A Love Of Books

The Floor's the Thing

noreply@blogger.com (LadyCiani) — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 03:55:00 +0000

I mentioned briefly that the seller was offering a "carpet allowance" but that she wasn't actually allowed to cut us a check. So instead she paid our closing costs and tile insurance so we would have funds to replace the carpets.

At the same time we bought the appliances (but obviously before we had the fridge delivery fiasco) we used the same big box home improvement store and arranged for someone to come to our house after closing and measure for flooring.

We knew we wanted to replace the carpet - the seller had a rather large dog, and the carpet was a white or cream color. But we were torn on whether we wanted to upgrade to hardwood downstairs, or if we should just save the money and put new carpet throughout the house again, and then re-visit the hardwood issue in 10 years or so when the downstairs carpet got worn out.

Regardless of our decision downstairs, we knew we wanted to carpet the upstairs, but put tile in the upstairs master bath. The master bath was a "must do" because it was carpeted, with little "landing pads" of tile around the sink vanities and the tub and shower. I don't know about you, but carpet in a bathroom has an overwhelming ICK factor to me.

There was a bit of trouble getting the guy to come out and measure - the first guy called promptly and set up an appointment, but had to cancel when he hurt his back. So then they rescheduled a new team to come. Then the new team measured but measured only for carpet - he didn't note the areas we wanted tile or possibly hardwood (we wanted two quotes one for all carpet, and one for carpet up and hardwood down).

Once all that got straightened out the price difference wasn't too drastic between the quotes, so we went with the hardwood. We picked a bamboo (I love the eco-friendly), and it was a surprisingly pretty price-friendly option. It was on the low side of the mid range prices, and I loved the fact that it wasn't orange colored oak. The color is called "spiced."

Installation was interesting. The carpet all got installed in one day (a Thursday), and then a different crew came a couple of days later (on a Saturday) to start installing the hardwood and tile.

First they went to town demoing the master bath. They made a lot of dust removing the tile that was there, and installing cement board to make the floor solid (so the grout doesn't crack from flexing on the plywood sub floor). Then they started laying out the tile. One guy worked exclusively on the tile.

Then the rest of the crew went downstairs and started pouring the self-leveling stuff, and as that dried they laid out the foam under layer. This acts as padding and vapor barrier. We scrimped on this stuff, since the only benefit to upgrading would have been for installation upstairs - the more expensive stuff would have muffled the sound of footsteps more. But since it was downstairs, on a slab, and they low end version protected from moisture just as well as the high end version, we saved a few dollars.

The tile guy came back on a Sunday to make some more progress on the bathroom. He spent about 3 hours and knocked out a lot of the difficult cuts and all the rest of the tile.

Then everyone came back on Monday and the bathroom got grouted, and all the hardwood was laid in one day. It was pretty great to see!

The left us with the thresholds glued (plus they taped them and weighted them down with leftover boxes of hardwood), and told us we could remove the weights and painter's tape in a couple of hours.

And that was it! All of the flooring was in!

Fridge, Fridge, Hooray ... Oh no!

noreply@blogger.com (LadyCiani) — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 03:54:00 +0000

It was nice to get the call that our fridge was ready to be delivered. But then during delivery this happened:

The fridge clipped the corner of a wall and punched a hole (an actual hole!) in the metal corner bead. A little closer:

Holy crap, this whole thing is like, How NOT to order appliances.

There was about 3 feet of damage total - the punch in the middle, and then the drywall tape cracked about a foot and a half in each direction along the corner bead.

The look on the delivery guy's face when he hit the corner was something else. And as soon as they were done installing the fridge they called their supervisor to report the damaged wall. Supervisor Fred then talked to splorp! and said they would send out a drywaller to fix everything, and to expect a call from the repair guy to schedule the visit at our convenience.

The guy came the next week or so, and did a really good job. He even feathered the paint to make it match (the previous owner left us lots of paint).

In the end, splorp! had a meeting with the store manager of the big box home improvement store to talk about everything that went wrong. And the manager was very nice and gave us a refund of 10% of the price of our fridge for the long delay, plus an additional cash settlement for the damage to our wall. Wheee! that made it a good deal.

Buying Appliances, or the Saga of the Loaner Fridge

noreply@blogger.com (LadyCiani) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 01:28:00 +0000

Our new home did not come with the major appliances of Fridge, Washer, nor Dryer. These are essentials. We didn't even officially own the house, but we had a closing date and we were trying to be efficient and think ahead and budget accordingly. Plus we figured that it was the 4th of July weekend, and the stores all have giant sales at that time, so we should try to save some money and get it on sale. Good plan, right?

Now, I have never bought a fridge before. Our last fridge was a hand-me-down we got from my sister, after she moved in with a boyfriend who already had a fridge. It originally came from my parents, who bought her a used fridge from one of those major stores that deal in refurbished appliances. And anyway we left that fridge in California - my dad took it when he cleaned out our California house before the sale went through. I understand it lives in their garage now.

The fancy washer and dryer dryer I loved in California also did not make the trip - I couldn't imagine storing them indefinitely so we sold to my parents, who were going to put their older and less-fancy non-matched pair in our California house and the house would sell with the washer and dryer. I understand that swap never quite happened and my parents also have an extra washer and dryer in their garage.

We determined we would buy a new washer of the same style, but the dryer we would go downgrade one level from the model we previously bought. Downgrading dropped the price about $300, and the dryer was actually larger, plus we never would have used the extra drying cycles the other one had.

All right, washer and dryer were settled. So splorp! and I embarked on a fridge buying adventure ... How exactly do you go about shopping for a fridge?

We tried a bunch of different things. We signed up for a free trial offer of Consumer Reports and read a bunch of reviews. We went to several stores and stood in front of various fridges, and talked about what we liked and didn't like about them.

Our new house had a stainless steel dishwasher, and the stove had stainless and black. So at first we looked into matching that. And choked on the prices everywhere we looked.

Seriously, what is it about fridges that makes them so freaking expensive?

We eliminated the fancy designer (stainless) finishes, and that knocked a couple of hundred dollars off the top. Then we decided to go with black, since that would mostly match the existing appliances.

Then we weren't sure exactly how big was the fridge opening in the cabinets. So we pondered that.

It came down to a couple of things:

1) We were not putting a second fridge in the garage. There were only 2 of us, and we couldn't justify plugging in an extra fridge that we would use for ... what, exactly? Storing sodas? We don't have parties that we would need the extra space.

2) We did not want the in-door water and ice dispensers. All the research we did said those were the most likely items to be malfunction.

3) We did not want a side-by-side model. Our parents both had those models, and everyone disliked the fact that the horizontal space was very limited, and it was difficult to put large platters or pots in the fridge.

4) splorp! did not like the bottom freezer design. He's 6'2". Bending over to see what's in the freezer or get ice is a pain when you do it over and over (this also eliminated the french-door style fridges where the fridge is on the top).

So, standard freezer-over-fridge style it was! And in black (unless there was a great deal on stainless - which there wasn't).

We browsed around on the internet to see what kind of appliance deals we could get with the holiday weekend. After a lot of surfing and sending links to fridges back and forth, we found one nifty model that was a traditional style fridge, but it also had a water dispenser inside the fridge. You just push a button.

Now, the water here in Austin tastes terrible to me. But I had given up on getting a water dispenser when we eliminated the in-door dispensers because the break so often. But a dispenser inside the fridge seemed like it was less likely to have moving parts to break, so I was pretty excited.

Hmmm. Not a lot of reviews for this fridge. It seems to be pretty new - like brand new this year. But the brand was good, so we printed out the best prices and went to see if we could check it out in person.

We flagged down a very helpful lady who took our print-out and checked for us. Turns out they had no floor models of the version we wanted to see. Urk. What to do?

