We snuck out of work early on Friday and went to see Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Figured that was a safe bet, as we’d be able to dodge the Teenage Brigade…they weren’t out of school yet. Ha!

Seriously though, both CU and I thought the movie was great. Perfect casting. Everyone is great…everyone is funny…there’s nothing I enjoy more now than a great adult comedy. This one wasn’t even a gross-out comedy. There are a few references, but it’s nothing that made me blush. And I’ve seen a naked man before, so the vision of Jason Segal in all his nakeditude wasn’t all that shocking.

I’m not really one for detail-by-detail movie reviews, especially when they usually sound like reviews the pros have already written. It’s funny. Me like. You go see. You like, too.

(more…)

First off, thanks to everyone who commented and emailed me about yesterday’s storm. I appreciate it, and am incredibly grateful that we have power…and that bits and pieces of our house didn’t wind up in our pool (if we had one), in other people’s yards, or down the street.

Things are starting to look better around here. What I have always found rather amusing about destructive storms is the joke nature plays by ordering up beautiful weather the next day. Once the haze burned off yesterday morning, it was warm and sunny. Perfect damage-assessing weather.

(more…)

No…that’s not our house. It’s our next-door neighbor’s house. Thankfully.

So let’s back up a few hours. I went to bed last night, expecting to be woken up (for the second night in a row) by overnight storms. What I didn’t expect was to be woken up by our local tornado siren at 3:58 AM. Now here’s what gets me - the stupid thing didn’t sound anything like the siren I hear during the “testing” that takes place the first Wednesday of every month at noon. To be honest, it sounded like that humming noise you hear from live power lines…only really loud.

I didn’t hear any wind or thunder, and I didn’t see any lightning…so I opened up the back door to hear where the sound was coming from. It was coming from the back of the house…and about 1/4 mile down the street is where the siren is. I was 45% awake at this point, so I put two and two together…got 3.5…and then went to grab Cookie and my iPhone, and yell for Daisy to follow me into the Panic Room (aka, the guest bathroom). I got the dogs in there and then went for pillows and blankets and just as soon as I shut the door, the wind started.

Total time elapsed: 90 seconds

There’s nothing quite like sitting in your Panic Room with the world swirling around you outside…I’ve now experienced this twice in the 6 1/2 years we’ve lived in this house. The first time was last year. Ironically, CU has been gone both times. I’m beginning to think he knows something I don’t.

(more…)

Yeah, so when the tile guys finished busting up all the old tile around the fireplace and pulled out the sheet rock and the wood backing…guess what we found?

Two styrofoam cups…left over from someone’s lunch…14 years ago. They were just sitting there on top of the fireplace insert…stacked nicely.

Can’t wait to see what we find when we bust up the master bathroom. I’m thinking maybe an invitation to Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley’s wedding…or…an old picture of Helen Keller…or…IBM stock. Nah, that kind of thing only happens on Flip That House…and there’s usually a rabid family of rats guarding the stock.

Like that? I came up with it last night when I was watching American Idol and telling Capt. UberHusband I thought Faith Hill would be a great choice to cover Journey’s “Faithfully” as a country song.

Speaking of American Idol…how completely annoying were Randy, Paula and Simon last night? I’m all for the frolicky banter between the three of them, but when the camera cuts to Paula almost looking like she’s passing out on Simon’s shoulder…and the three of them bicker…God, it was so annoying. I felt really bad for the ladies last night.

Loved, loved, loved Brooke White’s rendition of “Love is a Battlefield” and, after the whole “Faith-Hilly” thing I was sort of on a roll…recommending Rascal Flatts update the Pat Benatar classic. Who else did I have opinions about…Carly Smithson. Love her accent, loved the song…wasn’t nuts about her rendition. I kind of feel like the AI folks are shoving her down my throat. Same with Syesha Mercado (Capt. UberHusband last night: “She does know she’s singing about being the other woman, right?”) - I’m not nuts about her. Eh.

So for snits and giggles last night, we decided to stick around on Fox and watch The Moment of Truth, especially after the world (apparently) came to an end last week. What a let-down. The questions were so incredibly stupid. Maybe it’s because I’m not $500k in debt and don’t need to go on the show, but come on. CU and I were making up our own questions for the show:

“I think reality shows are incredibly stupid, and extremely exploitative.” That answer is…true.

