first, another matson funny:
last week, scott was laying on the floor playing with matsy (he had mats laying on his tummy) while i made dinner. suddenly, i heard a squealch, a laugh, and scott spluttering. (sounds promising, right?) i come into the room to see what's going on, expecting that mats will have wiggled down onto scott's neck and have tried latching on or something - it really tickles. no no. apparently, mats did his usual wiggling trick, but this time ended up with his mouth completely covering scott's nose ... at which point, he stuck his tongue up scott's nostril! if an adult found himself with his tongue in someone's nose, either by dare or accident, his reaction would be to say, "eww!" and remove it as quickly as possible while trying to suppress a gag. our little dino, on the other hand, was fascinated by the new textures and tastes and tried to wiggle his little tongue up as far as it would go!
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in other news, i have found a new blog with which i am 100% smitten: young house love. i happened upon it while looking for design ideas for our living room - actually saw a picture from the blog on another site and loved the picture, but then days later found the blog and realized that the picture i loved so much had originated from them! it's a young married couple with a baby who are total diy-ers and spend their days frugally updating and redesigning their house. according to the about me, both of their full time jobs are the blog, which i find both crazy and awesome at the same time. anyway, i've been through quite a few design blogs in the past few weeks and might find an idea that i love, but then realize that the blog's overall style is just totally not me. this one, on the other hand, i have already wasted innumerable hours perusing and loving and totally connecting with. they almost have me convinced to paint all of my lovely black picture frames white!
Showing posts with label house. Show all posts
Showing posts with label house. Show all posts
done and to-do
nursery is getting closer to completion by the day! this weekend, i made and framed a collage for the wall above matson's crib, had scott paint the edges of the closet where i spackled last week, we got the closet doors re-installed (and by we, i mean i mostly watched while scott did all of the work), i got fun fabric put into embroidery hoops to hang on the wall above matson's changing table, i ordered everything remaining from our target registry (have a few more things to get from babies r us, as well as finishing buying our cloth diapers and accessories), and i sorted through all of his clothes, took tags off, and bought a free and clear detergent to wash them in. yes, i am nesting, why do you ask?
(speaking of clothes, by the way, we are so set! i was looking through our stash thus far, figuring that i had enough newborn clothes and debating whether to get a few more 0-3 month items. my friend jami has a 10 month old son, though, and graciously offered to lend us his clothes if we were interested - i said sure, and holy cow! she gave me a box and bag of just newborn/0-3 items, and between her clothes and what we had for mats already, we filled his hamper to the brim, all with tiny, adorable clothes for his first few months of life!)
remaining on my list is having a maid service come in next week (my birthday gift from scott :)), washing matson's clothes, organizing the nursery and closet, attaching the cushion to the gliding ottoman (ahem), hemming/cute-ifying matson's curtains, doing some general house organization, freezing some meals for nights we don't have family around and no friends scheduled to bring us food, and trying to remind myself that mats won't really care how perfect his room and our house looks or doesn't look.
(speaking of clothes, by the way, we are so set! i was looking through our stash thus far, figuring that i had enough newborn clothes and debating whether to get a few more 0-3 month items. my friend jami has a 10 month old son, though, and graciously offered to lend us his clothes if we were interested - i said sure, and holy cow! she gave me a box and bag of just newborn/0-3 items, and between her clothes and what we had for mats already, we filled his hamper to the brim, all with tiny, adorable clothes for his first few months of life!)
remaining on my list is having a maid service come in next week (my birthday gift from scott :)), washing matson's clothes, organizing the nursery and closet, attaching the cushion to the gliding ottoman (ahem), hemming/cute-ifying matson's curtains, doing some general house organization, freezing some meals for nights we don't have family around and no friends scheduled to bring us food, and trying to remind myself that mats won't really care how perfect his room and our house looks or doesn't look.
squeaky clean towels
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labels:
house
last summer, a coworker and i were talking about how frustrating it is when your towels begin to get that stench - you know, the one where you pull a freshly laundered towel out of the closet, and as soon as it hits your wet skin it gives off that over-used, needs-to-be-washed bacterial/mildewy odor. her solution is to throw out towels once that happens.
throwing away perfectly good towels and buying replacements just doesn't work for me, though, so when it seemed like every towel in my linen closet had reached that point a few months ago, i started looking for a real solution. (all of our towels are a lovely chocolatey brown, by the by, so bleach is not an answer.) turns out that it's a fairly common problem caused by using too much detergent, which builds up in the fabric and thus traps icky odors. the solution? i googled around and found out that we needed to strip our towels. i ran them through a hot wash with an extra rinse cycle (no detergent), put vinegar into the fabric softener cup - and voila! clean smelling towels! (i also did them a second time with baking soda, but apparently with a high efficiency machine, you have to add water to powdered detergents first, making a paste, which i didn't do, so i kind of ended up with a very grainy lint tray after drying them.)
anyway, super easy, and much more efficient than throwing away and replacing a full set of towels. also easy: halving the amount of detergent i had been using, so that i don't get fresh-yet-stinky towels again.
throwing away perfectly good towels and buying replacements just doesn't work for me, though, so when it seemed like every towel in my linen closet had reached that point a few months ago, i started looking for a real solution. (all of our towels are a lovely chocolatey brown, by the by, so bleach is not an answer.) turns out that it's a fairly common problem caused by using too much detergent, which builds up in the fabric and thus traps icky odors. the solution? i googled around and found out that we needed to strip our towels. i ran them through a hot wash with an extra rinse cycle (no detergent), put vinegar into the fabric softener cup - and voila! clean smelling towels! (i also did them a second time with baking soda, but apparently with a high efficiency machine, you have to add water to powdered detergents first, making a paste, which i didn't do, so i kind of ended up with a very grainy lint tray after drying them.)
anyway, super easy, and much more efficient than throwing away and replacing a full set of towels. also easy: halving the amount of detergent i had been using, so that i don't get fresh-yet-stinky towels again.
nesting weekend
we had a gloriously productive weekend - i love it when that happens. saturday morning, we finally buckled down and finished clearing out matson's room-to-be of non-baby-related paraphernalia. since i'd already gone through it once, this mostly just meant scott carrying stuff into the basement for me. the white paint from when we moved into the house two and a half years ago was looking pretty gloopy, so we went to lowe's for a fresh can ... and picked up some closet doors while we were there! we got the shelves and wall brackets all painted up with our lovely semi-gloss bright white, and the closet doors are mostly done - two coats on the front and one on the back (which you really won't see anyway since we got bifold doors), which just leaves the sides and top/bottom of the doors to do.
hmm, when i write it out, it really doesn't sound like we got all that much done. keep in mind that we had to wait for paint to dry before we could apply more coats, so a fair bit of that was just waiting time ... and we interspersed all of that with things like running four loads of laundry, going to a one-year old's birthday party, doing mounds of dishes, and hosting small group last night (for which i made baked ziti, garlic butter crescent rolls, salad, and a blueberry apple coffee cake). oh, and that scott worked for four hours yesterday.
once we get the shelves and closet doors up and the crib assembled (still need to buy a crib mattress - maybe that'll be next weekend's task), i think we'll be pretty well set as far as the nursery goes! i guess things still on my to-do list include finishing the glider's ottoman cover (which was my plan for this weekend until that got sidelined by the closet doors) and figuring out some wall decor. curtains are also on my list, but i'm not letting myself think about that until the glider's done - scott's been making fun of my ability to follow through on projects that i start, so i feel a need to show him that i really can finish things. really, though, with just a few hours of work this weekend, i feel way better about our level of preparedness already.
speaking of preparation, we're also slowly working our way through our labor book and hoping to be finished reading it by about 36 weeks ... which gives us five weeks! we started reading it on our way to phoenix for christmas three and a half weeks ago (is that really all?? christmas seems forever ago!), and are just shy of halfway through the book. hmm, although in retrospect we skipped some substantial portions of the beginning of the book about things like choosing a doctor and a hospital and why pain relieving drugs are evil. we may need to pick up the pace a bit.
hmm, when i write it out, it really doesn't sound like we got all that much done. keep in mind that we had to wait for paint to dry before we could apply more coats, so a fair bit of that was just waiting time ... and we interspersed all of that with things like running four loads of laundry, going to a one-year old's birthday party, doing mounds of dishes, and hosting small group last night (for which i made baked ziti, garlic butter crescent rolls, salad, and a blueberry apple coffee cake). oh, and that scott worked for four hours yesterday.
once we get the shelves and closet doors up and the crib assembled (still need to buy a crib mattress - maybe that'll be next weekend's task), i think we'll be pretty well set as far as the nursery goes! i guess things still on my to-do list include finishing the glider's ottoman cover (which was my plan for this weekend until that got sidelined by the closet doors) and figuring out some wall decor. curtains are also on my list, but i'm not letting myself think about that until the glider's done - scott's been making fun of my ability to follow through on projects that i start, so i feel a need to show him that i really can finish things. really, though, with just a few hours of work this weekend, i feel way better about our level of preparedness already.