The big box home improvement store we were at offered free delivery on all our appliances, plus the barbecue splorp! wanted to buy. Plus they matched the price on the print-out we had - their in store price was abut $200 more than their own online price. They checked inventory, and there were none of the fridges in stock currently, but the projected delivery date said it was no problem to deliver in 2 weeks after we closed on the house. And they can deliver on a Sunday.

Great! We say. Fantastic. We hand over a credit card, and call it a day.

We close on the house - no problems. Delivery day comes (it's a Sunday). We get get a call that they can come right now to deliver the washer and dryer. What about the fridge? and the grill? Uh, they'll check on that and be right there. But the fridge is not on the truck. They have our order - but it shows the fridge is on backorder. And being a Sunday, the store employees who are working to find our fridge cannot get anyone on the phone. So begins a multi-day saga of where is our fridge?

The next day, Monday, I am at work and get a call from the store. There is a backorder on the fridge (this much we knew) and their supplier never bothered to call them and tell them. Which is why no one knew about the backorder until delivery day.

Grrr. OK. So what do we do now? We have just under a week until we have to turn in the keys on our apartment, but we're not staying at the apartment, we've moved in to the house. So, they come up with the idea to give us a loaner fridge. It's new, it's a floor model, but it's not the fridge we ordered.

Um. OK. Let's do that. At least we can make and store food until our fridge gets sorted out.

Well, it was a good thing that we agreed to a loaner, because we had it for almost 2 and a half weeks. That's right. Almost a full month after we placed our order, and more than 2 weeks past our delivery date. The fridge we ordered? Was stuck on a barge coming from another county, and then had to be shipped across the US to us. Grr. All that planning for nothing.

Homeowners (again!)

noreply@blogger.com (LadyCiani) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 01:23:00 +0000

It's official! We're homeowners again.

All in all, it was a relatively painless process. The seller agreed to give us money off the purchase price instead of doing any repairs, so that was a good deal. Plus she gave a "flooring credit" for carpet replacement. This is not actually a check we get after closing (that's not legal) but instead it means she paid for our closing costs and title insurance. Instead of money changing hands we got to keep that money in our account.

Some people choose to take the seller's money and go do other things with it (like a vacation), but we actually put it towards the flooring. Of course, we didn't exactly do carpet. Not exclusively. We did do carpet upstairs, but we upgraded to hardwood bamboo floors downstairs, and we had tile installed in the master bathroom upstairs (that was previously carpet -- carpet in a bathroom = major ick factor).

We moved in on splorp!'s birthday. At least, we moved the extra bed and enough toiletries and clothes to last a week, and then we hired a moving company to move the rest of our furniture and boxes.

Moving into our new home was actually very quick, since we purged a lot of "stuff" prior to the big move from California. And since we were going to rip out the carpeting anyway and didn't see the point of actually unpacking only to pack it back up when the flooring guys arrived, we just had the moving guys put most of it into the garage. Only a couple of things went upstairs.

So we're happily settled in. The dog has a backyard again (YAY!) and I no longer have to do 6am, 7pm, 8:30pm, and 10pm potty walks. It's sooo nice.

House Hunt (the Hunt Begins!)

noreply@blogger.com (LadyCiani) — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 14:00:00 +0000

So far Texas has been treating us well (other than the noisy train next to our apartment).

Since we signed all the paperwork and no longer own a house in California (as of mid-March), and we decided we can't get away from this train fast enough, we jumped right in to trying to decide where to live.

The city we're in is quite large, and rather sprawling. We figured that we would get a better feel for the neighborhoods, and how they relate to the places we work, and what our commutes might be like, if we drove around a bit.

We figured the best way to decide where to live, and to get familiar with the area at the same time would be to visit open houses.

Now, open houses are not really our favorite thing.

It kind of seems like agents only hold open houses to try to meet house hunters who do not already have an agent. They're not really there to sell the property - they're there to get a captive audience of people who have enough money to buy a house.

I suppose that touring open houses was educational. We definitely learned about the areas. And freeways. And we saw some cool houses. And one house that was infested with bugs (yuck yuck yuck - not enough yucks in the world).

Certainly we viewed homes, and made copious notes on the handouts, and discussed them later, and discarded most of the homes for one reason or another.

Too far away from work - the commute would be a nightmare.
Too many bugs and we can't get it out of our minds (yes, this was the infested house).
The backyard is too small.
The floorplan is odd.
Too old.
It's pretty new but the brass fixtures, decor, and popcorn ceilings make it feel older than it is.
Too big and smells like cat piss every time we open a new door (this house had beautiful wood floors, but all we could think about was how expensive it would be to rip all the flooring out to get rid of the smell).
Too many bedrooms (yes this was actually a problem).

We also saw some great things in houses, that we would love to be able to incorporate in our own home.

Solar screens (a great, eco-friendly, external addition to windows that can make a HUGE difference in how hot a house is).
Tiling the wall under a breakfast bar, so when you pull yourself up to the counter and kick the wall dirty shoes/feet don't leave scuff marks.
A rope light on a motion-activated switch, installed ankle-level on a stairway so when you stumble around at night it will turn on automatically and you have dim light.
Extenders for light switches, so toddlers can turn lights on and off.

Finally we felt we had exhausted the possibilities of open houses, and contacted a Realtor who had helped us when we came out on our whirlwind 4-day tour to find a place to live.

We had compiled a list of houses we wanted to see, so our first day out with her we checked out 5 houses, in varying directions. A couple of homes north of our current apartment. A couple not far away from our place. And one that was south.

Funny how it happened - particularly after the months of house hunting we did in California - but we really liked one of the houses we had picked out to see with the Realtor. We couldn't quite believe our luck of finding a house we liked after only one trip out.

We made an offer. We countered a few times. We came to an agreement. And now we're under contract!

The inspection found a few issues (of course - if a house didn't have issues I would be suspicious) but nothing major - a bunch of deferred maintenence, a broken window. Maybe some water damage from an old leak.

But the house is generally sound. The roof was replaced in 2009 after a hailstorm. So that is a HUGE benefit to us. The same hailstorm probably caused the broken window (it seemed to take the seller by surprise that it was broken). But even though it's a small break (literally a small corner of a pane), we asked for it to be replaced. Also two windowsills where the brick veneer has holes in the cracked mortar. In lieu of a fix we asked for money off the sale price of the house.

And now we wait. The seller is considering our requests, and will hopefully sign off on it soon.

We may be able to move in to our new home in mid-July, just around splorp!'s birthday.

House Hunt (Redux)

noreply@blogger.com (LadyCiani) — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 14:00:00 +0000

continued from:
part 1 here
part 2 here
part 3 here
part 4 here
part 5 here
part 6 here

So we're pretty much caught up to current. If you want to find out why we're in Texas now, instead of California, you can go read it using the links above.

But maybe you can't quite figure out why we're house hunting again so soon after the frustration of house hunting in California.

Now that we finally sold the place in California, and we're no longer paying both a mortgage and rent, why would we put ourselves through the frustration of house hunting again? Wouldn't we want to take a break, and relax a bit after the hustle-bustle of packing up our house and road-tripping 1500 miles?

Well, we wanted to wait. Really we did.

Our apartment here costs significantly less than any of our apartments ever did in California (except splorp!'s bachelor apartment). And if we could stay here we could save a lot of money over the next several months, and add to our down payment.

splorp! was even doing the math, saying our payment could be much lower than in California, and we could actually get a 15 year loan instead, and be in good shape.

So, yeah, waiting a while and socking away the money was the plan.

And mentally, it would be nice to take a break from house hunting. The first time around was just so stressful, it would be nice if we could consider taking some time to relax.

But we can't relax when we're home.

It's because of that train. You know, the one that is right next to us:

The Train We Hate

Living next to it sucks. A lot.

It's an extremely busy cargo line. And while we are not exposed to train whistles (fortunately we're far enough from a crossing that there is no clanging bells or flashing lights, either) we are constantly shaken awake by the train going by at night.

