the swim

Last Friday we spent most of the day cleaning our old house for our new tenants. That's right, our old tenants broke their lease and moved out 6 months early. Punks. Luckily we were able to find someone else to move in, and we had 2 days in between tenants to clean everything and get it ready for the new people. Also luckily, those 2 days happened to be my days off for the week. Yay for me! They did a pretty good job cleaning the house actually, so it wasn't so bad, except for the guest cottage. The girl who lived out there sort of trashed the place, including smashing one of the windows. Jerk.

That night we went out to dinner with a whole gang: Ilya, Mercedes, Kevin, and Gara, with Phil, Lucy, and Ellie joining us after the meal to say hi. We feasted on barbecue and attempted to listen to some bluegrass from the band playing there, but they weren't very loud and we couldn't really hear it. The food made up for it, though. After dinner we went back to Lucy and Phil's house for some drinks and water sports. Their new house is right on the water, so they have a paddle boat. We attempted to fit all 6 of us on it (Ilya and Mercedes had to go home so they weren't there) and very nearly sank. As you can see by the picture to the right, even 4 people almost sank it. This was all leading up to Kevin swimming in this less-than-sanitary water to earn $31 from Phil. Which he did, with flying colors. He may have almost died, but he made it, and earned Phil's money fair and square.

In other news, I am happy to report that I have spent most of my last 2 days off of work gearing up for the return of The Vampire Diaries next week. I believe I've mentioned my love of this show before. The second season starts a week from tomorrow, so I'm re-watching season 1 in preparation. I've gone through 15 episodes so far, 7 more to go. I can't wait for it to come back, it's seriously the show I'm most looking forward to. Mock me if you will, I'm not ashamed. I just feel sorry for those of you not watching it.

for Rosemary

I just talked to Rosemary and she requested a new post so she didn't have to look at the picture of the watermelon anymore. I don't know why, since it's an awfully cute watermelon, but I'll oblige. I've had to go to work every day for the past 8 days, but in exchange I get 2 days off in a row, tomorrow and Saturday! I'm pretty pumped. Unfortunately I will spend most of tomorrow cleaning. Our tenants moved out of our house yesterday (breaking their lease, which makes me very angry and makes me want to keep all of their security deposit out of spite) and new tenants move in next week, so we have to clean in between. I'm really hoping they didn't mess it up too badly in the 6 months or so that they were there, but we'll see. We haven't actually seen the house yet, Alfred said that he noticed a few things that needed to be repaired the last time he was there though. Punks.

Today after work I met Lucy and went to a Lush party. Not for alcoholics, though I'd certainly qualify for one of those types of parties these days, for the cosmetic and skincare company. Some girl Lucy knows set up this product demo through the store in Orlando, and I've heard about this stuff from someone at work, so I wanted to check it out. We got facials, got little hand massage treatment things, and when I bought something (only 1 thing that I needed anyway!) I got free stuff along with it! There was some food and drinks and it was a nice little evening out. No picture for this post though, when you google "facial" some stuff comes up that you don't really want to see.

out with the old...

Presenting: a photo retrospective of our old house. We bought it in July 2004. This is how it looked when we bought it:











We did a whole bunch of work on it to fix it all up and make it liveable. I guess "whole bunch" is a bit of an understatement.




















Then we moved in, right before Christmas 2004. My family came to visit, and we had Christmas at our house. It was not quite done. Here's some baby Mason for you as well.













This one doesn't really show the house much, but tiny Ella pretending to drink a beer is too funny to pass up.

We did a lot more work over the years: flooring, kitchen counters, paint. And this is how it looked when we moved out. Finished, clean, and beautiful. It took a few long days and late nights to get it looking this good, but it's done and the tenants are in, so hurray!

Another weekend (nearly) gone. It's been a fairly productive one, which is sort of nice. Last week we had our first school groups since winter break, which was good, I needed something to do at work again. Not that I have nothing to do when there are no groups, there's just nothing I want to do. I made brown velvet cupcakes Thursday evening and took them in on Friday. They were brown instead of red due to the lack of food coloring. They tasted good. I had a few interviews too, with varying results.

Friday night we went to Ilya and Mercedes' house for dinner. They had a bunch of really good sushi grade tuna, so it was pretty yummy. Then we watched The Men Who Stare At Goats, which Mercedes and I slept through. Apparently it wasn't as good as Alfred and I had hoped. Saturday we spent far longer than anticipated cleaning the new house. The tile floors, specifically. But they are now clean(er) and sanitized and ready for things to be placed on top of them. The last big cleaning thing we have to do is the blinds, but someone didn't think we needed to bring the vacuum cleaner with us for that this weekend so they'll have to wait.

