It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

Kaden and Lori came over today to attend our neighborhood winter festival. I'm way, way behind in posting to this blog. Kaden and Alena had come back in October for the neighborhood fall festival and I thought it was much better organized than the one today. Still, I had a lot of fun.

Most of the immediate family came to our house for Thanksgiving. Lori & Dood took photos then and I'll try to get these up in another post soon.

For now, click here to see us enjoy the snow today.

New Entertainment Center

The Star Trek Shrine is not the only new thing we got for the house. Today we got our new entertainment center. Click here to check it out.
Once we get the money, we'll actually put a new TV in there so we can be entertained! And then a nice new sectional so we can have somewhere to sit while being entertained.
We are definitely a work in progress...

Star Trek Shrine Is FINALLY COMPLETE!

Never could get the guy on eBay to go lower than $85 for Kes. Glad I didn't take that offer, because by being patient I got so much more!!! This guy on eBay had 10 lifesize cutouts for sale and I made a deal with him to buy 4 (or 5 depending on whether or not you count the Klingon Duras sisters as one or two!)

Starting with Lursa and B'Etor from TNG and going clockwise, we now have 7 of 9 from Voyager, Jadzia Dax from DS9, Captain Jonathan Archer from Enterprise, Deanna Troi from TNG, Spock from TOS, and Data from TNG - so ALL FIVE Star Trek TV series are represented. Yes, TNG is overrepresented - but it is my favorite series.

Unfortunately, there was no room left for Captain Kirk from the reboot movies series by JJ Abrams. So he has been repositioned to greet guests directly at the door.

The Triplets Having a Religious Epiphany?

"No," says Zip. "It's just a bug you let in with the dogs, flying around the light."

 

Or is it??????

DS9 Acquired and I am Negotiating Voyager

Jadzia Dax has now joined the Star Trek shrine. She's so skinny! Me? Not so much...

Moved Deanna to the other side because Spock was also in the Science Officer blue uniform. There is a guy selling Kes from Voyager on eBay but he wants $99 - way over my budget. May take a while to get Voyager and Enterprise series represented.

Star Trek Shrine

Mom's all unpacked and Bobby & Lori came over to put things up on her wall. Gina & I haven't gotten that far yet. But we were able to fill in the little area over the entry way.

Here's a close up so you can see I have three different eras represented - Mr. Spock (TOS) Deanna Troi (TNG) and James T. Kirk (JJA - I suppose that's what they're now calling the J.J. Abrams' reboot) in the stand-ups. I intend to get one from DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise so all series will be depicted.

 Click here to see me explaining the Star Trek Shrine.

We Now Live IN CROSBY!!!

The move went pretty smoothly, despite the fact that we still hadn't packed up our kitchen.  I highly recommend Queen's Moving in the Heights to anyone who has to move! They sent us 6 men and a 52' truck. The guys were quick, efficient, polite, and did everything we asked. They showed up at Mom's apt. at 9:40am and left our new house at 7:40PM. So it was a long, but fruitful day.

I was too busy directing traffic to take photos. Unfortunately, some of the guys apparently couldn't or didn't read the boxes and we've had to find things where they shouldn't have been. We still aren't completely unpacked, but there is enough of a semblage of order to exist.

My whole life for the past 3 weeks has been one of total reaction instead of action. I like to be proactive and I've been very stressed out by just running from one emergency to the next. But just as I'm finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, it turns out to be a train!

Gina and I heard a gurgling sound this morning about 9AM in the kitchen sink. About 10 minutes later she's sitting on the toilet in the downstairs powder room and Mom hears a gurgling sound in her master bath toilet. She investigates and flushes, then an eruption! Gina didn't even have a chance to flush! GROSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There was literally crap everywhere in the downstairs baths and about 6" of raw sewage coming up in the master tub and shower.

I called the emergency warranty plumber and got a voice mail. Left a message. Then another eruption and more water coming up through the toilets! Then I remembered that Gregg had showed me how to turn off the water to the house outside. I ran out and did it, but it was too late. Fortunately we had unpacked all our old sheets and towels that we'd kept with us for just such emergency cleanups (well, honestly we thought it would be caused by the animals - not the construction workers!)  Started sopping up the mess before it got into Mom's bedroom and closet carpets. Still no call back from the emergency plumber.

So I went on Angie's List and called one. He said he could come in about an hour, but after the hour had passed I called him back. Seems he was coming from Baytown and the ferry wasn't working. He was having to come a different route. Good grief. Then I got a call from the emergency warranty plumber. He said he could arrive in an hour, so I told the Angie's List guy to just forget it. OK, so 2.5 hours after the explosions in the toilets, we had a plumber onsite.

He ran a cable through the flush out in our nicely landscaped yard and pulled out literally hundreds of paper towels. Seems the construction crew was relieving themselves in our toilets and wiping with paper towels that they flushed. The warranty plumber said there was no charge this time because we hadn't lived here long enough to have caused the problem, so he was certain it was the construction workers. Gina and I got the mess all cleaned up and now I'm taking a break from unpacking to chronicle this latest stressor in my life...

