fancytalk: (Laughing)
House in escrow. Woo Hoo! We close January 5th. Woo Hoo!

Now if we can just get the post office to deliver our mail here and not there. Our realtor discovered a mail tub full of our mail sitting on the back porch. The US Postal Service sucks.

We've been house hunting today. Found one that we really thought about putting a bid on until our realtor called and the sellers had just accepted another bid. *sigh* It was a really good house too. Oh well, if it's meant to be the current deal will fall through on it.

And now for those with dirty minds.
Your Drag Queen Name Is:

Ophelia Cox
fancytalk: (house)
We got an offer! We got an offer!

The dawdling was not because they were taking their own sweet time, but because one of them works for the state and had to submit a form to the lender stating that she wasn't hired due to nepotism. They were having troubling tracking down the correct form as well as the person who needed to sign it. And the reason for going back through the house so much was because everytime they saw another house, they came back to ours to make sure that was where they wanted to be.

We've accepted the offer and we'll know for sure that everything is on the go by Friday. Despite us having 25 billion inspections done, they want a plumber/electrician friend to do an inspection. Not that the plumber could find much wrong with either since most of what is/was wrong has been fixed or will be fixed by us.

This makes Dana a happy camper and now we get to step up on finding a new place here.
fancytalk: (Merry Merry)
I'm sitting here at the computer thinking that I should go back to bed. I'm up now, so now sleepy-bye for me.

No news on an offer yet. Our realtor called around 7:30 last night to say that it was rather late if their realtor wanted to present an offer so she expected an answer/offer this morning. So I'm waiting on pins and needles with the next question being "is there anyway that this can fall through?" assuming we accept the offer.

We've found a house in Seattle that Ronette wanted to buy last week. OK, make that two weeks ago. But we're waiting on our house to sell. Which is probably a good thing because Ronette did a trial go-to-work run last week. 45 minutes to get from Seattle to Redmond. She wasn't extremely ecstatic about that, but it's better than the 1 1/2 that she had heard from several people. Then the big wind storm last week that has knocked out everyone's power happened. That's when everyone tells the real story on commute times. For weeks the party-line has been "45 minutes is average, you just have to watch for baseball games and concerts because they make the trek a little longer". Of course this is also dependent of what area of Seattle you live in, some places have better commute times than others. Then the storm. And everyone starts owning up to their two hour commute in the evening. (!!!!!!) Crazy!

Now we're looking on the eastside as well. The whole point of moving up here was being able to actually spend time together rather than Ronette commuting most of the week. Of course we started our preliminary searching at 3:30 in the afternoon while most of the eastside is still without power. It makes it difficult to find houses 1) in the dark, 2) with trees fallen down, 3) roads closed and 4) most missing their For Sale signs.

There is still traffic though, which is a bit of a wake-up call. San Francisco is bad, but I think Seattle may be worse. We had appointments for the eye doctor at 5:30/5:45 last night. Two miles away, we left at 5 and walked in right at 5:45. Two fricking miles! So I get to go back this afternoon. I'm hoping that part of the problem out here right now is everyone Christmas shopping. I think everyone went to the mall last night and took two cars for every two people. Crazy traffic.

Guess I'll go eat breakfast now and start on my projects.
fancytalk: (Dancing Condoms)
The two women who have been circling like sharks about buying the Berkeley house have finally gotten their ducks in a row and should be submitting an offer today. Keep your fingers crossed that they finally submit. They've been through the house at least twice a week since it was put on the market. We're still at the top of their list despite the foundation issues.
fancytalk: (sweetness)
Nothing much going on here. I thought I'd just come around and post a few things.

No offers on the house yet. That's a boo! I'm hopeful for next week though. *fingers crossed* This should be a link to the listing

Still house hunting here. And we'll start car shopping this weekend. That's exciting but yucky because I don't want another car payment. However Ronette is worried because we only have one car and Seattle doesn't have public transportation the same way that San Francisco does. Really, she's worried. I've driven her to work because I might need the car. It's raining cats and dogs. I'm not going anywhere if I don't have to go.

