So, yet another massive delay of update as has become unfortunately and unavoidably regular as of late. Damn near a year this time depressingly.

So we did get moved back into the house last year… the weekend before Thanksgiving. Unfortunately that move ended up even more of an ordeal than expected because Bucky had  the edge of a ditch crumble under him at work at the tail end of the summer and tore his ACL and both meniscus (little pads on either side of your knee). That meant surgery in October and physical therapy and drove him crazy by putting him out of commission for helping with moving out of a second floor apartment in November. I of course was up to my ears in an emergency project at work again giving me trouble getting my portion of packing done, but luckily a large chunk of our stuff was prepacked in the storage and Bucky has wonderful, loyal and strong  brothers (both blood and honorary) who helped us move both by actually moving our shit and by helping chase Bucky away from something he wasn’t allowed to help move in his condition. Moving the weekend before Thanksgiving  gave us the Thanksgiving break to dive into unpacking.

Way more additional catchup to be added, but I have an early morning in the morning so it’ll have to wait for another post.

After a week of not much happening (t was raining all week and there was a bit of a problem with scheduling). We mostly have floors. Of course they’ve covered in dust so it’s difficult to see in spots, and it was getting dark so i had to use the flash which seems to have picked up the dust on the floor (and kitchen counter) more than it did the dark floor. I also realized I really need to clean my lens.

They started around 9:30 this morning and were still there working when I stopped by after work to snap pictures. It a quarter to 7 when Bucky and I left again and they were still working. They had laid the living room, dining room and both hallways and all but a strip each of the kitchen, Mak’s room (which is the best view of the grain) and the bedroom and all of it looks absolutely wonderful. And that’s even without lights.

We painted my room, Melissa’s room, the kid’s room and the bedroom all this weekend. We first coated all of them on Saturday and then Melissa and I came back and put the second coat on everything Sunday. Saturday, Bucky started by taping off everyone’s ceilings and trim and as he finished taping a room someone started painting it. Melissa’s room got taped first and she painted it. She’s using two colors for hers. One set of opposite walls is one color and the other two walls are the other color and I think the trim is reversed. I was having trouble getting a picture that showed her colors accurately. They’re somewhere between the two pictures. Bucky taped off my room next. The first coat worried me a little. It didn’t seem to cover at all. But after the second coat on Sunday it was fine. While Melissa and I were putting the first coat on our rooms, Bucky taped off the kid’s room and the bedroom. Four rooms and four people meant the kid got to paint her room by herself while Bucky knocked out the first coat on our bedroom. Well, the kid didn’t exactly exactly paint her room by herself….her friend Ian came over and helped. Those two have some interesting painting techniques. Bucky filled in the gaps for them after he finished our room and then I did the second coat on Sunday while Melissa did the second coat on the bedroom. Actually Melissa did the edging on the kid’s second coat while I did some touchups on the living room and did the base coat on the inside of the linen cabinet.

We’re down to the front entryway (which we have paint for but won’t attack until the front door is replaced) and all the trim, floorboards, door frames and doors. None of that will be done until the floors are in, which are supposed to be installed the first half of this week. We also still have to do the pantry, coat closet, Melissa’s new closet in her room, and finish the linen closet.

It’s insane and bizarre and really bright but it’s awesome and it works. Bucky did get both the dining room and living room painted today. The way the house is laid out, the kitchen and living room come together at the bar and the dining room and living room are on either side of the fireplace and patio door. I absolutely love the way all three colors meet. I admit it’s a little overwhelming right now, but once the baseboards are painted dark and the floor is in, I think it’ll mellow out a little. And the furniture will do that, too.

We got all the ceilings painted with at least one coat on Monday. The continuous ceiling that goes through the kitchen, living room, dining room and hall had 2 coats as did the ceiling in the entryway hall. Everything else just got one coat. Bucky got the second coat on everything but my room Tuesday or Wednesday. The cabinet guy also got all the kitchen counters in place Then yesterday I took the day off and I got the second coat on my office ceiling while bucky started taping, then we painted the kitchen. The construction guys also got the countertops in yesteday afternoon. We also got the hallway painted.

I was going to stay home and paint today, too, but I gotta go to work, so Bucky’s on his own. He’s planning on trying to get the living room and dining room knocked out today. Then we can all work on our bedroom, melissa’s room, my room, and the kid’s room tomorrow.

Oh, and here’s the generic color scheme.

We’re quickly approaching time to paint. No one has really decided completely on colors in their own personal space, but the kitchen, living and dining are pretty decided.

The floors we chose throughout the house (except the tile remains in the bathrooms) are like slate with white wood grain. It’s kind of like old bleached barnwood only with alot more contrast. The kitchen and dining will be lavender and orange respectively. The kitchen cabinets will be a pale ash and the countertops are dark mottled blue/purple/green/slate. The living room will be a hard to describe shade of green that is called “Salted Ash.” The green in the living room and the orange in the dining room tie into the coloring of the paintings that hang in those rooms. Those two colors will meet at the fireplace over the french door.

