New Year, New Blogs!

Clearly AV and I are terrible bloggers, as you might have noticed by the fact that our last post was in October >_<

But, this year we're going to update at least once a week! I'll start out with a couple of photos of our house :D

Here's the front/side of the house

And this is the back and our "excellent" yard

We bought a house in Northern Michigan. It was a huge hassle as the previous owner was in debt, had back taxes, ect ect and was attempting to sell the house himself. We were all set to go, but the previous owner couldn't get everything together so we ended up having to "rent"* the house for a few months while the guy got his shit together. But he finally did and now the house is oooourrrsssss!

It's great to not be paying rent every month but it also kind of sucks because we have oh so many things that need to be fixed/worked on. We've already had to repair the back wall of the foundation, put in a new oven, put in a new kitchen sink, took out the old shower door, put in a new front door, put in a door in the basement, put laundry in the basement, and we've put in three new windows. We still have another ten or so windows to replace, all of the basement casement windows to fix/replace, both bathrooms to update, more repairs in the basement, the entire yard to re-grade, put up a fence, and build a garage.

It's going to be a full year, I do believe.

Cheers and Happy 2012! 
Red

*I say "rent" because we set up a contract/lease with less than $20 paid for rent/security deposit.  

The Handyman

With the exception of the shelves in the basement that we put up without a problem, every project we have done doesn't go exactly as planned.

Putting insulation in the crawl space. Two trips to the hardware store and never ending cleaning.
Installing a new sink. Three trips to the hardware store and two full days of work rather than a few hours.
Lastly rounding out the latest projects, taking down the old shower doors and installing a shower curtain rod. Only two trips to the hardware store and an extra day.

Today I got a call that our new windows are in. This should be an exciting project. If I had to place a bet, I would say no less than five trips to the hardware store will do for such a big project. I can pretty much assure you it will take more than the estimated weekend.

No One is Immune to the Allure of Bubble Wrap!

We received a belated bridal shower gift from AV's parents the other day (only the best bowl/plates ever!). Because the box held dishes, it was also filled with bubble wrap. While we were trying to work on organizing the dining room, we tossed the bubble wrap on the floor as we cleaned.

I left the room for a while to make dinner and when I came back I noticed something AWESOME. Ned Kelly was busily popping bubbles! He was climbing in, on, and around the sheet of bubble wrap biting the bubbles!

The best part about this was the fact that he was PURRING the entire time. Loudly.

Misters Kelly, Jones, and James  have succumbed to the bubble wrap effect

After I stopped filming, Skippy got in on the action and proceeded to pounce at the bubble wrap and viciously chomp on it.

Cheers,
Red

First, You Cut a Hole in the Box....

For a shortened version of this "situation" read "Mail time blues" posted by AV earlier today (and unbeknownst to me!)


Let's play a little game of "Hypothetically Speaking"

Situation 1:
So, hypothetically, you receive a fairly large box from UPS. The box is from Dell and you haven't ordered anything from there. You look at the box and notice the name on the label is not your own. Next, you look at the address. It is also not your own.

Situation 2:
Again, hypothetically speaking, you receive a fairly large box from UPS. The box is from a store called "Chaparrell Racing" and you haven't ordered anything from there. You look at the box and notice the name on the label is not your own. The address is where you are currently living but you only just moved in a few days ago and you know it was rented to someone else prior to you.

SO. What do you do in each of these situations?

A. Call the company that sent it.
B. Call UPS
C. Leave the box outside and assume UPS will come back and take care of it.

If you answered with either of these three options, you are clearly NOT the people who have been receiving our packages.

However, if you answered with option D: OPEN THE MOTHER F-CKING BOX, WOOOOO!! We need to have a little chat.


Let's check back in on Situation 1.

Last year, AV ordered a netbook from Dell. They sent it UPS and the package required a signature. The UPS driver was confused and dropped the package off at a house on a different street with the same house number as us. Honest mistake.

But what about the SIGNATURE part?? Every time I've gotten a package that I have to sign for the delivery guy goes "Are you (name on box)?" or just simply "(name on box)?" I either respond with, "Yeah", "No, but he lives here", or "Um, no....?" The guy then either lets me sign the sheet or he goes away and takes the box with him.

So obviously the delivery guy either went "Sign here" and the recipient went "Okie dokie" or didn't actually get anything signed. Still fairly honest mistake, this can be fixed.

BUT.