Today Alfred did a little bit of cleaning and organizing in the garage, while I mostly sat around and was useless. I did exercise and go grocery shopping, so at least I left the house. We also watched the G.I. Joe movie, which probably would have been better if I was a 13 year old boy, but at least the line "knowing is half the battle" was included, which got me pretty fired up (I am a child of the 80s, after all). And "yo Joe." But not "got to get tough," or "real American heroes," but hey, I'm not complaining. Maybe they'll be in the sequel that is so clearly going to be made.

friends!

First of all, I apologize to my thousands of readers who have had nothing to read for days on end. My internet had been stolen for days on end. By the most nefarious villain of them all: Alfred. Well, and time, to be fair. On with the post!

Saturday we were house sitting. It's kind of a long boring story, but we weren't going to and then we ended up doing it. I'm sick of the whole ordeal and want out, but Alfred caved. It is a lot closer for him to go to work, so it makes sense, it just makes me mad. I don't like feeling taken advantage of. They asked Alfred to come pick them up at the airport tomorrow night. At 9pm. We live over an hour from their house. So he wouldn't get home until probably after 11. Ugh. He should say no. Hopefully he'll stay strong. Anyway, we were here on Saturday. We were doing some painting at a house Alfred bought through work and took a little break for lunch with Ilya and Mercedes. Lunch turned into drinking some beer, which of course meant speed Uno, which meant less work got done at the house than intended. But we got the painting done, with some assistance from a slightly intoxicated Ilya and slightly more intoxicated Mercedes. They may have been singing the national anthem for a stretch of time. There may be a video or 2. I imagine if there is, it's hilarious.

Sunday was pretty low key. I insisted on going home and then ended up not feeling so great, so I spent a good chunk of the day on the couch. Monday I braved spending the night alone at the house, and lived to tell the tale. (Have I mentioned that the police officer did come by on Thursday and have me ID the guy in a photo line up? I think I got it right, he said our neighbor did so that's good. Still haven't seen that he's been arrested though.) Then last night I came back here to see Alfred and hang out with even more friends! We went to dinner with Lucy and Phil (and Ellie, though she didn't eat much) and their neighbors, Kevin and Gara. We enjoyed a lovely Mexican meal, along with some frozen margaritas for the real women of the group (that would be me and Lucy). Very nice. No pictures. Sorry.

Tonight we're house sitting for the last night. I came back because a) we can watch Weeds episodes on their TV from our laptop, which we cannot do at home, and b) I'm a big old wuss and was scared at home by myself on Monday. In other random news, today was supposed to break high temperature records. Heat index was predicted to reach 99-103 degrees. I was out doing tours for 2 hours straight. Awesome!

explanation of the white trashiness

(Mike, I timed it, it took me a total of 39 minutes to complete this post, start to finish. Drunk blogging, which you have seen, is totally different from my normal, sober blogging. Although I am about halfway through a Kahlua and cream (aka skim milk) right now.)

So we spent another weekend as vagrants. After work on Friday I headed up to meet Alfred and his parents for dinner near the house we've been working on (the one we've been painting and staying at here and there, not the model.) We spent the night at that house, then spent all morning and early afternoon Saturday looking for dining room furniture for the model. We were sort of in a hurry because I had to head back to work that afternoon, hence Alfred slurping down some leftovers for lunch as we sat in traffic in the truck. It was total class.

After work I did some shopping, then headed back up to pick Ellery up at work and meet Alfred at his parents' house. Max and Robyn had tickets to see Wicked (which I'm totally jealous of) so we were in charge of getting Ellery home. We ended up staying for dinner and then spending the night. By the way, if you ever wonder if there's anyone out there who actually watches the NFL draft, wonder no more. Yes, Ellery recorded and watched (though with some fast forwarding) the entire thing.

Sunday we did a little more furniture searching, found a great table at Walmart that they no longer carry, then headed back to the model with all of our loot so I could set things up. We also got to meet up with Ilya and Mercedes for lunch at 5 Guys. And so, without any further ado, I present model pictures. First, the bathroom downstairs:

The master bedroom:


Master bath:


Kids' bedroom (fun fact: the bottom bunk has a mattress, the top bunk has a box spring. Total bitch to make it):

There are several toys in the toy box, and a couple of Dr. Seuss books on top of the dresser.

Baby room:

We plan to add a couple of pieces of furniture to this side, I forgot to get them at Ikea.

And my personal favorite, the kids' bathroom:

How cute is this set?? I would like this for my own bathroom!

I also found a set at Walmart that had sea creatures on the shower curtain, the soap dispenser has an octopus on it, the soap dish is a turtle, and the toothbrush holder is a lobster who holds the toothbrushes in his claws and tail. Freaking adorable! I need kids so I have an excuse to buy that shit. Or maybe not. Also, there's no attic, so no, we're not living here.

