Two Steps Forward, Three Steps Back

Well, here we are...finally living in our very own house. Hmmm...it's not exactly what I was hoping for. At least not yet. Little by little, and excruciating, painstaking inch by inch, we are slowly making progress.

Moving Day was a very long, very busy day. We had contractors at the house again, working on the bathrooms and trying to get the plumbing in order. Then around noon, the movers showed up at the apartment, and started tossing our stuff into the back of their truck. A couple of hours later, both the movers and the contractors were at our house, simultaneously working up a tornado of chaos. When the dust cleared around 5 pm, the plumbing work was just about finished, and all of our stuff was moved in, except for the refrigerator.

I was pretty happy with Mark the Mover, up until that point. Apparently these guys had very little experience moving refrigerators. First they spent a good thirty minutes arguing amongst themselves about how to get it in the door, before they finally figured out that they just needed to take the handles off. (And they only figured that part out after David got out the manual and read it.) After the handles were removed, they laboriously slid it along our brand new floors, leaving several dents and scratches behind. They also left us with several very noticeable scratches on the refrigerator itself, as well as a huge scratch on the freshly-painted trim on the kitchen door frame. I am still pissed that we tipped them as well as we did.

Meanwhile, the plumbers were working quietly in the bathrooms. They were having a little problem getting our new shower fixtures installed correctly, although they seemed to be working through it without too much of a hassle. Around 6:30, they finally finished up, collected their tools, and went outside to turn the water back on. Next thing we knew, they were bounding back up the stairs and into the bathrooms, saying that there was water pouring into the garage. Come to find out, there was a drain pipe coming from the tub that was totally corroded. It wasn't long before they were able to deduct that the person who had refinished our tub a few days earlier, had poured laquer thinner down the pipe without making sure it was diluted out thoroughly. Luckily, our contractors/plumbers were nice enough to stay a little while longer to fix the melted pipe. And even though I had already paid them for the day, they refused more money when I offered to pay them for the extra work.

Overall, we have had a very good experience with our contractor. He is a good, old boy from Gainesville, who genuinely seems to care about the work he does and is not out to rip us off. Anytime we have asked him a question about anything, he has been great about making sure we understand everything, as well as giving us some very helpful and money-saving maintenance tips along the way. I would highly recommend him to anyone.

Having said that, he is kind of on my "bad" list right now. After they finally got everything fixed last Monday, I realized that they left us with a huge mess. They smeared dirt and/or grease all over our brand new carpets, and they chipped our newly refinished tub. I also realized the other day that one of the tub fixtures is still not working properly. (The lever that you pull up to make the tub drain plug off when you want to take a bath is not plugging the drain off). I'm waiting for a call back from him so that we can have a little conversation about this. I'm confident that he will be willing to have someone come out and fix it for us without a problem. Right now, it's just one more thing to worry about.

To Do List:
--Call moving company to complain about scratches and dents on refrigerator and floor
--Call contractor again to schedule a time to fix the tub plugger lever thingamabob and complain about chipping the tub
--Call tub refinishers to fix tub chip
--Win the lottery to pay for all of this house stuff
--Find my sanity
--Call my friends and tell them how much I miss them since we haven't hung out with anyone in forever!

Time Keeps Flying (But are we having fun yet?)

Weird, I just blinked my eyes, and all of a sudden it was Friday night again. Time seems to be moving at the speed of light, between working at the hospital and working at the house. And because it is my bedtime in 4 minutes, here are a few more bullets for your weekly consumption:

• Last weekend, we were very productive in our house work because we had to get everything ready for our brand new floors to be installed...yay for floors! There was a flurry of dust removal, vacuuming, baseboard removal, baseboard painting, and ceiling painting in a matter of two days. I am very thankful that both sets of our parents were able to come over and help us get some serious work done over the weekend.
• I am especially thankful for the super duper shop vac that my dad bought us. I swear that thing is powerful enough to just about pull a limb off if you're not careful! It felt so good to finally start cleaning some of the dust and years of dirt that had accumulated in there. A clean house, is a liveable house, but there is still a loooong way to go on the cleaning front from my standards.
• The thing that has really started to turn this house into an actual home that I would like to live in, is our new floors, which they just finished installing on Thursday. They are in one word...gorgeous! It is very satisfying to see them finally completed. Now all I have to do is try not to have an anxiety attack when the movers are scuffing them up!
• Monday is moving day. We have already accepted the fact that our house is still a really long way from being done, and that it is just going to have to be a live-in work in progress. This has been a tough one to swallow, but I guess it will somehow all be worth it in the end.
• Tomorrow our parental crew will be gathering again to help us do some more last minute preparations before move-in day: touching up ceilings, installing light fixtures, cleaning and rehanging our cabinets, and more in depth cleaning/ disinfecting. (Did I mention that the previous owners were really freaking disgusting? For example, there was at least a half inch layer of dust on all the fans and the miniblinds...gross!)
• Somehow we're going to have to get packed up in time to move Monday afternoon. Even though we only have 3 boxes packed right now, I'm actually not that worried about it, because I think we've pretty much got packing down to a science by now.
• I keep looking forward to the day when we can finally relax with a beer on our back deck. That will be the greatest feeling of all :)
  

Things I Would Rather Be Doing Besides my Taxes

• sitting on a beach with a pina colada
• skiing
  
• getting a massage
• getting a pedicure
• watching a movie while curled up on my comfy couch
• napping
  
• shopping for new spring clothes
  
• painting my new house (by the way, I'm sooo over painting)
• shopping for cool new appliances for my new house
• packing boxes and getting ready to move
• wiping asses at work
  
• cleaning
• doing laundry
• exercising
• cutting off my own leg with a chainsaw