Well it's official...

The house has been sold and I am not the least bit unhappy about that... Oh I know I should be but I am not. I haven't lost one bit of sleep and I can assure you, I won't look back on this as anything but a learning experience.. I pity the poor person who purchased it though.. it is gonna cost them a chunk to repair everything that I couldn't...

Now it is time to make some other decisions in my life.. none that I can speak of on here yet.. It might jinx me in some fashion LOL....

I will certainly let everyone know once the plans are in place... :-) wish me luck!

Daily ponderings..

I have no idea where I got this need to create things. Sometimes it drives me nuts to have to do other things, like work lol... Even at work I am putting together ideas. This year the Fort Worth Art Goggle is May 14th, so I am scrambling, trying to get product made, working on new ideas, and trying to get moved at the same time...

After a long, hard Winter, I have the money to get caught up on my mortgage, but it appears that they don't want my money.. I cannot get ANYONE from Flagstar Bank to call me back. Not that I really WANT to keep that damn house but I was going to do the right thing, get caught up, let the kids live there for a few years, then sell it when the market rebounded better...

Looks like I may be putting the kids in an apartment and mailing the keys back after all. That might work out to my advantage anyway though... I will have Caleb around the corner. We will be close if we are needed.

Of course this all depends on what they find.. ugh I hate moving.

Ahhh... another day in paradise..

Just a shame we aren't all there right?? lol.....

After a weekend with the stomach flu, I have decided that being sick SUCKS...! I have also come to the decision that there are certain people in this world that were not graced with manners and common sense.. I have a few co-workers that are of the mind that demanding something will get them assistance faster or that waiting until the last minute to do something will prompt me to help them faster...... Not with me it doesn't. 

A lack of planning on your part, does not constitute an emergency on my part.

I hate moving... trying to organize the kids moving in and me moving out is a cluster... Starting to make yard sales piles and donation piles.. Not enough room for everything... Gotta take the motorcycle down to the boyfriends so he can get it inspected and out of the way... Still trying to get product made for the Art Goggle in May. Have some rosaries done and starting some jewelry.. just doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day :-)

I will get some pictures up.. when I create that 25th and 26th hour...

Daily Ponderings.. Another fine day of home ownership adventures...

Yesterday (Thursday), I go up to check the mail. Fort Worth has our neighborhood setup to a central mailbox drop for the convenience of the mail carrier and mine is two doors up. So I go get the mail and I am walking back to the house, opening my water bill as I go. I step off the retaining wall about the time I notice that my water bill is 94.00. WTH?? It is only me living here. I don't have a sprinkler system. DAMN! SPLASH!. HUH??? Oh no... and that's when I notice that my side yard is a spongy lake. Not just a little wet.. No! No wonder my beautiful oak tree did so well this year.. ughh.. Ok, where is the water coming from? I notice that it is drier, closer to the house. Hmm.. so I turn back towards the meter box and the retaining wall and that is when I see it. There is literally water running out of the meter box.

Now my meter box has that HEAVY metal lid on it so I have to go get a screw driver to lift it off of there. Jeez... yep, it is full of water and mud. Crap! It is so full I cannot even turn the water off because I cannot find the turn off. Ok. Go call the city water department, so much for customer service.

The phone was answered by an obviously black woman. No big deal.. except she could care less about her job or my leak and was in no hurry to do ANYTHING.. twice on hold, she finally comes back and tells me that they will call me to set an appt.

Me: "REALLY? An appt?"

Her: "You obviously don't have water gushing down the street and your water pressure isn't affected so it isn't considered an emergency. They will call you and set your appt. tomorrow."

UGH! So I ask her that once the leak is fixed, how do I go about getting my bill adjusted?

Her: "We aren't going to adjust your bill. Your responsible for the full amount."

Me: "If that leak is inside that meter box, I don't think so."

Her: "The City of Fort Worth is not going to adjust your little bill because of a minor leak and if I send someone out and they find the leak is on your side of the meter, you will be responsible for repairs."

Me: "Your not serious?"

Her: "Hmphh"

Me: "Let me explain something to you.. First and foremost, when I get done with your supervisor, about your piss poor customer service and attitude, I will get my bill reduced. It is up to you which news channel I call to get this resolved?"

Her: "Have a nice day." click she hangs up..

I could describe the words that came out of my mouth at that point but if you know me? I don't have to.

I then called back and got a very sweet, very helpful, customer service rep on the phone and she made sure that the field supervisor would be here first thing this morning. BLESS YOU! She also made sure that the customer service supervisor was aware of the previous call... Thank you.