Of course, I have to get all technical…with the question, “Have you ever been sexually attracted to someone you work with?” I follow up with…”Well, before or after my husband and I met?”

In household news, the new kitchen floor is in and the tile surrounding our fireplace is being hacked out. I was talking to one of my co-workers yesterday and telling her that I never wish for bad things to happen, but if we have to have a water leak in the slab of our house…at least let us get a new kitchen floor out of it. Now that we’re taking a look at everything though, we’ve realized our cabinets look way better…but our appliances have got to go.

Oh, it’s also starting to snow here. Second time this week.

While I have you all here…if any of ya’ll are interested in taking a survey my fine Applied Research Methods class has crafted (it’s lousy…IMO…I’ll tell you that upfront), I would appreciate if you could fill it out on my behalf. Apparently we get bonus points if we can recruit the most people. If you’ve made it this far in my post, you have to like me a little…right?

So…here’s the link. When asked at the end who sent you to the survey, I’m S. Lynch. None of your personal info is captured, and if you shoot me an email at snarkwifedotcomATgmail.com to let me know you filled it out…I’ll let you know when the results are finalized and pass them along.

Okay, that is all. Back to work.

The blessing part? Being here to notice, early on, a leak from…somewhere…as water starts flowing from “somewhere around the water heater” out into the garage, then also underneath the kitchen, pantry and laundry room floors.

The curse part? Well, pretty much everything I just said.

You know, I thought I still heard water running when I got out of the shower this morning, but didn’t really think much about it.

We were talking about how it was time to pull out the wood laminate in the pantry and kitchen…but the decision was supposed to be on our timeline. Plus, did you ever notice that a 1% deductible on your homeowners insurance always seems like a good idea until you actually need to file a claim?

Ugh. The plumber will be here between noon and 2. I’m bracing myself for the worst.

3:40 PM Update - The current cost is at $2,789 and climbing! The good news…we’ve already hit our deductible!

Yeah so…nothing is wrong with the furnace.

The heating guy just left and it turns out that our furnace has some safety mechanism in place where if it tries to ignite three times and is unsuccessful, it quits trying. Apparently, that happened last night…and this phenomenon is not uncommon (say that three times fast…phenomenon is not uncommonon) after significant windstorms, which we also experienced yesterday and last night.

Turns out, all I had to do was turn it off…and turn it back on…to reset it. Well, I did turn it off at 7 AM, when I decided I didn’t want cold air blowing into my house all day…but it took an HVAC technician to turn it back on for me and make everything all better. Oh well. While he was up in the attic he inspected our unit and declared it fit for combat. He also praised our meticulous filter…yeah, we’re good about that…changing it out often, what with my allergies and all.

On his way out he said, “I’m not sure why I didn’t tell you to try turning it off and back on this morning when you first called.” I replied with a smile, “Because then you wouldn’t have made $90.”

So which is worse…having your heater go out in January, or having your air conditioner go out in July?

Discuss.

By the way…it’s Adelle’s birthday…and I’ve never been more grateful for the gloves she knitted for me than I am right now. Because of her, only half of my hands are cold. Happy Birthday, Adelle!

Fence Replacement 6 - Day 1

Originally uploaded by snarkwife

It’s a sad day as an adult when you realize your idea of fun is replacing your fence.

While I’m thrilled to death about replacing our aging, dilapidated, and leaning fence…I’m not terribly excited about having our backyard exposed to all the neighbors for a couple of days.

I’m thinking one way to lessen my anxiety would be to sit outside on our patio at night and shine flashlights into the eyes of all the folks driving down our alleyway towards us…after all, they can’t see what I don’t let them see…right?

This is the seventh Christmas season for CU and I in our house (okay, technically it’s only CU’s sixth) and we have never done the holiday lights thing.

When we drive around in the evenings, we see so many truly horrific light displays that we always said we’d never do lights unless we could do them right.

