17 posts tagged “house”

I don't know what happened. I was feeling great when I woke up this morning.
But now I'm not.

Paul has today off and he brought Evy to nurse, but then she was distracted
and didn't nurse from both breasts and I still had to pump but it wasn't
working that well and I got more by expressing by hand which I *hate* to do.
Even then I only got two ounces.

My desk at work is a mess. I need to do some cleaning!

My house is a mess, I need to do some cleaning! Junior's been rebelling and
urinating in a corner of the house. So upsetting. I always boast about what
a good cat he is about using his catbox but he's proving me wrong recently.
I think it's because we're both getting lazy. I don't want to keep a box in
the house and he doesn't want to wait till I get home. Guess that's just a
dog ability.

Plinky, a site that just has Question-of-the-Day type prompts, is a bit
frustrating. I want to post it on my Vox, and I should be able to because
they have an "embed code" feature but that feature doesn't include the
original question, just my answer. Its a bit misleading to some creative &
quirky title to an answered question when you don't know what the question
is. I put in an email to them and said, "Hey! Add the frakn' question to the
code numb-nuts!" - but a bit more politely :)

I think I'm going to do some cleaning thearpy when I get home...

Evy didn't sleep too well last night, not sure why & I'm not going to over-analyze it like I always do. She's sleeping right now, her second nap today (she woke up at 9am but went back to sleep shortly after), which is working great because I'm finaly doing some cleaning around the house.

Shameful admission: I don't like to clean - and often times I just don't do it. I haven't mopped in about… five months, and I know this because I had some help cleaning the house the week Evy was born and that was the last time they were mopped. I haven't vacuumed in close to two months, but I'm going to blame that on the fact that our vacuum is broken and we have to borrow my sister's and it can only be for one night because she has to vacuum everyday what with having a toddler & infant herself. But I'm finally doing the mopping & I'm going to borrow the vacuum tonight hopefully to get that done.

What I wouldn't give for a cleaning service that I didn't feel guilty spending the money on...

On another "house" note, last Tuesday my Dad came over and helped me finally trim & shape the tree in the front yard. It looked really good once we were done and I was excited to enjoy the shade with the baby. Friday comes around and this guy that lives on our street - who I'm assuming did most of the handy man work around here for the homeowner - comes by and says he's going to trim the tree on request of the homeowner. I wasn't home, but Paul was and he said that it was because it had bees.

BEES. This pisses me off because I happen to like that fact that the tree flowered and bees were pollenating it and making other flowers and the circle of life was continuing as God intended. What worse is he BUTCHERED it. It looks terrible now and with the summer season ending it likely won't look as full until next spring. Out of all the things about the front yard that pisses me off, the tree wasn't even on there. The stupid - now fried & dead - flowers made for an east coast climate are still roting there but it's the beautiful tree be takes his pruning chainsaw to. I understand that trees need to be trimmed, but he went overboard.

Whatever. It's not my house I just happen to live here.

[sent from mobile]

How was everyone's 4th of July? Mine was hot - very, very hot. Friday I had lunch with Jane and did a bit of shopping - it was nice seeing her again, hopefully she'll keep letting me know when she's free. Saturday felt like a Sunday and I was SO glad it wasn't Sunday. We had a late lunch/early dinner with my sister's family and it was YUMMY! They made sausage, chicken, burgers, corn on the cob cooked on the grill, this special potato salad that actually tasted like a baked potato (sour cream, bacon bits, chives & cheddar cheese) and cup cakes! Surprisingly, I ate a lot - must have been needing the calories :) Sunday we just relaxed - the heat was intense.

Our garage is starting to stink because of the heat and our lawnmower - not really sure why given we only mow our front lawn which we don't let our animals use. We've been killing a lot of spiders around the house recently, and it's starting to piss me off. When we lived in our apartment we got spiders every now and again but nothing like this. I was thinking of calling our leasing office but I'm not sure if that's even something they can help with. I mean, spiders go where spiders go - right? I noticed a collection of webs in one area of our garage near the door (large automatic door, not the one into the house) and I tugged on the threads to check and see if they were from a black widow - and they were. That scares me! We really need to clean out the garage and I know we'll be less likely to do it with the possibility of getting bit by a black widow. This weekend, despite it being 4th of July, I really wanted to work on the garage. As I'm sure I've mentioned, our garage has a lot of built in storage and I want to take advantage of that and clean it up in there. Our washer and dryer is in there, so I'm out there all the time and I'd like to make it nice.

I also want to get our backyard put together. I'm getting really frustrated with the house in general. Need to make a list and get things DONE.

I wanted to give an update on the whole backyard situation. I called our leasing office, who called the homeowner, and then got back to us.

As I may or may not have mentioned, when we first moved in we'd never had a yard before so we didn't have a lawnmower or anything like that. We kind of just left the yard to it's own devices until we got a letter in the mail saying that the Homeowners Association was warning us that our lawn was not meeting requirements. We cut down the lawn, but unfortunately too short, and it suffered in the way of drying out. We've been trying to get all the necessary equipment (1st lawnmower didn't work, then the 1st trimmer didn't work), but we've been kind of busy and then Evy was born. About a week afterward I got a call from our leasing office saying that the homeowner had driven by and was concerned about the lawn again and she didn't want to get fined by the Homeowners Association so we needed to take care of it.

It was after that phone call that I asked them about the backyard.

So now that you understand the "history" you'll understand my frustration when I report that the homeowner is implying that she doesn't want to take care of the backyard because we haven't been taking care of the front. She wants to see some improvement before we discuss it further.

I'm really frustrated with this because A) We're new at this whole yard care thing, you've got to give us a chance or two. Its not like the yard fell apart, its just that the grass grew tall and the HOA is picky. Plus - we'd just had a baby and it was really hectic around the house. B) There wasn't any "if / then" agreement about the backyard, it was in our lease that she would landscape the backyard - period. C) If you're going to rent a home, and you have a set standard for something, you should really just take care of that yourself. I mean, if the front yard is so important to have maintained a certain way then as the landlord you should really just have a gardener come by and do it. Build it into the rent or pay for it out of pocket - I don't care. But don't expect renters to care for something as you yourself would without having it in writing.

We've been keeping the front lawn well watered & trimmed and trying to keep the weeds out. But I'm getting impatient with the backyard so I've decided I'm going to call the leasing office and be a bit more insistent or at least pressure them for a timeframe of how long they need to see improvement before they'll get it taken care of. I don't want to be moving out by the time the backyard is enjoyable.

I need help 'hood.

Our backyard is OUT OF CONTROL when it comes to weeds. You might remember me telling you that our rented house has a backyard that didn't have any grass landscaping when we moved in, but that the homeowner was going to do something in March/April. Well, we haven't received any information about it and now I'm thinking we wont.

The problem is that not only does it look terrible, but it's actually causes issues for Ripley. She keeps getting this infection in her left eye, and I think it's from all the weeds in the backyard that have dried out from the recent heat wave we've had and are now the dangerous "sticker" kind of weeds. There isn't any sprinkler system out there so there's really no "easy" way for us to keep it under control.

I've never had a yard that I've had to maintain so this is where I need your help. Where do I start? How do I get rid of all the weeds so that we can plant grass? Will an abundance of chemical weed killer spoil the soil so that grass can't grow? Would rototilling the soil after pulling the weeds be enough? Should we go with sod or with seeds - keeping in mind Ripley? Will she have to stay off of seedling grass and sod both until they're both full matured? How long will it take? Do we have to put in a sprinkler system - keeping in mind we live in Southern California and a verifiable desert location turned suburbia?

I'm stumped. Not only that, but I have no idea how much it'll all cost. I mean, I dont mind putting some money into it even though it's not our house - but I'm not going to foot the bill for a major expense when our lease will be up next December.

I've tried looking online - but I'm not finding the kind of information I need. I don't want to "plan" to landscape - I need to know how to get a funky landscape into order :)

Anyhow, just wanted to record the fact that Ripley is a cute dog, she's smart, and we're working together to get this all where we need to be :)

When we moved into the house, we noticed that the bathroom sink had a leak. It took us awhile because of our strange schedule, but we finally called our property management firm and got someone to come fix it.The guy who came apparently is a friend of the home owner, and after he checked it out he had to come back with supplies so he was there twice. In the two times he was there Ripley (because she's still plagued with the nervous peeing around strangers I guess...) piddled on the carpet while he pet her and he also got a real good look at the rip in the carpet.

When he was finishing up he began to tell me how nice the homeowner was and how much work she'd put into the house to get it fixed up for renting. I have a feeling he was dropping me hints about having already begun the destruction of a nice house. I wanted to defend myself and tell him that we're getting the carpet repaired ASAP and that we clean up after Ripley's accidents very quickly (though she hardly has them around us anymore) so that there are no stains. We're going to be in this house for a minimum of two years and I want it to look as nice then as it does now. I also wanted to tell him that there was a lot of "handy work" done that we can't really help.

Case in point, the painting in the bathroom was a great idea, however painting gloss over gloss without the proper primer means that a bit of rubbing with a wet sponge - such as when cleaning - causes the paint to start to rub off! There are about three spots already where the cream paint is slowing through the new white on the cabinet doors - and its obvious that it's peeling and not just a scuff or a gouge. I want to call and ask if there is any extra paint or what brand and color it was so that we can fix it, but I'm worried that's going to just bring attention to the damage that's already done.

I figure, if we do call about the paint, it's going to be after we've repaired the carpet. I'm just glad that it wasn't the homeowner that was making the repairs because that wouldn't have been anymore of a comfortable situation. That's why we were so happy to be working with a property management firm - I've heard such horror stories about OCD homeowners that choose to rent but can't deal with the fact that the house is not kept exactly as they'd like.

Ripley's not adjusting as well as I'd hoped to the new house.

I was SO excited to get her a backyard - but she only wants to be in the house with us all the time. This wouldn't be so bad - but we have to work and she's a terror when she's loose in the house. She seems to forget where her pee pad is when she's free in the house, and will pee anywhere. She also chews on anything and everything she can get her little snout around. Hell, she's a puppy still and there's nothing we can do about that. It's only when she's cozily confined that she remembers about the pad and we can make sure that her area is clear of anything for her to chew on. We've been placing her in the bathroom at night and she seems to do wonderfully in there - trots in there happily at night and snuggles up in her bed with a little wag of her tail.

During the day, we tried to place her in the backyard while we had to leave the house. But she dug her way out already and Paul & I are both nervous that she'll do it again. So - until we could spend some much needed time in the backyard "Ripley proofing" it, we would just place her in the bathroom again - she did so well there at night. Well, the other day we left her in the bathroom for a few hours (while we were working at the apartment) and when we came home we found that she'd begun to paw and rip the carpet at the doorway!!! NEW CARPET IN A NEW HOUSE! I was so upset - and also really disappointed. I just want her to be happy and I can't seem to do that. No amount of toys or playing with her seems to keep her content when we just can't be there with her.

We had to go to Petco that night and get her a 20 ft cable to keep her in the backyard during the day when we can't be there. We tried it out on Saturday and found that she survived, though she did get tangled up on one of the patio posts and so wasn't as mobile as I'd hoped. We had her in the backyard for a few hours while my nephew was over yesterday, but when I peeked out there I saw her shaking and I don't know if its because of the weather which was cold (50° F) with a strong wind or because she was just feeling lonely. We tried to find her a dog house, but the local Petco didn't have anything other than vented carriers and they were too expensive considering it wasn't what we needed anyhow.

Today, because its cold again - we opted to put her in the bathroom with a baby gate between her and the door so that she's not as confined but she's out of the cold, and she can't get near the door where the carpet meets the wood. Tonight we're going to another pet store or maybe even Wal-Mart to get her a house. I went home on my lunch to let her out of the bathroom a bit, I just hope I didn't make her apparent separation anxiety worse by coming and going so quickly again.

Well. Today's Monday - the beginning of my 1st FULL week back at work. These are usually the longest, but I'm trying to stay optimistic. We have our 2nd Bradley class tomorrow night and then I have my 1st prenatal appointment with my new doctor on Thursday.

Saturday we turned in the keys to the apartment! I'm so excited to get out of there, especially because towards the end when we were moving it was just becoming this sore spot for everyone. We spent two days cleaning it (to the best of our abilities) but when we did the walk-through we were told we'd still be charged for a light cleaning - which is going to cost us about $60. What a crock. I hate that they're charging for everything - if they had such high expectations for clean, then they should just build their "light cleaning" into their cost of doing business and not charge each person moving out. When the person who did the walk-through saw the rips in the carpet, she said they'd just replaced all the carpet. I was shocked, because the living room, bedroom and guest room carpet was fine. If we get charged for replacing it all I'm going to go to war because we were told that it could be patched. But, I'm not going to worry about it now - nothing we can do about it really so why worry?

Sunday was our 1st day of NOT moving and it was nice :) We slept in, made (and also burnt - gas vs. electric stovetops are certainly different...) some breakfast, drove to see my parents about their broken monitor and then came home and cleaned a bit before my sister & her family came over. I had to vacuum already - because the carpet is new and it's shedding a lot - but at least vacuuming made it look better unlike at the apartment. We grilled some burgers & hotdogs for lunch/dinner and it was a lot of fun and everything actually worked!

Moving sucked, but living somewhere new has revitalized me. I feel like cooking more, cleaning more, organizing more. Saturday night I baked a loaf of cranberry & orange bread :)