Excuse Me Waiter, There's A Frog In My Soup

Of course in our case that would be a frog in our POOL - jinkies! Apparently they not only didn't use the pool for the past couple of years but they didn't cover it properly so David got in there in his waders and was mucking out leaves and sticks while the frogs frog-paddled around him. The pool itself is fine, but needs a massive cleaning out .Obviously. David said he came home one day to cows peeking through our bushes but some sturdy woman came and called them home. He said the cows call at dusk as they meander thier way home and you can hear the wind whistling in the old mines down the road. I think we're in for an interesting life! The house iself is a sturdy thing too and needs cosmetics as far as we can tell so far. David and Copper are happy to be here in Pa with heat and all, they spent the week roughing it in WV -  no heat, hot water or phone but aside from that both seemed to have had a great time. David met some more of the neighbors who seemed pleased to have him there and he bought a riding John Deere mower for $600. Right now we're trying to keep a handle on the spending since almost all of our equity is still tied up in this house here. The RE has two appointments for today so cross your fingers for me - or you'll be swimmin' wit da froggies!!

TGIF!

Except for those of us that have to work a 12 hour shift today, then I suppose it would be TBIF (Too Bad It's Friday). David and Copper are heading back here this morning from WV, David's been busy with the house all week. Apparently the pool does indeed have a new liner but hadn't been covered properly so it's home to leaves and baby frogs. David bought a used mower and has made a large headway in the yard around the house and the plumber put in the new hot water heater we bought here on sale. He wasn't able to get ahold of the gas company though so it was cold spongebaths for the week - yikes! - he's VERY much looking foward to a hot shower. Jackson and I did alright all week, I managed to get him to school on time despite work, I just ix-nayed out a few minutes early both mornings and he wasn't late once. For his part he was up and ready to go both days AND even fed the cats and walked the dog! He had pizza again last night and ate the entire thing by himself which I find just short of amazing and we watched The Rocky Horror Picture Show which he loves almost as much as I do. It had been on VH1 the other night but we missed most of it and it's edited so I picked up a copy at Borders - I forgot how great a movie it is. I'm considering extending my resignation since we're not going to be leaving here until the middle of June but we'll see what I can work out.

We're moving where??

Things have been quite busy lately. Mom and Grandpa Carter came a-calling on Thursday. I had to work so I was sleeping and David being helpful as usual, stopped home to lock them out and then left. Mom had a bit of a time getting Grandpa up to the house, I promised Grandpa that our house in WV is on FLAT land. The weather didn't co-operate so there's not a whole lot of pictures (and the ones I have are in WV on the camera with David) but we did have a nice visit and even managed to get out to the chinese buffet. While they were here the RE was in and out as usual - we did get another offer but I don't think it'll pan out. The woman wants the house re-roofed which isn't a problem, but she wants to wait until the end of July to close which IS a problem. Her RE says that she has a piece of property she wants to sell first so she won't have to take a mortgage and he says the deal isn't contingent on it, but we're afraid if she can't sell the property she can (easily) wiggle out of the deal and we'll have missed the big selling season. Our RE agent was re-writing the contract so she couldn't wiggle out - at least not as easily -  and she would be paying for the roofing materials prior to closing - we haven't heard a peep since. So we soldier on. David returned to WV yesterday with a large portion of our belongings and Copper in tow for company. The house here is starting to get that lonely echo to it, even though we didn't have a good time here it's still a bit hard to leave what you know. Work continues to be a stressor - they snuck an extra day in at the end of the schedule and I protested and the nursing supervisor is mad about that. We're looking at the situation from opposite ends, she's viewing it as I'm  leaving so why can't I work the extra shift (and of course it's a 12 hour, not an 8) and I'm  looking at it that I am leaving and going straight home to pack and deal with the RE, why do I have to work an extra shift?? Why do they always have to make leaving so ugly?? I shaved Charger yesterday and got pounds of hair off him, I need to tidy him up a bit but overall, didn't do too bad of a job. The people at Walker Carpet came on Saturday, what a pain in the butt they were. David called them repeatedly and they never showed up so he got ahold of the owner. What a piece of work she was - told David first that someone would be here "maybe" to look at the stains between 11am and 5pm and when he got mad about having to sit around all day she claimed the installer told her WE were responsible for the stains - that we were probably walking through leaves and made them. I have to say that didn't have much of a calming effect. David pointed out the entry is tile, he'd called about the carpet the morning after it had been installed and WE HAVE NO LEAVES. The guy came on Saturday and it took him about an hour and a half to remove the "leaf stains", one of which mysteriously looked like a water stain, who knows, maybe we were standing in puddles. All in a day's work I suppose.

