I know I'm way behind on my internet surfing, so I'm just finding this now. New Weird Al single, woo! :)

.....wookiee99 !  I hope you have a great birthday, Amy!  :)

So, one of the issues with getting my back on track has been getting the mattress replaced. It's been flipped and flopped and rotated out the wazoo, so it's time. My mom decided she needed one as well, since hers was in the same shape. After much browsing of the various Memorial Day sales, we went to check out Carson Pirie Scott (local mall chain--known in some areas as Bergner's, Boston Store, Bon-Ton, etc.), JC Penney's and Sears. We went to Carson's near Woodfield and discovered their mattresses were sold in a different location, so we went to JC Penney's. After wandering for forever trying to find the mattresses, we finally came upon the area. Not a bad selection, but their sale was weaker than expected, so we headed over to Sears.

Sears had the better sale--50% off plus 10% off plus various other discounts from the manufacturer, including free delivery and take-away of old bed with rebate. Plus, we arrived while the saleswoman was away on lunch (she thoughtfully left a note on the register saying she would be back at 1:55), which meant we got to try out mattresses for over 40 minutes without being followed or hassled by anyone. :)  By the time she got back, we knew what we wanted.

The only flub was that the order/delivery part of the register system was acting screwy (allowing us a delivery time on that coming Tuesday, which seemed way too early to be real), and the poor saleslady hadn't ever seen anything like it. And of course, they couldn't call corporate because it was a Saturday and no one would be there. She gave us her name and told us to call back if the delivery we'd scheduled didn't happen. So when it didn't (as we thought), we called on Wednesday and she got back to us today, re-rang the whole order without us needing to be there, and will be mailing us the new receipts and the rebate form for the delivery/take-away. She was thoroughly apologetic, and was a little surprised at how understanding we were, but I know how bad Sears is with their register system because I heard all about it when I was working at corporate. Besides, she did a great job following up with us and it all worked out in the end. The real test is seeing how good the delivery people are and if that's going to be a hassle or not.

This is being crossposted from Dreamwidth, because I seem to be having issues with accessing any part of LJ, and I don't know if it's me or the whole site. (Most likely it's the latter, but I'll give this a shot, anyway.) :)

I came back from visiting my brother and his family down in southern Indiana yesterday...It was fun to see everyone again and get to reconnect with my niece and nephews. Ewan is still the happiest baby I've ever seen, Elizabeth is turning into a little lady, and Ethan is as silly and loveable as ever. Spring is almost over down there, but the farmers haven't been able to plant their crops because of all the rain so the only crop that's growing is the winter wheat. This is becoming a problem with farmers in northern Indiana and Illinois as well--I can't remember the last time the farmers were able to sow the fields on time.

Also, I managed to do something to my back, again. I wasn't even lifting anything--I turned around in my brother's SUV and reached for a vent on the ceiling, and I just had this stab of pain in my spine. It feels a little different than before, but I went to the chiropractor and she put everything back in place, so the pain is nearly gone. I was so close to being at 100% again, too, so the fact that this went so easily gives me hope that I'll be back on track in my recovery.

My back pain is getting better--I went to the chiropractor yesterday morning and this morning, and she really helped a lot. I liked her immediately, as she spent about 20 minutes just asking questions, getting to know me and checking out where the pain was located. Turns out it was a herniated disk, but it's not very serious and I should be done in a couple of sessions. I no longer have the pain shooting down my leg after the first one, which is very good. I'm glad I went, since she pretty much figured out what was wrong in less than a minute and I wasn't healing very fast, anyway. She even fixed my neck and shoulders, which is something that has been ongoing since I developed TMJ. And even that has gotten better, so I'm very happy. :)

One unexpected thing happened on the way out of the office this morning, though. While I was about to pull out of my parking space, I witnessed a pick-up truck drive off the road, up the embankment of the strip mall, sideswipe the minivan to the left of my car, and hit the dry cleaners right next to the chiropractor's office. The truck shattered the window, but didn't end up in the place thanks to the low brick wall underneath the window. No one was hurt, thankfully. I called 911 and a bazillion police cars drove up, along with a fire engine and an ambulance. Gave a statement and left, but the police just meandered around. Must've been a slow day.

Here's the link to the episodes on Funimation's website. No commercial breaks or anything like that, but the second episode just went up, so the traffic volume is a bit high and therefore might be slower than normal.

Also, I apparently hurt my back two Saturdays ago, when I did the baseboard moulding and trimwork. Trying to get out of bed the next morning was nearly impossible, although the more I moved around, the less it hurt--it was more soreness than anything. The sciatic nerve pain was worse than the back pain, honestly.

