Random Sunday Blog

I thought I'd write just to touch base since it has been a little while.  Things have been going very well lately.  I am enjoying work more than I have before, we have decided on a contractor for our bathroom, and it hasn't gotten unbearably hot in Texas yet this summer.  Life is good!


Also my oldest is getting married in August and I'm so looking forward to see her again and seeing her getting married to a man she has loved for years. 


We have had fun picking out colors, vanity styles, etc., for the bathroom. We are getting sliding barn doors for the closet and bathroom entry. These are doors that roll across a track that is on the outside of the door above the doorway. Anyway we were wanting to find 3 antique doors to use for the doors and I thought it would be easier than it has been. There were a few places we checked in town yesterday and one lady had a few doors but none that were the size we need.


Hubby knows a guy that he thought would have some and he happened to have his business card from years ago when we owned Wood Stock. This guy salvages things as well as gets some props that have been used on movie sets.  There are the fake wooden windows that were used for the movie True Grit that we got to see on an outbuilding there.  Anyway, there were not as many doors as had hoped they would have.  We did see two matching ones but they wanted $200 a piece for them and that was giving us a break. Ouch!  They didn't look any better than the doors we saw yesterday at an antique store for $40 a piece. So we passed. It was  a nice ride out to the country and we got to see where we used to have Woodstock, but we went ahead and ordered some knotty pine doors at a local store that we will have stress painted by the same gal who did the one in our dining room so we are happy with how we think they'll turn out.

Good Monday!

I know I usually hate Mondays!  But got an early start with my walk and took Merlin with me.  It was still a bit cloudy so it was nice not having to wear my hat (which just makes me sweat more).  I watered the balcony gardens (pulled 5 caterpillars from my parsley that got on them at some point and tossed them off the balcony and over the fence).  I don't know why I keep thinking I won't get bugs by having plants up on the balcony, because they come anyway.  I have a pepper plant in the front that is fighting a losing battle still with the aphids too!


Anyway this was going to be a happy post not sad.  Anyway got dogs fed, washed up and got to work at 8:00AM.  I got through a lot of work today.  I was on a roll and also got some great news as well and cannot go into particulars but let's just  say I'm a happy worker! 


I had some yummy leftovers for lunch from eating at Cotton Patch on Saturday evening and enjoyed a Mike's lemonade (hubby surprised and bought it for me to try) with dinner.  Overall just a great day!! Just weird for a Monday to be so great!  I'll take it though!


Here is  picture of a few recent houseguests and no they were not invited :)

Both were set free unharmed.  Just don't want them back any time soon. I don't mind the cute little gecho type creatures but the lizard was about 6 inches long and not a tiny cute thing

Almost Friday

Another seeming long week is almost over.  I have been getting up earlier and walking in the morning instead of after dinner. Did I already write this?  I hope not. Anyway it has made me a little more tired than I'd normally be I thinking, because instead of getting up at 7:30AM on the days I don't do my regular exercise routine, I've been getting up at 6:30AM to do my walk early.  I've been taking one dog with me too which makes it take a little longer, for sniffing stops and peeing/pooping stops.  But it is fine. I get washed up when I come back and grab my coffee and am ready to go.  So I'm trying not to complain about feeling tired right now.  LOL


I think we've decided on our bathroom remodel. We picked some great guys who after revisions, gave us a decent quote that we can live with.  It is going to be at least a month away, but it is nice to know that it is really going to happen.  Now that's something to be excited about. That and the fact that tomorrow is Friday. Yea!!!!

Happy Father's Day!

Posted this today on Facebook. Wanted to share...

 To a man who served in WWII...married my mother...had four wonderful children (no bias there)...ventured out of state to start a business with a small group of like-minded men determined to not just simply punch a time clock...who refused to succumb to advanced stage non-Hodgkin's lymphoma nearly 10 years ago...and who will most likely be holding a winning bridge hand until the day he passes....to you I wish you Happy Father's Day! I am so proud to be your daughter!

Back on the shelf?..

We had ReBath here yesterday and forget them!  If we are lucky our $15K may cover a really nice shower but that's it.  The estimate they gave us using the same foot print and replacing with new (not extravagant mind you) is $22,150. WHAT?!!  I'm sorry but a bathroom remodel should not be that much.  And with this guy yesterday everything was expensive.  To remove some minor wall paper and get the walls paint ready, not even painted, just 'paint ready' was $1200. Seriously?  I don't know we may just forget about it for now. 


Oh and that interior designer that was here it will be 3 WEEKS ago as of tomorrow?  She called today to follow up with us?  Follow up? We thought she just blew us off.  She left a message that she had been away on a long vacation for a week and a half. Okay that accounts for half of the time it took for her to get back to us.  We're not bothering contacting her back.  Poor service from the start is a red flag to us. 


And the rest of the companies we've had out here have not gotten back to us yet. Two of those were here a week or more ago. And every one of them said "Give me a day or two to get back to you".  It makes me feel like our measly little bathroom is not worthy of the remodel it needs. Or our budget is too small of a job for anyone here to be interested in. All I know is that something that should be exciting and full of anticipation is turning into a nightmare. 

Old Bathroom

I am finally posting pictures of our old master bathroom before I totally forget.  Here is our 32 year old 'vintage' bathroom. This should present a fairly good picture of why I can't wait to get it redone! I didn't take close ups of the cabinets under the sinks but they are pretty scratched up or worn as well.