When the delivery guy finally figured out the mistake and went back for the package, it HAD ALREADY BEEN OPENED. Remember options A through C? Clearly whoever took the box didn't either.

So we ended up receiving an expensive piece of electronic equipment that had ALREADY BEEN OPENED and TAKEN COMPLETELY OUT OF THE BOX.

Um, thanks but NO. When I order something for THAT MUCH MONEY it should be in the original packaging and it should come to MY house.

Then AV had to call Dell and we got a new computer sent to us, because, duh, "Do not accept package if opened or damaged".


Now on to Situation 2.

Months ago AV ordered some safety equipment from a racing company so we could ride dirt bikes. One of the items was back ordered and was supposed to be sent separately. That's fine. Months and months and MONTHS passed. The company finally called AV and asked if it was cool if they substituted a more expensive piece of equipment for the one he had originally ordered, um heck yes! While on this call, AV also told the company that we had moved and that they needed to ship the box to our NEW address, which he then provided.

Our lease ended and we were 100% moved out. While fighting for our full security deposit from the landlord via email, she mentioned that we had received a box at the house. Where we no longer lived. Which AV had specifically told the company NOT to send anything to. AV asked for the box and the landlord responded with "Last I saw it, it was in the garage on the freezer".

Um, WHAT?

So, the landlord KNEW that WE received a box but didn't bother to hold it for us? She just left it for the new tenants to keep? WTH?

And thus began a ridiculous situation.

AV called the company and told them we hadn't received our package. They said they had sent it, call UPS. Called UPS they said it had been delivered to the address provided by the company. Called the company again, told them it was delivered to the wrong location, they told him to call UPS back, and tell them that we never got the box, AV said no. Called company again, told the same thing (FYI what they were asking us to do is called FRAUD). Called a THIRD time and the company said they would take care of it, "do you still want this item?" Um YES? WE PAID FOR IT ALREADY???

The other day AV got a call from UPS. "We have recovered the package." Pause. "But it's been opened".

WHAT THE HELL???

So, did the landlord just go, "Yeah that package is for the previous tenants but I'm pissed at them, so have at it!"??

WHY DO PEOPLE KEEP OPENING OUR MAIL???

Stop touching my stuff!!! LEAVE MY MAIL ALOOOONEEE!!!

Come ON people! Use options A, B, or C. Option D is called "being an a**hole"

I am NOT happy. In fact, I am currently wearing my Angry Pants, that's how NOT happy I am.

Cheers,
Red

Mail time blues..

For a longer version of this "situation" read "First You Cut a Hole in the Box..." as posted by Red.


Apparently getting packages delivered up here in Michigan is a bit harder than the three other states I have lived in. So let us take a moment to think about a hypothetical situation. Imagine for a moment that a package arrives at your door. You excitedly bring it in and to your dismay it is addressed to someone else at a completely different address. Like most people you set it back outside on the porch and call UPS/FedEx that this is not your package or go deliver the few houses down where it is addressed.

See that is what I thought until my computer was delivered a few houses down the street. The person who signed for my computer at the wrong house decided to open the package and then start using the laptop. After sorting out with Dell and FedEx over what happened my computer was retrieved by FedEx and delivered to my porch without a knock. The computer had been sort of stuffed back into the box with a crude taping job over the "do not accept if seal broken" tape. Now Dell first had to ask me 20 questions about how the computer was functioning before agreeing to send me a new laptop, simply for the fact that I paid for a new laptop and not a used by the neighbor down the street laptop.

So to add to the package failures so far this year. I purchased a roost deflector* and the shipping got completely screwed up because the product was on back order and I moved. So after almost a month, my package was finally "recovered" from my last address and is on it's way now. Unfortunately the driver had informed me that the package had been opened but she thinks everything is in the box still. I guess we will see tomorrow when it arrives.

Does anyone else think it is weird and inappropriate to open a package not addressed to you? I'm not just going to think that the random dell package not addressed to me is mine to play with. This isn't finders keepers.

People can be a mystery sometimes. Let me know if I am being unreasonable....

*This is a piece of safety equipment for dirt biking

All the commotion

So you have heard about our little bat problem. Apparently talking with people at work this is a very common problem in this area. Our house now hopefully has one way bat exits on all the points that looked like they could get in. As I write at the moment I cannot hear any bats in the walls or ceiling.

