I am in love with the yard man

I've never actually laid eyes on him, but I love him. Very few things make me happier than when I come home from work and see that the yard has been mowed, weeds cut back, bushes trimmed and the sidewalk cleared. Raul is awesome. He shows up every two weeks unprompted and works his magic. And he leaves very charming, very low-tech bills on scraps of paper in our mailbox.

Caring about this kind of stuff is a new, bizarre sensation for me. I've never been responsible for a yard in my entire life. Considering the fact that I've killed every house plant that I've ever brought home, this is probably a good thing. Blissfully ignorant of and unencumbered by yard maintenance, gardening and all other related activities for 30 years, I am now obsessed with having a gorgeous yard. And I haven't the first clue where to begin.

This is why I love Raul. There aren't enough hours in the day right now for us to tackle both the inside of the house and the landscaping, so for now he keeps us from looking like the grubby, slacker, neglectful yard owners that we truly are.

Just so we're clear, Jason is in love with the yard man too.

Of course, I think we could be tempted to leave him for these guys.

We love Durham

Check out this article on Durham in the October issue of Bon Appetit. Very cool! I have to admit that we were apprehensive about leaving a town that we love for the much grittier neighboring city with the less-than-stellar reputation. But the more time we spend in our new town, the more I feel like we're in on some great secret. Shhhhh! Don't tell. Life is good in Durham.

Grrrr...

First decorating disaster! Jason and I spent the better part of our weekend painting the back panel on our built-in bookshelves Persian Violet. Okay, it was mostly Jason who spent the better part of his weekend doing this. However, it was my brilliant idea. We were very pleased with ourselves last night as we watched the second coat drying. (Yes, watching paint dry is great entertainment around here.) It looked fantastic! Obviously, we were really excited to get home from work today and rip off the painter's tape and start loading the shelves with books and curiosities, but then this happened:

The paint is like rubber! And it's not bonding to the wood. It peeled right off when we pulled away the tape. I could probably pull away all of the paint in one giant goobery sheet. I think we did everything you're supposed to do...We primed. We painted two coats. What else is there? Should we have sanded? I have no idea and the Internet is--for the first time ever--not much help. Does anyone know what's going on here?

Bargain!

I just scored these three lamps for the price of one:

Thank you Home Goods! That place rocks! I used to be scared of it (especially the strange food aisle--who buys that stuff??), but now I love it.

The new house is lacking overhead lights in most rooms, which normally I like. But we're severely lacking lamps (having always had overhead lighting). The living room is particularly dark right now. Of course, none of these lamps are intended for the living room.

Olive

I haven't mentioned yet how much Olive hated the move. She hated it. More than getting her nails clipped. Even more than being dried by a towel after a bath. We were worried.

For the first week she did nothing but sit on the couch and cry. The first time we left her in the house alone she busted down her puppy gate and wedged herself between the couch cushions and quivered until we got home. She was a pathetic mess.

I don't know why we were surprised by her reaction. She flips out when we pack a suitcase, so packing the entire apartment was bound to send her into a tailspin. Literally.

Here she is reacting to us trying to roll out the living room rug:

Oddly, putting the rug in place was the first thing that seemed to convince her that we were staying here for good. Now that we've settled into a routine, she's gotten more comfortable.

Here she is eating like a caveman with Jason at our first dinner in the new house:

She broke her leg lunging for a piece of bacon. She will bite your face off for a piece of steak.

Now, here she is last night completely at ease and acting like she owns the place:

Notice the new throw pillows in the background. First new pretty! Olive claimed them immediately. She's back!

Let's Go Mountaineers!

Jason and I took a much needed break from the house for most of this past weekend to host our first overnight guests. Mary and Adam gamely braved the chaos that is our house right now (no TV, no Internet, no dishwasher, boxes stacked waist high in the dining room and guest room, only one functioning bathroom) to visit us, and, of course, attend the WVU vs ECU football game.

This was my first major college football game (I loved the liberal arts college experience, but it was sorely lacking when it came to sports), so I was pretty excited about it. I did attend a Maryland vs. Georgia Tech game once, but it didn't include tailgating, so I don't think that really counts. It did include onion rings at The Varsity, though, and that might be just as good.

As for the tailgating, we were very lucky that the rain from yet another tropical storm ceased and the sun came out and gave us the opportunity to ponder this question:

Is 30 too old to be shotgunning beer?

Of course not! May we never outgrow our inner Frank the Tank.

Here are a few more pics from the game:






What we don't have a photo of is us fleeing the stadium at the end of the game to avoid the obnoxious celebrations of the ECU fans. (We might not have worried about it so much if we hadn't mocked a crowd of ECU freshmen boys mercilessly before the game.) It was a bummer that West Virginia didn't win, but I still had a blast cheering them on and screaming my head off. I'd forgotten how much I missed this sort of thing. Thanks for the awesome weekend guys!

Smells like chicken wings!

We are finally completely moved into the new house! The move day actually went quite smoothly--despite it being the most humid day of the summer (Thanks Tropical Storm Fay!) and taking twice as long as was estimated, thus costing twice as much. (Worth every penny!) There were a couple of minor hiccups, of course. The first was the massive traffic jam on the highway between our old apartment and the new house. A tractor trailer overturned, taking up three lanes of traffic in the middle of the afternoon and turned what is normally a 25 minute drive into an hour and a half drive. This is particularly ironic because I asked the salesman at the moving company about this exact scenario when he was explaining the by-the-hour pricing structure to me:

"Well, what if there's a huge traffic jam? Will I have to pay the movers to sit in traffic?"

"Well, yes. But you're moving in the middle of the afternoon, so you won't have to worry about that."

Huh.

The day's other ridiculous event involved Jason's deep fryer. (Yes, I know, everything to do with a deep fryer is ridiculous. And delicious.) Apparently, the mover who packed up our kitchen did not check the deep fryer before loading it in the dish barrel. If he had, he would have noticed that it was full of oil.

At this point, I would like to mention that I asked Jason more than once to empty the deep fryer. Just mentioning it.

Naturally, when they heaved the box around the truck and tipped it back on the dolly all of the oil gushed out of the sides and all over the box. And everything in the box. And all over the walkway leading up to our house and the front steps just outside the front door. Fortunately, the movers noticed the horrified look on my face as I watched the oil pouring out of the corners of the box and stopped just short of taking it into the house.

We had to unpack the entire box in the middle of the front yard and try to clean everything with paper towels. (Oil repels water!) The front walk is still streaked with oil and the approach to the house smelled very much like chicken wings for two days.

The mover that packed the box felt really badly about the whole thing, so he didn't charge us for four of the boxes that he packed ($40 each!). So, I guess it turned out to be a good thing. At least that's how Jason is spinning it.

Other fun things from the weekend:

• The refrigerator was finally successfully installed and it is glorious! I could turn it into a spare bedroom the thing is so big!
• The new dishwasher was also installed and it is not so glorious. It has a dent on the front panel. Many calls to Sears thus far have not yielded a new dishwasher. But I will persevere!
• We tried to have satellite tv installed (Jason has been lobbying for the Direct Ticket for years now), but the only place they could install the dish was smack in the middle of the backyard, so it was a no-go. Jason is crushed. We went to Lowes as consolation.
• We met some of our new neighbors. Everyone seems super friendly and, best of all, the family that lives next door has the most amazing finished basement I have ever seen anywhere, ever. It looks like the coolest, most super-secret dive bar in town--real wood paneling, built in bar, fireplace, pool table, giant tv, vintage beer signs and neon lights, and a stage with a karaoke machine. I sang "Paradise City." Welcome to the neighborhood!