New Year's Eve again

Wow. Another year gone. It seems fitting to be doing a post on New Year's Eve because last year at this time was my first real post. It's funny to re-read it now. I was so unsure about this whole blogging thing a year ago. Now it seems so second nature to just type whatever I'm thinking or about whatever I'm doing. It's interesting that starting next month I'm going to be doing a blog for the professional organization I'm a part of. Go figure. Not so surprising I guess. I've always liked to hear myself talk, and to me blogging is just another form of talking to myself. It's a safe way to have opinions. Of course my personal blogs are anonymous, except to friends and family who may be reading them. My blog for the professional group won't be anonymous. It'll be interesting to see if I find that very different, besides the whole content thing. Hai, hai. The professional one can't be quite so egocentric as this one is.

Anyway I'm going to try to always do a post on New Year's Eve, so here goes.

It's been a good year. Busy, but good. And I enjoy the things I do that have made this such a busy year. This year again I have a huge number of things to be thankful for. I still have a job I love doing. I have good friends. I have my health. I'm financially sound, my retirement and investments back to what they were before the bad losses in late 2008-early 2009. That last is certainly through no effort on my part. I know less than nothing about investments. That's why I have a financial adviser. He's done well for me this year.

So let's see, how introspective should I get? I have a meeting with my boss in early January to discuss my goals and objectives for the next year. Goals, huh? Hmmmmmm. I plan to stay very active in my professional associations. I should write a paper if I can, now that the book chapters are done. I wrote 5 book chapters last year, and managed to get them all in mostly on time. I just received a copy of the first book last week that has two of the chapters in it. Two more chapters I returned the proofed galleys for two weeks ago. And the last chapter went in in October. I wonder if I should make learning to say 'no' one of my goals. Nah. I managed to get them all in. A couple of my goals for next year probably won't make my boss too happy with because they're going to involve fighting City Hall, so to speak. I want some equipment and some personnel that Administration doesn't seem to think I need. So when they show up on my goals, it will be interesting to see what my boss says. Hmmmmm. I guess I need to have a good development plan to present to her to justify what I want, and a good way of explaining why they're part of my goals. Another goal I have for next year is to train someone else to do some of the things I do. We're lacking a little depth at work since I'm the only one currently that does some things, but we've been short staffed at the county hospital too, so it's been hard to catch up on things like training since I'm covering more than usual over there.

Other goals for this next year? Personally, I should probably try to get a little exercise into my routine since I've gotten particularly bad about that. I currently have pretty good health, but some exercise would only improve it. I would say improve my diet, but that's not very realistic. I eat predominately stuff I can nuke or stuff that's fast and easy. I'm not a big fan of sweets, and that includes fruit. The only fruit I usually have in the house are grapefruit. And although I like most vegetables, I don't keep fresh vegetables nor fix them for meals. Most of my vegetables come from my mid-day meal at the hospital. So basically, a pretty bad diet. I suspect that's not going to change much because it's just too much trouble and effort to do real cooking for just myself and then have the cleanup too. I have better/other things to do.

When I consider it, for all my imperfections and flaws, I'm still an incredibly lucky person. Sometimes it's hard to know where to start being grateful. If you believe in karma, then I must have been a saint in my last life, or murdered horribly, to have stored up so much good energy for this life. It's totally believable that I have guardian deities watching over me, or watching out for me. Yeah, so if you guys are listening, you have my gratitude, and take the night off. I'm home. What trouble can I get into?

*laughing* That should be a serious jinx, except they never leave me completely alone. And anyone who doesn't know me is now backing slowly away from this blog. It's okay. You can chalk it up to the alcohol if you like. Of course I'm having a glass of wine on New Year's Eve. Really, it's okay. It's not necessary for you to believe in my guardians, as long as I do. They'll still take care of me whether other people believe in them or not.

Hmmmmmm. Let's get deeply philosophical here for a few minutes. I believe that part of what seems to be my "luck" is that I believe things will go my way and then they do. Do they really happen in my favor because I believe they will? Am I bending reality to suit me or favor me? *laughing* Yeah. Right. Put that way it sounds ridiculous. So why DO things happen in my favor? I don't really know, but I'm gonna keep believing they will. And keep being grateful to whatever agency is responsible.

Okay end of 'philosophical-this-person-is-drunk-or-nuts' talk. I'll try going back to things that are a little more normal.

Yesterday I went with my friend to see Avatar in 3D. O.O Waaaaay cool. What it lacked in original plot it more than made up in visual effects and the creation of a unique world with an alien race. It was awesome. I actually had some trouble with motion sickness though. That surprised me because I have a private pilot's certificate, and I've also never had trouble on boats. Just a bad day maybe. Or maybe I should get my eyes checked. They do seem to be increasingly light sensitive. Whatever, the movie was still awesome.

