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Thursday, September 27, 2007

Playing catch up

I'm feeling... better. I've had a killer headache and been all sorts of cranky and irritable since I got up yesterday morning, but I'm keeping food in my stomach. I count this as making progress.

Well, no, not since I got up yesterday morning. Since one of the cabinet guys knocked on my door at 850am then started moving my refrigerator and oven around because he had to "fix" stuff. Again.

Ok, so honestly I may have been a bit on the irritable side before then (like, days before) but I'm going to stick with blaming the cabinet guy. It's more satisfying than admitting that I'm just strung out and overly tired from being sick and stuff.

And no, nothing is really... fixed. Not really. Yes, there is some sort of base wrap around the bottom of the cabinets, but K. and I could have done a better job on our own. The gashes in the door frame were covered with a completely different shade of white paint. The range hood is now anchored by more screws, but it's crooked enough that when the maintenance supervisor was here yesterday he noticed it. The pipe in the bathroom is still... there. And so on and so forth.

Anyway... I'm tired of all my entries being about the mess it's become at the hands of the "professionals" that were forced upon us to make... improvements... that, for some reason unknown to us, couldn't wait until the middle of 2008 when we plan on moving.

But I do appreciate more than words can adequately express the emails and comments of support and reassurance that this too shall pass. And you're right. Eventually this ordeal will be over. Thank you for your concern and caring.

So! Onward. Upward.

A. is coming home early. A day early, but early nonetheless. The plane he'll be on lands tonight at 920pm (edt)... which means I'll miss the season premiere of CSI. I'm considering making him walk home. (Not really. Sort of.) Next week he'll be working in another city, but he'll be expensing a car and driving back and forth every day. We consider this a good thing. He'll be home for dinner (if we have dinner a bit later than usual) and I'll still have my car in case of an emergency or in case I just want to get out of this apartment. (Stop laughing! It happens... once in a while...)

K. is... well, she's doing well in school as far as I know. She's got a couple of friends she's wanting to drag with us to the zoo's Halloween thing this year, as well as wanting to go other places with them. It's got me a little twitchy 'cause of the money, but A. pointed out that she's been doing very well in school, been doing (most of) her chores without having to be coerced, and she's generally a good kid that deserves a chance to hang out with her friends... something that's not always been possible in the past. I agree. It's just... weird... for me, though I am glad to see her wanting to socialize. And maybe I'm seeing dollar signs where normally I wouldn't because the whole apartment ordeal has impacted me the most (with me being here 24/7) and has me spinning off-balance.

Also, K.'s birthday is fast approaching and I'm not sure what we want to do this year. She said she really didn't want to try and have another party that no one could attend because of the Halloween conflict, so we're thinking about a dinner. Last year we surprised her with a family dinner/party. She, A., and I were out running errands and decided to have dinner out because it was "getting late", she picked the restaurant, and SURPRISE!! there was a cake and balloons and presents and family waiting for us! She was completely surprised. I don't think I'll be able to pull that off again this year; the kid learns.

And me? I'm contemplating participating in NaNoWriMo this year. Yes, I've gone insane. I think it's from thinking about the upcoming holidays and the money I would normally spend during the last quarter of the year... and then thinking about how that money would be better spent if we put it towards some of the expenses that come with buying a house. And the thought that, for the first time in more than 20 years, I probably won't have a christmas tree. I know in my heart I will have one, even if I have to get a small fake table-top tree like I did one year when K. was tiny and we were broke. It didn't bother me then so much because she was entirely too young to notice or care, but she's much older now. Besides, I like having my home filled with the scent of the tree and it makes me smile to have one set up.

Speaking of the holidays...

Laura Williams is having a little giveaway in her blog for a Christmas Planner made by Marcia Francois. It's a dandy "13 pages of organizational wonderment that will get your rear in gear for the upcoming holiday season" according to Laura, and should be quite helpful.

Also, over at Overwhelmed with Joy! there's the 2nd Annual Holiday Cooking, Blogger Style Recipe Exchange coming up. Instructions and Mr. Linky go up on October 5, 2007, and from what I've read there were a lot of great recipes passed around last year and should be well worth the look.