This year though, we’re surrounded by lights. Our neighbors on both sides have them up…our neighbor across the street has them up, and the folks in the house kitty corner from us - well, they don’t really have lights up, they just have those awful red and green outdoor flood lights - but we can’t be the only ones not in the holiday spirit, you know?

Feeling rather Grinchy while surrounded by all of this festive spirit, we decided this would be the year we would do lights. We’re so glad we did. Ours is the best house on the block. Neener neener. I didn’t think we were terribly competitive, but I guess we are.

Heh. Just wait until we put up the new fence next month.

Someone asked me how the Billy Joel concert was…you remember, the one I was so excited about because I got tickets for my birthday? Well, we didn’t go. The asshat CU bought the tickets from on eBay never sent them. Nice. Didn’t respond to emails, phone calls…nothing. The guy had a 100% positive feedback rating but in recent weeks, we’ve discovered we’re not the only ones who were duped. Now the transaction is in the hands of the PayPal claims department. What a pain in the ass. But, the Dallas Morning News said it was a great concert.

Cabinet Hardware - "After"

Originally uploaded by snarkwife

This weekend’s project was adding hardware to our cabinets!

In between cursing my Marketing project teammates, pouring (and drinking) multiple glasses of wine, cleaning the house and watching Desperate Housewives…we finished the last “critical” project before Mama Snark comes to visit in a couple of weeks.

This was one of those minor enhancements we thought would definitely give a boost to our now-aging cabinets, but they look way better than we expected.

New Shelves & Canisters

Originally uploaded by snarkwife

It can’t be Sunday evening already…but, can I tell you how incredible our pantry looks? Right now, it’s a little Stepford Wifey in terms of neatness and order, but I bet you ten bucks we can keep it looking nice for at least a couple of weeks.

We took out the old junky shelving, repainted, installed a new light fixture…put up new shelves, rearranged everything, threw out 10-year old spices (you read right) and added a spiffy new rug. The spot beneath where the spices are…we haven’t decided if we want to put a wine fridge in that spot, or just a wine rack…or what. We’re also adding a new door - something more pantry-ish, but haven’t decided which one and it’ll take a couple of weeks to come in.

Now we can cross the pantry off our To Do list. Next up…hardware for the kitchen cabinets!

I swear, it is just like that around here…I either post six times a day for a week, or you don’t hear from me at all for five days. I’m all discombobulated and in absolutely no set routine whatsoever, which usually gets me into trouble or at the very least, makes me unproductive. I’m working on that. I blame this “in between” time between school terms.

Speaking of school…remember my team project? Well, we got an 89 on it…with the “peer evaluation,” my individual grade was bumped up to a 90. Funny thing…the vast majority of our points were taken off for lack of analysis and lack of tie-in to the course material. Gee, I predicted that one, didn’t I? The good news is this grade came out a few days before my individual project was due, so CU and I went over that 22-page behemoth with a fine-tooth comb before turning it in our last night in Wilmington. Still waiting for the grade on that one…stay tuned.

On the television front, we’ve recently gotten ourselves hooked on Weeds. Along the lines of Entourage last summer, we decided to see what all the hoopla was about. Turns out, it’s the wonderfully edgy humor and grown-up content you’d expect from pay cable. Aww, a drug dealer with a heart of suburban mom gold. Aww. Weeds is everything Desperate Housewives could have been, had it not been on ABC…on Sunday night. The best part? Denny Duquette as Nancy Pantsy’s recently departed husband. Rrrrow. The worst part? Netflix needs to take these DVDs out of rotation, because they’re all scratched up and skippy. Nothing makes my brain twitch faster than a stuttery DVD viewing.

On the home front, we’re renovating our laundry room and our pantry…and will begin the daunting task of restaining all of our cabinets when we get back from Hawaii. That’s right…the kitchen renovation begins in September. We should call TLC or HGTV…they’d love to hang out with us for three months while we put all those ducks in a row.

What are all of you watching this summer? I’d love to hear everyone’s opinions on Big Love and Entourage. Which is better, The Singing Bee or So You Think You Can Karaoke Like A Fifth Grader/Who’s Missing Line Is It Anyway? Did you hear Michael was coming back to Lost? I think Brenda’s pregnant on The Closer.

