Revisiting The List: "January" Cure

Here is a look back at the list I created at the beginning of January. There have been several additions & changes since the last time (marked with *). The majority of our progress has been the complete room swap we're in the middle of right now & of course the kitchen changes that I made several weeks ago. The house is kind of a crazy mess right now but we'll be kicking our butts into high-gear this week to prepare for several different guests this weekend.

Exterior:

Scrape front porch of red paint
Wash all exterior windows
Rake & bag leaves
Remove excess cables from exterior brick
Remove all 3 flower beds in the backyard (under window/garage/random) & level dirt

Clean out "the lady bird hole"

Fill in above mentioned hole crater with dirt *Have yard professionally leveled

Seed front & back yards

Fill in west-side yard with weed blocker & rocks

Cut down rose bushes on east side

Clean gutters

Trim up all trees

Re-caulk (with clear) all windows & doors

Paint all outside trim

Replace mailbox

Power wash entire house

Re-mortar bricks as needed/possibly paint exterior brick (Preston?)
Put piers under house - new quote needed

Replace roof

Replace fence

Kitchen:

Clean the back door + dog door
Organize cleaning supplies under the sink
Find a better solution for pantry & organization
Find a better solution/set-up for the built in desk (it feels like wasted cluttered space)
Replace all dishes 
Replace cups to match
*Add 2-4 more stools around bar

Paint kitchen a lighter color
Replace all 3 ceiling light fixtures
Replace light above the sink with a pendant like this or this

Replace knobs & hinges with a lighter color

Figure out something with kitchen back-splash (paintable?)
Replace stove to match surrounding appliances
Replace counter-tops (concrete overlay?)

Hallway:
Organize/purge cabinets + give them a good inside cleaning
Properly replace handles on drawers with knobs
Touch-up ceiling paint
Replace light fixture & sell old one if possible

Bathroom:

Frost window & remove curtain
Replace burnt out bulbs

Caulk around bathtub
Re-tile shower

Refinish bathtub?

North Bedroom:
Remove everything that's not used (old stools, boxes, etc.)
*Sell amp & guitars
Replace ceiling fan (water damaged) (this?)
Refinish Audrie's bookcase
Put up roller blinds
Fix paint on both doors (chipped/peeling)
Move bikes to garage & get a rack like this
Come up with guest bed solution

South Bedroom:
Replace blinds with roller blinds
Replace ceiling fan to match other bedroom

Drywall ceiling (plaster is cracking)

**We've decided to swap our dining room & living room space so things are a little different than before. We love how open our living room/kitchen/dining area is but have always hated the layout of it. After 4.5 years of living here and several different furniture arrangements, I think we've finally figured out how it should've been all along.**

Dining Room/Seating Area (formerly the living room):
Get 5x7 frame for cross-stitch
Add a table runner
*Remove curtains 
*Add rug + rug pad under the table (the one from the living room?)
*Get smaller, round dining table
*Replace dining chairs over time
Replace light fixture with something like this & sell old one

Sand all woodwork (baseboards/mantel/doors)

Paint all woodwork semi-gloss white
Bring record player inside from garage (if needed) to use as sofa table/replace legs w/hairpin legs
Remove gas insert – make sure gas line is capped off & fill with logs like this
Replace recessed light bulb
Paint fireplace to match woodwork (white to match woodwork? dark grey?)

Patch plaster cracks

Patch holes above fireplace & paint grey to match walls
Frost front door

Living Room (formerly the dining room):

Swap surge-protectors & organize cables in my new CableBox! (I'm a dork.)
Add key holders above entry table - like this
Add hanging coat rack behind front door - like this
Add rug pad &/or possibly get new softer/cozier rug (move old rug to DR)
*Replace light fixture with something like this & sell old one
*Hem pld living room curtains to fit picture window
Refinish coffee table ($30 craigslist find!)
Sand all woodwork (baseboards/window seat)

Paint all woodwork semi-gloss white
*Spackle/paint all the dozens of nail holes from the old picture gallery wall

Find a mid-century credenza for our TV *or use our storage headboard (currently used as a sideboard)
Add pictures to empty frames on picture wall & hang *(or move pictures to different wall)

Organize & cover the "cubbies" under the picture window with tension rods & curtains
Paint blue wall to match remaining walls

Throughout: 
Give all baseboards a nice cleaning

Spackle holes in walls throughout house & remove old anchors
Caulk all crown molding, fix separation cracks & repaint

Refinish hardwood floors
Get rid of those squirrels!! (2 of these in the attic & they don't care!! Time to call a professional.)