Well this post has been really scattered, but at least I got one more post in in 2009. Happy New Year and may you have a wonderful 2010.

Dekita!

It's done!!!!! I have all new flooring in my house. And on top of that I have pretty much everything moved back in from the garage that's coming back in. As expected, some of that stuff will take up permanent residence in the garage. However, my garage is once more a place for parking my car and storing odds and ends. I'm really happy about that. I like parking my car inside, not having to clean the windshield on the rare mornings we get ice, not having to warm it up or use gloves because the steering wheel's so cold. The garage isn't heated really, but it stays warm enough for frost-averse plants in the winter. It does become an oven in the summer of course.

So, back to the carpet and tile. I love the new carpet. The carpet guys were incredibly efficient and professional. They were done much faster than I expected . . . about 6 hours total from arrival to departure. The carpet looks great. The color looks great. Overall I'm quite pleased with everything.

I do have some issues with the tilers, but I'll hold those for now.

I wanted to do a few 'before' and 'after' pictures. So all the pictures on the left in this blog are 'after' pictures of the new carpet and tile, and on the right are the 'before' pictures of the old carpet and tile. The first set of pictures above is the entryway, left is the new entry with it's new tile up against the new carpet. By contrast, on the right above is the old tile and carpet in the entry. The color changes aren't as noticeable in the pictures as they are in person, plus as I mentioned in an earlier post, except for the blue bathroom floors, I didn't make drastic color changes.

The second set of pictures are the back door area and since the extension of the tile to the fireplace is one of the reasons for the new tile, I was pleased with the way this came out. On the left you can see the tile extended to the fireplace there by the back door, and get a better feel for the color of the new carpet. On the right is the old carpet up to the back door and you can also see how ragged and stained it was there in front of the door. I really like stepping into the house from the outside onto tile rather than directly onto carpet. Plus the cats can't destroy the carpet there when they're trying to dig out the back door. Your basic win-win. These pictures also show how much darker the new carpet is than the old was. The new carpet isn't a dark color, but the old carpet was really pale.

With the last set of pictures I tried to capture the change in the bathroom tiles. Both bathrooms were this blue-grey swirled tile you can see on the right, up against the old pale carpet. Again on the left is the new bathroom tiles and the new carpet. The picture doesn't do justice to the tiles. They're white with a light brown and a pale blue-grey swirl through them. The brown is pulled out up against the carpet and eventually I'll re-paint the bathrooms, probably a pale blue. Currently this master bath is still a bright fluorescent yellow, which don't match anything, but then they never really have.

So that's the state of my house now. New flooring is in place and I've essentially moved the interior house contents twice in the last month. My plan now is to take a break for awhile and pay of some of this, then go for new furniture and some painting. Kitchen counters will probably be last, at some pint in the future. Slowly but surely I'll get to everything.

New Carpet!

It's finally started, the thing I said I was going to have done immediately when I moved in ... 8 1/2 years ago. My new carpet is being installed! Very cool.

I managed to get everything moved off the carpeted areas of my house except my sofa/sleeper, my TV and my bed. Literally the contents of my whole house are in my garage and kitchen. If you compare this pic with the one in the last post, you can see I've added a bunch more to stuff to the garage. A lot of that stuff I wasn't sure I could move until I tried. It certainly would have been easier with help, but I'm really bad about admitting I can't do something myself.


The two installers had those last three items moved about 5 minutes after they arrived, removed the old carpet and pad and swept the slab in about 20 - 30 minutes, and are now laying down the new pad. They also had me come out and verify that they had they right carpet with them before they started anything this morning. I'd be willing to bet they've run into that problem before where they don't have the right carpet, or people say it's not what they ordered once they start installing. They have my carpet though so all's proceeding.

It's interesting because when I first looked at the carpet I thought that the color was too light. I'm so used to thinking that this new carpet is darker than the old, that I was sort of expecting a dark carpet. It's not dark. It's a nice light tan. It's just darker than my old carpet.

We had a little trauma this morning when the installers got here because the cats had no where in the house to hide. I had hoped they'd run for the garage or under their favorite chair which is in the kitchen, but Zoe freaked out BIG time and just kept scurrying back and forth looking for somewhere to go. Poor baby. I tried to get her to the garage, but she wasn't exactly behaving rationally. Trying to lift and carry 22 pounds of fighting, razor-clawed, freaked out cat is not something I'd recommend. I think I pulled all the muscles in my back and neck. She got away from me and I believe she's somewhere hidden amongst my household items in the garage. I didn't see where she went since I was trying to pick myself up, but she's not in the house, so the garage is probably a safe assumption. I'll look for her once we've both had time to recover our equilibriums. Damn, she's fast for a big cat. Hopefully she'll forget and forgive me for traumatizing her. I'm very glad that it's cool enough that I'm wearing jeans and a long-sleeved shirt though. No lacerations.

