The programmable thermostat works!

How do I know? I had to turn on the heat, because it is 40 degrees outside.

And who needs heating vents anyways.

Coming attractions for the next two days: electrician and professional painter (for the convoluted hallways).

What to do when you see a U-H.aul truck

Drive the other way. FAST.

The biggest thing I had driven before Friday was a minivan. I drive a fairly small hatchback-type car, and I am neither the greatest nor the most precise driver on the road. In fact, I am a little surprised I have never gotten into a real accident, or gotten a speeding ticket. I will readily admit to frequently eating while driving or talking on the phone while driving. Sometimes both at the same time, while speeding.

On Friday I drove a 14 foot moving truck, and the first thing I did was drive up a one way street. the wrong way. I didn't turn around, it was only a block.

Then I drove 25mph on a 40mph road, but I was too scared to change lanes so I drove in the left-most lane with cars flying by me on my right side.

Pulling into the driveway I took out some shrubbery in my neighbor's front yard.

If I had gone another 5 inches up the driveway I would have taken down the electrical wiring that runs between he house and the garage, and since the garage has a very visible left-ward slant (also the side the wires are attached on), that may have resulted in the demise of the garage.

Then I realized the truck would have to be backed out of the driveway.

At last I handed the key to someone else and decided that I would be the worst truck driver. ever.

PS: the neighbors said that they were not overly attached to their shrubbery, and I'm pretty sure they are not plotting a revenge.

The Move

...is done.

I slept at the house for the first time last night (on my mattress, in the living room, because I can't get the box spring up the stairs, despite the all-out efforts of the volunteer movers that were compensated with pizza, wings and soda).

There are boxes stacked up in the dining room and the office, and there are no light fixtures yet. Tomorrow I am going to buy some more light fixtures and on Monday or Tuesday someone will hang them up. That someone will not be me. I spent the better part of 3 days fooling around with light fixtures, and eventually moved on to installing the programmable thermostat. I'm not sure if it's wired correctly, I'll have the electrician look at it.

The office is yellow,
My bedroom is green (after a pretty horrid detour from the original dark grey to neon purple).
The living room is tan-ish.
The dining room is brown-ish.
The bathroom is light yellow.
The kitchen will be green (a different shade than it currently is).
The hallway will be tan. maybe. the painter is coming on Monday or Tuesday.
The porch is still shades of gray, but that is a temporary state.
The people at the paint store know me by name now and ask me how the last color I bought turned out. I think my ceaseless painting needs will allow at least one of their children to go to college now. Paint is not cheap.

I installed all but three light switches today. I'm down to about 5 minutes per light switch. I can also install an outlet in 5 minutes.

I am sitting in the dining room, next to the chandelier on the floor, and now I am going to walk over to the living room and plop onto my bed. Good night.

You want to clean what?

My mom has arrived, minus luggage at first, but that didn't keep her from making me drive to W.almart, L.owe's and AT.&T store the minute I got out of school today. She bought every conceivable cleaning agent and many cleaning utensils at W.almart, claiming that one really does need a glove that looks like a mixture between a shag rug and wet cookie monster to clean properly. By the time we walked out of Lowe's I was ready to just stop, drop and sleep. I am already exhausted and we haven't done anything to the house yet!!

To start my mom's 3.5-week stay in style we are going camping this weekend, well fake-camping at a camp with cabins, but no electricity! I really look forward to the green and quiet, and the smells of the country and the woods.

Happy Weekend!

Everything for sale

I answered an ad on craigslist for "everything for sale - moving to CA" today, and a few hours later I went to these people's house. They had a beautiful home filled with beautiful new things, a spectacularly well-outfitted kitchen (really awful, cheap, mass-produced cabinets though), solid furniture and high-end electronics. And they're selling everything except the two dogs. The guy was very specific. NO DOGS FOR SALE. Good, because those dogs were slobbering all over my legs and feet.

The guy said that he and his wife (both lawyers, which explains the incredibly nice stuff) got married 6 months ago, and furnished the house and also got tons of stuff for their wedding. I took a tour of the house, and while I didn't particularly like their taste in furniture (very yuppie, minimalistic, urban, hip) they had some very nice kitchen things. He admitted that they cook dinner maybe twice a month, so most of the pots and pans had never been used. They weren't selling the stuff quite yet, because they would still need some of it, so he said he would get back to me with prices, and then I can come get it in 1-2 weeks if I want it.

