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tragically, the guy who helped us the other weekend with the pick-up truck had a heart attack and died this week. He was only 34! It's really sad and shocking. He was a very nice guy, and we just saw him this past weekend and he seemed just fine.
Today we had high expectations -- we roped a guy with a pick-up truck into helping us and went to the discount home improvement store to buy a hardwood floor. Which store, we learned, is not actually open on Sundays. Then we went to Lowes and Home Depot to price hardwood flooring and realized that at retail prices, it is prohibitively expensive. Undaunted, we went to the house and tore up the carpeting anyway. I went upstairs to admire the paint job and discovered the reason it had gone so fast was because my BIL and his cousin had really done a remarkably crappy job. Seriously. The carpet is not a drop cloth, guys. And just because there somebody forgot to remove the switchplate or cover it with tape, doesn't mean you should paint it. Really. And random unpainted spots is not o.k. I also discovered that even though we were NOT planning to paint the kitchen, someone helpfully spackled random spots on the walls, so we might as well paint it now. Wails and gnashing of teeth followed these discoveries, and BIL, cousin, and the guy with the truck left under the pretext of taking the tore up carpet to the dumpster and never returned (we later found them at the gas station eating chips). Tulio and I repainted one of the bedrooms and scraped paint off the trim where it had been slopped, then realized we were both exhausted and decided to leave the rest of the painting (and the foam crap from under the carpet -- incidentally, we found several razor blades under the carpet, like a creepy time capsule from the carpet-layers) until a later date -- probably next weekend, given our lack of free time during the week. So now we are chilling in the apartment -- despite being possibly the most impatient person in the world, I've decided that for once I would rather do things slowly but do them *right* than rush through them and do a crap job, and, after all, we have 6 weeks before we have to vacate our apartment, so we can afford to take our time and do a nice job on the house.
I have a nagging mystery though -- where the hell is the water heater? there's hot water so obviously there is one, but where on earth is it? Next time I'm at the house, I'll check the crawlspace, because it really isn't anywhere else.
My sister is going to think this is boring (because I already told her all about it over the phone and she was bored then, so now she'll be doubly bored) so here is a link to the deep fried blog from the state fair, which I am missing this weekend, although that is probably good for my arterial health.
http://info.ncagr.com/DeepFried/
Last year's innovation in fried foods was deep fried pepsi (kinda like funnel cake but saturated in Pepsi syrup -- like my sister points out, as if funnel cakes were not delicious enough). There hasn't been that much buzz about exciting breakthroughs in fried things this year, although my mother tells me that deep-fried butter debuted at the Texas state fair this year, but I had a great idea: OK, at the fair they make this awesome thing where they stick a giant potato into a corkscrew machine and then fry the resulting enormous potato ruffle and its kinda like a mix between a giant chip and a giant french fry and so so good, well, anyway, what if they did that with an apple? and then covered it with cinnamon and powdered sugar? that would be awesome, right?
that is all.
http://www.cookingcache.com/soupsand/af
On Friday we are supposedly closing on the house! That's pretty exciting! I keep alternating between being thrilled and being terrified. We found an overstock and close out housing supply store nearby -- it's kind of like TJ Maxx except with flooring and toilets and doors and such and is pretty thrilling. We're going to have to do some things like painting and replacing the kitchen vinyl and the ugly living room carpet before we move in, but I like projects so right now I'm happy about that. Remind me of this in a few weeks when I am weeping and beating my head against the wall.
Our bikes were stolen last weekend and my first reaction was to get enraged and call the cops and canvass the neighborhood looking for them, but honestly, with everything else going on, work, homebuying, licensing exam coming up, I decided I really didn't have the energy to dedicate to that. I don't know. On the one hand, it seems like raising a ruckus is the ethical choice, advocating for the neighborhood and all that, but on the other hand, it seems like getting worked up isn't really a priority right now. We can always get new bikes. So I'm choosing to let it go.
The Health and Human Service budget cuts came through last week --- on the 30th DHHS slipped into the provider bulletin a little sentence mentioning maybe they should check out this web document -- which web document casually announced that effective October 1st there would be 10% cuts in the reimbursement rates in virtually all mental health services. So we all took paycuts (mine is not that huge because I happen to work in one of the 2 services that did not get a rate cut) and some people were laid off. I think I'm more upset about the lay-offs, I really liked both people who had to leave, and I wish we'd been able to do something for them, like a good-bye card or something. Even though I know that wouldn't really make things better, it still would have been a nice gesture. I'm also a little concerned about other agencies going under; as much as my company prepared for the upcoming cuts, the ones that went through were even worse than the worst-case scenarios they had predicted.