Now to address this first bat that supposedly came into the house, I maintain that I was asleep and it was a dream. The second bat just proved that Red did not need my assistance at all, and just wanted to lock me in a room with the bat. I am pretty sure Red's plan was closely related to something I saw in an episode of The Office.

Red's real plan.

Fruit Fly, Don't Bother Me.

We are having a problem with fruit flies in the kitchen. They showed up and now they won't leave. Part of the problem is that I don't like to refrigerate my fruit so it ends up being readily available to them like little private breeding grounds. The second part of the problem might be that I don't do the dishes fast enough so they accumulate a little bit and the bugs get to them. I PROMISE I AM NOT A DISGUSTING PERSON!!!!

I know I could use fly papers but I used those in an apartment once and it just was creepy and gross, it was a sticky strip hanging from the light fixture with dead bugs in/on it. Not really the decor look I am going for. That option out, I looked up other ways to get rid of these little buggers*.

Wiki-how has an entire section devoted to "How To Ger Rid Of Fruit Flies" which would be great except for the fact that most of the "getting rid of" seems to be a "catch and release" program.

Just to be clear here, I don't have a baby penguin epidemic, nor do I have a horde of hedgehogs, I don't even have a bevy of hummingbirds in my house. I have disgusting little insects that just want to eat (and poop on) all my fresh fruit and vegetables.

I do not want to "catch and release". I don't need to tag their tiny little insect legs and free them into the wild. I don't need to safely transport them to a new safer location.

I want to exterminate them. I am looking for a "capture and destroy" method of "getting rid of", not a "hold it's hand and take it to the park" method.

If we're catching and releasing fruit flies, what's next? Humane ways to catch fleas? How to live with bed bugs?

CAPTURE AND DESTROY, PEOPLE, CAPTURE AND DESTROY.

Cheers,
Red

*buggers! Because they're BUGS! durhurhurhur...

The Scary-Scary Room

In our house we have what we call "The Scary-Scary Room". The Scary-Scary Room is located in our basement and is really just the utility room. When we moved in the room was AWFUL, hence the "Scary-Scary" moniker.

We (obviously) have problems with bats in the house and I'm pretty sure there are some mice as well. Apparently the utility room was a big hub of animal activity. The floor and all the surfaces were covered in animal droppings. A week ago, I went down and started cleaning it out down there. It then looked like this:

This is only the half of the room that doesn't house the water heater and boiler (we have hot water heat), but don't worry. The other half of the room is also a crisis.

While cleaning out the Scary-Scary Room, I found all (or at least most of) the original doors and windows from the house. The hinges and door knobs are gorgeous but the doors themselves are garbage. I'm not sure why the previous owner(s?) would even keep them, they're not good enough to use for anything. Later this week I'm going to take off the fixtures and get rid of the doors, it'll open up a HUGE area in the basement and hopefully I'll be able to use some of the old knobs on the current doors and bring back a little retro class!

The windows down there are a totally different story. There is NOTHING salvageable about them. I suppose I could use them for some sort of art project but that's really all they might be able to be used for. Again, why would the previous owner even keep them around??

I also found, what I find to be, a hideous Oriental rug. It doesn't seem to ever have been used, which is kind of weird. Just another question as to why it's still in there.

Next I found a miniature life jacket and two butterfly nets. These might be useful later when the mice start coming into the house in the winter... Actually, no, that life jacket will probably not ever be useful. 

We also have, as I mentioned in the last post, an additional toilet down there. Yes, a THIRD toilet chilling out down in the basement, but, no, we cannot be so lucky as to actually have it be hooked up in a secret third bathroom down there. So we just have another ugly, uncomfortable toilet (plus a fairly okay looking sink) taking up room in our house.

But finally, I will share the piece de resistance from the Scary-Scary Room. A paper bag entirely filled with buckeyes. Old, shriveled, some moldy, buckeyes. What would somebody DO with a bag of buckeyes?? I thought maybe they were saving them to eat them but AV says they are poisonous. Maybe some sort of ... craft project?? But they're all moldy so that wouldn't work..

So I decided to chuck them. I didn't want to hold them too close to my chest because of them being all nasty in there... Which was apparently not the best plan, because one corner I was holding tore. And then THIS happened:

So there were like a million molding buckeyes rolling around on the basement stairs. If it hadn't been for our buddies, the buckeyes would have just stayed in that little pile on that one stair. But alas, SOME PEOPLE thought that these little buggers were fabulous and spent the afternoon kicking them down the stairs.