speaking of preparation, we're also slowly working our way through our labor book and hoping to be finished reading it by about 36 weeks ... which gives us five weeks! we started reading it on our way to phoenix for christmas three and a half weeks ago (is that really all?? christmas seems forever ago!), and are just shy of halfway through the book. hmm, although in retrospect we skipped some substantial portions of the beginning of the book about things like choosing a doctor and a hospital and why pain relieving drugs are evil. we may need to pick up the pace a bit.
why you should always upgrade to metal hardware
quite the eventful week we've had!
on the pregnancy front, last tuesday, i had to do my 1-hour glucose screening (which tests for gestational diabetes), and at the same time they do a few other blood draws to test for things like iron and antibodies, the latter having something to do with the fact that i'm rh-negative*. turned out that i have low iron and failed the glucose test. bummer. i wasn't entirely surprised by the iron thing and am now faithfully taking my iron supplement. i was a little more bummed about the glucose thing because i really didn't want to have gestational diabetes. (according to my internet research, in addition to having higher risk of type 2 diabetes later in life for both mom and baby, there's also a correlation with higher rates of adhd for babies of gestational diabetes moms?!) i went in for the followup 3-hour glucose test on monday morning, though, and evidently passed that one with flying colors - hooray!
unrelated to pregnancy, we went into the laundry room on saturday morning and i thought it smelled really musty. since we live in denver where there's super low humidity (it's standard here to actually have a whole-house humidifier on your furnace to keep things a little moist), musty is not a normal basement smell and thus indicated a water leak. and, alright, confession, i'd actually thought it smelled a little musty when i was doing laundry after our christmas trip and just didn't feel like dealing with it at the time. so when i smelled it again, and stronger, i knew we should look into it.
i noticed some dark (ie, fresh) looking water stains on the drywall above the washer and dryer - directly under our master bathroom. no bueno. although i hated it when we moved in, i am incredibly thankful now that we have removable ceiling tiles in the laundry room - scott got the ladder out and was able to look into the ceiling to try to figure out what the problem was. nothing conclusive, but he guessed it was probably our toilet or sink. some of the water had built up on the shelves above our dryer and then a bit had rolled out onto the dryer and accumulated under a detergent bottle i had sitting out. as i was cleaning it up later in the day, i noticed that it had a rather distinctive smell ... indicating that it was, in fact, our toilet leaking. right. gross!
this was a toilet we'd installed ourselves last summer, so we figured we must have done the installation wrong. we just had the plumber out this morning, and 30 minutes and $107 later, found that the problem was not, in fact, our installation. care to take a guess what it was? the plastic washers that came with the toilet. even though the floor in there is tiled, it's not exactly even, and that combined with the fact that i hadn't gotten around to caulking around the base evidently put extra strain on the washers, causing them to finally crack, causing our toilet to leak into the basement. lessons learned: always take the extra time to go to home depot and upgrade to metal hardware, and caulking is worth the time and effort. as a matter of fact, i will be doing some caulking this weekend! and some intense lysol-ing of our laundry room.
on to the fun side of pregnancy - despite the slightly overwhelming nature of getting ever closer to our due date (less than 10 weeks out, now!), getting closer also means that i get baby showers! my primary shower with all of our denver friends will be at the end of this month, and i'm so used to going to other friends' baby showers that i was honestly just looking forward to how fun it would be to see everyone together and hang out. then it occurred to me yesterday that i'll probably get some presents, too, and that makes it extra fun. plus, i found out last night that my parents are looking at coming in for the weekend - awesome! (although dad, be warned that i've already started brainstorming nursery projects that you and scott can work on while mom and i are at the shower, like installing closet doors in there, and setting up the crib. :)) and then my work baby shower was just scheduled at the end of february ... two weeks before i'm tentatively planning to start my maternity leave!
* - quick sidenote: rh-negative ladies, just a heads up that if your doctor operates like mine, you have to get a shot of rhogam during pregnancy, and potentially another after birth if your baby is rh-positive. they give it to you in your tush, and it stings hardcore and at least for me left a bruise for approximately a week. you also get to give an extra vial of blood when they do your blood tests to make sure your body's not rejecting your baby. all in all, not a big deal, but they do not seem to tell you these things up front and i'm all about expectations, so i kind of like to know going in that there are things like extra shots and blood draws in my future. also, all pregnant ladies: get your flu shot! flu season runs through april, and getting the flu can potentially lead to pre-term labor and bad things like that, so it's worth doing. i'd been putting it off and finally asked the doctor yesterday if i should still get one - she said yes emphatically, sent in a nurse with the shot, and i was all done in approximately 2 minutes.
on the pregnancy front, last tuesday, i had to do my 1-hour glucose screening (which tests for gestational diabetes), and at the same time they do a few other blood draws to test for things like iron and antibodies, the latter having something to do with the fact that i'm rh-negative*. turned out that i have low iron and failed the glucose test. bummer. i wasn't entirely surprised by the iron thing and am now faithfully taking my iron supplement. i was a little more bummed about the glucose thing because i really didn't want to have gestational diabetes. (according to my internet research, in addition to having higher risk of type 2 diabetes later in life for both mom and baby, there's also a correlation with higher rates of adhd for babies of gestational diabetes moms?!) i went in for the followup 3-hour glucose test on monday morning, though, and evidently passed that one with flying colors - hooray!
unrelated to pregnancy, we went into the laundry room on saturday morning and i thought it smelled really musty. since we live in denver where there's super low humidity (it's standard here to actually have a whole-house humidifier on your furnace to keep things a little moist), musty is not a normal basement smell and thus indicated a water leak. and, alright, confession, i'd actually thought it smelled a little musty when i was doing laundry after our christmas trip and just didn't feel like dealing with it at the time. so when i smelled it again, and stronger, i knew we should look into it.
i noticed some dark (ie, fresh) looking water stains on the drywall above the washer and dryer - directly under our master bathroom. no bueno. although i hated it when we moved in, i am incredibly thankful now that we have removable ceiling tiles in the laundry room - scott got the ladder out and was able to look into the ceiling to try to figure out what the problem was. nothing conclusive, but he guessed it was probably our toilet or sink. some of the water had built up on the shelves above our dryer and then a bit had rolled out onto the dryer and accumulated under a detergent bottle i had sitting out. as i was cleaning it up later in the day, i noticed that it had a rather distinctive smell ... indicating that it was, in fact, our toilet leaking. right. gross!
this was a toilet we'd installed ourselves last summer, so we figured we must have done the installation wrong. we just had the plumber out this morning, and 30 minutes and $107 later, found that the problem was not, in fact, our installation. care to take a guess what it was? the plastic washers that came with the toilet. even though the floor in there is tiled, it's not exactly even, and that combined with the fact that i hadn't gotten around to caulking around the base evidently put extra strain on the washers, causing them to finally crack, causing our toilet to leak into the basement. lessons learned: always take the extra time to go to home depot and upgrade to metal hardware, and caulking is worth the time and effort. as a matter of fact, i will be doing some caulking this weekend! and some intense lysol-ing of our laundry room.
on to the fun side of pregnancy - despite the slightly overwhelming nature of getting ever closer to our due date (less than 10 weeks out, now!), getting closer also means that i get baby showers! my primary shower with all of our denver friends will be at the end of this month, and i'm so used to going to other friends' baby showers that i was honestly just looking forward to how fun it would be to see everyone together and hang out. then it occurred to me yesterday that i'll probably get some presents, too, and that makes it extra fun. plus, i found out last night that my parents are looking at coming in for the weekend - awesome! (although dad, be warned that i've already started brainstorming nursery projects that you and scott can work on while mom and i are at the shower, like installing closet doors in there, and setting up the crib. :)) and then my work baby shower was just scheduled at the end of february ... two weeks before i'm tentatively planning to start my maternity leave!
