I’ve been in the mood to create lately. Fortunately for me, I am not lacking in projects to tackle. I’ve got whole rooms that haven’t been painted (or really unpacked properly) yet! On top of that, there are quite a few babies expected among our family and friends in the next few months, and I’m very much hoping that we’ll be expecting again soon, so I’ve been having a lot of fun surfing the web for adorable baby related DIY ideas. I’ve started an Evernote Notebook to collect the tutorials that I find and am, of course, having as much fun planning what I’ll do and organizing my collection as I’m sure I will when I’m actually creating.
I tackled a couple of simple projects today. I sewed a grocery bag keeper and a tissue box cover.
Grocery Bag Holder
Tissue Box Cover
I’m really just learning the whole sewing thing, so neither of these projects came out perfectly. The seams on the grocery bag holder don’t line up, which annoys me, and the corners of my tissue box cover are sloppy and not right, but I’m still pretty impressed with my efforts. My encounter with the corners today reinforced my suspicion that I’m only going to get so far on the whole self-teaching thing, so I think I’m going to look into sewing classes. I would like to just work with someone to get some of the basics down so that I could feel more confident in tackling new projects and trying to make some things for gifts.
I think the next thing I’ll tackle will be the window treatments in the family room. We haven’t decided on a color for that room yet, so I think picking out some awesome fabric for window treatments would be a great place to start out. The family room is such a low-pressure room to decorate, too, so I think I can get away with some really funky fun fabric. I’d love some sort of aqua and orange combination. I’m sure Alex will nix it, but he’s going to be away for most of the next few months so he won’t have much of a chance to prevent it!
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Filed under house | Comment (1)So, the little weather app on my dashboard says that it’s 39 degrees outside and the little thermometer in my living room says it’s 51 degrees in here. I think it feels more like 39 degrees in here – I’m cold!!
When we discovered the leak from our boiler and called the plumber, I was definitely afraid that we were going to have to replace the whole thing. Afraid, but also hopeful; because if we had to replace the whole thing, then we wouldn’t have the scary possibility looming over our heads for who knows how long. We knew that the house had a 30 year old boiler when we bought it and it was working at the time of the house inspection but since it was so old I assumed we’d have to replace it at some point during our ownership of the house. Well, I mean, I hoped that it would make it, like, another 6 years at least because this is our “5 year plan” house. In 5 years, we’ll be out of debt (woohoo!!!) and since our debt payment is almost as much as our mortgage payment, we’ll be able to afford a nice house like ours in Nisky instead of a scrawny in need of a ton of repairs house like we could have gotten now. 5 year plan. 5 year plan.
But anyway, back to the boiler. When the plumber came out and gave us the diagnosis, I was kind of relieved. I was also happy to hear that with tax credits and rebates from the utility company we’d be getting a high efficiency boiler for less than the price of a normal one – and that both of those prices were much less than I feared. So wee!! New boiler – oh, and since our hot water heater was also wicked old and had no “medium” setting (turn it down to conserve energy and get no hot water! turn it back and get scalding hot water right away!), we decided to replace the hot water heater at the same time. So that’s all well and good… but the first appointment that the plumber had to do the install wasn’t until November 2nd and 3rd. So that sucks.
“But,” we thought, “it hasn’t been that cold this fall – in fact, it was pretty hot in September. So October should be pretty mild – we’ll be fine without heat in October.” I don’t know why I didn’t think of that October before we moved up to NY when there was an epic snowstorm that paralyzed the Capital District. Luckily, it’s just been “on the cold side”. Unfortunately, “on the cold side” feels pretty darn cold when you can’t turn on the heat. Plenty of my friends haven’t turned on their heat yet because they don’t want to pay for heat in October – and I’m sure that if we had the option, we wouldn’t have ours on either. But not having the option sucks.
We’ve been drinking tea and layering clothes. Last night I went to bed wearing leggings, a long sleeved t-shirt, a sweatshirt, and two pairs of socks. I also warmed the bed with a heating pad before I climbed in. Alex thought I was crazy – he wore shorts. We’ve also been building fires now that we’ve had the fireplace cleaned and inspected. It’s Alex’s favorite new thing. He just loves to build and prod and poke a fire. Oh, and throw crap in it. I had flowers that were past their prime – he threw them in the fire. We ate brownies on paper plates in the living room – he threw the paper plates in the fire. He was so excited about the fire that he wanted me to take a picture of it. So I did. Actually, I took a few pictures and a video. Here’s the video, for your viewing pleasure. Doesn’t that just look warm?
I wish I was warm right now. Sigh. To bed!
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Filed under house | Comment (0)…Since I’ve posted. LIke, months. And I got yelled at for that. Sorry! 
So here’s what’s been going on:
The house
Our move into our house went smoothly – it felt like I packed for months before the move and yet I still was rushing around during the last hours before we had folks there to help us. Who am I kidding? We still weren’t totally packed when we were moving – we were throwing stuff in garbage bags and laundry baskets as usual. Sigh. At least this was the last time we’ll be moving for a long time! AND next time we’re totally hiring movers.