And the frustrating part? People keep telling us, "Oh, I lived by a train. You get used to it after a while and you don't even hear it anymore."

That's ... nice. We appreciate that they're trying to make us feel better about a poor situation.

But what everyone seems to miss is that we don't have a problem with hearing the train. We FEEL it.

It vibrates the walls, the windows, everything. It happens all day long and all night long. It's just not restful.

And so (with money in the bank) we find ourselves in the enviable position of being home buyers in a buyer's market. And after owning a home once, we know what we want, and have the money in the bank to afford to be picky.

The houses here? Much, much larger than in California, and for much less money.

We're already in contract on a much nicer house, with more square footage, more bedrooms, a bigger backyard, only 15 years old, in a much nicer neighborhood ... for $100,000 less than we paid in California.

No that was not a typo. Yes, I really did mean to type $100k. Less.

I think I like it in Texas.

New Job

noreply@blogger.com (LadyCiani) — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 14:00:00 +0000

continued from:
part 1 here
part 2 here
part 3 here
part 4 here
part 5 here

After getting the job offer, I started work at my new job the following Monday, and I have been really enjoying it.

The pay is great - more than I was making in California - and it comes with some excellent perks.

No health insurance, but they offer instead up to $300 per month to reimburse for health insurance, so I can purchase my own coverage. OR I can get reimbursed for the insurance I get through splorp!'s company.

WOW.

That's like an extra $3600 per year! And because we would have been paying out for my insurance through splorp!'s work anyway - it really is like a bonus.

PLUS! There's a fantastic policy of paid time off. Everyone is eligible for up to 4 weeks PTO per year, right away. Not the standard "more vacation time with more years of service" like you find most places. No! Right away you start earning the max.

And! Because the office is in the middle of a busy downtown district and there's no on-site parking, there's a parking pass provided to me, that I get to use any time. So I could visit downtown on the weekends with friends and have parking.

Even better! On Fridays the company brings in a couple bottles of wine and some snacks, and we have a little in-office "happy hour" starting at 4:30.

There's a very nice kitchen area with a working dishwasher, and real plates, bowls, glasses, and silverware. Even the wine glasses and champagne glasses are real! No plastic stuff.

I just can't get over it - I found a job that I really like, and the people are really great, and the pay is good.

And then!

Our house in California sold!

And it took less than 60 days from listing date until closing. And we were no longer paying a mortgage plus apartment rent.

Another w00t!

So there it is: how we ended up in Texas.

It took splorp!'s job to get us here, and because I like my job so much we're enjoying it here.

And up next: house hunting in Texas.

(to be continued)

Unemployed

noreply@blogger.com (LadyCiani) — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 14:00:00 +0000

continued from:
part 1 here
part 2 here
part 3 here
part 4 here

My parents stayed for a couple of days. On Thursday they hit the road to head back home and visit some sights in Texas along the way.

Feeling lousy (cause my parents just left me in Texas, miles away from any family), and being unemployed (for the first time since I was 17) I had a bit of time on my hands. So I hit the computer and started job hunting.

Firing off a resume, I hit the jackpot pretty much right away.

I got an email back later that day, with the note "You have a very interesting resume. Can you come in for an interview on Monday?"

Let me just pause for a moment and say "Woo-hoo!" A job interview already! This is pratically a miracle to me!

So I had my interview on Monday Feb 21, and it was great. The manager told me he was confident enough to invite me back to meet with the COO and the rest of the marketing staff, and he would check some schedules and get back to me. And the next day he did! We set up the second interview for Thursday the 24th.

The second interview went very well. They let me know they had another candidate to interview on Friday, but that they wanted to fill the position in the next week or so, and I would have an answer soon.

In the meantime, I lined up an interview with a second company. That interview was scheduled to happen on Monday the 28th.

Holy cow! Interviews at 2 companies in less than 2 weeks. Wow!

So my interview with the second company went pretty well. I was now in my new home in Texas only 2 weeks, and had interviewed at two companies. Pretty cool.

And then! And then on Tuesday March 1st, the first company called me back and offered me a position!

w00t!

(to be continued)

The Standing On The Corner Song

noreply@blogger.com (LadyCiani) — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 14:00:00 +0000

(continued from part 1 here and part 2 here and part 3 here)

Our road trip to Texas went fairly well. It took 3 days.

splorp! drove the truck, and he had Harley the bird with him. My dad drove his SUV, and kept pace with the truck. My mom and I had the dog, and we were going to be on our own, so we could stop whenever we wanted, and could let the dog out.

We packed the truck on Friday February 11th, and set out early Saturday morning (Feb 12th). By Saturday night we made it to Flagstaff, Arizona. Sunday night (Feb 13th) we made it to New Mexico. Then Monday (Feb 14th) we drove into our new home in Texas.

The only excitement was on the second day of travel (Sunday) when my mom and I were stopped by three very gracious men before we pulled away from a rest stop. They let us know we had a flat tire. Then they proceeded to change the tire for the donut spare (in record time!) and Mom and I soon found that it's difficult to find a tire store open on a Sunday. Funny how that works.

We did finally find a mega store that had an open tire center, and 2 hours later they had removed a chunk of wood from my tire and patched me up, and we were on our way again.

Where did this happen? Winslow, Arizona. Yes, that Winslow, Az - the one with the Eagles song. And all that went through my head was "Oh, I'm a-standin' on a corner in Winslow Arizona/ got a flat tire on my mind/ ..."

Anyway, the rest of our trip was quite uneventful, and we arrived at our new apartment around 5pm on Monday the 14th. Happy Valentine's Day! You just drove 8 hours! What do you want to do now? Unpack? Ok!

We got the dog settled in a bathroom and shut him in, and proceeded to unpack the truck and get settled for the night. And that was when we discovered the "fantastic deal" on our apartment was due to it being right next to extremely busy train tracks.

Our New Home Next To the Train Tracks

And we were less than 500 feet from the tracks. Separated by a wooden fence and a parking lot. But so close that the (frequent) trains rattled the windows, vibrated the walls, and woke us up in the middle of the night. Frequently.

Packed

noreply@blogger.com (LadyCiani) — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 14:00:00 +0000

(continued from part 1 here and part 2 here)

Everyone tried to convince us not to sell our house in California. My dad. Our CPA. Even our real estate agent asked us if we were sure.

Because (little financial tip here) it generally doesn't pay to buy a house and sell it again just over a year later. The money we spent in closing fees when we bought the house, plus as sellers we pay the commissions to the real estate agents ... that tends to eat up any potential profits.

Also, they told us, if ever splorp! and I wanted to move back to California - well at least we would have a house to which we could return.

Oh! And had we considered that we would gain income from the rental property? It's not as if we would be paying a mortgage in California plus rent for a Texas apartment completely out of pocket - we would have income from renting the house!

Plus (as the CPA pointed out) you get to deduct the home ownership as a depreciating asset through the magic of tax laws. So really it was to our benefit to keep the house.

Another thing to throw out there - that little thing known as the $8k Federal tax credit? The one that we got for being first time homeowners? Yeah, to keep that, you have to live in the house as your primary residence for 3 years, or you have to pay it back. And we were looking at selling the house after owning it for just over one year. Ouch.

But to rent the house, and be landlords from over 1500 miles away? That was a prospect we just could not make work. We didn't (still don't) want to be landlords from even across the street. It just seemed like too much.

Plus we would have to put a new roof on the house in a couple of years, and that would eat up any potential "income" from rent plus the magical tax depreciation. So we would be breaking even on the mortgage, at best.

And we would still be paying a mortgage in California and apartment rent in Texas. It was just too much to consider.

So we put the house on the market, I gave my 2-week notice at work, and proceeded to pack. And pack. And purge. And donate items. And pack some more.

