Just Great - We Have A Ghost

I am deathly afraid of ghosts. They are one of my biggest fears. At the old house, from about day one, I always imagined a ghost in one of the bedrooms. I never liked going in that room at night. Well, I never had that fear at our new house. I even commented once to the husband how I didn't feel any apprehension walking around this house at night. I guess I jinxed myself because the inevitable happened.

Last night I was upstairs in the master bedroom with the husband and our 4 year old daughter. I had to get something in the family room, so I went downstairs. I saw my son's old hat on the floor by the steps on my way back so I picked it up, because I had a few bags of clothes upstairs that I was getting ready for donations. Halfway up the stairs I heard it, a loud whisper, "'Loooo." I thought it was the husband at the top of the stairs whispering hello to me to tell me something like our daughter fell asleep and to be quiet coming up. But when I looked up and around I didn't see him. So when I heard it again, "'Loooo," I raced up the stairs , ran around the corner and into the bedroom. The husband was on the bed. I asked him if he was calling me or he had been talking to our daughter. He said no, he had just been laying there. My poor son's hat was all squished in my clenched fear-stricken fists. Sound carries crazily in our house and being in the middle of the stairs I couldn't tell where it had came from, upstairs, downstairs, no clue.

I told the husband what had happened (to which he replied, "Ah, so that's why I heard you running,") and he went out into the hall with me. He said maybe it was our son snoring. I listened and the boy was indeed snoring up a storm, but nothing that was sounding like, "Hello." The husband suggested that perhaps he was talking in his sleep and said, "Hello." Erm no, this "Loooo" that I heard sounded like it came from a man whispering, strangely it sounded just like the husband. I doubt it was him playing tricks on me though, because he was getting pretty annoyed with me making him accompany me to the bathoom, and wanting to stay in the bathroom with him while he did his business, and wanting to leave the bathroom light on while we slept.

It all sounds pretty silly now as I type this at 10 am in a well-lit room with the sun shining brightly outside. However, I'm sure my mindset will change come 11 pm tonight.

Moving Sucks Serious Ass

Well, we finally moved in...3 weeks ago. I've just been too tired and overwhelmed to make any new posts. Oh, that and we just got internet hooked up last week.

The move was horrible. Moving just in itself sucks. All that crap to pack. The last time the husband and I moved, it was just the two of us out of a one bedroom apartment. And we didn't have a lot of stuff. Well, 5 years and 2 kids later, we had a boatload of crap. We actually had grown up furniture this time. And tons of toys. Tons! Shoot, 3 weeks later and we still have a bunch of stuff still in the garage at the old house.

U-Haul screwed up our pick-up time and location. I don't think I'd ever been so angry over the phone, but you can bet I got that $50 guarantee they listed on their site if they mess up. The whole move put me in a stressed out position to begin with. But the real challenge was trying to move while watching a 3 year old. A 3 year old who doesn't listen, or actually doesn't care what you say. A 3 year old who I suspect must have ADD. That would be him sitting in the chair. Notice the black feet and knees and that mischievious grin. Oh, yeah, a 3 year old who refuses to wear pants. It's cute now, but I was so worn out and angry and depressed by the end of that day.

Here he is in the closet trying to figure out how to open that can of paint, I'm sure to see how much more closer to her deathbed he wants to put his mama.

Oh, and those curtains hanging up inside the closet? I had them lain out on the floor to ready them to put up. Well, guess who just so happened to traipse in with mud all over his feet and walk right on them?


There was a lot of stuff to unpack even thought we still had a lot of stuff at the other house. The husband actually wanted to put everything away and move all the furniture into the right rooms that same night. Looking at this picture makes me very tired.


I always thought our queen sized bed was a decent size. And then I saw it in our new bedroom and man, does it look tiny.

My daughter wanted to take a picture in front of our old house. She still says she misses her old house. And she says, "After a long time, our old house will be new again, right?" I have no idea what she means.

Anway, we're all moved in now. Well, at least pretty much settled. The husband's friends (or by default, maybe I should say "our" friends) are living at the old house now. We stopped by there yesterday because for some reason my daughter wanted to show them her doll. The kitchen looks so clean! We must be slobs and pack-rats. I really should be ashamed of myself. Anyway, it was weird seeing other furniture in there. Very weird.

A Disturbing Discovery

It gets too quiet at the house when I'm doing work there by myself. I brought in a radio to fill the silence. The area we live in gets crappy reception. Actually, the city we live in gets crappy reception. This was one of the first things I noticed when we moved here.

