Rip Van Wrinkle

I am sure many of you have considered the possibility that you missed my "services".  Truth be told,  my obituary is still forthcoming. Thankfully so.  Hopefully, that gives me  time to do something interesting enough so that  my final bio isn't a  total snooze-fest relating to it's limited content.  Don't let anyone tell you that it's quantity over quality as far as obituaries go.  I have already lived a lot of years and can't come up with any entertaining synopsis that would entertain those of you that read the obits for fun.

I could just fall on the general excuse "I've been busy." as to my ongoing neglect of my poor blog and that's not necessarily a lie.  I seem to blow through the hours of the day about as fast as e-coli laced chicken travels through intestines but that isn't to say that those hours are made up of fascinating or fun events that I can expect anyone to be entertained or amused by. 

I have come to the realization that this period of my life that is currently lingering between my calling my current employment status as being retired, being unemployed or being a slug isn't eliciting a plethora of fun anecdotes that I can share with you.  Of course,  I could be selling it short on how much you want to hear about how hot Kansas is this year. 

Anyway, as I was saying...I am trying to find balance in my life  just as all generations struggle to do.   Being in charge of all my time sans the dictates of a job leaves a lot of wandering around aimlessly while figuring out  how to keep busy and simultaneously adding things that are productive, fulfilling, engaging, life affirming etc. into the mix along side of  all the mundane chores that have to be done.  Sadly all those pesky things like hygiene, sleep, nourishment, taking care of our homes, etc. don't seem to go away.  Also, we don't get to retire from the obligations.  Now there is a big time suck of a word...obligation.  Another O word might come into play as well that is the word obstacles. Yeah, just when things appear to be smooth sailing some drama-laced crap storm blows in to humble you into realizing you really don't have control of your time at all.

For example....Within days of my last post I was temporarily sidetracked by finding my 17 year old cat laying sprawled on the kitchen floor  appearing lifeless.  As it's not typical for cats to play dead, I was pretty sure that something was "off".   (NOTE:  I totally recognize for you folks out there that aren't "cat people"  this doesn't sound like a bad thing but for us "OMG cats are the BEST" seeing a cat potentially lifeless is a bad thing.)

Anyway...After my initial hysteria, I scooped up my baby and took her to the local vet hospital and she was put into intensive care.  Seriously, I know some of you aren't even believing that is a real thing, but I assure you it is real. There are veterinary ICU units.   Not only are they real but I now realize that this is the most ingenious way to make a living.  Face it...the second a vet tells you that your sweet animal can make a full recovery if given IV's, antibiotics, and maybe some dialysis  (ka-ching) are you really going to say "NO,  let's just watch my kitty die." Well...OK some of you are will say that but the rest of us aren't prepared to pull the plug.  

My Chantel is back to being her pretty self if only in looks. She is not a people person outside of her family.

Needless to say, after my sweet baby got out of the ICU, she required private nursing care provided by "moi" for a couple of weeks and she did get back to her  feisty self.  In fact, she was pretty much back to her usual nastiness (as it applies to any person in our house that she doesn't know and/or approve of),  by the time that we were getting ready to start yet another remodeling project.

Yes, you read that correctly. We are flawed human beings that just can't leave well enough alone.  We invite obstacles into our house and serve them milk and cookies. We know in our heart of hearts that there has never been a problem-free renovation project in the entire span of human existence but still we decide to "just get a quote" to find out what it would take to tear out the old and put in something shiny and new. 

Needless to say that that quote manifested into an actual project...well projects really. Over the  last few months, we  have continued our quest to never be able to recoup the amount of money we have poured into our house.  Had I really died during my absence of blogging, I can only hope that my husband and children would of  turned our freshly updated abode into a mausoleum so I could have continued to stay here long enough to  feel secure in that I got my money's worth out of the new bathrooms and kitchen redo.  I am pretty sure that time span would broach eternity, so perhaps I should, in fact, find out what the zoning rules are to get a conditional use permit for changing our residence into our final resting place. 

I always try to remember that any and all home projects are NEVER going to be without headaches but just as in childbirth, you try to tell yourself somewhere in the future that it wasn't really all that bad and it was so worth the pain.

For future reference I will do my best to remember some profound truths. 

A.  No matter how good the reviews are for a company, assume the company owners paid random family members to be their references.

B.  Realize that at least a half of the workers probably  have no actual talent or knowledge of the job you are having done but the person in charge hired them off the street corner an hour before they strapped on that tool belt and showed up at your door. I am convinced that anyone can look professional given a great tool belt with DeWalt logos within view.  Sadly, looking like a tradesman isn't the same as being a tradesman.

C.  When the company you hire says all the right things, makes endless promises and gives you a speedy time line,  assume that they are telling you  a fairy tale.  It's so beautiful when there is a "happily ever after" at the end of the story but it is becoming my experience that the endings usually seem to be similar to a Tim Burton script.  We may hope that we are going to deal with a Prince Charming but you might have to deal with someone like Beetlejuice or Edward Scissorhands. 