We've got turkey day plans with our friends John and Carl. Which is nice because I don't have to cook, but a little frightening because there is a good possibility of extremely zesty, I don't know who could eat it, cranberry sauce/relish concoction that tastes like ass. Bad cranberry sauce can ruin Thanksgiving. I'll look forward to the food adventure because knowing Carl he'll have at least two dishes that he "just had to try this year".

We're going to Florida at Christmas to see Ronette's side of the family. Thank goodness we're staying with her dad. Her mom is actually asking for Christmas lists this year. It's a good thing because this means not receiving anything that will go into a Goodwill bag as soon as we get home. The best part this year is that her sister is pregnant with baby #2 and her brother just eloped which means we're out of the spotlight.

UPS delivered the mysterious rifle to our friend Donald and he has gotten some time to research it's history.

What Donald knows so far - It is a true M.1888/90 Mannlicher, not an M.1888 or M.1888 converted to M.1888/90 standards. It was made in 1891 in what is now Steyr, Austria and proofed/accepted into the Austria-Hungarian Imperial Army in Vienna. There were about 350,000 M.1888 variants built, and most of them stayed in Austria-Hungarian service until 1917. Many, but not all, of the smaller countries that succeeded the Empire replaced it with more modern rifles. There are no other European marking visible, and no markings indicating that it was originally made for export. I have an as yet unproven suspicion that it could have come here via South America after WWI. There are no American import markings, so it came into the US before 1968. It has been taken apart and re-assembled at least twice, once by someone who knew what they were doing and had a lot of similar rifles (possibly a government arsenal, but whose government?) and once by someone who had only the one rifle and could not remember exactly how it went together.

So here is the probable life history:
1891 Manufactured
late 1890's Placed in reserve service or storage (replaced by M.1895)
c1914-5 Re-issued, probably reworked and inspected at arsenal
1917 Removed from service. Used as war reparations?
?? Belgian arsenal rework? Sold to South American country?
Left in a dusty European warehouse? Re-issued in desperation in 1945?
<1968 Brought into the US.
?? Disassembled and almost reassembled (some parts are put on backward)
200? Found by You.
2006 Sent to Me


The best part is that we can all be 12 and giggle hysterically whenever he says "Mannlicher". *giggles*

And that's about all I've got. I hope everyone has a great turkey day.
fancytalk: (Default)
Saturday night aroung 10:30, as we were sitting drinking some wine, we heard the sound of dripping water. Upon investigation we realized that water was dripping from the ceiling into the dining room. When I went to the kitchen for a bucket, the entire floor of the kitchen was flooded. Ronette called the temporary housing people so they could call maintenance. (Don't ask, that's how they work it.) While I mopped, Ronette went up to the 2nd floor to figure out where all the fricking water was coming from. Teenage girl home alone freaking out because she doesn't know where the water is coming from. Ronette went to the 3rd floor and discovered that the water lines busted in the 3rd floor apartment. Apparently they came home to the flooding in their apartment, so no telling how long it had been going on. The worst part was that it totally killed the wine buzz.

So Sunday morning the temporary housing people call to say they are going to move us. Which is a good thing because even after the fire department and building maintenance sucked up water, the carpet was still so wet that when you walked on it little puddles of water came up.

Now we are closer to campus, about a 5 minute drive, compared to the 30 minute one we had before. Ronette went to work this morning. I get to unpack all the temporary stuff again. Not complaining, just dreading the 5 buckets of kitchen stuff to reorganize.

The next move should be into a new house. I think things are looking good on that front. We had a broker's open on Thursday for the Berkeley house. 42 brokers showed up and two asked their clients to go back after they saw it. And 84 people showed up for the open house on Sunday. The realtor said that there weren't many neighbors that came. Several disclosure packets have been requested so hopefully we'll have some offers to look at this week.