And glancing over at everyone's favorite Organizing Junkie I find a few links for planning Christmas. Also, I see that she's gearing up to do another Organizing Challenge. Specific details are still under consideration last time I checked, but keep an eye on her. She'll announce it soon enough.

There's really not much else to say today. I'm itching to do some crafts, but almost all of my supplies are boxed up and stored away, and I don't want to spend the money to buy anything for a new project. I'm devouring what books are left on the bookshelves and clearing them out. I should be researching or plotting or something for any of the writing projects I have in progress or lurking about the edges of my brain, but I'm not and I'm at a loss as to why I can't bring myself to do so. Maybe I just need to leave this apartment for a while. Go out and walk around the mall or the park. Or something. Anything...

Monday, September 24, 2007

Menu - Week of Sept 23, 2007


Don't have much to say, really.

The bathtub still has that pipe sticking out of it.

The cabinet guys came back and... sort of... fixed some of the issues they created in the kitchen, but not very well. I'm still trying to scrape all the adhesive gunk off my kitchen floor, not to mention all the dirt and mess they glued to it.

And now my bathroom sink is leaking. Badly. To the tune that it's basically just draining into the cabinet under it. Yeah, my bread bowl is under those pipes, and there's a call going in to the office as soon as K. and I are clothed this morning.

I feel like chilled death puke. I've not been feeling well the past few days, but it seems to have fully developed sometime between last night and this morning. Normally I'd just crash for a few days, but with A. out of town (he left yesterday evening) I'm on my own with K. and the felines... and crashing just isn't an option. I'll rest as much as possible today, suck down lots of water and either apple juice or white grape juice, and try not to throw up on the new bathroom floor.

Feeling like I do and with A. out of town, the menu for this week is simplicity at its best... meaning that K. could fix most of what's on the menu this week with very little assistance from me. Not that I'll make her, mind you, just that if I get worse she can still feed herself.

As always, much gratitude for Laura at I'm an Organizing Junkie for hosting Menu Plan Monday.



Sunday
dinner: leftover tacos

Monday
dinner: Boca patties, mashed potatoes, lima beans

Tuesday
dinner: Breaded cod, macaroni & cheese, green peas

Wednesday
dinner: Chicken (or tuna) salad, fruit

Thursday
dinner: Baked potatoes stuffed with spiced ground beef, broccoli

Friday
dinner: ??

Saturday
dinner: Pot roast



Thursday, September 20, 2007

Update on Life


I'm having a hard time getting motivated today. Possibly because everything is just... chaotic. Everything is a mess, there's still stuff all over my dining room table where we were just too drained to put it all away last night, because there's stuff covering the dining room table (and chairs) there's no place for me to eat or sit down and write out my to do list and thoughts I have while I nurse a cup of tea like I usually do every morning, and on and on and on.

I have managed to get a few things done this morning. The FlyLady talks all the time about how anyone can do anything for 15 minutes. I haven't had to use my timer like she recommends in quite a while but I've fallen back on that hard this morning. I work for 15 minutes, then I lose it for 15 minutes. Or maybe that should be "I lose it for 15 minutes then pull myself together and get some work done for 15 minutes because the FlyLady says anyone can do anything for 15 minutes and I can hold it together for 15 solid minutes". Either way, there it is.

So, let's see if I can clear some of this stuff out of my head so I can stop falling apart every other 15 minutes and maybe actually accomplish something today... if it's nothing more than rewriting a chapter.

Just to be clear, all these pictures were taken yesterday. These are not old pictures. The color is off in some of these, but not that off.

So, this is that pipe in my bathtub that I keep talking about. This morning, it still looks like this.
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These next few pictures were taken sometime between 10.30 and 11.30am yesterday while the cabinet guys were... missing. I don't know where they were, they just left and were gone for just over an hour. I'm assuming they went to go get the power tools and stuff they had when they got back.

This is my water heater. Normally, one cannot see it because it lives in the corner under/behind cabinets. There's no pan or anything under it. It sits on raw concrete and is not accessible in any way unless you take out the kitchen cabinets... which is fun when it springs a leak or needs to be cleaned or worked on or something. Take note of the undamaged door frame. Just to the left of the doorknob. That's going to be important shortly.
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The... old... cabinets. On my front "lawn".
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These next pictures were taken... later. They came back just before noon (I thought it was 1130, but checking my cell phone log I realize it was 1146am when A. called me to find out what I wanted from Subway since I couldn't fix myself lunch with the kitchen as it was and they showed back up about 10 minutes later) and worked until about 4.30pm. Then left. My kitchen was... a mess, and that's putting it not only politely but mildly.

