Homeowners

Jeff and I have learned ALL about the definitions and responsibilities of being homeowners over the past 4 months, but nothing has beat the information acquired in the past week.

Here are a few of the things I have learned:

1. If a garage door goes up, it will not necessarily go back down. The opposite is also true.

2. If a garage door experiences difficulty, for Heaven's sake move your car out of the garage before fiddling with it!

3. Muscles you do not realize you have will be sore for days after manually lifting and closing garage doors.

4. Garage door openers cost a lot of money.

5. Areas on the carpet that have been saturated in dog vomit will need to be gone over several times with a steam cleaner to get rid of the smell.

5. Steam cleaners cost a lot of money.

7. Dried chunks of dog vomit ruin vacuums.

8. Vacuums that don't suck cost a lot of money (well, more than I'm willing to pay 'cause I'm kind of cheap).

9. Gracie Lou will catch on to other things not working and decide to give us problems.

10. Fact: New cars cost a lot of money. Fact: Gracie Lou is just being temperamental and we will drive her until she falls apart.

11. Water heaters built within a certain number of years and installed in every house are missing a type of chemical in their pipes. This chemical prevents calcification and back up of plastics in the lines, which lead to low water pressure. Fact: our water heater was obviously built during this time, and no, it is not covered under any home policy we have.

12. Water heater issues cost a lot of money.

13. It appears we only had 1 mouse.

Finally, to sum up (and I'm fairly certain if I asked my wonderful husband he would remind me of a few more issues in our recent homeowner history), the last few weeks have been pretty stressful. Funny, but stressful. Hope all is well with you and yours. :)

The Hunt

Oh, it's on.

For those of you who have somehow missed the weather channel entirely (something that I believe is impossible to do... I mean, with great programs such as "Local on the 8's," "Storm Watch," and "Wake Up with Al," what's not to love???), Kansas City has had plenty of below freezing temperatures. This is wonderful for those of us who love the winter and cold (like me) and bad for those who HATE the winter and cold (like Jeff). This has also been very bad for us as a new family with a new house. Why? Because we have had another family move in with us... a 4 legged, furry family seeking warmth and nibbles of our wooden kitchen spoons.

It began like this:
"Um, Jeff, I think we have a mouse; the toilet paper has been shredded in the laundry room and there are droppings in the - "
"WHAT?! WE NEED TO GO BUY TRAPS RIGHT NOW!"

Cut forward an hour, and our home looked about the same except for the 24 (not even kidding you) traps now being assembled military style in the kitchen and placed at various locations around the house. We were not messing around.

We searched carefully for other evidence of mice throughout the house and found none. Feeling somewhat secure they were safely contained in the basement area, we went to sleep and work the next day feeling somewhat normal (although there is now a smell of peanut butter mouse catching glue strips permeating our house... and interestingly enough, those traps are the ONE thing Duncan has shown absolutely no interest in and actively avoids).

The next evening I was cooking dinner and reached in a drawer for a wooden spoon, which had very neatly been nibbled on all along the edges. By the next hour, much of our kitchenware was running through the dishwasher and I was hand washing plastic containers to put clean utensils in. Needless to say, we knew we were outnumbered and called our handy exterminator. He found the entry point of the mice and quickly sealed our home from other intruders. In addition, he laid out traps that are guaranteed to rid our home from pests. They have their marching orders and should be gone within 24-48 hours. Jeff will be handling the ridding, as I reminded him if it were up to me, I would probably get rid of the carcasses and call someone to cleanse our home from the blood shed (you may see we have differing styles of approach).

Duncan, of course, has not appeared to be bothered by these creatures in front of us, other than a heightened fear of dark places (which he was already afraid of) and excess fur shed around his crate (we feel as though they are probably messing with him when we are not home). We also believe if given the chance, Duncan would probably try to make very good friends with them. He's just such a loving doggy.