Now back to the unpacking.
fancytalk: (house)
Well, I assumed that I would have some mess because the tile guy is replacing the shower surround in the bathroom today. However, I did not assume that all of the papers and stuff tucked into their cubby hole in the office which backs up against the bathtub wall would be having a heyday in the floor. Actually, I'm suprised that the printer isn't on the floor with the amount of banging that they have accomplished.

I guess I should clean this up.
fancytalk: (Default)
I'm tired of all the people in and out. It's been one inspection after another all week. The last one is scheduled on Monday. But there is no rest for the wicked it seems because the movers will be here on Tuesday. Ack! And I have to make piles.
fancytalk: (house)
Well, 45 minutes and $200 bucks later, I have a kitchen faucet that is connected to the water pipes and doesn't leak. I should go to plumbing school and become a plumber. Although, I have to say that I don't think I have the physical strength to do some stuff. The nipple I couldn't get off. Yeah, this guy had it off in less than 5 minutes. I think I loosened it for him. Anyway, I've got water in the kitchen and I'm a happy camper. Now I can fix the faucet in the butler's pantry.
fancytalk: (house)
and I'm feeling alright . . .
I've got earworms today. At least I'm not singing Elvira anymore because I know only one or two lines that I keep singing over and over.

Ronette and I were up and out of the house early today. I guess it also helps when the phone rings at 7:00 on a Saturday morning. We decided that getting breakfast out would be our reward for getting our shopping list out of the way. Now we're both back slaving away on house projects. OK, so slaving only because the weather is on the toasty side. A little bit of effort ends in a puddle of sweat.

Eh, I don't have much to say right now, so I guess I'll go back to my painting.
fancytalk: (house)
Where!? Oh where did all these fricking ants come from?

Ack!

Sep. 26th, 2006 04:48 pm
fancytalk: (Default)
My backyard is a fermentation tank!

Between the figs falling and the abundance of apples I can't clean them up fast enough. Although the apples are my fault because I was waiting for them to be ripe enough to pick. They went from unripe to falling off the tree in a matter of days. I cleaned up the mess as best I could along with the leaves that have started to fall. I just picked figs on Sunday. Basically the ripe ones I could reach from the ground and from the third rung of the ladder. I decided not to worry about the unripe ones that fell off as I picked because there are so many. Half of the figs that weren't ready to be picked n Sunday are ready to pick now. So tomorrow I'll do another round of picking off the lower limbs. At this rate I'll never reach any on the higher branches.

OMG!

Sep. 15th, 2006 11:46 am
fancytalk: (house)
For all of us who have ever rigged up some backass way to fix something -

DON'T, for the love of all that is holy, Don't use caulk to fix a leak in a pipe!

Please.

This will spare me the need to wring your neck and you the wringing of the neck.

On that note, obviously I still don't have a kitchen faucet. And the shortest nipples are still too long. I will have to check Home Depot to see if they have shorter ones. Now I need to go cry.
fancytalk: (house)
Remember the crossed fingers that the faucet would be an easy fix?
I should have crossed them tighter.
I went to the hardware store and bought shorter nipples.
Before I turned off the water, I thought I would double-check to make sure I bought the right diameter.
They didn't fit!
At least that's what it seemed until I realized that I tested the fit with the wrong nut. *head desk*
So now that I figured that out, I'm going to go install the faucet and hope these nipples are short enough.

And to completely kill my day, when I picked Ronette up at the airport last night she tells me that the work party we have to go to is tonight. I'm really not looking forward to this because I have to cook. It's a Mediterranean theme and Ronette volunteered to bring dolmades aka stuffed grape leaves. Shoot, I should have just bought some pre-made jarred ones when I went to the grocery store this morning. As it is, I get to hand-roll about 25 billion grape leaves. Then she asks this morning for me to pick figs for everyone since I'm driving into the city. I'm really tempted to drive in, park the car in front of her office and take the BART back home. That would be really mean, so I'm going to fix the sink and start cooking.

Arghhhh!

