Special K and Coffee

Thursday, May 25, 2006

"I have an idea...let's move!"

The above quote was my catch-phrase of the morning this morning.

About a week ago, we discovered a problem with the drains in our bathroom. The bathtub stopped draining during our morning showers and the water in the toilet bowl drained and started making a "glugging" sound. We thought it was fixed with some drano and a plunger, then I had the brilliant idea to do laundry. I started a load of laundry and went to work, leaving my darling husband to deal with the mini-flood that eventually happened. I was then informed of this event and that he'd called the trailer park managers, who called DrainTech to come fix the problem. DrainTech came and cleared the drain, but didn't pull anything out, which they found a little odd. The problem was underground, which meant we didn't have to pay for it--the park did. I like that. :-) Our pocket books like that, especially with everything else going on. :-)

So then Monday evening I went to get myself a big glass of milk with supper knowing that the milk has to be fine because we'd bought it less than a week earlier and had a date of May 31. It poured out into my glass all chunky and watery. Almost an entire supposedly fresh gallon of milk completely spoiled. The next day was when we really realized that it wasn't terribly cold in the fridge. The freezer was fine, but the refrigerator portion was not seeming to cool at all. So we called one repair shop and they couldn't get us in until next week. A week without a refrigerator? I don't think so. We got one that came yesterday morning and are ordering a new timer for the defrost function or something. He said we caught it just in time to save everything in the freezer. In addition to the gallon of milk, though, we lost Paul's yummy homemade rhubarb custard pie and the rhubarb sauce. Sad, but it's wonderful to have cold food. :-)

Now last night. I was working on the mound of laundry that had built up. Had done one or two loads spread throughout the day and started one more load right before bed. We were in our bedroom folding the clean laundry and I hear "glug, glug, glug, glug" coming from the bathroom. So I ran into the bathroom and opened the lid to the toilet to see soapy water gurgling up into the bowl. Paul followed pretty close behind and pulled back the shower curtain to show soapy water filling the bathtub. Great. The washer stopped emptying and started on its last spin cycle and the water in the toilet bowl started going down. Thank goodness! We finished with the clothes and went to bed. I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and discovered a soaked bath mat. Wonderful. Just what we need.

So I told Paul first thing this morning and we both took fast showers, but it didn't help. The tub backed up and caused the toilet to, too. Let me tell you, that is one of the most helpless feelings to watch water rising up in your toilet bowl and you know there's nothing you can do to stop it if it wants to overflow. Paul called DrainTech first thing--they open at 6, isn't that convenient? They came out this morning and determined that the clog was in the same spot, again not finding a good cause. The theory is tree roots.

And now we're off to pick up the Lumina from having lots of things done to fix it, then we're off to Illinois for the weekend. Shawnee National Forest.....hehe....yay. :-)

15:40 + Zero! Zero random comments! Ha! Ha! Ha!

Friday, May 19, 2006

I'm not sure we're in Kansas anymore

Just about everyone who finds out that we're moving to Kansas in a few months responds the same way: "eew, Kansas, it's so flat and boring." Paul and I both wonder about this because you'd have to be driving with your eyes closed not to notice that the Ft. Riley area of Kansas is, in fact, not flat and not boring.

Exhibit A:

Driving on Ft. Riley Thursday morning.

Exhibit B:

This was also taken while we were driving on post. A lot of the pasture land in the area looks just like that with the rocks all over the place.

Exhibit C:

Taken at around 6:30 a.m. on Friday as we were driving down I-70, this is one of my favorite pictures from the trip (in addition to Exhibit B).

Many people also seem to be under the impression that there are very few trees in the whole state of Kansas.

Exhibit 1:

Also a picture from the base. It's a beautiful spot.

Exhibit 2:
Just scroll down to my previous post with pictures of our house and look at all the trees.

Now tell me Kansas is flat and boring. I dare you.

This particular area of Kansas is called the Flint Hills and Paul and I are looking forward to exploring the region as much as we can in 3 years.

This particular area of Kansas is also crazy about their Wildcats:

That's right, folks, that's a PURPLE curb! This curb was our welcome to the Junction City Days Inn--yep, it wasn't even in Manhattan that we found this. I do have to say that this was the only curb I saw painted that particular color; however, the floor of the hot tub at the Days Inn has a purple wildcat in the tile. Everything is purple, even in Junction City.

Finally, I bring you to where Paul will be working at Ft. Riley:

Many of the bulidings on base look just like this--quite a change from the VTF at Ft. Bliss! Also quite different looking from Camp Dodge in Des Moines. Many buildings in the towns around there look like this, as well. The stones, as you saw before, are abundant in the fields. It's really a very neat place.

A little peek inside:

Stray cat kennels. They apparently have a fairly strong adoption program at this VTF.

Stray dog kennels. The dogs are also up for adoption.