* - quick sidenote: rh-negative ladies, just a heads up that if your doctor operates like mine, you have to get a shot of rhogam during pregnancy, and potentially another after birth if your baby is rh-positive. they give it to you in your tush, and it stings hardcore and at least for me left a bruise for approximately a week. you also get to give an extra vial of blood when they do your blood tests to make sure your body's not rejecting your baby. all in all, not a big deal, but they do not seem to tell you these things up front and i'm all about expectations, so i kind of like to know going in that there are things like extra shots and blood draws in my future. also, all pregnant ladies: get your flu shot! flu season runs through april, and getting the flu can potentially lead to pre-term labor and bad things like that, so it's worth doing. i'd been putting it off and finally asked the doctor yesterday if i should still get one - she said yes emphatically, sent in a nurse with the shot, and i was all done in approximately 2 minutes.
odds and ends
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labels:
house,
personal finance,
pregnancy
so two days after my last post (don't know why i didn't write about this then!), we went in for our 20 week ultrasound ... and found out we're having a boy! you probably already know that as i think everyone who still reads this also follows my life in other contexts, but hey, has to be written. and is exciting! i kind of sort of was leaning toward wanting a girl, but if i had had to guess, i would have said that pinto is a boy ... it's fun to know for sure! his name is matson, which is scott's middle name and his grandma's maiden name - so yes, it's technically not a first name, but whatever, this is 2010 and you can name your kid banjo if you want, i think matson is a perfectly cute and acceptable name. we're still working on a middle name for him. on to odds and ends:
1. no, we haven't started any work on the nursery yet, but it's all decor related, so it won't be too bad. we painted that room yellow when we moved in so that it'd be ready to go whether we had a boy or a girl and can be used as a nursery again without repainting if we have other other gender next time, so that's staying. i was planning to get a white crib and changing table so that i don't have to worry about matching wood stain colors and can buy a changing table via craigslist, and my mom and i covered the glider in dark brown fabric (no i haven't finished the ottoman yet, mom!) so we're good to go on that front.
the room already has nice white wood shelves on either side of the window, so we just need to touch those up and put the actual shelves back on (just the brackets are left on the wall, from when we painted over two years ago - whoops). so other than that, it's just getting the furniture, finding a few cute boy accents (which i already have visualized), and we're good to go! oh, and cleaning things like spare sheets, broken sewing machines, and christmas wrapping paper out of there. i think i might start working on that over our long thanksgiving weekend.
2. as regards our mouse travails ... well, we're still in progress with that. we've been setting up traps and poison like crazy and were getting ready to declare victory over the mice when scott saw one scamper under the dishwasher last week. bummer. i googled mice and dishwashers and found this blog detailing mice coming in from a sewer pipe behind the dishwasher, eating plastic piping, water leaking, and ultimately having to replace the dishwasher ... aaah! i had this image in my mind every time we ran the dishwasher last week, but come saturday, we decided it was full on cleaning and war-against-the-mice day. we can't pull out our dishwasher because we had our wood flooring installed in front of it, but thankfully scott put his engineering degree to work and figured out how to remove the bottom faceplate from the thing so we could see what was going on ... and breathed a sigh of relief. no mouse droppings or nests, no chewed pipes, no mouse-holes gnawed into the cabinets back there.
we did find mouse holes on the cabinets behind the stove, so we threw some poison packs back there and jammed up the holes with steel wool (which they allegedly won't chew through). scott put steel wool under all of the floating walls in our laundry room downstairs, we sterilized our whole kitchen, and now we're just waiting to see if any mice continue to creep through. i think we've killed maybe 10 or so mice over the past two months, but i'm semi-optimistic that we're nearing the end. fingers crossed.
3. scott was finally able to feel matson move the other night! admittedly, i had had both soda and ice cream with dinner, so the kid was quite literally bouncing off the walls, but it was really fun getting to share that. i've been able to feel matson move for the past probably 4-5 weeks, and it's neat to feel him getting stronger and more active (or maybe just bigger so there isn't as much space to absorb his movements!) - at first i would maybe feel him move once a day at the most, but now it's pretty frequently throughout each day. also fun is when matson curls up on one side toward the front of my stomach - i'll poke my belly and one side is rock hard, the other is soft and normal.
4. i had a craving for corn dogs yesterday, but couldn't justify having corn dogs for dinner. (maybe this weekend. :)) in trying to talk myself out of it, i decided that rice sounded really really good ... so i went back to my midwestern roots and made my dad's classic chicken breast in cream of mushroom sauce over rice. and it was amazing.
5. a few months ago maura asked how much we paid for our trash service because she wanted to know that she got a good deal on her company (one of their neighbors had recommended it when they moved in). her company charges $45/quarter for trash + $5/quarter for recycling, whereas we pay $45/quarter for trash and $12/quarter for recycling. turns out, though, that her company doesn't charge any extra service fees, fuel surcharges, or taxes on top of that rate whereas mine does. in the end, we were paying $77/month (they just increased the rate this summer) while they were paying $50/month for the same thing from a locally owned company. switching's been on my to-do list for the past few weeks, and i finally got around to it this week. $108/year savings, here we come!
1. no, we haven't started any work on the nursery yet, but it's all decor related, so it won't be too bad. we painted that room yellow when we moved in so that it'd be ready to go whether we had a boy or a girl and can be used as a nursery again without repainting if we have other other gender next time, so that's staying. i was planning to get a white crib and changing table so that i don't have to worry about matching wood stain colors and can buy a changing table via craigslist, and my mom and i covered the glider in dark brown fabric (no i haven't finished the ottoman yet, mom!) so we're good to go on that front.
the room already has nice white wood shelves on either side of the window, so we just need to touch those up and put the actual shelves back on (just the brackets are left on the wall, from when we painted over two years ago - whoops). so other than that, it's just getting the furniture, finding a few cute boy accents (which i already have visualized), and we're good to go! oh, and cleaning things like spare sheets, broken sewing machines, and christmas wrapping paper out of there. i think i might start working on that over our long thanksgiving weekend.
2. as regards our mouse travails ... well, we're still in progress with that. we've been setting up traps and poison like crazy and were getting ready to declare victory over the mice when scott saw one scamper under the dishwasher last week. bummer. i googled mice and dishwashers and found this blog detailing mice coming in from a sewer pipe behind the dishwasher, eating plastic piping, water leaking, and ultimately having to replace the dishwasher ... aaah! i had this image in my mind every time we ran the dishwasher last week, but come saturday, we decided it was full on cleaning and war-against-the-mice day. we can't pull out our dishwasher because we had our wood flooring installed in front of it, but thankfully scott put his engineering degree to work and figured out how to remove the bottom faceplate from the thing so we could see what was going on ... and breathed a sigh of relief. no mouse droppings or nests, no chewed pipes, no mouse-holes gnawed into the cabinets back there.
we did find mouse holes on the cabinets behind the stove, so we threw some poison packs back there and jammed up the holes with steel wool (which they allegedly won't chew through). scott put steel wool under all of the floating walls in our laundry room downstairs, we sterilized our whole kitchen, and now we're just waiting to see if any mice continue to creep through. i think we've killed maybe 10 or so mice over the past two months, but i'm semi-optimistic that we're nearing the end. fingers crossed.
3. scott was finally able to feel matson move the other night! admittedly, i had had both soda and ice cream with dinner, so the kid was quite literally bouncing off the walls, but it was really fun getting to share that. i've been able to feel matson move for the past probably 4-5 weeks, and it's neat to feel him getting stronger and more active (or maybe just bigger so there isn't as much space to absorb his movements!) - at first i would maybe feel him move once a day at the most, but now it's pretty frequently throughout each day. also fun is when matson curls up on one side toward the front of my stomach - i'll poke my belly and one side is rock hard, the other is soft and normal.
4. i had a craving for corn dogs yesterday, but couldn't justify having corn dogs for dinner. (maybe this weekend. :)) in trying to talk myself out of it, i decided that rice sounded really really good ... so i went back to my midwestern roots and made my dad's classic chicken breast in cream of mushroom sauce over rice. and it was amazing.
5. a few months ago maura asked how much we paid for our trash service because she wanted to know that she got a good deal on her company (one of their neighbors had recommended it when they moved in). her company charges $45/quarter for trash + $5/quarter for recycling, whereas we pay $45/quarter for trash and $12/quarter for recycling. turns out, though, that her company doesn't charge any extra service fees, fuel surcharges, or taxes on top of that rate whereas mine does. in the end, we were paying $77/month (they just increased the rate this summer) while they were paying $50/month for the same thing from a locally owned company. switching's been on my to-do list for the past few weeks, and i finally got around to it this week. $108/year savings, here we come!
mice
pardon the interruption to my normally scheduled blogging; my life has contained much drama over the past few weeks, including things like friends visiting from out of town and mice in my pantry.
first the friends - we've actually had three sets of nu friends come through town over the past month, which has been so much fun! first was chris and lesley, who graduated from nu a year after us, moved to wisconsin for her to go to grad school and him to work ... then up and moved to kenya for a year! they just got back earlier this summer, and passed through denver with their moving truck on the way from the midwest to northern california, where they have lots of friends and family and she has a job. we had a great time hearing about their time in kenya, seeing pictures, hearing what they're looking forward to in california ... just generally catching up for the four years it's been since we last saw them!
next was andrew and anne, a friend from nu and his new wife as of last labor day weekend. they had originally planned to be moving from wisconsin to portland, oregon, but there are still some question marks surrounding andrew's job status there - but they'd already booked his mom a one-way ticket from denver back to illinois so that she could join them on the roadtrip through kansas and see her family with them. since they knew they had to be in denver and didn't have any commitments until late july, they figured they may as well seize the opportunity to take a three week camping roadtrip around the national parks of colorado, utah, and arizona. why not, right? so we got to see them for a night between roadtrip with mom and camping adventure and had a lot of fun. we went out for their wedding last fall, but hadn't really had any opportunity to get to know anne at all, so their stop with us was doubly fun in that we got to catch up with our old friend and also get to know his new wife who we thought was fabulous and perfect for him.
