Pumpkins and PJs

It's Halloween and here's what we are up to: nothing. Peanut was supposed to be batman, but it is a little too cold for those pajamas, plus he got new Thomas PJs and a robe today because it is freezing in my house and short sleeves just will not cut it anymore. Daddy brought home some electric pumpkins that he and Little P are currently placing all over the living room in an attempt to decorate for the festive evening. It is sort of difficult to get into the spirit when we live on a very busy road that does not get any trick-or-treaters due to the danger of being hit by a speeding car, but Daddy is making a good attempt at decorating. We are currently watching Oswald on NOGGIN and this catchy little Halloween tune came on. It is stuck in my head now; awesome.
Have a safe and happy Halloween!

The Afternoon in Review

We tore up the floor in our bathroom and then I decided that since I was already in destroy-mode, I might as well take down all the icky tile. So I did. It took about 4 hours to do the floor and the tile. Somebody else gets to clean it up... I have to work tomorrow, so Peanut and I are going to bed. Yes, I am aware it is not even 7:30; no, I do not have a life. Night!!!

The Results...

Of our Home Depot trip:

8 cases of tile

4 bags of mortar

1 roll of shower pan liner

1 shower drain

and a partridge in a pear tree.

The plain tile is for the shower walls and the bathroom floor. The mosaic type tile is for the floor of the shower. I am taking all of the icky green tile off of the walls, so we will have to put up new drywall, but we'll talk about that next time. Then I am going to do light brown walls with dark brown texture (never done that before, so we will see how that turns out).

This is going to be so much fun. We actually did not get everything we need, because Daddy was afraid my car would be overloaded and we would not make it home, but we have enough to start the project. I am going to tear up the bathroom floor and remove the vanity right now.

Time to Call in the Tile Guy

The new shower has been framed and is almost ready for whatever we are going to do with it. First we have to decide where the plumbing is going to go, and we have to go pick out the tile. We looked at shower inserts a couple days ago, but I think we have decided that the shower would lose too much space (which is not enough to begin with). We are going to tile it, but we are going to have to enlist some help for this part. Good thing one of my friends from work knows how to do this stuff and has offered to help out; we are going to need it!
Before we do anything to actually make the bathroom look nice, we are going to have to finish tearing it apart. This afternoon I will be tearing up the floor, and (if I can talk Daddy into it) I will be removing the awful green tile from the walls. I would love to tile the walls as well, but I would settle for new drywall, texture and paint. I do not think we can tile the shower and floor and leave the rest of the bathroom the way it is. That's just wrong.
Anyway, I am going to work out and then come back and try to get Daddy up and ready for a trip to Home Depot and Lowes. Yeah! One of my favorite ways to spend a Saturday.

Son, It's Too Early...

I guess I bring this on myself, but it has been a long morning, and the sun is just now coming up. Right now, as I write this; I have been up for three hours already. I got up at 4 to go work out. Fine, no big deal. I came home, washed the dishes and took Uncle James to work. At 6:15 I got home and was just sitting down to read my book until Peanut got up when... Peanut got up! At 6:15. I scooped him out of his car bed and took him to my room to lay down with Daddy and I, hoping he would fall back asleep (miracles do happen). It was nice and dark and quiet for five minutes.

Peanut: "Hi, Mommy."

Me: "Hi, Baby."

Peanut: "Hi, Daddy."

Daddy: "Hi, Peanut."

Peanut: "Give me your hand, Mommy."

I hold my hand up in the dark... somehow he finds it (I think he may have infrared vision)

Peanut: "High Five, Mommy!!!"

Me: Sighs.

I guess it is time to wake up, since Daddy then gets a high five and Little P tries to climb over us to get down.

It is 7:22am. We have already played dinosaurs, taken a bath, gotten dressed, eaten breakfast (Kiwi, string cheese, dried cranberries, milk and a marshmallow)

I am not sure where he learned about marshmallows, but he talked about eating one the entire time he was taking a bath. He must have been dreaming of them.

I am going to make some coffee.

This is Soooo Not Cool

So, we knew we were going to have to redo the floor in our "master" bathroom soon, and probably replace some of the structural wood in the shower because of Dry Rot. Not too big an issue, but something we would have to work on soon. Daddy found this contractor that needed some work (big surprise with this economy), and decided to hire him to do the work. I am so glad, because our little bit of structural damage turned into a HUGE project! Oh my gosh, I do not know how the shower was still functioning. I cannot believe it did not cave in on us and we did not fall through the floor. The walls were rotted all the way around and the floor was completely ruined by very extensive water damage. By the time Mike (the contractor) finished removing the rotten wood (for today) we ended up with no walls and barely any floor. There are large holes in the bathroom floor; I can see the dirt under my house. That is something I never wanted to see, ever. Bottom line, we need a new everything in the bathroom, and we are so glad we hired someone to help us this time! Hopefully this will not take too long to finish. In the meantime I will just chant the mantra that I have chanted since we first started pouring sweat and tears and money into this house:

"I love my house. I love my house. I love my house"

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

Today is Daddy's birthday, but since we all had to work, we had a party yesterday. It was fun; I invited tons of people, but only family and a couple others showed, which is great because my house is not big enough for major entertaining. Jim's brother AND sister came, which is a miracle in itself, because the three of them together is a rare occurrence indeed. Everyone is always busy at different times, and it keeps us apart too often. We had a BBQ and I made a lovely cake and we all just hung out for the afternoon. It was very nice. I drank two glasses of wine, and it was one glass too many. Bedtime for Mommy was 7:30pm. Low tolerance for alcohol, or something. There is tons of food left over, so come and have dinner with us if you are in the area!