I told him to give me a price on the following things:
-kitchen stools
-lawn mower
-hedge trimmers
-garden hose & trolley
-snow shovel
-weed whacker
-pots & pans
-dishes
-Pyrex dishes (a whole set of them)
-crock pot
-microwave
-toaster oven

I hope they don't ask for outrageous amounts of money for these things. It would be awfully convenient to just pick all these things up in one place, rather than spend the rest of the summer lurking around garage sales. And now that I think about it I should have asked him for prices on the glasses (yes, drinking glasses, I have no shame when it comes to using cheap not-new things), the snow blower, the tool box with the tools and the coat rack. I also think the guy thought I was crazy, because I asked about the dishes. He admitted that they didn't think that they could sell those (as in, who would want to buy used dishes?!). I would!!

Frustration

I know it's a bit early in the game for frustration to settle in, but I had a few pull-my-hair-out-moments today. None of them were major disasters (at least not yet), but each one is a potentially time-consuming, and in the worst case, expensive problem I will have to hire someone to fix.

I can't get the drain pipe out of the hot water tank. I can't turn the tank on until I get the drain pipe out, buy a replacement pipe (the current one is missing a valve) and install the new pipe. I really don't want to call a plumber just to unscrew a pipe that some Hercules screwed on. (good news, sort of, is that there may be more work for this plumber - read on)

I managed to turn on the water, with some help from the water company guy (very helpful!!), but for some reason, there is NO water in the shower. I started to take the shower apart, but stopped after a few minutes, because I was afraid water would come gushing out at me.

I bought and installed hoses for the washer, but I can't test the washer because the outlet doesn't work. There is no other outlet within easy reach. That means I have to install a whole new outlet, possibly from scratch from the breaker box, which is, luckily, only 10 feet away.

The dryer works, but there are coils or something else inside the back of the drum that get glowing red hot. I do not want glowing red hot coils near my clothes.

On the up-side, the hardwood guys started their work today. However, it seems that their day went sort of like mine. What they thought would be some simple weaving in of some new boards turned into the construction of two new pieces of support brackets for the floor. It took them 4 hours to construct these brackets, and the highlight of my day was that they are NOT going to charge me for that work :) I saw them put the first coat of polyurethane on and the floors look AMAZING! I'm so glad I decided to have them refinished instead of throwing some carpet down.

So today's tally is:
-one non-functioning water-heater
-one dangerous non-usable dryer
-one questionable washer
-one non-functioning shower

The things I was afraid to touch today:
-the furnace and the corresponding non-existent thermostat
-the sump pump that is submerged in its hole, and plugged into a non-functioning outlet.

And that reminds me that I left all the breakers ON at the house, and that most of the electrical wiring is iffy right now. Gotta go!!!

PS: I went and turned off the electricity. I also realized I hadn't locked the front door or the side door. A little while ago I realized I left the kitchen windows open.

PPS: I just bought a new washer and a new dryer (online, I did look at them at the store a few weeks back though). the old ones are listed for free on craigslist. I realized that I really didn't want to use a dirty, potentially dangerous dryer and an equally sketchy washer. Even if they had worked, I would have replaced them before the year was out. Now I'm happy. My budget, however, can't take ANY more major hits like this!!

PPPS: If I wasn't so tired I'd post some pictures of the hardwood floor, but I can barely move.

Hardwood Floor Windows

I officially took possession of my new old house on Friday, and the first thing I did was run for cover. I spent the weekend visiting friends, knowing it would probably be about 2 months until I would be able to spend a weekend there again.

Today, however, it's back to reality and the joys of home-ownership are starting to creep up on me. OK. They're hitting me like a moving train. I have a few appointments today for various people to come to the house for various estimates and such. 8am, 4.30pm, 5pm, 5.30pm and between 5 and 9pm. I met someone at the house at 8am this morning and started showing him the hardwood floors in need of refinishing, asking if I should pull up the tacks from the former carpet. He looked at me, slightly puzzled, and said "I'm here to look at some windows."

I'm just hoping the other people coming today know what they're there for, or I just might end up asking the "home energy assessor" (aka. insulation guy) to please change my locks. Who knows, maybe he'll do it!?