It's not that I don't like the finished product as it pertains to my kitchen,  but I am not entirely convinced the juice is worth the squeeze.  After every promised timeline that came and went unfinished, I became a little more agitated. THEN, when it finally looked like the kitchen was nearing completion, one of the workers dropped a saw that damaged two cabinet doors necessitating that they go back to the shop to be sanded down and re-finished.  Weeks later, after begging and pleading for my cabinet doors to be returned, I was starting to wonder if the doors were never to be seen again.  It's not that I had a particular attachment to those specific doors but the idea of trying to get yet another company that could match them seemed like a big pain in the butt. Not to mention, by this time I had already paid for the cabinets to the company that semi-completed the work and currently seemed OK with keeping both my money and my doors.

Up to that point I had been relying on using tact and politeness as my weapons.  Clearly that wasn't working. So I toyed with other options.

Option 1  ...  Go to the company's listed address and take back what is mine.  I decided against this tactic as I realize stealing back what is yours (allegedly) might land you in jail for 9 years before parole comes to your rescue.  Jail is for real and we have already talked about this in prior posts.  I am not equipped to use a toilet in front of other people.  It's what keeps me honest.

Option 2  ...  Start getting more forceful with my many, MANY text messages.  The last one that I ultimately did NOT send read, "Who must I f*** to get my cabinet doors back?"  I hesitated to send this particular message as I was a little on the fence whether a few of those workers might be into that idea.  Frankly, at least a couple of them didn't appear  like they would to be all that fussy who they  might "do". 

 Finally, I decided to let Hubby take up the gauntlet.  He had been working out of town during the whole kitchen redo debacle so I figured he hadn't become as jaded as I was. 

Basically, I think he made ONE phone call and demanded that they  get off their asses and bring my cabinet doors over ASAP.   Had I known it was just a matter of siccing Hubby on them, I would of done that weeks ago.

So, now I am temporarily back to having some control over my time and my activities before the next obstacle comes my way or before I lose my mind and figure out another activity that will stress and annoy me.


BTW...to all the bloggers that I have let down by not keeping up with you.  I am going to get to yours sites and see how your doing.  Hope all is well and obstacle free.

Closed for Renovation

Have you noticed that my timeliness for posting over the weekend has gone off the tracks?  (If you said no, consider me offended that you hadn't missed me but moving on...)   I do have excuses and the major one is that I have lost my mind along with the capacity to articulate rational thoughts or ideas.  (AND...if you said to yourself "didn't she always have trouble articulating rational thoughts and ideas?...again I am offended.)

For the last couple of weeks, I just can't seem to get my act together.
Here's the thing about me....When everything is going really well and life seems to be smoothly humming along, I (apparently) feel the need to park a truck full of chickens on the train track of my life just to watch chicken poop fly about when the train hits it.  I am currently mired in metaphorical chicken poop. 

Last week, when I was talking about my long term love/hate relationship of my job as a Realtor, I failed to mention that when it comes to buying houses, I am, in fact, the world's worst customer and consumer.  Fussiest person ever as far as picking out a house and invariably, whatever house I choose will become a money pit. I have proved this tenancy numerous times.  The very house that had me ooohhhing and aahhhing at  first sight, will mysteriously need a complete remodel the minute I move into it.

While I have proven this over and over again during our 21 moves, the most recent example started about 12 years ago, while living in Dallas, Texas.  During that time,  our daughter was planning her wedding and hubby and I were routinely making the 8.5 hour trip between Dallas and Kansas City for various wedding and daughter related events. While I don't specifically remember how  the conversation of  "Let's move to Kansas City!" came about it  probably went something like this.

 Well...besides the pleading being done by our yet-to-be-born grandsons,  we  were possibly feeling rather vulnerable at both the prospect of our little girl being all grown up and about to be married and the evaporation of our checking account due to the impending nuptials. Somewhere in our fuzzy brains we actively began a plan of relocation. We, of course, didn't ask our son-in-law-to-be his opinion on this matter as he might of reconsidered the whole idea of marrying our daughter.  Who knows if hubby and I might be his "deal breaker" and didn't want to put it to a test as we had already paid for the wedding venue. Anyway...We just forged ahead and found a Kansas City Realtor to start looking around for a house that would "work" for us.

As a Realtor, I recognize these "dipping their toes in the water just to test the temperature" types are a colossal pain in the ass for real estate agents, however I was committed to be exactly that for some unfortunate soul that had the misfortune to pick up the phone when I called into a real estate agency.

