General

…you’re in your window-less (yes, even my computer is window-less) office, but you know it’s going to rain soon because your old injuries start to ache. Ick. (Not that I’m old yet, but some days I just feel old.) I don’t think they’ve actually proven that low-pressure systems trigger aches and pains, but every time my wrist hurts (at least, the times I haven’t been over-playing piano or typing too much) I check weather.com and find that the barometric pressure is falling. Hmm.

OK, I’ve been mulling this over for a while, but I have to put it out there… Does no one else think it’s very strange that we now have a color-coded system of alerts?!? It makes me think of Star Trek, not terrorists. If Pres. Bush starts calling Cheney “Number 1”, I’m moving. :)

The car karma appears to be improving… Van Bortel agreed to fix our wagon. ;) The fender-bender will be a little more expensive to fix than we hoped, but it’s still not bad. We got the kitchen finished this weekend – just have a few pictures and things to re-hang. It’s very blue. Which is good – it’s a very nice blue! I finally got the hang of the semi-gloss paint, and managed to even paint the window above the sink without painting it shut – that’s an accomplishment for me. The only problem with the kitchen now is that the paint is much less gray than we expected, so our gray vertical blinds don’t look so great anymore…but they’ll do for now. And I’m re-thinking the burgandy dining room – I don’t think it will flow well from the kitchen. (Which is why I did the kitchen first, after all.) Which leaves me in a quandry, because I can’t really think of another color I want to paint it. I guess I’ll have to wait awhile – it’s a good thing I didn’t start stripping the wallpaper in there…. (Maybe I should rename this blog “Adventures in home ownership – or how to redecorate your entire life”.)

I may have improved my parking karma – I’m not sure, since I haven’t driven much since Tuesday – but my car karma in general has been very bad this week. Yesterday we had a fender-bender with the Jetta. While not good, that in itself doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re having bad car karma. But we’ve had a running problem with the used wagon we bought in December, which finally turns out to be…(insert scary music here)…the head gasket. Which is a very expensive repair. The thing is, we brought it back to the dealer during the 60-day lemon-law warranty because the check coolant light was on. They claimed the fuse was blown, replaced the fuse, and probably, for good measure, topped off the anti-freeze. Which explains why it didn’t come back on until today. Now we have to bring it back to them and try to argue that the head gasket was split when we brought it in the first time and they missed it. (Which our normal service guy, who found it, can’t quite understand.) Conspiracy? Or just bad service people? Either way, it would make me very hesitant to buy a used car from them in the future, which is too bad since they have a very good reputation. Heh. If they don’t resolve it, I’ll post their name. (As if enough local people read this to do harm to their business. :P )

Well, it’s done. I just registered for the final 5-credit project course. By the end of this quarter I have to finish my project, write a report on it, and defend it. My target defense date is May 6th. Which is only, what, 9 weeks away? Scary stuff…

We painted the kitchen this weekend. It’s almost done – tonight we just have to put wallpaper up below the chair rail, and touch up a couple places where the paint came off with the tape. :P I’ll probably regret saying this, but I will never again, as long as I live, paint with semi-gloss paint. It takes longer to dry, it shows every little brush and roller stroke, and it takes 10 times longer to do. Plus it would rather stick to the tape than the wall. Grrr. I don’t care if I can’t wash the kitchen walls. Who am I kidding, anyway – would I really wash them? Probably not. We’ve lived here for three years and I’ve never had the urge (or the need) to wash the kitchen walls.

I was really happy with the siding anyway, but yesterday I found out that we definitely made the right decision. My grandfather, a retired general contractor who owns and rents lots of real estate, came up for a surprise visit. (I almost slipped and typed “inspection”. Hmm.) Anyway, he was very impressed with our siding guy (who was there working the weekend again) and with the way the job turned out. Yay! If my very critical grandfather thinks it’s good, it must be. So, in this case, the low bid wasn’t necessarily a bad idea. I know, I’m an adult, and I shouldn’t need my parents and grandparents to approve, or approve of, my decisions, but still…it’s good to have a second opinion occasionally – especially for big decisions like these!

March means: longer days, the first day of spring (well, at least according to the calendar), and…St. Patrick’s Day! I’m not of Irish descent, I only married into an Irish last name, but I’ve always been fascinated by all things Celtic and Irish. So, in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, I’ve redone my blog.

So the siding project is underway (has been for about a week, actually). It really does look better than I thought it would – I guess they’ve made significant improvements in the color and texture of vinyl siding since most of the houses in our neighborhood were sided. We’re doing the house in a pretty pale yellowy-creamy color – it looks really nice with the brick front. The only bad part is, since our house is on a hill, the basement concrete courses were painted to match the house – and they clash pretty awfully with the new siding – but we have to wait until it’s warmer to repaint. Oh, well. As an added bonus, the siding guy (who’s doing the job alone – I would’ve thought it would be a two-person job at least!) has to take down the gutters to put up some soffit vents, and he’s cleaning them out while they’re down. Yay! That’s one thing I’m not sorry to say we haven’t done yet in our almost three years of home ownership. For one thing, it involves ladders. For another thing, it involves…ladders. I’m not afraid of heights, except on wobbly ladders. The three step ladder I have to use for interior painting is bad enough!!! Yes, I have a fear of ladders. And spiders. If I ever saw a spider while standing on a ladder…well, it’d be like those cartoons where the character (usually Sylvester) uses the ladder like stilts and…oops, I’m rambling…time to get back to work!

Last night was the first night in two weeks that I haven’t had to come home from work, log back in, and continue working until I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I didn’t even really get more sleep than usual last night, but I feel *so* rested today. Or maybe I’m just so used to being exhausted that I really am as tired as I used to be in the mornings before my crazy busy project but it’s such an improvement over the past few weeks that it feels like I’m well-rested? (OK, obviously I’m still not very coherent.)