Is cat vomit on the granite kitchen countertop! Catchy jingle, no? Hmm, well one of the holy terrors sure thought so.
There are not enough clorox wipes in the world. Also, I think my pancake batter station will be on the other side of the stove now.
Archive for the ‘general complaints’ Category
the best part of waking up …
Friday, March 25th, 2011allergies, shmallergies
Friday, April 24th, 2009So the husband and I went in for our allergy testing this morning. While he is no doubt more allergic than I, I do experience some spring-time misery. I spend minimal time outside in the spring to avoid the crushing sinus headache that always hits once I’ve hit my limit; in bad tree-pollen years, such as we had a few years back, just walking to and from the car is enough to do the damage.
Turns out, after 52 scratch tests and 7 injection tests, that I am allergic to nothing. nada. There was no swelling or itching, just cute little pink dots at each of the test sites.
On the other hand, after 52 scratch tests and 3 injections tests, the husband is allergic to EVERYTHING. Trees, grass, weeds, mold, dust mites, and cats. Yeah, cats - like the two little darlings that sleep in the room with us every night, and who are unlikely to be banished anytime soon due to the husband’s general, um, pushover nature when it comes to the cats.
So the husband will soon be starting his allergy shot regimen, going in weekly for the next 6 months, to hopefully be desensitized to all of the ‘poisons’ that are currently plaguing him. After 6 months, he has 4 and a half years of monthly visits to look forward to. After a year, though, he should see a significant reduction in his allergies, and should be able to tone down the meds he needs to take.
I, on the other hand, suffer from a malady known as ‘non-allergic rhinitis.’ Which basically means I have all the same symptoms - runny nose, itchy throat, congestion, sinus headache - but not for the same reason. My nose is extra-sensitive, and anything sets it off. Like, say, huge amounts of tree pollen floating through the air. Or the dust in my office - my coworkers have given up on the ‘bless-yous’, seeing as I’m just a fit of sneezes all day long.
My treatment involves a lifetime of nasal sprays and neti-pots. There is no way to train my nose to give it up already. [sigh] Though, at least now I know I can give up the anti-histamines, seeing as I don’t seem to be having a histamine response. [achoo!] Excuse me.
um, so this is how capitalism works?
Sunday, February 15th, 2009So I just plugged all our numbers into some of that fancy tax software, and the results are, well, enough to make me want to stop working so hard. Or at all.
The husband and I had slightly more taxable income in 2008 than 2007. For that we are grateful, especially in this time of financial distress for so many. But our owed tax is significantly more expensive in 2008 than 2007. Thanks to the AMT, 58% of our increase is owed as taxes. That’s MORE THAN HALF of our increase!
So why do I work so hard again?
it’s 10 pm …
Monday, January 19th, 2009Do you know where your boy band is? Mine’s next door, practicing their drums. /sigh
nobody wants to bail me out
Wednesday, November 12th, 20083 years ago, the husband and I took the plunge and bought a house. It was 2005, and housing was booming. Lenders were willing to loan ridiculous amounts of money. In fact, they scoffed at the “modest” amount of money the husband and I requested. They offered to loan us twice as much, but we declined; we knew how much money we made, we knew how much other debt we had, and we knew what kind of lifestyle we wanted to maintain.
And so we got a loan we could afford. We took a risk with an ARM, but even in a worst-case scenario, we knew we’d be able to afford the payments.
Silly us! If we had over-extended ourselves, we’d be able to renegotiate our loan terms. Instead of being stuck with a loan for twice as much as what our foreclosing neighbor is selling her house for, we might be able to get our principal reduced. Or get our ARM converted to a standard loan.
But, alas, we were responsible. And so there is no help for us.
wait - you’re joking, right?
Tuesday, November 11th, 2008The other day, the husband and I noticed that our new next-door neighbors had put rock in their flowerbed. It’s a lovely rock, nice marble chips - but it is, nonetheless, banned. By our over-protective HOA.
I finally caught one of the neighbors outside, and let him know the error of his ways. He looked at me with a blank look when I told him rocks in landscaping were against HOA rules. As I explained to him my HOA struggles, he suddenly registered what I was saying, and he stopped me with a flabbergasted, ‘Wait - you’re joking, right?’
