Thursday, April 29, 2010

On being a grownup

I am acting my age and while I can't say it is fun, I confess I am finding a certain relief in stating on a budget and planning out finances more carefully. I am working more and look forward to a reduction in debt very soon. Now that I am turning my house into a more comfortable home, I find I enjoy being in it more.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Gallbladder pain

I saw the doctor about my gallbladder yesterday and he says it has to come out. He said it's full of stones and he was amazed I wasn't sicker...well, I felt OK yesterday, but today it's rumbling, so I'm glad I scheduled surgery for May 18. He said that most people recover in 2 days to two weeks, so I should plan to take a week off work, but that I wouldn't have any restrictions if I felt like going back sooner. I suspect I will take off the week of the surgery, watch movies and eat bon bons...well, I may not be eating much since they told me that you frequently have tummy trouble for several weeks after having your gallbladder out.

Today I am having such a terrible headache. It's so pretty outside and I want to want to go riding so badly, but mostly I just want to sit around.

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Update to Finally Finished

Today I have spent time putting everything together so I can have an office. It appears that the dining room is going to double as a craft room. It's not ideal, but this way we can have our haven of peace in the living room and friends can walk past my controlled chaos of the front room. Plus, that's where the a/c is so I won't be overly hot this summer. And, the light in that room is great for sewing, so I'm pretty excited.

Maggie has been working on her room today. She almost has the painting done and she's rearranged her furniture. I'm trying to figure out how to run her a chord to her TV so she can watch the front room TV if I'm not in there working. It will be good if her friends are over. I can trust her not to watch it unless she's supposed to. It's nice to be able to trust her.

I didn't get completely finished. I still have tons of papers lying around but will be all cleaned up tomorrow. I keep cleaning the floor too, trying to get in the all the corners. It just never seems to get completely clean. I'm washing the hardwood according to the label directions on the cleaner, but I still have a bit of film on the floor. I'm not sure how to get the sticky feeling up.

I spent the afternoon watching the first Librarian movie, starring Noah Wylie (love me some Noah Wylie) and cleaning. Then Peter cooked supper and now I think I'm just finished. my feet hurt, my legs hurt from bending over picking stuff up. It should all be done tomorrow and I will have an office/dining room. This makes me very happy.

Peter put the double glass doors back in so I could keep the dogs off the carpet unless I want them in here. This also helps to insulate peter against the sound of our TV if he's in his office working, or if Maggie has a friend over and they are singing incessantly. I realized that I now need to paint the doors so they go with the room. I am probably going to use an accent color. Then I need to paint the other side to match the other room. Now that I have the bug, I see myself continuing to paint until the whole has is redone. I'm actually having fun.

Friday, April 16, 2010

Finally Finished


http://s8.photobucket.com/albums/a35/ayovich/remodel/

This is a list, in order of my house and how it went. Some of the lighting isn't so good, so it's hard to know if you can tell what colors it really is. The living room is painted with Valspar (from Lowe's) Uttlerly Blue. There is a complimentary color called Tangerine Cream which i plan to apply to the wood in the room. I'm also going to pull down the wall paper and put up an accent wall of a darker blue in the suggested color palette.

I love my house! My carpet smells so good and the room is so bright and airy. I am treating it like a new car and I refuse to let the dogs on the rug...I'm scared to death that Bonnie will pee on the rug. She isn't completely as housebroken as I'd like and I'm going to be keeping her in diapers. She stays outside most of the day, but I don't want my rug becoming the subject of marking games.

Now I want to finish redecorating.

There is only one problem with my living room...I have lost my office space, but I think maybe it's worth it. My bins of fabric will go in the garage and I will use the dining table to sew, or set up a table when I'm in a sewing frame of mind. It's so awesome to have a quiet, comfortable place to relax and we can lay on the floor and enjoy ourselves.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Blinding Headache

I managed to get up off the couch and take care of some business today. I drove to North Fort Worth and saw one client before dizziness and the headache overwhelmed me and I had to come home. I hurt so bad, I was sick to my stomach. So, I came home. I hate that I have lost a whole week of work to my project at home and this headache. Next week is going to be insane. I will have 16 work hours starting next week...that's actually very good for my budget.

I should be doing something

I'm sure there is something I should be doing. I just don't know what it is. The painters are back, putting on the last coat of primer before they hopefully paint today. It could end up being that they paint tomorrow as it may rain in the afternoon.

Maggie and I are waiting for the guy to come with the truck to load up trash from the backyard. I have all the furniture out of the living room except for the sofa, the TV and a bookshelf. Maggie will finish up the trim in the living room and we'll have to touch up the paint. Peter and Maggie will move the rest of the furniture.

So, Maggie and I are experience extreme lethargy and lack of interest in doing any work. We are watching Nova: The Pluto Files. Very interesting really and a good excuse to watch educational TV.

It's so hard to get enthused about doing anything when the house is so messy. I can't really go through any of my stuff, I can't work in any other rooms. I could be going through one of my closets, but I just don't seem to have the energy. The messiness just seems to have sucked all my life out of me. So, here I sit, feeling like I should be doing something, yet not doing it...plus, I have a headache.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Contemplating clutter

I'm in a definite down in the dumps funk today. I have clients to see this afternoon and I'm so not in the mood to do any of it. I'm in full blown work on the house mode and I hate to leave the house to make money. This is, of course, ridiculous, so I will, of course, go see clients.