From that point onward, every trip we made to KC, we asked to see several homes in various neighborhoods to get a "feel" for where we wanted to live.  Now, I am sure you can imagine how well this plays out for some agent to have numerous (and by that I mean too many to count) weekends taken up while someone is using them for a chauffeur and sounding board for a future move that may or may not happen any time soon...and agents get to do this for free because they work solely on commission.  Yeah, sounds like a perfect job, right???

Well..our agent, Debra started out fairly agreeable only to be worn down little by little over the course of mid 2004 into early 2005.  We weren't purposefully trying to be difficult (it comes pretty natural for us without trying) but it was such a hot seller's market at the time, that by the time something came on the market and we drove 8.5 hours to see the house, invariably it had already sold.  The ones that didn't sell the minute they were listed had a REASON they hadn't sold.

Finally in early 2005 we happened upon a house that had some things going for it.  It was on the market only 1 day, was amazingly clean, and was the size and price that was in our wheelhouse.

Debra who by this time could nearly smell the money of her commission finally wafting in her general direction thought that her payday was close at hand. Not so fast, Debra.   After putting in a full price offer, the sellers decided perhaps they had listed too low.  I mean...really...if there were buyers that would pay full price for it after one day, surely the sellers could of gotten more.   So...these sellers being sellers, AKA  greedy,  countered the offer for MORE than the asking price.  Me...being me, AKA stubborn...and being a real estate agent myself, didn't take this laying down. I said NO.  My thought was that there was no way in hell that I was willing to pay more than asking price with no other offers on the table. I figured in a city of 2.5 million people there had to be at least one other house that I would like, even if it took another year to track down.  Of course, when I mentioned this out loud, Debra  turned an odd shade of green and actually swayed a little bit.  I thought she was going to faint but as luck would have it, the sellers conceded to sell for their original price.

Back to my theory that homes are only perfect until you own them....In the last 10 years, every  single year we have done a MAJOR renovation and/or improvement of some type.  I don't think I am alone in this phenomenon but it appears that the same buyer that claims any house to be PERFECT when initially looking at a prospective home will, in fact, need to change EVERYTHING about it once the closing documents get signed.  

Walls have been removed, floors have been replaced, rooms have been gutted and reborn in somewhat the same manner as a Phoenix but in our case the new Phoenix is rising from the ashes of our money.

As for our current craziness...a couple of weeks ago I had this utterly brilliant idea that one of the bathrooms needed freshened up with some new flooring and paint.  ANY one that knows me at all, of course,  knows that the words "freshened up" is code for "take this sucka down to the studs".

One advantage (and maybe the ONLY advantage) of being a real estate agent is that we know a lot of contractors, plumbers and electricians.  This expedites the time it takes from "brilliant idea" to "let's get crackin'"

One of the guys that has done previous work on our mission of tearing down and rebuilding our house bit by bit,  had mentioned he had a window of availability in late August, early September to do this project.  I am fairly secure in telling you that 5 days into this remodel, he is fervently wishing he had never EVER met me.

Why, you ask?  Because hubby and I are total nut jobs when it comes to these renovation projects.  Poor, Kyle the general contractor of this "freshening up" project is learning fairly quickly that whatever he listed on the quote needs to be tweaked a bit.... AND by a bit I mean changed in it's entirety.

Now that we have added a few (OK maybe more than a few) items to the "to do" list, Kyle realizes that he vastly underestimated both the amount of time and money that he needs to allow for.  I recognize the poor guy is exhausted at this point but I just can't seem to help myself from adding or changing the scope of the project daily. Honestly, he should appreciate that he wasn't here for the master bathroom remodel.  On that one, my husband decided to have the contractor remove a wall that opened up into attic space so the walk-in shower could be enlarged.  I am not at all sure that Kyle can appreciate the fact that I have not asked him to tear down any walls...yet.


I have to say there is quite a lot of stress deciding on materials, colors and quality when it comes to bathroom and kitchen remodels. Hence the craziness on my part.  While you might not be losing sleep at night thinking about the pressure of flush toilets or the depth of soaking tubs but believe me those are REAL concerns.  Do not under estimate the difference between Cararra Marble counter tops and quartz that look like marble.  Soft close drawers and non-slam toilet seats are a "thing" and it would appear that those are things I need.... OK, maybe need is a strong word...but Kyle can make those things happen.

Perhaps, some of you that have already taken on bathroom remodels might already know about "golf ball" flushing toilets but I was clueless until recently on this important feature.  While shopping for new toilets, I realize that a whole line of toilets claim that they are capable of flushing an entire bucket of golf balls in a single flush.  I know...I know...you might not ever NEED to flush golf balls but the fact that it is possible to do it if you wanted to with this toilet is impressive.  Once I realized what a wonderful thing it is to have a golf ball flushing toilet, we ordered 4 of them.  Our other 3 bathrooms do, in fact, currently have toilets but not any with super-toilet flushing powers so all 4 bathrooms are about to get "freshened up."  Hope Kyle doesn't have plans for a personal life any time soon.