Oh no, please, not another water heater!

I came home from work today and as soon as I stepped inside the house I said to the hubs, "omg, it HOT in here!" he said, "I know, I just came back from a walk with Jack and realized it was toasty..."

So we look at the thermostat. 83. Inside. Its only 78 outside. Whaaaa?

We made dinner, and while eating realized it was still hot. Like, not getting cooler even though air was coming through the registers. Himph. A call was placed to my father-in-law. "heeeeeelp!"

Basically, we have no idea what's up with the a/c unit not working. I mean, our house is 8 years old. For the first year it sat vacant. Then had a homeowner for 1.5 years. Then sat vacant for another 1.5 years and now we've lived in it for 4. So really, our house is only like 5.5 years old (-ish)...

I'm just praying this isn't another hot water heater fiasco. Please GOD don't let it be another million dollar repair job!! (...and just when I was getting the basement steps to start looking nice....maybe that's the problem, maybe I should leave the basement steps alone. Maybe I'm messing up the houses mojo...?)

Oh Lord...being a h.o. (home owner) is hard and expensive. I mean, when things break, there ain't no body that's gonna come running to fix it (without charging you an arm and a leg anyway!)

Basement progress

I promised pictures of the basement stair project and here they are:The scary soot-stained carpet (eek!)

Here's a progress photo...this was my first night of work. I got half of the steps uncovered from the terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad carpet, removed the carpet padding and pulled out tons of carpet staples...lemme be the first to tell you if you didn't already know, carpet staples are evil!

And, all the while I was pulling up the carpet, Jack sat at the top of the stairs with with favorite toy beside him and watched me. It was really cute :)

The next day I took off the railing and set it in the foyer. Jack wanted to investigate a little...
Gosh he's cute!

Another project...

Back in January 2008 our hot water tank decided it was time to act up. We live in Ohio. No hot water, in winter (January no less) is NOT fun. So we call the repair man and several hundreds of dollars later, our tank is fixed. However the mess that was left made me wanna throw up.

The problem with the tank was that our burner (we have a gas tank) was covered in soot. The repair man had to clean all the soot off the burner. And that's where his cleaning skills stopped. He didn't think to put a drop cloth down. Or wear booties over his soot stained boots...so he tracked thick, black soot all over the basement, up the BEIGE (well, it was beige) carpeted stairs, on the hardwood and through the garage.

For two years I have cleaned those steps. I have scrubbed, vacuumed and even steam cleaned them. Nothing lifted the darn soot.

So, Friday night, I decided to take matters into my own hands, literally, and ripped up the carpeting. It was fantastic! Everything went well, 'til I got to the last step (which, apparently the installers used a super strength staple gun) because when I pulled, it finally gave, and I flew into the cement wall behind me. Its cool...I walked away with just a scrapped elbow, but still...

I got half way through Friday night, tearing up the padding and pulling the staples...Saturday I took the day off to watch the hubs play softball, shop with the moms and go out to eat...but yesterday morning I rolled up my sleeves and completed the task! Eek!

Its amazing to me what a difference having no soot-stained-carpeting makes!

Don't worry, pictures will come soon...now I have to paint 'em! I love having projects to work on!!

Swooooon

Every day I'm at work I walk past this gorgeous lamp. Since like, er, December, I've been eyeing it and in February when we got our new bedroom furniture delivered I knew I had to have it.

You might be asking, "but Erin, it looks just like a regular lamp...what's the big fuss over?" Lemme start at the bottom up on this fine lamp.

First, the base. Its not too big, not too small. Its a perfect size/shape for the area in our bedroom which has been left empty for the arrival of this perfect illumination creation.

Second, the crystal ball just below the lamp shade. Its perfect. When the lamp is lit, it will cast off a beautiful shimmer of amazing light into our bedroom, making it that much more wonderful.

Third, the lamp shade. Can we just say UH-MAZING?! Lets start with the wonderful PURE WHITE color (which so few lamps offer anymore, many are "antique white" or "glacier white", not just pure, not messed around with WHITE!) Then, lets take into consideration the perfect shape of the shade (which matches perfectly with the two already pure white drum shades I have on our nightstands).

Bottom line, this lamp is going to be mine. First I had to verify stock in the computer, then locate it in the stock room...and now I'm just waiting for the new shipment of merchandise to be moved away enough that I can reach it and its GOING HOME WITH ME!!

Eeeek! Pictures to follow!

Basement buddy

One of my new favorite things is working in my new home office...I've relocated to the basement to have more space to layout drawings and guess what, its HAWT.

But, here's why its my new favorite, because every time I'm down here working, Jack is laying right beside me with a toy.

When I'm down here at night, he's curled up in a blanket on the floor next to me...and during the days he lays on top of my feet...I just love it :)

Even though our basement isn't finished, I've laid down several area rugs which helps give a more "homey" feeling, rather than the gray cement foundation. Its just a cool space to hang out in and be productive.

Oh, and guess what?! I've got a water-feature! You know, some offices have fountains to greet you in their entrance, right...I have my own version of a fountain. Our sump pump! haha...its not the most attractive piece to look at, but I tell you what, hearing the running water all afternoon is really soothing :)

Now Ke$ha just came on satellite, "your love, your love is my drug..."

Too busy

Have you ever been too busy sometimes that you forget to pee? Well, you realize you have to pee, but your mind keeps moving and your limbs follow and pretty soon you're either in a puddle or ready to explode?

Right, the puddle hasn't happened to me yet...but if you've noticed, I didn't post the whole month of April. Lemme say that again, THE WHOLE MONTH OF APRIL, not one post! WTF?!

"But Erin, what have you been doing to keep you so busy that you forget to pee?" I know your asking...well, work is giving me lots of hours and I'm doing some other things which is awesome! Things are lining themselves up and for that, I'm thankful.

I know this is crazy short, but you know what...at least I posted something for May...haha. So maybe I won't post anything else for the month!

BTW, have you caught the show The Marriage Ref on NBC? Oh gosh, I love that show and the crazy people they have on it...seriously, it makes me bust out laughing every time we watch it :)