Travelling note

This really has nothing to do with home improvement or selling my house or anything like that.  But it has to do with image improvement.  Specifically kids on an airplane.  People prefer the snakes, I think because they are quieter.


So, remember how I said I was a flight attendant?  I take being a good passenger to another level, I'll admit.  I still get out my safety card when told to and watch the demos (even though I can, and still do them in my sleep).  I strictly follow all the rules, from the ticket counter to TSA to boarding, taxi, takeoff, cruise, decent, and deplaning.  I keep my ears open for gate changes.  I arrive at least two hours in advance.  I walk the line.  I pride myself on my abilty to do everything that is expected of me as a passenger.  And do you what I get in return? 

No drama. 

I have never had a problem I couldn't cope with, been compensated adequately for, or was caused by my own neglect.  This is not to say the airlines have never lost my luggage (Honeymoon in Dublin- who needs underwear) or rerouted me through a different city (Pittsburgh is close enough to Philadelphia, right?).  What I'm saying is I never allow their failures or mine to wreck my good time.  That being said, now that I have a child, I'm a little extra vigilant.  One of the things I come prepared for is the ever present noise situation.  I bring enough snacks, toys, activities, books, and videos loaded on both my iPad and my iPhone to keep an Airbus load of babies occupied.  But when that fails, I bring a little something for the passengers around me.  For someone who is truly being put out, (And when I say truly, I mean my daughter has not stopped kicking the seat since we closed the door- this, by the way, has not happened, nor do I ever imagine allowing this to occur) I will buy them lunch or a drink.


If you are thinking of traveling, and you have children, I would like to suggest this little idea.  It is hard for people to be mad at you with this.  It tells them, that you are aware of the problem and you are trying to deal with it.  Honestly, I have never seen anyone fuss after receiving one of these.

These couldn't be any easier to put together.  Some candy, earplugs, and a little apology note.


If you are a person who actively tries to distract your child from crying, and give out something like this, and someone STILL complains?  I'd say you have a right to tell them off with a hearty one finger salute.  It is a billion times worse for you than it is for them and kids will be kids.  Try as you might, it is sometimes something they just have to do, and my daughter (who is actually an awesome little traveller) is no different- she has no volume control, and talks at the top of her lungs. 

Do the best you can, and screw the rest.  Hope your summer travels are enjoyable, if not, painless.

Kitchen Re-dumb

So, a $2000 budget to get a new dishwasher, stove, sink, garbage disposal (That was broken too), and countertops.  Could it be done?  Yes.  It was done, and we did not DIY this one.

Look, someone else is going to have to live with our mistakes here.  I actually wanted to entice someone into considering our home versus seeing the loooong list of things that have to be done before it is considered livable.  This is maybe not the time to DIY how to install new counterops.

Thanks to the good people at Lowe's, we got something within our budget, and looks great!  You be the judge.

The old stove.  Note the countertops on each side are pieces of plywood meant to give the illusion someone cared enough to hide the top drawers.  My husband actually lamented how easy it used to be to just reach into the drawers through the top.  Hmmm....

My kitchen galley before.  I never felt homesick in the aft galley of an Airbus.

Kitchen before:  What you really can't tell from this picture is that the countertops are sink are vintage.  See?  Already using real estate jargon to say they are they original from when this place was built.  There are knife strikes in that counter older than me.  And I don't even want to discuss the sink.  It's too gross to photograph, and my friends will question my ability to do dishes.

I should say this was not something that was done in a week.  It took us about a month from the time of the fire to completion.  So, how did I live without a dishwasher or stove for a month?  We went on vacation for one week of it, and the rest....

Microwave meals.  I never want to eat another microwave meal again.

 DAY 1- The Electrician

The electrician came to our house because the old stove was wired in.  We wanted to get with the times and get a plug.  Your welcome, who ever buys my house.

 So here was the homeowner problem I faced.  The current wiring allows the stove to be flush against the wall.  The electrician gave me two options:
A. Attach the plug-in, but the new stove would not be flush- in fact, it would stick out 3 inches
B.  Hard wire the new stove.

I thought of option 3, for which I'm kind of proud.  C. Cut the drywall and move the plug- in into the wall.  Genius!

Plug installed.  He did go back and patch it up.

 

 

 

 Day 2- The new stove's arrival to much fanfare, because I thought I was also getting the dishwasher.

Yay!  Appliances that match!  (The refrigerator is white, so everything else follows suit)

 Day 3- New Countertops

Bye Bye Harvest Gold countertops!

Bye Bye Plywood!

Preventing gravity fail by holding the countertops down

PRETTY!

Day  3 Complete.  Next came the plumber and the only time in the whole mess I was disappointed in the level of service we received.

On Day 4, there was much confusion about who was to bring what.  And that we would need to go buy some drain kits, and other such stuff, I don't know, my brain started to melt so I passed it off to my darling husband, who is so much better at managing supply than me.