It's a good thing there's no attic in this house, who knows what we'd find if we had one of those!!!

Cheers,

Red

Toilet Trauma

We have yet another small and obnoxious thing to add to our growing list of house repairs... This afternoon the toilet seat cracked in the downstairs bathroom.*

To make matters worse/more obnoxious the toilets currently installed in the house have round bowls instead of the more common (and way more comfortable) elongated bowls. So we will have to buy a round replacement seat which will be getting trashed/sold when we eventually get new (elongated!!!) toilets in the next couple of months.

And on a final obnoxious note, we actually have a spare THIRD toilet sitting in the utility room in the basement. It is ALSO a round bowl toilet BUT it DOESN'T HAVE A SEAT so I can't even use it to solve our current problem!

UGH.

Cheers,
Red

*I would post a photo but then you might see how disorganized we are and I can't let that happen!

Chipmunk Invasion

I have a confession to make. I spent a good five minutes* of my day today yelling at a chipmunk. We're working really hard on our house and I know chipmunks have a tendency to burrow and ruin stuff, so I wasn't exactly pleased to see this little buddy** scampering across the yard towards the house.

I was already not in the best mood and seeing a stripey tail bounding through the grass (he had to bound, we've yet to mow the lawn) did not cheer me up. The "buddy" ran straight for the house and slid under the back porch. That whole side of the house has cement walkways butted up against the house, so a single chipmunk probably couldn't do to much but I knew he must be the little scout looking for lodging for an entire chipmunk army.

Lined up in tiny little ranks, they'd march across the lawn... well probably bound since, again, we haven't mowed the grass. Each little chipmunk division would be led by a head chipmunk carrying a tiny little flag. They would drag behind them a miniature Trojan horse. They would ask for entry into my house. I would deny it. They would present me with the little wooden horse. I would accept it (can you blame me though? A tiny wooden horse! Made by chipmunks!). I would bring it into my home and little chipmunk archers would dash out. They would savagely attack my knees and ankles. Even the cats would be no match for their toothpick arrows. We would be defeated and the conquering army would move on to invade and destroy.

So, obviously I chased the "buddy" as he scampered under the porch deck. This particular chipmunk was either a very well trained soldier or he did not speak English; he did not even look nervous as I threatened to "grab you and squash your head".

This standoff lasted for a few minutes. Me squinting under the decking and him staring me down with beady rodent eyeballs. I continued to yell obscenities at him and he continued to not look nervous. He was sitting only a few feet from me and I contemplated grabbing him. While this was a tough decision to come to, I ultimately did not grab said chipmunk as I know they are wild animals and carry things like rabies, salmonella, botulism, and rheumatic fever.*** So instead I resorted back to yelling and making what would probably be considered "jazz hands" at it.

The chipmunk was, regretfully, not threatened by me in the slightest and may or may not have taken up residence under the front porch.

I expect so see teams of chipmunks pulling a tiny wooden horse any day now.

Cheers,
Red

*It was quite possibly ten minutes.
**"buddy" is not really the word I would use, but we're trying to keep this sh*t family friendly.
***I never lie. This is ALL true. Sometimes they also carry umbrellas.

Bat-Attack 2.0

Our current Bat in House Frequency is 2 per week.

AV and I were hanging out in the living room on Friday evening. All of a sudden we heard that chirping noise we've become so familiar with... I sighed and turned to AV. "Crap... There's another...."

WHOOSH. A bat flew through the double doors to the living room, followed closely by Kelly, once again on bat patrol. We watched as it circled the room, chirping.

I got off the couch and headed out into the house to find something to catch Bat2 in. I ducked as the bat flew over my head. I closed the doors behind me so the bat wouldn't escape further out into the house.

Pause story.
I CAN HEAR BATS IN THE WALLS RIGHT NOW.
Continue story.

As I was shutting the doors, AV crouched down beside the couch and stared at me with wild eyes. "What are you doing? Don't do that!"

But I shut the doors anyway. That'll teach you to not help me at four in the morning with the last bat! Too bad I forgot we have a transom and open gap over the doors in the living room, thus negating the effect of closing the doors...

Bat 2 sped through the gap over the door and landed on the curtains in the entry room. Apparently curtains are awesome bat hangouts...

AV came out of the living room and we located and emptied a box to catch Bat 2 in.

Bat in a box! ... Again...