Yeah.

So, we had someone come out today to give us an estimate on putting plantation shutters all through the house…with the exception of our bedroom and bathroom.

You ready? NINE THOUSAND DOLLARS. Kind of reminds me of The Price Is Right today…when Bob Barker couldn’t tell if the Showcase Showdowner said 1700 dollars or 17000 dollars, and it took them about 45 seconds to come to a mutual understanding.

When the guy showed up, he went on and on about how the cost winds up being about half of what people expect. I told him that was funny, because my experience has been the cost is usually about twice what I expect.

All of a sudden…our 14-year old blinds…not looking so worn out.

There’s something about home improvement projects which get me all discombobulated. I blame CU’s deployment, because for a solid year, nothing in our house was messed up. I had ample time on my hands, so the place always stayed clean and anything I did do (rearranging & cleaning out all our closets, for example) I did with such joie de vivre, so projects were completed and cleaned up before the walls had too much of an opportunity to start closing in around me.

When CU came back, we threw ourselves head-first into all of those projects you eventually have to do as a homeowner…replacing carpeting, etc. It was after being alone with my uncluttered home that I realized I now come a bit unglued when things are not in their designated location for more than, say, two days. I’m not so anal that I can’t handle it if a cup is on the wrong shelf for ten minutes, I’m more talking when every single thing in your house is relocated to your kitchen, your dining room and your bathrooms for more than, say, two days.

After the carpet, we replaced all the baseboards in the house, which also required we move everything into strange locations for about four days. Then, we repainted my office, which…honestly…I still haven’t put it all back together yet, and it’s been about three weeks…shoot…maybe a month.

Last Wednesday, we removed all of the contents from our closet in preparation for our closet remodel (yay! organization!) and now, we’re still in the process of getting everything back in there and into nifty shelves! and drawers! and bins! This actually is tougher than you might think, especially considering my side of the closet consists of two pairs of black dress slacks and about four shirts.

Anyhoo…we are in the midst of cleaning up after our latest fixeringuppering…but I have to tell you, I now feel like a grownup with my sexy closet. Considering my dressers for the last 15 years have either been assemble-it-yourself or the dreaded baby changing table (hey, the top of the diaper storage area worked great for a tiny TV…and it looked fabbo as a faux buffet in our dining room until last Fall…ahem)…I think it’s about time I had some real clothing storage. Now all I need are some real clothes to store.

In other news, CU’s employer has decided to deploy him to Paris for a week, so we will be spending our second Valentine’s Day apart. I pouted, and am slightly jealous because had we known just two weeks earlier he was going, we could have nixed the Seattle trip and I could have gone with…but that’s okay. Someone has to be here to record all the TV shows and tell him which ones are and aren’t worth watching when he gets back. That could, quite possibly, be the most romantic Valentine’s Day gift ever. Well, that and a hoity toity bottle of French Bordeaux.

I can’t believe I wrote “sexy closet”.

If you live someplace where it gets cold in the winter, I’m sure you’ve been inundated with all of the news stories talking about heating costs this winter rising anywhere from 40-70%. Everyone knows you should lower your thermostat to a chilly 68 degrees, but there’s even more you can do to save your sanity and your vacation fund in the upcoming months.

In light of it being 31 degrees here at my house right now (thank God I remembered to turn the sprinklers off last night) and with respectful deference to my checking account, I give you Snarkwife’s Tips To Reduce Your Heating Bill This Winter:

So I went to Lowe’s this morning to get a masonry drill bit. I walk in with my anchor, so I can get the right drill bit, and walk up to this decrepit old man wearing a Lowe’s name tag in the Tools section.

Snarky: Hi! I need some help. I’m looking for a masonry drill bit that will drill a hole to fit this anchor. {shows him the anchor}
Decrepit Old Man: Do you have a drill?
Snarky: {pause} Um, yes. Why would I ask for a drill bit if I didn’t have a drill?
Decrepit Old Man: {pause} Right over here.

I guess I should be grateful he didn’t call me “little lady.” I can’t help but be amused at the fact that had Capt. UberHusband gone in and made the same statement, he wouldn’t have been asked if he had a drill.

I’m just sayin’.

