This is a place where I can vent about certain frustrations. And occasionally, there may be a happy story. B/c life IS good.

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

And More Pictures...

The master bedroom: The second bedroom. We'll be using this one as an office until Nathan outgrows his bedroom. This is just great for a big boy's room. Berber carpet, and a cool paint job. Oh, and this room has two closets! One of them is extra huge and has an access panel to the attic.:
This will be his room for a while. We may have to paint over their hard work, though. It's a bit much for me, and it doesn't go with any of Nathan's stuff.:
Just a better shot of the basement. Shows the depth better.:
That's about it. Can't wait to get in there and start unpacking!

More Pictures

Here's the front of the house. These pictures are all from the site online. Notice the widened driveway, and the purple clematis (my favorite kind!) going up the lightpost. To the left of the house is a lot of open space. That will be great for picnics! Anyone up for some bocce ball?:

This is the shot of the livingroom. It is a little smaller that our current LR, but we sould be able to fit our furniture.:


The powder room. This yellow is not as gross in person! And there's this really cute American flag border at the top of the room:


Our full bath. I love the countertop and faucet!:


Sunday, April 27, 2008

The House!

I forgot to take pictures of the outside of the house, the livingroom, or the bathrooms, but these are the best ones I have of our new house:

Here's the view of the Dining Room and Kitchen from the Mud Room:



And from the other side:




This one was taken from the garage, looking into the Mud Room, to the back door. The powder room is to the left before the back door, and outside there is a very large deck. I like how it's set up so we don't have to walk into the main part of the house to use the potty.



This is part of the basement:






That door you see goes to the Laundry Room:






This is the opposite view. Check out the built-in TV cabinet!:




I'll post more later!





Saturday, April 26, 2008

I Quit!

Well, that didn't last long. After twelve long years at my job, I gave them notice the other night. I just walked up to the manager and was like, "How do I go about quitting?" He just told me to write something down and give it to one of the managers, and asked if I was going to give two weeks notice, or not come back at all. It was a Wednesday night, and I told him I'd work through that Saturday, since it's the busy time, but wouldn't finish up my schedule for the next week, which was already written.

I knew going in that night that I was going to quit, but it became even more important when I was notified that they had changed all of the cashiers' schedules for that week. So, instead of working Saturday night, which was perfect, since Dan worked that morning, they now had me on for morning. "No way!" I said. I told Doug, the manager, that this was no kind of notice for me to give my mother, who is really the only person who's ever watched Nathan, that we now needed her in a couple of days to watch him. I told him I was going to work my original time. It was also a bit annoying to me that when I got to the "front end," my name was crossed off the schedule, and nobody knew why. The head cashier that was on didn't expect me to show up, though. Maybe this was b/c I was SICK the whole week before, and had to call out the last two times I was on? Well, I have NEVER just not showed up for my shift, and these people obviously don't know me from some new kid that doesn't give a crap. I hated (for the most part) being stuck up on that front end, having to ask when I get to have my lunch, if I can go POTTY, and when I get my fifteen minute break. But, that doesn't mean I wasn't good at my job, giving every customer great service with a smile, doing everything I could possibly do to keep the public happy that they chose my store. The management is too stupid to see that I belonged in my original department, which at this point, I COULD RUN!

So, they'd obviously rather pay some kid who doesn't know crap four dollars less an hour than it took me twelve years to make. Who cares if I know why a Weber grill is awesome? These new kids can simply point to the grill section when asked for help and say, "the grills are over there." Now, that's the kind of knowledge I want when I am trying to make a decision about a big home purchase!

Bye the way, not one manager came up to me to ask me why I was leaving, or to wish me good luck, nothing. That place has changed so much. I'm so glad I'm out!

Saturday, April 05, 2008

A New House?