And in the mean time I came down with a nasty cough, and went to the doctor for some Rx-strength cough syrup. This turned into a horrible stomach bug of some sort that had me holed up in bed for more than a week. (The short version of this illness - 4 doctor visits in 2 weeks. X-rays of my lungs to rule out pneumonia. X-rays of my head to rule out sinus infections. Swab up the nose to rule out whooping cough. Pregnancy tests to confirm I was not pregnant. Blood tests to rule out parasites like Giardia, or amoebas. And no final idea why I was so sick. Yeah, Dr. House it was not. The final decision was inconclusive ... *maybe* it was the side effects of the cough syrup that had me losing my lunch every time I coughed. But they weren't sure.)

Anyway, with the help of my family (mom, dad, and aunt) plus splorp! and me (once I was well enough) we got packed.

And set out with my parents on our road trip to our new apartment home. And the house still was on the market.

(to be continued)

On the Market

noreply@blogger.com (LadyCiani) — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 14:00:00 +0000

(continued from part 1 here)

Let me express that while this whole "pick-up-and-move-to-Texas-thing" caught us completely off guard, splorp! and I had known a move to Texas was a distinct possibility. And we had said to each other: should it come up at some point in the future we would very seriously consider it.

We had carefully considered the financial aspects. That it would - in the long run - be more beneficial for the company to operate out of Texas instead of California. Certain corporate taxation laws, among others, make Texas more attractive for a growing business.

We just never imagined it would be accomplished in this way.

And splorp! and I had even discussed how pleased we were that he was enjoying his job, and that they appreciated his work. That he had a future with that company, even.

We had suspected that at some point we (he) would be offered the ability to relocate, perhaps as a promotion or other achievement. Or maybe he would pro-actively apply for an open position in Texas and we would move.

So we were open to the idea of moving. Just shocked that it was happening in this manner.

When splorp! called me that day in January to tell me the news, I immediately left work and went home. And then we consulted with our families, who said: "Well of course, you have to do it."

And so we found ourselves flying to Texas for a whirlwind 4-day trip to tour the office where splorp! would be working, and find a place to live.

Our house?

That little piece of real estate that we had spent so very many months searching for - being turned down time and time again before this one came on the market?

The house that we had spent 5 months waiting to find out if the short sale would be approved?

The house that was finally ours. That was ours for just over a year when news of this Texas move came along?

We put it on the market, and priced it to sell.

Quite a stomach-churning decision. Not something we did lightly. I mean, this was OUR house. FINALLY our house. The place we imagined we were going to live for a number of years. The place we sunk a bunch of money into (for new windows), and were just starting to consider how best to renovate the master bathroom.

Yup. On the market.

(to be continued ...)

Changes!

noreply@blogger.com (LadyCiani) — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 14:00:00 +0000

Wow this blogging thing has really dropped off my radar lately. Sorry about that.

The last time I posted was September, and it's now mid-June. A full 9 months have passed since I last wrote.

Well! Where to begin?

Certainly the last months of 2010 were uneventful. Even the Christmas holidays were fairly quiet.

After hosting our extended family in 2009 so they could see our new house, Christmas celebrations in 2010 returned to my parents' house.

New Year's passed uneventfully. splorp! and I are not much for parties, so we just prepared ourselves a wonderful meal and stayed in - barely making it to midnight.

January 2011, however, had a number of surprises for us.

First off, on his first day back to work in January, splorp! was called (along with perhaps 2 dozen of his coworkers) into a conference room, while the rest of the staff were directed to larger meeting down the hall.

The results of that meeting? splorp! and the smaller group were cordially invited to join the rest of the company in the offices in Texas, and please take the rest of the day off to think about it, and oh by-the-way there's a trip scheduled for you and your wife to tour the new city and see the if you like it, here it's already paid for ... And the rest of the California staff was laid off due to the pending relocation of the entire company to the Texas office.

...

[enter shocked silence]

...

Wait! it gets better.

Not only did we suddenly had to decide if we wanted to move to Texas, but splorp! had to tell them our decision very quickly - within 2 weeks, in fact. And then they wanted him to begin work at the new office "yesterday." Which turned out to be an absolute drop-dead-date of March 1.

If we said yes, then in less than a month and a half I had to quit my job, and we had to pack up our entire house into a 26 foot moving truck, ship splorp!'s car ahead of us, and move 1,500 miles with the dog and the bird.

...

[sensation of being overwhelmed]

...

(to be continued ...)

New House Work and New Windows

noreply@blogger.com (LadyCiani) — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 03:18:00 +0000

Forgive me blog peoples, it has been many months since my last post.

Yeah. Um. Let’s say it’s been an uneventful few months and get right to the summary, k?

Well see, that’s kind of a lie. It’s just been so long that things just blend together.

What was exciting? Back in May we had new windows installed on the entire house. Wonderful dual-pane energy efficient windows. Love. Them.

New windows - it’s a big expense, but when we bought the house we qualified for the $8,000 tax credit for being first time home owners.

Now, when we first heard about this plan to give new home buyers the extra tax credit we didn’t think too much of it. We weren’t FHA borrowers – we didn’t have to do fancy loan paperwork to put just 3% down or anything. We were straight, traditional, 20% down, 30-year loan borrowers.

So with this unexpected boon to our house buying efforts, we talked it over before we closed on the house, and we knew that we wanted to get new windows installed before the summer heat hit us. Stimulating the economy and all that. Yup, that’s us.

Anyway, we knew we were getting a chunk of cash back from the government. And we knew we would add some money to that figure to get all the windows in the house done at once. Our home has two giant sliding glass doors (including the one that makes up one wall of our bedroom) and seven large windows. All that glass meant if we didn’t get new windows installed soon the house would broil in the summer and freeze in the winter.

splorp! and I did talk about spreading out the installation over a couple of years – doing the sliding doors this year, and the bedroom windows next year, and the other windows another time – but we had the funds to do it all at once, and I liked the idea of getting it all done at the same time, and then everything would match. Because there’s no way of telling if next year the same windows would be available – it would be just our luck that we got half the windows done and that style is discontinued next year.

Anyway, splorp! found a wonderful local company and we got everything ordered. Can’t say enough about this great company. Everything went really smoothly – they had a nice showroom with a great selection, and we really liked how knowledgeable our sales guy was (he turned out to be an executive manager or something). Everything got ordered, it came in to them, they called us for installation and splorp! set it all up.

So installation day comes, and one of the sliding glass doors was ordered wrong. Which we’re figuring is a pretty good track record – one thing goes wrong, out of everything that could go wrong? Fantastic (no, really, no sarcasm). All the rest of the windows go in with no problem.

The wrong window goes back to the store and the right one is ordered. And splorp! sets up the installation for a day when he is at work and I am at home.

And everything is great. Two guys show up and tear out our old sliding glass door (no broken glass or anything), and pop in the new one. They were there maybe 3 hours, and then they were off and on their way to another job. They brought all their own tools (a good sign, I thought) and did a fantastic job cleaning up after themselves. Along the way they managed to get phone numbers from some of my neighbors who were also interested in new windows. Something for everyone.

What makes us happiest about this door? It is specially designed with a space to install a doggie door – which they did for us before they left!

Old Door

Removing Old Door

Removing Old Door

Removing Old Door

Removing Old Door

New Window Coming Off The Truck

Installing New Door

Shooting Foam Around New Door

Close-up On The Foam

Don't Do This At Home
(he stopped and got a ladder after he saw me take the picture)

Installing The Doggy Door

New Door Complete!

Gardens and Dogs Don't Mix

noreply@blogger.com (LadyCiani) — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 04:28:00 +0000

Yes, Dart tore up my garden.

I knew there was a good chance it would happen, since we did realize he was taking his rawhide bones and burying them. Some were in the lawn/weeds, and some in my potted plants (and not just the outside pots - I found at least one of them in my indoor dracena potted plants!). And when I brought home the bales of soil and steer manure to fill the planter bed I knew it was going to be a problem because he was really interested in the steer manure. But it was still frustrating to look out the window and see him rooting around in the loose dirt, and my tomato plants nowhere to be seen.