The new cabinets don't... quite... fit into the space of the old cabinets. Also, I might add, the cabinet there over the sink is taller than the old one was, therefore, they jammed it into the space and mounted it directly atop the light fixture thus ensuring that they not only broke the fixture but that the cover -- or rather, a new cover since they also broke the old one -- will not fit over the light bulb again. There's nothing quite like having a bare fluorescent light bulb shining just above eye level every time you stand in front of the sink.
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This is the lovely space where the spacer board between the dishwasher and the wall... stops. Four inches short of the floor. It's just... a hole. Hopefully I can keep the cats from shoving their paws in there. And keep whatever might be in there...in.
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And my floor...
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And, for some reason, they took the plate off this outlet. It was there when I took the first round of pictures while they were missing, so sometime after they got back it vanished. We don't know why. Or where it went. But as of this morning, it's still just like this.
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I can't get a picture of it because it... sort of... looks ok, just a little... crooked... which is why I noticed it, but when they remounted the range hood they only bothered to do so with the two front screws. They just... jammed... the back into place. It's sort of sitting at an angle where the back is trying hard to fall.

There are a lot of other little things -- like the adhesive all over my floor and the unbraced sink and the drip under the sink that I can't find the source of and the seriously messed up dead space in the corner (not blind space that's hard to reach but DEAD space, as in, they BLOCKED OFF that corner so that it's completely unusable) where I used to keep all my rarely used cooking utensils (like the waffle maker, little food processor, certain mixing bowls only used at the holidays, etc.) -- but nothing I could really capture with a photograph.

They left my apartment a mess, but before they left they stacked all the crap in front of my apartment all nice and neat. Glancing out the window this morning at a little after 11am (edt), yup, it's still there. Only now it's soggy because it rained quite a bit last night.
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Oh, and remember I said to take note of the undamaged door frame earlier? This is what it looked like when they left.
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I suppose, though, that I should be grateful. They were supposed to do three units in this complex yesterday. The maintenance guy that came by after A. turned in my typed list of complaints said that the people in the other two units got home and called the office. Their cabinets were sitting in their dining rooms. I'm soooo thankful I told the manager that I wanted to be the first apartment of the day. I can't begin to imagine how pissed A. would have been (not to mention how pissed I would have been) if they'd not gotten to us at all yesterday and everything that was in the kitchen had to sit under and on the dining room table while we ate fast food again.

My mom told me that at least it's better than before, and I'm not so sure I agree (sorry Mom). Before, it was one cabinet under the sink that was completely rotted out and unusable. No one saw it and as long as I kept the cabinet doors blocked the cats stayed out of it and it was ignored. Now, everything is theoretically usable (I'm still not sure I trust that hood over my oven or the light over my sink and I've not run the dishwasher yet) but the entire kitchen looks like something out of the ghetto. Except for the pretty new white cabinets and dusky rose colored counter tops.

Sure, a reasonable landlord would see to fixing these complaints and fixing the damage that was done by the work crew they hired. I think under different circumstances these items would be taken care of to our satisfaction within 48 hours. But circumstances aren't different. I honestly think they're overwhelmed and trying to take care of too many issues at once. I don't think they're being able to devote any real attention to things that come up, especially emergencies, but at the same time they're trying to make improvements, possibly to keep the current tenants happy, and not being able to do any of the jobs RIGHT.

Why do I think that? Today at 930am marked the official time that it's been three full weeks from the day my bathroom was gutted (it was gutted the morning of August 30, 2007 between 830 and 930am) and my bathtub STILL looks like it does in the above picture. Three weeks of having a pipe sticking out of my tub wall. They say it takes 21 days for a habit to form. I'm not sure what bothers me most at this point, that I still have a pipe sticking out of my bathtub wall or the fact that we're getting used to it.

In other news... well, there's not much else.