My floor is currently blue. The new carpet pad I'm having installed has a 'moisture-proof' side, so it's a nice bright blue. It doesn't quite match my red walls, as you can see from this pic, but it's a lot cleaner than my old carpet was. I have to say that this whole process of new tile and new carpet is interesting. I had no idea how they go about doing this stuff, so it's been interesting to watch it happen. They're currently pasting down the seams in the pad, or anyway that's what it looks like they're doing.

I looked for the cats but they're hiding, and given the vast number of hiding places there are in all my stuff in the garage, they won't be found until either they're ready to come out or I empty all the stuff out of the garage. Hopefully they'll be ready to come out long before I get around to moving all that stuff back into the house.

The carpet's going in now. These two guys are hard workers. They're just moving right along.

Tsukareta!!

Which translates as: I'm TIRED! I've spent almost the whole weekend moving my house into my garage.

To back up a bit: They finished my tile, and it did take them three days. Partly because of all of the mess-ups the first day and partly because they were not very consistent in who was working. The first day there were three of them. The second day there was only one guy for the first 3-ish hours and then two others came and worked on it. And partly the delay was my fault as I had to give that lecture on Wednesday morning. They didn't start working until about noon on Wednesday. I shouldn't complain though. The good news is that I have new tile and I'm happy with it.

The other good news is that my carpet has arrived at the flooring place (so in this case I can safely assume they'll bring it with them). They called me on the last day the tilers were here to tell me the carpet is in, and we scheduled the install for this coming Wednesday. Which means I've had this weekend to get all my stuff into my garage or my kitchen. Which is why I'm seriously tired right now. But everything's in the garage except things I can't move myself (couch, beds, TV) and my electronics which I'll disassemble and move on Tuesday evening. This pic is some of my stuff in my garage. I have FIVE of those 6' tall bookshelves, thank you. I'm betting I'll be finding some new bruises after this weekend, but I haven't broken anything yet (myself OR my stuff), and only have one fairly decent ding in a wall from a curio cabinet that tried to get away from me.

In the process of all this packing and moving I discovered that 'dust bunny' doesn't come close to describing the monster creatures living under some of my furniture after 8+ years. Yeow! Nasty! I've probably spent as much time cleaning as moving, especially since I'm still de-dusting everything from the tile install. This picture is my kitchen area with curio cabinets and other stuff finding a temporary home there (Yes, that is new tile on the floor). The cabinet on the right is the one that tried to escape me.

I'm sort of considering just leaving everything in the kitchen and garage after the carpet goes in. It's too much trouble to move it all back. At least I won't have any time constraints about getting things back where they belong. I don't need for the house to be in order for Christmas guests since I'm heading to my parents for Christmas. I can take my time and unpack slowly and finish cleaning as I go. Sounds perfect. Actually, anything that doesn't involve me getting up for awhile sound perfect right now.

I love construction . . . NOT!

You know that scary "what if the tile is not right feeling" I was talking about yesterday? I should sooooo listen to my intuition. They got the right tile patterns, but the store gave them two dye lots of my kitchen tile. That's the same tile, but two different batches. They don't match. Of course. So they have to take out some and go switch lot numbers at the store. This job will be taking longer than expected.

I wonder why construction in general is such an error prone field? It's a sad fact that no one expects a construction job to come in on time, or within budget, but why is that? I can understand someone like me, or any do-it-yourself-er, would need multiple trips to the store and lots of tries because we don't know what tools or supplies we're going to need until we start doing it. But people who do construction for a living? Why wouldn't the store or the tilers confirm how the tile was going to make it to my house? Why wouldn't someone confirm either that different batches of tile matched or that an order contained all one batch? Why does it seem all construction jobs are "get there and see if we have anything we need"?

My place of work is having construction done and it works exactly the same. "We're here to put the walls up so we can put in the UPS." Uhm, no one told us, we need to move the stuff from that area. "Not our problem. We need to do it today." Then they put up a temporary wall that blocked half of the major entry into the lab. When you opened the door into the lab, half the entry was a wall. Which of course couldn't stay that way, so they had to take it down and put it up again differently so people could get in. Probably construction time over-runs occur because so often they have to do things multiple times to get it right. But why is that?

My sister acted as general contractor for a shop she and her husband had built, and discovered that there are two constants in the construction industry. One, you will never have the material you need when the people are ready for it. Two, no one in construction, and no construction job, is ever on time. Being somewhat anal retentive like I am, my poor sister was a nearly a total, hairless (from pulling it out), basket case by the time the shop was built. I will keep her travails firmly in my mind while this house stuff is being done, so I can see how smoothly it's really going. They were dreaming when they told me two days, though. And maybe that's part of the problem. Two days in an ideal perfect world where things work like you would want them to, three to five days in the real world. I'm hoping for somewhere in between perfection and real. I have some things going on at work that I have to be there for. Like a lecture at 8:00 am tomorrow morning. I guess we'll see what kind of creative scheduling the tilers and I can do.