Cheers,
Red

Duh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh BAT(wo)MAN!

On Tuesday night, at 4:30am, or I suppose that would be Wednesday morning, I was awaken from a solid slumber by a chirping noise followed by a thumping. Obviously chirping/thumping noises are not exactly top of the "Common Nighttime Noises in My Bedroom" list so I was rather confused and completely terrified.

Like the crybaby I am, I woke up AV. We continued to listen to the chirping and thumping for a moment then both came to the sudden realization of "THAT'S A BAT". The chirping was the little guy's frightened crying and the thumping was Ned Kelly attempting to jump up, catch, and eat said little guy.

"Turn on the lights!" I requested and AV complied. The suddenly bright room was strangely quiet and bat free. I looked over the side of the bed to see Kelly staring back at my with pupils bigger than my head. He was in "Nighttime Hunter" mode and it was terrifying. AV came back to bed and pulled the covers up to his neck as I got out.

We had determined that the bat was in the curtains* and as Kelly snuffled around on the floor looking for it I tried to figure out how to flush a flying mammal out of the curtains without getting a bat in the face. As I stared at the curtains trying to locate the animal I noticed a small black triangle sticking off the top of the curtains (we have those kind of curtains that have a ruffle along the top, above the curtain rod). I stood on top of the bed for a better view and noticed the black triangle had a skinny toe attached to it.

Then it moved. Bat located.

I got down from the bed and turned  to AV. "What do I do??" I asked. He shrugged, "I donno", he responded as he snuggled deeper into the bed and pulled the blankets up to his neck.

I had been trying desperately to determine how to catch the bat ever since we had identified the initial noise. I knew there was a small butterfly net in the ceiling of the basement, but the image of myself dashing around the room  flailing a child's toy around after a terrified flying animal quickly made that particular course of action significantly less attractive.

"What do I do??" I asked AV again. Same response before. "I donno" and more snuggling. My hero....

I finally decided to capture the bat in a shoebox I'd been using as a garbage can. I dumped out the contents and slunk towards the curtains. I stopped when I realized I was much too short and wouldn't be able to scoop the bat into the box without being able to see it. "I'm not tall enough, I can't see it!" I called out to AV. "What do I do?" He just stared at me. I'm not sure why I bothered asking anymore.

I dashed into the office (its upstairs as well) and dumped out a plastic milk crate we were using for storage. I brought it back into the bedroom and climbed up.

As I listened to my heartbeat thundering in my head, I pulled down the edge of the curtain ruffle. I inched closer and closer to the little black triangle still sticking out of the top of the curtains. I finally folded the last bit of curtain down to reveal a little brown bat clinging desperately to the back side. I slid the box around him and pulled him off the curtains. A few little thumps were heard from the inside of the shoebox, but then it went quiet.

I turned back to AV, he was still snuggled in bed, ready to pull the covers over his head to deflect any wayward bats.

"Bat in a box!"** I croaked, my voice high and squeaky, full of terrified adrenaline.

I started to scamper downstairs with my bat-filled shoebox. It wasn't until I was halfway down the stairs that I realized: I'm in my underwear; I have to go outside now.

Cheers,
Red

PS. Stay tuned for AV's "Bat(wo)man Rebuttal". Apparently there's another side to this story...

*We heard the chirping noise coming from the curtains after we turned the lights on. As it turns out, locating the bat was actually just a lucky guess as the "chirping" in the curtain was really a sound coming from the air conditioning unit in the window.

**This is a reference to an SNL skit. NSFW: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZLIQodHaFk

Internet Connected!

We finally got the internet all hooked up and running in the office! Next step it to get the wireless set up so we can be overly connected as normal.

But this means that I have loads of stories to share!

Cheers,
Red

We're down to the wire...

Our lease ends tomorrow. We still need to do a bit of cleaning and get the rest of our stuff out of the house.

This consists of:
A stack of 2x4's
A half of a piece of plywood
Three pairs of shoes
A lawn mower
A mountain bike
A dirt bike
Safety gear for said dirt bike
Cleaning products
A box of insect repellent
A rake
Two brooms
Three vacuums (yes all three really are necessary)
Other small pieces of wood
A kitchen trash can
Two rolls of wrapping paper

Where we are going to put these things in the new house I do not know...

Cheers,
Red

Move, move, move....

We're still in the process of moving.