It took a week to have the pain fade away enough that I was confident it wasn't anything serious. Then a couple days ago I was lifting and bending more than normal and the next morning the pain was back like nothing had happened. I've had back pain periodically, so for me this is nothing new, but it's frustrating to have accidentally undone all the healing from the past week or so. It makes me feel like my body is falling apart, when added to everything else. If I don't see much improvement in the next few days, I'll probably go see a chiropractor.

I've been on an anime/manga kick lately--mostly because I found it easy to find shows to watch online through YouTube, Veoh, et al. I'm no otaku...I'm very picky about what I watch, and most times, I won't even finish watching an episode or two before confirming it's crap and moving on. So if I recommend something, it's gotta be good on some level.
( My anime picks for the non-anime watcher )

In regular TV news, I'm watching Chuck and geeking out over it. :) Everything else I watch is on the Discovery Channel, History Channel, TLC, Travel Channel, or the Food Network. I'm not naming programs because I'll pretty much watch anything on those channels. Although, I particularly like "Mythbusters", "Dirty Jobs", "Good Eats", and "Modern Marvels". I also watch "Destroyed in Seconds" when I catch it, because it never fails to leave me in horrified awe, like with this clip of a rocket fuel plant explosion. I only wish HGTV would stop showing so many house hunting and house selling shows. Even the design shows are now all about designing to sell the house. :P

I think this will be the last of the kitchen pictures--I meant to upload this awhile ago, since it's been been 99% done for the last couple of weeks.

See the Flickr set here.



The afternoon sun makes the kitchen look so inviting and nice. :) There's a new light fixture instead of the bare bulb/deconstructed fan hanging down from the ceiling (there's a picture of it in the set on Flickr). Unfortunately, we lost the screws for the fan blades, and I haven't found the right screws at the hardware store. The company that made it is out of business and at this point, I'm going to try Ace Hardware to see if they carry the right machine screw. I hope they do.

My mom also bought a new refrigerator, since the old one was a) looking very bad compared to the rest of the kitchen, b) had a broken ice dispenser, among other things and c) much less efficient energy-wise (it was at least 18 years old, so no surprise there). Right now, the old one has been recycled and we're enjoying the qualities of the new one.

I've only got a couple little things left to do, like hanging the pot rack and finishing up the baseboard moulding and ceiling. My mom's already talking about doing the downstairs half-bath, where the floor has to be repaired soon, and the toilet needs to be replaced. But, the water heater's on its last legs, and we need to buy a new one, too. The house is just at that stage where everything is needing replacement, repair, or remodeling at the same time. Financially, my mom is fine due to the settlement, and in a way it makes sense to do this now, when the businesses and contractors need the work. Plus, my dad had a habit of never sprucing up a place until he had to sell it...while I believe in sprucing it up while you're living there, so that you can enjoy it. :)

Your whirlwind media tour could not save you.

I was listening to the local live broadcast of the tallying of votes in another room, and it was surreal to hear the constant reply of 'yes' to ousting him. Part of me is still amazed that we actually impeached the guy.

So, I caught the cold from hell. Again.

My brother and his family visited the weekend before last, and stayed through to Wednesday. A lot of running around before they came, followed by a lot of cleaning up and resettling. A few days later, I had a sore throat just like the one I got when I went down to visit them in November, and today I woke up with the whole works--stuffy head, achy, sore throat, tired, etc. I'm starting to think that one of them is my own personal Typhoid Mary.

The kitchen is pretty much done. I painted the rest of the walls, the last cabinet came in and was put up, the lighting and trim was finished--the only things not done are the window trim (my job), painting the ceiling (this, too), some baseboard (ditto), and the copper pot rack (me, again). My brother Adrian helped me run the cable TV through the wall like it ought to be, so that's one thing down, at least.

Oh yeah, and there was an inauguration or something, right? ;)

Well, in some ways it fits, but it was hard choosing between most of the choices. At least the color is purple, my favorite. :)

The countertop is in, and it looks fabulous. One small problem, however, was the lack of a 4 inch backsplash piece we thought we ordered. Turns out that Home Depot requested it, but when the person came out to measure, he didn't include it in his measurements. However, it's not a huge deal because we can get it done in a few days of turnaround, since they don't have to do any fancy cutting and polishing like they did for the sink. Also, they forgot to drill holes in the bottom of the countertop for the dishwasher's top mounting installation, which meant that the plumber did a side mount instead and the dishwasher sticks out too far, enough to block the opening of a drawer. This will be solved once the holes are drilled in the right place (there's at least an inch of space behind the dishwasher, so it could be more flush and not block the drawer).

The flooring was fixed and it also looks fabulous--I can't even tell where the patches are, and I watched him do it. He even fixed the squeaky-cracking patch right in front of the stove that was slowly driving us batty.

