Before and After Series

I'm finally starting the Before and After Series. I realize that this is long overdue, but I'm tired and PREGNANT. Cut me some slack!! If this is new news to you, here are the details: I'm in my 12th week and due December 6th, which is 6 weeks after my sister. I feel good but went through about 3 weeks of hell and an addiction to white food. Actually, the addiction to white food is still with me and is not going away anytime soon. Thank God for Happy Meals! Yes, I am going to find out the sex (mid-July), yes, I'm having an epidural, and yes, I'm planning on breastfeeding.

Back to the house. I'm going to post before and after pics in stages. Today is the first and we start with the kitchen. A lot of people ask me what my favorite room is, and I think it's the kitchen. Not because I'm using the new Jenn-Air range, because I've only used it once, or the new dishwasher that I've waited 5 years for, or the 75% increase in cabinet space. I like it because it's pretty. Plain and simple.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

It's a lovely day in the neigborhood

We have lived in our house for almost 4 weeks and people are STILL showing up to fix things. STILL. And the same people have to keep coming over because they can’t get it right the first time. 4 weeks and I still have sticky notes all over my walls with chicken scratch explaining exactly what is wrong with that exact spot on the wall. Or the bathtub. Or the crown molding. And the superintendant has stopped coming over to give them direction, so these poor guys just show up and are expected to know that they need to paint the 1x1 square of drywall in the upstairs bathroom behind the sconce on the left of the mirror. It’s like a game of Clue without the professor and the candlestick.

This morning, the painters showed up bright and early while Will and I were still in our pjs. And to tell them to come back in an hour was like telling a 6 month old to run to the store and get a gallon of milk. THEY DON’T UNDERSTAND YOU. After trying to communicate with them for 15 minutes, which involved some very amateur sign language, they finally figured out what I was saying.

So then, we had an hour to get ready for work and get out of the house before everyone came back to wonder around aimlessly and try to figure out what they needed to do. As SOON as I got back in the bathroom to get ready, someone was banging on the backdoor and screaming my name. When I got to the backdoor, I was a little surprised to see my crackhead neighbor FREAKING out and screaming AMY, AMY!! I am not lying when I say crackhead, and I don’t care enough to tell her that my name isn’t Amy. I don’t plan on being around her that much. She was freaking out so much that you would have thought we were being invaded and needed to take cover, and somehow I had missed the memo on the morning news. But, we weren’t. IT WAS WORSE. The Police were out giving parking tickets to everyone in downtown Gtown because none of us know how to legally park on the street. And Crackhead looked out the window just in the nick of time and came running over to warn me of the disaster. I only got a warning, which was nice. But, the best part of the entire morning was the big hug that I received from Crackhead and the speech that she gave on how grateful we are to be neighbors and that’s what neighbors are for and thank goodness she was spying on me this morning because we don’t need any more run-ins with the Po-Po because last year was enough when the swat team showed up and had all of her kids on the front yard with their faces in the dirt and handcuffed.

Life on the east side. Gotta luv it.

Dear Liane,

I realize that I have been neglecting my blog lately, but for good reasons. I’m TIRED. I know this is not a good excuse, but it’s all I can come up with. When you get bored at work, I’m know I'm not helping out by providing any new reading material, and I apologize for this. If you need a list of some other blogs to read, let me know. I have a few that you might find enjoyable. Maybe not as entertaining, but they will certainly help with boredom at work. I can speak from experience on this.

We are almost completely settled into the new house, but life hasn’t been very funny lately, so I don’t have much material to write about. We go to work, go to the gym, eat dinner, and go to bed. We even went 2 weeks without cable and racked up a $75 bill at Hollywood Video. If you can find anything blog-worthy about that, let me know. I guess I could do movie reviews. By the end of the day, I’m so drained that I don’t have an ounce of energy left to unpack the 23 boxes-o-crap sitting in my living room. I could probably donate them to goodwill and I would never miss the contents. But I just can’t let go….I think that’s an inherited trait.

BUT….I do see some unpacking in my near future. We are putting all of our rugs down tonight, and I think this might motivate us to get busy on the rest of the house. I promise to take pictures and post them this week. We have also self-inflicted pain on ourselves and scheduled mother’s day brunch at our house, and my parents are coming next weekend. I purposefully did this so that I would get my lazy ass in gear.

I hope this letter occupied a few minutes of boredom for you today. Sorry it’s not very funny. It’s hard to be “on” all of the time. Today I’m only at about 85%.

Peace Out,
Mimi

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.