I ran outside and rescued my plants, replanting them and shoving the dirt around again to get it level. Fortunately Dart wasn't flinging dirt all around, just making quick little holes in the soft dirt. I think he was attracted by the smell of the steer manure at the very bottom layer. Although he ignored most of the plants he did, however, chew the pot off of the "plant in the pot" tomato plants. I don't think he ate any of the leaves or roots, he just shredded the pot.

splorp!'s brilliantly executed solution was to build a fence with rabbit fencing, and posts from the home improvement store. The posts were sledgehammered into the ground, then the rabbit fencing was attached and secured with zip-ties. Then we lined the fence with the (free) bricks that were in the side yard when we moved in. The bricks are to prevent our little digging dog from simply going under the fence and resuming his mission to dig to China.

The fence was quite successful:

Dart inspects as the fence is being built

Dart outside the fence

Full view of the fence

Dart patrols the fence

He seemed more or less resigned to the fence in the end. This is the closest he's gotten to it since we built it. Just this one picture, and then he left it alone. Even if we toss something on accident over the fence (like a ball) he remembers its there and he hasn't managed to crash into it.

Now I can garden with the bird, and Dart sits in the sun and watches. From the other side of the fence.

Gardening with Harley on my shoulder

Now, a full week after the digging, my tomato plants seem to have recovered, and Dart has not made any serious attempts to get into the garden area. The bricks prevent digging under it, and the only way he could jump over would be to start from the fence line, and we prevented that.

Our fence next to the gate

Yes, Dart is small enough he could balance on the lower ledge of the fence and then jump over. But the solar light wedged into the fence boards and angled away from the garden prevents him from getting close enough to successfully jump over the rabbit fencing.

Not that we've seen him try, exactly. About ten minutes after the fence was finished he did jump up on the fence rail and look like he was considering making the leap, but we told him "NO!" before he could actually jump. Hopefully the verbal lesson (plus the physical barrier) will do the trick.

Oh, and even though Dart managed to mix up my soil and steer manure beautifully (what with all the digging), he got "rewarded" with a bath that night.Yeah, not his favorite reward, but I thought he deserved it.

Why "Settle"?

noreply@blogger.com (LadyCiani) — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 15:00:00 +0000

I thought I should follow up on what we're doing with Dart's behavior training.

First off, I'm not planning on taking him to formal obedience classes. Partly because I'm cheap and don't want to pay for them, but also because I have pretty extensive experience with dog training and feel capable of this.

I did several years of Dog Training through our local 4-H group, and was even the Junior Leader for the Dog Care program. Plus I medaled in 4-H for my record book under the Dog Training program.

My teacher from 4-H was quite qualified to teach dog obedience to kids because she showed her dogs professionally and had a room full of ribbons to prove it. She had at one point 3 Manchester Terriers she showed, and a rescue French Bulldog (the rescue was named "Mabeline" aka "Maybe" as in "maybe we'll keep her, maybe we won't). And before the little dogs she had a Dalmatian that was her pride and joy.

My mom signed me up for the course without asking me, but I liked it enough that I kept up with it, and I ended up going through dog training with 2 different dogs. First was our shelter rescue Sandy (a beagle mix), and then our inherited dog Mugsy (a Boston Terrier). Both had excellent behavior, and I feel confident Dart and I will do just fine.

I do confess to some differences. My 2 dogs growing up were quite a bit older when they started Dog Training with me, so they were more mature and less hyper. In Sandy's case he had been part of my family for many years - I was 3 when we got him, so I don't really remember him ever being a "bad" dog (I guess maybe my parents would have a different opinion). In Mugsy's case he was my grandfather's dog and went everywhere with Grandpa, so most of his behavior was already modified to suit an older man. Except for chewing stuff up, I don't remember a lot of bad behavior from Mugsy either.

When splorp! and I went to the shelter to find a dog, our only real criteria was we wanted a smaller dog since our backyard is not huge, and we were actively looking for one that was not a puppy. The "no puppy" partly because I have never done housebreaking and I really didn't want to, and partly because we were hoping to give a home to a dog who would not otherwise find a home. We picked Dart more for his temperment than anything else, and figured we would work everything else out as we went along.

As a result of our guessing game at the shelter, Dart is quite a bit younger and more hyper than I am used to, which does try my patience sometimes, but he seems to pick up on things fairly quickly - mostly when there is a food treat involved!

As far as his training goes we're sticking to the basics, and will gradually introduce some fun tricks and hopefully some off-leash heeling (someday). But I did depart from my teacher's list with the "settle" command.

This is actually one I picked up from one of my dog-and-house-sitting clients, Livy's dad. He was the first one I ever heard using the word "settle" for the command "lie down". And when you think about it, it makes a great deal of sense.

It goes like this: when you want a dog to lie down on its belly you tend to tell it "down" and drop a food treat to encourage the good behavior. But that word is more than a little misleading to the dog, because you will often find yourself saying "go lay down" (as in get out of my way) or "get down" (as in get off the table) or just "down" (as in "stop jumping on me") or any number of other instructions that have the word "down" in them.

By using the word "settle" you are giving him or her a specific duty and they are not confused by what you want them to do. Plus it reserves the word "down" for correcting some of those other unwanted behaviors.

And let's face it, when you say "down" in regards to your dog you're usually going to be saying it in a cranky voice like "get down from there you bad dog!"

So substituting "settle" for "lie down" is just a good little variation on a common command.

Other House Improvements

noreply@blogger.com (LadyCiani) — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 15:00:00 +0000

Well, it's really just minor stuff. Nothing so grand as a kitchen remodel, or a new roof. But we got some new things installed in the ceilings!

First project on the list was a ceiling fan for the master bedroom, since where we live it gets HOT in the summer, and one wall of our bedroom is actually a giant sliding glass door. We hope to be able to replace the door when we upgrade our windows later this year (we qualified for the $8k tax rebate - yay!) but that won't happen for a while. In the mean time, a ceiling fan with light fixture:

Installation of this fan also came with explicit instructions from me that a) the remote NOT be installed on the wall next to the light switch (so ugly), and b) that the light switch only operate this ceiling fan.

What that second part means is previously the light switch operated an outlet on the wall, and if we were getting this central light fixture I wanted the outlet to be always hot, and the light switch to only operate the fan. I am so happy I got an extra outlet back, I can't even tell you.

Second project: New bathroom fans. Ok, this one involves a story.

Ever since we moved in splorp! has had a love-hate relationship with our master bathroom. He is 6 foot 2 inches, and as a tall guy he loves the fact that the shower already has a very tall showerhead connector, and he didn't need to put any adjusters on it to make it taller so he could actually fit his head under it.

By the way, have you seen these extension arms? They're really very cool, and easy to install. We had one on our shower in the last apartment, and he loved it. I think he said it was the first time since he hit his growth spurt in puberty that he could actually stand under the shower and the water hit the top of his head without him leaning backwards to do it.

Anyway, so splorp! loves the shower, and loves the fact that our master bathroom is actually attached to our bedroom (en suite, I think it's called), and he loves the fact that (unlike our last apartment) it is fully enclosed by walls instead of having the sink out in the middle of our living space. But he is not too fond of the ventilation system in the bathroom. Specifically, the lack of ventilation system because the bathroom has a window. A window that is inside the shower.

Now, I understand the concept. You need to let the steam out of the bathroom to prevent mold and mildew, so you either need a bathroom fan (usually in an interior bathroom) or you need a window. But I have always hated the windows that are in the shower with you. I mean, in summer it's not too bad, but in winter? In winter it's just cold air coming down on top of you because guess what - hot air rises and cold air falls. And when the window is in the shower with you, the cold air falls right on top of your wet body.

