Random Tuesday from home

Why am I working at home you ask?  Excellent question!  The painter is here to . . . wait for it  . . .  FINISH the bathroom project!!  How happy am I?  VERY.  Having a shiny new shower that I was advised not to use until the new plaster and wood was painted has been like torture.  The only bonus has been listening to The Girl when she's showering in the downstairs bathroom.  She talks, she sings - it can be quite entertaining.

Usually when I work from home, I put my work laptop on the kitchen table.  Today, because the sewing machine is on the kitchen table, I have my work laptop on the desk where my home Mac is.  I keep using the wrong mouse and/or keyboard.  I might have to move the sewing machine and move my laptop to the kitchen table.  This is getting annoying.

December?  Are you kidding me?  I'm so not ready for it to be December.

The UPS guy is going to hate me.  I'm doing most of my Christmas shopping online.  I have no patience for shopping in stores anymore.

Hey, Keeley?  We've got a mouse, too.  We seem to get one or two this time every year.  I found his telltale leavings by the cat food.  The Mailman set a trap, but so far, the little bastard has eluded us.  I'm waiting for the middle of the night cat scramble to wake me up.  Always a good time.

Have a happy Tuesday everyone.  Go see Keeley for more randomness.  Don't worry, its safe.  She only traps little things and zombies.

Dear So-And-So . . .

Dear People in the XYZ Department -
Thanks SO much for making me wait all day for a file from from you that, oh yeah, doesn't really need to be completed today.  Today?  Yeah, supposed to be my day off.  I'm so glad that I spent it waiting to run your file that you're now going to give me on Monday.  Oh, and this issue, the one that we're trying to fix?  This is the same issue that I gave you the heads up about 14 MONTHS ago, right?  And now we've got to get all of your "ducks in a row" so this year end isn't as F'd up as last year end?  Yeah, I thought so.
Sorry, just not happy right now.
Mary Anne


Dear Men Fixing My Bathroom -
THANK YOU for finishing yesterday.  I'm so happy to have a working toilet and running water.  A couple of things I might have had you do a tad bit differently, but that's the risk I take by leaving you at the house while I go make the money to pay you.  I'm just going to let it go . . .  And nothing personal, but I'm pretty darn happy not to have you in my house today.
Hugs and kisses!
Mary Anne


Dear Andy the Painter -
Yay!  You can come by tomorrow!!  I know, I said all along that I was going to paint myself, but really, did anyone believe me?  I know The Mailman didn't, but he's being a good sport about it and not rubbing it in too much.  Now, lets hope that you can do the work next week and we can really move in to the new bathroom and get all of the bathroom stuff out of my bedroom.
Thank you, thank you, thank you (and I know you're not just doing it because your my sisters friend!)
Mary Anne


Go see Kat for some more so and so fun and games. 

RTT - from Halloween to Christmas in 500 words or less

Fingers crossed! When I go home tonight, I should have a working toilet, sink and shower. (Amendment to this… the plumber, who is also a friend of the family, just called me at work. The sealed box with the faucet in it… missing multiple parts. I just walked him through all of the paperwork on my desk at home to find the Home Depot receipt so that he can go and exchange it for me, assuming they have another one with all the parts. ** sigh **)
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I went out last night to put out the trash and it smelled like Fall. I love how I can smell the different seasons, and I think the smell of Fall and the smell of coming snow are my favorites.
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I bought Halloween candy the other day and hid it. The Girl knows it is in the house, but has yet to locate it. Heh, heh, heh. (and I’ve only eaten two pieces…)
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I drove home last night in the mostly dark and then remembered that we move the clocks back this weekend. I’ll be getting up in the dark and driving home in the dark and can see no daylight from my office. I better start taking some vitamin D.
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So the questions of “What does The Girl want for Christmas?” have started furiously arriving from grandparents, aunts and uncles. I have NO IDEA what we’re getting her for Christmas, so, sorry, I have nothing to offer you. She’s past most of the “toy” stuff (and I just don’t want to bring any more crap into the house). She wants a cell phone and a laptop. Nope and nope. She’s been taking keyboard lessons on a rather crappy borrowed keyboard, so I guess we’ll go that route. I didn’t want to make the investment if she wasn’t going to follow through, but she says she wants to keep going, even though I have to tell her multiple times every day to “PRACTICE!” Maybe a nicer keyboard will help, and it will be a pretty big box under the tree.
Oh, and my brother sent me a link for a Galileospope, saying that a guy he knows through work is a pretty serious amateur astronomer who says that this is a great deal on a pretty good piece of equipment, so I ordered it.


If you want some more Random, click on the purple and go see Keeley. She's got the key to the good stuff.