I call in and take the day off because who knows how long all this is going to take.

It wasn't long after 9 am that I noted a water dept truck out front so I went out to meet the guy. He had just finished pumping the water out of the box when I got there and I looked down and knew right away, this was going to be all mine to deal with.. Now mine is a shared meter box with my neighbor and the water guys told me that it wasn't all mine.. Yes I did have a leak but so did my neighbor. Hmm... ok, so we go get the neighbor and we are talking with the wife. He explains how we both have leaks and told us that he DID NOT recommend us using the city service to fix it as it would be VERY expensive. That was nice of him.. I talked to the neighbor and they were about to head out of town and if I wanted to get some estimates, then we might just split the bill. Even better!

I called my wonderful AC guy to ask for a referral for a good plumber and he gave me the name of one. I called and YIKES! Not only did he not do FREE estimates but it was 375.00 for leak detection and just to show up! Uhhh NO! that isn't happening. So I head over to the Superpages.com website because I have seen the commercials on tv. I immediately find a plumber that does free estimates AND he can be right over. Nice.

He gets there and he locates the leak and gives me an estimate for my side. 275.00 if we dig it, 500.00 if he does.. OUCH. Jeez.. The neighbors husband comes out to ask what was going on? He was waiting on the city to come by because he called them yesterday because he had a leak.. Umm yep, we know and your wife (who is standing right there) has already talked to me and the city guy.. That's why we are getting estimates? He just nods and smiles... this is not very promising.. The plumber looks up at him and informs him that he does have a leak but it isn't anywhere near the meter box. It appears he might have either a slab leak or line leak under his driveway.. 1500.00+ dollars to start with...

Ummm no offense but we aren't splitting this bill!

The plumber leaves and I call the boyfriend to inform him. He decides to come up and have a look. When he gets there, he decides he will dig it and save the extra money. God love him. :-)

He dug it and man that was an eye opener. Another rigged issue from the previous owner.. We called the plumber and he came right back out and took care of it. He was even nice enough to drop the bill by another 25.00 AND gave me a warranty. Nice!

Well if you made it this far, thank you for your interest... Talk to you later..

Daily Ponderings... The joys of homeownership continued...

Welcome back, I must not have bored you to tears with the previous episode.. We left off at the carpet adventure.. After I loaded in the new flooring, I convinced the boyfriend that he loved me enough to install laminate flooring.. Ha! I bet that doesn't happen again lol... In all actuality, the laminate went fairly smooth for two people that have never done this before :-) Of course I bought enough for the living and dining rooms and down the hall. Problem is, I didn't get enough at that moment to finish the hall. Of course at that point the economy was starting to tank and I got paniky. I held off buying any more flooring to finish out the house, thinking this was a temporary dip in the economy.. Boy was I wrong.. without going into details, just know that I sell motorcycle parts and a motorcycle is considered a luxury. Guess what moves to the back burner in a bad economy? Yep, the luxuries.... Here we are nearly two years later and they say the recession has ended. Really? I will say that things have improved but they are by no means good. Anyway.. I will say that at least my cats are having the time of their lives on the new floor... Remember the movie, Over the Hedge? Yep... more pad and less claw Hammy....

Now when I bought the house, the only screens it had on it were on the very front... The bedroom windows are the side to side sliders and good lord that is a pain making screens for, but I did it. Things are looking up... Somewhere around January, I came home one day and it was COLD outside.. I thought it felt cool in the house but since I had just came in, I didn't really think about it. Although around 3 in the morning, I realized that both cats are burrowed under the covers and it is downright frosty in the house. Uh oh. Not a good thing since the heater is set on 72. Luckily, the next day, my mother put me in contact with a GREAT AC/heat repair guy... Bless his heart he came straight out and found the problem in no time. Lucky for me it is was just some fuses and he had them replaced within an hour and didn't charge me my right arm and left leg for the service.. Bless you Mike!