My not-so-secret Obsession

I don't watch much TV, mostly due to the fact that I don't have any cable, or any other kind of TV hook-up. Just DVDs, and those I watch mostly on my computer. This lack of TV has not kept me from becoming mildly (OK. totally) obsessed with a TV show.

I know TV and life are separate and that things on TV are not what happens in real life. The characters on this show are real though (sh*t up and don't tell me otherwise, pleeeeaaase), and I frequently talk about them as if they were real, mainly with fellow-obsessors.

I readily admit to this obsession, even though this show has quite a bit (OK. a LOT) of content that I find morally objectionable. And just so you know where exactly I draw my moral line, the show is Grey's Anatomy.

And now I have to go. The two-episode season finale is on tonight, and I have to find someone with a TV and cable so I can watch it.

New Used Furniture

Furniture is insanely expensive. Who has the money to spend $500, $600, or even $1000 on a dining room table with chairs? My house came without furniture (which is OK), and I own very little furniture (bed, dresser, desk, office chair, wooden chair, two bookshelves). The large private University in town recently ended the spring semester, and the exodus of students left behind a lot of furniture. I've been craigslisting and garage sale-ing to find a dining room table with chairs, one or two couches, a coffee table, shelving and whatever other cool furniture I can find.

Yesterday I got a (potentially very) nice hutch/bar for the kitchen with some stools, a coffee table and a TV with a built-in DVD player - all for less than $100 (combined). The hutch needs a good cleaning, some paint and some refinishing, but I like it a lot. It's stored in someone's garage for the week, so no pictures yet, but I'll be sure to post some before and after pics. So exciting. I really enjoy refinishing/fixing up furniture.

I do still need a dining room table and a couch or two, but it's not super urgent, since I have about two weeks until I can move any furniture into the house.

The Mother of all To Do Lists

I like lists. I frequently make lists, and unless I lose them they usually come in handy. Most of my lists are small. groceries, clothes, household items, errands.

Now, however, I have to make a much bigger list.
Things I have to do/have done to make my new house livable.

-replace two windows in the kitchen
-refinish hardwood floor in living + dining room
-install lamps in every room
-install outlet covers on every outlet
-paint kitchen
-paint living room
-paint dining room
-paint bedroom x 3
-install kitchen cabinets and counter-top, and kitchen shelving
-install dishwasher
-install range hood (possibly with microwave)
-install light switches
-install thermostat(s)
-install heating vents
-buy and put in two doors
-till a portion of the garden to plant vegetables
-plant garden
-mow lawn and tame the crazy hedges
*-insulate attic, possibly the whole house
*-put up curtains/blinds
*-cosmetic touch-ups in the bathroom
*-replace washer & dryer
*-replace one outside door
*-paint front porch
*-find cheap furniture (craigslist, garage sales, unwanted furniture from the side of the road, etc.)
(items marked * are optional and/or non-urgent and may happen if there's room in the budget after all essentials have been completed)
I'm sure I'm forgetting something, and whatever it is, I hope it's not a big item.

Just looking at this list makes me want to curl up in a ball and go to sleep for a few weeks. I will hire someone else to do the bigger things (hardwood floors, kitchen, windows, insulation), but everything else will be done by me and my mother when she comes to visit. She's a good painter, and also much less messy than I am. She's also a very motivated person, and I know there won't be much idleness and relaxing until that list is worked off.

Now all I have to do is wait for closing day, and then the madness can commence.

Busy hands make pink dragons

That's right. I've taken my crocheting into the third dimension. I can only make so many potholders, so I found a pattern for a dragon here.

The pieces of dragon.

Dragon exploring the living room.

And exploring the jungle.

In the near future the pink dragon will be relocating to live with a three year-old, who will take much better care of it than I ever could, being at school all day and all..

Colliding Worlds

I live far away from my family (parents, siblings, extended family), and I visit them about once a year. It's almost as if I had two separate lives - my life here, and my life (for a few weeks each year) in yester-land, where my parents live. These worlds are about to collide. My mother is coming to here-and-now-land to help me move. 3.5 weeks with my mother in a world she barely knows.