I never did complete a couple of the official cure tasks like a deep clean of the medicine cabinets & bedrooms but I feel totally okay with that. I have completed so much more than what I had planned & I'm happy with the pace I'm going right now. Some of the progress can't be seen on the list, like buying supplies for upcoming tasks or even entire pieces of furniture we hadn't planned on to complete a room & because no blog is complete without pictures, here's a nice little sneak-peak into what's been happening:

Turtle Pace: January Cure

My cure is at a standstill. I have made very little progress in the last week but do you know what? My kitchen is still clean. That earns me at least 5 gold stars. Not only has it remained clean but it's also gotten more use in the past week than it's gotten in a long time. I've gotten in the habit of actually cleaning it while I go or spending a couple minutes before bed loading the dishwasher & clearing the counters. Is this what being a real adult feels like?

Tasks #1-8 happened so fast & with so much excitement that I ran out of fuel but I have managed to do a few of the tasks assigned.

#9. Create a Landing Strip. That is somewhat of a tough one when your front door enters right into the middle of your living room. I am already good about sorting the little mail we receive on a daily basis. I have a mail sorter on our built-in desk in the kitchen that I use to hold mail awaiting filing. I took this time as an opportunity to spring for the coat rack & key hanger I've been eyeing. I can't have too many animals in my house can I? You'll just have to look past that lovely front door. I started sanding it weeks ago & well. I didn't get far.

#'s 11 (work on main project) & 14 (cord clutter) were already done so I took those as days to do absolutely nothing.

The last two weekend projects of #'s 12 (bedroom deep clean) & #17 (living room deep clean) I just completely blew off. I had all weekend to do them & just opted right out of it. But my kitchen is clean so that makes up for it. I'll have you know that I do regret my decision. 

#'s 13 (file paperwork) & 15 (clean medicine cabinets) I plan on completing & they won't be hard tasks to do but..... I could catch up on the shows on DVR instead. That's what my body is telling me anyway.

I actually did do #16 because I am always willing to get rid of crap. They challenged people to get rid of 10 "media" items, whether it be books, movies or .music. Ryan thought that sounded crazy but I ended up at least doubling that number just between books & movies. Going through CD's is on my to-do list but it'll be a bigger task so I decided not to mess with it that evening.

Tonight's task (#18) is a "catch-up" day that I could spend completing one of the ones I missed but the first half of the evening will be spent at the vets & the rest of the time I'll be trying to get rid of this headache.

I may have started to slack off & things are moving at an extremely slow pace but do you know what? I haven't given up & I've gotten to mark 7 things off of my huge project list & that feels awesome.

So, how is your home going? Am I the only one that struggles with keeping it clean all of the time?

Clean & Almost Painless Kitchen: January Cure

I did it. I survived the weekend while actually cleaning my kitchen. That sucker is possibly cleaner than it's ever been in the 4 years of living here. The insides & outs of every cabinet got a thorough cleaning & almost everything got a new home that made more sense. I even cleaned the inside of my oven. At 8pm. On a Sunday night. With an injured arm. At some point during the cleaning process I pulled a muscle in my arm from the shoulder to elbow. Ridiculous, right?

It took me two days to complete & I lost momentum right about here:

I had to call upon my best friend for some motivation to finish. Lucky for Ryan, I took the advice & he didn't have to stare at that madhouse for months. & look! I have a functioning pantry that isn't on the ground!