Closet bi-fold doors full of dog scratches.

trim for closet more dog scratched areas

Double sink with long (fake) marble top

My sink...faucet is eroding away....yucky sink!

Tub and shower crammed into the rear of the bathroom (past the sink area)

Old vinyl curled up along bathtub edge

Inside of the tub/toilet area with the door nearly closed. OLD wallpaper too

Old bathtub and fixtures...I've always hated the tub not matching shower

Dirt is ground in (porcelain is worn away, dull finish)

..

Next

It has been a wonderful couple of nights not sticking to the sheets.  Now the focus is on remodeling the 32 year old bathroom. That interior designer never got back to us, now that has been 2 1/2 weeks so forget her.  We have had 3 different contractors/remodelers here so far and expecting a Rebath rep here on Monday.  Of the 3 that have been here we liked the ones today the best so far.  They were the only ones to look in the attic to see if there was plumbing above the toilet, wrote down the most on their notepad, and were the friendliest!  To top it off I asked them if they have a crew or crews that they use, waiting for them to say yes and how many.  They said they do all the work themselves!  Wonderful!  They are also the only ones who asked us for our email to send correspondence.  So that is a good sign.  


I won't forget to take the 'Before' pictures either. I just keep forgetting about it.  Long work week. Very glad it is over.  Have some friends over for dinner tomorrow evening so that will be fun.  Have a lot of cleaning to do tomorrow to get the house presentable.  Then Sunday it is relax time!

Cool mama!

Okay here are the after photos.  This was yesterday. They were suppose to arrive between 8:30AM -9:00AM.  A man called at 9:20AM and said he just got the work order and was it okay to come then, they'd be about a half hour.  I bit my tongue but I wanted to say, and that is my problem why??   I did tell him they were suppose to get here between 8:30AM - 9:00AM!  He did apologize and said they have no control when they get word about an order.  I suppose they only get called if they are working?  I don't know.

This is ARS Roto Rooter which I thought was strictly for solving problems 'down the drain'.  They do also do A/C and heat and were the best presenter of the folks we had out.  They were not the cheapest bidder at all and actually the highest bid.  However one guy sounded like they might have to cut through the ceiling to get the old system out. Yikes!! And one was in an obvious hurry to get to 'the next' thing.  This guy took his time and explained exactly everything that would be done to my hubby. He was here close to an hour.  The others, 10 minutes and the other about 30 minutes. We did get ARS to drop their price by about $700. So we went with them. 


Once the guys got here they went right to it. They did not have any trouble getting the old heater/ac unit down from our attic via the attic stairs and the job went very well except for  a nice patio stone that they broke and did not tell us about that is out back near the outside unit they had to place.  We replaced it with a spare that we had, but it would have been nicer for them to fess up to breaking it.  Did they think we wouldn't see it? They are lucky we did have a spare one, or I would have complained.  I'm sorry but spending close to $7000, there should be no issues. And we didn't even buy the highest priced unit.  Of the 3 options provided, we chose the lowest.  The system is a Lennox which is suppose to be 'good' but who knows. I read different reviews on the Internet. And we know how reliable the Internet is right?  ;-)


The guy who sold us the job said they'd be here by 9:00AM and out by 1:00PM. Well 5:00PM rolled around and they were not quite done yet.  Now I don't really mind because I wanted a good job done, but don't tell us it is a 4 hour job when it is really a 7+ hour job (they got here around 10:00AM).  Don't they know that in sales the mantra is "Under promise and over deliver" NOT "Over promise and under deliver"!  I know it still is a big unit with funny arms (tubing) but it is nice and shiny now and it works great!  The walls no longer vibrate!!  We used it last night and it was wonderful not sweating all night long!  This system should last for years and years. 

Hot Mama!

Well I haven't posted pics of our old bathrooom yet but I will. First we are getting our old huge clunker A/C Heating unit up in the attic replaced. If it is as old as the house, it is 32 years old. So I asked hubby to take some "BEFORE" photos that I can post. Here they are. One of them actually looks like it has 2 orbs in it. Too funny!   It got up to the low 90's today and it will be another hot one tonight - thus the title of my blog.  Looks like an alien in the attic.

this is the one with 2 possible orbs in it

Already Sunday night...

Darn!  This weekend just went too fast.  It is already Sunday evening.  Oh well.  We did enjoy seeing a movie today at the theater.  We saw the new X-men movie and we both liked it.  There is a lot of action and special effects with no boring parts.  And I do have to say Hugh Jackman looks very buff!! :-) 

This morning I made up an insect repellent concoction made with dish soap and water to spray on some green pepper plants that I have.  One had a lot of ants on it and both have aphids especially on the underside of the leaves. So I sprayed them a lot this morning!  I just checked now and there were a few ants on the one pepper and some aphids on the other.  It is hard to tell if the back side of the leaves now have dead aphids/eggs or not.  LOL.  I don't want to spray too soon again though in case it isn't good for the plants, so I'll wait 2 or 3 days before I spray again.  I'm proud to report we have a tiny jalapeno pepper already!  It is only about an inch long but woo hoo!! :))

Tomorrow morning we are expecting someone to show up to give us an estimate for a/c & heating replacement in the attic.  I sure do hope that nowadays the units are a lot smaller than what was used back in 1982.  That contraption in the attic is huge! 

We are going to take our time and get at least 3 estimates for both ac/heat and bathroom, that is if we can get someone to get back to us. Oye! :)

Well off to relax and watch some TV to finish up the evening.