Anyway, the radio gets very few stations in clearly. I usually listen to a station that plays R&B, some new, but mostly old like Marvin Gaye, Earth, Wind & Fire, etc. Well, I couldn't get that station at the house. I did find a station that plays current music. Acckkkkkkkkk!!!!! My ears will bleed if I hear that damn Jesse Powell "I Can Tell That You Want Me" song one more time. Seriously, is that what today's music is like? That fake synthetic voice and that wannabe reggae vibe? Horrible!

Horrible!

Horrible!

Well, I did find a station that played music I like. I found myself singing along to old Bryan Adams' music. And Enrique Iglesias. My disturbing discovery: I like lite rock.

Less Ghetto

This is what our kitchen looked like a few weeks ago. I can't believe how clean it is in this picture.


Because this is what it looked like about a week ago:

Anyway, the linoleum in the first picture didn't really bother me too much until the husband said he didn't like. Then I started to dislike it. And then I found out that it costs about $7.50 / sq ft to get tile installed. That's a couple thousand dollars. For a while there I seriously contemplated doing it ourselves. I did tons of research on the internet. I even went to one of those Home Depot workshops. Suffice to say, we didn't do it ourselves. The husband practically killed himself removing all that linoleum. But we had someone else do the rest of the work.

Here's how it looked yesterday:


Alright, I know it's hard to notice the tile floors with all the crap in the way. But it's there and it looks really nice. I'm happy.

We still have the same linoleum in the two upstairs baths and laundry room. Maybe one day I'll do it. Okay, who am I fooling.

We also had some guys come in and install crown molding, fix the garage door, do the nasty drywall in the bathroom, and put up a new address plate today. We pretty much suck and are very lazy at this DIY stuff.

I stopped by the place this evening to see if UPS had dropped off a package at the house per the husband's instructions. I only ran through the house to check to see if the package was in the garage. I left the kids in the car in the driveway and as much as they make me want to hammer myself in the head sometimes, I didn't want anyone kidnapping them. Needless to say, I didn't get a good look at all the stuff they did to the house. However, I did notice the fixed garage door and (after the husband's prompting over the phone) the new address plate. Hooray, our house doesn't look so ghetto anymore. (Which reminds me - Quick story: When I was at the house the other day, I noticed that someone had written in pencil on one of the porch posts "East Oakland." I told the husband and he said, "Oh, look at that. Some of your people were here.")


Update on the UPS package - I just got off the phone with the husband. It's 9:23 pm right now. He's at work and checked online. They delivered the package at 7:51 pm. I was there at 7:30 pm. Big sigh. They left the package at the front door. When I left, I left the porch light on. So his package is sitting right in the open on our porch under a nice bright spotlight. In perfect view of our neighbors who like to throw parties on Friday nights. In perfect view of the Section 8 folks who live right up the street. I asked the husband what's in the package. Golf clubs. Worth about a grand. Big, big, big sigh. I just put my 3 year old to bed. My 3 year old who gets super cranky if his sleep is interrupted. My 3 year old who kept me up all night the other night because he wouldn't go back to sleep and cried and vomited when I left him in his crib. Argh!

Update 2 - Package is safe. The husband went there when he got off from work and was able to see it even from down the street because of the nice porch light beaming on it.

Useless and Bumbling

I went to the house after work one day last week. I was going to prime the baseboards that the husband removed from the kitchen. He had already removed the paint from a few and sanded them down. He also said he'd remove all the nails for me. Well, when I got there, he had only done three. There was a giant pile with a bunch of nails still sticking out. I examined the few he did sand down and two of the three had cracks in them. Oh, and I was supposed to wipe a couple of them down with bleach since they looked like this:


Too much for me. I figured we'd just see how much it would cost to buy new ones.

So I figured I'd remove all the old screws from all the window sills and spackle the holes. But I couldn't pull out the drywall anchors, so I gave up on that.

Well, the least I could do was to take the heat gun and remove the rest of the paint from the banisters. This is what it looked like when the husband did it:


And then my attempt:


Not to mention my scraped knuckles:


Alright, so my hand just looks ashy, but I assure you those scraped knuckles hurt!

Anyway, I gave the husband a call to vent my frustrations and that I quit and was going home. I told him of each failed attempt to which he just sighed, "Useless." And added, "So basically you've just been bumbling around the whole time." Hmpf! Way to encourage someone there, buddy.

I did manage to figure out the heat gun eventually and took off more paint from the banisters. But, boy, was I mad.

More Painting Fun

Over the past weekend I decided to work on the banisters. They were painted the same tan as everything else. Originally I was just going to prime and paint them white. Well the tan paint was peeling off. I admit, the daughter and I had fun peeling parts of it off. Who doesn't have fun peeling off paint? Unfortunately it was just peeling off in strips here and there. So I figured I'd take some paint stripper and remove all the paint.


