It's a comin'

the movers will be here in exactly a week.

EEEEECCCCKKKKKK!

Meet our (hopefully) new abode

so here's the house: It's a 1977 ranch and has only had one owner. It's really clean and they kept it up structurally and whatnot very well. Cosmetically, weeeelllll, that's a different story. Original carpeting (from 1977) in no less than 8 shades from the '70s, wood paneling, avocado appliances, etc.......bright side to that - it'll give us something to do for "entertainment"!

The location works perfectly for us. It's in a small little town with a funky name that has a gas station. And a grain elevator. But it's located about 30-35min from my work and 45-50min from J's work. It was pretty much our only option, but I'm optimistically looking foward to it.

We love the land. It's on 8.5 acres with (very) slightly rolling hills, and it actually has quite a few trees. Which, believe me, is tough to come by in Kansas where the topography is wide open plains of grain and cow pastures. There's 3 useable outbuildings, 2 dilapidated outbuildings, a slab for another outbuilding, and some cow corrals (I guess that's the right terminology?? I don't know - it's some circular fenced in little areas with long troughs for feeding I'm guessing).

The outside of the house is also really cute; at least in my opinion. It reminds me of my memaw/great grandma/mimi's houses that were in OKC, OK. I have great memories from those houses and there's just something about their older houses that I lurved.

The inside is definitely liveable too. We'll just have to get our hands dirty fixing it up. It's got a funky layout, but I like funky. It's only 1780 sq ft but luckily they finished the basement so it's actually a lot bigger/more space than my current house! AAANNNNND! there's a cellar! So awesome for wine storage!

We put an offer in last week and are hoping to hear back soon ("soon" and "quickly" are relative terms in Kansas ;p). We're also keeping our fingers crossed they let us rent from them before the closing date. If not, we'll be screwed. There's NO temporary housing. But let's worry about that later; *if* we even have to.....

Here's all the pics I took of the oustide. I'm STILL kicking myself for not getting shots of that rad carpeting!

"driveway" leading up to the house. you can see the cool windturbine field in the distance. and directly across the road (yes, i said road. not street. i think for something to be deemed a "street" it has to be paved, asphalted, etc. we(will hopefully) live directly off of a dirt road.....the nearest "street" is the highway - about 5 miles away.) is an old feed yard. THANK GAWD it's not being used. i'll have to describe the smell of a feed yard/state of kansas at a later time.

back of the house

fire pit?? J said it's "blairwitch; Kansas style"

garage off to the right of the house. the door on the right is to a heated room - we might use it as a "dog house"??

outbuilding behind the house and its "innards". fridge is kind of creepycool; reminds me of all the SAW movies.....

the final useable outbuidling. i'm not really sure what it is - obviously pens of some sort? but there's no doors on it, so how did they keep the animals in? and what animals? pigs (or do you say hogs in the country?)? cows? i'm pretty sure it's not horse stalls......or heck. maybe it was just used to hold tractors and other country livin' paraphenalia!

dilapidated building numero uno.....dos is similar - just bigger and more rotty-ish

we're debating what to do with these two. J says tear down. i say leave up so the rats/field mice can congregate in there instead of in our house!.....J's argument to that is there aren't rats: it's too cold. but i beg to differ; those suckers are like roaches and could survive a nuclear bomb!

slab of building that a tornado whisked away to Oz

cow corrals?? i really have no clue.

Roll with the punches, tomorrow is another day...

time for me to put my 2 cents in on the Great Expectations debate.

i believe when this comment was made, it was in reference to how overly prepared our small town realtors were (if you missed it, scroll down to see just how hard kansas blows). i think if he had actually been there, i would imagine he'd agree all the merriam-webster's dictionaries printed, shipped and sold in southwest kansas doNOT contain the word ex·pec·ta·tion...and certainly not with the word HIGH preceding it.

i may be a little bias towards my hunny, but i whole-heartingly agree with her. companies are created and run on the sole fact that they are providing a service/product which people will buy. when we pay money, we EXPECT to receive a service/product we are happy with. when we pull up to whataburger at 2 am and order a chicken sandwich, we EXPECT there to be chicken in the actual sandwich (a little inside story). we understand it's a different lifestyle in southwest kansas and we'll make the best of it or give it hell trying but a all of our troubles outlined in her blog happen right here were we currently call home.

