Monthly Archive for May, 2004

The place I work likes to make people feel tingly all over (or shitty all day) by giving each of their employees a letter rating at the end of each quarter of the fiscal year. It’s kind of like a report card, except instead of just trying harder next time; this letter grade could mean you no longer get a paycheck. The ratings are as follows: HP (High Performer), P+ (Performer plus), P (performer), and UP (Under Performer). I have never had to worry about being a UP when it comes to my job. I missed 13 days of work last quarter and still got a P+ (that is how mindless my job is, I don’t even have to be there). What I am referring to now, is my life outside of work. I know, it’s crazy that I have one.
For two weeks now John and I have done nothing on our house, absolutely nothing. In fact I think the house is regressing. Yeah, things are ending up back in boxes, and as for painting, that has stopped completely. What it comes down to is that we lack drive. And well, now that we got a new Barbecue grill, and have to cook every half hour. It really cuts into house work.
This passed weekend was the first time in history that John and I have had three consecutive days off that coincide with one another. With my job I get Sun-Tuesday off, and awesomely enough, so did John this week. When I found out about this bit of information, my mind spun wild with the possibilities. We could paint all the trimming, or better yet put our bed on a frame. We could even learn to run the timer on the sprinkler system. But here I am back to work this sickly early Wednesday morning, and the house looks about the same (except for there are a lot more dishes in the sink, and the trash can is over flowing). Now I can’t say that we didn’t achieve doing nothing all together. No, we did heaps. Like John stayed up until 4am every day playing Diablo II on the computer. Then slept all day, and then watched the Science channel. I slept 14-17 hours a day, and made a delicious batch of Blueberry muffins. (At least I am not giving myself an ulcer over this “is it a girl” issue any more) We did host a BBQ for my sister and her husband, but really, again that was an excuse to use the grill. On Sunday I got up enough motivation to write up a “to do” list. But it was somehow it was lost under movie rentals and a KFC 12 pc chicken meal (that was just for us two).
Our biggest success this weekend was trying out the Jacuzzi tub in our master bedroom. In all actuality I cannot claim this to be a success. It was in fact a HUGE failure. At the time we moved into the house we of course scrubbed out the tub with bleach (because who in the hell knows who’s been swabbing themselves in that thing). So our assumption (Which turned out to make us look like asses) was that the tub was sanitary, I mean we bleached it. I fill up the tub and use some of my pricey bubble bath to get it all sudsy. We get in and relax a bit. John decided to turn the jets on, and we weren’t prepared for what happened next. The jets made a bubble sound, and oh my god dear god, what came out of those jets can only be described as some kind of bathtub puke. It was some sort of super funk. The funk only found in horror films, and spoofs on teenagers in really bad movies. It was chunky, very chunky, and there was a lot of it. Well we both freaked out and got the hell out of there. We were forced to burn our skin in the hottest water our water heater could manufacture, then scrubbed ourselves fucking silly. Even after that I didn’t feel clean. Could I ever feel clean again? As for the fate of the funk, we are still not sure what it is. Maybe a gross amount of dead skin? Or maybe the bathtub doubled as a brewery? I don’t even want to think about it. So now our bath tub is forever tainted. That beautiful selling point is ruined. Sure we bleached that son of a bitch until it could take no more. But I doubt I will ever put my naked ass back in it.
Okay so that got a bit off topic (But seriously I am scarred by the funk), John will be studying for his NCLEX RN exam this week (YAY! If he passes we get a raise). So it will be up to me to get motivated and get some things done in the house. I need to remember what used to drive me to get off the couch. What keeps you all motivated?

I worship my new house, really I do. But my vision is to one day simply live in the house, as opposed to “preparing it to live in”. That’s not to say we’re not living there. We do in fact live there, I mean we sleep there, and make sandwiches. Hell sometimes we get crazy and take a shower. I am ready for more though. It makes me miserable to think back on the days where I would sit in my underwear watching SoapNet until it was a time for a nap, followed by a snack. Now my days are filled with painting, unpacking, moving furniture, pretending to be an electrician, failing, making John try, he fails, tries again, I get a soda, back again moving furniture, bleaching, bitching, ordering John around, and unpacking some more. Then when I am done with all that (which there is no done), I have to walk the dog, tell the cat to stop sleeping on the damn couches, and do the laundry (which was neglected for 2 weeks). I can complain for hours, but John has the upper hand on me. He has doubled the workload, all because I am a restricted pregnant lady who is weak. Plus I take a lot of breaks to get in my 7,000 calories a day, that’s not to mention I am sleeping for two.
I will say it now; John is a shitty handyman, which takes doing anything, twice as long. Take our mailbox for example. It, for some reason (unknown to god or our LDS visiting teachers) was taped up on the railing next to our house, instead of being shoved into the ground by the street (like any normal mailbox), when we moved in. Well we thought “we’ll get around to it when we can”. Well we thought wrong, because the butch mail lady comes to deliver our first batch of mail (which was exciting by the way), and ruins it by telling us that we need to move the mailbox to the street, or she was not going to deliver our mail (lazy bitch, god forbid she gets out of her car). Well it stays there for a day or two, and I am sad without any mail. I nag John, and being the not-so-handyman that he is, starts the process off by trying to dig the hole right by the entrance to our driveway. He gets as far as pulling up the grass (which is now dying because he can’t figure out how to turn on the sprinkler system), and realizes there is cement under the dirt. That plan fails. This is good though, because we come to find out from butchy mail lady, that we can’t have our mailbox there anyway. We have to have it over on the other side of the lawn, where there is a “no dig zone” due to gas line (this explains why the mailbox was not in the ground). My very imaginative husband-to-be uses his built up creativity, and duct tapes that mother fucker right to the fence. You kick ass honey!! It is in the spot butchy said we needed it to be, so it must be fine. YAY! All is well, so we think. Enter again butchy mail lady, of course she has to complain, because she is an unhappy bitch who delivers mail (which nothing wrong with that) and has a mustache. She tells us that now the mailbox is too high (she again has to get out of her car), again no mail until we comply. It takes John 3 days to buy a saw (because we only own one set of tools, which are screw drivers), another 2 days to cut it down, and another day to tape it back up. When all was said and done, we are officially white trash. But who cares, we are getting mail (bring on the pottery barn nursery)!
This is not to give John a bad name. He is a bad ass, he put together our entertainment center, our computer desk, our grill, lawn mower, lamps, installed our microwave, a light fixture, will attempt installing a ceiling fan this weekend, and watched my brother in law Jake install the dishwasher (so he pseudo set it up). Not to mention rigging the electrical cord onto the dryer so we have clean clothes. Sure he may not be able to figure out the sprinkler system, and when the Central Air conditioning stopped working out of the blue, he told me to prepare myself for a hot summer. He is still the cutest handyman (okay sort of handyman) alive!

The handyman at work….

LuLu, who watched John the entire time as he put up the new light fixture. I think she thinks that we are morons.

Oh and by the way….