RTT - still waiting to want to kiss him full on the lips

I can't get this old commercial out of my head, from about 10 years ago, I think. I don't even remember what it was for, but it had a contractor in it, and it basically said "You hire me, I come in and rip out your walls, your floors, you ceiling, everything, then I disappear for two weeks, leaving you with nothing. Then I come back without explanation, put it all together, better than ever, and you're so happy you kiss me full on the lips." Okay, I don't quite have the two weeks going, but I did have MIA plasterers for three days, and nobody can do anything else until the plasteres are done. I just want want my bathroom back, we should have been done this week ... it is only a little bathroom, people, how long does it take?


We went to our friend's daughter's wedding over the weekend. It was very nice, but I proved to myself that I am, in fact, not as young as I used to be. I got up Sunday morning, feeling a bit, how should I say this ... under the weather. The Mailman sent me back to bed after a while, he couldn't take looking at me curled in a ball on the couch. We had rain and snow (yup, actual snow, WAY too early for that) all day, so it was a good day to spend in jammie pants under the covers. The cats were happy because I didn't move much all day. Remind me of how I felt the next time I want to drink cosomopolitans, okay?


After much debate, I got The Girl the H1N1 vaccine this morning. I went to her doctor, who I trust very much, talked it out with him, he calmed my fears and I ended up convinced that it was the right thing to do. We've already had several confirmed H1N1 cases in her school, with a bunch more kids out sick. She's had the seasonal vaccine in the past with no issues, and will get that again when she goes for a checkup in a few weeks. This parenting thing is hard.



That's all I've got. Go see Keeley, over there by the purple button. There are probably some people over there that aren't still trying to recover from Saturday night. And let's hope Keeley's wrong about the "zombie virus" thing...

ACK! Is it Tuesday already?

I love the Monday holidays, I really do, but it sure does mess me up for the whole week. I know, it doesn't take much.

I just took a swig of my coffee, which was almost gone, and got a mouthful of coffee grounds, which I will now be picking out of my mouth for the next hour. Does that count as unprofessional office behavior?

The Mailman, The Girl and I went toilet shopping over the weekend, as part of the Great Emergency Bathroom Renovation. Nothing says "Big Friday Night" like toilet shopping. The toilet we bought is advertised as being able to flush a bucket of golf balls. I'm sending The Mailman back today to buy another one for the downstairs bathroom, since we now have a plumber in residence to install it, and you just never know when you might need to flush two buckets of golf balls. I'm thinking this might be a good way to get rid of some crappy (ha!) Happy Meal toys that just so happen to be about golf ball sized.

Swing by Keeley's place for more random stuff. She might still be recovering from her turkey coma, but she's got a friend house sitting and they've got the keys.

My bathroom is getting me back

We've lived in our house for seven years, and I have always hated our upstairs bathroom. I haven't even tried to disguise my hatred from the bathroom and it is now paying me back . . .

When we moved in, the tub was disgusting. In an effort to "pretty it up," the previous owner* had attempted a DIY refinishing, which peeled off in big chunks. The Girl was just about 3 at the time, so disgusting peely tub was a big bad. Because we had just bought the house and money was a bit tight (to say the least!), we went the path of least resistance and got a tub liner put in. It wasn't cheap, but it wasn't anywhere near what it would cost for full renovation. We figured we'd wait a couple of years and then do the bathroom over.

Fast forward seven years to me scrubbing the tub and realizing that there is water, lots of water, between the tub liner and the old tub. Hmmmm, that can't be good. Call the tub liner people. Our warranty has (not surprisingly) expired, but they can come out and take a look and drain the water for $130. Okay, they come, they drain, they say, "it could be this" or "it could be that" and "we recaulked so you should be okay for a while." I'm happy with my ugly bathroom again. Until I realize a couple of days later that the water is back. And that the water is leaking through the floor to the ceiling of the downstairs bathroom. ACK!

I issue a cease and desist order to The Girl and The Mailman relative to use of the upstairs shower. Thankfully, we have another shower, so we begin the slow deliberation process - do we attempt a fix or do we just rip out the old bathroom and start fresh. I vote for total re-do. The Mailman votes for fix attempt. I tell Mailman that fix attempt will involve removal of tub tiles and walls (a good number of tiles are cracked and may be our issue) and that any "fix" may end up being an issue with the tile floor, the other walls, etc. We're doing a total re-do. We call a couple of guys and a friend of a friend that is a plumber

So, starting tomorrow, the Sunshine household will be in more than its usual amount of disarray. Now I've got to get rid of seven years of accumulated bathroom crap from the shelves and under the sink. *sigh*

On a side note, Doofus cat is quite happy. He has a deep love of boxes and cardboard. Right now, there is a large box in the living room with our new vanity in it. He is king of the mountain!Did I mention that he's a Tub of Goo? Yeah, I think I did.


* The previous owner bought our house at foreclosure, never lived in it and "re-did" a lot of it himself. He was NOT a craftsman, but on the surface, things looked fine. A lot of what he'd done very badly we have had to fix. He also caused us to have the closing from HELL. Two days, me crying in the lawyers office (without tissues, because who brings tissues to a real estate closing?), all of my worldly possessions on a truck with nowhere to go, our other house already sold and people living in it . . . He is not popular around here.