Twitter Messages

Tweet of the Moment …

Karen

https://twitter.com/#!/writefromkaren/status/163689377233502208

It’s amazing how MUCH dust collects in your house every week.

And I’m responsible for the tile/hardwood floors in our house (Kevin vacuums the carpets – which we now only have in the hallway, and all three bedrooms. In fact, now that I think about it, THAT’S probably why Kevin suggested we rip up the carpets in our living/dining/family rooms … so HE wouldn’t have to maintenance them. Hhmm …).

I alternate weeks when I clean them. For example, this week, I gave our wood floors a good cleaning and just swept the tile floors. Next week, I’ll mop the tile floors and dry mop the wood floors. (You’re impressed, I can tell).

But seriously. It’s AMAZING to me just how much dust settles on the wood floors. I didn’t use to be a very good housekeeper (*cough*), but I have to admit, now that I SEE how much dust accumulates from week to week – I’m like anal about keeping it clean now.

I’m betting Kevin knew how I would react to dusty floors when he talked me into putting hard wood floors down.

My man is SNEAKY.

New Bathrooms

Bathroom Snafu

Karen

https://twitter.com/#!/writefromkaren/status/168396431395270657

Kevin has to fire our sub-contractor. Well he won’t, the contractor will end up firing him, but Kevin is calling the contractor today to politely, or as politely as possible, tell the guy we do NOT want the sub-contractor to come back.

Please and thank you.

Here’s the dealio:

The guys we contracted with to remodel our bathrooms have been PHENOMENAL. They were in and out and were so clean and fast that we hardly even realized they came and went. When we talk to the owner of the company, we will praise them – a lot. They deserve it. They were respectful and they did a really good job rearranging our bathrooms and re-routing the plumbing.

The electrician came in – and though he did the job, he didn’t really follow directions. We wanted to put two sconces on either side of the mirror in the front bathroom. The guys taped off where the mirror would go and Kevin told him where he wanted the sockets to go. When we came home from work that evening, the sockets were there, but about five inches too high. So Kevin politely asked him to move them – he did. He also put the socket in the back bathroom too high, but we think we can make that one work.

Then the tile/wall guy came in to do his job and OH MY GOSH. This guy was super sloppy and has made, and left, a TREMENDOUS mess for us to clean up. The dusty footprints, sure, I get that, you can’t really get away from that (although the first set of guys put down carpet/floor protectors and it WASN’T an issue with them), but this guy was mucking up our BRAND NEW SHOWERS. He scraped off sections of our ceiling so that we could redo the areas we needed to redo and Kevin said that the bathtub was so full of junk it took him about 20 minutes to clean it all up. (He said he wanted to get it cleaned up before I got home because he KNEW I would have freaked out – HE WAS RIGHT). Kevin also said that he came home at lunch and the guy had put the toilet into our brand new shower stall in order to put in the backer board. And when he put the toilet back in? He had to sort of jam it into place AND it leaks.

*SIGH*

THEN, the bare light bulb we have hanging in our bathroom right now? Must have been sitting against the wall for some time because we now have a quarter-sized hole burned into our drywall. So the guy nearly burned our house down.

And to top it off? The tile job he did in our back bathroom? Looks. Like. Crap. Kevin is pretty upset about it. The guy did a really sloppy job putting in the tile, he didn’t turn the tiles so they looked more “random”, (there are entire rows where the tile is all facing the same direction – a pet peeve with Kevin); he did a really poor job of cutting the tile around the vent (in fact, the hole is too and you can see it when you put the vent cover back into place), and he didn’t put a border at the entrance so that the tile meets at a weird juncture and the guy had to cut a tiny triangle to fill in the gap.

Tile Triangle

Thank goodness the guy hadn’t grouted.

We both came home to this mess and let’s just say KEVIN WAS NOT HAPPY. Kevin has tiled enough to know, you don’t do that to the entrance to rooms.

