My New House is Busted

This is for your listening pleasure while reading this. You can substitute in "my new house is busted" for the lyrics.



I went San Diego last week to visit my cousin, Laura, and her son, my new cousin Jameson. If anyone is educated on family trees, I have a question for you. My mom and Laura's mom (Kim) are 1st cousins. That makes Laura my mom's 2nd cousin and Kim my 2nd cousin. I think that makes Laura and me 3rd cousins. And Avery is Laura's 4th cousin and Jameson is my 4th cousin?? Does that make Avery and Jameson 5th cousins?? I need help, clearly. I could google it, but I'm a little lazy.

We had a lovely time for 5 days together. And then I drove home 4.5 hours. The drive was great. No issues. And then, I came home to this in my house. It looks like a straight up Dexter killing room:



Oh woops. Just kidding. I LOVE that show. Here it is. I walked in from the garage and saw this. The whole door frame is ripped off. And the room is taped off like Dexter is about to do some slashing in there.

It normally looks like this:

The inside looks like this...all the drywall on the back wall is missing. BUT WAIT! Let me pan up for you too...

THE WHOLE CEILING IS GONE!!!

Troy came home from a hike with Optimus on saturday and the ceiling was soaked and dripping into the bathtub. PANIC! He called me all, "What do I do?"

He called the emergency warranty number for our builder and they sent a plumber out within an hour. Talk about service! They ripped out the ceiling. AND the walls. The bathroom wall that was wet shares the garage wall so if you sat on the toilet, you could wave to our across the street neighbor all WELCOME TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD!!

And they put TWO holes in the outside of the house right where Avery's bathtub is on the second floor:

When Troy texted me the pictures of the house on saturday while I was still in San Diego, I almost had a stroke. I could only think bad things.

"Oh my God. Our builder sucks. We just closed on our house 2 months ago and we are already having issues? What else could be wrong? What if the whole inside of the wall is moldy now?? Avery's room is on that side of the house. Is she going to be sick all the time? How much is this going to cost? Thank God I won't be back until tomorrow. Thank God I didn't find the problem. I would have gone into full meltdown mode. I'm glad we are here. We don't have to deal with the noise and dust and people all over. What if something else is wrong? Are you going to be able to tell where they patched the holes on the side of the house? What if bugs are crawling into my house where they are putting holes? Or a bird is making a nest inside the house? AHHHHH!!!"

The culprit was found right there.

The blue rubber tubing is the cold water to Avery's bathtub. Apparently the ring that holds the rubber tube on the metal pipe wasn't tight enough. Giving Avery baths was increasing the pressure in the tube and it got loose and started dripping. All down the inside of the house. After the culprit was found, the plumber came with a thermal imaging kind of thing that detects water. Thats why all the walls and ceiling and door frame are off and being replaced. They were wet.

The building superintendent came to check things out and told Troy that we won't be responsible for paying for damages (PRAISE THE LORD) since it is a construction error. We were lucky.

They should be done putting all the drywall in tomorrow. YAY for speedy work. Love it. Dexter's killing room will be gone tomorrow.

The Hike that Made Me Feel Like I had Emphysema

Troy and I have decided that we need to spend more time outside. It is important that Avery see Troy and I making smart and healthy life choices. That means watching 4 seasons of Dexter in 1 week is no longer allowed. I wish I were joking, but we totally did that. Our couch had permanent imprints of our bums in it the week after Christmas. AH Dexter. You are awesome.

Anyway, this post is about our hike. THE GREAT OUTDOORS! BUGS! SWAMP ASS! SWEAT! DIRT! Those are things that I associate with hiking. Not my favorites. I'm not an "outdoorsy girl." I like air conditioning, running water, and a comfy place to rest my head.

So when Troy and I decided to make this a goal for our lifestyle and with our kids, like true intellectuals, we bought a book. It has about 50 hikes in it around the Las Vegas area. It's like "Hiking for Dummies" but better. Troy ended up picking the 1st hike in the book for us to do. It was rated moderate for the quick incline in elevation. It was 3.6 miles and rated well for kids and pets. Sweet. Yes.

NO! My body is NOT USED to the elevation. I wasn't tired or sweaty, I just could not catch my breath. I felt like my intake was soooo short. I had to keep stopping to get some air.

This was my view from looking up from my head between my knees. Sometimes he would wait.

But most of the time he was like, "Are you serious?? You need to work out more. This hike was rated well for KIDS! You gotta pull it together."

And I was all, "Troy if you want to make this an every weekend thing, you better make it enjoyable for me, or I won't go anymore. Hobby over."

And then pregnant woman about to give birth would pass us carrying a 3 year old on her back. I wish I were kidding.

This is where we were going. It's called Fletcher Canyon. It was pretty.

That's Troy pointing and saying, "We made it to the end."

And me thinking, "Oh thank God, I need a sandwich."

I wore Avery on the way down. We made EXCELLENT time on the way down. The way up, not so much. But we FLEW down. Don't judge. This picture is awful. I look fat and exhausted. But I did it. 3.6 miles. I was pretty proud.