Floors In - We Will Be Soon!!!

Gina and I are determined to be completely packed by  OMG day after tomorrow! But I must admit we both felt totally overwhelmed yesterday when we were working on the garage and attic.. We were quite fortunate that there was an afternoon rain that cooled the temp down to about 75. Still, I was sweltering up in that attic. I would show a before and after photo, but unfortunately, the after looks just like the before!

I decided the only thing to do was take off work the next two days to try and get it all done. 

We are very pleased with the new floors. Check them out! And yes, that is Captain Kirk who will be standing guard over our house, along with Deanna Troi and Mr. Spock. Once I get them all in their little shrine area I'll post photos :-)

They even threw in Mom's bathroom for free. Yep, that's her toilet. They take those off and I have to get a plumber to replace them. Will get that done tomorrow. YIKES! I have so much left to do!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But aren't the floors nice?

Almost Ready to Move IN!!!

We still need to replace the carpet downstairs with the wood flooring. Isn't it gorgeous now with the landscaping and new door?



Gina didn't want to mess up our pretty decorative tile entry with her nasty shoes.

Here's how it looks from the upstairs bannister view.

And looking directly across from that same view, you see our huge decorative shelf over the front door space. I think Captain Kirk would fit nicely in there, don't you?

This is the view of the upstairs game room and that arch is where I was standing to take the photos of the downstairs tile. We have ceiling fans like that in all 5 bedrooms!

New additions to the kitchen included the gas stove (Yea! I can cook with gas instead of electricity!) and microwave (Yea! From Mom! She can continue to cook!) and the dishwasher, all in black that nicely compliments the countertops. We've decided on buying a black french door fridge with bottom freezer to complete the kitchen.

Mom's master bedroom, looking into the master bath...

And the completed master bath with cool window. See Mom? I told you there'd be a door on your shower. Look closely, and you can see my reflection taking the photo!Gregg, our building contractor, chills out in Mom's big walk-in closet, complete with shelves for all her many games.
And this is Gregg pointing out something to Gina and Ken (our real estate agent) as he walked us through the entire house.

Ken arranged for an independent inspection and there were only 4 things that needed attention. Gregg agreed to fix all four. We walked around with blue tape noting all the little paint errors and left Gregg with a list of about 10 tasks to complete in addition to the 4 things from the inspection. All in all, we are definitely impressed with Brighton Builders and looking forward to living in our new home!!!!!!

Mother's Day

Shari & Andy, Lori & Mark, Gina & I, Alena & Kaden, Bobby & Caylie,and Mom all celebrated today at Las Haciendas. Mom and the grandkids enjoyed the cerveza and the margaritas.

Then Mom attempted to give a serious toast...

Closing Date - May 29

Outside of the house looks pretty much the same. Can you tell the difference between this photo and the one in the last posting with Mom doing her happy dance? (Well, obviously Mom's not dancing in this one! But look at the house and see if you can tell 2 new things that weren't there last week.)

Thank goodness we have 2 AC units! Mom will want to keep the downstairs at a sweltering 80 degrees while we'll be setting the upstairs at a more tolerable 70 something. Fortunately, we'll each have our own thermostat.

You can see how long and skinny our back yard will be.













And how much newer our fence looks than the neighbor's. You can also see that we get to have the ugly utility boxes in our backyard. We'll have to landscape to hide those.



We were hoping that the fence would not block the view of the forest, but alas... you can see the fence from the nice big windows in the family room. 

The biggest changes made inside since the last time we visited, was the flooring and tiles in all the 'wet areas' of the house. This includes all 3.5 baths and the kitchen. We'll be replacing that vinyl flooring with tiles as well.





















Don't you just love the accent tile?












 
The other big change inside was the completion of the wrought iron spindles. We were thrilled at how well they turned out!!!

Bricks & Stones May Break My Bones

But this house isn't hurting me! Indeed, Mom was so happy to see how close we are to being completely built out, she did a happy dance in the driveway!

Here's a long shot of the cul-de-sac. There are 3 other houses on the other side of the sac.

 

Mom was eager to get inside to take measurements so she could be sure all her stuff will fit.

Prissy and her dogs, who live on the other side of the cul-de-sac dropped by to meet us. When she found out it was only me, Mom, and Gina moving in she said, "Have you seen how BIG this house is?" Well, yeah...

Not only do they have the walls up now, but this guy was installing our maple cabinets in the kitchen.

 More on this side of the kitchen, with the two archways into the family room and hallway.

 We also upgraded to maple cabinets in the master bath. Not sure why someone has written "Move plumbing" on the floor...

 

 In the garage we found this 6-panel door for one of the many rooms inside the house.

 See what I mean? There's a bunch of interior doors!!!

 Also found these 2 water heaters in the attic. There will be a ladder access door installed in the ceiling here.

 And here's how those glass bricks look on the master bath. We're the only house in the whole place that has these. Everyone else opted for that weird looking cloudy single sheet of glass. Well, you can actually see in the house through it and I like my privacy when my private parts are showing!!!