Joke of the Day

What did one snowman say to the other snowman?







Smells like carrots.

Request

Per the request of a friend of mine, here are a couple pictures of the house in its completed state. Not much to say on this one, except that I am so happy that we are in and at least semi settled! If you haven't been by to visit you should give me a call.

New Job

For those who are interested I have kinda sorta started my new job in the land of mortgage. For the rest of this week I will be working both ends of the middle. I even have two desks and two different computers. Amazing how transferring departments works sometimes.

I will be learning to "close" the loans. Basically that means that I will take the loan file, which should be completed by an analyst before I receive it, and type all of the pertinent information into a program that creates the final document that I then email to the attorney. I am also responsible for double checking everyone else's work before me. Sounds interesting and it seems that I will have spare time on my hands at this new job, which I am looking forward too... at least for a while. I know there are other things that I will learn, but I will stick with that for a while.

If I have the time I may even remove the new job ticker from the blog...

home and body

A little house cleaning, literally and figuratively. I finally removed the countdown for the closing of our house on the blog. I figured everyone is tired of looking at it since that was over a week and a half ago. I have also emptied a few more boxes and attempted to put things away. I know that I have all of this space, but I seem to be having trouble figuring out where everything is supposed to go. It is a bit overwhelming sometimes, even though it really shouldn't be. Joe has been busy as well. Most of our blinds are up now and he is currently working on the ones in our bedroom. No small task since there are 5 or 6 windows in there. I believe that leaves the kitchen, which is another 5 windows and one bedroom and he will be done with that. Of course that just means there is something else that needs to be done.

We did buy a bench and some plants for the front porch today. It will be nice to pretty up the front of the house a bit. I just need to figure out if I can get a hook up into the porch ceiling so that I can hang up the ferns.

On a entirely different subject, I went for my first mammogram today. Wow! I knew how this procedure worked in theory, but to actually go in a have a women manuver each breast into an x-ray machine (twice, mind you) is a special experience. Here is a link I found with a great visual of the procedure. As I have told my friends today, there is no way a man would allow this to be done to his testicles. A better way would have been invented and implemented immediately. Although, I have been told that an MRI can be performed, which would be much more pleasant. But I guess it is just too expensive for our insurance companies to pay for. Anyway, even though this is not the most pleasant of procedure I do recommend that all women get one. My sister, who was only 42 was diagnosed so you just never know.

Kitties!

I found this in the Charlotte Observer today: article

I may feel the need to record this, it's probably much more interesting than Big Brother...

Meow Mix House

Karma anyone?

"Recompense injury with justice, and recompense kindness with kindness"
- Confucius

I was surfing the net waiting for the shower guys to finish up when I found this website. When will people learn that you just need to be NICE to people?

Front porch

I thought I would start this off with a picture of our horrible front porch. To explain, the reddish brown is dirt, but the rest of it is not. That would be the discoloration and deterioration of the concrete. Even our builder and the sales people said it was terrible. I am not sure if you can tell but the edge by the brick is horrific as well. Suffice it to say that the entire front porch area looked like this and needed to be fixed. Too make a long saga short, men came to fix it twice and actually managed to make it look worse. The end result? The concrete contractor was sent in to correct this and here are part of the results.



The destruction of the front porch. Here are the two guys who single handedly destroyed our hideous front porch. It's a good thing we new this was going to happen because at 7:30 in the morning the sound of large mallets crushing concrete could be a bit disconcerting. I felt bad for them and gave them all some nice fresh bottled agua.






Here is a view of the completed destruction. The workmen had to place all of the concrete in a wheelbarrow and move it off of our property so to not damage our lovely landscaping. I don't currently have a picture of our completed porch, but it is now quite attractive and we will not be embarrassed to have friends and family walk up to our front door. I will try to get a picture of the completed porch soon. It may even have some pretty plants and a bench to sit on then.

Finally moved

Phew! This has been an amazing and hectic week! Joe and I closed on our new home last Tuesday and it has been a non-stop whirlwind ever since. Wednesday the movers came as well as the closet people, cable guy, and the painters. We have had painters almost everyday since and they should be finished up by tomorrow. The house is still in shambles, but we are making some headway. We should be able to set up the living room now that the painting is done in that room, which will be a huge relief.

I keep staring at all the stuff that needs to go in the bathroom with disbelief. I just can't imagine why we have all of these different products! I would post a picture of all the bathroom odds and ends, but blogger is being difficult right now.

I will try and get some pictures posted soon of the bathroom disaster (at least you will be able to see the beautiful paint) and a couple of pictures of our front porch that had to be demolished. I will leave that story for the pictures.

Corrections and Comments

Thanks for all of the comments. It's nice to know that people are actually reading this and that I have such nice friends!

I thought I would address a few things that came up in the comments. The friend that is sick (I am actually typing this from Tampa, waiting for her brother to pick me up) was in my wedding, but not the one you are thinking of. The flying girl I met in high school so we don't go back quite as far.

On a lighter note, Joe pointed out that I linked to the incorrect and, if you look closely, smaller fridge. Here is the beasts larger cousin. We apparently need a lot of space for all of the food that I will be cooking in the new house. Or, maybe it's for all of the entertaining that we will be doing. Who knows why.... we just need a really big fridge!

Belated updates

Hello Everyone!

It has been a while so you may be wondering whatI have been doing. The new house has become all consuming these days. We were finally given our closing information, which is: final walkthrough on May 23^rd and the closing is May 30^th. Not the dates we were planning for, but we will take them nonetheless. We rescheduled the movers for the 31^st along with the closets and other miscellaneous items. The fantastic new fridge will be here on June 1^st. Here is a look at the giant beast. I must be feeling better (the apartment has become a might cramped) about all of this since I have started to get back into my cross-stitch again and I even completed the first and most fantastic scarf ever. Well, completed except for the minor issue of binding off… details, details.

Here are a few pictures of our house... it really is looking good!



On a more serious note...

For those of you who don’t know, my best friend since I was five had a seizure and became comatose about a month back. Lucky for me, her brother was able to find me out in cyberspace and apprise me of the situation. Unfortunately, the doctors have no idea why this even happened. She has some past medical history that would seem to be the logical factor, but that all came out negative. Another scientific conundrum.

She has since regained consciousness, but even though she was in a coma for a short period of time she will still have to go through physical therapy. Can you imagine waking up and not being able to talk or feed yourself? That has to be frustrating. Since she is conscious I will be flying down to Florida next weekend to see her. I have been warned that she may not recognize me, but I really feel like I should go and see her. It may only be for a day, but that is at least something.