It's depressing...can't say I didn't warn you

This transition is proving more difficult than I'd hoped. She quit her car sales job and now has a part time job at local department store. For October she's only working 11-4 during weekdays and every other weekend. She had the dept store job in the past, but had cut back on hours with hopes that the care sales would pay better. So if the past repeats itself, she'll be working late evenings again at some point.

The frustrating part is that she's not willing to even talk about how to split time with the girls but is very willing to ask for money. Typical. I have the money and since I know I'm a pushover, I embraced it again and forked over a little. I just don't understand how someone can work a 40+ hour work week and not take any money home. You might think she's being deceitful, but I believe her money management skills are absolutely non-existent. It's been that way since I met her. One of those people that insist on buying the stuff on sale, simply because it's on sale. No thought to the fact that she doesn't need to buy it.

Before I moved out, I'd prepared myself for the worst. Which in my mind is the 'every other weekend' scenario. But I let my hopes get high when I was able to pick up the girls from school most weekdays last week. Not that it was the best situation anyway. I only had them for a couple of hours and most of that was spent cooking and eating. But I still got to hang out with them.

She assures me that I'll get to hang out with them more often than every other weekend, she's just not sure how it will work yet. I think her quitting the job was very spur-of-the-moment. And I know I need to give her typically looooong time to think things through. If I piss her off too much by pressuring, she'll only lock down more.

Anyway. Now that the depressing stuff is out of the way. I'd like to share some pictures of the quilts my mom sent to the girls to have at my place. Enjoy.

Corn on the noggin’

Last Saturday, our design department had a potluck up in the local mountains. A little breezy but otherwise it was a beautiful day. The name of the place is Vedauwoo (pronounced vee-da-voo.) It’s a very beautiful spot. Not a lot of big trees, but a lot of awesome rock formations.

http://www.skipharper.com/vedauwoo.htm

I attempted to cook corn on the cob there, but it wasn’t going so well until someone suggested just to put the corn directly on the campfire coals. Worked pretty good. I made a very good mayo+chili+garlic spread you slather on and top with cheese. I guess it’s a Brazilian thing. I highly recommend it. I would have gorged myself on corn if there hadn’t been so much other great food. I also made a garlic+tyme+butter spread that others told me was good, but I never got around to trying it. Top it all with kosher salt and you can’t go wrong.

I don’t usually look this windswept. And no, my forehead isn’t getting any smaller.

That stuffed kitty that Bellie’s holding is almost 3 years old. It’s been to the doctor for stitches a couple of times, but other than that, it’s worn pretty well. She always sleeps with it and plays with it all the time. She has a newer one, but she only likes the old one. My mom sent me my old teddy bear. I don’t even remember having a teddy bear. It’s in pretty good shape, but not something I’d let the girls play with. It may still be all in one piece, but it’s not very tough anymore.

Male pattern baldness does not run in my family, on either side. Very thin hair and big foreheads do. Sometimes I wish I’d gotten my girls good looks.

Holy cow do I love that girl. *heartbreak* Wish she were right here so I could give her a big hug.

Fixit 'er upper

As promised in my previous post, this one will be about some of the small changes you could make to an older home to make it 'feel' newer. I'm not going to hit on any of the things you can do to make it 'look' newer, because I think most people already know about that.

If you have some electrical experience, or know someone who does, changing out your electrical outlets is a good start. Nothing says 'worn out' like an outlet that doesn't hold your vacuum's plug. It's actually quite easy, and if you know how to turn off your breakers (as everyone should) and turn a screw driver, it only takes about 2 minutes an outlet. There are a lot of different choices, most regular outlets are under $5. A GFCI outlet can be as cheap as $12. Those go in the bathrooms, kitchen, and for the clothes dryer (if it uses a regular plug.)

Along the same lines are light switches. A worn out light switch feels sloppy and loose. Flicking that new tight-feeling switch seems kind of satisfying to me. Figure $5 or less for each of those too.

Shower heads and faucets can be pretty cheap. Shower heads are the cheapest, between $15 and $30. Super easy to install and can make the difference between a satisfying shower experience or not. Faucets are more expensive and probably have less impact on 'feel', but if there were a place I would splurge, it would be the kitchen faucet.


A new one I've recently discovered are drawer slides. A broken drawer slide lets the drawer fall down when it's opened. Replacements for the plastic 'c-clip' style are only $1.50 for 2. You can replace those with a single metal roller style, which feel even nicer. Those run between $12 and $20. (If you have the 'c-clip' style, it's probably more work than it's worth to put in double metal rollers.)

Door knobs are a little pricier, but even a cheap new knob feels more solid in your hand than a cheap old one. The price range for new knobs is very wide. Less than $10 to more than $100 each. Even without replacing old knobs, you can still do some work to make the old ones feel better. Re-aligning the strike plates so the door isn't loose when it's closed can make a difference.


Probably the most expensive on my list are entire doors. An interior pre-hung door runs about $50, but I've encountered quite a few warped interior doors in the places I've lived. They don't close right and swing when you don't want them to. They're more work to install and require some patience, so get some help if you're not comfortable. An incorrectly installed new door can be worse than a broken old door.