They ripped the rest of the roof and ceiling out of the kitchen, dining and living rooms on Tuesday. That made all three rooms really surreal. They also managed to rip out all the tile and laminate that are being replaced, which revealed not one but two kinds of really old, really ugly and now water damaged linoleum under the laminate in the bedrooms. I didn’t have time to make it over to the house on Wednesday, but by last night they not only had the whole roof put back together and were there late putting shingles on but had also stripped all the paneling in the living and dining rooms.

The new trusses and everything else for the roof were delivered yesterday. And the construction guys were obviously busy for the first time. Mostly just mucking everything out, but some demo. Our kitchen went from this on Friday to this yesterday afternoon. They ripped out all the cabinetry and the ceiling. The view from the other end of the kitchen, this is Friday, this is yesterday. The living room, too: Friday, yesterday. And the dining room: Friday, yesterday. Yes, that  is an even more gaping hole in the dining room roof than was already there.  You can see it better from outside, but rather than the broken trusses and mess that was there before, now it’s just open space.

We finally got the check from the insurance for the construction on the house, and got it into an escrow account with the mortgage company and got the first draw off of it. Bucky should be giving it to the contractor tomorrow.

The dumpster showed up yesterday, so they can start in on tearing stuff out, and the contractor says we should have  the first batch of materials beginning of next week. After that the first time there’s 4 days in a row without rain in the forecast they should be tearing the roof off and putting it back on. Good thing since the tarps we put on back in April to cover the holes in the roof are leaking. Actually the one over the dining room ripped in the last storm and that whole area is soggy again and more sheetrock has come down from the kitchen ceiling. I don’t know that it’s even worth putting a new tarp on since everything that’s getting wet is all being torn out and replaced anyway, but it makes the inside of the house a horrible sauna. Dumpster also means we’ll be over there this weekend sometime putting some of the tree pieces into the dumpster (not all of them, the weight of all that wood means we have to spread it across several dumpster loads).

The girl’s been at her dad’s all week. She’ll be home on Sunday and then is heading out to visit her grandmother in California at the end of next week.  Bucky’s and my 10 year class reunion is also next weekend. It ought to be entertaining. Work has finally slowed down to something approaching sanity. I can catch the train on a regular basis without worrying about working late and being stuck waiting an hour for the next train.

Speaking of the train, I’ve started crocheting again to have something to do during the ride to and from work since all my books are in storage and I don’t want to buy more right now since the shelves are too, lol. I made 4 scarves and then realized that there are only so many people I can give them to so now I’m working on an afghan. it’s going to be 6 rows of 6 squares (or 7 of 7 if I end up having to buy more yarn anyway) and each square is a different stitch pattern. I’ve got 3 mottled colors (dark purple, dark blue, and lavender) and 2 variegated (a light base and dark base both with the same purple and blue mixed in) so I’m making solid squares of each color of yarn and some that are a combination of 2 colors and some that are a combination of three.  If I make it 7×7 then there’ll be one of each in each row and column or if i leave it at 6×6 a different one will be missing from each row and column. I’m on the 5th square of the 3rd row, so the project should last me a few more weeks at least. Then I’ll have to find something else to do.

I also  finally started recreating the database on my portfolio tonight (which has been missing since I changed hosts). The structure is all there, so at least it’s not throwing errors any more.  Most of the content is still missing, but that’s the easy (if monotonous)  part.

For the first time since April, things are almost starting to feel normal, except for the whole really missing the house part.

I have decided that 2008 is cursed. Almost everyone I know has had weird crap happen this year. Car wrecks, illnesses, pet illnesses, and all kinds of other unexpected bullshit, some worse than others, here’s ours. Perhaps you’ll see why site updates have not been particularly forthcoming.

We finally got everything together and bought a house last August. Nothing crazy, not a McMansion (they have NO yard), just a cozy 3 bedroom in a decent older neighborhood. That made Halloween, 2 birthdays and the rest of the end of year holidays insanely busy with settling in, organizing, decorating (both generically and for the holidays) plus all the normal chaos that sets in that time of year.

February we got a dog (one of many things on our “wait until we have a house with a yard” list). Moose is an adorable rescued American Bulldog mix (best we can tell). He was thrown out of a car in a 7-eleven parking lot at 4 months old with cigarette burns on his paws. Our assumption is that someone was trying to make a fighter out of him, realized it wasn’t in his temperament and threw him away. Some people deserve to be shot.

Things started to finally get settled down into a routine, even though work was still crazy busy and I was pulling lots of overtime that I don’t get paid for because I’m salary. Then, the night of April 9th/10th I was at work pulling an all-nighter on some crazy project that was due and at 3:30AM I got a phone call from Bucky that the 35 foot cottonwood in our backyard was now in our dining room. And our kitchen. And it took out the chimney on the way by, the top several feet of which (and a large chunk of roof) were in the middle of our living room. All people and pets were accounted for and uninjured. Remarkably, since I’d been home to change clothes and see if my VPN connection was working about two hours before and Fido was asleep in the middle of the coffee table that afterward was buried under the chimney top. Bucky found her cowering behind the litterbox at the intact end of the kitchen with her eyes looking like saucers. When he called, it was still raining torrentially and tornado sirens were going off so by the time I waited for the storms to finish rolling through and left my office it was dawn when I got home.

