he replied "No I'm not, I'm 2 over the limit, the speed limit is 65." To which I replied "Except that about a 1/2 mile back the speed limit dropped to 55 because it's a construction zone." More cursing ensued. Bottom line is that my previous "really good deal" just got turned into a "Eh, okay deal" because after he pays the fine for speeding in a construction zone, my bookshelf will now cost $275. For that price I could have bought a new one. Bah!

Clutter

I'm thinking back to a time when I had built in bookshelves, too many cabinets and a basement. I'm looking around at my house and wondering what the heck I was thinking when I collected all the stuff that used to sit in those built ins and cabinets and in my basement. I love classic books. I have a fairly decent start on my collection of banned books. Probably over a hundred at this point. And that's just the classics, that doesn't even begin to cover the not so classic. And now, they are sitting in stacks on the floor of my living room. I have a ton of pictures as well. They are also in my living room, leaned up against a wall. I have collected pieces of art like objects (think beaded lizard from Mexico, spear from some Arizona Reservation, etc.) from our travels. Those are covering my dining room table. I think I hit a brick wall on working around here. I am overwhelmed with what remains to be done. I need storage. Mister C went out and bought himself new office furniture before our furniture even arrived from the Midwest. It included two nice bookshelves. His stuff is put away. He doesn't see any reason to go out and buy a bookshelf for my books any time soon. Because his stuff is put away. My stuff is sitting on the floor. I can't walk around the left side of my couch in my living room because the three foot space between the couch and the wall is full of stacks of stuff. I may have to go to a few antique stores on Monday with Mom and search for a bookshelf on my own. I may have to use his own words against him "It's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission." I wouldn't usually do that, but I'm getting desperate. I need order. I need my living room (where my fish tank is) to be peaceful and serene. I need to not see the books, pictures and artwork that I love stacked on the floor like some sort of hoarder starting kit. I need serenity. Now.