these days it seems like people have lost the will to provide something they can respect. i understand labor base work is a tough business and since my dad has been in it his whole life, i understand what it takes (which is why i optioned out of that business and decided college was a better fit for me...i may have half of my father's genes, but when it comes to the household vision for building, i think jesus pena left out a few of the DNA codes i needed). my father's motto is "if you're going to do something, you might as well do it right the first time"...i think i read that on mr. leon's card, but then again it's not surprising he's part of the same generation my father came from.

call it alien's intuition (stayed tuned for future post and i just may convince you), but i think i spotted a bad egg in the cleaning lady when she mentioned a deep-cleaning is $180, but then preceed to asked every 30 seconds "do you want that cleaned?". maybe i missed something but i thought the whole point for the increase from a $60 regular cleaning to a $180 deep-cleaning is that you have to clean EVERYTHING the first time and then just come back and touch up from that point forward. apparently deep-clean these days means to leave dust where it falls when you clean a ceiling fan, don't clean base boards your customer specifically ask you to do, don’t clean the wood floors ANYWHERE in the house, don't wipe down cabinets/windows/window panes, just mop the floor and not scrub the spots in the tile and oh, the customer moved the bed so she could clean behind it...but i guess she decided against it. RIDICULOUS...i'm not sure if this was her first deep-cleaning she's ever done, but i would advise her not to do it again and if she does, she should call it what it really is...a $120 rip off of a regular cleaning.


and to my beautiful green eyed girl, MY LIST IS ALMOST CHECKED OFF!!! =P

Great Expectations

warning: this entry ended up WAY longer and vent-y than i expected

so my dad told me not that long ago that i have "high expectations". for myself and for others. i totally see what he means in regards to myself; i'm constantly throwing myself into the pressure cooker.

but having high expectations of others? not so much. when i pay you for a service or set up an appointment with you, i expect it to be done. and done properly. otherwise, i might as well just be throwing my money down the garbage disposal. maybe you all can settle this "debate" between me and pops.

• Expectation: 2 months ago met with carpet guy

we told him what we needed for both of our houses: 3 rooms at my place, nearly the whole house at j's. we wanted the cheaper carpet, light colored, and a decent quality install. he guaranteed that to us, gave us an estimate, and took our number down b/c he had to order/wait on the roll of carpet to arrive. 1 month goes by and we don't hear from him. j calls him and leaves several messages before he calls back. turns out, the carpet had come in, but he used it to install at another job. he'd have to order a new roll for us. much phone tag later (all with j initiating the calls), we FINALLY have an appointment set up. he's to come out on friday, 12/19/08. thursday rolls around and he calls and cancels and says he'll have to do it saturday instead. which was a HUGE headache in and of itself since the cleaning lady (more on that later) was coming that same day. but don't fret, we worked it out to where she would come later.

saturday came. he didn't show at the appointment time so j called. he actually answered but explained his "weekend crew" hadn't shown up yet. grrrr. ok.....hours go by. j calls at least 10 times. dude never answers. j's final call/message was to tell him to fuck off. we still haven't heard back from him.

HIGH expectation on my part?

• Expectation: a clean house

so a great friend has this really clean house. i'm stressed to the max trying to work out all this move crap and my back has gotten progressively worse. and, to be honest, i just don't deep clean all that often. so i get a recommendation from said great friend for her cleaning lady's info. meet with the cleaning lady and give her a walk through of the house. at the time, there was junk EVERYWHERE. seriously, embarrassing. but i knew it'd be picked up before she came to clean. we agreed on her doing a deep clean for $180. kind of a steep price tag, but hey, worth it to get every nook and crany cleaned - especially before the fam comes for christmas! cleaning lady is really nice and boasts about how i'm going to have such a sparkling clean house......yet she continues to say things like "oh, don't need to do that room since it's just storage." or "oh, don't really need much cleaning in here since y'all don't use it." each time i'd clarify with, "um, no, it does need to be done. the whole house needs to be done." and she'd just gloss it over with an "oh yeah, sure. just not as much." hunh??? are we speaking different languages? whatever. she's promising a sparkling house and i'm willing to bite.

