1-14-12 Saturday (Scary Cutting Things)

It's my last Saturday at work and then I'm on the Monday to Friday 9-5:30 dream hour schedule!  I've been on the new early hours for a few weeks and now with the addition of the weekends off, it will be great.

On Wednesday the carpet people, framers, and plumber came to the house to take care of a few things on our warranty list.  A major issue upstairs was that the hall floor squeaked and was sunken in a little.  It was actually a concern during the walk through and I convinced Jim to turn the other cheek... then it got worse.  So the carpet people pulled back the carpet, the framer - not farmer - pulled up the floor and had to shave down a truss or something so that the floor board could lay flat.  Using a noisy sawzall device, which scared the bejebus out of the cat and dog (and maybe me a little), they corrected the problem.  The carpet people came by a little later and all is back to normal.

2 spots in the master bathroom creaked very loudly.  I was worried they'd have to tear up the linoleum but it turns out that the floor to wall moldings were too tight causing the creaking when the floor flexed.  Not that we feel the floor flex but I guess it's just enough.  I'm so happy that it was a simple fix but still amazed such a "stupid" thing could cause a ruckus.

As for the plumbers... oy.  All leaks have been addressed but the master shower temp control had some play so they replaced the valve.  They also had to fix the flange behind the temp lever in the guest bath.  I'm still unhappy with their latest and not so greatest caulking attempt.  Look at the caulk.  It looked bad the next day.

Weight Watchers in going well; on my first week I lost 5.8 pounds.  Maybe water weight maybe fairy dust, I don’t care it’s an achievement and I’m happy.  It’s really not that hard.  A friend, Amy, is also on the diet and I was telling her about an Android app that you can scan barcodes and it calculates points.  It’s so awesome.  She immediately downloaded AN app and her and her husband went around the house playing with it.  Through conversation I found out she downloaded the “real” Weight Watchers app that allowed integration into the points tracker with her iPhone!  I searched the Android market and found the better app so Amy and I are grateful to one another.  What a find!

While I worked my last Saturday, Jim did a couple of projects around the house.  He installed a flexible track lighting in the kitchen over the bar area and a small chandelier over the dinette table.  The amber shades on the track lighting set such a warm tone.  I immediately loved it when I came home.  We have yet to find a dining room chandelier that we like for the price we want to pay.

Above: Chandelier-less dining room.  Well, there’s actually one that came with the house, isn’t centered and is pinned against the ceiling so we wouldn’t hit our heads on it during the move.

Above/below: Dinette light and ribbon track lighting.  Oh, and wonderful holes that will be patched in a couple of weeks, left over from the plumbing leaks.

 

Above: Jim buried the last speaker wire so we’ll sweet talk the drywall guy into patching it.

Above: The living room.

After running several errands (returns and what-nots) we went to the motor home to get our snow pants.  Snow tubing season is upon us!  We then went to a Red Robin for dinner.   It wasn’t our usual location and I’m glad for that.  Service sucked.  I went for a veggie burger on a whole grain bun with a side of steamed broccoli.  I thought the flavor to be, well flavorless.  The burger was way too thin.  I do admire Red Robin’s website.  The ability to build and customize your meal with nutritional info is fantastic:

 

I chose their gardenburger although they also offered a Boca burger.  I don’t like Boca burgers all that much.  I love the Morningstar Farms varieties, especially black bean.  I LOVED the black bean burger I ate a Ice House last weekend.  Oh well, a diet is about sacrificing.