We have only one room in our home with carpet now. Erin spent a week painting that room a gold color before we get new carpet at the end of this week. And before painting, we had a couple guys come over to retexture the entire room and patch cracks and holes in the walls. After all this, you can imagine that the current carpet is not all that clean. For those of you who know Erin, we thought we'd share this small breakthrough.
After all the retexturing and painting had been finished, John put the current carpet that we had pulled away from the walls back down in its original position. Erin, of course, thought of vacuuming the carpet last week as she was cleaning the house. Could she really live with dirty, disgusting carpet for a whole week before the new carpet came in? Most of you who know her already know the answer: absolutely not. In a surprising turn of events, Erin decided it was a waste of time to vacuum the carpet that would be gone in a week. So she didn't. Maybe all the unexpected circumstances and stress of this year are forging changes in Erin's anxious, compulsive personality. Maybe.
Monday, December 10, 2007
What?!? No Christmas?!?
We have fooled the entire neighborhood...and probably you too if you receive a Christmas card from us (assuming the cards do eventually get sent!). The outside of our house is festively decorated for Christmas. We have lights on the roof, the bushes, and the front porch, which we put up on a rather cool day a week or so ago right before the temperatures rose into the 80s making it feel more like April than December. Hopefully with the outside lights glowing no one will ever notice we have no Christmas tree in the window. In fact, if you were to walk into our home there would not be a single trace of Christmas anywhere. Well, except for the piles of Christmas cards waiting to be addressed and stamped.
The reason for no Christmas this year is quite simple: our house is a mess what with all the remodeling. Strangely, the season seems to be lasting longer this year. That's mostly because Thanksgiving was about a week early, but we like to think we are also having more space to enjoy things like other people's Christmas parties, Christmas music, and just sitting and drinking hot cocoa. Besides the lack of decorating, we are also foregoing the endless Christmas shopping because so many of our gifts this year will be unusual (experiences rather than actual presents). Since we have family in town we're not even traveling for the holiday. When people say things like, "I haven't even gotten our Christmas cards bought yet" or "I still have so much shopping to do," Erin tends to respond with "Oh, you still have plenty of time! It's only December 10th!" OK. Now that she thinks about it, that's only 15 days until Christmas. Ignorance is bliss. And we can afford to be ignorant of the passage of time this season since we have no pressing holiday items on our to-do list.
When it first looked as if Christmas wouldn't really happen in our home, Erin was pretty stressed and disappointed. Now that the idea has taken hold, she is a little relieved. This year has been stressful enough. We can easily go to the homes of relatives or friends to experience the Christmas environment. It is a pleasant change to be able to celebrate the meaning of this holiday (Jesus' birth) in quieter more subtle ways. We tend to like simplicity, so perhaps this year's experience will lead to more toned-down celebrating in future years.
So, enjoy your Christmas cards when they get there, and feel free to drive by the house to take in the light display, just don't expect a winter wonderland if you intend to visit the inside of our home.
The reason for no Christmas this year is quite simple: our house is a mess what with all the remodeling. Strangely, the season seems to be lasting longer this year. That's mostly because Thanksgiving was about a week early, but we like to think we are also having more space to enjoy things like other people's Christmas parties, Christmas music, and just sitting and drinking hot cocoa. Besides the lack of decorating, we are also foregoing the endless Christmas shopping because so many of our gifts this year will be unusual (experiences rather than actual presents). Since we have family in town we're not even traveling for the holiday. When people say things like, "I haven't even gotten our Christmas cards bought yet" or "I still have so much shopping to do," Erin tends to respond with "Oh, you still have plenty of time! It's only December 10th!" OK. Now that she thinks about it, that's only 15 days until Christmas. Ignorance is bliss. And we can afford to be ignorant of the passage of time this season since we have no pressing holiday items on our to-do list.
When it first looked as if Christmas wouldn't really happen in our home, Erin was pretty stressed and disappointed. Now that the idea has taken hold, she is a little relieved. This year has been stressful enough. We can easily go to the homes of relatives or friends to experience the Christmas environment. It is a pleasant change to be able to celebrate the meaning of this holiday (Jesus' birth) in quieter more subtle ways. We tend to like simplicity, so perhaps this year's experience will lead to more toned-down celebrating in future years.
So, enjoy your Christmas cards when they get there, and feel free to drive by the house to take in the light display, just don't expect a winter wonderland if you intend to visit the inside of our home.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
A Year Ago Today
One year ago on this date the title of our blog entry was "Water is Free Again" since John was back in the US for business enjoying free water in restaurants. Erin was still in Amsterdam in our apartment on that day.