K. is doing well at school. She and her father have some big science fair meeting to go to tonight (A. told me I could stay home and cook dinner instead). The official progress report she brought home yesterday has her pulling in A's in Honors Reading, Social Studies/Geography, and Honors Math. She's pulling in a B in Honors Science. For some reason she's pulling a C in Honors Language Arts. It seems to be grammar related but it was hard to tell with the information on the sheet that went back to school today. All her teachers seem to think she's a delightful child and her conduct grades are all "satisfactory".

A. is doing work stuff. He has some travel plans soon, but they're slipping my mind at the moment.

And me? A. let me borrow his lap top the other night and set it up for me in the bedroom. I sat on the bed and wrote without distraction while A. and K. watched tv and/or played x-box in the living room. I... accomplished... something, and it felt good. Last night I accomplished nothing. A. set me up in the bedroom again and I dozed more than I typed. After the previous night's accomplishment, last night was a huge blow that I'm feeling especially hard this morning. Except for the other night, I haven't written in over a month. With no crafts to do (supplies are in boxes somewhere, probably in storage again) writing is my only creative outlet... and not being able to write is tearing me apart, especially this past week as I'm just starting to hear some of my characters again (they all went missing for a while). I'm tired. And I'm frustrated. But I need to push on through the day, so I guess I'll close this, set my timer again, and get on with it.

Monday, September 10, 2007

Menu - week of September 9, 2007


First, before I forget because I'm noticing some scatterbrainness (is that even a word??) creeping up on me today, I want to express my deep gratitude for the encouraging and supportive words and virtual hugs that came via email and those left in comments. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

To answer the question everyone seemed to have: No, there's really not anything more than a convenience store that's close enough for me to walk to. Even if there were, I'm not sure that I would because that would mean leaving said strangers in my apartment alone with my felines (and everything else), even though my felines would be shut up in my bedroom. Reflecting on how much inconsideration said strangers showed for my electric bill (kept leaving the front door open and all the lights they passed on -- even if they were leaving for several hours), my water bill (left the water hose outside running several times when they left for the night), my carpet and rug (mud, dirt, and water tracked everywhere), the bath towel that was in the bathroom sopping up the water from the leaking bathroom sink (they ruined it by wiping all sorts of putty, sealants, primer, and who knows what else on it), the job they were supposed to be doing (stopping to watch parts of whatever movie I was watching on days I had the tv on, peering hard at stuff on the desk and table, just... giving me the impression that they were being nosy about what we had here and not liking the fact that I had the bedroom doors shut when possible), and my family in general, I'm not sure that I trust them in my home without me or A. being here.

I wish I could say it's all better now, but I can't. The bathroom STILL isn't finished. The kitchen has been measured and awaits the arrival of cabinet fairy, at which point my kitchen will be gutted and become unusable for... who knows how long. If anyone feels particularly inclined, I think we'd all deeply appreciate any prayers that we (1) acquire financing, (2) find the house we want, and (3) can swing what it will cost to get us moved out of here and into said house.

I feel flu-ish. A. says it's probably stress-related. He could be right. (I'm still having nightmares and with him gearing up to leave town in a few weeks, I just KNOW that they're going to hit us with the kitchen ordeal during that time.) It could also be PMS. Or I could actually be getting sick. Either way, I just want to sleep right now.

K. seems to be adapting well to middle school. Progress reports that came home Friday indicate that she's pulling in an A in both Honors Math and Honors Science. Hopefully the chaos of losing the kitchen in coming weeks won't last too long or be too much of a strain on her. I know those 8 days of bathroom chaos were wreaking havoc with both her morning routine and her homework time (real hard to concentrate on homework with strange men running all over the apartment making all sorts of distracting noises and smells).

Menu, menu, menu. I woke up this morning still needing to make a menu and just felt... uncreative... about it. I started to make one and ended up crying in frustration. Last week's menu was thrown out the window several nights because of maintenance men being here until 8-830pm and I refuse to cook when they're spraying or grinding or filing stuff that's then being blown all over the place by the AC. I'd rather not feed my family sheet rock dust, thank you very much. So. Menu. Yeah. Simple. Basic. Boring. Maybe someday I can stretch my cooking muscles again, but for now it's time to rest them and just focus on getting through this. And if we have to get take out because the kitchen is unusable for any reason at all (I'm a bit anal about the condition of the area where I cook), then so be it. Right?

