God created the earth in 6 days, the least I can do is finish my baseboard in 3 weeks…

I'm a 'cut twice measure once' kinda girl.

A 'paint before prepping', a 'mop before sweeping', an 'assemble before reading the instructions', a 'write a paper before outlining' kinda girl.

Are we clear?

It doesn't help when the man I married ISN'T any of those things.

He pulled out a LEVEL and a TAPE MEASURE to hang a curtain rod!

Meanwhile, Jenn and I stared at him with confused expressions. I was simply planning to hold it in place until Jenn told me it looked even then hit the screw with a hammer until it stuck - or I put a hole in the wall, whichever came first.

I wanted to 'spot' steam clean our furniture.

I wanted to use a roller to paint the crown molding.

I lost

I lost

And I lost again.

He caught me putting my foot in the washer yesterday to push the clothes down so I could squnich another shirt in.

Give me a break! It's a stackable washer/dryer with the capacity of a gallbladder. I'm lucky to get a pair of jeans AND a shirt in there!

He's taken to giving me 'the look'.

No. Not the 'I love her so much look'...

... the 'How on earth did I get stuck with this wacko?!?!' look.

I've been seeing a lot more of it these days.

I have a feeling a lot more of those looks are to come.

I'm supposed to paint the bathrooms tonight. Cover the floor? Who needs to cover the floor?

Glad I didn’t pay for the good seats…

Chris and I went to see Cirque Du Soleil - Quidam last year and were very impressed. We spent the whole show saying, 'How is that remotely possible to BEND like that?!?!? Did he lift that guy up by his head?!?!' and perhaps the most shocking of all, 'You want $8.50 for this water?!?!'

The whole 'headless man leading a little girl around explaining death' was a bit odd, the show still left everyone in awe. The little girl who sang kept the whole audience entranced and the talented human contortionists were unbelievable.

Based on our positive experiences from last year, we decided to see the talented troupe in the 'Delirium' show last night. We couldn't afford the front seats like last time, and the steep $40 + fees price tag of the nose bleed seats left a nice hole in our wallets, but we couldn't wait to see our favorite show in town again.

Oh what a terrible disappointment.

The show focused more on so so music and less on the talented circus freaks.

You know when you go to a concert and you constantly look at your watch while the opening band is playing wondering when your favorite artist is going to perform? That's what last night felt like... but the opening band wouldn't get off the stage!!

They frequently shined bright lights at the audience and made loud booming noises. I'm quite positive this was simply a tactic to make sure everyone stayed awake.

The set design was clearly modeled after a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos and a hamster wheel. Give me two glasses of wine and a crayon and I'm pretty sure I could surpass their set designer in creativity.

Paula where were you!?!?!

I was more entertained by our server's facial hair at Bakers Square and whether or not he considered those 7 - quarter inch long hairs a 'mustache' or a botched shave job.


In short:

Two Cirque tickets - $92
Dinner for two at Bakers Square - $27
Parking at Sports Arena - $15
Discovering that no two Cirque shows are alike - $134
'Priceless' doesn't apply here. Ask my Debit Card.

So much for entertaining 'water cooler' talk at work today. Last year I told stories of men bending in half, standing on each others heads, then doing some sort of reverse back flip off each other. This year all I have is, 'Some people sang and a lady hula hooped with both feet then did a summersault'. Sounded too much like a crummy 6th grade birthday party.

Oh well. Date night with my darling hubby is always a treat - regardless of the silly shows we see.

We're seeing Stomp next month.

Fingers crossed!

The shower...

I thought I'd share a before picture of our bathroom shower.

That white stuff isn't steam and that black stuff isn't Oreo cookie crumbs. The black inside the shower was awful! Too bad someone didn't take more pictures prior to the 'sanitation'.

Oh and just a note, this picture was taken before she moved out. I DO NOT have a cloud blue padded toilet seat with a fuzzy green lid cover.

Eww. Talk about no taste.

But just in case you missed the gross parts of this shower... I thought I'd point them out for you:

Once again, no 'after' pictures. I'll show you the whole package when we finish.

They say you learn new things everyday...

That's an understatement.

Nothing has quite made me feel more like an idiot than first time homeownership. My underestimations and overestimations have caused a lot of laughter. Not laughter from me, of course, laughter at me.