Now that we are back in a house, much time is spent fixing things and remodeling. This week we've discovered that, while water in restaurants may be free in this country, carpet is anything but. We just want one little living room worth of carpet. And since it's the only room in the house with carpet now, we'd like for it to be fairly decent carpet. Who knew it would be so expensive? Now, we are used to getting many things for free, but we knew free carpet would not be acceptable and had planned to pay the price this time. We don't want carpet that freshens the air and shields itself from even the toughest stains while cleaning itself and the rest of the house, backed by a 290 year warranty. We just want carpet that feels soft when you walk on it. At a decent price. So far, the search continues.
If we had concrete floors (which we do not owing to the fact that our house is too old to have a slab foundation), this whole thing would be easily settled by just doing something fancy to the concrete that's already there (that's the "in" thing to do, right?) and putting down a nice rug. Surely painting or staining concrete can't cost as much as carpet, can it?
For now, we will live with freshly painted gold walls and the old green carpet. Hmmm. Now that we think of it, these colors in our living room can kind of be a salute to our alma mater. Sic 'em bears!
Seriously, let us know if you happen to be getting rid of your carpet that's still in good shape and not green.
Now that we are back in a house, much time is spent fixing things and remodeling. This week we've discovered that, while water in restaurants may be free in this country, carpet is anything but. We just want one little living room worth of carpet. And since it's the only room in the house with carpet now, we'd like for it to be fairly decent carpet. Who knew it would be so expensive? Now, we are used to getting many things for free, but we knew free carpet would not be acceptable and had planned to pay the price this time. We don't want carpet that freshens the air and shields itself from even the toughest stains while cleaning itself and the rest of the house, backed by a 290 year warranty. We just want carpet that feels soft when you walk on it. At a decent price. So far, the search continues.
If we had concrete floors (which we do not owing to the fact that our house is too old to have a slab foundation), this whole thing would be easily settled by just doing something fancy to the concrete that's already there (that's the "in" thing to do, right?) and putting down a nice rug. Surely painting or staining concrete can't cost as much as carpet, can it?
For now, we will live with freshly painted gold walls and the old green carpet. Hmmm. Now that we think of it, these colors in our living room can kind of be a salute to our alma mater. Sic 'em bears!
Seriously, let us know if you happen to be getting rid of your carpet that's still in good shape and not green.
Lead
We have seen or read the news a few times this week, and in case you have been living in a cave, here's a summary of what must be the most important news item every single day: there are lots of children's toys that contain lead, and that's bad. Pretty much every toy containing any paint is on the banned list, we think. It's a miracle we all turned out OK considering there was probably lead in almost every single toy we owned in the '70s and '80s.
All this talk of lead paint inspired Erin to actually find and use the face mask we have in the garage while sanding the door frames and floorboards in our living room. Granted, this is the final room in the house to be painted and she has thus far sanded paint off of door frames and floorboards in the remainder of the house while simply trying not to breath too much. Our house was built in 1960, so it's possible there could be at least one layer of lead paint on the wood. With all the bad news about lead paint, Erin started wondering what might happen to her if she did ingest lead paint dust from, say, sanding five rooms in our house. Cancer? Brain damage? Hallucinations? John helpfully pointed out last night that we did indeed actually sign a waiver when we bought this house stating that we are aware that our house contains lead paint and will not sue the old lady who used to live here should anyone die from lead paint poisoning.
As it turns out, lead generally affects children, causing such things as ADD and learning disabilities, so we're in the clear. And now that we've sanded away and repainted all the other lead paint in the house, you can feel safe to bring your children here as well.
All this worry and time spent researching lead paint could have been avoided if we just didn't watch the news. Lessons learned: ignorance is bliss, and just buy your kids video games for Christmas...it's better for them.
All this talk of lead paint inspired Erin to actually find and use the face mask we have in the garage while sanding the door frames and floorboards in our living room. Granted, this is the final room in the house to be painted and she has thus far sanded paint off of door frames and floorboards in the remainder of the house while simply trying not to breath too much. Our house was built in 1960, so it's possible there could be at least one layer of lead paint on the wood. With all the bad news about lead paint, Erin started wondering what might happen to her if she did ingest lead paint dust from, say, sanding five rooms in our house. Cancer? Brain damage? Hallucinations? John helpfully pointed out last night that we did indeed actually sign a waiver when we bought this house stating that we are aware that our house contains lead paint and will not sue the old lady who used to live here should anyone die from lead paint poisoning.
