Category: House & Home

Fridays after work are the best

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Yesterday Joe took the day off work. I could not because I’m already behind thanks to this audit we were under all last week and much of this past week.

One of the many things I like about Joe is I don’t have to nag him to get things done around the house. In fact, it was his idea to use some of the day to remove the water softener in the laundry room. Soon after we moved in we were bypassing it because you cannot wash shampoo out of your hair with it running. Honestly, it’s terrible. The water feels slimy and disgusting so we stopped using it. It’s been in the way of completing the new flooring and paint job in the laundry room too, so he spent a few hours yesterday morning removing it. I must say I’m impressed how he soldered the joints of the new piping together. It looks good! Plus I did laundry last night and there weren’t any leaks. Way to go, Joe! He also vacuumed which was nice. Then he watched tv until I got home because he was bored. Too cute.

After work we ran out to return Let’s Go To Prison (it was ok) and finally got a copy of Flushed Away. Of course it would be available the weekend we don’t have the kids. We’ve only been looking since it was released! We might have to make a copy (shhh) so they can watch it next weekend. I almost bought it at Target last week but I’m so over buying DVDs at the moment. They just take up too much space and I rarely pull them out and watch them again. Who needs to when they are on the movie channels constantly?

We also hit the produce market which we haven’t been to in forever. I got all sorts of yummy stuff like onions, tomatoes, limes, and lunch-meat. There’s a pizza place next door and once we got a whiff of that we discarded our plans for me to make tacos and went to another pizza place, Lou Malnatis, and ordered a deep dish pizza. We had a half hour wait so we checked out used games at Game Crazy but they didn’t have anything good. Then we bought junk food at Dominick’s. Seriously, how could I ever hope to be as thin as I want when I love food so much? I swear, almost nothing makes me more content than buying food, or bringing home that delicious deep dish pizza. In fact, I think I’m going to finish the leftovers right now. My mouth is watering at the thought.

Faux wood blinds

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After that fiasco at Lowe’s earlier in the week, I was not looking forward to going back. Luckily their incompetence did us a favor in the long run because as we were walking around the blinds aisle waiting for someone to help us, we spotted these white faux wood blinds (brand is Levelor) that we really liked and decided to get them instead of ordering the Bali blinds that are on sale.

The best part was they had them in stock and just had to cut them down slightly to fit the width of the window. The girl who cut them kinda bent the headrail but it’s covered by the mounting bracket, so you can’t see it. There’s a small crack on the bottom rail as well, but that was there when we opened the box, so she gave us 10% off. She also told us it would be facing the inside of the window so no one would see it, but once we got them home we realized she was wrong and the crack is actually on the side that faces the room. Luckily it is very small and not noticeable unless you’re looking for it. So between the discount and the 10% off coupon I had, the blinds were only $60. Not too shabby after all. Thanks Lowes!

Oh Lowes, how you’ve pissed me off so

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If you’re planning on ordering custom blinds from Lowes, do yourself a favor and don’t attempt to do so during the week unless you’ve taken a day off from work. Apparently they don’t staff anyone past 5 pm who can handle the complexity of clicking buttons on a computer screen.

Seriously, I thought I was going to scream yesterday. Not only did we stand around a good 10 minutes before anyone came to help us, but there were four people trying to figure out the computer. Once they guided the new guy to the correct screens, they left, and he proceeded to make me want to hurt him. The first time he somehow backed out of the screen at the end which wiped everything out. So we went through the process a second time. That time he pulled up Joe in the computer (since we had bought blinds before), but Joe said he could see the guy didn’t click on his name to associate the quote with him, but yet clicked out of the screen anyway, thus neglecting to save the info once more.

We suggested going through the process a third time, but this idiot insisted on sitting there calling all sorts of people to try and retrieve the information. We could have been done with the process by the time he got anyone even to the kiosk to help him. Plus they couldn’t find the information either. Hmmm … I wonder why. Maybe because he didn’t SAVE it. Retard! This is what’s wrong with society today. They are so computer illiterate that they don’t have any common sense. If you’re clicking through screens inputting information and not once have you clicked a button that says “Save” or “Finalize”, why would you think the information has been stored?

Finally we told him to forget it and left. A good half hour to forty-five minutes had already elapsed and we got nothing out of it. I was so fed up. This is not the first time a Lowes employee hasn’t known how to use the system. And while I think that guy was an idiot, I blame Lowes for inadequate training/staffing. We got faster and more knowledgeable service on the weekend when the store was busy.

Unfortunately we will be going back this weekend because we really need blinds for the master bedroom and they are 25% off right now, so instead of $100+ like we were originally quoted two months ago, they will be $80. Plus I hate Home Depot.

LCD TV

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Ever since we bought the plasma tv last year, we haven’t had a good tv to play video games on. Joe has been putting a 19″ tv in front of the fireplace and using that from time to time which clutters the living room, not to mention sucks as far as picture quality goes. We had been mulling over buying an LCD TV strictly for gaming but they aren’t cheap. The least expensive one in an acceptable size was a Polaroid 32″ LCD HDTV that Circuit City normally sells for $999. We looked at it last weekend and Joe read reviews about it on their website but we really couldn’t decide. Until this morning, that is, when Joe opened up their ad in the Sunday paper and saw it was on sale for $899. We headed straight to the store and then spent a good hour or so going from store to store looking for a decent tv stand under $100 for it. We finally found a nice stand at Value City of all places. It was a stand I had been looking at on Walmart’s website that they didn’t have in the store. It cost a bit more, but only by $5 after factoring in the shipping charges we would have had to pay. So now we have a kickass gaming station upstairs in our loft. The only thing that stinks is the space isn’t laid out too well (here’s our current setup) so there’s nowhere good to put the leather chair that was up there so you can sit on it while playing. I think we should put it in storage for the time being and get a bean bag chair or something. I swear, that’s it for furniture. I’m starting to feel like it’s getting a bit too crowded in here as it is.

3 days left (boo-hoo)

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Know what time of my vacation it is? The time where it’s just like any other three day weekend. Ugh. That means we are getting waaaaay too close to going back to work. If only I could find a way to earn money without actually doing anything. I am soooo not looking forward to all the stress of answering tons of e-mail (I predict at least 50 messages directed to me personally) and getting the end of the month invoicing done in a two day time period. I’m stressing just thinking about it. Luckily I have three more days before having to live it.

Have I mentioned here that I have the best husband ever? I really feel for the ladies out there who write about their lazy husbands sitting around watching tv and drinking beer instead of helping around the house or with the kids. My husband does watch a lot of tv, and he also drinks, but only after he has worked his butt off. The last three days alone he remodeled our laundry room (pictures forthcoming as soon as he puts in the new molding), cleaned/organized the garage and added new shelving to both. He just washed my car and is now washing his truck, and he plans on waxing my car tomorrow. Did I have to ask him to do any of these things? No. And that’s the best part: I never have to nag him to do anything. My mom asks me what’s my secret. I don’t have one other than finding a man who loves me and does things for us because he cares. One who is worthy of being called a man. Those other guys? I’m sorry to say they have some growing up to do. And don’t get me wrong, we act like complete fools a lot of the time, which just goes to show you that you can be responsible and immature. It just requires a little balance.