Over the last couple of months, Audrey has become quite the fertile little plant. She has ten baby tomatoes growing.

She’s getting big. The cilantro I’ve planted is thriving and I also have two tiny jalapenos beginning to grow.

Yay! Salsa!

I remember when I lived in apartments, and when the UberHusband and I lived in our apartment before buying the house…we had little kitchens. Little kitchens = bumping into each other & not having nearly enough counterspace to cook like the gourmet chefs we wanted to be.

So, when we went looking for houses, we wanted a big kitchen…big enough to have room to prepare things and not trip over each other while fixing dinner. Well, we still trip over each other and as an added bonus…got to experience sticker shock last year when we started getting estimates on what it would take to replace the 11-year old white laminate counters with something more substantial.

With the whole Seattle thing looming though, we really didn’t want to do the “zero payments, zero interest for twelve months” thing (love that…that’s how we got our big screen TV and my laptop for work and…our living room furniture) and then have to move out with four months of payments left.

Now though…we’ll I’ll be sticking around…so…we headed back to talk to our new friend Diane at Lowe’s.

Turns out, with the backsplash…we have 69 sq. ft. of countertop. Pick your favorite solid surface and do the math…don’t forget to add in $225 for “tear out” and an extra $500 for “reconnecting” our cooktop and plumbing…which is a total scam because the UberHusband will do that for free. I stopped short of asking her for a 90% military discount.

In retrospect, I’m kinda wishing “a bigger kitchen” hadn’t been on our list of “must haves” for our first home.

It’s not just for plumbers anymore.

I tried to avert my eyes but, ’twas too late. Blech.

I feel so…violated.

So, it looks as though the UberHusband’s project contract negotiations are in the “final stages” and a decision should be made within the next 60-90 days which means, we should know in the next 90-120 days if/when we will be relocating to Seattle.

Sheesh.

You know…waiting around on this is sort of like a prison sentence that keeps getting extended for bad behavior…or talking about a mysterious boyfriend that may/may not really exist…“But wait until he comes out for Prom, you’ll meet him then, promise!” The George Glass Syndrome, we call it.

Last summer we thought this would all be wrapped up in the Fall…then by the first of 2005…then Spring of 2005…now we’re looking at the end of the summer. It is for this precise reason…the whole “up in the air thing”…that, a couple of months ago, the UberHusband and I decided to quit putting our lives on hold for something that may or may not happen.

One of the things we had been putting off was relandscaping parts of our front yard. We didn’t want to put out the expense if we weren’t going to be around to enjoy it. Today, we have folks coming out to clean out our front beds, remulch, put up a stone border and the best part…they’re planting seasonal color! Begonias! Ha! I thought only rich folks did that but it wound up not costing much more than if we were to do it ourselves…and they’ll get it done in an hour versus the UberHusband and me giving up an entire Saturday afternoon to complete half of it, thus leaving our front yard in a continuous state of disarray.

Again, kind of like the Seattle thing.

Now we’ll have more time to tend to our three new rose bushes in the back…our assorted herbs that we planted last weekend…and Audrey. Can’t forget about Audrey or she’ll clog up our gutters or something just in time for Spring storm season.

The crack Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex weather teams say it’s going to freeze in these here parts tonight, which will come as a shock to the dozens of folks who drove away from Lowe’s with mulch and pansies and other delicate Spring flora and fauna this past weekend.

Silly, silly folks. Now granted, I did buy a tomato plant but I know better than to go whole-hog with the planting thing before, oh, say, mid-April.

Anyhoo…make sure to bring the pets in and leave the vindictive foliage outdoors tonight.

The only other black mark against The Wallpaper Guy…five minutes ago, he made the incorrect assumption that the UberHusband did all the paint touch-ups in the kitchen last night:

“Wow. Your husband touched up all the paint. Good job, he did!”

“Thanks, but I did it.”

I knocked him over the head with his ladder and threw him in the back of the Jeep. Broken champagne flutes are one thing…assuming The Little Woman couldn’t have possibly taxed her little self by painting? An entirely different matter.

Now I just need to dispose of him before it starts snowing.

Bwa ha ha.