As it turns out, lead generally affects children, causing such things as ADD and learning disabilities, so we're in the clear. And now that we've sanded away and repainted all the other lead paint in the house, you can feel safe to bring your children here as well.
All this worry and time spent researching lead paint could have been avoided if we just didn't watch the news. Lessons learned: ignorance is bliss, and just buy your kids video games for Christmas...it's better for them.
Monday, November 26, 2007
My Mistake
Erin finally got a job several weeks ago after months of searching for a paid internship position in the Dallas area. She is now unemployed yet again. The story of what happened for the two weeks in-between is like a bad dream. In hindsight, an important lesson has been learned: intuition is not to be ignored.
When Erin interviewed for the position she got bad vibes about the owner of this practice, but after searching for months, any paid job that had an available opening looked great. After two weeks of living day by day to figure out whether she did or did not have clients to see, Erin found out that her suspicions about something being not quite right with her boss were confirmed. The practice Erin was working for received a subpoena with the promise of a subsequent investigation by the state board for unethical and illegal behavior. Erin decided the next day to quit while she was ahead: no regular clients yet, no need for anyone to know she had worked at this place for two weeks, no hours accrued toward licensure yet. It is also safe to say that the woman running this practice is a paranoid sociopath, literally.
After such a stressful re-introduction to working in America, Erin is now thinking much more carefully about where she takes an internship position. And for now, she is quite happy trying to get our house back in order because we are still in the process of remodeling and hope to have the house somewhat back to normal for the Christmas season. Plus, we have a preemie nephew who is now living at home with his parents but still needs lots of help. Actually, the help may be more for the benefit of his mommy than for him, but Erin is more than happy to drive down to be with them now that her schedule is flexible again.
When Erin interviewed for the position she got bad vibes about the owner of this practice, but after searching for months, any paid job that had an available opening looked great. After two weeks of living day by day to figure out whether she did or did not have clients to see, Erin found out that her suspicions about something being not quite right with her boss were confirmed. The practice Erin was working for received a subpoena with the promise of a subsequent investigation by the state board for unethical and illegal behavior. Erin decided the next day to quit while she was ahead: no regular clients yet, no need for anyone to know she had worked at this place for two weeks, no hours accrued toward licensure yet. It is also safe to say that the woman running this practice is a paranoid sociopath, literally.
After such a stressful re-introduction to working in America, Erin is now thinking much more carefully about where she takes an internship position. And for now, she is quite happy trying to get our house back in order because we are still in the process of remodeling and hope to have the house somewhat back to normal for the Christmas season. Plus, we have a preemie nephew who is now living at home with his parents but still needs lots of help. Actually, the help may be more for the benefit of his mommy than for him, but Erin is more than happy to drive down to be with them now that her schedule is flexible again.
Friday, September 28, 2007
It's too hot
It has been autumn for five days, but here in Texas you would never know. Erin heard on the weather last night that the high temperatures right now are 5-7 degrees warmer than normal with no end in sight. By the way, every time we watch the weather segment of the news Erin can't help but think that it might be just a little ridiculous that with all the news going on in the world, a full 5 minutes of 15-20 minute newscast (that's after the commercial breaks) is spent rehashing the weather. After all, on most days in Texas the weather segment is almost exactly the same day after day.
Fall is one of Erin's favorite times of year so it is unfortunate that Texas has no such season...usually. Right now in Amsterdam it is in the 60s and rainy. OK, we don't like the rain so much, but temperatures in the 60s we could go for. And we really love the trees changing color. About this time last year we visited the Apenhuel (monkey zoo) in the Netherlands. We were wearing coats and the monkeys would stop all activity and sit in a yoga position to soak up the sun every time it came out from behind a cloud. The only thing we want to soak up here in Texas is some air conditioning.
It had better cool off before Thanksgiving because it is just wrong to wear shorts and T-shirts on Turkey Day.
Fall is one of Erin's favorite times of year so it is unfortunate that Texas has no such season...usually. Right now in Amsterdam it is in the 60s and rainy. OK, we don't like the rain so much, but temperatures in the 60s we could go for. And we really love the trees changing color. About this time last year we visited the Apenhuel (monkey zoo) in the Netherlands. We were wearing coats and the monkeys would stop all activity and sit in a yoga position to soak up the sun every time it came out from behind a cloud. The only thing we want to soak up here in Texas is some air conditioning.
It had better cool off before Thanksgiving because it is just wrong to wear shorts and T-shirts on Turkey Day.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Updates on "Free"
We still have our free Ford Focus. The evaluation lasts one more week, and then we will have to go back to putting miles on our own cars and paying for insurance on two cars again. It’s been fun while it lasted.