I assured him that I was indeed being truthful, and I just wanted to warn them that the HOA may, at some future date, send them a nasty letter.
I still don’t think he believed me. Here’s hoping he’s spared the fate of dealing with the HOA.
letter to obama
Sunday, November 2nd, 2008Dear Obama,
I was thinking about maybe voting for you. And then you sent 17 people to my house in the last two weeks to convince me to vote for you.
I don’t talk to my family that often. I don’t talk to my friends that often. I don’t talk to my coworkers that often. I barely talk to my husband that often.
So, consider me to be harassed into voting for someone else.
Sincerely,
considering hermitage
good thing it wasn’t knickers
Thursday, September 4th, 2008In anticipation of my bathroom being finished, I looked online for the perfect floor mirror, and found it at shop.com for a reasonable price. After some negotiation with the husband (’well, the OTHER one I like is $700 …’), I purchased it and then went about my other internet business.
Imagine my surprise when I logged into facebook to update my status to something else obnoxious about why my bathroom isn’t done, and found that my recent purchase was RIGHT THERE. In facebook. On the page where it tells you about all the things your friends are up to. And it wanted to know if I wanted to inform all my friends about my purchase. Oh, and did I want to automatically tell them all about all my shop.com purchases?
Um, no thanks.
Besides the fact that my facebook ‘friends’ don’t really care what I buy, it’s really kind of obnoxious. Plus, I don’t want them all to know what terrible taste I have. Or how cheap I am. I reserve that honor for my real friends; that’s right, for the 6 people who read my blog.
empty promises from the bathroom man
Saturday, August 23rd, 2008The husband and I signed a contract for a new bathroom in June. Work started in July. It is now August.
I realize it takes time to get stuff done, but the work crews only spend about 12 hours a week at my house. And lately when I call the bathroom man (who has never actually been in my house …) to ask when things will be done, he always reassures me that everything will be wrapped up ‘tomorrow’.
And every time I get such a promise, I come home to find little or no progress on the bathroom.
At the beginning of the work, he told me they’d be in the house for 2 weeks, then they’d special order the glass which would take 2 weeks, and then it could be installed and everything would be done in a month. And so I was expecting a complete bathroom right about, oh, last week.
Instead, I have a dusty half-bath, still waiting on touch-up patching and painting and some grouting in the shower. While I am glad I can at least use the bathroom for part of its intended purpose, I really would like to enjoy my gloriously large shower. Which is still at least 2 weeks away seeing as they only just ordered the glass last week.
I just wish my bathroom man would be honest with me; filling me with false hope just turns me into li’l miss cranky-I-want-my-shower-pants. And nobody likes her. Especially my facebook buddies who are sick of seeing my status complain about my bathroom man …
pleeeeeease, can I dry my hair in the baaaaaathrooooooom?
Thursday, August 7th, 2008We’re coming up on the 3-year house anniversary. And it’s been 3 years of drying my hair in the hallway. Because the bathroom outlets don’t work.
They managed to pass inspection just fine - but somewhere between the inspection and my first attempt at drying my hair, they stopped working. Granted, I blow dry my hair about once every 2 months, so who knows how long it was after we moved in that I discovered it. Who knows what may have happened. Malicious sellers? Careless cable or direct tv installers? Or maybe my 1875-watt monster of a hair dry made the wires asplode.
So as part of the bathroom remodel, we negotiated in that they would fix the outlet and put in a GFI. Because it had no such protections.
The electrician is here now, and informed me that the … wire? … is only for 15 amps, not 20 amps as is standard these days for bathrooms.
He has discovered that our GFI is in the basement utility room. When it is not tripped, the utility room, porch outlet, and two bathrooms work. The backyard outlet (never even knew we had one …) and the upstairs bathrooms never work ….
The electrician is going to steal power from the upstairs hall, feed it to the guest bath, and use that to power the master bath. (With GFI protections, of course.) He can’t upgrade the wire without tearing up all the walls through the entire house, so I’ll be stuck with a wimpy 15 amps. That probably won’t power my one-true-love of a hair dryer. But - at least the husband will be able to shave in the bathroom …