I just made my mom sound like she lives in a mud hut somewhere (nothing wrong with that!!), which she doesn't. She lives in a modern, western country and leads a very nice life. She just isn't used to the hustle and bustle and overly consumerist culture of the US, and the one time she visited (for a weekend) she commented on how much open land there is here. She visited some of the more populated states in the union, and the open land she saw was just the land she could see from the highway. She also saw Boston and was highly unimpressed. I guess US cities are not very exciting when you live in a city that has remnants built 5-some-thousand years ago.

Nevertheless, I plan on showing my mom around this part of the country a little, and the following things are on my agenda of possible things to do (other than move to the new house, paint every room and furnish a house for about $23, of course)
-NYC (it's so different from where she lives, she just might find it impressive)
-Niagara Falls
-camping (a very un-yester-land-like thing to do)

And the countdown for my mother to arrive from yester-land has begun. T-15 days.

Consumerism Americana

On Sunday I went to seven stores (craft store, clothing stores, grocery store). I was looking for a handful of very particular things and found most of them at the first store, and then spent 3 hours looking for that one last elusive item. At the end I had wasted 3 hours, had not found what I was looking for and was most likely responsible for the death of a tree somewhere with all the gas I wasted.

Aggravated at not being able to find that one thing I was looking for (blue, 4-ply, worsted-weight cotton yarn, I really, really needed some. go ahead. call me crazy.), I realized before going to bed, that there is probably no other place in the world with more stores and more stuff more readily available at all hours of the day, no matter the day of the week. The grocery store (which carries many things that are not in fact edible) is open 24 hours, and whatever you can't get there, your favorite, large, evil megastore probably carries it (and how dare they close the changing rooms after 11pm!!).

If I was l iving in my hometown, yester-ville, my search for navy blue cotton yarn would have looked something like this:
Walk out the front door, take the bike if the weather is nice, otherwise walk into the town center. This involves walking across a bridge over river and walking up the cobble-stoned market square, which has probably been some sort of market square for many centuries (Roman artifacts that back to 3500BC, the town was first mentioned in records almost 800 years ago). Then I go into the old alley ways of the city, which house most of the stores and restaurants in this part of town. The craft store is next to a church, and a real bell rings when I walk in the door (the bell is rigged to the door with a pulley of some sort). The store is probably about 20x30 feet, and the walls are lined with wooden cubbyhole-shelves filled with balls of yarn. After asking for blue cotton yarn the lady either shakes her head and offers me some other shades of blue, or immediately pulls out a ball of navy blue cotton yarn. Then she writes a receipt by hand, asks me if I need a bag, and if yes, put the yarn in a paper bag. I leave with my yarn, pass by a church, walk down the market square, maybe have some ice cream, walk over the bridge, walk by another church, walk by the brewery and arrive back home after a 10 minute walk.

And, of course, the store is closed on Sundays, and after 5pm Monday through Friday, and after noon on Saturday, and during lunch. Wait. WHAT? That's it? I can only shop during business hours? Yes, and on weekends people go and see things like this:

Snow-covered flower pasture on a mountain just outside of yester-ville (April 2007)

Let me know if you need any help...

In less than two weeks I will be the proud owner of this 89 year-old house - an 89 year-old house that needs some TLC (read: for at least a couple of months, every free minute and spare penny will be spent on renovations).So far project house has taken up very little of my time. Over the last 4 weeks I have done the following:

• Finding a realtor: 1 hour (thanks to some awesome friends)
  
• Looking for a house before putting a (winning) bid on one: 5 hours
• Buying appliances: 3 hours
  
• Picking out kitchen cabinets and countertop: 10 hours
• Picking out colors, er, 200 different swatches of sample colors for all the rooms: 1 hour
• Search the internet for various ideas for cabinets, colors, etc.: 3 hours
  

I just told a few friends I was hanging out with tonight that so far this whole buying a house thing has not been stressful or burdensome. They didn't quite believe me, but it's true. It took a LOT more time and infinitely more stress to find an apartment a year ago. I've been really lucky finding a house I liked (and could afford) as quickly as I did, and there really haven't been any major stepping stones or obstacles (knock on wood). I still go to school/work every day, and I still do everything I usually do.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, since I'm really excited) all this is about to hit the fan. Closing day is less than 2 weeks away and I had better hit the ground running! I hope the people who have offered to help (mainly with painting) realize I plan on taking every last one of them up on their offers of help.