Birthday Recap...

I had a great birthday... Thanks for all the cards and calls everyone! Marissa, sorry I missed you! We went to dinner at Eleven in the Strip District, and then we headed over to the West End Overlook for a photo op. Neither Jim or I had ever been there so we thought it would be a good time to check it out because the weather was gorgous. After that, we came home and Jim had a cake for me... DQ Ice Cream Cake- Yum!! Here are some shots from the day....

The flowers I got at work


At the restaurant


Bring on the dessert!



Views from the Overlook




Posing by the Overlook

The Cake!! (Thanks, Jim!)

What a great birthday...

Reasons to Celebrate Today...

-It's My birthday!!
-It's finally sunny with no chance of rain
-I got the wireless network working (yay!!)
-Mint Mocha Chip Frappacino's - had one at lunch today- delicious!
-Jim sent me flowers at work today- he's a keeper :)

Bad Luck...

Ok, so the last couple of days have not gone well. As I mentioned before briefly, I had a really hard time setting up our wireless network and eventually gave up after 12 hours of working to solve the problem. The tech support people even told me to take it back to the store- they said it was defective. I'm thinking I might try again with a different brand... do I dare?

On top of that, last night I went up to switch laundry into the dryer and stepped on the rug and it went "squish." The floor was completely soaked. After some investigating, we discovered that water is pouring out of the bottom of the washer. It's not a hose, we checked all those connections. So now we have the GE maintenance guy coming on Tuesday to look at it and most likely charge us some obscene amount to fix it. Not to mention the AC in Jim's car has gone out and that is going in next Tuesday as well. I can see the dollar signs adding up.

This morning, we had a close call. The HVAC guy came over to do some work on the furnace. I was upstairs for a couple of hours while he worked. When I came down to pay him, he said "Is this your cat?" and pointed to Bear. I was like, "Um, ya." (Weird question, I thought). He said, "Oh, because he was outside and I brought him in but I wasn't sure if he was yours." I didn't want to yell at the guy for letting him out, because at least he had the sense to bring him in, although I'm not sure why he didn't check with me to see if he was my cat before he put him in my kitchen. Anyway, I asked where he was and he said "in the yard." So that was Bear's big adventure for the day. He could have run away but he didn't so I guess he does like us enough to stick around:)

So despite all the appliance/tech issues, I am glad that we still have a cat. Now if I can just make it in the house without setting off the alarm...

Updated Room Photos...

Things are still coming along, although we seem to be putting off hanging pictures on the walls. Using that picture rail is somewhat of a pain and we haven't quite gotten around to wiring up all the frames yet. Here is some of the progress we made recently.

Here is Marty installing our new cat gate at the top of the basement stairs. It works perfectly!

Here is an updated view of the studio with the new grey and white paint job. Notice the new Fender table!

Here are a few shots of the living room in it's current state. We just got the coffee table in yesterday.

The Many Adventures of Bear the Cat...

Yes, I know we take a lot of pictures of our cat. What can I tell you- we don't have kids. Anyway, here are a few shots of how he spent his weekend.

Here is Bear lounging on his new "Cat Chaise" I got for him at Target last week. It is too cute.

Here he is trying out his new harness and leash set. He doesn't seem to mind it too much, since it means he gets to be outside which is his favorite thing.

And here he is after a long day of painting (he didn't even help!) curled up in the plastic dropcloth.

Weekend Update...

Hope everyone had a wonderful 4th! We had a very busy weekend with lots of projects to undertake. Here's how it went down...

-On Friday we had the assistance of Marty, Judy and Julie who were amazing and helped us knock out our entire Friday 'to do' list, which included: Painting the studio, painting the laundry room, putting together the new grill, installing a gate to keep Bear out of the basement, trimming the hedges, meeting with the furnace guy, chopping up a downed limb and vaccuming the basement with the shop vac. Amongst all this, there was still time for a good old fashioned 4th of July BBQ (using the new grill of course) and fireworks downtown at night. What a day!!

-On Saturday we had a visit from Mr. Gutter Helmet. We have decided to have them installed and they will be coming in 45-60 days to do that project. It's a big expense but our gutters are in bad shape because of all the trees so we feel it is worthwhile. Later in the day the duct cleaners came by to give us a quote, but I thought it was outrageous so it will have to wait. We can breathe dust for a while, right?