Thanks to lot numbers of tile, and having to take out non-matching tiles, the tilers didn't get very far laying the new tile yesterday. I'm hoping they get farther today. Here's a picture of the piles of old tile fragments before they carted it away and then a picture of the start of the new tile. This is as far as they got, what with having to replace pieces that they had put in. I think I'll be living with my refrigerator in my living room for a few days more.

Yes, this new tile is a very similar color to the tile I had taken out. I didn't change to kitchen tile color much. I changed the color of the carpet quite a bit from my current carpet, and the bathroom tiles will no longer be blue. I liked the color of the tile I had in the kitchen, but I wanted to extend it to the back door and re-grout the whole kitchen. It was easier to replace it all then find a matching tile to extend it. Hmmmmm. Sounds like a rationalization doesn't it? Maybe I just wanted to replace the flooring in my whole house. That reminds me. I need to remind the tilers to extend the tile to the back door. They'll have to take out some carpet there.

The cat-kids spent the day yesterday under my bed, but came out to investigate almost as soon as the door closed behind the tilers yesterday. They seemed mostly fine and very curious about all the goings on once it was just them and me again. I imagine today will be like that too, although they should be less freaked because the noise level will be less. The sound of cutting tiles will be most of the loud noises and the tilers are doing that outside. They will have to break out the old tiles around the toilet in the master bathroom. They left that yesterday so we'd have a working toilet until they replace the tiles and the toilet in the guest bathroom.

Anyway, I'll keep you posted on the progress today.

And so it begins!

Today's the day. New flooring in my house begins today. Maybe I'll do a running commentary, depending on how it goes.

I'm tired! I've been working harder around my house lately than I have since I moved in. Considering that I'm having the flooring replaced in my entire house, I'm essentially moving everything out and then back in, so I suppose it makes sense that I would be working harder than just moving in. The battle is progressing. They're supposed to be here today to begin the areas that are getting re-tiled. I spent the weekend preparing (pulling,hauling, packing, moving), so everything should be ready (famous last words).

My poor cats are truly freaked out, with everything in the house displaced and in a transitory state of flux. They really don't do well with changes in their world-view, so this is all kind of hard on them. I imagine they'll be fairly shell-shocked after the tilers spend time today breaking up and removing the old ceramic tile so they can replace it.

The good news is that I got all of my Christmas shopping done and everything is wrapped. Things that need to be shipped out of state are packaged up and ready to go. And all the wrapping paper, etc is put back away. That's a few less random items to worry about when the big carpet move comes along. Of course that also means I probably won't do any Christmas decorations this year. I know, I know. I really did start looking at carpet in October. I was just not very decisive. And then I picked a carpet that had to be ordered. I suspect my house will be in this state of flux through the Holidays and they won't lay the carpet until after the New Year. Maa. Shikatanai <-- can't be helped.

The tile guys are here ... breaking up tile. It's so weird to watch them break up all the old ceramic tile. In fact it's so weird that I'm not watching them. I did take a bunch of "before" pictures this morning though, so I can show off what it all looked like before I started with what it will look like afterward. And of course I'll be doing the 'in process' pictures. The first one is here. This is what my kitchen area currently looks like.

The cats are under my bed, probably for the duration. This part of the process is NOISY. And DUSTY.

I also called the store this morning and asked them to check on my carpet order. They said it shows as shipping today! At least I won't have to go back a choose the color over, even if I do have to wait until after the Holidays to get it installed. When I chose that style and color, the store salesman told me there was a slight chance that the manufacturer wouldn't have it in stock when they ordered it and I would have to start from scratch with the color and style selection. Of course it wouldn't have been entirely from scratch. I would have had to match it to the three colors of ceramic tile I've chosen for the kitchen, entry and the two bathrooms. So I'm really glad to know that the carpet I chose is on it's way.

First snag (this is construction after all): The flooring guys expected the new tile to be delivered and already be here. The store expected it to be picked up. So it's at the store. Looks like they decided the flooring guys will have to come and get it. One went and two are still destructing my house. Weird. I expected trouble with the carpet, not the tile.

These guys are hard-working though. They've been here about 2 hours and have all the tile broken up and mostly removed from the kitchen, the entry and one bathroom. I wish guy number three would come back with my new tile, so I wouldn't have the scary feeling of 'what if they don't have the right tile'.

He's back. I'm gonna go confirm tile.