There are boxes scattered across the new house, trash and scattered things (both incredibly important and not so much so) across the old house. There's stuff in both our cars, in the old garage, out on the porch, and a bit in the yard. I'm not quite sure how we managed to acquire all this stuff, but we did and it has most definitely been a b*tch to move it all.

Our lease at the old house ends on Thursday so we have to have it all cleaned up and moved into the new one. The countdown is getting into the final moments so I guess we need to kick up our game.

I'm currently at the public library looking up internet plans. We still have no internet hookup at the new house, the last check box in terms of utilities.  Not to worry, when I finally get connected, I have many stories and photos to share, so just stay patient!

Cheers,
Red

Mousebreath, ooh-ha-ha!

I received a gift the other day. A gift in the form of a small, convulsing mouse carcass. Which, of course, as a good mama-kitty I had to "eat". Yumm...

I was having a boring/indecisive day yesterday. I looked at my credit card statement for this month. We bought some furniture so my statement is twice, almost three times, the size it normally is and that makes me nervous. So I determined that this is not a good month for me to go and pick up random stuff from the fabric store (cue sad face). That decided, my main plan of the day (running errands) was out of the picture and I had nothing to do.

I did some house chores and sat down on the couch in the living room to read a book. Kelly came to visit me a couple of times, hopping into my lap, shedding, and drooling happily all over the couch. Having fulfilled his "touch me now" quota of the day, he left the couch and sprawled across the floor.

I was absorbed in my book when I heard a small chirp/click/mew noise. When I looked at Kelly, he was staring sleepily across the living room. I folded down the footrest on the couch to see... Daniel.

He was standing in the middle of the room with something in his mouth. A toy, but not one I had seen before. No, not a toy, a frog? How did a frog get in my house? Wait... Frogs don't have tails....

As I started to stand, he dropped the thing in his mouth onto the floor. I realized the "in his mouth thing" was not a toy or a frog but a probably traumatized, definitely injured, probably dead field mouse.

Like the good cat mother I am, I cooed and thanked Daniel for his lovely gift, all the while screaming
"OMG EWEWEWEWEW" in my head. I scurried to the laundry room in search of a paper towel to clean up the used-to-be mouse. I moved as fast as I could since I wasn't sure if the mouse was or was not going to reincarnate itself in the middle of my living room and take up residence within my couch cushions.

I removed the thing from the carpet and, still cooing thanks to Daniel, I took it out to the trash. When I came back inside both Kelly and Daniel were intently studying a small area of carpet. Of course this made me slightly nervous, but since I couldn't see anything there I slowly went back to reading my book.

Our darling Daniel apparently has some secret skills.

The proud hunter, Mousebreath

Mousebreath, ooh-ha-ha!

Cheers,
Red

Weed Whack-ccident

I learned something very interesting today. If you are attempting to make very small trenches, a weed whacker works excellently. Obviously this isn't the intended purpose of said appliance, but put one in my very capable* hands and you've got trench-city.

Apparently, well not really "apparently" since I already knew this, when you use a tool with a running motor, it changes its perceived weight as you move it about. Two key components to utilizing a weed whacker are a running motor and moving it about. As it would seem, my strong and beefy** arms were not exactly up to this task today.

I tried using the weed whacker the other day but I couldn't get it started. I determined it was an a**hole and gave up.

AV showed me how to start it again yesterday evening so I tried again today. I was planning on doing this later, but the sky suddenly clouded over and I freaked out; AV's having friends up for the Fourth and I don't want my house to look like a total piece of crap***.

Three tries and the a**hole starts right up. I headed around the back of the house to get started. I pulled the trigger and pointed the whack-y part at the weeds growing in between the stones. Nothing happened. I let out more string. Nothing happened. I leaned sideways too far and dropped the head of the weed whacker into the ground. Something happened.

Little bits of grass and weed whacker string sprayed over my entire lower body. Then dirt. A lot of dirt. I jerked the weed whacker back up and, while the path was now free of weeds, it was also free of fill between the stones.

I kept working.

I managed to dig five more trenches, drop the "blades" into the good**** grass and tear it all out, and do an overall excellent***** job.

I put the weed whacker away and surveyed my work. Ah yes, I see a job in landscaping in my future.