I am a huge fan of those home shows where they make the house all nice and pretty in two days for like a thousand bucks or something. They make it look sooooooo easy. Handy-man I am not. I put the stripper on the paint and waited about a half hour for it to work just like the directions said. Then I tried scraping it off. That sucked! Majorly! It was like trying to scrape off gum. Fresh, thin spread gum.




I worked on the banisters for about 3 hours and only got a small portion done. It was night time and I had to leave the doors open so I wouldn't kill myself with the fumes. I'm a big scaredy cat so when I heard some crazy scream outside I considered myself done. Either I close the door and die from fume poisoning (?) or leave it open and chance being attacked by some pyscho.

A few days later, after I grumbled to the husband how hard it was, he took the heat gun he was using to scrape the linoleum paper backings off the floor and used it on the paint. He called me over and showed me. What took me a half hour to scrape, he did in 10 seconds using the heat gun.

Hmpf.

I painted the door back to white. I've also painted the baseboards and door trim white, well, "Pot of Cream" to be more exact. That was a huge pain in the ass. Sanding, cleaning, priming, then two coats of paint. It was all the cutting in that took a long time. My back hurts just remembering it. Every time I take a look at front door pictures I just think how awful that tile looks in front of the door. Hmmm.

A Funky Smell

I didn't notice it before we closed on the house, nor did the husband. But there is a strange smell emanating from our half bath on the first floor. I first noticed it early in September, when the husband and his friends painted the ceiling. I went into the bathroom and just thought, "Damn! I wonder what they ate!"

Since then the smell has gotten stronger. The husband removed the first layer of linoleum and discovered that the original layer surrounding the toilet was all black! Ewwwwww!!!! He also removed all the baseboards. The smell has gotten worse since.



I called a place on Sunday that specializes in locating odors and repairing and/or deodorizing. The guy asked me what the odor smelled like. Normally I would say it smells like old man. However, not wanting to discriminate I told the guy, "It smells like old people." Afterwards, I immediately realized that that might have been offensive. So I said, "Or like a bum." There, redemption. I felt better now.

Anyway, the guy comes out tomorrow morning to take a look. I do not envy him one bit.

UPDATE - 10/08/08

I spoke to the husband who was there when the guy came. The guy thinks it's water damage. He said we can remove the drywall, then he'll spray something, and the drywall can go back up. Somehow that seems a little toooooo easy. However, the husband said he had to go because he needed to open the back gate for something and I heard another guy's voice in the background.

UPDATE - 10/09/08

Okay, well apparently the guy thinks it water damage from super gross overflow toilet water! Okay, he didn't say super gross, that was from me. He thinks the smell is from the bacteria that has been growing or spreading or doing whatever bacteria does, which is why we didn't smell it at first. The husband thought that we might be able to remove the drywall ourselves, but I would rather pass and have someone else do it. The thought of touching feces bacteria ridden walls just doesn't sound too appealing to me. I'm thinking I should go out and buy the movie The Money Pit and watch it a million times to make myself feel better.

Adventures in Painting

I didn't notice it, but the husband mentioned what a crappy job the seller/agents did at painting the house. After closer inspection, they painted everything the same color - the baseboards, trim, ceiling, even some of the lightswitches and alarm! The first weekend after we got the keys, the husband and a few of his friends went over there to paint the ceilings white. I went there later in the afternoon to see how things went. I was a little confused when one of his friends exclaimed how nice the crown molding was going to look once we put it up. And then I realized why.

Painters tape was used, but I guess it wasn't enough. Oh, well.

A few days later came the door. All the neighborhood houses' doors were painted the same color as their shutters. Someone did a half-ass job slopping on a coat of white on our door. So we decided to paint it back to the original color, a dark charcoal gray. While I put on another coat of white on the ceiling the husband did the door. When I walked by I noticed he was painting the inside of the door. Sigh.

Yay! A New House!

A few months ago, the husband and I decided to buy a new house. We decided to look for a bigger house with a pool, or potential for a pool, in the town over since it was a nicer town with a better school district. After months of looking at about a hundred houses and being outbid on about a dozen homes, we decided to expand our search to our current town. Hey, houses were cheaper here, and we'd be able to get everything we wanted - a big yard, a swimming pool, an updated kitchen. Long story short, well, one out of three is kinda, sorta okay.

This house was actually one of my top two house choices out of about the 5 bids we put in that weekend. It has a huge backyard. Well, huge at least in our neck of the woods. The potential for a pool in the side yard is definitely there. I also liked how we had no neighbors behind us...for now.

With the exception of a few minor things (e.g. broken garage door, dead grass), the house looked move in ready at first glance. Even the home inspector said we had a solid house on our hands. Then we signed the closing papers and things have went down-hill since.