It's Official

I noticed people next door this evening so I dragged Tick out for a walk in order to give me an excuse to meet them (Tick is still panting heavily from her walk around the block). The property owner, whom I had never met, was very nice. She informed me that they would be fixing up the house both inside and out in order to get it ready to rent. I am thrilled that they plan to do some work on the outside. Hopefully they will rip out the huge shrub that completely blocks the front window. Yes, this is what passes for excitement in my life.

Don't Even Think About It!

Mom suggested that perhaps 2 Chicks and a Trailer should be helping Cadance and family move. I agree with Ang that mayhem would probably ensue if we ever got these two groups together. They appear to be all moved out but they did leave a few items behind in the carport. That looks like the chair that was once in my pine tree, and of course, one of the stolen shopping carts. This is the kind of high-class neighborhood that I live in! There was a strange car parked in the driveway earlier today, so maybe somebody will be moving in soon. Keep your fingers crossed that whoever moves in will be decent neighbors.

The Happiest Day of My Life!

My next door neighbors are definitely moving, which makes this the best day of my life. They were loading bedroom furniture into a truck yesterday and I could see through their door that the living room was empty. Julie, the mother, and Lindsay, the teenage daughter, have been okay. They aren't particularly friendly, but they don't cause any trouble, either. Sixteen year old Hayden is a different matter. Ava got confused with his name and she calls him Cadance, which Stephanie and I enjoy, so we call him that as well. Cadance is a skater-punk hoodlum who is constantly vandalizing the neighborhood, screaming obscenities at his mother, and just generally hanging out on his driveway with his friends and doing stupid things.

One of my first encounters with Cadance's mischeif was when we returned from Mexico two or three years ago and found that various items had been thrown into my big pine tree in my front yard. Those items included a Styrofoam airplane, a Nerf football, several lengths of pipe, 2 brooms, three rakes, and a lawn chair. All of these were stuck in my tree. He and his friends have stolen several shopping carts and they get in and race down the road or down single guy's driveway. They like to golf around the neighborhood and there are constantly divots in my front yard as well as golf balls, rocks, and horse chestnuts that occasionally go flying across my front yard. My garage window was broken a few months ago and I'm pretty sure golfing was to blame. Another neighbor called the police about the golfing a couple of months ago and since then they have been using whiffle balls. I called the police about a year ago when I saw them blowing up cans of Tag body spray by setting them out in the street and dousing them with gasoline.

Needless to say I am not going to miss Cadance. I do wonder what they are going to do with the house as they have not yet put it up for sale or rent. Cross your fingers for me that good neighbors move in.

Taking Another One For The Team

Ang and Nate need to get back here pretty quick because I feel like I have taken more than my fair share for the team lately. Today I took Steph in for a small medical "procedure". Let's just say that the girl does not come out of anesthesia well. When they told her that she would not be able to drive home afterwards she was seriously considering walking the distance of about 1 mile back to her house. That would not have happened. She was barely conscious as I semi-carried her out to the car. Watching her try to get out of the car was really funny, and I should have been recording it. It was obvious that she had absolutely no idea how to take the seat belt off, and how to swing her legs out of the car. She wouldn't have made it across the parking lot, let alone down three flights of stairs without someone to help her. When I last saw her she was fully conscious and seemed to be doing all right, although she was still very tired. Get well soon, my friend, and be on the lookout for another great get-well card!

New Windows and Den

I had most of my new windows installed on Friday. They ordered clear glass instead of obscured glass for the bathroom, and they forgot to order one window, so they will have to come back and install those later. The rest of the windows have now been replaced. My house had three different types of windows. There were vinyl windows in the front, aluminum windows on the south side, and single paned wooden windows in the back. Now all of the windows are energy efficient vinyl, and I am eager to see if that makes a difference in my heating and cooling bills. They certainly look much nicer, and I am thrilled to have windows that open in my kitchen. The old windows were painted shut. The bottom window is the new style.

Today's project was painting my den. Those of you who have spent time in my home will probably not notice much of a difference in this photo. I didn't take a before photo because the paint that I was using was basically the same color as the old paint. The only difference is that now there are not a bunch of holes, cracks, and chipped or peeling paint. I like the yellow and I was too cheap to want to replace the drapes so I decided to keep that color.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

So mother is here for the weekend and Denise called us at 8:30 this morning and asked us to come to her place and help her move. I'm sure that Denise and JoLyn will describe the incompetence of the movers that they hired. My job was to take Denise's old mattress to the dump.

We tied the mattress down with bungee cords and Denise told me how to get to the Bountiful city dump. JoLyn came with me and we followed Denise's directions only to end up at a dead end where the road had been closed because it intersected with the new Legacy Highway. We back tracked all the way back to 5th South and Redwood where the detour took us over the new highway overpass and we got to the dump. Once there we were told that since neither of us had a Bountiful drivers license or a Bountiful utility bill we would not be able to use the dump. I took JoLyn back to Denise's apartment and then I went back out to take the mattress to the DI. I was on 5th South just west of Denise's barn when suddenly the bungee cords broke and the king sized mattress went flying out of the back of the truck and struck the windshield of an oncoming car. Luckily nobody was killed or injured in the accident, and the only damage done was a shattered windshield. The police were nice enough not to give me a ticket, and the lady agreed to let me give her a check for the damages right there so we didn't have to go through the insurance company. I wish that I would have thought to take pictures of the mattress, the police car, and the lady's broken windshield for the blog, but I didn't think to do that and it probably would have been in poor taste to have done so.

Suffice it to say that it was not a fun experience, and don't any of you ask me to help you move ever again because I am not going to do it!

Guest Room

I was going to wait until the windows had been replaced in this room before I posted pictures, but I have been sitting around with nothing to do all day so I figured I could post twice. The first picture is my guest room before I painted, the next two show it after.

I am really not good at choosing colors based on those little cards. I thought that I had chosen a beige, but it turned out to be a really pretty orangish yellow. I may be ambivalent about my living room color, but I absolutely love this one. I wish that I had chosen it for the entire house.

Two things that I have learned from this experience thus far are that:

A:) Painting is a nightmare when you decide to paint half of your house in one day, but it is actually kind of fun when you do it one room at a time.

B:) Quality paint makes all the difference in the world. I used Olympic for my living room and hall, and it needed two coats plus touch up. I used Valspar in the guest room and it didn't require any touch up with just one coat. I have a can of Behr for my den so I will have to see how it stacks up.

They have replaced the picture window in my front room. Look at how much difference it made just to get rid of those ugly grids!