I am an artist. I echo the natural variations of human life and personality with my work in grass clipping. The long grasses symbolize humans' natural curiosity and desires. The medium length grass is a symbol for our work ethic and normalcy and the short grass, of course are the outliers, the misfits and outcasts.******

Cheers,
Red



*totally worthless
**tiny and slightly embarrassing
***I don't want them to know how lazy and disorganized we really are
****I say "good" because there's actually some there. We don't get a lot of rain and the soil is super sandy so the grass is awkward and sparse at best.

***** piss poor

****** No, dude... I'm just really bad at cutting the lawn.

Find Me a (Rental) Home

AV is currently driving an hour to work each way. We're trying to remedy this particular "problem" by moving closer.

Normally in this situation we'd just grab a rental and deal with it. But apparently, by having four cats we've branded ourselves as "TERRIBLE RENTERS" so we can't rent an apartment. That leaves rental houses. Honestly, I was never a real fan of apartment living so that's not a problem. The problem is the fact that the rental houses that are available in the area are... how do I say... pieces of sh*t.

Where we are looking to move is a summer vacation destination, or so I've been told, so many of the houses are only on short term (and ridiculously expensive) leases. So those are out. Next we have the slew of houses marked "ABSOLUTELY NO PETS". If you tried, you could probably sneak in an animal, provided it was small and quiet. We, however, house a four part vocal ensemble that doubles as a stampede. So those houses are out.

Once those houses were all weeded out we were left with some real winners. One example is the house that has a garage where "all you have to do is get a new door". Excuse me? I have to get a new door? I don't think so. Besides, even if I did get a new door, it wouldn't keep somebody from crawling in through the gaping hole in the front corner.

How about renting the first floor of a two story house? But only the first floor. O..kay? When I asked about it the realtor said that the owner didn't want to clean the second floor so they weren't going to include that part. I stopped really listening at this point because my eyes glazed over and my mind was filled with thoughts of rodent droppings, black mold, and sawdust. No, I don't know why there might be sawdust up there, but it featured prominently in my horrific visions.

The next house just needed to be painted and have the carpet cleaned. "Oh wait... No I guess he's done painting." Ah yes, what a vote of confidence.

Or finally, the house that stank. Like gas. When I pointed this out to the realtor she proceeded to SWITCH THE STOVE ON!! OMGWTFBBQ!!!! There must be a God in Heaven because I still can't believe I didn't explode into flame with the rest of the kitchen! "Oh looks like one of the pilot lights are out. I guess I'll have to tell him next time I talk to him." Looks like?? Next time?? Whatever happened to opening a window and calling the gas company immediately??

After that particular near-death experience I determined that rental houses in the area were probably not the way to go...

Cheers,
Red

Bathroom ReSale Mistakes

1. Do not leave a toilet to roam free in a basement. It will look lonely and distressed without a few walls and a sink.

2. Just because you have room in your basement for a shower, it doesn't mean you should have one. There is more than enogh room in my work office for a small trampoline, but trust me it wouldn't work out.

3. When selling a house, kindly removes the caved in ceiling from the bath tub, it will look like you started to put in a skylight.

4. Install the shower head high enough so it can be used as a shower and not just a very confident bath tub facet.

Lastly....

5. Some interiors should just not be decorated, maybe keep the scripture off the inside of the toilet lid and in the bible. If you need to say a prayer every time you flush I would seriously consider seeing a doctor.

It didn't look like that in the picture!

Houses seem to be like MySpace. Just because the profile picture is nice, doesn't mean that the house will look like that in person. Today I looked at a house that looked like a beautiful Victorian that was painted black and white (the one below), when I arrived to take a look at it today it was definitely dark beige with green accents.

Example Of MySpace Angle at work (not recommended for those still believing in honest profile pictures).

The first house I looked at had only 4 pictures, I guess that should have been a clue in there. If you use a low enough resolution camera then all that peeling paint and water damage blend right in.

Searching for houses online definitely gives the houses the benefit of the doubt. It seems to me that hi res pictures just do not exist on reality sites. Every cheap house has benefited from a low mega pixel camera.

My humble request, reality sites should have nice resolution pictures and lots of them. Especially a picture of that thing you are calling a bathroom in the basement (like the random toilet in the middle of the basement we saw today). We would have saved a good hour in searching with a realtor just knowing which houses would never work.

House hunting continues slowly but surely, one bad picture at a time.


PS from Red - Too bad the reality sites also don't have a line stating "This house smells really, really, ridiculously bad. For serious." Or maybe just check boxes for items such as: "Smells like cat piss" "Something might have died in here" and "Mothballs are a valid form of deodorizing".