Sigh. Yeah, I'm not convincing myself either. And it's killing me to have to be getting take out so many nights a week and knowing that it's not over yet when we've worked so very hard to STOP eating take out and fast food, even on the weekends.

As always, much gratitude for Laura at I'm an Organizing Junkie for hosting Menu Plan Monday.





Sunday
dinner: leftovers

Monday
dinner: pasta, salad

Tuesday
dinner: breaded cod, herb-roasted potatoes, broccoli

Wednesday
dinner: rice with chicken, broccoli, peas, salad

Thursday
dinner: ??? - possibly leftovers

Friday
dinner: rice, beans, hoe cakes, salad

Saturday
dinner: ??? - possibly leftovers



Thursday, September 6, 2007

Thus beings Day Eight...

I'm just so very tired of not having a fully functional and safe bathroom, and now they've started in on my kitchen.

This is what they've left my kitchen looking like... keeping in mind that they were just going to leave huge gaping holes between and under the doors until I threw a fit about it being completely unacceptable because of the cats.

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I can't handle much more of this. I can't exercise with them here because they're back and forth all over my living room. I can't write because I'm in their way when I sit at the computer. I'm not eating or drinking much because I'm afraid to use the bathroom when they're not here (if it's usable) because they just walk in without knocking or I have to wait until A. gets home with the car so I can go to some store or another to pee or wait until they've decided to stop working on our bathroom for the day which often isn't until somewhere between 6pm and 8pm.

I'm so very tired, so very drained, so very... on the verge of losing it.

I think I'll reread the book of Job today then lock myself in my bedroom with the felines and take a nap.



Monday, September 3, 2007

Menu - week of September 2, 2007


Yeah, so, this is Day Five of not having a fully functional bathroom. It's truly getting old. The guy is supposed to be back today to finish "his" part and rip up the floor (why?? WHY??) and tomorrow (Tuesday) morning when (if) the complex manager comes to work he'll let her know that she needs to have the floor people come out and put a new floor down. The contractors are supposed to be back on Tuesday too (yeah, right) at which time the toilet will be taken out and put a new wall behind it. Based on their last, um, adventure, for lack of a more polite word, here I'm not expecting to have a toilet for several days... which really sucks because this is a one bathroom apartment.

Sigh.

Yeah. My head hurts. The panic attacks have subsided some, and I've found that I can hold them further at bay by locking (literally LOCKING) myself in my bedroom with the felines when these strange (less than trustworthy-looking) men are romping around in my apartment.

Truly, I'm over this game. We'll be looking for a house soon. A. has had me pulling whatever paperwork we might need when we go talk to the credit union about a mortgage. The only thing that might enable us to get into a house quicker than we had planned is his eligibility for a VA loan and the fact that we're first time buyers. Or... he is. I'm not sure I actually qualify because years and years and years ago I was the co-signer on my mom's house. Still, since he's the only one bringing in an income (I refuse to say he's the only one "working" because I bust my butt "working" as a stay-at-home mom), my status may not matter. We'll see though.

So. Menu. I made one for this week (mostly because the lack of structure they've been creating in my home was starting to push me into a very bad place and I desperately needed my structure back), though things may change drastically depending on how often and how late the workers will be here every day this week. (Yes, I fully expect this "simple job" to last until the end of the week and last week they were here until 8pm on a few days and it's damned hard to cook when they're filling the apartment with noxious fumes or I'm locked up in the illusion of safety that is my bedroom.)

As always, much gratitude for Laura at I'm an Organizing Junkie for hosting Menu Plan Monday.





Sunday
dinner: spiced citrus chicken & rice, garlic carrots (recipe to come), mini cheese biscuits

Monday
dinner: chopped beef stroganoff, egg noodles, lima beans, salad

Tuesday
dinner: rice, beans, hoe cakes, salad

Wednesday
dinner: parmesan crusted tilapia, rice, peas, salad

Thursday
dinner: pasta, salad, parker house rolls

Friday
dinner: orange-glazed pork tenderloins, quick baked potatoes, various green veggies, salad, parker house rolls

Saturday
dinner: pot roast (without the potatoes), broccoli, corn, herb-roasted potatoes, parker house rolls