Hope all is well with you and yours, and hopefully I will be posting next from a home with Duncan as our only 4 legged furry friend. :)

Snow Day

For those of you unaware, KC has really taken a pounding this year in terms of winter weather. I myself saw 2 cars slide off the road on my commute home (1 was airborn before hitting the ditch... scared me to death). All of my meetings and appointments were canceled for today, and I thought I would share with you what snow days are all about:

Things NOT to do on a snow day:
Work
Clean
Eat healthy
Be responsible
Anything productive

Things to do on a snow day:
Talk on the phone
Play a gaming system or 2
Watch movies
Watch trash tv
Love on a puppy
Write a blog
Ensure all posts and statuses on facebook are updated and commented on

I jest. I have actually been alternating both lists and completing almost everything on here. Please stay safe and enjoy whatever you are doing. Hope all is well with you and yours. :)

Decade-tastic

Hey all! As many of you know (hopefully), not only did we usher in the beginning to a new year recently, we also ushered in the beginning of a decade. Therefore, my typical "yearly review" took the opportunity to expand.

In the last decade I: graduated high school, graduated college, successfully held my first post-college job, met the love of my life, completed my masters, became licensed for practicing social work, bought a house, got a dog, and got married. WOW.

Now let's take a look at just this past year: Masters, licensed, house, dog, married.

I think after reviewing this, I believe my New Year's resolution is definitely to slow down!!! I also have taken up James' challenge of no fast food for 6 months and no fried food at restaurants (excluding some of the fried sushi). We shall see how this goes. :)

Duncan is now reminding me that it's time for him to eat, so I need to wrap this up.

Hope all is well with you and yours, and may this year be better than your last. :)

Peace and Love,
Jeff and Heather

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! Our dear friend Joe put it quite well when speaking of the birth of our Christ, so I am going to direct you to his site.

We spent much of yesterday attempting to travel. I say attempting, because for those of you living in caves, the midwest has been hit by a blizzard! AAAAHHH!!!! We anxiously watched the weather for days leading to the upcoming trip. We planned our routes based on forecasts and set off early in the morning. We had one stop to complete, but more about that later.

It started with rain and winds as we left the city. After we passed through Ottawa, it began to sleet. Stop here or continue on, we wondered? After phone calls to various friends along our chosen route, we decided to press forward in our journey. Soon we noticed an evident slowing of cars, the beginnings of snow gathering alongside the roads, and finally saw it: the first of many cars sliding into the ditch. Jeff began to sweat as our car began to slide sideways. We slowed our speed to under just 5 mph. Semi after semi after car after car after car appeared in the ditch. I made the decision. My sweet husband volunteered to keep pressing on until we could go no further. I pulled the plug on our mission 11 miles before and we headed back to the city.

It is now Christmas day, we are spending the day as a brand new family together. Our one and only attempt to leave the home this morning for mass was thwarted swiftly as it became stucker than stuck.

On the bright side, Duncan absolutely loves the snow, has been disappearing in and out of drifts all morning, and has made the disappointment of being from my extended family (and Jeff's until the roads are clear) more bearable.

For our stop, for those of you curious and still paying attention, we went to visit our wedding photographer and pick up our AMAZING photos! :) They did such a GREAT job!!!!! We are really pleased!!!!!!!!!!! There will be instructions on my facebook page on how to access and view them, and if you are merely a reader of the blog and not my FB friend, I ask that you please email and ask for instructions. :)

Merry Christmas to all!!! May God bless you as you celebrate the birth of His son!!!

Welcome to Florida, home of the U-Turn

Hi faithful readers! I pray this finds you in good spirits, wonderful health, and even better luck as the Christmas seasons falls upon us.

We are back safe and sound from our honeymoon. For those of you who do not know, we went to Fort Myers, Florida, home of the U-turn. And some other stuff, I'm sure. But mostly the U-turn.