*Side note: Do you see that back splash? What is that? It always looks dirty no matter how much you scrub & iritates the crap out of me! It is like huge sheets of some sort of matte metal with square tiles etched into it. It's also used as the counter top on each side of the oven (see above). You can also see the horrible brown color that is my kitchen. The oven picture captures the color perfectly. The brown looked fine when our living room was green but when I painted it grey over a year ago, it lost it's charm. It needs to go.

My outbox grew substantially during this process & someone is going to get really lucky when they snag our "big trash day" pile off our curb tonight. Enjoy your new fully stocked kitchen, neighbor. I hope you get more use out of that mixer than I did. I might not have managed to downsize our food by 25% but I definitely managed at least that in kitchen dishes & small appliances. Look at those empty shelves!

I won't lie & say that I didn't run 2 laps around my house with my arms in the air, chanting & giving Ryan high fives at 10pm on Sunday when I finally sat down & threw in the towel.

I have a few smaller things that I didn't get to like cleaning the back door & scrubbing those floors but I got my entire month's project of finding a better pantry/organizing solution done so I'm not that worried about it. I even replaced old shelf liners that I've hated for 4 years & bought a dish shelf, like so, to get more function out of the cabinets! Now I can move on to something else on my huge overwhelming list.

My Kitchen: January Cure

There are so many things that I strongly dislike about my kitchen.

Some things I knew the day I bought it but most things have been proven the longer I live in it.

The problems go way beyond the cosmetics of it & reach to the efficiency & flow.

The worst thing you can have in a kitchen is inefficiency, 

especially when you actually use your kitchen for cooking like we do.

Like the fact that the "pantry" is on the floor.

So this is my mission for the January Cure.

My main focus is going to be cleaning out cabinets & purging, purging, purging.

I want to try & downsize enough so that I can find a better solution for the pantry.

It would be so nice for it to be in an upper cabinet but when you only have 2 uppers, your options are pretty limited. The very top cabinets that you can see in the pictures aren't used for much of anything considering it takes climbing on top of the counters a step-stool to reach them. Actually, I don't even know what's in there.

We have so many dishes that their sole purpose is to collect dust. 

I mean, we have 3 shelves entirely full of CUPS & 1 entire shelf of coffee mugs.

These pictures are after I had already set up my outbox on Day 4 & put an entire shelf of glasses in it.

There are also bar stools & a toaster in that outbox. I am really interested to see how that thing grows through the month of January.

This weekends assignment is to clean the heck out of the kitchen anyway so I'm happy to have a little jump start in getting it all done. It's time to pull everything out of there.

Eventually I will replace ALL of our plates & glasses to match. Right now we have two different sets of dishes & about 6 different kinds of glasses. How many cups & mugs do 2 people need anyhow?

Day 2/1st weekend project of the Cure was fresh flowers & floors.

Well... I got the flowers. The floors? Well, they're still dirty.

There is something so refreshing about having fresh flowers in my home.

It's something that I've NEVER taken the time to do so I'm very pleased that this challenge is making me.

So far, the rest of the weeks tasks have been easy & painless.

Yesterday was to get a piece of artwork ready to frame & hang up later in the month & I already knew exactly what that would be. The wooden frame below has just been waiting for my current cross-stitch project so now I just need to make sure it's ready to frame by the 28th!

Will anyone else be spending their weekend cleaning their kitchen?

Create a Project List: January Cure

Happy 2014 everyone!

I don't make new year resolutions. It's just never been my thing. However, I would really like to continue to work on my "housekeeping" skills in this upcoming year. This is includes everything from the small, should-be-daily tasks, to larger house projects that will help us get out of this house sooner, rather than later. 