well after MUCH schedule changing and her being a champ to work with us, she was FINALLY to come last night. beau and i spent a "d&j" day together shopping (got some kick ass artwork) and going to Santa's Wonderland . we expected (there i go, using that "e" word) to come home to her ever elusive "sparkling" house. but we didn't.

we had spent the day before COMPLETELY emptying over half of the house and storing it into the (empty - more on that expectation later) garage. we did this b/c j had randomly, and i mean completely randomly, found a carpet guy (just called a number on the side of a truck parked in his neighborhood!) and he was coming sunday morning**. so now, by sunday afternoon when cleaning lady is to come, the ONLY furniture in my house is the living room couch, armoire, and my bed. NOTHING else. and there's fresh new carpet and flooring is complete. should be a BREEZE to clean. i leave my $180 check and some christmas candies and go out for a day with my hunny.

i came home to a house that smelled like bleach. good sign! until:

1. i stepped in a "puddle". immediately start blaming dogs for pissing on my clean floor.....only, there are no dogs at la casa. they're at j's house - specifically so the carpet/cleaning people wouldn't have any distractions. i smell it; it's bleach water. then i start looking and there are similar puddles ALL OVER my tile floor. like she just randomly threw down some water and left it. w/o mopping. the stains on my kitchen floor were still there - she didn't mop.
2. dust/animal hair on ALL counter tops (remember, animals are not there)
3. dirt in my master bath tub: was not there when i left
4. didn't clean the outside of master shower
5. broke one of the mirrors in master bath
6. didn't mop/clean ANY of the wood floors
7. didn't vacuum ANY of the newly carpeted rooms
8. just swipe dusted the ceiling fans.....and got dust that wasn't cleaned up after doing so.....and completley didn't do one ceiling fan
9. didn't clean ANY baseboards even though there was no furniture blocking (we even pulled the bed into the middle of the room)
10. animal hair INSIDE my microwave (was not there when i left)
11. didn't clean outside of refrigerator
12. didn't vacuum/dust away spider webs
13. didn't clean windows
14. didn't clean cabinets/doors
15. didn't shake out rugs - just folded them up and put them on top of my (not cleaned/dusted) washer/dryer
16. animal hair/dirt in guest shower/bathtub.
17. didn't dust windowsills
18. didn't vacuum couch
19. didn't vacuum curtains

really??!??? ok, so i understand i used to clean houses and *may* be nitpicking. and i could understand that if i did the white glove test, but my house is DIRTIER than when i left it. wtf?? and y'all, even j is PISSED. i didn't point everything out to him - he noticed her shoddy work all with his "untrained" eyes.

HIGH expectation on my part??

• EXPECTATION: people to show up when they say they will.

this past saturday was a busy, busy day. j and his pops were working on sprucing up his house; i was taking autumn to the vet to do a final check on a "wound" (yeah. awesome. jack decided to randomly try to eat my old lady dog an hour before we were to catch a plane for our house hunting trip. gah.); i was finishing up my totally kick ass sweater for odear's kick ass ugly sweater christmas party; AND i was driving clear across town to pick up the bestest samosas and pakori to take to said party from Raja Sweets .......and somewhere in there, we were squeezing in a pick up for some (A LOT) of stuff we sold on craig's list.

the chic that bought all the stuff lived far, far away. in a la porte. so we told her to just call us when she was on her way. she called at 11:45 and said she'd be there in 2 hours. j and his dad made sure to be at my house by 1:45.....and i ended up getting home from all the errands around 2. and then we all sat there in the garage drinking a few cervezas. we called; and called; and called. they kept promising to be there in "20 minutes" or "we're a couple exits away". whatever. they didn't end up getting there until 4. FOUR!!!! and then we spent an hour loading up everything.

and really, i couldn't stay mad at them. they were REALLY nice/sweet/apologetic; i got a wad of cash; she got a houseful (almost) of furniture to replace all her things from a housefire (dang. that sux! and makes all my rantiness seem petty); and i had reclaimed my garage! but stiillllll - over 2 hours late!!

HIGH expectations on my part for people to show up when they say they will??

