AirGuitarRockin's Blog

Decisions, decisions...

2008-07-21T00:36:00Z

And no, I'm not talking about figuring out which cupboard to put the bowls in. I wish it was that easy!

After we moved to Wisconsin, it took me 10 months to find a job. Yes, I was "picky," but there also wasn't an overabundance of PR jobs in the area. And my current job isn't my dream job, by any means, but it's OK. And I work with really nice people (after all, they let us borrow the work truck for our move!), which helps. When I took the job, my thinking was that I'd stay there for 6-12 months, and then try to move on to something more in line with my preferred field and long-term career goals. I've been there for a little over three months now, I think.

The problem? I'm still getting the "new jobs" e-mail, and there's a listing for a PR associate at the local theatre/performing arts center. It's not my "dream job," but it is back in my field, and it's writing and pitching stories - not updating catalog pages, taking product photos, and answering phones and taking orders. Plus, it would be a step up the ladder, at least from the sound of the ad. So, I'm trying to decide if it's unethical to apply/interview for this position. I don't want to job hop; I don't want to burn bridges; I don't want to seem ungrateful for the chance they took on me. (After all, I'm not a graphic designer, and that's what most of my responsibilities include now.) But I also don't see a long-term career there. So, what do you think? Is three months too soon? (I have until the end of the month to get my things in order and apply for this new job... decisions, decisions!)

We're in!

2008-07-20T12:43:00Z

We're not unpacked yet, by any means, but all our stuff is here at the house instead of at the apartment. Yesterday went pretty well, for the most part. My boss let us borrow the work truck, so we didn't have to rent a u-haul (yay for saving $50-70!). Unfortunately, yesterday wasn't without its share of drama... our queen-size box spring does NOT fit up our stairs. We tried everything - many people pushing, taking the door frame/trim off... Andy even opened up the box spring and cut part of the frame, thinking it would flex/bend/not get caught on the fourth step. No luck. So this week, we're going to buy a split box spring, and until then, just sleep on our mattress on the floor.

Our friends who came to help out were awesome though. We couldn't have done nearly as much yesterday without them. And since we're 500 miles away from any family, having friends like that means the world to us. Now I just have to finish unpacking (didn't I just put everything in boxes?) and find homes for everything before Andy's parents come next weekend!

We're nuts...

2008-07-14T12:29:00Z

After our soggy basement issue, we decided to put off moving until we figured out what we were doing with the basement. (We're semi-seriously considering digging it out ourselves, depending on what the estimates we get say.) But, the more we talked about it, the more we realized that we just want to be out of our apartment and in our house. Plus, if we do dig it out and waterproof it ourselves, it'll be easier if we're living there. No coming back to the apartment after a long day of digging, having everything we need there with this, that kind of thing.

So now, in between getting estimates for the basement and finishing our cabinets in the kitchen, we have to pack up the apartment. This is going to be one crazy week!

One step forward, two steps back...

2008-07-12T23:04:00Z

We got to the house this morning with the intention of putting the last coat on the floor, doing any touch-ups to the paint upstairs and conquering the cabinets. First though, I wanted to check out our new sump pump (which we installed this week after discovering the old one wasn't working), since there was a huge storm here last night. (Our neighbors lost 2 big limbs on their tree!)

The good news: The sump pump works like a charm.

The bad news: There's water seeping in from the edge of the basement floor. It's not a lot of water, but still... I think we're going to end up having someone come out and waterproof the basement before we move in. Lucky for us, we have the apartment till the end of August. Which means that even though we were planning to move next weekend, it's not a huge deal if we can't. It's just frustrating to spend what will be a huge chunk of change right away, and I'm bummed about pushing moving back. (I was all excited to get things set up in the new place.) Ah, the joys of home ownership.

Another one bites the dust...

2008-07-10T12:24:00Z

Another couple in our small group is pregnant, which means that by early next year, there will be three couples with kids. I'm happy for them, because I know that one of her goals in life is to be a mom, but I am so not into kids. (This is when everyone here throws rocks at me, right? It seems so kid-crazy on here sometimes...)

We joined this small group to connect with other "young married" couples, so I guess it just bums me out that, in less than a year, our group has started to morph into the "let's have kids" group. Hopefully, having a kid won't keep them from hanging out and having fun with us. (Although, I'd imagine that it'll limit the spur-of-the-moment stuff that we do.)

Thank goodness that we have one couple here, and one couple back home that aren't anywhere near ready to have kids. I'm not completely alone -- yet!

Hey, you! Get off my lawn!!

2008-07-06T21:41:00Z

Here's a terrifying thought: Not only have I become one of those possessive, cranky homeowners, I have also become my mother. Yikes, I just might need therapy now. (Kidding, kidding, mostly...)

(Quick back-story. My parents moved into their house over the 4th of July. The village parade goes right by their house. My mom's upstairs unpacking when she sees all these people gathering on her new tree lawn. She's ticked - this is HER yard, and these bums better get off it NOW. Dad investigates. They learn the parade's about to go by, and they've sat out with the neighbors almost every year since to watch it.)

Anyway... our new neighbors to the left (not Duane and Joyce) have a boat sitting in their backyard. It looks a little redneck, but it's in the back, it's their yard, whatever. Friday, I'm outside shaking the extra water out of the paint roller, and I notice that there's now a truck in the backyard hooked up to the boat. OK, they're taking the boat out for the 4th. Good for them. But then I realize that the only way to get the truck back to the boat was to drive between the houses - ON OUR LAWN. This is when I start to get a little upset. This is my new yard; our car is in the driveway; the windows are open. It's obvious we're there. Couldn't you ask or give us a heads-up that you'll be driving on our grass?! Grrr.