So those are my handy-dandy tips. There are more things to do, like replacing filters, garbage disposal splash guards, and shower curtains, but those are mostly for sanitary purposes.

Do you have any suggestions of you own?

2 for the road

I know, I know. Pictures were promised and it's been too long.

There have been 2 pictures taken so far. So, so sad. For one reason or another, I just haven't been able to get it done. Either I forgot the camera, the cord, batteries, or more likely, there is a mess that I just don't want to record for posterity's sake.

So here they are! All 2 pictures! Both of the outside.

The front door is right there at the little patio. The 2 windows in the closest corner are in the kitchen.

This is the back. That's my bedroom window.

Looking at the second picture, you can see what I was talking about when I mentioned this was built way back when people wanted a mobile home to look mobile. The 2 big taillights and the marker lights up top are still there. Of course it's been modernized a little. You can see a bit of the cable box down at the bottom.

I've done a little bit of work to it to make it a little less 'cheap' feeling. Those repairs have prompted me to start writing my next blog post which will be all about some of the little things you can do to make an old house, trailer, or apartment feel new again, without major renovations or cost. Trust me, I have experience. Too much experience. Some day I hope to build my own new house. Some day.

This is something I absolutely do want to record for posterity's sake.

Moved on out!

It's done. Moved most of the stuff myself, but it's done.

The new place is small. No dishwasher. No garbage disposal. The shower head doesn't even reach above my head.

It's almost like camping.

Like camping with a 47" LCD TV and sound system that rattles all the windows. Ha!

I had every intention of getting some pictures of the place for this post, but just didn't get to it. It's pretty funny though. This trailer was made way back when mobile homes were purchase because it was a mobile home. Way back when the tail and marker lights were actually built into the house. Nowadays they just use removable lights cause people don't want a mobile home that looks like they can hook their truck up to it and take off.

The most annoying thing is that every one of the little brackets on the drawer slides are broken. They all fall down when they're opened. C'mon people! They're all of a $1.50 each to replace them and there might be 12 drawers in the whole place.

So yesterday I unwittingly had a Daniel Craig movie marathon. Started out with Casino Royale, which I new I liked because I've seen it more than a couple of times.



Went to Defiance. Which didn't have quite the emotional impact on me as I'd expected. It was a good movie, but I think Craig makes a better James Bond. It was a Netflix selection I'd had for a while.



And finished with Quantum of Solace.



A funny thought crossed my mind this weekend too. A couple of posts ago I clarified that I was not dating. Then 5 stunningly attractive young ladies commented on that particular post. *sigh* Almost made me rethink my 'no dating until divorced' policy. :D

Hope y'all had a great weekend! My interwebs get reconnected tomorrow so I should be a lot better at visiting and commenting at your place after that.

Uno mas noche

This is it.

One more night.

I'm probably going to move all the stuff by myself. Seems a little unfair to ask anyone for help when it's probably going to be a pretty uncomfortable situation. Stbx is probably planning on watching me through the whole thing. Make sure I don't take anything that isn't 'mine'. The only really difficult thing will be the mattresses. But I've moved them myself before. It's possible, just not much fun.

I'm quite glad that I'm the one to move first. The amount of junk we've accumulated is amazing. I am not a hoarder. If I haven't touched it in more than a year, it gets tossed. But stbx thinks everything she owns is worth its weight in gold.

In going through the numerous boxes in the basement, there was only one big box of pictures that I was interested in. Even after I brought it out and started looking, instead of trying to haggle about who gets what, I decided to find a decent picture scanner and make copies of everything.

I've been thinking a little bit about sentimentality. I'm not very sentimental myself, but I don't want that to negatively affect my girls. If they want to be that way, that's fine. I know I need to be careful about telling them they don't need to keep something just because I don't think they need to keep it. On the other hand, they should know there's a difference between hanging on to junk and keeping something because it's special.

On that note, has anyone ever encouraged their children to collect things? I'm not talking about collecting things off the ground on their way home from the bus stop, but things linked to special events or places. Like myself, I've started a small collection of coffee mugs from places I've been. I have one from Mount Rushmore and Yellowstone so far. And a Scooby Doo mug.

So tomorrow's the day. My apparent organization kind of failed. I forgot that I asked the interwebs company to wait until I confirmed the date and I never called back. Now they can't get to it until Tuesday. Oh well. Probably for the best so more important things can get done.

I am so ready for this week to be over. Work's been crazy and home life's been crappy.

Hope everyone else had a much better week.

Not a playa’

At the time of this post, there are 583,126 people online playing Halo: Reach. That’s the middle of the afternoon for most of us. I fully expect it to be well over a million this evening.

I am not one of them.

Instead, I’m sitting at my desk, being bored, wishing I could go home and play. But it is not to be. I need to put in the hours now so I can get off early to move on Friday.

A very cool Halo wallpaper by Sam Spratt.

I need to clarify something. I am not dating. As long as I am still technically married, I will not date. Besides the fact that I don’t want to date, I can be patient. I think I’m going to stop doing those ‘non-existent’ dating profile comments for the time being. I think I could get in trouble.