-The rest of Saturday and all of Sunday involved more trips to Lowe's and various unpacking projects. We did manage to get the desktop PC set up in the office, although after 4 hours of trying to get the network to connect, I gave up at 12:30 and went to bed. I'll try to tackle that again tonight. I'll try to post some pictures tonight of the progress we made over the weekend.

Jim's "Go or Don't Go" - Definitely, Maybe

This really should be titled, "Rent or Don't Rent" but here you go anyway...

We finally had time to watch "Definitely Maybe" this week. Carrie is considerate enough to not make me watch too many chic flicks, but occasionally I have to endure one. This movie certainly falls into that category.I found this to be "When Harry Met Sally" meets "The Princess Bride." The story is told by a dad telling his daughter (one of those unnaturally mature children that only exist in the movies) about how he met her mother. The story takes place in the 90s and we follow his relationships with the three women that are the possible candidates. We find out at the end of the movie who her mother is, but there is a twist. Carrie made a good observation that the film could have been better if it had worked a little more humor into the story.I'm sure that most ladies will enjoy the romantic suspense of this movie, but the guys will just have to bite the bullet and take one for the team on this. I've been waiting all week to say this... Definitely Maybe? Definitely Not! I say "Don't go."

False Alarm x2...

It happened already... See, I knew it would and it did. I awoke this morning to the sound of the alarm system going off (very loud). Talk about a rude awakening. I couldn't figure it out at that hour of the morning but I assumed Jim did something wrong. He said it went off when he opened the door. Whatever.

Well, I set the alarm and went to leave the house (you have 60 seconds to get out) and when I opened the door, I set off the alarm too! The neighbors probably loved that.

So needless to say, I was on the phone with Guardian this morning and they will need to reprogram the system so we can leave our house without elliciting a police response.

Sheesh...

Per Your Request...

A couple people told me I needed to post a shot of the infamous rug from the prior post, so here it is. Please excuse the bright flash in these shots. Now I have to go figure out how to set the alarm system. The Guardian people were over here tonight and they left us with a manual and a ton of unanswered questions. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before our first false alarm. Can't wait till the cops show up at our door and I get to explain that Bear triggered the motion detector.

Rug Love...

One would think buying a rug would be a simple process. Go to store, choose rug, take home. Last night we went to Lowe's to buy a grill. We didn't get a grill (they are all too HUGE) but we did find a rug we liked for the living room. Here's how the sequence of events unfolded...

-I ask the associate if they had this clearance rug in a 5x8. The one on display was a 8x10 but they tell us the Robinson Store (15 miles away) has 2.
-I call the Robinson store to make sure they have one before we drive over. The woman leaves for 5 mintes, comes back to the phone and says she looked and cannot find one- it must have been sold. I ask her if it's worth my time to come look for myself and she pretty much says "no", because she "looked everywhere."
-I convince Jim to go with me to Robinson and lo and behold, we find a 5x8 rug. Score. Not only do we find 1, we find 2. The computer was right. The lady was wrong. I want to find her and tell her that, but I don't.
-We take it home and love it. Score again. We like it so much, in fact, that we decide we should get the same rug, but bigger, for the dining room.
-I decide to drive back to the 1st store in the morning to buy the 8x10 that was on display.
-I get to the store this morning and the guy says the display is the only one they have but he will still sell it to me.
-He proceeds to spend 20 minutes trying to find a wrench to unbolt the rug from the display. He leaves and comes back 3 times.
-He finally gets the rug down and says, "Ok, so this is a 5x8." (it looked bigger hanging up)
-I go, "Um, I wanted an 8x10." He says he will check the computer.
-He leaves again, comes back and says the nearest 8x10 is in Stuebenville, Ohio. At least an hour away.
-He is about to leave me, but looks one other place, way up on the top shelf of another aisle, and there it is, like the Holy Grail of rugs, an 8x10, rolled up in the packaging.
-Praise the Lord, I bought the rug, stuffed it in my car (that part was fun). And thus ends the Rug Saga of 2008.

Room Updates...

We are working our way room by room setting up the house. Here is some of the progress we have made. There are still a lot of details like artwork, lamps, curtains, etc that need to be added, but things are starting to take shape.

Den Before (prior owner) ...

Den now...

Guest Room Before...

Guest Room now...

Master Bedroom before...

Master Bedroom now (work in progress)...

Still to come, later this week (hopefully)... Living room, Dining room, Studio, Kitchen, Laundry.