I tell Andy about this, and he says, "Let's not get them mad at us yet; the yard's dry; they didn't hurt anything. We'll take it up with them later when we're going to plant a flower bed on that side of the house."

OK, fine. I don't want to start a fight with someone that I haven't met yet, especially since we'll be living right next door to them!

But, that evening, Andy's inside finishing up the sanding, and I'm out grilling burgers for us in our driveway. I notice that the truck is back, with the empty boat trailer (they must dock the boat somewhere for the summer), and that they're trying to back the trailer into its spot in the yard. To do so, they're backing it into ours! This isn't just the truck tires being a couple feet over the line; they're backing a good 30 feet into our lawn WHILE I AM STANDING THERE. (Keep in mind that our our lot is 60 feet wide. They're in more than 1/2 our yard.) Then, on their way out, they make the observation, "hey she's grilling!" and they smile and wave. (I did smile and wave back.)

Now this is going to be a problem next year, since we're planning on planting a garden. It's very possible that they would have been driving right over it. And I am so glad it hasn't really rained in a while; can you image what our grass would look like? Since we don't want to pick a fight, we're going to talk to them later on about how we're planning on planting things, and that they'll need to find some other way in and out of their backyard before we get our plants in the ground. Hopefully that works out and doesn't cause too much trouble!

Then, I realized that I had the exact same reaction about my new lawn that my mom did about hers. Scary!

Getting things done

2008-07-06T21:27:00Z

We're working our way down the to-do list. I have the stairway and the one bedroom wall finished. (2 coats of "Creek Bend," which turned out much grayer than I was expecting. The samples made me think it would have more green in it, but it's very gray. Andy's excited because it's very close to the gray that the Navy and Air Force use for the jets... such a dork.) It looks good with the red though, thank goodness. I still have to put at least one, probably two coats of red paint on the rest of the master bedroom.

Andy spent all day Friday sanding and prepping the living room floor for stain and polyurethane. He put the stain on yesterday morning, and he'll put the first coat of polyurethane on tomorrow night after work. It looks really nice, but it ended up not matching the hardwood floors in the hallway and office. (We picked the color based on the mostly-empty can of stain that the previous owners had left in the basement, thinking that it was what they'd used on the floors.) Nope, turns out that it matches the trim perfectly. They must have just put clear polyurethane on the floor and let the natural wood color show through. Oh well. I'm not too concerned about the rooms matching, since the floor goes so nicely with the trim. Maybe we'll do something about that if we go to sell the house later on, but that's the least of my concerns right now.

I'm still not sure how to tackle the kitchen cabinets. Andy was able to rip out the old, rainbow-checked contact paper that was lining the cabinets, and he also took out the aqua and blue vinyl (maybe? I've never seen anything like them before) fake, tile-like things that were glued to the back of the upper cabinets. Unfortunately, they left some really gross, tacky, glue/adhesive stuff on the backside of the cabinets (or the wall, since I'm not convinced that the cabinets actually have backs). And I'm at a loss as to how to get it off. It didn't budge when he scrubbed it with Pine Sol and Spin & Span. Any thoughts?

The cabinets really need some finish or paint or something, but I can't figure out what color to do for them. And since the kitchen is the room that we'd be most likely to really remodel in a few years (hopefully), part of me doesn't want to put a lot of work into them now. Ideally, we'd like to bump out the front kitchen wall so it's level with the front porch, giving us enough room to put the dining room table in there comfortably, adding some cabinet/pantry space, and adding a dishwasher. Since this project would involve moving/adding exterior walls, it'd be pricey. Just how pricey, I don't know. But if we could say "yes, we're doing this in 3 years," I might be tempted just to scrub the cabinets really well and live with them until then. But if it costs too much, then we won't be able to afford it, and I should just fake-fix the cabinets now. Ugh, decisions.

So, that was our weekend. We did get to see fireworks Thursday night with some friends, and then we had dinner and shot off some fireworks with a couple friends from church last night. I also got to hit up our farmer's market Saturday before diving into our projects, so we're stocked on the fresh veggies (and strawberries!) for the week. Our small group/Bible study is meeting at our apartment tonight, so that should be nice too. I definitely feel like I could use a weekend to recover from my weekend though!

We are two very different people...

2008-07-02T04:27:00Z

...and our differences never come out quite as strongly as when we're working on projects together. (If you needed an example for "opposites attract," look no further.) Andy and I have different ways of going about things, and we are starting to drive each other nuts with our various projects.

We have 3 things that we really want to get done before we move into the new house - paint the master bedroom, refinish the living room floor, and refinish/paint the kitchen cabinets. Just about everything else can be done little by little once we're moved in (and after his parents come to visit at the end of the month... again!). So tonight, we go to Home Depot and buy the paint for the bedroom and the ladder that Andy's been wanting. (I didn't think the ladder needed to be bought right away... which probably added to my frustration.) We also wanted to check into renting a sander for the weekend so Andy could take advantage of the long weekend and get the floor done. Turns out this particular Home Depot doesn't rent tools. No big deal; there's a small hardware store just around the block from our place, and we know that they do. But Andy doesn't want to go there; he'd rather just take the ladder back to the apartment and check out the gutters. He'll go tomorrow night, he says. And I'm thinking... great, so he'll be no help with the painting then, if he's running errands all night. Things just snowballed like that all evening. In all fairness, I'm sure that I am just as aggravating to him right now as he is to me. Here's hoping that tomorrow goes smoother!

Thank goodness we only have 3 projects - can you imagine if we'd bought a real fixer-upper?