We talked. We weighed our options. And we ended up calling our normal floor guy (the same guy who has done our kitchen, living/dining/family room floors) to come over and access the “damage.” He tried to be polite about the guy’s work, but you could tell, he was not impressed. In fact, he might have even been a little horrified, if you want the truth.

We are asking our regular floor guy (we should have just asked him to begin with – but the contractor was all like, “Oh. I have a guy we can use…”) to help us out. He’s got three days before he begins a big job and we’ll just have to see how much he gets done in that time period. He’ll likely tile the front bathroom entirely, since the other guy didn’t get around to tiling that bathroom, and ripping out the tile in the back bathroom and replacing the backer board – we won’t have the new tile back before he has to report to his other job. Which means we’ll likely be without a floor in our back bathroom for a few more weeks.

But that’s okay – at least it will be done right and I won’t have to hear about it for the rest of my life.

In the meantime, we still need the walls and the ceiling completed. Guess who’s working on that right now? Yep. Kevin. The electrician still needs to come back out and finish his job, but it looks like Kevin will most likely have to finish the walls and ceiling. Kev is supposed to call our contractor today to “fire” the sub-contractor and they will likely work something out.

I hope they work something out because quite frankly, that’s why we hired people to do this job. WE don’t have time to deal with it. Kevin will also have to re-negotiate the price since this sub-contractor won’t be finishing his part.

Anyway. It’s a mess. Literally and figuratively, but it’s just a speed bump, it’s not the end of the world. We just have to reconfigure a few things and roll with the punches. The bottom line? We just want it done right – is that so much to ask for?

Abundant Life

Teaching: God needs us to stand in the gap like Abigail did in 1 Samuel 25 – Part Two

Karen

Every Sunday I provide videos and valuable links to the Truth or Tradition teachings. We’ve been following the Truth or Tradition teachings for many years now and they have truly blessed our family. We have found peace and happiness through our beliefs and we walk confidently for God. My hope, by passing on this information to you, is that what you find here, or on the Truth or Tradition website, will guide you to a better, more blessed and abundant life.

If you would like to read my views on religion and how we got started with the ministry, you can read this.

Let’s get started:

Watch part one here.

Thanks for watching.

(Comments have been turned off. The information is here to inform and bless you. God granted you the gift of free will – take it or leave it).

More from Write From Karen

Life

You Want to Go Where??

Karen

So we’re at Jazz’s scheduling meeting at school last night, and the counselor is going through the paperwork and is, in essence, telling us to read everything and follow directions (we needed an hour long meeting to hear that??), and she gets to the part where she’s telling us to be careful and plan accordingly because there are some high school classes that students need to have in order to apply at certain colleges …

For example: Mizzou requires that you have two semesters of foreign language.

When she brought that part up, Jazz perks up and says, “Uh oh.”

“What do you mean ‘uh oh’,” I say.

“I want to go to Mizzou,” he says.

WHAT?!? Is what I’m thinking but my outward reaction is to simply raise my eyebrows.

And then my brain takes off at warp speed. I start thinking about all of the requirements he probably HASN’T met.

I start thinking about how in the WORLD are we going to swing that financially … and yet, his grades are so good (he doesn’t have one “C” on his transcript) and our financial situation might be dire enough (as it applies to guidelines) that he might qualify for scholarships and grants.

And OMG, that’s like three hours away and he’d have to live either on campus or in an apartment and OMG, he’d be LIVING three hours away!!

After the meeting was over, I asked him why he wanted to go to Mizzou, though I knew why.

“Because they have an awesome band program.”

Ah. I knew it.

So. This weekend, we will be seriously discussing his desire to go to Mizzou and how he needs to seriously think about what career path he’d like to pursue IN ADDITION to enjoying the school’s band program. I will also be busy researching scholarships, grants, enrollment requirements, scholastic programs, living arrangements, etc., because I know NOTHING about Mizzou. I will also be asking Jazz to do some reading up on the subject, too.