Overall, pretty good experience. If Troy hadn't been such a negative Nancy, I think I wouldn't have tried to chuck the dog leash at his head. We're planning another trip. I am thinking it will go better that time.

A Thrift Lamp from Alamogordo Crosses an Entry Table from Craigslist

I bought some things while we were in Alamogordo. And Troy was mad every time I came home from thrifting with something that we had to "figure out how we were getting it to Las Vegas." We were SO out of room.

And then I bought a lamp for $5. The shade was free. WIN!

Troy: "But um, that stuff is breakable and the shade takes up a lot of room. How do you intend to pack that? Miss Overpacker??"

Oops. We were still mid-move (with 2 months to go in the TLF) at this point and moving everything we had brought from Texas in February. 6 months living out suitcases is rough y'all. Let me tell you. A piece of advice from me to you? Pack WAY less than you think you'll need. You'll buy stuff anyway. You'll buy it if you absolutely can't live without it. And everyone shops and accumulates a few things over the course of 6 months. It's not possible to buy nothing. So...you're packing the car and all of a sudden you're like "oooo look at that teeny little bit of space right there!! I need to bring more baby toys!!" Yeah not so much. RESIST!! Don't do it! They would rather play with a spoon and a magazine that they can shred. Lesson learned. Pack way less than you need. So when you find a $5 dollar-make-you-holla-lamp, your husband doesn't try to knock you out with it Clue candlestick style.

So here is my beauty of a 5 dollar lamp. It's pretty blah here. It's like cream with beige paint splats all over it. But isn't the shape GREAT??

Here she is all taped up with bags to protect the cords and the top...aka give it some "I've-never-spray-painted-anything-in-my-life" protection.

I saved a box from some deliveries that we had gotten just for painting. Then Troy was all, "for real, you're gonna do that next to our brand new house?? Spray paint? Really??"

And I was all "I love you I miss you I want to be close to you. That's all...and I want to stay out of the wind...I gotta be close to the house to block the wind or there will be spray paint everywhere."

I got this face:

And then "MOVE!"

So I moved. And then he was all "for real, you're going to do that right next to the air conditioner intake so we wind up with paint all in our house and duct work??"

He was planning our hike for the next day...he has our Vegas hiking trail book in his lap, discussing pros and cons of different trails, distances, dog friendliness, elevations, etc. Blah blah blah. Pick something easy, okay? That's all I ask!

Well, I guess my brain was turned off? I moved again.

I used this primer.

And this color, to match our new color theme to go with this.

Here she is with 3 coats of primer. Pretty, eh? Troy was like, "oooo leave it white, it's looks great!!" Um, no baby. RED! You picked the color palate. Gotta push forward! I'm all about progress.

Here she is with 2 coats of red! Sexy Lady in Red! I did 3 thin and even coats.

Here she is (moved inside) on the entry table by the wall out to the garage that I picked up on Craigslist. God I love that man and his list. Best thing ever! I nabbed it from a lady selling it because she was getting married and they were combining households and getting rid of stuff. It was less than a year old! YAY! And way more proportional for the space than the buffet I had picked up the day before.

So the shade was free. I'm still deciding what to do with it. Because it's not quite right. Stencil it? Cover it with fabric? Or buy a new one? Any votes? I'm trying to decide. In it's current state, it looks a little sad on the vibrant colored lamp and next to my whimsy pig.

Sidenote: You may have noticed that I have a thing for piggy banks that are weird and cool. I love them. I have one that my grandma straight up stole from a restaurant that used them as table centerpieces. I'll tell you about that later. Some one remind me about it and I'll type up a blog post about it. Imagine my grandma hopping into a car in pouring rain with the door being held open by the restaurant host and two pennies bouncing around inside. I almost died. Hilarious.

So, as you can see, it's Troy's new drop spot. There is a metal shell that he puts his keys and wallet into. The drawer contains his wide array of sunglasses and his running watch. One pair for running, one for in the car, and one pair that are crappy for when he can't find the other pairs. His fall-back pair.

Avery's diaper bag drop spot is underneath, with her little shoes. There is also a grey and cream woven basket with rope handles from HomeGoods for Avery's toys. I hate when it looks like ToysRUs exploded in my house. Or PetsMart with dog toys all over the place. I have baskets EVERYWHERE. To hide stuff. Clutter makes me nutso. So instead of pairing down and organizing, I pile it up in something pretty and pretend it's not there. Denial is pretty powerful tool in this house. It's really easy to toss all her toys in there at the end of the day. We have 3 baskets of toys throughout the house that we rotate through with books and toys. Very easy. Optimus has one too. And he has a whole cupboard in our kitchen. I wish I were joking.

Then I have the pretty decor on the right side. It is 2 books that I removed the jackets from, because they match the color scheme. And THE book. Mr. Bible himself. With a pretty vase from HomeGoods and then the Willow Tree statue on top. I got that from a friend when I was having all kinds of trouble getting pregnant with Avery. It's the Angel of Hope :) It's good luck. And pretty. I love it.