We’ve been here for two months now and we’ve got our kitchen, dining room, living room, bathroom, and bedroom completely settled furniture wise. Our family room is mostly set up with our futon and old TV in the armoire and some bookcases. I’m thinking that room will seem in transition for a while – we don’t use it right now and it will likely become a playroom someday. The other two bedrooms are also just waiting for something. The one bedroom that has two windows and a built in dresser in the cedar lined closet is completely empty. I call that one the nursery. Alex pretends he doesn’t hear me.
The other bedroom just has some things in it that really need to get stored in the attic – which is accessed through the stairs in the back of the closet in that room. I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with that room. I could put a desk/worktable up there to organize my paper crafting things. Or I could put a bed in there to make it a guest room – we’d REALLY like to get a new mattress/boxspring set (so sad that ours is totally beat after only four years) and we could set up our current mattress and boxspring in there on a metal bedframe and do something creative for a headboard (or seek out an inexpensive queen bedroom set on craigslist). It would be nice to have a queen sized bed in our guest room – but then, the room is the smallest of the bedrooms, so a queen sized bed may be too big for in there. Also, no one visits us. Ever. We could seek out a twin bed for that room (or take the spare lofted twin that the folks are trying to get rid of) instead – then I’d be able to still put a crafting type setup in there and we’ll eventually need a twin bed down the road (again, Alex pretends not to hear me when I say that…).
We haven’t started to paint yet – mostly because we’ve never taken the time to figure out what we want to do paint-wise. That’s the next project – expect posts with pictures soon – hear that Aunt Anne? 
Other Stuff
Well, I’m thirty now – which means I’m officially old. Awesome. I had an excellent birthday, involving surprise cube decorations and bagels at work, a trip to the Apple Store (yay! Apple Store!), a serenade by a gorilla while at lunch at the mall, cake from Villa Italia, watching “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” at my favorite movie theater, fireworks in the rain, and then drinks and snacks at Aperitivo.
Our two year anniversary was on Monday – we’re an old married couple now. LOL. We saw Coldplay at SPAC, which was really the first time we’d listened to Coldplay, but we’re both kind of fans now. We had a really great night – it was awesome to have a date night, especially doing something out of the ordinary.
We lost a cat for a week – our little white cat Finnegan went missing last Sunday. I’m not sure how, but the both of them got out late Saturday night/early Sunday morning. I didn’t realize it until that morning when I was making a pitcher of Cherry Lime drink (from Target – hella, hella good) at the kitchen sink and heard meowing outside. I went to the door and let Fiona in. We couldn’t find Finn at all that day – and he didn’t turn up all week. I put up posters and posted a Lost listing on Craigslist and went out looking for him but there was no sign of him. I thought he was dead or lost forever. In fact, I considered getting a kitten yesterday – but I waited because Alex wasn’t around and I didn’t want to pick out a new cat without him. I was at the computer late last night/very early this morning when Fiona went to the porch and started to hiss at something. Alex was out having a guys night with his friends and I was home alone, so Fiona going to the porch and hissing FREAKED me out. I pretended to be brave and went to the porch and shooed her inside – that’s when I heard meowing from outside the door. I opened it and Finnegan ran in. I was so happy I cried. He was so happy it sounded like he was crying. He was so skinny and he ran immediately to the food and water. Fiona was freaked out and hissed at him – she still isn’t used to him yet. I hope she recognizes him soon – it makes me sad that she’s hissing at him and apparently doesn’t remember him when he obviously remembers us since he came home to us. I’m just so glad to have him home!
There’s probably about a million other things I can write about, but I think that’s about enough of an update for now. I’m hoping to begin posting more regularly – I promise!
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Our House
Is a very very very fine house.
I actually severely dislike that song. It is so gay. Also it bothers me that the two cats are in the yard. I mean, that means they’re outdoor cats because you can’t fence in cats and so they’ll probably get diseases and die or get hit by cars and die or get eaten and die. And no one likes a dead cat.
So yeah. We’re buying a house! Yay!!! We’re actually pretty far into “the process” but I just haven’t posted yet and I figured it’s about time I get around to it as I know that a year or so from now I’m going to want to go back in the archives of my blog and read what I wrote and think, “gee, wasn’t I so naive?!” So… We picked up “house shopping” after we got back from Dubai almost a month ago and, like I expected we would after spending money on vacation and feeling guilty about it, we found our house on our first outing out.
Our Realtor had plans the first weekend after we returned from Dubai, but I was antsy in my pantsy about getting out and looking at houses again, so we decided that I’d go without Alex the following Monday night while he was at Paramedic school. Alex’s mom, Patty, came along with us (since I can’t be trusted to remember details about things or notice important house condition stuff) and we looked at 4 or 5 houses that night. The first few were pretty scary and I was beginning to feel a little hopeless about our efforts that evening, but then we walked through the house on Bradley Blvd.