All of this in addition to possibly painting, cleaning house (because we’re like one giant dust bunny at this point), going through Jazz’s senior schedule for next year (and if we can possibly squeeze in TWO Japanese classes) and catching up on school website stuff.

Never a dull moment in our household, let me tell ya …

Can We Talk?

I Have a Question …

Karen

Today’s question is …

Name a book you started reading but never finished.

“Body Surfing” by Anita Shreve

And I’ve been trying to read “The Pilot’s Wife” by Anita Shreve since November but I. Just. Can’t. Bring. Myself. To. Finish. It.

I’m not an Anita Shreve fan, apparently.

Your turn …

Day-By-Day, New Bathrooms

I Need Ten Hours of Sleep. Walls! Floor! Update on Sons.

Karen

I went to bed at 8:00 o’clock last night …

… actually, it was 7:58. I hadn’t slept well the night before and I was BRAIN DEAD. Wednesday was pretty crazy at work and it took every last brain cell (which, I only have about 15 to begin with), to get through the day.

You know how you can tell about how many hours of sleep you need in order to feel “good”? Well. I think ten is MY magic number.

If I only had TIME to get ten hours of sleep a night …

The bathrooms are coming along … more slowly now, but we’re getting there.

Bathroom 2-9-12

The sheet rock/tile guy came yesterday and worked on patching up our walls. He’ll finish patching the walls today. He also put the backer board down in the back bathroom and will likely tile that room today. I imagine he’ll put the toilet in as well so he can take the toilet out of the front bathroom and put the backer board down in that room. (They HAVE to leave us at least ONE toilet, right??)

The plumbing has been rerouted and everything has been switched around. So, the hard part is done (I think). Kevin got under the house this past weekend and rerouted the pipes to make a vent in the front bathroom – it looks like he’s going to have to get under the house again this weekend and fix the back bathroom vent. Apparently, the floor vents weren’t part of our contract. *sigh*

We’re going on two weeks now and I’m SO READY TO HAVE OUR BATHROOMS BACK. However, we’re pretty pleased with how they’re turning out and I’m looking forward to the “beautifying” stage.

Dude seems to like going to college. He’s taking three classes: Monday, Wednesday and Friday. His first class is at 9:00 and he’s usually home around 1:00. (I’m assuming, since I’m never here). He also picks Jazz up from school every day. And he took Jazz to the dentist yesterday to get a wire clipped. I really appreciate his flexibility as it takes some pressure off me and Kevin. I do worry about them running around, but honestly, I just try not to think about it.

He’s been selling a lot of books in the book store. He also sold a piece of electronic equipment that my dad gave him to list on eBay. So he’s been busy packing up stuff – he’s also been busy upgrading his computer equipment. I sort of lectured him about saving his money instead of spending it, but then Kevin sort of vetos my lecture with, “it’s his money, he can spend it as he sees fit.” Which is true, but he’s also a 19-year old man who needs to start thinking about getting a steady job and MOVING OUT at some point. I love my son, but I refuse to support him the rest of his life – or well into his twenties, whichever comes first.

We have a scheduling meeting at Jazz’s school tonight – SENIOR YEAR HERE WE COME!!!!! I can’t believe he’s going to be a senior. There are about three classes/credits HE MUST have this next year in order to graduate. I don’t think these particular classes are offered in the summer months, so HE MUST have these classes. I hope he gets into them, otherwise, I’m going to have to talk to his counselor and make it happen.

As it stands now, Jazz will NOT have to take any summer classes this go around. He’s taken summer classes for the past two summers now and I know he’s really looking forward to NOT taking classes this summer. I hope it works out that way.

Crap. It’s now 6:44 and I haven’t even taken a shower yet. I need to get moving – I have a LOT of work to do. (As Kevin likes to “affectionately” tell me on a daily basis. It’s a good thing I love that man …)

Why does it smell like hotdogs in here?!?

Gross.