Chris had to work Saturday so I decided I would impress him with my cleaning ability (trust me, it wouldn't take much based on my history folks). I cleaned the living room and dining room, contemplated making a sweater from all the cat fur... wondered how two cats could leave that much fur and still have hair... then made my way to the dreaded Master Bath. To be honest, I'd been avoiding it. Without a fully encapsulated chemical suit equipped with a government approved gas mask, I was afraid for my health and safety.

Armed with thick jeans, a long sleeve shirt, and Chris' slippers (I wasn't about to ruin my own!) I attacked the shower. I poured through an entire bottle of Kaboom (at times I wished the stupid cleaning solution would live up to its name so I could make a home insurance claim rather than an emergency room run after catching a disease). Disappointingly, after two scrub throughs, the shower looked dirtier. The soap scum had been hiding a whole layer of mildew. I guess I hadn't realized that soap scum can actually be attractive compared to other shower 'ick'.

I pulled out the bleach and scrubbed away. First coat. Scrub. Rinse. Second coat. Scrub. Rinse. Third coat. Sit for 10 minutes. Scrub. Rinse.

I realized I MAY have been overdoing it after discovering my industrial strength gloves were beginning to melt and my eyes beginning to itch... oh and I developed a real naggy cough.

I poured a final coat of bleach in the shower to soak and went to watch some much needed TV (by this time, I had been scrubbing this danged shower for 2 hours). Chris called about 9:30 PM to tell me he was on his way home. I told him I thought I perhaps got some bleach up my nose because that was all I could smell.

Chris came home, opened the front door, and started to gag. 'What did you do?!?!' he gasped.

'Huh?' I mumbled. I was in the middle of a chick flick and a stack of double stuffed Oreos, that was the best response I had.

'Hon, the house smells awful? It smells like... *sniffs*... BLEACH!! Why do you have all the windows and doors closed?!? Are you trying to kill yourself?'

I'd been in the house all day by myself and I did what every normal girl does in that situation, locked every door and window!

How do you tell your hubby that you'd rather die of chemical fumes than white trash crime?!?!



But I didn't die... and the cough is clearing...

...somewhat.



Oh, and I'm over budget... again.

I hadn't anticipated:

2 bottles of bleach
2 bottles of Kaboom
1 industrial pair of gloves
1 pair of slippers (sorry hon)

For one bathroom.




Just a quick question:

Everyone has little black spots in their vision right? And when you cough, your lungs burn too right?



Learning. New things. Everyday.

Ooops... I love mistakes!

Last night we went out and bought a gi-normous fridge. We got it for nearly half off because there is a 1” ding at the top. We are now calling it the '$700 ding' – and we couldn’t be happier.

Cheers to the guys at Sears for making mistakes and hitting refrigerators.

25 cu. Ft.

It’s a monster.

And the '$700 ding'

Oh and here’s the Poop Room. No further pictures of the house until we finish. I’m not going to ruin the surprise.

Home ownership is…

EXPENSIVE.

I’ve heard rumors. I’ve seen bills. I’ve heard mom, Liz, and Cole complain about the expense of home ownership.

But I’ve only been a homeowner for 6 days and my savings account is empty!!

Here was my ‘Move In Budget’:

New Carpet in 3 bedrooms - $1,000
Paint and Supplies - $200
Miscellaneous Items - $300

Total Move-In Budget - $1,500


I hate to expose the idiocy of my ways but here are the current required purchases (and we’re not even moved in yet!!):

New Carpet - $1,905
(After begging Chris, ‘But Hoooonnnnneeeeyyy, this one is preeeeettttyyyy’. Man I’ve turned in to quite the WHINER)

Paint and Supplies - $658
(Dad always gave it to us for free. I had no idea the stuff was $25 a gallon!!!! A stupid roller cover is six bucks?!?!)

New door locks on all exterior doors - $205
(To stop the crazies from coming back)

New locking mailbox - $72
(To stop the crazies from stealing our mail)

Cleaning supplies - $141
(To clean up after the people who I’m quite positive never owned cleaning supplies)

Total so far - $2,981


Yet to be purchased:
New Countertop in Master Bath (The current hunk of broken/cracked/mildewed plastic isn’t usable)
New Flooring in Master Bath (When Carpet guy said he didn’t want to work around it because it was ‘gross’, I took that as a sign that a big bottle of 409 wouldn’t be adequate)
Rug for Spare Bedroom to hide GIANT painting mistake (I’ll explain later)
Refrigerator (Turns out… the house doesn’t have one and it’s kinda important!)
Closet Doors in Master Bedroom (They liked the ‘exposed clothing’ look. Eww. How messy can they be?!?!)

