finally friday

Oof, what a week it's been. Work has been busy- which really is nice, but it has made for one looooong week. That combined with following calamity is making the weekend not come fast enough.

1. I lost my car keys. Now, I know what you are thinking, and it's not entirely my fault. I had known the spare was MIA for a little bit- we had looked for it a few weeks ago and couldn't find it, but we didn't look that hard so we weren't too concerned since our stuff is split between two houses now and in general life is hectic, and we didn't really need it at the time. Well, we should have been more concerned. Yesterday as I was leaving work (which I clearly drove to, with my car/ key) I went to get my keys out of my purse to unlock my car as I walked through an unplowed parking lot, with probably 4 or 5 inches of snow. I felt a little catch, but didn't think anything of it (there is lots of stuff in my purse). I got the keys out and used the fob to unlock my car about 30 feet away or so. I then got in the car and go to start it so it can warm up while I scraped the snow off... and there is no car key on the ring. I just sat there staring at the keys. It looked like everything else is there except  the car key, how does that happen? Was I going blind? Crazy? Was I robbed? I thought about this for a few more minutes and then I realized the house key is gone as well. I start to panic. David is all the way across town, we just had a snow storm so I can't ask someone to spend an hour taking me home out of their way, what was I going to do? Well I spend the next 40ish minutes looking for it- tearing apart my car, my purse, my wallet. Going back up to my cube. Retracing my steps almost a dozen times and digging through the snow. No luck. I assume the key got lost in the snow and is now plowed into a bank somewhere, not to be seen until the spring. Womp womp. Once I realized the key was a lost cause I had to figure out a way home. Luckily (?) there was an after work event which would allow me to slowly move my way southeast across the metro, as no one from work seems to live in the part of Minneapolis I do. I managed to get a ride to the party, where I stayed for a few hours, then a ride to Highland, where I sat at a friend's house til Michael could come get me. He took me to my in-laws, where I got our spare house key, and my FIL gave me a ride home. I walked in the door around 8:30 (only 4 hours after I had initially left work) after 4 car rides to go the 10 miles home. And now, 16 hours later I just paid $205 for a locksmith to come to my car and make me 2 replacement keys. 

Now for some good weekly facts...

2. We have not only one, but two people interested in renting out our upstairs apartment! It is good to have connections. One of the interested parties is coming to look at it this weekend. He has spoken to David on the phone about the specifics, and heard from a friend what the apartment is like- so he already has a good idea. We are hopeful after this weekend we will have our renter lined up and ready to go.

3. Having a renter looming over our head means we need to not only kick it into high gear on the house so we can move in, but really focus on finish up the upstairs apartment so it is ready for a renter. I was hoping to have a pic by today (but last night's disaster sucked up my time) of the hallway project, but some major progress has occurred and it will be finished tomorrow!

4. Speaking of the new house, it is coming together nicely (provided you don't go upstairs or downstairs). We have snagged a few things off of craigslist (some things even you don't know about mom) and I can't wait to start sharing some pictures.

5. This news is a few weeks old now, and you might not think it is that exciting, but I certainly do. After much deliberation I decided to use some of our Christmas money to get this guy:

You might think having a carpet cleaner in a house with mostly hardwood floors is a little silly. But I figured not only would I get use out of it in our carpeted bedroom (where the puppies have had a few accidents during this polar vortex) and a few of our area rugs, but we would also be able to use it when we are flipping our units between renters and hopefully lengthen the life of our carpet a little bit (or at least put off having to hire a professional carpet cleaner every flip). That combined with the fact that it went on sale, I had a Kohl's giftcard and a friend with a Kohl's credit card meant I got the cleaner, which is normally $260, for $50 out of pocket.

I used the cleaner that same night I was so excited to give it a try. As far as I am concerned using that thing is the most fun/ most gratifying chore ever. So far I am quite impressed with it and it feels so good to have clean carpet I'm a little concerned that thing will becoming addicting. But I suppose there are worse addictions I could have.