A couple of times we’ve had to take the Focus in so engineers could fly down from Ford headquarters in Detroit to make some changes and check some things out based on our survey comments. During these inspections, Ford gives us a free rental car. The first experience was with a Ford Expedition. Although John loves driving cars that sit so tall over the road, it was a bit ridiculous driving around that behemoth with the two of us sitting up in the front seats with about 20 feet of empty space behind us. The second rental was much more practical…or at least, we made great use of it: a Ford F-150 super extended cab something or other. It just so happens that we had it over the weekend, and it also just so happens that we are doing a lot of remodeling at our house…still.
So, it made perfect sense last Thursday night and Saturday to spend hours upon hours at Lowe’s and Home Depot buying things like 12-foot long pieces of crown moulding and baseboards and large boxes of faux wood plantation blinds for all the windows in our house. Granted, it was pouring cats and dogs when we had to return some of the door casing to Lowe’s on Sunday, but it was ever so much more convenient with a free truck to haul the things around in.
Oh, and we finally got our compensation from Ford for agreeing to do this evaluation of the Focus. Let’s just say the baseboards, door frames, and crown moulding in our home are compliments of Ford, including the means of transportation to get them from the store to our house.
This last weekend of "Free" also included free tickets to the Dallas symphony on Friday night, which we drove to in our free truck and parked at in the free parking garage provided by John’s company across the street from the symphony hall.
Yesterday we almost got a free $400 bed frame from Bombay Company, but we responded a bit too late. Oh well. I guess not everything is free.
In a more frustrating instance of Free, our phone stopped working again last Thursday. This time Time Warner said they couldn’t make it out to fix anything for 4 days! This is the second time in the last two months of our “no-risk trial period” that our digital phone has stopped working. By now, the phone works once again and John got Time Warner to give us almost all our money back from the past two months. Plus, yesterday in the mail we found that Time Warner sent us a coupon for a free ticket to Six Flags with the purchase of a $15 off ticket because we’re “valued” customers. All this said, we still would never recommend Time Warner to anyone, not even an enemy.
This ends the tale of "Free." If anyone knows John, none of this news will come as a surprise, but John still wishes to share the entertaining story. Even with all this "Free," nothing has yet to supersede the free computer; that one has been reigning champion of "Free" for nine years now.
A couple of times we’ve had to take the Focus in so engineers could fly down from Ford headquarters in Detroit to make some changes and check some things out based on our survey comments. During these inspections, Ford gives us a free rental car. The first experience was with a Ford Expedition. Although John loves driving cars that sit so tall over the road, it was a bit ridiculous driving around that behemoth with the two of us sitting up in the front seats with about 20 feet of empty space behind us. The second rental was much more practical…or at least, we made great use of it: a Ford F-150 super extended cab something or other. It just so happens that we had it over the weekend, and it also just so happens that we are doing a lot of remodeling at our house…still.
So, it made perfect sense last Thursday night and Saturday to spend hours upon hours at Lowe’s and Home Depot buying things like 12-foot long pieces of crown moulding and baseboards and large boxes of faux wood plantation blinds for all the windows in our house. Granted, it was pouring cats and dogs when we had to return some of the door casing to Lowe’s on Sunday, but it was ever so much more convenient with a free truck to haul the things around in.
Oh, and we finally got our compensation from Ford for agreeing to do this evaluation of the Focus. Let’s just say the baseboards, door frames, and crown moulding in our home are compliments of Ford, including the means of transportation to get them from the store to our house.
This last weekend of "Free" also included free tickets to the Dallas symphony on Friday night, which we drove to in our free truck and parked at in the free parking garage provided by John’s company across the street from the symphony hall.
Yesterday we almost got a free $400 bed frame from Bombay Company, but we responded a bit too late. Oh well. I guess not everything is free.
In a more frustrating instance of Free, our phone stopped working again last Thursday. This time Time Warner said they couldn’t make it out to fix anything for 4 days! This is the second time in the last two months of our “no-risk trial period” that our digital phone has stopped working. By now, the phone works once again and John got Time Warner to give us almost all our money back from the past two months. Plus, yesterday in the mail we found that Time Warner sent us a coupon for a free ticket to Six Flags with the purchase of a $15 off ticket because we’re “valued” customers. All this said, we still would never recommend Time Warner to anyone, not even an enemy.
This ends the tale of "Free." If anyone knows John, none of this news will come as a surprise, but John still wishes to share the entertaining story. Even with all this "Free," nothing has yet to supersede the free computer; that one has been reigning champion of "Free" for nine years now.
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