Day 1 of our honeymoon brought us untold adventures. Upon arriving, we rented a Mustang Convertible. It was excellent, loud, and gave Jeff the opportunity to get us lost time after time without feeling his manhood threatened. :)


Vroom vroom! That said, our first big purchase on our honeymoon was a GPS, who we lovingly named Tabby. She caught the Florida spirit near the end of our honeymoon by instructing us us to make U-turn after U-turn after U-turn (and even had us circling city blocks several times before admitting our destination was on the right). As our previously Googlemapped directions took us to the property rental office (and not our beloved condo), we felt this was a necessary purchase. Hooray for Day 1! :)

Day 2 brought untold adventure as we went in search of the necessities: groceries, parking passes, and Bank of America. Now, let me tell you, this is when Tabby began to show her sarcastic nature. From our starting point, the nearest Bank of America was around 12 miles away... after an hour of driving, Tabby took us to a location on the beach. Literally. No Bank of America anywhere. We then drove through barrios and ghettos before U-turning ourselves until near dark. You'll be happy to know we later realized a Bank of America a few mere blocks from our beginning destination.

Day 3 was wonderful and wonderous, as we explored the exciting winter homes of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. We were especially excited to peer into the rooms , guest houses, pool house, midnight garden, home office, garage, and laboratory of these fine gentleman (it was honestly really cool). As walking their acre of property took much of the day, we continued the adventure by wandering the area around our condo (which was actually inside a spa/resort facility and was on the beach and BEAUTIFUL!). Pictured are Thomas Edison's home and Jeff and I breaking the museum rules by entering a restricted area to be next to the SAH-WEET car!



Day 4 was Thanksgiving. For our first meal as a married couple, we decided to be really traditional... so we had fish and rice. And then we walked around on the beach, gave thanks for the wonderful weather and beautiful views, and retired to watching movies and cuddling the remainder of the day. Happy Thanksgiving to us!

Day 5 we learned a LOT more about Florida driving as we journeyed to Tampa Bay to visit the Florida Aquarium. It was nice, but I was a tad disappointed because I expected larger and more oceanic fish with us being in FLORIDA and all. However, I really enjoyed looking at fish at a location other than Red Lobster. Behind the Aquarium was the SS American Victory, an old ship dating back to WWI. Jeff and I promptly left the Aquarium and toured this wonderful ship. We even got to go into the cabins and on the top deck. It was really neat. Lastly, we found something that took the rest of the day: IKEA! I was so excited I make Jeff stop. We spent the remainder of the day browsing the aisles and remarking at how smart those Swedes are.

Day 6 we found ourselves journeying south to Naples to the Naples Zoo and Botanical Gardens. After going around the same block twice, Tabby admitted the location of the entrance. As with the aquarium, I found myself searching for many more wildlife than was found at the zoo. It was certainly an enjoyable time, but I was a little disappointed as we missed alligator and snake feeding time. They also had wonderful trees and plants to look at. We also took a boat tour to see the monkeys and that was pretty neat. That evening we had reservations at Ellington's Jazz Club and Restaurant, an upscale establishment with live jazz entertainment. Our waiter reminded us of Marshall from How I Met Your Mother in every way, shape, and form and this kept us pretty entertained. Overall, the food was good, the staff was curteous, and the band was awesome! The band surprised us by announcing our recent nuptials, dedicated a song to us, and the hostess brought over a rose. It was really sweet and definitely really cool.



Day 7 was spent at the beach. It was gorgeous and only took us about 14 U-turns to find (relatively cheap) parking. :)


Day 8 brought us back home, bringing about the wonders of flying First Class (do you know all drinks are free in First Class?!). Let me tell you, we did not allow any of the "advantages" of flying First Class go to waste. I am thankful there was a car service to pick us up for the ride home.

While we REALLY miss the wonderful view and warm weather, it is good to be back home! We started missing Duncan the second day and the long phone calls with him just weren't really doing the trick for us... plus he kept dropping the phone, etc. :) Hope all is well with you and yours! :)

11/21/09

We're hitched now!!! Leaving for our honeymoon in the morning. We will be enjoying the (hopefully) warm weather and beaches in Florida. We are hoping to get some fishing, sightseeing, and relaxing alone time... tall order, but we aim to fill it!

Thank you to all who supported us over the past 3 1/2 years, who celebrated with us in body or spirit, and who assisted in every single last crazy whim that accompanied our wedding day. We love you all!!! :)