I didn't much care for our plumber.  He brought a trainee who complained the whole time.  They would tell jokes and make fun of past clients... with me right around the corner.  I'm kind of old fashion about customer service, but I always feel it is in bad form to make fun of your clients in front of other clients.  I was in customer service in one form or another for 22 years before I became a stay at home mom.  Sure, we have all had the idiot customer who doesn't know their left foot from their nose when it comes to whatever service industry you are in, but it is just rude.  Don't do it, is my advice to you.  Wait til you are at the bar or on lunch to talk about them behind their backs.  The illusion is pretty important to your customers that the people you work for aren't complete idiots who are lucky they can walk and chew gum at the same time.

That said, I expected from all their talk to have thsi crazy outstanding level of service never before matched.  What I got was someone who didn't know what some old tube running from the wall went to (neither do I- do I look like a plumber?) and someone who left a clear gummy sealant inside my brand stinking new sink.  But, after I scraped it off for three days with my fingernail, it was fabulous!

After

Beautiful new sink!  Awesome new dishwasher!

Beautiful, huh?  And if you think I'm going to wreck this kitchen by cooking in it, you have another thing coming!

Hello Again!

Again, it has been some time since I last wrote, but this time with good reason.  First, the fun reasons:

-We took a family vacation to Hawaii where I didn't access the internet, other than the occasional facebook post for friends living vicariously through us... ok, to make people incredibly jealous of our fabulous life (for one week anyway)

This is a tree I try to take a picture of every time we come here so we can see how she grows.  It's a lovely grassy park next to the hotel.

-Then we took another trip to Las Vegas just the two of us... and my parents, and my sister and brother in law.  My dad was playing in a World Series of Poker event where he did extremely well- no money win, but hey, I'm usually the first one out at any friendly tournament, so over 13 hours of play is pretty kick butt!  Plus, it was nice for the husband and I to connect with each other without L. I can't say enough how important I think it is to get away from your kids even if it is just for the evening.  I know there are some moms out there who are horrified that I would leave her for an entire weekend.  It's not like we locked her in a room covered with newspapers with bowls of food and various sippy cups of water.  (I thought about it- kidding!) She was left with my gracious in-laws who are either too polite to say what a little hellion we are raising or she charmed the pants off of them.

Not sure which.

In any case, it's important to remember that before anything else, there was the two of us.  If you can't remember what that was like, you need to book a vacation right now.

-In between all that, we attended 4 birthday parties, 2 baby showers, and a wedding.  Phew!  It doesn't look like this is going to let up any over the next year!

Now for the less than fun but far more practical.

So, remember in my last post I mentioned the dishwasher was not working.  Well, we had to forgo picking a room out of the bucket and skipped straight to the kitchen.  Because that wasn't the last thing to go in the kitchen.

We had a pretty dramatic situation in the kitchen and I'm not going to lay blame (mostly because this is my fault) but a plastic colander ended up in the oven, and unknowingly the oven was turned on to pre-heat it.  This is how it went down:

I was standing in the living room, well, between the living room and the kitchen watching L play while the oven heated up for dinner.  I hopped on my phone and started reading about the recipe I pinned on Pinterest that was to be the subject of dinner that night.  And like always, I got caught up in a Pin-cycle that got me looking at a billion other things.  That's when I smelled it.  You know, the smoky, chemically smell of charred plastic?

I yelled some obsenities which signalled my husband to come downstairs. 

On a side note, I would like to send big kudos to the team of instructors that taught me everything I know about being a flight attendant- Barb especially.  Her voice seven years after our initial training was still in my head, and allowed me to react quickly and calmly.

I saw the smoke pouring out of the oven, and saw the flames licking the glass door,  and turned off the power.  We got the fire extinguisher, cracked the door of the oven, unloaded the whole thing in a sweeping motion, and shut it back up.  I put the baby and the dog out on the patio so the smoke couldn't get them, and they were contained.  We pulled the circuit breaker.  After a while, we cracked the oven to be sure the flames had died down and this is what we saw:

My favorite colander/wedding present... gone.  Along with a wooden spoon and some silverware.

You can see the fire extinguisher powder on the floor, along with our anemic little fan trying to air what the room.

In our post mortem that night aka, lying in bed talking about what happened, our minds reeled over what went on, and what our next steps would have to be.  How to air out the house, would we have to hire a professional to come clean it, would we need to re-paint just to get the smell out?

Our smoke dectector failed, because of age.  SMOKE DETECTORS NEED TO BE CHANGED OUT EVERY 10 YEARS, NO MATTER HOW MANY BATTERIES YOU KNOW ARE GOOD GO INTO THOSE THINGS!!!  Just wanted to be sure you saw that- sorry for the shouting.
Lesson learned.

I was in denial, assuming we could try to clean it up and move on.  The husband threw his hands up and said, "let's just re-do the kitchen".
Talk about letting the rabbit out of the hat!
I have to contain my excitement a little at this because I have been chomping at the bit since the words, "Will you marry me?" were uttered by him to re-do this kitchen.  I have to be kept in check that this is not a home I am planning on living in for long, so don't go crazy.  Budget set at $2,000 to re-do the kitchen.  Could it be done?  Find out next post.