Apartment Therapy does a "January Cure" every year & I'm going with it this year. Every day there is a new task to help you clean or organize a piece of  your home until the last day of the month where you can relax because you accomplished something. I don't really want to get too enthusiastic & say that the something will be extravagant but let's face it, I'm okay with it turning out to just be something. Hey, if I only end up with a swept floor -- I will be happy. This is exactly what I need right now though. I need a little inspiration to keep me going. My honey-do list is unbelievable & actually quite embarrassing but maybe some public admittance will help kick my butt into gear. Keep in mind that this is everything from the big to the small; from the realistic to the dream. & I always list the larger, more expensive tasks last in each area. I'm pretty sure that they are wanting a list of cleaning type things in each room & maybe some very minor fixes but I need to get it all out there. Big & small. Because I love lists. & I love crossing things off of them even more.

So here's to a new year & this list being the start of being on our way to a new house! ...eventually.

Exterior:

Scrape front porch of red paint
Wash all exterior windows
Rake & bag leaves
Remove excess cables from exterior brick
Remove all 3 flower beds in the backyard (under window/garage/random) & level dirt

Clean out "the lady bird hole"

Fill in above mentioned hole crater with dirt

Seed front & back yards

Fill in west-side yard with weed blocker & rocks

Cut down rose bushes on east side

Clean gutters

Trim up all trees

Re-caulk (with clear) all windows & doors

Paint all outside trim

Replace mailbox

Power wash entire house

Re-mortar bricks as needed/possibly paint exterior brick (Preston?)
Put piers under house - new quote needed

Replace roof

Replace fence

Dining Room:
Add a table runner
Organize & cover the "cubbies" under the picture window
Paint blue wall to match remaining walls
Replace light fixture

Sand all woodwork (baseboards/window seat)

Paint all woodwork semi-gloss white
Add 1-2 more stools at counter

Living Room:

Swap surge-protectors & organize cables in my new CableBox! (I'm a dork.)
Add key holders above entry table - like this
Add hanging coat rack behind front door - like this
Rug pad replacement
Frost front door
Replace recessed light bulb
Refinish coffee table ($30 craigslist find!)
Sand all woodwork (baseboards/mantel/doors)

Paint all woodwork

Paint fireplace

Patch plaster cracks?

Patch holes above fireplace & paint grey to match walls
Replace curtains (1 panel is missing at the moment. IKEA no longer sells what we have.)
Bring record player inside from garage to use as sofa table - buy & attach hairpin legs

Remove gas insert – make sure gas line is capped off & fill with logs
Find a mid-century credenza like so, but for significantly less & preferably somewhere local

Kitchen:

Clean the back door + dog door
Organize cleaning supplies under the sink
Find a better solution for pantry & organization
Find a better solution/set-up for the built in desk (it feels like wasted cluttered space)
Replace all dishes & cups to match

Paint kitchen a lighter color
Replace all 3 light fixtures

Replace knobs & hinges with a lighter color

Figure out something with kitchen back-splash (paintable?)
Replace stove to match surrounding appliances
Replace counter-tops (concrete overlay?)

Hallway:
Organize/purge cabinets + give them a good inside cleaning
Properly replace handles on drawers
Touch-up ceiling paint

Bathroom:

Frost window & remove curtain
Replace burnt out bulbs

Caulk around bathtub
Re-tile shower

Refinish bathtub?

North Bedroom:
Remove everything that's not used (old stools, boxes, etc.)
Replace ceiling fan (water damaged)
Refinish Audrie's bookcase
Put up blinds
Fix paint on both doors (chipped/peeling)
Move bikes to garage or get a rack like this
Come up with guest bed solution

South Bedroom:
Replace blinds

Drywall ceiling (plaster is cracking)

Throughout: 
Give all baseboards a nice cleaning

Spackle holes in walls throughout house & remove old anchors
Caulk all crown molding & fix separation cracks

Refinish hardwood floors
Get rid of those squirrels!! (2 of these in the attic & they don't care!! Time to call a professional.)

DAMMIT. This is worse than I thought. & you can guarantee I'm missing a few. I hope to slowly work on this way past January & continue it all year long. Some of these things I have begun in some form, even if it's just buying some supplies. Now do you all see why my house make me anxious?