• EXPECTATION: a handyman to do what he was hired for.

we all know my love of dino from Dino's Remodeling. he does a great job at a great price. he came over one evening and kind of rushed me through my list and told me to just leave him a note. we all know how long winded i am - i left a VERY detailed note. and he only did half of the things, and a couple of the ones he did, he did wrong.....called him, he didn't answer. didn't call back for over a week so we were moving fwd with using a new handyman and i was just going to consider the money i gave him as only a semi-loss since he did some of the work.

the day before new handyman is to come, dino calls. says he was out of town on a job and really, really wants to rectify any issues. great. set up time for him to come over the next day.....next day comes and he's busy on another job and pushes us back. and back. and back. he FINALLY comes after re-re-rescheduling and finishes the job. i'm satisfied and happy. so this was a happy ending, but it didn't start that way.

HIGH expectations?

• EXPECTATION: quotes to redo some landscaping

so yeah, my yard doesn't look all that great anymore. 50 dogs and a serious lack of time will create a really run down yard. BUT i want to fix that! i want my house to look pretty! and to sell ;p......and is it too much to expect for it to not cost an arm and a leg???

we contact 2 people on craig's list. it takes 2-3 wks to finally get quotes back from them. and they were highhighhigh! i finally coerce j into asking his neighbor - his neighbor that does lawns for a living - his neighbor i've been bugging him to ask for months!

he does; neighbor takes a look; gives a quote; a kick ass quote! and is set to start on our houses this week. he's a hard worker and does a good job, but i just feel like i/we've been burned SO much over the past few weeks, that i don't want to get my hopes up too high.

HIGH expectation for people to come get business from me? business i'm paying them for?? business, i.e. MONEY, during this "recession"??

• EXPECTATION: movers stick to timeline

so yeah, we've already established we're moving. to which house exactly hasn't been pinned down (but we're getting close! more to come on that soon). but we're moving! and we needed to set up a schedule with the movers THREE weeks in advance. so about 4 wks ago, we had them come out and do a log of all of our things and schedule 12/28/08 for them to come and start packing/moving us. they agreed.

last week they called and said they couldn't do 12/28, it'd have to be 1/6/09......we were both set to start our new jobs 1/5/09. hrrrmmmm??

no reason. no apologies. just had to move it back and *we* have to work around *their* schedule.

HIGH expectation for movers to stick with an agreement they made??

• EXPECTATION: pine needles removed from my roof, a clean pool, a working hot tub, and an a/c-furnace blower that is fixed after being broken for close to 3 months.

this is all on beau's to-do list. i'm hoping by posting it up here for all the world to see, it'll keep him accountable ;p

HIGH expecation for beau to get his honey-do list done?? btw, luv ya babe!

so am i a high maintenance, high expectations chic or what? or am i just the most unluckiest person in the world????

**the carpeting was done by Leon's Carpet & Son (not a typo, that's the name - he owns carpet and his son ;p. srsly though, it's b/c english isn't his first language). they did a KICK ASS job. no lie, y'all. awesomeawesomeawesome!!! and for an EXCELLENT price!!!! here's their info. pls use them, i get no kick backs, i just want to pay it foward. they showed up when they said they would, did a good job, in a timely manner, and were uber nice. just want to throw them some bidness to send them my muchos gracias!

Leon's Carpet & Son

Abel Leon (owner)

english: (817)219-9352

spanish: (832)859-1629

email: rubenleon21@yahoo.com

serves dallas, houston, and surrounding areas.

Kansas Blows.

literally. the wind never ever stops. which is why they have the wicked wind farms everywhere. those suckers are HUGE.

so we're back. it was a horrible trip; we have no where to live permanently OR temporarily. we're totally going to be those homeless people with dogs, but people always feel really bad for them/the dog and give more money - so i guess that's a plus!

we arrived in amarillo laaaate thursday night and stayed in a hotel there. friday morning we got an early start and drove for 3.5 hours to get to kansas. no, we're not stupid. this is the FASTEST way to get to where J will be working. crazy, no?

we decided to start the day off right with a hearty breakfast - and to get into our new "country bumpkins" role. after that we picked up a bit o' culture
and then it was off on a road trip across 2 state lines.