I'm sitting in my pretty much empty room and I find that i like it this way. I have got to find a way to cut down on my clutter. I don't want to put everything back in this room the way it was. It was so messy and I love that it's neat now. I have come to realize that we don't even have good closets in this house. I thought painting and cleaning up would make me love my house, but it makes me realize how crowded we are in it, and that we have no chance to move in the near future. My house is cozy, but I don't have my own place for my craft stuff. I have thinned my collection by a lot and thrown a lot of things away, but I continue to have a closet full of stuff and no closet to put it in.

I am feeling rather surly today...not sure why.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Sitting in my red lawn chair

I was thinking sitting on the dock of the bay but these words don't quite go with the tune and I am in the pasture, grazing the horses on the tall grass of the area they aren't normally allowed in. I am contemplating ground work with liberty but i am tired from paiting and sitting just seems like a better idea right now. Maggie is giving Dixie a bath and i gave Fiera a good brushing so i'm not totally lazy.

Everything is done inside the house that i can do till the carpet layers come. They have to come by saturday but if they can't come before saturday, we will have to stay home from tarrant Ranch which I would hate.

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Refinance update

Tomorrow morning will begin a week of serious work on the house. After I see my morning client, I will be buying a carpet and exterior paint to complete the first stage of fixing up the house. I still have my sofa but am making one last effort to sell it. I will repaint the living room, install carpet and put the furniture back. I am also looking for someon to paint the exterior of the house. I dont think I can get it done by myself and we both have busy work weeks. Please pray for me this week as I work to make these changes a reality.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Refinancing our House

This was supposed to be easy. All we needed left was the appraisal. The appraiser they sent rated our house as average and listed a multitude of repairs, none of which actually affect the house as a serviceable dwelling. We are being given a list of things to fix and a new appraisal next week but it's going to be a busy week. I have to scrape and repaint some especially chippy sections, paint a room inside and clean up the back yard. I just hope I can get my family behind me.

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Happy Easter

Peter and I went to a joyful Easter service at church. It was great, as our services almost always are. It lasted almost 2 hours though...so a bit long. We had lunch reservations at Olenjack's grille and then Peter took me to see Alice in Wonderland in 3 D. Lunch was really good, but I think I like the buffet brunch at Birra Porreti's better. I liked Alice really well, but peter was a little underwhelmed. Then we came home and we tried to watch Inglorious Bastards, but didn't get far. Now we're watching National Treasure as I have never seen it, and I'm enjoying watching it a lot.

Tomorrow I was supposed to go riding with my friend Teresa, but all day I had the feeling it wasn't going to happen. I was correct as last night her husband was put in the hospital for an infection, so our day is off. It will work out well, as I plan to use the afternoon and evening to finish painting Maggie's room and cleaning it for her so she can have a pleasant homecoming.

This weekend I rode the NATRC ride with Teresa and we had a great time. I was to ride safety, but they didn't need me and Teresa said she'd enjoy it if I rode the B ride with her. So, I entered the one day ride. Liberty got 2nd and I got first. We had a nice, relaxed ride. What was funny was that I thought of it as being a slow ride, and Teresa couldn't see how our ride was slow...I guess it's all in perspective. After riding riding open, it seemed slow, but that didn't make it any less pleasant. My training goals were to work on transitions, opening and closing gates and trotting at tempo. Things really improved as the day went forward, so I was pleased.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Diva

when I was in High School, the French Club went down to the Bijoux, a theater in Kansas City, to see the movie Diva. I have seen it several times over the years...once I was forced to sit through a dubbed version, which was horrid. I had four years of French in HS and college and once upon a time I was able to know the movie by heart and I understood most of the dialogue. It was recently re-released on DVD and I decided I needed to watch it again. I had planned to watch it with Maggie...but I'm glad I didn't. I saw in in HS, in 1984 or so. It was rated R, but it was a foreign film and I went with class...Looking back, I'm sure my folks wouldn't have been happy about me seeing it. Not a lot of cussing, but a fair amount of nudity, but much less than movies today.

The movie is about a postman named Jules, who inadvertently gets himself involved in several different mysteries. He is in love with an opera singer, and makes an illegal recording of her music which the Chinese want to steal so they can make pirated copies. He accidentally gets a tape confessing all from a gangster mistress...so then the police and the gangsters and the police are after him. He makes friends with an odd couple named Serge and Alba and they help him disentangle himself from the mess he has made. The movie is based on a book by Daniel Odier who wrote under the name Delacorta.

It brings back many memories of teen years. Unfortunately, watching a foreign movie with subtitles is not conducive to sewing...which I should be doing. I no longer speak French well enough to just listen to the movie and while I knew the dialogue many moons ago...I don't anymore.

Anyway...watch the movie. It's good.

April Exercise

I have now completed the third of my planned weight training work outs. I did one last week and got two in this week. I also did a yoga class on Tuesday and rode on Wednesday. Tomorrow I will go to a class before pacing up for the grasslands. I really want to ride on frida but with predicted thunderstorms, I may be in my truck reading a book or taking a nap when I get to Decatur. If the storms are bad enough, I may stay home until late Friday or get up early Saturday, though I am not crazy about that idea. Since I am only riding safety one day I won't need much and plan to makeit all pretty relaxing.