So splorp! wanted a bathroom fan, even though the bathroom is already "adequately vented" with the window (such crap - the bathroom is still steamy, even with the window open). Ok, if he wanted it that badly, he's going to get it. But I asked him if he's going to do this to please either replace the bathroom fan in the hall bath (an interior bathroom, but the fan was deafening - it sounded like a jet engine) or put an additional switch in the hall bathroom that controlled just the fan, so I could turn on just the fan or just the light.

And that is how splorp! and my dad spent their weekend. Dad (being smaller and also knowing more about electrical stuff) did most of the crawling in the attic and running wires. splorp! did most of the going up and down ladders and handing stuff around.

New Wiring for the Master Bathroom

Dad's head in the ceiling

New Master Bathroom Fan

Now we happily have 2 new bathroom fans (one which is MUCH quieter than the piece of junk that was previously there), plus a lovely new ceiling fan.

Next up: hopefully can lights in the kitchen, but I'll settle for track lighting. I'm also not sure when this will happen as it is getting extremely hot in the attic area.

On to the Garden!

noreply@blogger.com (LadyCiani) — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 15:00:00 +0000

I have a bit of a green thumb.

splorp! told me (a few months after we moved in together), "I knew you collected books, but I didn't expect the plants."

I confess, I have done well with houseplants, though the trick there is mostly choosing hard-to-kill varieties, like pothos.

Then in our last apartment we had a bit of a garden area, and I planted some vegetables. The carrots and the radishes did so-so, the onions would have done better if I watered better, but we had tomatoes coming out of our ears (but they were oh-so-yummy). And the basil plants grew gigantic.

Now that I have an actual backyard with lots of space, I gently twisted splorp!'s arm into buying some fruit trees. We have a nectarine tree, an orange tree, and an apple tree. I'm looking forward to the apple fruiting later this year because it has 5 types of apples grafted onto one rootstock.

Lately it has been quite warm and sunny here, and when it hit 80 degrees (Fahrenheit) earlier this week I decided it was time to buy some garden soil and set up my planting bed.

The one I have is similar to the one I stuck a picture of here to the right. Mine is made of black recycled plastic, and it doesn't have 2 levels, but maybe someday I will graduate to that. I like the idea of 2 levels, for more deeply-rooted plants, but we'll see.

I went to the gardening center of one of our local home improvement stores, and I bought a couple bags of steer manure (2 cubic feet) and 2 big bags of garden soil (6 cubic feet). Plus I bought 3 kinds of tomato plants, 2 basil plants, and a rosemary plant (which I am going to plant in the half wine barrel that was left in the yard when we moved in).

I'm also going to look in my box-o-gardening crap for extra packets of vegetable seeds. It seems like I have some left over from last year. So all in all I should be in pretty good shape for gardening. Now I am just waiting for the sun to go down a bit and the temperature to cool some more before I set everything up and give it a good watering.

Oh, and I cross my fingers that Dart won't dig up my plants.

Training Going Well

noreply@blogger.com (LadyCiani) — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 22:50:00 +0000

Nothing too interesting to report.

Dart is continuing to settle in well, and we're trying to adjust our routine to his presence.

We did have to permanently install a baby gate in the doorway to the kitchen, in effect confining him to our (large) kitchen and the backyard. At first the baby gate was because we weren't sure he was housebroken. But it evolved into a permanent installation because we discovered he is fond of chewing electrical wires, which means we're not leaving him unsupervised in any room which has something he can grab.

It's a bit inconvenient having to move the gate to get in the kitchen (splorp! installed it on the hinges included in the purchase, so at least it swings now). But we think the inconvenience of the gate is a small price to pay to be able to watch TV with intact cables. Also, I somehow think the baby gate was a bit less expensive than the replacement wires would have been.

Dart's routine includes a walk most days. Usually I take him out after I get home from work in the evening, around 5 or 5:30. But it's getting warmer, and the daylight is sticking around longer thanks to Daylight Savings Time, so I am aiming for a bit later in the evening when it is cooler.

As far as training, "heel" is going somewhere between "OK" and "poor". We had a big jump in improvement after I got a choke chain for his walks. (And it was difficult finding a small one! Little Dart almost has to wear a cat collar, that's how small his neck is.) Still, progress is relatively slow. Instead of walking calmly next to me he pulls a lot on the leash, trying to lead me around, and really wants to go see the other dogs. And he whines and carries on when I don't let him have his way. Seriously, the other day he yelped like I was hitting him, but I didn't touch him. I just made him sit as the other dog went by. But, practice is important (also, exercise!). So we keep going for walks. And I have decided to carry some treats with me, to hopefully speed progress along.

As far as behavior training for inside the house we have a ways to go. He still has a number of bad habits, and has no what I call "people manners." Basically he was never taught what people expect of him, so he just acts because he's excited. Like when you first walk in he jumps at you from the ground, trying to get your attention and to get you to lean over to pet him. If you're wearing shorts when he jumps that can be a big problem as he has rather sharp little claws and doesn't know that scraping you hurts. And he likes to grab your feet with his mouth or jump and land on your feet, which again is a problem if you're not wearing shoes or something. He also walks all over the furniture, including jumping to the top of the kitchen table if we don't push the chairs in.

However progress in other areas of behavior training is going well. He picked up "sit" quickly, and we moved on to "settle" (aka "lie down"). That is his favorite "trick" right now, as he knows he will get a treat if he throws himself on the ground as soon as I touch the bag of treats. Quite funny.

I think we will move on to "roll over" or maybe "dance" soon, as those seem like natural behaviors for him. I am putting off "shake hands" because he is a bit hyper when you bend over and approach his level. I think we need some extra practice with "sit" before we come to that.

Not Loving Cats

noreply@blogger.com (LadyCiani) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:00:00 +0000

It's not that I actively dislike cats. I just happen to be quite allergic to them, so I prefer to keep my distance.

Also, there's that thing with the litter box. I'm supposed to be happy the animal (any animal, for that matter) goes potty in the house? No, thanks. I'll pass.

Anyway, ever since we moved in to our new house, my pantry cabinet has smelled like a cat peed in it. To say that would not be a pleasant smell would be an understatement. It is one of the smells I most dislike in all the world.

I tried to kill the smell by leaving vinegar in there for weeks on end, and I thought that worked, but just the other day I smelled it again and determined to figure out if I needed to wipe down walls with vinegar, or what. I needed that smell gone!

So my first action was to examine the bottom of the pantry, since the smell seemed to be coming from the floor area. Starting with the bottom shelf, I decided there was something in the gap between the shelf and the wall of the pantry. Time to drag out the vacuum (this turned out to be spilled cereal, or cat kibble, or something).

Then I decided the toe-kick board looked loose, so was it possible to move it and vacuum under the cabinet?

Well, the toe-kick moved, but the surprise of the month was that the cabinet seemed to be sitting on a line of green fuzz.

Green fuzz? It was then we decided this cabinet was an afterthought install, and when some previous owner put it in, they installed it on top of the carpet that was there. And it was the carpet that smelled so strongly of cat.

At that point I decided that carpet was coming out. There was no way I was living with this cabinet - one of our primary use cabinets - smelling like cat forever. I have no idea how anyone ever lived in this house with this cabinet smelling so strongly!

Fortunately the bottom shelf of the cabinet was just sitting on the floor or base of the cabinet. It was a sheet of melamine cut to size. It lifted out fairly easily to expose the dark green carpet under the cabinet.

In addition to "just" smelling like cat, the carpet wasn't very clean. There were bits and pieces of who-knows-what liberally sprinkled over it. (Also, dark green? When was that last in style? How long has this cabinet been stinking? It makes me gag to think about it.)

So, the next project: how do we (I) get the carpet out? It is a fairly small square of carpet ,but it's held in place by the entire weight of the cabinet. And the cabinet can't be removed because it is attached to the cabinet to the right - and both cabinets are part of our tiled counter top. Since we're not ready to rip out cabinets and counter tops (nor do we have the funds), we'll have to work in the very small space to rip out the carpet.

