Tag...You're It!

I’ve been tagged by the fabulous Julie. I guess it’s a blog game, or it’s like those dumb forwards that you get from random people via email that lists out 100 ridiculous things about yourself that no one really cares about. Like, does anyone really care that I prefer the mountains over the beach, or that my favorite vegetable is okra, or that I get up at 7:30 on the dot every morning, or that my first real kiss was Michael Williams in the 8th grade? Those that care need to find some hobbies.

So, now that the house is well on its way to being fully pimped, I figured I could start blogging about other things in my life. Don’t worry….I will only blog about things in life that all 10 of my readers will find interesting. And I’ll try not to blog about what I ate for dinner, and I’ll spare you pictures of the meatloaves that I attempt to cook.

There are rules and such to this tagging game, but rules are for the birds. I’m just going to jump right in.

Seven random things about me that will help you sleep better tonight knowing:

1. I probably think I am smarter than you. I know, I probably started off the list a little too strong, but this is a good fact that you should know about me. There’s only a handful of people that I think have an advantage over me. Now, I’m not necessarily talking about book smarts. But, every day life matters? Yep, I probably know more than you.

2. I love Taco Bell. Love doesn’t really describe it. I LUUUVVVVV it. I would rather eat Taco Bell Nachos Bell Grande over any other legit Mexican restaurant that serves margaritas. There’s just something about the mystery beef, refried beans, sour cream, and cheese out of a machine, all mixed together in a wonderful gooey mess.

3. I’m going to be an aunt!! My little sister, Helen, is prego and is due at the end of October. She’s doing things a little different than I would probably do them, but she wouldn’t be Helen if she didn’t. Things like having a midwife and having her baby at home, and not finding out the sex. WHAT?? Now that is just uncalled for. How am I supposed to buy presents? And how is my mom supposed to decorate? I told my mother to just embrace the “different” on this one, and she’ll get “normal” when it’s my turn. Drugs and hospitals and all.

4. I like Mylee Cyrus’s new song. OMG – I cannot believe that just came out of my mouth. But yes, it’s a catchy little tune that I like to sing along with on the radio. I’m SO EMBARRASED.

5. I am a zit picker. Gross, I know, but I can’t help it! I can’t just let it live there on my face while it heals and goes away. It’s like this magnetic force and I’m just drawn to it. And the worst part is that I’ve had more zits at the age of 30 than I’ve had in my entire life. That makes for a very busy morning in front of the mirror. Aging sucks.

6. I’m obsessed with sunscreen. Even more importantly, I’m obsessed with getting wrinkles. I’m the girl at the pool that gets upset when my friends have on anything less than SPF 15. And I make sure that everyone uses a good firming night cream and eye cream. I’m not one of those girls that wants to look better than all of her friends. If you are going to hang out with me, you better look good too!

7. I have diarrhea of the mouth, or as the bartender at the country club says, I don’t have a filter. I am constantly getting in trouble for the things that come out of my mouth. Thankfully, my charming southern accent lets me get away with a lot. If my friends said the same thing, it would just come across as rude, but somehow, when it comes out of my mouth, people think it’s funny. I’m just brutally honest. I’ve been trying to work on this, but it’s just so hard!

I hope you enjoyed those few tidbits about me. I’m supposed to tag 7 other people with blogs, but they’ve all been tagged already. So I guess the game ends here.

We're movin' on up....To the east side!

The strangest thing happened over the weekend. I woke up Friday morning and there was a fat lady singing on the front porch and pigs were flying all over the yard. Crazy things were happening. And then, to top it all off, we received a call that we could move into the house. WHAT? I must have heard you wrong. Are you sure you don't have the wrong number? This is the Burlesons you are talking to....the ones that have been stuck in a nightmare for the last 8 months called a remodel....the ones that have been in a constant state of disappointment for 230 days.....the ones that almost went to prison for attempted murder on Brad Marshall.

They apparently had the right number. So, on friday, we began moving - wohoooo!! And let me tell you, my MIL is a rockstar. Will and the FIL played in a golf tournament on friday, saturday, and sunday, so MIL and I worked all weekend to get as much done as possible. And that woman never stopped. How do moms do it? I wanted to take a nap by 3pm on Friday and we didn't even get started until 1 oclock!

The house isn't officially pimped, but we are well on our way. We have pictures to hang and a few boxes of random crap to go thru that I have somehow accumulated over the last 10 years or so. We can put rugs on the floors on May 4 and our closet is being installed on May 5. And then we are inviting Xzibit over for the official pimping ceremony.

Lesson of the Day:

Men with three assholes are WAY more productive than men with only one.

April 17, 2008 (Day 230)

The shit hit the fan last night at the Burleson house in a BIG way. There's not even words to really describe it. RAGING FURY would be putting it very lightly. I'm not going to go into too much detail, but there have been a few issues with subcontractors that have been building and building, and last night it all came to a head. We were standing in our kitchen admiring the new appliances that Will installed all by himself - the ONLY job that was done to perfection in our house - when I noticed that the binpulls on the kithen cabinets looked a little off. I had Will measure them and sure enough, none of them were centered correctly. They weren't even close! You might think that this is an easy fix, BUT IT'S NOT. Each binpull has 2 screws, which means that every single one of my drawers will have 2 patched holes when the hardware is put back on correctly. And THAT my friends, is unacceptable in my book. No one wants to pay thousands of dollars for cabinets with holes in them.

Then the nasty phone calls starting taking place. Of course, no one is going to answer the phone at 9pm on a Thursday night, so the nasty voicemails started, and I loved every minute of it. I felt a little left out when Will was done, so I did my part and sent a nasty email. I'm not going to post it, although it was FABULOUS, so I'll just give you a little tidbit. The last sentence was "You will receive the check for this when I have my certificate of occupancy and you are FINISHED at my house and I don’t have to ever do business with you again." BURN!!!

So, this morning, Will met everyone over at the house at 8am and proceeded to chew them all a new asshole, or three. I wasn't there to witness it, but my favorite line of the recap was "You better be glad my wife isn't here, or this would be REAL ugly. She tends to get personal." And Frank's response was "Yeah, I read her email." Apparently, they are busy at work over there now. I have no idea when I'm going to get to move in, but I'm wearing out my welcome at the in-laws. If anyone has a spare room, let me know. I don't cook and I don't clean, but I'll provide some great humor at the dinner table every night. It will be fun!

Oh, and one more thing. Frank's real name is Brad Marshall, from Brad Marshall Homes. I think you all know how I feel about him.

April 16, 2008 (I don't care anymore what day it is....WHEN WILL THE MADNESS END????)

I don't come bearing good news. I no longer believe that there's such a thing as good news. In my book, it's all dark and gray and bad. And blue.

We did our punch list yesterday with the superintendant. We walked thru the house and marked everything with blue tape that needed to be fixed. At the end of the 3 1/2 hours, this is what my house looked like. And the super proceeded to tell me that this was NORMAL!! Normal? I am paying you buttloads of money and this is normal? It took all I had not to wrap him up in blue tape and send someone over to "fix" him.

April 10, 2008 (Day 223)

We were supposed to be ready to move into the house today, and instead, I'm at work, WORKING. Not moving heavy boxes and furniture and sweating my butt off, like I would have liked. Nope, instead I'm in a nice gray cubicle, wearing business casual clothes and using terms like LOB and SMB and "low-hanging fruit." Gag me. I'm not sure what the issue is, and at this point, I don't care. JUST GET 'ER DONE!!!

We leave tomorrow morning for the Masters and get back Monday afternoon. If I don't have a certificate of occupancy on my kitchen counter when I return, some heads are gonna roll. And now that I know what that means and have witnessed it first hand, I hope it doesn't have to happen. Because it can be UGLY, UGLY, UGLY. Just ask the tile guys.

April 8, 2008 (Day 221)

You probably think you've seen these pictures before, but you haven't. They are different. I'm like that annoying mom that always sends out pictures of her kids to non-moms. Your kid looks exactly the same as it did 2 days ago. I know you think that it's grown so much in the last 48 hours, but the rest of the world can't tell. And the emails always say something like "we had a big weekend...she finally said "mommy!" Really? Because I can't tell. Send me a picture of her when she graduates from Gap Kids to regular Gap, because THAT will be interesting.

These pictures are different. The floors have 2 coats of polyurthane on them. Can't you tell?

April 3, 2008 (Day 216)

The sealer was applied to the floors yesterday, and it's starting to look like a real house!!! A house that I can move in to, run around naked in, make a mess in, and leave dirty dishes in the sink. A house that will be ALL MINE when I wake up in the morning and don't feel like talking to anyone yet, and I can come home from work to quiet and not have to talk because I talked all day and I have nothing left in me and I'm all talked out. A house that my dogs can run around in and sleep on the couches and in the beds, and go out whenever they want to because there's a fence. A house that I can scream and yell in when I get mad and walk around in my pjs and eat crackers in my bed. MY VERY OWN HOUSE THAT I DON'T HAVE TO SHARE WITH ANYONE! Oh, well except for Will:)

What the....??

Yall are lucky....2 posts in one day!

What the.... #1:

Do you see the dark spot in the middle of the hallway below? Well, that's a burn mark on the floor that was uncovered once the floors were sanded. I never noticed it when we lived there, but probably because we had a table right there. But now I'm dying to know how it got there. It makes me think of the time when my sister was a baby and my mom was boiling nipples on the stove, and they caught on fire and she burned the kitchen floor and the fire department had to come. I wonder if my burn is that funny. I don't think the previous owners blogged their lives, so I'm sure I'll never know. I'll probably just make up a great story behind it. And then I'll tell Will about it and anytime someone asks about the burn in the hallway, which I'm sure we'll get asked ALL OF THE TIME, he'll tell them the big fat lie that I made up, although he wont know it's a lie. I tend to do that to him a lot.


What the.....#2:

A few months ago, I purchased this pendant light from West Elm shown below (the picture is bad and doesn't do it justice).

It's a little bit modern, a little bit vintage, and I love it. Not to mention the fact that it was on sale for only $39.99. It's now hanging in the new stairwell. Last night, the fam took a field trip over to the house and while my MIL and BIL were upstairs, I overheard this conversation:

Chip: I don't like that light that Mimi picked out.

Robin: I don't think that's permanent. I think that is just a cover for the bulb for the painters. See all of the paint splatters on it?

Chip: Oh, you're right.

WHAT THE....???

April 2, 2008 (Day 215)

We are getting down to business folks. No more funny-funny. I have finally run out of humor related to this God-forsaking pain in my ass project. If you are looking for laughs, you'll have to call me and we'll talk about something different, like the time I asked my mother-in-law how to use her stove after I'd already been living there 6 months.

We had a big day at the house yesterday! The piles and piles of trash were cleaned up, the half-empty bottles of Big Red and Sunkist were thrown away, and the floors were sanded! It made a HUGE difference in how the progression of the house looks. We finally look like we are getting somewhere. Today, the appliances are being installed, the plumber is wrapping up (he's been "wrapping up" for 2 weeks now, and he's making me sound like a broken record), and the floors are being sanded again. Then it's a coat of sealer, 2 coats of polyurathane, and NO TRAFFIC in the house until Monday.

Conjunction Junction

Here's the light that's above my kitchen sink from School House Electric. It makes me think of Schoolhouse Rock, and then I want to sing about words and phrases and clauses.


The tile has finally been grouted and looks great. I just don't think they are going to get paid for the work they did. You shouldn't mess with me.

The faucets are starting to go in. This was my very first purchase for the house, and it took me 200 days to get it installed.

And the carpet guys came on Saturday and woke me up at 7:30 am! I didn't mind one bit.