third nu friend of the summer was clair, one of my best friends from college (and my maid of honor), who was in town for a few days for a training seminar for her work. i don't think i've seen her for more than maybe a day at a time at the occasional wedding over the past few years, and that was always in the midst of tons of friends coming together, so it was extra nice having her stay with us and getting more time to catch up. we went out for pizza, took a long bike ride, ate ice cream, stayed up late talking, she told us all about her new boyfriend, and i tried to sell her on moving to colorado. and, the night that she got to our house, i discovered a mouse in the pantry, which leads me to my next point:
we have mice in our pantry. ick. i had scott stop on his way home to get traps the first night i saw the mouse (last tuesday), and it took until thursday morning before we found him in the trap. hooray! we were mildly optimistic that he was the only mouse, since our kitchen's right next to the garage and we didn't think it was unreasonable that he might have hopped in from there when we left the door open at some point. sadly, that night, we were in the kitchen talking, and scott saw another mouse scuttling under the stove - boo. we went to home depot and got another 8 traps, which we placed throughout our pantry, next to the stove and behind the fridge, and in the crawl space under the kitchen, and got this thing that you plug in and it sends vibrations out through your house's wiring that is supposed to annoy mice that may be nesting between walls so that they want to leave. no sign of mousey in the trap yet, and i saw him running into the pantry when we got home from hiking on saturday ... but last night, i bought a bunch of plastic bins, cleaned all of our non-canned goods out of the pantry, and didn't see anything that had been nibbled on other than an open bag of pine nuts (that was cleaned out! the first mouse had found an open bag of chopped pecans that he had been going to town on) ... so i'm unsure what food they think they'll be eating from our house. i'm hopeful that the mouse realizes that he's cleaned out his food sources and moved on, but i don't know how realistic that hope is. any idea how long we need to wait to sound the all clear?
first the friends - we've actually had three sets of nu friends come through town over the past month, which has been so much fun! first was chris and lesley, who graduated from nu a year after us, moved to wisconsin for her to go to grad school and him to work ... then up and moved to kenya for a year! they just got back earlier this summer, and passed through denver with their moving truck on the way from the midwest to northern california, where they have lots of friends and family and she has a job. we had a great time hearing about their time in kenya, seeing pictures, hearing what they're looking forward to in california ... just generally catching up for the four years it's been since we last saw them!
next was andrew and anne, a friend from nu and his new wife as of last labor day weekend. they had originally planned to be moving from wisconsin to portland, oregon, but there are still some question marks surrounding andrew's job status there - but they'd already booked his mom a one-way ticket from denver back to illinois so that she could join them on the roadtrip through kansas and see her family with them. since they knew they had to be in denver and didn't have any commitments until late july, they figured they may as well seize the opportunity to take a three week camping roadtrip around the national parks of colorado, utah, and arizona. why not, right? so we got to see them for a night between roadtrip with mom and camping adventure and had a lot of fun. we went out for their wedding last fall, but hadn't really had any opportunity to get to know anne at all, so their stop with us was doubly fun in that we got to catch up with our old friend and also get to know his new wife who we thought was fabulous and perfect for him.
third nu friend of the summer was clair, one of my best friends from college (and my maid of honor), who was in town for a few days for a training seminar for her work. i don't think i've seen her for more than maybe a day at a time at the occasional wedding over the past few years, and that was always in the midst of tons of friends coming together, so it was extra nice having her stay with us and getting more time to catch up. we went out for pizza, took a long bike ride, ate ice cream, stayed up late talking, she told us all about her new boyfriend, and i tried to sell her on moving to colorado. and, the night that she got to our house, i discovered a mouse in the pantry, which leads me to my next point:
we have mice in our pantry. ick. i had scott stop on his way home to get traps the first night i saw the mouse (last tuesday), and it took until thursday morning before we found him in the trap. hooray! we were mildly optimistic that he was the only mouse, since our kitchen's right next to the garage and we didn't think it was unreasonable that he might have hopped in from there when we left the door open at some point. sadly, that night, we were in the kitchen talking, and scott saw another mouse scuttling under the stove - boo. we went to home depot and got another 8 traps, which we placed throughout our pantry, next to the stove and behind the fridge, and in the crawl space under the kitchen, and got this thing that you plug in and it sends vibrations out through your house's wiring that is supposed to annoy mice that may be nesting between walls so that they want to leave. no sign of mousey in the trap yet, and i saw him running into the pantry when we got home from hiking on saturday ... but last night, i bought a bunch of plastic bins, cleaned all of our non-canned goods out of the pantry, and didn't see anything that had been nibbled on other than an open bag of pine nuts (that was cleaned out! the first mouse had found an open bag of chopped pecans that he had been going to town on) ... so i'm unsure what food they think they'll be eating from our house. i'm hopeful that the mouse realizes that he's cleaned out his food sources and moved on, but i don't know how realistic that hope is. any idea how long we need to wait to sound the all clear?
family week
this is a good week for my family!
today (june 2) is my parents' 31st wedding anniversary, which is pretty fabulous. growing up, i always took for granted that my parents were together (yet loved getting to put their wedding ornament on the christmas tree every year), but as an adult i am thankful that i have parents who are still happily married and enjoy being together and planning a future together. happy anniversary, parents!
today also happens to be our housiversary - the 2nd anniversary of the day that scott and i closed on our house! while i went through a bout of buyer's remorse a few months after the purchase, two years in i'm heartily convinced that we have the perfect house in the best location for us. it has its quirks, takes work, and there are always projects on the horizon, but its ours and i like it.
coincidentally also this week last year (june 4), scott and i bought sir walden, affectionately known as wally - my highly anticipated and much beloved subaru forester. one year and 16,000 miles (yes, you read that right) later, it still makes me smile to walk down to my parking garage, click my unlock button from across the garage, and hear his perky "chirp chirp" in response. my mental image of wally includes big pink heart bubbles hovering over his roof.
today (june 2) is my parents' 31st wedding anniversary, which is pretty fabulous. growing up, i always took for granted that my parents were together (yet loved getting to put their wedding ornament on the christmas tree every year), but as an adult i am thankful that i have parents who are still happily married and enjoy being together and planning a future together. happy anniversary, parents!
today also happens to be our housiversary - the 2nd anniversary of the day that scott and i closed on our house! while i went through a bout of buyer's remorse a few months after the purchase, two years in i'm heartily convinced that we have the perfect house in the best location for us. it has its quirks, takes work, and there are always projects on the horizon, but its ours and i like it.
coincidentally also this week last year (june 4), scott and i bought sir walden, affectionately known as wally - my highly anticipated and much beloved subaru forester. one year and 16,000 miles (yes, you read that right) later, it still makes me smile to walk down to my parking garage, click my unlock button from across the garage, and hear his perky "chirp chirp" in response. my mental image of wally includes big pink heart bubbles hovering over his roof.
goodbye spring
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labels:
date night,
house,
landscaping
we had a very productive weekend if i do say so myself: we actually installed both of our new toilets ON OUR OWN relatively quickly and with no problems - wow! we took scott's truck in to get the snow tires taken off and squeaky brakes checked out. we got our outside water turned on so that our roof guy could come fix the masonry on top of our chimney (that was supposed to be monday, but it's on hold for now due to cold and rainy weather - not great for what he needed to do). we installed my new bird feeder "kit" that i got with birthday money (thanks, mom and dad!) and hung up my also-newly-acquired seed feeder and hummingbird feeder. we got another estimate for landscaping work, and while the whole project is going to be a little pricier than we initially realized, no better time for it than now, so i think we're going to go for it. i spent yesterday examining the landscaping plan we had done last year and trying to figure out how much plants and trees cost. we also enjoyed the lovely and sunny spring weather with a walk, grilling, and much relaxing and movie watching. please note that as i write this, our lovely spring weekend has disappeared into a chilly and overcast week - complete with a snowstorm last night/today.
the drive-in on friday night was fun in my mind and a little disappointing in scott's. it was chilly on friday night, so we took wally, laid down the seats, and camped out in the tailgate ... but unfortunately that means that we were looking through the rear window which has big black defrosting lines across it. it didn't bother me at all, but scott wasn't thrilled with the situation. scott thought the theater was dumpy and the radio quality staticky - i thought it was a normal drive-in. combined with the 40 minute drive and our 1:15am return home, i don't think we'll be making the drive-in a weekly destination, but i relatively sure i'll be able to convince scott to take me back by next summer. movie reviews: "how to train your dragon" was cute, well done, fun, and i highly recommend it! "iron man 2" wasn't quite as amazing as the original, but it also started after 10pm and both of us were falling asleep by the end, so i don't know that i can give a realistic review. (saturday night's movie-at-home - thanks to our blockbuster rewards card and a free old-movie monthly rental - was john grisham's "the firm" from 1993, back when tom cruise was successful and un-crazy, and 17 years later the movie is still pretty fabulous.)