Inspired & Rounding Up: October

I am feeling so inspired lately to create around & for the house. It's something I don't normally feel & quite honestly don't know what to do with. I will be the first one to tell you just how lazy of a human being I am. This surge of creativity in my mind is really battling my laziness & I'm not really sure who is going to win to be honest. I would love to say that I will explode with productivity & get some of these ideas out of my head & turn them into real life but I know myself too well to make such a bold statement.

My little OCD mind can't get enough of lists & spreadsheets. Things to cross off & zero-balance. Those are the things I dream about. I've been creating lists everywhere. My head. Notes in my phone. Email drafts. Notepads. Lists of things I want to do & the tools I will need to accomplish them slowly, one by one. The only problem is that I keep losing them. Accidentally deleting them, throwing them away or forgetting to save them altogether.

Unfortunately, almost every single task requires something that I do not have on hand & already own which means every single one requires money. Which means, no tasks for me.

This girl has got to get herself a real vacation & focus on a few priorities like finally becoming debt free, having an emergency fund in place & breaking down our budget before I throw money to paint brushes, caulk & nail guns. I hope that this feeling stays well into the new year, as daunting as it is, so that I can finally get our home that we love oh so much a little more tolerable & ready to sell when the time comes.

My new cross-stitch project will just have to hold me over until all of those Home Depot & Lowes gift cards come flooding in for Christmas.

& in other news:

1. We got a free date to a Barons hockey game, courtesy Ryan's work of course.

2. It's finally Thunder season & we kicked it off at our first game. Okay, it was only a preseason game.

3. Halloween around the corner means we've been watching classic horror movies to include When A Stranger Calls Back, The Shining (shown above) and Carrie & we went to the best Haunted House to date.

4. I'm obsessed with my leather jacket right now.

Hey look, an entire post without mentioning my dogs or animals in general. It is possible!

Weekly Round-Up: Aug 19-25

1. We had to "suit up" to visit our step-mom, Kim, in the hospital. She gave us quite a scare this week but seems to be doing much better now. She was released from the hospital today but still has some healing to do. 

We just ask that everyone continues to keep her in your thoughts & hope for a quick recovery!

2. Hank has had the luxury of being put in a pen, rather than a crate during the day. 

We finally bought him a crate because even with bricks around the pen, he moved that thing around everywhere. 

He hates his new crate. HATES. 

I swear that Satan himself has come out of his butt every single day in that thing. 

When I told him to get in his crate, he looked at me & then crammed himself in Comet's crate instead. 

He can't fit in there without sitting & curling up. He can't even walk into the thing. It's more like an army crawl but there was no way he was getting in his crate to be alone all day. 

Needless to say, it was so precious that I didn't bother arguing. 

He loves his tiny brother so much.

3. I've still been working on cleaning/organizing/throwing away the house.

This was my Sunday afternoon project: 

aka do something with the old bedroom/awkward room/dog room/music room/bicycle? room.

I was going to get rid of that table, filing cabinet AND mirror but look at me being all "reuse & recycle"...or whatever.

I took the big drawer out of the filing cabinet & removed the rolling track.

Now it's the perfect size to hide my big caboodle & hair products.

The table was my Grandma Audrie's. It's in pretty rough shape & used to have a V-shaped shelf right in the middle that just made it awkward. I took off the shelf & already have plans to reuse those.

I will eventually be sanding & painting it as well.

& yes, I did hang a mirror in between our double windows.

Lets face it. Natural light is the BEST to get ready in front of.

4. Ryan had his first band practice for a cover band that our buddy Matt is putting together.

I'll be honest & say that I'm excited because I could listen to Tommie sing all day & because well... it pays.

All I really care about right now is getting to New Mexico in November.

Vacation is calling to us so strong right now & we're focusing on saving every penny until then.

I can't wait to feel that cold mountain air in my hair & lungs.

Weekly Round-Up: Aug 12-18

Honestly, I feel so grumpy today that I don't really give a shit about this blog right now.