Um yeah.

Ouch.

But thankfully our escrow company made an error... in our favor so we got a nice check back from them.



AND… here’s a little hint. When choosing paint colors, consider the color of your flooring. We picked out this gorgeous color for our walls called ‘Warm Nutmeg’ for our spare bedroom, kitchen, and dining room. It just makes the house feel homey, inviting, and ‘warm’.

We also chose a medium brown Berber carpet. Well…

Warm brown walls with warmer brown flooring make your room look like…


…


Let’s just say Chris and I call our spare bedroom ‘the poop room’.

Now we have to buy a giant rug to hide the carpet and break up the…

brown.




Since we have no fridge, we eat out every night. I actually find myself missing my home cooked microwave meals.

This morning I ran out of my stash of Cinnibons, so I came to work and devoured a bag of Hershey Nuggets with Toffee and Almond.

Here’s my thinking:

Chocolate is a dairy product. That’s practically whole milk. The Hershey Nugget has toffee AND almonds in it. Almonds are totally healthy!

So if my mom asks, I had whole milk and Almonds this morning for breakfast.

Also… I took my multi-vitamin which counteracts the Toffee/sugar.

I’m good to go.

Oy. My poor future children.

Mother's Day Wishes...

For Mother's Day this year, all of us kids decided to get a book done with a special note to mom and pops. Here are some of the pages.


*Click on the pictures to take them to full screen.




Mike:
John:

Me:

Lizzie:

Cole:

Paula:

James:

Is there a salt lick around here somewhere? I'm hungry and I have hives.

Yesterday seemed 3 days long - hence the ridiculously long post.

Shortly after arriving at work, I got a call from John-E. This is seriously how it went:

Me: Hey dude what's up?
J-E: Nothing much. Hey do you know where dad is?
Me: He's in San Fran. Sorry.
J-E: Oh that's OK. What are you up to?
Me: Workin'. What’s up with you?
J-E: Lindsey’s water broke and we're at the hospital.

John missed the 'freak out' gene and I think I got his share.

Mom and I hopped to the hospital in a jiff when we heard the baby was sideways and due for a C-section.

Beautiful Keira was born at 1:10 PM.

She and Lindsey are doing great.

Lindsey was a total champ. She had to wait in the operating room by herself while she was prepped for surgery (They wouldn’t let John in until after she was prepped).

I think I would have passed out from a panic attack without someone by my side.

Cheers to Lindsey the champ.

We stuck around for a few hours checking out the hot little thing and received a call that our house closed. We were to pick up the keys at 6PM.


Promptly at 6, Chris and I arrived at the address expecting to be greeted by an empty house with a Realtor holding the keys.

Instead...

We arrived to a FULL house with furniture ALL OVER THE YARD! There was an overflowing dumpster in the driveway and a huge moving van blocking the front of the house.

The homeowners... cancel that, at that time I was technically the homeowner... the SQUATTERS had just started packing that day. 35 days to pack and they pack on the day of closing.

UNBELIEVABLE!

There was a lot of screaming, a lot of stomping around, a lot of 'You've GOT to be KIDDING me!!!', and a lot of arm flailing - some digits flying higher than others if you know what I mean.

All me.

All within the first 5 minutes.

I don't think I've ever been that angry in my life.

I turned red.

Then blue.

Then broke out in hives.

Turns out... anger doesn't suite me well.

Hives?!?! How's that possible?!?!



The seller's realtor told us they hadn't anticipated us closing in time (I guess the last 35 days of... 'WE'RE CLOSING ON THE 10TH' wasn't enough). The seller's wife/girlfriend/whatever made a face at me and tossed her clothes angrily into her car.

She's 40! Who makes faces at 40!??!

I started walking toward her when Chris grabbed my arm. He'd never seen me that mad before so he wasn't technically sure what I was capable of.

I don't know if I would have 'hit' her per se...

But...

The next 7 hours where quite literally the most miserable of the year. I called the locksmiths, I chewed out the realtor, but just as I was attempting to call the cops, Chris stopped me.

Jerk.

I took a 3 hour stroll around Lowe's to calm down.

At Midnight last night, we took possession of OUR first house.

The sellers Realtor left the keys under the mat and ran like a little girl. I knew he was hiding something as soon as I heard he wanted to throw the keys under the mat and jet before we even arrived.

Whelp, he ran for a reason.