the drive-in on friday night was fun in my mind and a little disappointing in scott's. it was chilly on friday night, so we took wally, laid down the seats, and camped out in the tailgate ... but unfortunately that means that we were looking through the rear window which has big black defrosting lines across it. it didn't bother me at all, but scott wasn't thrilled with the situation. scott thought the theater was dumpy and the radio quality staticky - i thought it was a normal drive-in. combined with the 40 minute drive and our 1:15am return home, i don't think we'll be making the drive-in a weekly destination, but i relatively sure i'll be able to convince scott to take me back by next summer. movie reviews: "how to train your dragon" was cute, well done, fun, and i highly recommend it! "iron man 2" wasn't quite as amazing as the original, but it also started after 10pm and both of us were falling asleep by the end, so i don't know that i can give a realistic review. (saturday night's movie-at-home - thanks to our blockbuster rewards card and a free old-movie monthly rental - was john grisham's "the firm" from 1993, back when tom cruise was successful and un-crazy, and 17 years later the movie is still pretty fabulous.)
mulch, take two
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labels:
house,
landscaping
my wise husband listened to my mulch research and reminded me that we have a few trees yet to be taken out this year and were hoping to have a landscaper pull out the existing rock and weed barrier (and dirt covered rock and weed barrier along the wall in the back yard), which is going to add up. so, the mulch plan is that we'll clean up the rock in the front, put the rock back in over new weed barrier and potentially add some fresh rock over top, and do mulch in the back yard without weed barrier (to make it easier to have lots of plants and flowers growing there). whew. i think it'll look better, particularly once we actually have bushes and living things in the midst of our rock, and have everything cleaned up a bit. price-wise i do like the plan better than paying $1000 just for mulch ... especially when our tree guy came back with an estimate of $1100 to finish taking out our russian olives and dead aspens! sheesh. we'll be getting some second opinions.
mulch
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labels:
house,
landscaping
one of the big things i'd like to change with our landscaping is the river rock we have going on in our yard. rock seems to be a big thing for landscaping in colorado, and i kind of get that because it never needs replacing, doesn't require water, and doesn't blow away ... but it's just not pretty. maybe i say that because i'm a midwesterner used to lush growing things and rich dark dirt, but as much as inanimate ground covering can say cozy and homey, mulch just says it to me and rock doesn't. rock is fine in moderation, but i don't love it as a covering for the 800 or so square feet (very rough estimate) that it is currently occupying in our front and back yards. and that's not including the side yards! since our rock is old and desperately in need of removing, washing (to get out all the weed seeds), and replacing the weed barrier under it bare minimum, we're trying to balance wants, price, and, to a certain extent, environmental impact. research thus far reveals:
- river rock
- cost: free. even if we needed more to cover thin spots, there's always some for free on craigslist.
- pros: only cost is to replace weed barrier underneath.
- cons: we (i) don't love the look.
- wood mulch
- cost: about $300. consumer reports says wood mulch averages $1.50/cubic foot, recommends wood mulch 3" deep, which over 800 square feet would require 200 cubic feet of mulch (according to gardenplace.com).
- pros: up front inexpensive replacement option. if used without weed barrier, provides organic material to the garden as it decays, which neither rock nor rubber mulch do. no need for weed barrier as with rock, but weed barrier can help the decay problem and thus mean less potential upkeep cost.
- cons: needs a top coat of mulch each year or so to replace decayed/blown away stuff - averaging an extra inch of fresh mulch every year would cost about $100/year. bugs love decaying wood mulch, and i don't love bugs. environmental impact depends on source of mulch (ie, cypress mulch is bad, pine mulch from colorado potentially neutral). if use weed barrier, mulch decay on top of barrier can provide material for weeds to grow on.
- rubber mulch
- cost: about $1000. lowes.com has .8cf bags for $8/each, consumer reports recommends 1.5" depth, so 100 cf total would require 125 bags. we also have a 10% off lowe's coupon that may work with rubber mulch, so that could bring the cost down a bit.
- pros: doesn't blow away, run off with heavy rains, or fade. guaranteed for 10-15 years. made 100% of recycled tires. no need for weed barrier, and bugs don't like the stuff. no annual upkeep.
- cons: expensive out of pocket (although after 7-10 years the rubber mulch would likely pay for itself).
green thumb in training
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labels:
house,
landscaping
i planted my little herb planter garden last night! i planted from plants this year - maybe next year i'll brave seeds, depending on how this year's expedition goes. we now have cilantro, sage, sweet basil, onion chives, and rosemary growing in a lovely green planter. it's a little more crowded than i thought it would be, so i may have to separate them at some point. again, we'll see. i'm so excited for a summer full of tasty cooking, though! especially the basil and rosemary - yum. i saw an article a few months ago suggesting that you cut long sections of rosemary, strip the herby leaves, and use the wood as skewers for kabobs. i'm not sure my rosemary will get big enough for that this year (it's a perennial, so hopefully i won't kill it this season), but how lovely does that sound??
when our friends jordan and miranda moved to minnesota, they gave us their railing-mount plastic planter. i dumped out the soil last night, cleaned it up, and am spray painting it the same cappucino color as our shutters, with plans to mount it on the iron railing in front of our front door with some pretty flowers in it! i have a notoriously brown thumb, so i'm not sure how my forays into gardening will go, but i'm mildly optimistic. i also have plans to start a mini garden in a bare patch in our lawn next to the back patio - cherry tomatoes and zucchini are currently what i'm planning, but i may branch out.
oh, after pictures of the roof project are finally posted on facebook! (as well as an early look at my gardening attempts.)
when our friends jordan and miranda moved to minnesota, they gave us their railing-mount plastic planter. i dumped out the soil last night, cleaned it up, and am spray painting it the same cappucino color as our shutters, with plans to mount it on the iron railing in front of our front door with some pretty flowers in it! i have a notoriously brown thumb, so i'm not sure how my forays into gardening will go, but i'm mildly optimistic. i also have plans to start a mini garden in a bare patch in our lawn next to the back patio - cherry tomatoes and zucchini are currently what i'm planning, but i may branch out.
oh, after pictures of the roof project are finally posted on facebook! (as well as an early look at my gardening attempts.)
high gear
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labels:
house
- january 27 - we had a handyman out and he told us to call a roofer about the flashing.
- january 30 - we had steve the roofer out, he mentioned that we have hail damage and should call our homeowner's insurance to have an adjuster come out, and left us with sample shingle boards "just in case".
- february 11 - tedd the adjuster finally made it out (after a few delays due to snow storm), confirmed that we're eligible for full replacement, and wrote us a check to get started on the roof.
- february 25 - we had our friend nick the painter out to give us a bid on trim painting
- march 4 - steve the roofer came back out to answer my myriad of questions regarding the project, and gave us a ring of sample gutter colors.
- march 5 - i faxed in a signed acceptance of the roofing company's final estimate.
- march 6 - we finalized our color picks, e-mailed them off to steve the roofer to place the order, and took the old gutters off our house so that we can get the trim painted pre-roofing.
- march 7 - we gave nick the painter the trim color chips.
- march 10 - steve the roofer says that our materials are set to be delivered on the 12th and that they are on schedule to start early next week.
- march 12 - nick the painter is painting our trim to a lovely clay color as i write this!
- march 15 - over two days, steve the roofer's crew will tear off the old roof, put on the new roof, and maybe replace a piece of water damaged soffit board or two if we ask nicely and pay them on the side.
- march 17 - daryl the gutter guy will install our lovely new galvalume gutters.
sunshine!
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labels:
date night,
family,
house,
spring
we are having such a lovely sunshiney weekend! we slept in this morning til 9 (ooh la la), finished picking our house colors, and went on a nice bike ride in the 55* sunshine for an hour or so. so fun - i love lazy saturdays! we also had leftover pizza for lunch, which i think is the 4th time this week that i've had pizza for a meal. we had planned to hang out with friends tonight and bring over a pizza, which will make 5 meals. i love pizza (truly, it's one of my favorite foods), but healthwise i think i might should take at least a week off of it.
last night was my birthday date, and it was super fun. we had another 5280 dinner at the melting pot which was soooooo good. i love fondue. we had fondue once at geja's in chicago and loved it, and i have been wanting fondue again ever since (wow, just realized that our geja's date was six years ago). i decided that if the melting pot participates in 5280 every year, i will happily make it my annual birthday dinner. in keeping with our tradition of doing a cultural date activity for my birthday each year, we got tickets to guys and dolls at the littleton town hall arts center, conveniently located three blocks from the melting pot. also very fun! the theater is small, maybe six or seven rows deep, but they do seating in the round, sort of a semi-circle shape around the stage so there really aren't any bad seats in the house. the musical was funny, engaging, and well acted. had i known at the time that the melting pot extended their 5280 special through the whole month of march (it was supposed to end last night) i think we would have done dinner and the show on a saturday night rather than after work on a friday, but still, very fun birthday date night!
last night was my birthday date, and it was super fun. we had another 5280 dinner at the melting pot which was soooooo good. i love fondue. we had fondue once at geja's in chicago and loved it, and i have been wanting fondue again ever since (wow, just realized that our geja's date was six years ago). i decided that if the melting pot participates in 5280 every year, i will happily make it my annual birthday dinner. in keeping with our tradition of doing a cultural date activity for my birthday each year, we got tickets to guys and dolls at the littleton town hall arts center, conveniently located three blocks from the melting pot. also very fun! the theater is small, maybe six or seven rows deep, but they do seating in the round, sort of a semi-circle shape around the stage so there really aren't any bad seats in the house. the musical was funny, engaging, and well acted. had i known at the time that the melting pot extended their 5280 special through the whole month of march (it was supposed to end last night) i think we would have done dinner and the show on a saturday night rather than after work on a friday, but still, very fun birthday date night!
food brain
we went to our 5280 dinner at the restaurant kevin taylor on sunday night with our small group - so fun! the portions were a little on the small side (which is par for the course at a fancy restaurant), but oh so tasty. i got the asparagus and gnocchi in a truffle parmesan sauce for my appetizer, lamb loin and ravioli with artichoke and gouda for my entree, and for dessert a cookies and cream semifreddo (which is basically like a chilled cookies and cream mousse with an oreo crust on the bottom). yummm. i'm hungry just typing that out. the guys were all a little disappointed that the food didn't come in greater quantity and threatened to make us go to outback steakhouse (where you get four huge courses plus beverage) for 5280 dinner next year. it's entirely possible that they were just spoiled by rodizio's all you can eat meat last year, though. (personally, i'd rather take advantage of eating at amazing fancy restaurants that i would never go to normally when i have an opportunity like 5280 - dinner for two for $52.80 from a pre fixed menu. i think scott's of the same opinion, so we'll have to work on the rest of them.)
on a much less fancy-food note, i made my favorite cooking light baked potato soup last night and it was sooo good. if you haven't made it yet, please do so tonight - you will love it. i bake my potatoes in the microwave because it's way quicker than the oven, use the baggied 'real bacon' bits from the grocery so that my house doesn't smell like bacon for the next week, and skim milk because that's what we have - it is so quick and so easy. heat flour and milk, dump in potato, cheese, sour cream, seasoning, and green onion, and serve. mmm. i'm a little bit jealous because we had leftovers and i had scott take them for lunch today. yes, my job buys my lunch so i don't have to bring leftovers, but it's just that good. i basically keep sour cream and bacon bits in the fridge solely for the purpose of this soup.
let me see - non-food related things going on in my life ... i sent the check off to our mortgage company last week to have it endorsed and returned, but they just called and said that our adjuster stopped filling out the amount of the check midway through, so they have to send it back to us, have it finished, and then return it to them. sweet. it's fine, though, we're really not in any imminent rush on the roof thing - it's not like we have any leaks in the house. the gutter guy is coming out to revise his estimate on thursday (apparently the gutter industry is hard up for work - as soon as we mentioned getting a comparison bid, the gutter guy said he could drop his price for us). we'd rather use this guy since they work with our roofing company on a normal basis so we think communication would be easier, but we also want to make sure we're getting a good price. i feel guilty sometimes when people drop their prices for me because i know that they need the profit to make a living, but i have to be a wise consumer and trust that they're being a wise business person. if i only had unlimited cash, i'd happily be fleeced by every home repair person in the metro. oh, and we're having a house painter come out to give us an estimate on doing our trim on thursday. we really need to figure out colors.
and, unrelated to both food and my roof, i have a sore throat today. it's been building since sunday, but has definitely progressed to full on sore for today. i woke up a few times last night with a cramp in my forehead muscles because i was furrowing my brow so tightly because it hurt to swallow in my sleep. i took some advil and scott dug out the chloroseptic strips for me, and i'm pretty sure i'll survive. 95% chance, at least. hmm, maybe if i complain about my sore throat enough, scott will leave the baked potato soup for me and my achy throat to enjoy! mm, except that i had already planned to make this bacon and mushroom pasta for dinner tonight ... and, well, mushrooms and bacon and pasta just sounds so tasty.
(for the record, no, i do not cook like this all the time. last week on the menu: papa john's heart pizza, tuna casserole, smashburger/mcdonald's, and three nights where i assume we must have eaten leftovers because i cooked nothing.)
on a much less fancy-food note, i made my favorite cooking light baked potato soup last night and it was sooo good. if you haven't made it yet, please do so tonight - you will love it. i bake my potatoes in the microwave because it's way quicker than the oven, use the baggied 'real bacon' bits from the grocery so that my house doesn't smell like bacon for the next week, and skim milk because that's what we have - it is so quick and so easy. heat flour and milk, dump in potato, cheese, sour cream, seasoning, and green onion, and serve. mmm. i'm a little bit jealous because we had leftovers and i had scott take them for lunch today. yes, my job buys my lunch so i don't have to bring leftovers, but it's just that good. i basically keep sour cream and bacon bits in the fridge solely for the purpose of this soup.
let me see - non-food related things going on in my life ... i sent the check off to our mortgage company last week to have it endorsed and returned, but they just called and said that our adjuster stopped filling out the amount of the check midway through, so they have to send it back to us, have it finished, and then return it to them. sweet. it's fine, though, we're really not in any imminent rush on the roof thing - it's not like we have any leaks in the house. the gutter guy is coming out to revise his estimate on thursday (apparently the gutter industry is hard up for work - as soon as we mentioned getting a comparison bid, the gutter guy said he could drop his price for us). we'd rather use this guy since they work with our roofing company on a normal basis so we think communication would be easier, but we also want to make sure we're getting a good price. i feel guilty sometimes when people drop their prices for me because i know that they need the profit to make a living, but i have to be a wise consumer and trust that they're being a wise business person. if i only had unlimited cash, i'd happily be fleeced by every home repair person in the metro. oh, and we're having a house painter come out to give us an estimate on doing our trim on thursday. we really need to figure out colors.
and, unrelated to both food and my roof, i have a sore throat today. it's been building since sunday, but has definitely progressed to full on sore for today. i woke up a few times last night with a cramp in my forehead muscles because i was furrowing my brow so tightly because it hurt to swallow in my sleep. i took some advil and scott dug out the chloroseptic strips for me, and i'm pretty sure i'll survive. 95% chance, at least. hmm, maybe if i complain about my sore throat enough, scott will leave the baked potato soup for me and my achy throat to enjoy! mm, except that i had already planned to make this bacon and mushroom pasta for dinner tonight ... and, well, mushrooms and bacon and pasta just sounds so tasty.
(for the record, no, i do not cook like this all the time. last week on the menu: papa john's heart pizza, tuna casserole, smashburger/mcdonald's, and three nights where i assume we must have eaten leftovers because i cooked nothing.)
suspense
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labels:
date night,
house
so apparently i was wrong in my assumption that the present scott is going to get me was for valentine's day. i asked, and whatever it is is not for my birthday either - or for any other occasion. so i'm hanging in suspense until the right rainy day comes along! i'll keep you posted. (valentine's date was lovely, btw. we both really enjoyed "emma", i enjoyed my chianti while scott had a nice glass of mountain dew, and our pizza was heart shaped and covered in pepperoni. incidentally, i do not recommend papa john's heart pizza - it's thin crust, which is great with some toppings, but just doesn't cut it with pepperoni. mental note to stick to papa murphy's shaped pizzas.)
we had our roof adjustor out yesterday morning, finally. since scott and i both had to work and just had the roofer there on our behalf, the adjustor called me post-appointment with good news for us: he agreed that the roof was very hail damaged and worthy of full replacement! i believe that his full replacement price was $10,5xx - but they'll take our $1000 deductible and $28xx for depreciation out of that total, so we'll get a check for about $6700.
BUT, if we replace the roof with a comparable roofing material, we can send in proof (after the job is done, of course) to the insurance company and get the $28xx depreciation money refunded to us, so that we only have to pay our deductible out of pocket. i'm not sure if "comparable" means using a certain grade of asphalt shingles, or if it refers more to us not upgrading from asphalt shingles to, say, copper roofing or something, but trust me, we'll be making sure we use comparable materials. (try to picture our suburban 1970s trilevel in the midst of a jungle of asphalt roofs with a glowing copper roof - pretty funny!) anyway, his price was right on par with the estimate we got from our roofing company, which is good. also good is that, while i need to finalize our '09 taxes still, i think that our refund should cover the new roof and new gutters! now i just need to figure out what color i want everything to be ...
we had our roof adjustor out yesterday morning, finally. since scott and i both had to work and just had the roofer there on our behalf, the adjustor called me post-appointment with good news for us: he agreed that the roof was very hail damaged and worthy of full replacement! i believe that his full replacement price was $10,5xx - but they'll take our $1000 deductible and $28xx for depreciation out of that total, so we'll get a check for about $6700.
BUT, if we replace the roof with a comparable roofing material, we can send in proof (after the job is done, of course) to the insurance company and get the $28xx depreciation money refunded to us, so that we only have to pay our deductible out of pocket. i'm not sure if "comparable" means using a certain grade of asphalt shingles, or if it refers more to us not upgrading from asphalt shingles to, say, copper roofing or something, but trust me, we'll be making sure we use comparable materials. (try to picture our suburban 1970s trilevel in the midst of a jungle of asphalt roofs with a glowing copper roof - pretty funny!) anyway, his price was right on par with the estimate we got from our roofing company, which is good. also good is that, while i need to finalize our '09 taxes still, i think that our refund should cover the new roof and new gutters! now i just need to figure out what color i want everything to be ...
at least i ironed
i am adding "getting up on time" to my list of new year's resolutions ... i've been sleeping in too late (til 6:30 - ridiculous that that's "late") and was 20 minutes late for work today. no bueno.
in better news, i ironed last night! it had probably been at least nine months or a year since i last ironed anything, and longer than that since i last did a major batch of ironing. (ie, there were clothes sitting in my closet for the last year or two not being worn because they were too wrinkly and i didn't want to sit down and iron. yes, i am that person.) it was less awful than i thought it would be, though. i got to go through my closet and find clothes i'd forgotten about, and i was able to do something productive while i watched tv! major bonus in my book. (i think the tvs in the cardio section at the gym are a major part of my learning to like working out, not going to lie.) as i was leaving for work this morning, scott looked at my shirt and asked me if it was new - he was serious, but sadly i've had it for a few years! it made me laugh. it is nice feeling like i have a new wardrobe just because my clothes are once again wearable.
scott was home from work by 9 last night which was nice. (so sad that scott getting off work by 7 seems "early" and 9 seems "not too bad"!) his company's board meeting is on thursday, so he's mildly optimistic that his work hours will revert at least somewhat to a normal 40 hour week. it'll still be hectic for a while (specifically til they get their own accounting system in place in the next few months), but hopefully not as much mad crunch time.
no word on the roof stuff - the adjuster called monday night asking to push the appointment back a week because of the snow. since he kind of needs to be on the roof during the appointment, that made sense to me. next tuesday morning now, we'll see how it goes!
in better news, i ironed last night! it had probably been at least nine months or a year since i last ironed anything, and longer than that since i last did a major batch of ironing. (ie, there were clothes sitting in my closet for the last year or two not being worn because they were too wrinkly and i didn't want to sit down and iron. yes, i am that person.) it was less awful than i thought it would be, though. i got to go through my closet and find clothes i'd forgotten about, and i was able to do something productive while i watched tv! major bonus in my book. (i think the tvs in the cardio section at the gym are a major part of my learning to like working out, not going to lie.) as i was leaving for work this morning, scott looked at my shirt and asked me if it was new - he was serious, but sadly i've had it for a few years! it made me laugh. it is nice feeling like i have a new wardrobe just because my clothes are once again wearable.
scott was home from work by 9 last night which was nice. (so sad that scott getting off work by 7 seems "early" and 9 seems "not too bad"!) his company's board meeting is on thursday, so he's mildly optimistic that his work hours will revert at least somewhat to a normal 40 hour week. it'll still be hectic for a while (specifically til they get their own accounting system in place in the next few months), but hopefully not as much mad crunch time.
no word on the roof stuff - the adjuster called monday night asking to push the appointment back a week because of the snow. since he kind of needs to be on the roof during the appointment, that made sense to me. next tuesday morning now, we'll see how it goes!
sportsfan
i am sleepy today ... we went to the suns v. nuggets game last night, and while the original tip off time had been 7:00, it got pushed back to 8:30 so that they could televise it. 8:30 start time meant that we didn't get home til almost midnight. thus, now sleepy. it was a good game, though - suns won 109-97! and we got to meet the guy that goo is dating, which was very fun.
an insurance adjustor is coming out next tuesday to look at the roof. when he called, he offered that we could have our contractor out for the appointment also if we wanted ... not entirely sure what to do with that. on the one hand, it seems like it could be helpful to have a guy who's knowledgable and sort of "on our side" at the appointment; on the other, he's the only roof guy we've spoken to, and while we really liked him, i don't want to feel completely committed to using him if we need to price compare. we need to decide soon, though, so that we can get it on the roof guy's calendar if we do decide to have him at the appointment. (and the roof guy did offer that if the first adjusting appointment doesn't get the result we want, that we could request a second adjustor to come out and have him there also.)
we're hanging out with some friends to watch the superbowl this sunday, and since dips are apparently the official food of football, i'm making both queso and spinach/artichoke dip to bring to the game. the spinach artichoke dip because i had bought frozen spinach to make some like three weeks ago, never got around to it, so it's been sitting in my fridge and i want it gone. the queso, because i like queso and have a handy small crock pot just perfect for making queso, so why not? not to mention, i found this super tasty looking queso recipe - velveeta and rotel, yes, but also cream cheese, cheddar, chorizo, and black olives. oh my! (although actually, i decided to make queso a week ago and just found the recipe five minutes ago when i subscribed to the pioneer woman's tasty kitchen blog so that i can enter her cooking gear contests again.)
on another unrelated note, depending on the cost of this whole roof situation, i have a tentative brilliant idea for a long weekend getaway with scott later in the spring. thus far it's a surprise (the destination, not that i'm thinking of planning a trip - i would feel super guilty spending that much money without getting at least a general consent from him), but i did tell scott that it would involve plane tickets, and that it's not to chicago. i'm trying not to get my hopes too far up, because if we have to pay a lot out of pocket for the roof i think i'll have to dash the idea for now ... but it's definitely simmering in the back of my mind.
an insurance adjustor is coming out next tuesday to look at the roof. when he called, he offered that we could have our contractor out for the appointment also if we wanted ... not entirely sure what to do with that. on the one hand, it seems like it could be helpful to have a guy who's knowledgable and sort of "on our side" at the appointment; on the other, he's the only roof guy we've spoken to, and while we really liked him, i don't want to feel completely committed to using him if we need to price compare. we need to decide soon, though, so that we can get it on the roof guy's calendar if we do decide to have him at the appointment. (and the roof guy did offer that if the first adjusting appointment doesn't get the result we want, that we could request a second adjustor to come out and have him there also.)
we're hanging out with some friends to watch the superbowl this sunday, and since dips are apparently the official food of football, i'm making both queso and spinach/artichoke dip to bring to the game. the spinach artichoke dip because i had bought frozen spinach to make some like three weeks ago, never got around to it, so it's been sitting in my fridge and i want it gone. the queso, because i like queso and have a handy small crock pot just perfect for making queso, so why not? not to mention, i found this super tasty looking queso recipe - velveeta and rotel, yes, but also cream cheese, cheddar, chorizo, and black olives. oh my! (although actually, i decided to make queso a week ago and just found the recipe five minutes ago when i subscribed to the pioneer woman's tasty kitchen blog so that i can enter her cooking gear contests again.)
on another unrelated note, depending on the cost of this whole roof situation, i have a tentative brilliant idea for a long weekend getaway with scott later in the spring. thus far it's a surprise (the destination, not that i'm thinking of planning a trip - i would feel super guilty spending that much money without getting at least a general consent from him), but i did tell scott that it would involve plane tickets, and that it's not to chicago. i'm trying not to get my hopes too far up, because if we have to pay a lot out of pocket for the roof i think i'll have to dash the idea for now ... but it's definitely simmering in the back of my mind.
the hail state
well, we had the roof guy out yesterday, and things didn't go quite as planned. we showed him the flashing in the back, but as we had also asked for an estimate on the whole roof, he set up his ladder up front and started looking around. i think he'd been up there less than a minute before he came down, knocked on the front door, and asked if we knew that we had hail damage. um, i'm going to go with no on that one. well, apparently we do. the good news is that that's the kind of thing homeowner's insurance covers, so i'm going to call them in the morning and find out what we need to do to get that process started, getting an adjustor out and all that. apparently in addition to the loose flashing, though, we had some loose nails higher up that were likely letting in water, so there's a large-ish area of the roof that might need some work done ... yikes. we have our fingers crossed about insurance panning out, but nothing's guaranteed yet. (did you know that colorado is one of the biggest states for hail damage? california has earthquakes, oklahoma has tornadoes, and colorado has hail. sweet.)
as the roofer was on top of the house, scott and i were inside talking, and found the situation quickly escalating. we had him out to look at a piece of loose flashing, and it looks like we may need a whole new roof. scott pulled out the piece of wood we had meant to cut down and paint to replace a missing slat in the front shutters, and i mentioned that you can actually buy new vinyl shutters for less than $40/pair at home depot. we were discussing the merits of that when scott asked if the color match on paint would be close enough ... which led me to mention that we really need to get our trim re-painted at some point, as it's, well, ugly in general, and really peeling on the gutters ... oh, and by the way, the gutters leak, so we'll need to think about replacing them at some point. and, by the way, the soffits are looking a little bit worn, so i'm not sure if we need to replace them or just sand them down and paint them. in my mind, i'd been pondering these things for a while, but in scott's he knew we needed the flashing nailed down, and suddenly found himself looking at a new roof, new shutters, new gutters, getting the trim painted, and replacing soffit board. he wasn't very excited about the possibilities. (which i get. i really don't love spending money on house projects.) the roof guy happened to also mention all of those things when he came down to talk about next steps and give us an overview of the roof situation. we'll see. the talk with the insurance company needs to happen before we make any other plans. and regardless of what happens with the roof, i'm going to be so nervous every time we have a hail storm - i remember this summer's hail storm (particularly because i was at home alone in the basement when it hit) and watching the news with people out in aurora shoveling hail off of their driveways like snow and lamenting broken windows. i had no idea it might have actually done anything to our house!
anyway, so that was yesterday morning - after roof guy finished up, we bought me snow pants and headed up for night skiing. it was fun! i did six runs on the bunny slope before deciding i really needed to do a real run. scott took me on a blue, which was much better than last year, but i still fell twice. then i sat out for a while to watch kinley while mike and maura skiied together - kinley and i made like five trips up and down the stairs and the "ella" - elevator - then played in a water fountain for a few minutes, during which she got very wet, whoops, then hung out in the bathroom for literally like 15 minutes because she was enamored with the enormo handicap stall. oh the things that can fascinate an almost-two year old, who knew! they came back and found a change of clothes for their daughter, and scott took me back out for an illicit green run. for whatever reason, the resort has the greens closed during night skiing, but since it's right next to the blue, scott found a little trail through a break in the trees that we could use to get onto the green ... for the most part, there was enough light from the giant full moon and the blue run right next to it, but there were a few spots that felt a little bit eerie. i could see the overall slope of the hill and knew that i was moving down, but i couldn't specifically see the snow or the grade changes, so i just went down slowly, enjoying the stars and the quiet and the amazing view and hoping i didn't fall. i liked the green much better than the blue. we all stopped for pizza at hernando's in winter park on the way home, so we didn't get home until close to midnight ... needless to say, i've been a little sleepy today.
as it were, though, i need to stop typing and go do dishes. we had small group over for dinner tonight, and even though i tried to do dishes as i went, we inevitably have a counter full. (on the menu for tonight: hot & sweet drumsticks, normal italian breadcrumb drumsticks, herbed basmati rice, broccoli, and brownie squares for dessert.)
as the roofer was on top of the house, scott and i were inside talking, and found the situation quickly escalating. we had him out to look at a piece of loose flashing, and it looks like we may need a whole new roof. scott pulled out the piece of wood we had meant to cut down and paint to replace a missing slat in the front shutters, and i mentioned that you can actually buy new vinyl shutters for less than $40/pair at home depot. we were discussing the merits of that when scott asked if the color match on paint would be close enough ... which led me to mention that we really need to get our trim re-painted at some point, as it's, well, ugly in general, and really peeling on the gutters ... oh, and by the way, the gutters leak, so we'll need to think about replacing them at some point. and, by the way, the soffits are looking a little bit worn, so i'm not sure if we need to replace them or just sand them down and paint them. in my mind, i'd been pondering these things for a while, but in scott's he knew we needed the flashing nailed down, and suddenly found himself looking at a new roof, new shutters, new gutters, getting the trim painted, and replacing soffit board. he wasn't very excited about the possibilities. (which i get. i really don't love spending money on house projects.) the roof guy happened to also mention all of those things when he came down to talk about next steps and give us an overview of the roof situation. we'll see. the talk with the insurance company needs to happen before we make any other plans. and regardless of what happens with the roof, i'm going to be so nervous every time we have a hail storm - i remember this summer's hail storm (particularly because i was at home alone in the basement when it hit) and watching the news with people out in aurora shoveling hail off of their driveways like snow and lamenting broken windows. i had no idea it might have actually done anything to our house!
anyway, so that was yesterday morning - after roof guy finished up, we bought me snow pants and headed up for night skiing. it was fun! i did six runs on the bunny slope before deciding i really needed to do a real run. scott took me on a blue, which was much better than last year, but i still fell twice. then i sat out for a while to watch kinley while mike and maura skiied together - kinley and i made like five trips up and down the stairs and the "ella" - elevator - then played in a water fountain for a few minutes, during which she got very wet, whoops, then hung out in the bathroom for literally like 15 minutes because she was enamored with the enormo handicap stall. oh the things that can fascinate an almost-two year old, who knew! they came back and found a change of clothes for their daughter, and scott took me back out for an illicit green run. for whatever reason, the resort has the greens closed during night skiing, but since it's right next to the blue, scott found a little trail through a break in the trees that we could use to get onto the green ... for the most part, there was enough light from the giant full moon and the blue run right next to it, but there were a few spots that felt a little bit eerie. i could see the overall slope of the hill and knew that i was moving down, but i couldn't specifically see the snow or the grade changes, so i just went down slowly, enjoying the stars and the quiet and the amazing view and hoping i didn't fall. i liked the green much better than the blue. we all stopped for pizza at hernando's in winter park on the way home, so we didn't get home until close to midnight ... needless to say, i've been a little sleepy today.
as it were, though, i need to stop typing and go do dishes. we had small group over for dinner tonight, and even though i tried to do dishes as i went, we inevitably have a counter full. (on the menu for tonight: hot & sweet drumsticks, normal italian breadcrumb drumsticks, herbed basmati rice, broccoli, and brownie squares for dessert.)
handyman
i love our new handyman service. they were at the house for precisely 4 hours and 15 minutes on wednesday, and charged us for the exact time. the one guy was able to do tile/drywall, plumbing, and electrical, and the few things that came up that he wasn't able to figure out immediately, he told me right away. (like the flashing issue on our roof - he took a look, found that the board underneath is rotted, and suggested we call a roofer since they'll have to pull up some shingles and whatnot and would be able to do it all properly.) plus, the guy was very professional-yet-friendly, prompt, and seemed to be working hard and quickly the whole time he was there - no standing around or taking his sweet time. i was impressed, and happily put their little magnet on the fridge for the next time we need them.
on that note, i found a roofing company through the same referral list online, and they're coming out to do a free estimate on the roof repair (and a roof replacement, since our inspector guessed we had about 5 more years out of our roof when we moved in almost 2 years ago - this way we'll know what we need to save) on saturday. another company i called did not do estimates on repairs, they just wanted to charge $250 for the trip fee/first hour, then $95/hr after that. maybe that's reasonable (yikes), but i have a hard time paying that much money not knowing what the final bill is going to be.
as this is friday (hoorah!), tonight is date night. what fun and exciting plans do we have, you ask? shopping for snowpants for me. sounds thrilling, i know. scott had bought me a pair of snowpants for christmas that came up approximately three inches past my bellybutton, which is just too much in my book so we returned them. apparently snow pants for women who are short, actually have curves, AND don't want to spend $100+ on a pair of seasonal pants are hard to find - go figure, right? tomorrow is night skiing, though, and scott told me i'm not allowed to wear his old fleece-lined wind pants as snow pants anymore (which makes sense since they're really not that insulatory, even with my long underwear underneath), so shopping it is. with maybe some tivo'd lost afterward since we never finished watching last season and the new season starts on tuesday!
on that note, i found a roofing company through the same referral list online, and they're coming out to do a free estimate on the roof repair (and a roof replacement, since our inspector guessed we had about 5 more years out of our roof when we moved in almost 2 years ago - this way we'll know what we need to save) on saturday. another company i called did not do estimates on repairs, they just wanted to charge $250 for the trip fee/first hour, then $95/hr after that. maybe that's reasonable (yikes), but i have a hard time paying that much money not knowing what the final bill is going to be.
as this is friday (hoorah!), tonight is date night. what fun and exciting plans do we have, you ask? shopping for snowpants for me. sounds thrilling, i know. scott had bought me a pair of snowpants for christmas that came up approximately three inches past my bellybutton, which is just too much in my book so we returned them. apparently snow pants for women who are short, actually have curves, AND don't want to spend $100+ on a pair of seasonal pants are hard to find - go figure, right? tomorrow is night skiing, though, and scott told me i'm not allowed to wear his old fleece-lined wind pants as snow pants anymore (which makes sense since they're really not that insulatory, even with my long underwear underneath), so shopping it is. with maybe some tivo'd lost afterward since we never finished watching last season and the new season starts on tuesday!
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