So that's where all the Ikea stuff went. Keep in mind, all of that furniture cost about $2200. Not bad. I bought a bunch of knick knacks for the kitchen, so I'll take a picture of that when I set it all up. Unfortunately Hobby Lobby doesn't carry aby fake fruit bowls in which to hide boxes of cereal. We still need to buy a table for the eating nook in the kitchen, and either a table or couch for the living room area. No one has quite decided on that yet. But thank God, we're almost done. As much fun as it's been to spend other people's money, it's getting to be a bit of a pain in the ass.

non-smurf pictures

I've been attempting to write a post for like 2 hours, but I've been so busy sitting on my ass and watching mindless tv/reading mindless drivel online that I haven't gotten around to it. I even uploaded pictures like half an hour ago. So without any further ado, here are a few pictures from our trip to Ikea last weekend.

Yes, all 3 carts are ours. I even forgot 2 pieces of furniture. Luckily we manged to cram it all into the car.

But with no seat for Mike.

No, he didn't actually ride back to our house like that. We just barely managed to talk him out of it, though. And the most fun part of the trip, for the boys at least: the carts.




I worked on setting stuff up in the model house yesterday, but have some more things I need to buy and bring up. I'll try to remember to take some pictures. It's been fun spending all this money on furniture and stuff!

Alfred's been working his little butt off today. Last weekend he and Mike cut down a couple of palm trees in our backyard, and today Alfred's been working on cutting up the trunks and branches. He's making me feel guilty about being such a lazy ass. But I did some dishes and cleaned up the kitchen a little and swept the floor.

A chainsaw and beer: good combination. The beers are from last Friday. As in, a week and a half ago, not 2 days ago. That's how we roll: disgusting.

One of the trees they cut down. This one fell the right way. The other one is floating in the water. Our neighbor said that someone in some sort of government agency boat (he told me but I forgot) was going by the other day and stopped and checked out the floating tree. It's now tied to the dokc so it won't float away. Cause it's too heavy to pull out of the water.

One last picture, in case you wondered what happened to our Christmas tree:

3 beds in 3 nights

(So this guy I think I "dated" for a day in middle school is chatting with me on facebook. See, this is the kind of crap I could have avoided by not joining. Curse you, Katherine and Katie!)

We've been living the vagrant life this weekend. On Friday after work I drove up and met Alfred at one of the houses he bought through work. The plan was to spend the night there and do some work on Saturday, but as with many of our plans, it ended up changing slightly. Turns out the well pump didn't work, so we had no water. So we ended up at Alfred's parents' house that night. Saturday morning we started out at our CPA's office (we're such grown ups) to get our taxes done. I stayed in the car and read, thinking it would take about 30 minutes. An hour and a half later, I had to pee like crazy and Alfred still wasn't back, so I went into the lobby of the big fancy building in search of a restroom. Luckily there was a woman there who pointed me in the right direction. I realized once I looked in the mirror how crazy I looked: jeans, sweatshirt that looks like something out of the 70s, glasses, and windblown hair. In other words, like a bum.

Eventually Alfred came out and we went to Chik Fil A for breakfast. We got there right as they were switching from serving breakfast to serving lunch, so we got a little of each. I decided that was a good time to put my contacts in, so I did so in the bathroom. It took awhile to get our food, so the manager gave us a coupon for a free sandwich, which was awesome. Since we had to redeem it at that restaurant Alfred went up to get it before we left. While we were eating that, an employee came around with a tray of breakfast food that hadn't sold and offered us samples. So of course we took some. While we were finishing those up, she came back around and asked if we would take the last 2 sandwiches so they didn't have to throw them out. So we did. It was flippin fantastic. We ended up getting 10 different items for $11. We figure it was because we looked like bums and seemed so desperate for food.

Eventually we did make it to the house.

We got some painting done, although not as much as I had hoped (I always forget how long it takes) then gave up around 6 and left to meet Ilya and Mercedes for some beer, wings and Uno. We crashed at their house that night. We took advantage of the running water and showered too, which was nice. Cause when you're a vagrant, you need to take advantage of those situations.

Today we were up early again and back to the house. More painting, more plumbing, more running to Home Depot and other houses Alfred has bought. Then we met up with Ilya, Mercedes, Max, and Robyn for lunch at this awesome barbecue place. We finally ended up getting home at about 6. Since then we've both exercised, done laundry, made granola, Alfred made lentil soup to cook overnight for lunches tomorrow, and I obviously blogged. Busy, busy. And I got harassed by that dude on myspace. He said I should call him. Um, weird. This is why I don't want any reference to my blog or any link to it on facebook, by the way. Cause of weirdos. I just logged the f off. Ooh, granola's done. Time for bed, laters!