Crrrruuunnncchhhh

That is the sound the door of my car made this morning when a freakin' truck ran into it. Let me just tell you that this crunching sound is even more scary when you are directly on the other side of the crunching, and the only thing separating you from the the bumper of a truck is the door currently crunching in. Nice.

That is the dramatic version. Now, here is what happened. I got a $10 off coupon for Best Buy, and since we have a lovely new Best Buy here in town, I decided to go there and get the Leona Lewis CD I have been wanting (but not wanting to spend $14 on). So I got a new CD for $4 (which is about what CD's should cost anyway).

And the day was happy.

Then I had to go to Kmart because they had an ad in the paper last weekend and I wanted to see if the shoe organizer I wanted was still on sale. It wasn't, but that is OK, because I really did not need it, I just wanted it if it was cheap.

And the day was still happy.

Then I had to go to Safeway to get coffee creamer and a few other food type items. I ran in while uncle James and Peanut sat in the car listening to my lovely new CD. I grabbed my creamer, a new toothbrush, some dried fruit for Peanut and I was out of there. Record time in the grocery store.

And the day was quite happy.

I got back into the car, looked behind me and waited for a guy to walk behind the car before pulling out. So far, so good. I pulled out of my space and had just started to put the car in drive when suddenly the back of a truck is headed straight for my face. My brain hoped for a tenth of a second that the truck would see me and stop, but there was not time to finish the thought before the crunching told me that stopping was not going to be an option for this driver.

And the day was NOT happy!

It turned very sad, very quickly.

I pulled back into my space and got out my insurance info, we traded stuff, I took some pics with my phone and then we went home to call the insurance company. The man was very nice on the phone, and when I talked to Daddy he said it was all good, too. So, I am currently calming myself down. I am not so much upset about the accident as I am about my car. My beautiful little car was not in mint condition before today, but I am never happy when something big happens to something I still owe so much money on! I am glad I actually witnessed this accident, though. My car has two other nasty dents and some pretty bad scrapes from three other cars smashing into mine in parking lots while I was at work; and of course, nobody thought to leave any insurance info when those happened. At least I can get this one fixed, and nobody was hurt; I guess it's all good. Still, upsetting. Just thought I would share.

Peanut and I are off to a play date at a friend's house... wish us luck on the road!

Dinosaurs

Peanut loves dinosaurs. He does not have any idea what a dinosaurs are, but they are loads of fun. He is obsessed. I guess there are worse things.

What To Write...

There has been absolutely nothing going on this week. It was a pretty uneventful weekend, except we went to Denios Farmer's Market in Roseville for a day out. What better way to spend a Saturday morning than walking around looking through people's old stuff and some new stuff for great deals on stuff you probably don't need? I love it. It's like going to a ginormous garage sale and discount store all in one, and outside. Cool.

I spent the rest of Saturday moving wood from various piles in the back yard to the carport, because it is almost time to start using the fireplace. Yes, the fireplace. The house we live in has terrible insulation, and the furnace does not put out hot air, so most of the time the house is freezing, and colder than it is outside. This is great in the summer; but when you wake up in the morning and it is 42 degrees (NOT and exaggeration) in the house (and heats up to a maximum of 54 degrees by afternoon), the wood stove comes in handy. True, we must spend the day and half the night huddled in the living room, but it makes for great quality time with the family. I am not complaining. I wish it was warmer in the house, but at least we have a house, and a wood stove is better than nothing. Anyway, I spent the afternoon moving wood to the carport so that I do not have to hunt through the piles in the rain for dry pieces like last year. It is really rather pathetic, but I remember bundling up Peanut and putting him in his backpack carrier and going out to hunt for dry wood in the yard (no uncle James living with us then to watch him while I went outside, and Daddy was at work). Oh, I have learned much in the way of county living. Don't try to light a fire without kindling and never store your wood in piles under tarps in the yard; they get wet, no matter what. So, I got my workout yesterday doing that.

Then I went with a friend from work to have sushi. I had it for the first time a couple of months ago, and it has grown on me. I have even learned how to use chopsticks. I try to stay away from anything too raw, though. I had a lobster roll that was scrumptious (and all cooked) and even the leftovers were good, which is rare for sushi, I think.

Anyway, my Peanut and Daddy are good. Just living life and being cute, as usual. I am pretty sure Daddy would like to be referred to as something other than "cute" but I am running short on intelligent thought right now. I have been working out like a crazy fool, so I am really tired, but still not much result. A quarter of a pound, in three weeks. I feel pretty lame about that, but I am becoming addicted to working out and find myself getting up every morning to go to the little County gym to start my day. The good thing is that I am getting a workout partner, I hope. Her first day is tomorrow, and we will see how long she lasts, but she is pretty dedicated, so it might work out well.

I guess that's it. So much writing to say so little. Life is quiet, and I like it that way, but it does not make for blog fodder.