But my little OCD head is already frustrated that I'm a day behind so carry on, I must.

1. Dinner date with The Marshell's so I could experience Thai food the first time.

The highlight was obviously hanging out with Max who was in a fantastic mood.

I know you're all dying to know my thoughts on the food which is:

I think I could seriously like some shrimp pad thai.

But let's get real & say that what I remember most is that it smells like wet dog.

Side note: I was totally trying to be sweet yesterday & took Ryan to eat thai again because a) there was another groupon & b) I wanted to try it again -- & it was so horrible. All around - just a horrible experience.

But, it did not let me down in the fact that it did still smell like wet dog.

2. We hung out @ my brother & sister-in-law's house for some games & beer.

Of course beer. Darren Griffis & beer don't come separately.

3. I mean, weekly dose of cute right there. Am I wrong?

4. I got all brave & tucked my shirt into skirt & had to ask the world if I was doing it right. 

I am not great at that whole "wardrobe" thing. Why can't we all just look like we walked out of a Pinterest board?

5. I mentioned 2 weeks ago that I was ready to do an ultimate "de-clutter" of the house

& I have been doing just that for 2 weeks now - room by room.

I'm not really sure what to do with all of the crap I have piled in my kitchen that I no longer want

but I guess that's for another post.

This picture is what I stared at all night long because I got the bright idea to swap our bedrooms...

at 8pm on a weeknight in the middle of my de-cluttering 

& had no time to hang curtains to cover the very bright streetlights outside the window.

It wasn't in the plan. My plan was clean. clean. clean. clean.

& then an hour later I'm dragging our headboard down the hall

after I had just told Ryan that I would NOT be moving our bed until the weekend.

6. This is my favorite picture right now. It is nearly impossible to get a picture of all 3 & I managed to do it while also capturing their personalities so well.

Hank is always being silly in some way or another. He can't even lay on his dog bed properly. He is always hanging off one way or another even though there is more than enough room.

King is always seeking love & attention so of course he's already staring at me when I get my phone out

& Comet... well Comet just got done humping the shit out of King's back & is now sitting like the prince he is right where he just did his business. THIS. This is my everyday life as a dog owner. 

7. It's pretty neat to watch these two love each other more & more every day. 

They spooned for a couple of hours just like this.

8. The spooning led to mama caving & letting them sleep in the same crate together.

(We've been making them sleep in crates for a week or so & it's weird but nice... but also kind of sad.)

9. This is what I look like when I'm a bridesmaid.

More on that in a different post.

Weekly Round-Up: July 29-August 4

Life has felt a little hectic as of late 

(hence it taking 4 days longer than usual to do my weekly round-up of last week).

Our evenings have not been filled with the usual busyness or plans...

But adding another dog to our lives has made me feel hectic

& I'm ready for that to go away.

Hank & King are still pretty much a constant wrestle match.

I can't pet one without the other ruining the fun.

I love all 3 of them to death,

I just miss some good ole one-on-one relax time with my dogs.

Also, I'm going through a phase where I don't want stuff.

Well, I do. But only stuff that's useful to our lives or that brings us joy.

I want to live a more minimalist life.
A life that I could pack into 500 square feet if I needed.

Watch out Youngs-Englewood Neighborhood,

you just might hit the jackpot in front of our house next big trash day.

1. The very first thing we did this month was pay our car off! We were shooting for 2 years, but we still managed to pay it off within 3. It's going to feel so nice next month when that payment isn't there.

2. I don't even know what's happening here. They just need to be by each other always.

3. Picked up this little coyote skull from The Salvage Room.

4. These two boys. They are crazy & stressful at times. But always heartwarming.

5. My sister got me tickets to see her most recent musical production of "9 to 5" & it was actually really good. I didn't really know what to expect to be honest but I loved it. Afterwards we had "the best BBQ that ever exists" only it wasn't. At all. It was good but it wasn't GOOD.

6. It's a rare occasion that I can snap a picture of Hank without King jumping in.

Although, Comet is trying to steal the shot. I can guarantee that he was trying to mount Hank within 5 seconds of my camera clicking. My dogs are total perverts.