Now, I've seen those renovation shows on TV. And it always looks easy to cut carpet and lift it out. I have a couple comments about that:

When carpet is in good condition, it doesn't cut well.
A dull carpet knife sucks.

Sadly the carpet showed little to no signs of wear (other than smelling like a cat spent all his time sleeping in that corner). The back of the carpet was still tightly woven, and the carpet pad was in good condition. Both resisted being cut by the knife I had, and once I did get a cut going, they resisted being yanked out by brute force.

Fortunately for me, splorp! decided it would be easier to grab pieces of carpet using a pair of pliers. Yes, that worked a lot better! Carpet yanked out in bigger pieces, and I was able to grab pieces left in the corners.

Making my job harder was the tiny space. At one point I crawled inside the cabinet to get a piece out.

Still, it wasn't possible to remove all the carpet. The pantry cabinet was installed where the carpet butted up to the original kitchen cabinets, so the carpet still had its tack strips in place. Yes, the pantry cabinet was installed over carpet, carpet pad, and carpet tack strips. It's a wonder the thing seems to be level, much less stable.

After I removed all the carpet I could manage to grab with the pliers, I finished the clean-up by vacuuming the bits of carpet out of the cabinet, and then spraying Febreze over the remaining raggedy bits we couldn't get out, and wiping the walls of the cabinet with water and vinegar. I poured some baking soda in the hole under the bottom shelf, and then wiped the shelf with vinegar too. Hopefully that kills the cat pee smell for good!

Though frustrating, this type of renovation exercise sort of makes it possible to see the previous floorplan of the kitchen. We have seen pictures of kitchens in other houses in our tract, and our pantry cabinet is unique. We suspect at one point the side of our kitchen with the windows and the sliding door was used more like a sun room, thus the carpeting in the kitchen area.

It's interesting to see what previous owners did to "improve" the house over time. You can see that under the cabinet is some very yellowed linoleum. This was very similar to the peel and stick linoleum squares you see today, though extremely yellow. I doubt it was the original linoleum (the house was built in 1970, and the linoleum is a bit tame for the '70s!) .

You can also clearly see that whoever decided to tile the kitchen tiled right over the linoleum, and that they cut the tiles to fit around the existing cabinets. That will certainly make for an interesting decision if we ever decide to demo the kitchen.

As intriguing as it is to get a glimpse of the past, this was one install where I wish the previous owners had not cut any corners!

Must Love Dogs

noreply@blogger.com (LadyCiani) — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:00:00 +0000

Yes, we got a Dog. And we named him D'Artagnan, after the character in The Three Musketeers. And actually, it was splorp! who came up with the name.

We both had great dogs growing up, and we agreed (long, long ago,) that we wanted to get a dog. But we would only get a dog after we were settled in a house of our own. Somehow it has never seemed fair to us to keep a dog in an apartment. Oh, I know some people make it work, but it would not have worked for us.

For one, we are aware of our limitations when it comes to pet-parenting, and if the dog didn't have access to a yard to do his business then we were going to have a rough time with taking the dog outside on a leash. (Again, I know lots of people do it. We're just not that organized and we know it.)

Side note, the only apartment we ever had with a yard specifically stated in the lease that pets were not to be allowed out unattended in the yard. So that eliminated the possibility of having the dog to do his business outside when we were not home. Which is good chunk of the day seeing as how we work full time jobs and all.

Second, if we had a dog while living in an apartment it seemed unfair to the neighbors, who tend to live very close together in an apartment building. If the dog was noisy, then the neighbors who shared our (usually very thin) walls would be stuck hearing him all day long.

So we waited to get a dog until we were settled in our house. We had talked earlier in the house-hunt process of hopefully moving and being settled in time to adopt a dog by Christmas. That didn't happen (what with the wait to hear from the bank on the short sale, then moving during our crazy month of December), so we waited a little longer.

Once we got our routine settled splorp! basically agreed the dog could be my Valentine's Day gift. There wasn't a lot of negotiating - he was on board with the dog idea from the beginning - but I think he wouldn't have minded waiting a bit longer.

Anyway, we went off to the county shelter on Valentine's Day, and took a tour of all the dogs available.

Let me just say it is very sad the number of dogs that were (and are) in the shelter. If you are looking to bring a pet into your home, please check out your local shelter and rescue groups! There are many dogs in need, and they are frequently purebreds, so you're sure to find someone to come home with you.

Some dogs (only a few) were being held for their owners to pick up - they had names on their cages and their "adoption date" was far out in the future (if the owners didn't come by a certain date they would be adopted out). Others (like our Dart) had no names, and were available at much sooner dates.

Dart caught our eye because he was surrounded by very large barking dogs (pit bulls, mostly, with a few boxers), and he was just sitting quietly in the sun in his kennel. No barking, no lunging at the kennel walls. Just enjoying the sun. He seemed very calm.

When one of the shelter workers brought him to the exercise pen, Dart was NOT calm. He was very hyper, running around in circles and rolling on his back to have his belly petted. He was not afraid of men (very important for us!) and he only showed a small amount of aggression to other dogs - barking at the dog in the next exercise pen. He liked treats, he came to both splorp! and me easily, and he rolled on his back and showed submission easily. It was a fairly quick decision to give him a home.

We had to leave him at the shelter to be neutered, and then we were able to pick him up on Wednesday. He rode in the car like a champ, and has been settling in to our household quite well.

After a couple of days at home with us, we were pleased to discover he is already housebroken. We got one of those doggie door inserts for the sliding glass door, and my sister came over with her little dog (Loki), who proceeded to show Dart just how easy the door was to master. I think that contributed to a very fast learning curve - Dart was using his door in about 15 minutes, and now loves his door.

Having a dog in the house is still a bit of an adjustment, and there is a lot of training left to do. Though housebroken, Dart has no "people manners" and tries to jump all over you when you come in the house. We're slowly working on "sit" and "settle" (AKA "lie down").

As far as age, our vet told us Dart is about a year old. I'm leaning on the younger side of a year, as he still mouths things and chews like he is teething, though he has all his adult teeth. And he has a LOT of energy. Still, it is good for us. splorp! and I try to both get out for a walk with him after work, which helps to burn off some of that extra energy. However, he is easily excited on our walks, and "heel" is going slowly.

But practice is important, right? And we're certainly practicing.

Name Inspired by Literature

noreply@blogger.com (LadyCiani) — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:00:00 +0000

Meet D'Artagnan

We call him Dart

March Already?

noreply@blogger.com (LadyCiani) — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 05:04:00 +0000

Wow, time sure has flown by. I can't believe it is March already, and the last time I posted was just after Christmas.

Not too many changes to report in the new home.

Shortly after the new year we went to IKEA and found a piece of their free-standing kitchen series that will work well for us as a kitchen island. splorp! and my dad assembled it quickly, and we are very happy with it.

We also acquired some other new furniture: a TV console that is very modern and finally fits all our TV-watching electronics in one cabinet plus everything is behind glass doors. Yay!

splorp! also did some great shopping online, and found an ottoman that is made to fit all the gear (we have guitar shaped controllers coming out of our ears!) that is needed to play the Rock Band video game for PS3. It has slots for the guitars to rest in, and a pole that is built in to hold the drum kit. The drum heads themselves lift off and fit inside the ottoman. Closed up it is nice and neat! Plus it will double as seating when we have guests. At Christmas we discovered that the house will fit quite a few people, but we don't exactly have seats for everyone (yet).

Early in January my old boss (who is the proud daddy of twin boys around 2 years old - visit 2 For Team Lopez for more details) came with a rental truck and took the play gym / swing set thing from our backyard. I helped him dismantle it, and load it in the truck. He will modify it a bit and re-assemble it in his own back yard for his boys to enjoy. Our backyard seems so much bigger now!