So after sweeping the kitchen floor a dozen times and running the vacuum over it a couple of times, I think all of the glass has been picked up.

I was kind of surprised that so many people thought I should have quartered, tarred and feathered The Wallpaper Guy, but he felt really bad the rest of the afternoon…I could tell, and he told us that the wallpaper job was on him, which was very generous because the cost of the job was more than the replacement value of everything that broke.

That and…well, I think he’s pulling some muscles trying to get the wallpaper around the little vanity windows in our kitchen. Hee.

To be fair and address a couple of things:

The engagement party flutes…we’d actually broken one of those a couple of years back and had replaced it, so it wasn’t the original set anyway. Sorry, Mom! : :

The kitchen looks great, though. When we moved in we had this obnoxious white wallpaper with a vineyard-type pattern in both the kitchen and the attached nook…it was really loud. Really. Loud. At times I felt like the vines were going to crawl off the walls and come choke me in the middle of the night. We painted the kitchen a plum color a couple of years ago and the nook a dark navy blue but grew tired of that. Homeowner’s ADD, I call it.

The tan stripes in the wallpaper are very complimentary with the blue in the nook. Too bad we’ll have to sell the place in six months.

I’d recommend The Wallpaper Guy in a second. Starting with the initial consultation, he’s been nothing but professional, friendly and not scary at all to have in my house. Well, as long as he stays away from all of the breakables.

Our wallpaper guy just managed to “bump” a shelf up rather high on our wall and knock everything off of it, which included:

*8 champagne flutes purchased for us as a wedding gift
*4 beer pilsners
*Champagne flutes from the Y2K New Year’s Party we attended
*The champagne flutes my mom gave us at our engagement party, engraved with our names and the date we got engaged
*Assorted cordial glasses
*Assorted dessert glassware
*2 Fat Tire beer glasses

Ironically…the Fat Tire glasses didn’t even chip. Go figure. Everything else…shattered…obliterated into ten trillion pieces that we’ll have to keep Poodle and Schnoozer paws away from.

You know, you’d think I’d be more upset. I mean, I am, but it was an accident and things happen. He’s breaking his back cleaning it up and said he’d pay to replace everything, but there is nothing like the sound of twenty or so pieces of stemware crashing to the floor from ten feet up.

For about five minutes I missed the days when I had an inflexible job that wouldn’t let me work at home, so the UberHusband would work from home and deal with this sort of household thing.

On a vengeful note, I am going to stick him with listening to Judging Amy reruns, as additional penance.

On Sunday, our washing machine broke. We didn’t have an owner’s/repair manual because it was part of a set given to us by an old co-worker of mine who fled the country for a contracting job in Hungary (Patrick? You out there anywhere?) and well, gee, it’s a Kenmore and I thought those things weren’t ever supposed to break.

Anyway, the first panicked thing we did was call the Scary People at Sears to schedule a repair appointment with the associated $55 ransom fee. Now, my husband is Mr. Super Duper Fix-It. He can fix just about everything…but is skeptical of appliance repair, especially since we had no information on how the washer works. Fair enough.

The second panicked thing we did was consult the internet because the internet knows everything. I typed the keywords “God please help me our washer broke no repair manual we’re really cheap don’t want to spend any more money than we absolutely have to” into Google and up popped a listing for the RepairGuru’s website, RepairClinic.com. I shot a very specific note off to their appliance repair experts and yesterday received a reply. They were able to figure out what was wrong based on my “the thingy makes a kinda-grindy noise” observations and not only that, but gave us incredibly detailed instructions on how to fix it. We cracked open the washer last night and sure enough, what the RepairGuru said was broken was, in fact, obliterated.

Our closest repair parts center is in Garland and we’ve got some time, so to support Mr. RepairGuru’s ongoing efforts we ordered the necessary part from him and a copy of the repair manual for our washer.

I’m so grateful to this company for diagnosing our washer’s ailment for free and sparing me the agony of sitting around for a 4-hour repair window, during which the repair person may not have shown up at all. If you have any appliance needs, check them out. I’m very quick to throw up a gripe about a company that’s done me wrong but I’m even quicker to provide positive feedback when it’s so well-deserved.