House Curse Pt. 10

Hey, remember this?

It happened again.

Only this time it came through the drywall we replaced less than 2 years ago.

I know this picture doesn't give you much to look at but that stripe you see is water - not wet paint.

I had dirty water dripping on me all night for 2 nights apparently.

I think it's time for Ryan & I to trade sides of the bed. My side always ends up with dirty water.

It was a very bad day in our house.

When the guy that fixes all of these things for you & makes money off you regularly tells you, 

"I really hate to say this but you really need to get out of this house. I don't know where you stand with that but you just really should do what you can to get out of this mess", 

all of your thoughts are confirmed.

Well, little house of ours, we'd love to.

If only it was that easy.

Weekly Round-Up: May 24-June 2

This was such a weird week.

1. Ryan doing karaoke for the first time! 2. Preparing our dogs for a raw diet. 3. Hank loves peanut butter.

4. Hank comforting Comet while we ran from tornadoes. 5. No electricity! 6. Thank aloft, you're awesome.

7. Hank refusing to potty at the hotel. 8. Back Alley Blues & BBQ dinner in Tulsa. Yum!! 9. Bangs!

House Curse Pt. 9

(Can I just throw in here that this is my NINTH post about something expensive breaking in our house in 2 years?

This doesn't even count the 12, literally 12, things that broke in our first year here before I had a blog.)

I came home for lunch Wednesday to find a puddle of water on our bed.

On our "brand new, nicest & most expensive sheets we've ever had" bed.

I look up & dark brown water is dripping out the center of our ceiling fan.

See that brown water right in the center? Yuck!

I immediately called Ryan angry at the house & we both felt kind of confused as to what to do.

I can't say I didn't have a little bit of a meltdown when I hung up the phone.

99% of the time, things like this don't wear on me.

I'm good about rolling with the punches & letting things slide off my back.

I don't lose sleep worrying about it & I can usually see a bright side.

In this moment, I felt completely defeated.

I knew I couldn't go back to work with water coming out of electrical.

What if my house caught on fire with my dogs inside?

Ryan was able to get off work so we could figure this mess out

& it was pretty clear what was wrong as soon as he got in the attic.

Our A/C was leaking & it was a MESS.

We called Greg (our A/C guy) & he told us to shut it down & he'd come out to look.

He met us at the house last night after work.

1 hour & $100 later, we were good to go.

Our unit shifted, either from the house settling or the earthquakes,

& clogged something & made the condensation pan unlevel which made it all pour out

or something or other.

To be honest, explanations from professionals go in one ear & out the other.

Just fix it. That's all I need.

(& by the way, if anyone ever needs a heat & air guy, we love ours.

Greg is pretty much awesome & we both feel like he's a straight shooter.)

So... I'm totally over being pissed off about my house.

We are 100% ready to not live here but that's not our reality

& won't be for some time so what's the point in stressin'?

I am going to choose to look at the positive aspects of this situation.

1. We only had to live like this for 1 day.

2. A cold front came through 2 hrs after shutting off the A/C in 80 degree weather

& it actually got too cold in our house.

3. The foam you see on the floor there? That thing saved our mattress.

I had just put that back on our bed the night before. Talk about luck.

By the time the water got down to the mattress, it was just a small wet spot.

4. It could have been a roof leak & wasn't. 

It was so small compared to the other options.

5. We're alive.

Side note & kind of funny "not-so-funny" story:

I actually woke up in the middle of the night when this all happened.

I woke up & something was buzzing so loud.

(which I now know was water killing our ceiling fan)

I even recall saying "What the hell is that noise??".

I fell back asleep thinking our A/C came on & just sounded weird.

I woke up again to Hank being weird, put my arm down, felt a wet spot,

thought Hank wet the bed, spanked him, threw the comforter off the bed,

& went back to sleep with an extremely pouty pup cuddling so hard.

MOM FAIL.