Sep. 14th, 2006 08:43 am
fancytalk: (house)
Yesterday sucked.
Let's see how it sucked )
[livejournal.com profile] ajayne, I owe you an email that I will do as soon as I finish the faucet.
fancytalk: (Default)
So the countertops and the front yard isn't the only house stuff we've been working on so here's a quick list.

Ronette and I finally finished purchasing and laying down all the rock on the sides of the house. Wow! It made a real difference with the weeds.

While I was in Raleigh, Ronette put up wainscotting on the back porch. We had planned to tile over the brick. It wasn't good brick. I think it's more like brick facade. While the outside of the porch looks like brick, the inside looked like someone had forgotten to finish the wall. The tile got nixed because, well, I think Ronette decided that it would be a pain the butt to tile that much vertically (but don't tell her I said that). I think the wainstcotting was a much better choice. She also bought some pretty plants and put on the porch. Much better than when the washer and dryer were taking up half the porch last year. I attached a couple of hooks onto the screen door so that the cat can add the porch to her territory and I don't have to worry about her escaping through the hole in the wall.

We spent a weekend cleaning out the garage. Cleaning really meaning ripping out all the old drywall and installing pegboard. Only found one dead mouse. The pegboard alone made the garage look so much better and useful. We also have a work area attached to the back of the garage that we've been using for storage. We finally gave it a coat of paint. I had the same feeling when I finally painted the upstairs bedroom in Richmond - why didn't we do this before? Dramatic changes. Now we just need to fix the door that leads into the work area.

And last, but not least, we laid cork floors in all the closets, the pantry, laundry room, one bathroom and the back bedroom. [livejournal.com profile] yarbiedoll, I have to say that I'm very happy that this is the choice that we finally went with. It's so squishy! And it was really easy to put down. We went with the glue-down cork tiles since three of the areas have water usage. I'd would be interested in looking at the click cork for the next installation.

I think that's it and all that's really left to do on the house minus a few Berkeley RECO stuff. This weekend I think we'll attempt what is truly the last big project which is the shower surround in the front bathroom.

Workmen

Aug. 30th, 2006 11:27 am
fancytalk: (blur)
This is why I hate having someone else do something that I could probably do myself.
I have to put up with workmen.

We ordered new countertops for the kitchen and the bathroom weeks ago. As of yesterday morning only the bathroom countertop was in stock and they were going to come install that today. Which was okay because we were waiting on the backspash for the kitchen. Yesterday afternnon they called to say that they could install the kitchen countertops too. Yay and Boo, because the backspash won't be here until this afternoon. So Ronette and I were running power tools late last night to put up the board that our backsplash will be mounted to. Pain in the butt.

Anyway, so they are here and are getting everything in order to install my countertops. They've bitched about the guys who did the demo and have just added my kitchen sink to the bitch list. I'd really like them to go away, but I'd like my countertops too.
fancytalk: (house)
I've got a lot of posting to make up, so I will start with a "here's what I did over the weekend" post.

Way back when I posted pictures of what the front of the house looked liked when we bought it and the imbetween pictures of getting rid of the juniper and the stump. Since January we've literally had a brown, lumpy dirt patch in front of the house with nothing more than weeds growing. At least they were green, that is until I sprayed them with weed killer. Given the comments that we received while working out hineys off, our neighbors must have been wondering when and if we were ever going to do anything. I'm hoping we haven't disappointed them because my whole body is a bit painful today and I'd like the pain to be worth it.

We added a border to help keep the dirt from encroaching on the sidewalk and planted many pretty plants that stink good. We put in a banana plant and a Christmas conebush to help disguise the new placement of the electric meter box. I've got three rose bushes that are blooming, lavender, sage and a couple of smaller plants just because I thought they were pretty. I'm hoping it fills out nicely. And here is the final look after 14 bags of mulch.



Now we just have to paint the house.
fancytalk: (Default)
And I have internet!
But most importantly, I have power again!!!!!!!!
I love energy.
fancytalk: (Default)
Late yesterday I ventured into the backyard to pick some lemons and check on how the figs were ripening. Thanks to my superworms I have beautiful figs.
Think tennis ball size. Yum!

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