Doing Our Part to Stimulate the Economy

I am thrilled to report that, despite the inauspicious beginning, Jody and I are half way through with our insulation projects. We had the water heater replaced with an HE unit and moved to a more logical position in the basement, the crawlspace underneath the 1st floor bathroom insulated, and old insulation pulled out from the sill boxes in the basement and replaced with sprayed-in foam.

Yeah, I didn't know what a sill box was, either, but I can talk a good game.

Next on the list is to have the attic air sealed, the old insulation ripped out and replaced with 14" of blown in cellulose.

To give you a picture of how badly we needed this work done, the old water heater was at least 20 years old, the 1st floor bathroom used to be a good 10+ degrees colder than the rest of the house when the door was closed, and while current building code requires that attic insulation is rated no less than R38, we've got about R6 up there. Oy.

My primary goal with all of this work is to first keep the house in good shape (read: prevent it from crumbling around our ears), with the second goal being an increase in efficiency. Apparently the attic improvements wil also keep the 2nd floor cooler in the summer, which is great, because it can really cook up there, despite the AC being cranked up.

I'm also hoping that the new attic insulation prevents new ice dams from forming (the old ones have just about completely melted away in the recent heat wave) because I swear to GOD that there is a new crack in the molding or along the wall seams every time I turn around and it is driving me absolutely BITCHCAKES.

In other house news, we had been thinking about having our garage redone. Currently, you can get a car in there, but being able to open the doors is another matter altogether. In this neighborhood, it seems like you have two choices: use your garage for storage or strip it bare to the walls so you can park you car in there.

We had given some thought to putting on a new garage, and then doing a garage with a bedroom on top, but I had a revelation about a week ago and thought what I would say if a neighbor were to undertake such a project. Since the answer to that scenario was "nothing nice," Jody and I have agreed to put that one on the back burner for the time being.

That's enough outta me for now--I'm going to go and do my impression of a Hungry Hungry Hippo.

I Am Trying to Break Your Heart Stimulate the Economy

...but retailers just. Won't. LET ME.

We've had these quote unquote bedside tables since getting our bed which we purchased shortly after getting married. The tables aren't tables at all, they're trunks, but they were shown at the side of the bed in question in the Pottery Barn catalog, so like a good little Stepford-bot, I bought them.

While purty, they have been driving us nuts--one of us more than the other--since getting them, as they are short, and while good for storing bed linens, aren't worth much with respect to hiding my nighttime sundries (moisturizer, lip stuff, etc.).

After much store and soul searching, I finally find a worthy replacement:
Ah, what did I ever do before Target?

The answer to that, of course, is unnecessarily spend an assload of money at Pottery Barn.

They matched the bed's wood and general scheme, were the right price, and I had a gift certificate burning a hole in my pocket. I bought a pair.

A few days after buying them, I received an email saying that while one table was en route, the second was seriously delayed. Since we had waited this long for new night stands, what was a few more months?

The first table arrived and while it was pretty, its cheap construction left much to be desired. Still, the drawers would provide lots of good--if not linen--storage and, most importantly, Jody liked it.

Today, the other shoe dropped. Target emailed me to say that the table as not available from "any of their sources" [in China] and that the remainder of my order is cancelled. Of course, I'm entirely put out, having to return the one table we do have and come up with another pair we can live with.

Hopefully that won't take another seven years.

O'Hare Drama

Oops, guess this post is a little more than overdue, eh?

The short version (which I've gotten better at telling over the past week) is that some time between curb checking our luggage and the security check point that couldn't have been more than 50 yards away I either got pick-pocketed or thought I had put my wallet in my coat pocket but didn't (the fingers aren't as reliable as they should be these days).

Once I realized I didn't have the ID necessary to get through security, I completely flipped out. Visions of not being home for Christmas slam-danced through my head. I ran around the area where I lost the wallet, checking in with ticketing agents, janitors/cleaning people (apparently referred to as "scrubs"), and other sundry official-looking folks, periodically checking in with Jody, who was looking through our carry-ons even though I knew my wallet wasn't there.

After virtually forcing Jody, Vi, and all of our crap through security, I took a breath and resigned myself to a few hours of looking for the wallet before returning to Wisconsin for another form of ID, driving back to O'Hare, and attempting to get on a stand-by flight. What a way to kick-off a vacation, huh?

I kept checking in with my folks, who were getting to know me by this point, just saying "no wallet yet, sorry" when I would approach them. Many suggested I check lost and found, and while I already had, I went back down to file a report.

As I was doing so, the woman behind the counter asked "Did you lose something, too?" (there was another person there filing a report).

"Yeah, a wallet."

"What did it look like?"

"Black with a devil on it...?"

"Is your name Bridget McCullough?"

"ZOMG!!!1"

The upshot was that the wallet was found by a scrub, sans cash but avec cards, in a restroom trash. I have no idea how much cash I had on me, but it couldn't have been more than $50 since I'm a plastic kinda gal. I really did not care in the least bit about the $$, I was just so glad to have my ID!

Essentially snatching my wallet out of the woman's hands, I sprinted back upstairs and to security. The TSA agent who knew me and my plight took me to the front of the line, where I called Jody to let him knwow that I had my wallet back and would meet him and Vi at our gate.

So that is that! I guess I/we were lucky to get out when we did because O'Hare was a total cluster right up to Christmas Day. Flying into Hartford was a mess as well and we narrowly missed having to fly to Bangor, ME on account of the weather. Yeah, good times.

The good news is that the week got much, much better from there. A merry Christmas, indeed. :)

I Don't Care if They Can't Get a Good Stick From All the Scar Tissue...

...I am going to have them keep drawing blood until I get the results I want.

I Probably Could Just About Vomit Right Now

My laptop has finally come back from the repair shop.

They apparently had to wipe the hard drive.

I am absolutely SICK to my STOMACH.

Fuck.

SO Cranky

The box to ship my dead laptop to the HP fixit shop STILL hasn't arrived so I'm going to be without a lot longer than I had originally thought. I am one pissed off (and totally inconvenienced) brigita.

Craaaaaaaaap.

I had to pay $49.95 to get a warantee good for phone support for two weeks on the laptop that I knew had to be looked at by an actual person since the hard drive wasn't firing up (I wish the phone support guy could go off script for TWO SECONDS and listen to me vs. saying "your display is bad, please back up your hard drive..." Um, guy, I would if it weren't for the fact that more is wrong than just the display).

Long story longer, posting will be sparse over the next week or two. The up side is that my house might actually get organized between now and then. Either that or I will watch my weight in TiVo.

Also, It was snowing when we landed in Madison today (returning from trip to see family in SC--more on that later). See above.

An Open Letter to a Lazy Ass Contractor

Dear house renovation guy,

When you came to take a look at our place to give us a bid on how much the various insulation projects around the house would cost, you were a consummate professional: knew your stuff, didn't talk down to me just because I have a vagina, and we even connected on a have-lived-everywhere level. I dropped the hint that we had bigger renos in our future with the idea that if this project went well, there could be more $$ down the road.

But that was three weeks ago. THREE WEEKS and it's only getting colder here in Southern Canada and I would really like to have these projects at least STARTED before the snow falls.

When I called you last week (Wednesday? Thursday maybe?), you said that you were in the office and hoped to get the quote to me that day. I said that I'd look forward to reading it by the end of the week (wanted to give you a little cushion) and that was the last I heard from you.

Now, I know that I'm not your #1 priority, but it would at least be nice to get the sense that I'm at least in the queue for services. I mean, I thought that with the housing market (and really, the whole flipping economy) in the tank, all you guys were scrambling for work? No?

I'm starting to have the feeling I would get back in my dating days (aka The Dark Ages) when I would call a guy and he'd be all "yeah, we should do something, I'll call you when I know my schedule" and then he wouldn't call and I'd be all "BITCHCAKES!" and would curse the phone and eventually go out with my friends and get pissed at a local bar and then run into the guy as I was coming out of the mens' room (the ladies' was occupado, of course) and then have this totally awkward conversation since I had seen him flirting with a half dozen blondes earlier and had written something nasty about him on the chalkboard over the toilet.

So, I'm going to do as Jody has said and vote with my feet and if you do come crawling back, I will expect some courtesy discount for my trouble (10% should just about do it).

Sincerely,
Crankymouth