Once we had time to take stock, losses include my antique coffee table, the dining set Melissa refinished by hand, the big TV and the PS2 in the living room, Bucky’s cell phone, and a bunch of random stuff like every consumable in the kitchen that had been opened (flying insulation) or required refrigeration (no power) and towels. A note for anyone else finding themselves in a similar situation: using a closet full of towels to soak up a monsoon in your living room does nothing except ruin the towels. As for the house itself: new roof and trusses for at least that whole end of the house (kitchen, dining, living, Melissa’s office, and garage), that same area all interior walls stripped down to studs and replaced, floors replaced in everything except the bathrooms, complete gutting and rebuild/remodel of the kitchen, replacing the whole chimney/fireplace in the living room, replacing the sliding glass door (with french doors), replacing at least part of the fence outside (which the tree also landed on), and some other miscellaneous stuff. $65,000 worth of stuff and that doesn’t count belongings. That’s just to repair the house.

Yes, we have insurance. Yes, everything is covered, including “loss of use” which means that while I still have to pay the mortgage, insurance pays for the apartment we’re in until it’s fixed, the storage building the rest of our shit is in, and any other expense that wouldn’t exist if it hadn’t happened, like a hotel room until we found an apartment. Another note to anyone interested: 3 adults, an 11 year-old, 2 cats, and a 6-month-old 50lb puppy in a hotel room is not recommended for any length of time, and especially not for a week. A friend of a friend of Bucky’s happened to be the manager of some apartments and we moved there temporarily.

It was right around then that Bucky’s grandfather who had been previously diagnosed with Lou Gherig’s and kidney cancer took a drastic turn for the worse and passed away…on Bucky’s birthday.

Had the apartments we were in not been exceptionally ghetto-tastic, we would probably still be there. However, while I don’t give a fuck what anyone else decides to put in their body, I do have a problem with meth-head downstairs neighbors who put furniture together in the middle of the night, have knock-down drag-out screaming fights at 2AM on a weeknight screaming that they’re going to call the cops on each other and allow their teenage dropout son to sit outside on OUR stairs and toke up all day, every day. Go the fuck inside and conduct your illegal activities there like a functioning member of society. Our 11 year-old doesn’t need your worthless example. It took about a month for the locator to find an apartment that would accept more than 2 pets, allow pets over 50 lbs, and do short term leases, but they finally found one and we moved again.

Looking for a contractor was also fun. A couple notes for contractors here:

1. When you show up to give an estimate and are talking to someone who is there packing - even if they are not the person who asked you for the estimate - “Do you even live here?” is never an acceptable question.
2. When someone lets you in to give an estimate and tells you that if you need into a certain room to let them know so they can move their dog who is locked up in that room, “I’ll kick that dog’s ass” is not an acceptable response.
3. If you’ve wasted 20 minutes of a woman’s time pretending to make idle conversation while quite obviously waiting for the only other man present to get off the phone, when he walks up and you ask him if he’s the owner and the woman says “No, I’m the owner,” that is a warning shot. It is your one and only chance to backtrack and address her as your equal and as a capable human being. Glancing at her, blinking, and then turning away to discuss the job with the guy who you’ve just learned is NOT the owner is not an acceptable response.
4. When someone points out to you that laminate flooring has obviously warped due to water damage, don’t dismiss them by saying it’s just separated glue. Even if it they are mistaken and it is separated glue (not true in our case) the proper response is “We’ll talk to the insurance company and see if they will cover replacement,” because regardless of the necessity, if insurance will cover it, that’s more money in your pocket, and if they won’t cover it, that makes them the bad guy, not you.

Any of the above, separately or in combination will prevent you from being hired by the people you are talking to or, most likely, being hired by anyone they know in the future. We finally found a decent contractor a couple months ago, and they finally got all the permits for construction approved after waiting weeks for the city to get their shit together. We also received a code violation notice from the city the week before that saying we needed to remove the “debris” from our yard and mow. Debris = a 35 ft cottonwood chopped into manageable sections and detached chunks of our roof, eaves, etc. Had they gotten us our permits in a reasonable amount of time to begin with we would have the construction dumpsters and the debris wouldn’t be there, but try explaining that to a bureaucrat.  And we still don’t have the dumpsters. Any day now…

All in all we’ve come out pretty well, the majority of our belongings are fine (if packed away), and the majority of the construction on the house is actually a more drastic version of the remodeling that we had planned for the house when we bought it. If everything moves according to schedule (yeah, right) we should be back in the house just in time for Halloween again.