Shortly after the swing set left it was scheduled to rain a LOT, so my dad came by and he and I spent a day crawling around on the roof as he patched some shingles and I sealed some protruding pipes with what seemed to be roofing-tar-in-a-caulk-tube. Very smelly and messy black goop, but quite effective.

While dad was here he also took his circular saw and sanding tools to the decorative beam / ledge thing under our front window. He gave the ledge a gradual slope, plus replenished the caulk around the windows. Yeah, the thing about windows is you want the water to run away from the wall of the house, not sit on a level surface or (worse) pool in water-damaged wood and soak into the wall.

So the sloping decorative ledge sheds water nicely, the windows are caulked, and the roof is tight against the rain. All that was accomplished just in time for a week of steady downpour!

We were snug in our house with the heater turned up to keep us warm. Until I wasn't warm anymore and asked splorp! if the fireplace flue was closed. Which it should have been, what with us never having laid a fire in it. And of course by the time I asked splorp! about the fireplace we had lived in the house for over a month before we discovered it wasn't closed, and was letting all the heat out of the house.

Oh well! The joys of home ownership!

Holiday Success

noreply@blogger.com (LadyCiani) — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 00:05:00 +0000

Boy am I glad Christmas is over. That sounds terrible - like I didn't enjoy it. But I did, I had a blast.

I'm just glad things have calmed down after a very busy month of getting-house-keys-installing-appliances-moving-and-then-apartment-cleaning-and-more-moving-and-then-sudden-flight-for-the-funeral-and-then-unpacking-and-then-holiday-preparations-and-then-...

Note to self: if moving, don't do it around major holidays. Life happens, other stuff comes up, and it turns out you don't have as much time as you thought you did.

splorp! and I did well with our hosting duties. And we enjoyed having everyone over. It's just that we did a mad rush to unpack stuff before everyone came over to see the new place, and I am soooo tired of unpacking boxes. So yeah, I'm glad Christmas is over so I can be a slob again (kidding mom!).

We had lots of fun visiting with everyone who came to our home. Cooking the meals is something I enjoy, so that is never a problem. I have a sure-thing recipe for beef roast for which I always receive rave reviews.

And my family is great about pitching in to bring something for the meal, so I never actually have to do the whole dinner on my own. For example: my aunt brought mashed potatoes and rolls, my parents brought the green bean casserole and the deviled eggs. My dad loaded the dishwasher after the meal. So it's never a hassle to do the cooking. Mostly I prep the roast and then stick it in the oven and go back to socializing.

This was a tough year financially for a lot of people, and my family agreed to a low-key holiday. splorp! and I developed some photos of ourselves to put in holiday cards for the family with which we were not exchanging actual gifts. For each other we got things that would be more than just "I want" gifts, we got more useful things. I received a bluetooth earpiece (for my now-longer commute) and I gave him a battery powered screwdriver (for all the household stuff he's going to be doing now that we're homeowners).

For our other family gathering the day after Christmas, early in the morning I put spaghetti sauce in a slow-cooker with some garlic and italian sausage and let it cook all day. And then I just boiled up some spaghetti right at dinner time. My cousin's family brought a giant pie for dessert, so throw some garlic bread in the broiler and it's an easy meal that everyone enjoys. (Though the garlic bread was something else - I've never actually done it myself, and the first loaf cooked up much faster than I expected, so it almost caught fire. Lots of smoke and blackened pieces. Good thing I had more bread.)

So, like I said, a holiday success. I think we'll probably do it again next year. But without the moving to a new house part.

Home for the Holidays

noreply@blogger.com (LadyCiani) — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 23:24:00 +0000

I am happy to report that splorp! and I are completely done with the old apartment. No more cleaning, no more moving. We turned in the keys a bit early, and now we just wait for the refund of our security deposit, which should be coming any time now.

We didn't get the whole amount back - we allowed them to take money out of the deposit for cleaning because due to some unforeseen circumstances we didn't finish cleaning the apartment the way we wanted to. Oh well, it's a small price to pay to have a load off our minds.

Our unforeseen circumstances involved (in chronological order) first, the purchase of a new vacuum (the old one died while I was in the act of cleaning the apartment) and second a trip to see splorp!'s family due to the passing of his grandmother.

We had a whirlwind trip for the funeral. Though the occasion was very sad, it was nice to see the whole family pull together for the services and family gathering afterward.

Now we are home and gearing up for hosting my immediate family for the Christmas holiday on Friday, and a larger family gathering on Saturday.

We are grateful that my dad hung Christmas lights on the house before we moved in. I think with everything that has been going on lately we would not have been able to get around to it this year if he had not taken it upon himself to surprise us (and it was a pleasant surprise!).

I forget what day splorp! pulled the tree* and decoration boxes out of our garage (how cool is it to say "out of our garage" now instead of "out of the storage unit"). We got the tree put up and decorated in a fairly short amount of time. Then splorp! discovered our new fireplace mantel had holes in it already, so he used the existing holes to hang some stockings. I put up some fake green garland stuff that looks like pine and wrapped it with some red ribbons. Everything looks very festive.

So, decorations seem to be done, gifts are (mostly) wrapped, and we're pretty well set. I just need to do some last minute cleaning and some last minute grocery shopping, and we will be ready for our first party (well, parties). What a nice feeling to be almost done ahead of schedule.

We are looking forward to lots of food on Friday (day of Christmas) and then somewhat less food but a lot more people on Saturday as my extended family come to visit and check out the new house.

*Note: Yes, we have a fake tree we put up every year. Hey, I know there are some purists out there who think it's not "right" or something to celebrate using a fake tree, but there are a couple of reasons we use it:

It was free, courtesy of my aunt who was downsizing her "stuff". Free and re-usable means we don't have to buy what is essentially an $80 dead tree year after year

I have allergies that are greatly disturbed by fragrances, dust, and pollen (and all of that is included with the lovely pine tree), so a fake tree makes the holidays much more enjoyable for me

We're not chopping down a live tree every year, which means that tree is still alive and is giving back to the environment and

It's also eco-friendly to be re-using something we didn't have to buy. Not purchasing something new means there's no packaging waste year after year, there's no fuel costs incurred shipping a dead tree to southern California, and finally, see #3 again. It's an important point.

Moving is Over!

noreply@blogger.com (LadyCiani) — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 03:32:00 +0000

We are now completely moved in. Though we have been living in the new house for a week, today we brought the last of the stuff from the apartment to the new house.

And by "last of the stuff" I mean Raymond and I dug up my avocado tree from the apartment garden and stuck it in the back of my car. It's now sitting in a pot on the patio, hoping it makes it in the ground soon. And hopefully I'll get to it this weekend, otherwise I'm thinking it's not going to make it.

There is still some cleaning left to do at the apartment before we turn in our keys. Unfortunately the old vacuum bit the dust before I finished over there. Yeah, burning rubber belt? not a pleasant smell!

Good riddance though. That stupid thing has had problems ever since we bought it used from my sister a couple years ago after she no longer needed it. Plus I was ready to get away from the bagless style vacuum. That's not a good design for anyone with allergies - you have to dump the gunk into the trash and tap the sides of the plastic bin to make all the stuff come out of the filter. And when you do that a cloud of dirt and dust blows up at your face and into your nose and all over your hair. You needed a shower after a simple cleaning job.

Enough was enough, and I wasn't going to repair it when it wasn't working for us, so we bought a very nice upright with a microfilter bag and a HEPA filter. I'm very happy with it so far, and I'll give it a good workout this coming Saturday as I clean the rest of the apartment.

Another bonus is that our washer and dryer got delivered and installed today, so I think we're pretty well set on appliances now. And I no longer have to save my Quarters to do laundry! Yea!

A couple of pictures of the "before". No "after" pictures yet.

Front Of Our House

Big Kitchen!

We're Home!