The garage is 25 – 50% full of everything the sellers didn’t want. Broken furniture. Broken doors. Shoes. Trash. Old clothes. Crutches (perhaps they were preparing for my arrival!).

The back yard has MORE broken furniture. A broken appliance graveyard. More broken doors (how they break doors and why they keep them I just don't know). And more trash.

I'm frustrated but relieved they are gone.

We have lots of work to do.

This is getting a bit long but I’ll have to tell you later about the fist fight my dad got into at a gas station.

It was such a weird day yesterday.

EXCUSE ME!!

It's important you all meet the new woman in the Hays family...


KEIRA!!!



Look at all that hair!!

Chris gets dreamy eyes. No hon! No kids for 4 years!

Chris and Lindsey's pop trying to get the hat on

Gramma Debbie

Her first bath

Momma and baby

I'm off...

... to meet the most beautiful newborn in the world.

Lindsey is in labor!

Wordless Wednesday!

Waiting for Kenny Chesney/Brooks&Dunn/Sugarland/Gary Allan/Jason Aldean

Mom it was LEMONADE!!

VIP at Stagecoach!

VIP Tickets: $367 per person

Drinks: $118

Food: $49

Total Cost: $0

Oh it pays to know some totally awesome people.

Thanks Aunt Sarah!!

Just BREATHE…

I'm a little bitter, a little cynical, and a lot annoyed.

I was SUPPOSED to sign all the loan docs yesterday so we could close on time but the loan people are dragging their feet and I still have not signed anything. Hmm. Going on NOON now people! Perhaps we can close NEXT Thursday!!

Looks like closing won't happen until Friday or... GULP... Monday.

There are so many things I have said (mostly to myself in the privacy of my car) and would like to say but they just aren't acceptable reading material for all of you... or even the harshest of sailors.

My mom always told me that the words that come out of my mouth are a mirror to my soul.

Based on the last day and a half...

Oh goodness I @*$&# hope not.


Oh but things keep getting better. The termite report came back yesterday...

Guess who has termites? Of course ME!!!

Guess who has mold damage? Of course ME!!

Guess who needs a root canal? ME!! (OK, that was unrelated but I thought I'd throw it in for good measure)



I have one place to go from here. A place where all passive aggressive people get to vent... behind the wheel.

So if you're in the East County, stay off the road today. Keep you, your passengers, and your animals safe. Stay home, lock your doors, and read your Bible. Read for me East County and pray for the safety of all those who didn't read this warning**.

Grrrr!










** Disclaimer: For all the freaks and geeks who took the above statement seriously because you are unaware of my bitterly sarcastic personality: #1 - I'm not serious about mowing other drivers down as much as I believe that a significant number of drivers are idiots. #2 - You are an idiot.

Sometimes... you just have to laugh.

I'd like to take this moment to gripe. I posted on a home buying message board seeking advice on what to do if the sellers of a house aren’t out at closing.

Now I remember why I don't post on message boards.

Message boards are a place where the people who don't really know anything... get to pretend they do.

16 people wrote, 'Get a lawyer' or some version of that.

Really? So #16, who wrote the same stuff as the 15 posts before her, did you think I didn't read the previous 15?

#17 broke the trend with, 'Not leaving after escrow is illegal. The sellers wouldn't do something illegal. I wouldn't even worry about it!'

Really? Breaking and entering is illegal but I still lock my doors at night sugar. BECAUSE PEOPLE DO ILLEGAL THINGS!!

Geez.

Darwin, you and I have to talk. This whole 'Origin of the Species-Survival of the Fittest' idea you've got going - it's just not true. Not only is this chick surviving, she's reproducing! She's having a baby in 8 days according the silly counter on her signature.

I bought some furniture off Craig's List. I found what I thought was a smokin' deal. A dresser, bed frame with mattress & box spring, armoire, and two nightstands for $650. I talked the poor guy down to $400 because well... I'm poor and I'm good at getting people to understand that.

The seller assured me the furniture was 'solid wood'.

It was solid wood.

Particle board is a type of solid wood right? It just has... glue in it.

Actually, two sides are particle board and the other two sides are wood. The front is solid wood as are the drawers. The 50/50 blend is actually an upgrade to my current 80/20 particle board/plastic set.

Come on. It was college. That's how we roll.

6 days to go!

Here's some picts for your viewing pleasure. Honestly, I can't complain for $400. Mike has the bed, so, no pictures: