Thief!

When I got home from work today, the alarm system was off, one of the toilet seats was up, and the shelves were missing from the back kitchen!!



Clearly, someone has been here & has stolen our cabinetry!!! AAHHHHHH!!!!!!

House Numbers

We're refinancing the house to get a lower interest rate. In order to do this, I need to show the appraisers that it is now a single-family home, no longer a double. Part of this process is removing the old house numbers & replacing them with one set of house numbers between the 2 front doors.

I really want something unique for house numbers, but I'm not sure I have the energy to go find something unique this week. Plus, I went to Home Depot tonight to peruse the numbers section, and they really have some pretty nice stuff. Here are my top 3 choices - let me know what you think:

1. Pewter numbers on a black backing. Pretty traditional looking, but very clean; and the plaque will help the issue of trying to mount numbers on uneven siding.



2. Brass numbers on a white plaque. I think this matches the house the best, but it's a little country-looking to me.



3. Modern font - floating numbers. These look cool, and could be mounted directly to the house, but I'm not sure if they'd be too hard to see.



What do you think? Opinions?

Neighborhood on Fire

Thursday night, my friend Trina came in town. We were sitting in the den, drinking wine, around midnight, when we heard fireworks going off in the street. Then the power to the house went out & realized that noise wasn't fireworks - it was an electrical wire in the street sparking all over the place.

We went outside to see that a wire from the house had burned in half - it was laying across my yard, across the fence, and out into the middle of the road. The other piece of it was hanging from the electric pole, on fire - literally.

I called 911 and got a fire truck there pretty quickly, but they couldn't do anything until the Entergy people came to turn the power off, which took a while. It was a pretty eventful evening - I got to know the neighbors a little better than I had before.

The most amazing thing was watching the one-man-Entergy-crew do his thing at 1 am. He shut off the power to the whole block, went up in his truck, cut down the burnt wire, put in a new wire, and had the whole block back up & running in about 30 minutes. Incredible. I'm just glad the tree didn't catch on fire & burn everything down before he got there.

I tried to take pictures, but they didn't come out well. Here's one of Trina in front of the fire truck:



And, for the record, this fire was unrelated to my previous incident with the outlet on the porch. I was assured of this by my electrician.

House on Fire

The house has been on fire in the past few weeks - literally and figuratively. I'll get the literal part out of the way first so that you can enjoy the figurative part without the anticipation & worry.

Last night, I was washing down the back of the house to get it ready for the painters to come. As I was spraying the back porch with a hose, a covered electrical outlet started making a very troublesome noise. Before I could investigate further, black smoke started coming from the outlet, and then it burst into flames. I put the fire out with the hose, let the outlet cool down, and checked it out. It's grey & kinda melty-looking. We'll have to get the electrician to come check that out.



Now, when I say that the house has been on fire figuratively, I really mean that my mother has been on fire. I went out of town for 11 days, and when I came back, she had stripped most of the doorknobs, painted several doors, painted window trim, sewn curtains, hung blinds, cleaned up the yard, etc etc etc. I need to put more pictures up here of the progress, but for now, these will have to do.

She sewed these red curtains out of some old curtains that I had - like a modern day Maria VonTrapp. They are 11 ft tall - which made them difficult to hang, but I think I did a decent job. Just don't get too close to the hardware.



She also sewed these curtains for her room - I think they're gorgeous, especially when they're open. She did a much better job of hanging them than I did with mine. After I hung the red ones, I went back and looked at her handi-work with these and was disappointed in myself.



And, a very exciting addition to the house... my mom brought my piano here from Florida!! I've been playing almost every day - not sure if the neighbors are annoyed yet, but I am loving it.



I have a few more projects in the works - got some good deals at Big Lots & TJ Maxx today. So there should be more updates more often. Come visit sometime - it gets lonely in here every once in a while. (And no, the ghost hasn't been keeping me company - no appearances since the hand-squeeze... I'm finally starting to sleep like a normal person.)

Extreme Home Makeover

See if you can notice the subtle differences that I made to the house. I think it really adds a new level of curb appeal.

Before:


After:


Before:


After:


Who Dat!

Your Neighbor Probably Did

I worked from home this morning so that I could get some things done without all the distractions of the office. You know - coworkers, clients, phones, emails, text messages, instant messages, intercom pages, screaming bosses, etc.

It was also fun to stay at home because the Spray-Foam insulation people came today to work their magic. So while I typed away on a script, I could hear the spraying noise under the house. I found the noise very entertaining - except when I had to pee; then I was afraid that they could hear me. So I held it until I came in to the office.

When I walked out of the house to come to work, this is what I found:



Apparently, they didn't want to ask me to move my car, so they just set up camp around it. I tried to get some pictures of the foam guys under the house, but the hoses were the best I could do - not as exciting, but here you go:



Also, as I was driving off, I saw a sign that they put in my yard - which I told them they could do. After I saw the sign, I thanked myself for letting them put it there because their tagline is "Your neighbor probably did", which will make me laugh everytime I see it. Here is a horrible picture of the sign with a bad glare:



The owner also has "Your Neighbor Probably Did" as part of his outgoing voicemail message. These people are not only spray-foam experts; they are marketing geniuses.

Hopefully this spray-foam will lower the ole Entergy bill by keeping the a/c where it belongs. It should also keep out bugs, lower echos, and possibly lock in a ghost. Eeek.

Things I Found out Yesterday

1. Rachel died in the house. At 2 am. (I'll give you a minute for your goosebumps to go away)

2. I should not tell my friends this story if I ever want anyone to hang out here.

Apparently, Rachel was the most loving, spiritual, kind, nurturing lady that everyone I talked with has ever met. According to several sources, I am lucky to have her here. I learned a lot about her life yesterday, and I have a list of messages to give her if she comes back. Hopefully, I'll be able to speak next time instead of frozen, shocked stuttering.

Last night, before I went to bed, I spoke out loud to Rachel for a while - letting her know who I had talked to, what they had said, and that I would appreciate a good night's sleep. I felt like a kook, but I slept like a baby.