I don't think I've mentioned before that we are hoping to move to a bigger house soon. One that has a garage, basement, and hopefully a little more privacy. Well, after searching online for a couple of weeks, we decided to go take a look at a few twins that are in this nice cul de sac, surrounded by mostly farmland and a lot of open space. Dan's not thrilled about going from a townhouse to a twin, since he's always said that the next house we go to will be a single with a nice yard. Well, there were some older singles that have popped up on our search, but they all seem a bit older, and aren't in the school district we'd like to stay in. We saw three twins last Sunday, each one nicer than the last. The final one we went into had a bit of a different layout, was located on the end of the circle, and just was in a lot better shape than the other two. When we walked in, we were hit with the smell of tomato sauce, which was nice. It has a finished basement with a separate laundry room that's 11x11. There are plenty of closets, a big deck in the back, and they've already done some nice landscaping. The master bedroom is very big, and the other two are nice sizes as well. The big kitchen is open to the dining room, and there's a mudroom next to the powder room, and they have doors to the garage and the deck. The powder room is lovely, too. Basically ready to move into. The only drawback is the lack of central air.


Well, Dan and I were going back and forth about everything for a few days after we saw the house, and he could see that I was really thinking about this place. I was mentally moving all our furniture in from the time we walked out. He admitted it was in better shape than he was expecting, and we had found out from our realtor that it was up on the market last year for way more than they are asking now. We looked online on this website that tells you what houses are worth, and it was listed at about thirty thousand over what it's listed at! We decided to go for it, and we were going to bit a little bit lower than the asking price. Then, after finding out there were other people interested, (so we were told), we went a little bit higher, but decided not to offer the asking price, since we didn't feel comfortable with doing that. I figured, if we are meant to have this house, we'll get it.

We did the paperwork Thursday night, and our realtor told us she was going right over to the client's house and we'd find out that night if we got it. We were surprised, b/c when we bought our house we waited two days to find out if we got it. So, after filling out paperwork for over an hour, with a tired baby on our laps, we went home to wait for the call. There were a couple of questions they had for us, but after a little while, they accepted our offer! Holy cow! We bought another house! And we didn't even put this one up on the market yet!

They are leaving all of the appliances for us, even the microwave and three a/c units. They gave us an estimate that they had gotten for the central air to be installed, so it can be added, and since we have a few units from them, we don't have to have it done right away, or go out and buy some a/c's. I believe I also saw that there's a freezer there, too, which is something Dan and I have always said we wanted. Such big dreams we have!


So, I am so tired from this whole week. I am not looking forward to going into work today, and I can't wait to quit, so I can focus on the things we still need to do to this house before we leave. I'll put some pictures up of the house the next time I get a chance. I just can't believe this is happening so quickly!

Back to Work!

Hello! There's been a lot of stuff going on lately, but I haven't been able to type about it. First of all, I have returned to work, part time, and I am not too happy about it. For those of you who don't know, since '96 I have worked at a "big box" retailer, in the seasonal department. Since I was on LOA for so long, they couldn't hold my position for me in that dept., and told me I was going to be a cashier. Now, I used to cashier for a little bit about 11 years ago, and I didn't like being cooped up in one place for the entire day. Plus, I know my department, and I think it just makes more sense to have someone like me work there, instead of hiring yet another kid who doesn't know a marigold from a pansy.

I know it will be pretty easy compared to what I'd be doing out in "garden," but I am used to running around like a chicken without a head, and having twelve customers chasing me around, along with four newbies who can't figure out where to find this or that. Now, when you go to my old dept. in my store, instead of finding a handful of people that have worked there for many years, and know their stuff, you'll find maybe two that have been there for two years, part-time, and now have the job of training not only the newbies, but also the department head that is in charge of them. It's a shame that the company cares more about saving some money than they do with having experienced folks that can give the good customer service that our shoppers have relied upon for so many years.

So, my anniversary date is April 11th, and I should be getting some vacation time. I will make sure my time is cashed out, and then I will say "Good day, Sir!" to my boss, who I will NOT miss working for. I will miss some of the people, and driving the forklifts, and all the other cool things I enjoyed about the job. Oh well. I like my new job much better, even if Nathan does squirm around a lot when I try to change his diaper. Crazy kid!