The hardwood floors were gleaming. The living room was huge. The dining room was open to the kitchen where the was a breakfast bar area. The kitchen had a separate cooktop and wall oven – perfect for my bad back. There were two full bathrooms, three nice sized bedrooms, a full attic and basement, and a family room off of the kitchen. Rare for Schenectady, there was also a ginormous over-sized attached two car garage. But to top it all off, it was sitting at the top of a hill, overlooking Central Park with a view of the lake. As our Realtor put it, it was “the find of the century”. He suggested that I call Alex and tell him to meet us there after paramedic school. Alex loved it too. We made an offer the next day and had it accepted the day after that.
We’ve had the inspection already and are following up on a few things – the house has a slate roof and the section over the front of the family room appears to have been tarred at some point, so we’re getting an estimate to see how much it would be to fix that. Also, the family room is on a separate zone of heat and when we were there for the inspection we couldn’t make the heat come on, so we’re trying to figure out what’s going on there as well. The final thing that came up during the inspection was a situation with the neighbors… They put up a fence that attaches to our house and garage and fences in part of our yard. Our attorney wrote to the seller’s attorney and asked them to get the neighbors to move the fence back to the property line. So hopefully all of that goes well.
Beyond that, things are progressing with the bank and we have a quote for home owners insurance, so we’re “homework-free” for now. The target date for our closing is May 20th and I know that will come up quick. I hope that there are no bumps in the road over the next three weeks and that we’re able to close on time so that we can move in during Memorial Day weekend – that’d be ideal.
So right now we’re researching appliances and trying to make lists of all the things that we’ll need as first time home owners. It’s all very exciting. And scary. I freaked out twice this week already – first over thinking that we’ll need like three times as much as I thought for the closing (which totally turned out to not be the case) and second because a guy that works for me and just bought a house with an older furnace (like we’re doing) woke up yesterday morning to find that his central air/heat wasn’t working. Hearing about that lead me to freak out over hte fact that we’re using all of our savings towards buying the house and that we won’t have a big emergency fund for something like that. Our furnace is definitely old so that worries me – although the home inspector said that our boiler is a “cast iron beast” that, while the life expectancy is only 30 years or so usually, he’s seen some like ours that have lasted 50 years, so hopefully the odds are with us there. I’m sure that wasn’t the last of my freakouts before closing. Poor Alex – he’s a freaking saint for dealing with me.
I hope everything works out. I hope all of my calculations and projections are correct and we do fine with the monthly expenses. I hope our neighbors don’t suck. I hope the place isn’t randomly haunted… I hope the next few weeks go by quickly – I wish I could just fast forward to the part where we’re already moved in and settled in and enjoying our house.
Exciting. Scary. Exciting.
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Filed under house | Comment (0)I haven’t posted in a while, and that’s because I’ve been super hella freaking busy. At work, I’ve been trying to bring on 3, now 4 new people. So there have been tons of hours spent reading resumes, scheduling interviews, and performing interviews. I’ve hired 2 people so far and have an interview today that I hope works out well… but even if it does, I’ll still need to keep looking to find a 4th person. These are all Software Trainers that I’m bringing aboard for my department, since I lost 2 people at the beginning of January and since our projected sales for this year are through the roof. LOTS to do there – working on revamping the way that we train and implement and trying to bring some order to the chaos. Oh, and bringing new staff on is great, but it’s also super hella exhausting and so far I’ve been pawning off a lot of the training of the first new person who started to other people on my team, but next week I’ll go real hands on so I’m expecting to be exhausted every day.
The other thing that I’ve been up to outside of work is house hunting! This part is fun, but it’s also really stressful. We’re first time home buyers so everything about this process is new to us and buying a house, with the financial commitment and all of the unknowns is scary. I’ll have to write an entire series of posts dedicated to all that, but for now here’s a widget from my Evernote notebook with the houses that we’ve decided deserve a second look:
Exciting. Scary. Stressful. All of that.
Upcoming events: next Saturday, March 7th, we’ll be going to see Enter the Haggis at Revolution Hall in Troy. I’m really excited for that show because I’ve had us on “going out and spending money lockdown” for the past couple of months and this will be our first “big night out” in a while. The weekend after that is St Patrick’s Parade weekend, but Alex is on call for that weekend so we may not be going out (which suits me fine because I’m old and would rather not spend the money). The weekend after that, we’ll be in Dubai! Yep, we’re going to visit the family in 3 weeks – we leave the evening of the 19th and get back the afternoon of the 29th. Very exciting!! I just got my passport back in the mail after sending it out (very late) to get my name changed. It only took 2 weeks to get it back (thank God)!
I must end this post NOW because what I SHOULD be up to right now is taking a shower and getting ready for work because it’s Friday!
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