Michael - Jacksoning the Cat

There's Jackson doing an impression of The Gloved One and his kid on a balcony -  please note that Vincent is NOT amused. David had carpet put down in the basement yesterday, today he noticed the large stains on part of it so the carpet guy has to come back, the dumpster guy never came back and picked up the dumpster - all in time for the RE to do the Group Troop through the house. We had about 14 of them, but they were pretty brief about it and now I have the rest of the day to pretend to get things done. David has a bit of short fuse these days helped along by the stupid dogs. He spent the morning waxing the floors and right before the RE showed up Charger dragged in leaves and dirt and Copper did his bit by barfing by the door. Yikes. We've been hearing alot from Adam lately, he's finally back in port after almost 3 months out at sea and has had to replace all of his uniforms, they're working him too hard, he doesn't have enough time to spend with his girlfriend, yadda yadda yadda, usual stuff. I'm glad he's on dry land though, I can't imagine being out at sea on a 500 foot frigate for months on end with a couple hundred people. But if he has enough energy to carp, he's fine. Work is dragging, we've had a low census but I was told I cannot be called off, I HAVE to work because I resigned I have to give them X amount of hours, not sure where calling in sick falls in there. One more thing I suppose.

Monday Monday

We've had 3 sets of lookers, no takers. Another set is coming today, then  the entire REMAX office will be trooping through on Tuesday. We've also been warned that the weekend viewings will probably be picking up due to the warm weather - sigh, no rest for the wicked. David has been battling it out with Slava, the pain in the ass he's been building the deck for. He had given him a good price since he's a friend of Roman's and it was supposed to be an easy job. He should've known better. Since he started it was constant phone calls, one yelling session, Slava changed plans a few times but didn't understand why he should pay for it, etc. Then David went to finish the other day and was stopped by security (it's in a planned community) to see his permit. Turns out Slava never filed for one. So David told him just to pay him for the work done and find someone else. It took him two days and another arguement to get him money but he did it. Of course now we find out this seems to be this guys'  usual behavior, Romans' wife told David Slava had gotten into with someone over a parking space last week and the police were called and he's already been battling with the guys he hired to build a retaining wall. So I'm glad to be done with that, we certainly don't need anymore stress around here! Jackson has been a good egg lately, he worked for one of my co-workers last week raking leaves and made $40 for the day which he found impressive. He also got to use a leaf blower,sweet! That's a picture of his new hat for the summer, only Jackson could find a beach hat in Funeral Black with skulls around the brim!

Darn It!

The house here is back on the market. Harry the RE agent called yesterday and the buyers changed thier minds and have backed out, so we're back to people trooping through the house and me hiding the zoo in my car. We already have people coming today and Saturday and Harry is escorting the entire Remax office through for a tour on Tuesday. I was very much looking foward to going back to living like the bunch of slobs we are but for now we are Martha Apprentices. David's still working on the deck for the Pain In The Ass, one of those charming clients that changes the plans all the way through and then A) complains it doesn't look how he thought it would and B) and more importantly, doesn't want to pay the agreed upon price. I think it usually has more to do with B than A. The changes usually slow down once the person realizes they have to pay every time, but still it's just one more little stressor in the works. David handles it much better than I do, I would just slap the crap out of them and let them finish it on thier own. I'm on the countdown at work now - can the days go any slower? We're also busy trying to keep Jackson focused on his school work so we can ix-nay out of here the second school ends. But it's been hard for him because as we get closer to the day we leave, the more his friends in WV call him. When we were out shopping yesterday his cell phone was constantly ringing and he was busy text messaging every 15 feet or so. I can see the swimming pool and pool table will be gettting a lot of use this summer at the new house!

Take Me Home, Country Roads.....

David arrived home yesterday full of news and dirty laundry, happy to be a new homeowner once again. He's already bargined for a slightly used garage door and has at least one horse trading session going with the neighbor down the hill. We had some other happy news - one of the lookie loos accepted my counter offer and the house here is now under contract!! Hopefully that'll go smoothly dare we hope! I handed in my resignation this morning, my last day will be the 11th of May - that I do feel bad about because they're very very short of nurses and can barely cover the staffing even with the supervisors filling in the holes. So. Now we have to get organized and start packing - David's probably going to be making several trips back and forth since we won't be out of here all at once like the last time. That sure sucked. I'm off to bed, worked a 12 hour overnight and am feeling it this morning, but I'll keep everyone posted.