April rolls around and so far, so good... I am headed for work one morning and notice there is water under my garage door. WTH? I go back in to check and discover a hose to my hot water heater has split and is spewing water everywhere. Oh and it is above the heater so I have to go out to the curb to shut the water off... Now this isn't a problem.. I know how to do that. I open the meter box lid and MOTHER OF GOD! I have never in my life seen so many fire ants... The entire meter box is one big fire ant bed.. Now I know they didn't move in there at that level overnight. So does this mean that the meter man has NOT been reading the meter? Now we have a problem... The boyfriend comes over and fixes the water line and I call the water department. The man on the other end informs me that he doesn't deal with fire ants and that it was my responsibility. Now a little common sense please. YOU put in the meter. YOU put in the box that holds the meter. YOU come out every month and read the meter, I don't. YOU turn my service on and off as needed. Therefore, it would be YOUR responsibility to clear the meter so that you can read it and not ESTIMATE my usage. Because when you do come out and read my meter and I have the water bill from hell? Guess which news channel I am going to call first?... Yep, I thought you would see things my way. Thank you..

Well the ants got cleared and low and behold I DID NOT get a huge water bill. Nice... Now that everything is dried out and seems to be working normally...

The next month, one morning, I go to take my usual shower. My shower is one of those, one handle turn left or right for cold or hot type? It has a push plunger to turn the shower on or off. Push in for shower, out for bath... easy? No. It has always been real hard to pull out for the bath setting but I got the hang of it. As I am turning on the water, I notice that a stream of water is shooting out the plunger. Hmm... I push in the plunger and the stream lessens but not completely. Ok, I can deal with this... Don't know why it is doing it but ok...

About a month later, I get in the shower and push in the plunger. It pops right back out. I push it in again.. It pops all the way out, and I mean ALL THE WAY out.. it lands in the bathtub. Hmm... I turn the water off and put it back in. I put it in and hit it. It stays in, PERMANANTLY... Oh hell, at least I can still take a shower. Now what the hell is the name of that part and where do you find one? Not at Lowes or Home Depot. I actually had to find it at one of those online specialty plumbing shops... at least it isn't expensive.

Well, I will finish the story later... Thanks for visiting...

Daily ponderings....

Do you remember the movie "The Money Pit"? For those of you that don't, feel free to go to IMDB.com and read about it... it is about a couple buying their "dream home" and the comedic pitfalls of restoring it. Now in the real world, I would expect to find more problems as I dismantle and reassemble a house, but I am not doing that. I am simply living in this house from day to day. I have lived in this house for 2.5 years and I can assure you that not one of those days has gone by that I didn't worry about something else that is going to break, fall off, and/or quit working. Let me begin at the beginning, 2.5 years ago, April 2007.

I had never bought a house, by myself and really, nothing big I ever did in my life, came off smooth as glass and without a hitch. I should have known, right off the bat, that when this did, I was in for trouble. Finding the house was fast. The purchase was fast AND smooth. I got a great interest rate and payments that I could easily afford. The finance company sent out an inspector and everything checked out, not one problem. I should have known...

I closed on the house in April of 2007 and a week later I was moving in... and that is where everything started going wrong! Now the boyfriend is all in helping me move and I have had a head start packing.

We are moving in the very first load and as I go to unlock the door, we can't?  Why not? It worked fine the day before? Hmmm.... go around to the back of the house and go in the back door, only to find out the tumblers have locked up on the front door lock, now what? Damn! Ok, get the door open and at least get the truck unloaded, then one of us is off to Wally World for new locks... done. Whew, what an adventure. Since we didn't get the beds moved and the set up, I stay at the apartment, one more night..

We spend the next day, ALL DAY, moving, EVERYTHING...Lowes delivers and sets up my brand new refrigerator, whew hew.... Exhausted but happy, I fall into my bed, in my new house, and I am out like a light. I am expecting the best night of sleep in a very long time. No one walking on my ceiling.. No strange car door noises. I have no idea what time was, when I am woke up by the most horrible, banging and clanging AND it is inside the house!  I jump up and hit the light only to discover that the ceiling fan/light is swinging wildly around the room and about to take flight. I kill the fan at the wall and try to figure out what the hell caused this. Oh, did I mention that I have 17 foot ceilings throughout the house? Yeah... Ceiling fans on 5 foot down rods.. NICE....

Ok, I don't have a ladder that will reach that high yet, but what the hell, right? Life is just one big adventure and this is but another curve in the road. We get up the next morning and discover that the brand new refrigerator is not cool. Hmmm... Ok, so this ISN'T a problem with the house per se, BUT..... Now in Lowes defense, they were Johnny on the spot and came out within hours with another brand new fridge and we were good to go. All better and I am starting to relax....of course that was until I priced 12 foot ladders! Have you seen the prices of those things? Man they are proud of them. Well that is just gonna have to wait.

Things rocked along for a couple of weeks and I was really just beginning to think that we had passed the worst... ahhh but I was wrong.. Mother Nature hadn't had her turn at me yet. It was nearly a month after I moved in we had some huge storms roll through. No tornadoes, but 60+ mph winds are bad enough. Of course the hail was HUGE and did I mention my house has a skylight in the bathroom? Yep, who ever thought of skylights in Texas should be shot. Yep, two holes and it was leaking like a sieve. Lucky me, at least the skylight is over the tub :-)... Of course that was all before I walked outside to go to work and discovered that half my fence was on the ground. Really? Could this day get any better? Wired up the fence, the boyfriend climbed on the roof and patched the skylight.. joy..

Of course when you buy your first house you have to buy all the trappings of home ownership... Lawn mowers, weed eaters, that sort of stuff. I prefer a light weight, electric weed eater. No biggie. Got a good one on sale for CHEAP. Saturday morning, I am out doing the new home owner thing... I mow and dutifully put away the mower and break out the weed eater and plug it in. Hmm... nothing. I make sure I have a good connection on both ends of the cord, yep we are good. Hmm... still nothing. I unplug and plug into the lower plug.. Nothing. I unplug and move to a totally different plug. STILL NOTHING... Ok, now I am irritated. I have to literally plug in, inside the garage and run the cord around one side of the house. I plug in, inside the garage (thank God for long extension cords) and GET NOTHING.... $(#&*&%*()#(*$!!!

I throw my hands up, put everything away, call the boyfriend, fuss and cuss, and then go take a shower. After the shower, I plug in the hair dryer. NOTHING!! Ok, now I am seeing RED... NOTHING WORKS.. Oh that's an exaggeration, all the other plugs in the house work.. all the ones farthest from what I NEED! I turn around and hit the light switch and realize it is REALLY warm... Now that worries me. Crap... I know plumbers. I know AC guys... I don't know an electrician to save my life. CRAP!

Long story short, I got all that taken care of. I should be happy. Things are finally starting to rock along and I decide I want laminate floors in the house. Not really something I had planned on but it appears the prior owner had cats. ALOT of cats, I eventually found out (via my ever so helpful neighbors). What they didn't tell me was that apparently she kept a bunch of them in the house. Not that cats in the house is a problem. I have two very old, very cranky, part human, cats. But it becomes a problem when your cranky cats decide they have to cover the odor of the other cats. ARGGHHH... nasty, nasty, nasty! Oh and don't believe everything you read. Odor eliminators and pet stain removers? Not so good on cat stains. I tried everything I could find. I read suggestion on the internet and not one thing worked. So my solution? Rip out the carpet and put down laminate. Not a bad idea since one room with the carpet problem was the dining room.. Who, in their right mind, puts carpet in a dining room? Really?

So out comes the carpet. The boyfriend and I spend one weekend ripping the carpet out of the dining room, the living room, and down the hall. UH OH... not a good idea... who would have thought that this was the original carpet from when the house was built, in 1984?? YUCK, EWW, NASTY, NASTY, NASTY!! I cannot get that carpet out fast enough. Good lord how many cats did she have??? Carpet is now curbside in the very hot Texas, early summer heat. Lord am I glad they came around and got that stuff within a day or two. Age, cat urine, and God knows what else, simmering in the Texas sun was starting to get ripe. I am thinking the trash guys don't get paid near enough for the stuff they have to deal with...

So the carpet is out and I spend a day or two just scrubbing the fool out of the floor. I put down some stuff that was recommended to deodorize the cement underneath and then seal it so there is no more smell. It worked!!! Hurrah! Something actually worked as advertised. Now all I have to do is get the flooring and I am set. So, off to Lowes I go, in search of the perfect color for the perfect price.. I found it!! Oh my goodness it is EXACTLY what I wanted, so I buy tons of it and head home. I am unloading it into the garage and neatly stacking it. Did I mention that those boxes of laminate are not only VERY heavy, but bulky too? Just an FYI... when you drop one on your toe? Either pray for steel toes or be prepared for one nasty and extremely painful bruise... and when it is your big toe? You feel it every step for weeks!

Oh and in case I forgot to tell you.. I am not the least bit savvy enough to install flooring myself.. Oh, not to say that I couldn't figure it out, but that's what boyfriends are for right?? Love you honey!

I am sure this has been some long reading so far, but since we haven't even gotten to the first year of ownership, I will leave the adventures of flooring for tomorrow... If I haven't bored you to tears so far, please drop back by tomorrow for more.