The cabinet and scribe moulding comes in on the 12th, so sometime thereafter it'll be installed, then the electricians come back to finish the lights underneath said cabinet, plus the finished attachment of the knobs and handles. This weekend, I'll be finishing up the painting, hopefully. I used joint compound to fill in any defects in the new drywall, so leaving it to dry overnight should do the trick.

Looking back on this whole process, I can say I'd do things much differently. For one, I wouldn't have gone with Home Depot. The people in the design center made too many mistakes that set the installation date back, then the contractor didn't communicate with the design staff, and I ended being the go-between on several issues. Just today, I went in to Home Depot to talk to the expeditor and had to clear up a lot of confusion on both ends. I'm happy with the quality of the cabinets and the overall workmanship, though.

If I had to give advice to someone considering redoing their kitchen, I would insist on a few things:
( Read more... )

I'm probably going to think of more things later,  but this is a good starting point. :)  And as much frustration as I've gone through with the process, I love the end result and would do it again, albeit differently.

I just realized that I put up pictures of the kitchen on Facebook but not Flickr. Oops!  Here's a link to the updated set.

Also, the countertops are ready, but when I called the contractor yesterday to let him know they were being installed the next day (so he could have the plumbers and electricians show up later), the electricians apparently had to be there before the countertop was installed. We've been literally waiting since Dec. 29 for some news of when the contractors would be back out, and the only person who was scheduled was the carpenter on Jan. 5. We assumed the electrician was coming in last, since the one upper cabinet needed to be reordered and it would be the last thing done--they were going to install undercabinet lighting, and they can't do that if there's no cabinet. Also, the guy I talked to said, "They should've been back a while ago", with this totally mystified sound to his voice. O RLY? You're the one in charge of scheduling the workers, dumbass. If they weren't scheduled to return, that's your fault. My mom called the owner and gave him a piece of her mind, since by this time I'm so numb to the WTFery of the contractors, I hardly care anymore.

Anyway, if not for that, we would have had countertops installed this morning. Now we have to wait until Thursday, since the electricians couldn't come out until Wednesday.

Someday, when the kitchen is done and the floor is repaired, I will be able to smile and enjoy it. I hope it comes sooner rather than later.

I've been quiet for the last couple of weeks, mainly due to visiting my brother and his family down in southern Indiana. It was very strange to leave a foot of snow and weather in the teens and twenties behind, to spend Christmas where it was in the 50s, 60s, and even 70s. We brought snow and snowballs with us, just so the kids could have some fun throwing snowballs around. :) It was a lot of fun to be down there, but not fun to spend five nights sleeping on a couch. Of course, by the time we got back, most of the snow had melted and we had a nice reprieve from the bitterly cold weather for a little while.

I'm finally over the cold. Yay! Unfortunately, my mom and Ewan now have RSV, or Respiratory Syncytial Virus. And my younger brother is getting sick as well, so I bet it's only a matter of time until I get sick again. Sigh. While I still have the energy, I'll be painting the kitchen ceiling and priming and painting what I can of the soffit.

The icon, BTW, is one I made from the Puppet Avatar skit.  :D

And no changes to the kitchen. Everything's pretty much on hold until the countertop is installed and the replacement cabinet comes in. Then it gets busy again, and the plumbing and electrical guys come and finish up the job. Somewhere in there, the flooring is getting fixed. The people at Home Depot weren't happy to hear that the flooring was damaged, and really unhappy that they had to hear it from us and not the contractors.

Happy New Year, everyone!  :)

I don't have a ranting icon, so my icon will have to do, since I feel like I might be heading that direction after today.

( Kitchen crazy )
( Life crazy )

This is definitely the funniest of them yet. I think I'm going to make icons. :)

I haven't been updating too much on the kitchen recently, mainly because the extent of the work was not pretty and uninteresting. I will sum up a bunch of what's happened in the past week and a half.

( Of happiness and woe... )

If you hadn't heard: Illinois Governor Tried to Sell Senate Seat

Or in short, Blagojevich tried to offer Obama's seat to the highest bidder. This is not a surprise...if anything, it's sweet, sweet schadenfreude to see this guy getting strung up the way he is, because it's been a long time coming. Obama is trying to distance himself from this scandal, as he ought to--but I don't necessarily believe him when he says he had no idea this was going on. The tape the FBI recorded said something about Blagojevich's wife getting positions on paid corporate boards in exchange for letting Obama pick his replacement, but no money was directly involved, and Blagojevich wanted no part of that.

Anyway, it's been fun watching the local media sink its teeth into the whole thing, because they've been tirelessly working on exposing the corruption on a city and state level, and now it's like someone gave them an early Christmas present.