Also, here is a useful link: http://uglyoverload.blogspot.com/
Mostly I am just posting to share this FABULOUS recipe: http://www.whiteonricecouple.com/recipe
It requires some attention (as warned in the recipe, if you don't stir it pretty much constantly, you get a big gross macaroni glob) but is so delicious and creamy and totally worth it. I made it with pepper jack and colby cheeses -- it wound up a pale orange and didn't look so pretty but was deeelicious. I also made a vegetable soup (here is my soup recipe: take all the veggies in the fridge that are starting to look sad. Cut them up. Put the aromatic ones -- garlic and onions and also the carrots because otherwise they take forever to cook -- into some hot olive oil and poke them around until the onions are translucent and then pour in some water and add a boullion cube and some seasoning that you like and whatever other veggies and maybe a can of beans too and possibly canned tomatoes or a little vinegar or whatever and bring to a boil and then simmer until you like the consistency of the veggies. ta da). And then this morning I made french toast, which I had been raised to believe was a very difficult thing to make, but maybe my mom just didn't like it, because it was really easy.
Now I got all that out of my system, it will be rice and beans and cheese toast for the rest of the month.
But try that macaroni, it's really good.
One of these days I'll get around to it, chipmunk fans be prepared!
We went to Mt St Helens today! (with my mom, not Lisa). It might have been steaming but there was a giant cloud on top so it was hard to tell. The crater is very impressive, though. And there was an awesome ranger telling the story of how Mt. St. Helens was this giant diva who one day totally blew her top. And there were hoards of pre-teen girls visibly falling in love with the ranger.
And there were lots and lots of scarey bridges and then the cloud fell on top of our car and we couldn’t see a thing and we totally thought we were going to die. But we didn’t!
Tomorrow, Chinatown.
I am so fucking scared!!!! yet excited! Tulio already bought a hammock (and I had to confess to him that I also bought one last week because they were on clearance at Lowe's) and I'm already thinking about paint colors and flooring and PLANTS!
We've been driving by the house like creepy stalkers, and tomorrow I take a check to the seller's agent's house. YIPES!
Also, Wednesday I am leaving for Portland! I'm so excited! I get to see my friend Lisa and it'll be the first time I've gone to the West coast, too!
About half an hour later, a policeman came by and said "We received a report that a dark-skinned man ran into your apartment." W.T.F.
EVEN WORSE true story:
My high school bff Patrick (who is black) went running one evening around his college's track. This is an important detail. It was a track. Like those oval things people run on. Around the same time, there was a car broken into in a nearby parking deck, and someone reported seeing a black man running away. so the next thing Patrick knows, he was tackled and had a gun held to his head. Because of course, after you break into a car, you then run some laps.
I'm realizing I don't like house hunting all that much, peeking in people's closets makes me feel a little creepy. and both financial things and forms are triggers to my anxiety, and there's a lot of them involved in this process.
Anyway (in no particular order), house # 1:
PROS:
Nice quiet pretty neighborhood
gorgeous yard
yard backs up to protected area
lovely screen porch
nice kitchen
cute washing machine area (seriously, it's very well designed)
CONS:
Small bedrooms
not a lot of storage space (say, for yarn or art supplies)
overall stupid floorplan
picky neighborhood covenant (that's why the neighborhood is so pretty, of course)
At the upper end of our price range
The realtor is really pushing me to choose this one and when people try to make me do something, it makes me not want to do it. Part of this is totally unreasonable defiance, but I think there might be some intuitive reason in this case.
brand spankin new white carpet, which seems like a disaster waiting to happen
will probably need a new roof pretty soon
House #2:
PROS:
Great front and back yard with raised flowerbeds
good floorplan for us
wood burning fire place
lots of storage
wired shed in the backyard so Tulio could have a little shop or man-cave
big front porch
Weird reason, but I get the feeling we would like the current owners
can have chickens
CONS:
Not walkable neighborhood
right next to rundown apartment complex
needs new paint and carpet
higher-maintenance siding than the others
will probably need a new roof pretty soon
House #3:
PROS:
Great neighborhood, near a friend of mine
yard backs up to protected area
Great floor plan
lots of storage
wood burning fireplace
vinyl siding
the living room flooring was really cool
CONS:
Vinyl siding (it's low maintenance, but that doesn't mean I like it!)
not much of a yard at all
steep slope in back yard that the house could conceivably fall off of in some natural disaster
I forgot to look at the roof
bad parking arrangement
HOA
they all have good schools, I basically did my initial elimination by throwing out houses in districts for schools I don't like. They all have nice kitchens because that is my dealbreaker, I won't have a pokey little dark kitchen.
So I just don't know what to do! Tulio and I are going back and forth without much success. I really feel like #2 would meet our needs best in a lot of ways, but then I think about resale value and so forth... Maybe we need to wait until the perfect house (great house, great yard, great neighborhood) comes along, but if we wait too long we'll miss out on the tax credit. So I just don't know.
There is no point to this entry except to say that it was a very nice day.
ETA: and I am making my husband absolutely insane. I'm going to get off the computer now and stop looking at houses.