that was all fun - i love road trips with my hunny.....but oh boy, what a nose dive our trip took once we finally reached our destination. J had been coordinating with the realtor from his company for about 3 wks. we'd found 2 potential houses online and were under the impression the realtor would have a lot more lined up for us when we got there. apparently, their version of har.com is word of mouth networking....

we pull up to the realty office all gung ho and ready to find "our" first house. that's not what happened......we walked in and the first thing they told us was they couldn't find the houses we'd sent them; we found the houses via google within 5 minutes. then they told us they only had 1 house for us to look at, but the seller had company so we couldn't. hunh? we just flew/drove in from THREE states away and they couldn't let us see the house? wtf ever. so they set up times for us to view the houses WE found - on saturday (the next day). oh, and he called a friend to see if she was wanting to sell just b/c it fit our criteria. weird, but that's apparently how it works in these small towns?

so needless to say, i was LIVID. we had TWO days to house hunt. the end. and they were only going to show us 2 houses, houses that WE found, for ONE day? they didn't even have the rent houses they promised for us to look at?!? so i called my relo contact with my company about getting a realtor who didn't have their head shoved up their butt......and they found me one! he did some research and claimed to have 4 houses that fit our needs (price range and location - since we're working 1hr apart, we need something in the middle) - we met with him saturday morning.

he proceeded to take us to four houses.....in neighborhoods (we specifically asked for acreage since i'm soooooo over having neighbors)......in the town *i* will be working in. wtf?? that would give j at least an hour commute EACH way. EACH day. this riled me up even more than the day before - he was already aware of how angry i was at the other bumbling idiots. all he did was waste our time, his time, and the time of the sellers.

so we parted ways with him and grabbed a bite to eat to settle me down......and a beer. oh how i needed that beer. we went to the "fancy" place in town - montana mikes. it wasn't half bad either, their rolls were really good!

after lunch we met back up with the bumbling idiots from the day before. and of course they were late b/c they got lost.....and then they had the wrong key so we had to wait for the seller to come let us in. we were crossing our fingers that it wouldn't be too bad on the inside, b/c we actually really like the outside/land/location. we should've probably crossed our toes too.

the inside is horrible. it's a 1977 ranch and i swear to god, the carpet is original. it's ALL shag and ALL different patterns/colors. there's zig zag blue, striped pink, zig zag orange/green, blotchy brown, etc. even the fucking stairs have 70's shag!!! but, on the bright side, it is VERY clean and was owned by one owner who is part of the Mennonite Church. Which means it's simple and out of date, but good quality. i took tons of pics of the outside, but was either too stunned or felt like i was taking an acid trip to remember to take pics of the inside. but i promise i will if we buy it.

to be continued....

Heading Home

We're getting ready to head home from our "house" hunting trip. Our extremely useless "house" hunting trip - more on that at a later date.

Things we've learned in KS:

• tumbleweeds exist in real life, not just in Western movies.
• people move and think in sloooooooow motion.
• they like their pizza. a lot.
• the whole fucking state smells like cow.

Poppin' the cherry....**

.....for our new blog. The super-secret-anti-baby one that some of you were hoping to find here is still under wraps. Suckers.


We/I (Dana here) decided it'd be a good idea to keep everyone up to date on our oh so exciting lives. Best way to do this: a blog. bloooooog. So here it goes.


We're moving to a land, far-far away. A place of wonder and magic where all the exciting stuff happens. Or not. It's Kansas. Boring-ass-Kansas. Yes, where Dorothy and Toto actually wanted to get home to.






I thought Texas got a bad wrap, but Kansas is 10,000 times worse. There's no trees; or elevation change whatsoever; or even watersports. It's plainplainplain. But with lots of cows. Lots and lots of cows.



On the bright side, we're hoping to find a place with a lot of land so that at least the dogs can enjoy Kansas. Oh, what we do for those spoiled mutts.......Another good point: we get to get away from asshole neighbor. That's enough to make me happy to move to Timbuktu!


So we leave tonight to go "house" hunting. I say "house" because houses are few and far between. It's mostly mobile homes.....or if we're lucky and get to live like fancy folk, a modular. Keep your fingers crossed we find something since we both start our new jobs in, oh, 25 days!

**i'm such a dumbass when it comes to spelling. thx for pointing out my lameness, M!