Happy Friday everyone! I promise I'll be back next week with a return to my "regular" blogging schedule.

demolition

Besides painting over at the new house, we are still in the demolition stage of our bigger projects. Specifically in the basement and the attic. We David ripped out most of the basement ceiling before Christmas (besides the pesky plaster around some light fixtures, vents, etc). And man was that a messy job. I'm glad boys think things like that are fun, because I wanted no part of it. I stayed upstairs during that project, yet somehow got sucked into the clean up stage, so unfortunately I don't have any pictures of a basement full of plaster. Now, many pounds of plaster hauled to the trash later, this is what the basement looks like. Clearly there's still a lot to do.

With the ceiling opened up we have been able to work on some of the plumbing issues- with varied success. Slowly but surely we are getting working, pressurized, heated water to all the necessary rooms and fixtures in the house. Although it does seem in some senses we are taking one step forward and two steps back and/or we just have a possessed toilet.

Plumbing we leave to the professionals. So we are busying ourselves other places. Like the attic, now that the basement is on hold due to the pipe issues. Just this week David and a friend tore down the walls surrounding the chimney. We drilled a few 1-inch holes in the drywall to investigate what was in fact behind the wall (insulation? a crumbling chimney? nothing?) and once we could verify there were in fact bricks back there, that looked decent, we felt good enough to commence tearing it all down.

Luckily they had already more or less "finished" the ceiling to the chimney. We were concerned we would have to add more drywall in the small space behind the wall. However some insulation, some plaster, and some trim work should cover that mess nicely.

And just so you understand why we wanted to tackle the chimney walls, besides for aesthetic reasons (I mean, if I have to have a large pillar in the middle of a room, it might as well be exposed brick), we did gain at least 4-inches on each side of the chimney. It might not sound like a lot, but when your walking space involves slanted ceilings, 4 inches makes a difference. See before and after for proof.

Ok, maybe it is hard to tell with all that clutter on the floor and the drastic light difference, so just trust me on this one.

And now that we can see the whole chimney we know there were no huge surprises now. Perhaps a few bricks to mud, but nothing drastic. Some good news/ bad news. We found the antenna cable running down from the roof. This is good news because we don't have cable, so we can use the powerful antenna to pick up more channels and ditch our rabbit ears (and now we know where to locate the cord in the house). The bad news is that it is running right next to the chimney (you can see a thin black line on the front right side of the chimney in the bottom pic), so we will probably just have to live with it there and paint it white. Also there are some stains on the chimney that need to be investigated- hopefully just from an old leak. But all things considered we are happy- the ceiling didn't come crashing down or anything- and we can now move on to thinking about light fixtures up there and then onwards to painting!

You know what we'll be doing this weekend.... 

finally friday

It's been so long I don't even know where to start. Clearly a lot has happened, little things like Christmas and New Years' came and went, but if I wait until I have the energy or mental stamina to tell you about either of those things I might never blog again. So I'll just give you some bullet points about our happenings over the past few weeks.

1. The last events at Mall of America Field, aka the HHH Metrodome.

Last Monster Jam

Last (and first) Rollerdome with my dad

Last Vikings game

2. As part of our Christmas festivities my dad and I enjoyed seeing Phantom of the Opera at the Orpheum and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra perform Handel's Messiah at the Basilica.

3. A lot of painting at the new place has been going on, and man does it feel good to know I won't be living in a sea of beige in the near future.

 Out with the green and in with the blue!

4. There were dozens little things that slipped in there as well: some progress on the hallway project, the rush to spend the last of my flex dollars glasses shopping, a cousin-mom/aunt sleepover, a lost-then-found wallet, a get-together with high school friends in town for the holidays, just to name a few. Somewhere in all of that craziness  Franklin managed to get stuck under the dresser in the quest for a toy and I couldn't help but take a picture.

 Don't worry, I rescued him after taking the pic...

5. Oh, and like I said, we did a wee bit of celebrating Christmas (try 6 times!), but (hopefully) I'll have the fortitude to do an entire post about those in the near-ish future. For now have this family pic, with an uncooperative Winston, to tide you over.