SassyBlonde

So remember the other day when I said the carpets were going to be cleaned Monday? Scratch that. Tuesday morning, and it made the problem worse, so had to reclean them Friday, effectively nixing our plans to be half-moved by the day of.

On Friday I had to spend three hours at the Container Store getting my shelves due to a big sale they were having. Insanity I tell you.

Then of course hubby and I came over to wax the floors and clean the kitchen (I'm a little neurotic that way, and good thing too) and that turned into a three-day job. The woman who lived here before must have had bacon friend in Crisco for three meals a day for fifteen years and never cleaned the kitchen. Hubby had to de-grease the range hood with two cans on Easy-Off and a paint scraper. That didn't even include the range or oven, either. Eeeewy.

Upon removing the wall unit we discovered that the *geniuses* hadn't bothered to paint under it, much less remove it for proper carpeting. So now we have two dirty green-striped squares of carpeting where the cabinets used to be, and also need to repaint the room ASAP. It looks really WT right now.

Hmmm... let's see... oh yes, the bathroom. There were seven towel bars. Seven. She obviously had personal hygiene issues, even if she never cleaned the kitchen. More spackle.

SO the we moved in, and everything was going fine until the Verizon guys came out to hook up our phone. In the first place they hooked up our exchange to the wrong terminal. Assholes. Then they proceeded to tell me that she had cut the wires, and that it would be $200 to get them fixed. Hell no, thank you very much. On Friday I had to rewire the place. While I was at it, I noticed that she'd also cut the cable and satellite wires as well. Bitch. Probably just didn't want to have to pay to have them re-route the wires to her office downstairs. (Oh yes, she's still here) SO more re-wiring for me. Verizon then has the balls to tell her that I crossed two wires when they came out to fix a bug in the line, and that I broke into the Verizon side of the telephone box. (Telephone boxes have two sides, the customer one and the company one) First of all , our house has six separate phone lines-- four for her, one for us and one for the guy upstairs. My only comment to the Verizon guy? I HAD TO RE-WIRE THE WHOLE G-D CUSTOMER SIDE TO FIX YOUR MISTAKES MOTHERF*&$*ER. Lazy SOB.

Ah well, I have a cool house now though.

New tile coming tomorrow morning!!!!! The nasty carpet is gone, and by this time tomorrow the poor ruined hardwood floor will be too!

There are very few things that I pine over heavily in life. Most of the time they happen to be shoes, but every once in a while I find something that truly makes my heart go pitty-pat for reasons other than accessorizing. Case in point: this LG combination washer and dryer.

Let me say this first-- I absolutely love the house we live in. It's not ours, but it supplies almost everything we need with only one major exception: it has no laundry hookups, and since we rent, none will be forthcoming. Considering that the median home price in our neighborhood is $550K, we won't be remedying the situation by moving down the block any time soon. Nor could we really move anywhere else nearby and still keep the business we have-- we'd have to completely rebuild our teaching business and D's job (and maybe mine soon) is a fifteen-minute drive from here.

For the past five years that's left us with only one option: the laundromat, and we all know what happens when I go there. So I've been trying to figure out more cost-effective and less frustrating ways of getting this stuff done, with kind of mixed results. I ordered one of these gadgets from Laundry Alternative and so far it's not so bad: it'll basically dry a load of laundry-- a real load, not one of those oversize ones you can do in a big washer-- enough so hanging it up for an hour or two gets it completely dry, even jeans. I've been looking forward to using the little washer contraption that goes with it, if it would ever get here (apparently it takes two weeks longer to get one of those... weird.) That's all well and good, but what I really want is one of these, because fluffy towels don't grow on trees, or rather, laundry lines.

Now, this isn't just an empty waah, boo-hoo, I don't wanna go to the laundromat question: D and I spend about $130 a month at the laundromat between our clothes and the household linens and towels, and we're trying to cut back on the spending since we're basically busted flat at the moment. And well, laundry really isn't an optional kind of thing, so we're trying to figure out how to make all this work without spending loads of cash in the process. And I'm not gonna lie, doing this stuff at home would be a whole lot more palatable than getting propositioned or harassed every time I go out to do it. Ah well, for now it's washerwoman, me. Maybe I can save some pennies and figure something out after the holidays, barring any unfortunate feline vet emergencies.

*That sign up there completely cracks me up. You can get it here.

So here's the thing:

I've missed you guys.

I've had some pretty heavy things going on in my life this year, things which basically have changed the face of my entire existence in one way or another. And I haven't really felt comfortable talking about that here, in public, for anyone and everyone to read. More importantly, there are very good reasons why I can't and shouldn't.

And frankly, it's killing me.

Because if you're still reading this, then I've probably known you, or had you as a reader, for long enough that you're probably wondering what the hell happened to me.

Because if you're still reading this, you're probably one of the people whose opinions and love I value enough that I'm going to need your help in the next year.

Because frankly, I need an outlet more in-depth than Twitter and less personal than Facebook.

So here's the other thing:

On March 1st, this blog is getting a makeover. I'll be moving it to a new server, shaking up the layout a little, and converting it to a new CMS, though the site address won't change. The ranting and raving and silliness will stay the same, only there will be some things that I don't want to share with everybody, some things that I may need to share and say, but only within certain circles. I'm tired of keeping it all pent up and I've done that for long enough.

If you're still reading this blog, and you're been a loyal reader or friend or even a long-time lurker, email me at (sassy{at}sassyblonde{dot}net) with the title of this post in the subject line or comment on this post and request an access key. I'd love to have you in the circle.

Til then, I'll be cleaning house and doing some renovation, and I'll see you on March 1st.

UPDATE: So, snow and circumstances being what they've been around here, I'm going to have to ask you guys to wait around a little longer, which actually ends up being appropriate for a lot of reasons. I've gotten all your emails and comments, and if you can hang tight for a few more weeks, I'll have the next phase ready on April 1st.