Entryway with the treatment room(s) to the left (we didn't go in there because it was locked and the janitor was showing us around--the janitor isn't even allowed in there), offices on the right, and kennels straight ahead. Our favorite feature, though, was the stuffed buffalo head! Apparently, the base used to have a herd of buffalo, but now they just have elk--which you can get a special license to hunt for on base. Paul was excited by that and the possibility of working with the elk herd.

15:37 + Zero! Zero random comments! Ha! Ha! Ha!

Thursday, May 18, 2006

Ending the suspense

That's right, we put an offer in on house #3:

Another view from the side:

We offered $15,000 under the asking price and the owner countered with an additional $5000, so we said, "SOLD!" The agreed upon price, which we will be signing the contract for shortly, was $25,000 under what we determined to be the limit of what we could afford. Pretty good for a great old house like that.

The counter offer and our agreement with it came as we were driving into Champaign, IL, on Friday afternoon. We, however, did not want to sign any contract until we found out if Paul passed boards. Monday over lunch we found out that he didn't, which turned the whole situation into a big question mark. Would he still be going to Ft. Riley in August? Can we sign the contract for this house? What will the Army do with him if he's not Board certified? Will we even know where we'll be after August before he leaves for OBLC?

We are celebrating tonight, however, because we found out today that he IS still going to Ft. Riley with the same position and he has a year (that's 2 tries) to pass boards. If he doesn't pass boards then he will be transferred over to Preventative Medicine, which is where he wants to be in the first place. He will still try to pass boards because Board certification is a good thing to have, but it won't be the end of the world if he doesn't. And they will likely keep us at Ft. Riley for the remainder of his HPSP obligation just because then they don't have to pay to move us again.

Well, it's time to call it a day here. I'll post more about our trip to Kansas tomorrow.

Oh, we're also celebrating that we sold the trailer for $200 more than they paid for it 4 years ago! That also happened on the drive to Champaign, IL. We should drive more often. Good things seem to happen when we're driving. ;-)

16:02 + Zero! Zero random comments! Ha! Ha! Ha!

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

I am not a fan of this

I would just like to express how much I hate that Paul is home all day for this month before he goes to OBC and I have to go to stinkin' work. It sucks. Bigtime. I wish I could take a month of paid vacation and still have my 3.5 days to burn once he's gone. Unfortunately, we need the money coming in, especially if we're trying to buy a house. Ugh.

However, I only have about 8 weeks left maximum. That's happy, but I'd like to spend these first 3 with my husband 24-7, please. :-P

11:22 + Zero! Zero random comments! Ha! Ha! Ha!

Monday, May 15, 2006

There's no place like home...there's no place like home...

Wednesday night we confirmed my estimation of Ames to Junction City/Ft. Riley, KS, being around 5 hours driving time.

Thursday morning, I ate at a Denny's for the first time in my life because it was next door to our hotel and we hadn't yet figured out where the continental breakfast was served.

Our appointment with the realtor to start looking at houses was at 9:30. Since Paul and I are both on a schedule of getting up fairly early in the morning, we had enough time after breakfast to go through the process of acquiring a temporary vehicle pass for Ft. Riley so that we could 1) go to the PX and buy him his new rank insignias and 2) wander around base a little, see what it looked like, and find the Veterinary Treatment Facility. Both were things that didn't really happen until the afternoon because many things don't open until 0900 or 1000. We did, however, locate the PX (always one of the most important things to do on first visit to a base), and bought him some socks because, well, let's just say I married a genius who forgot to pack socks and wanted to wear his boots that day instead of flip flops. :-)

Unless I have messed up my count, we looked at 9 houses in 4 different towns: White City (30 minutes down back country roads, pop. 500), Abilene (30 minutes down I-70, pop. 6500), Milford (10 minutes west, lake town, pop. a few hundred), and Junction City. Here they are, in order:

We were excited about this one. It's a fairly large house on 18.2 acres of pasture land with outbuildings and a small pond. It was fun to get to. Not long after arriving there, however, we determined that it needed much more work to get it back in good condition than we would have the time, money, and energy for in only 3 years. I like the way Paul has termed it: "It's a retirement project."

This was a cute little house in White City. Has a fireplace, new carpet, two car garage, nice master bedroom upstairs with its own bathroom. A military family was moving out of it. Good sized yard.

This is a spacious 4 bedroom old farm house on one acre of land on the edge of White City. 9 ft. ceilings, front porch, large side deck, full attic, zoned rural but on city water and sewer.

Following White City we broke for lunch in Junction City and Paul and I got to discuss these first houses without any realtors around. After lunch we headed down the interstate to Abilene.

This sounded like an interesting property on 4.6 acres. Listed as "zoned for greyhounds if needed" and "lots of possibilities." "Zoned for greyhounds" meant there were actually greyhounds still being raised there and I don't know what you would do with all that ground if you weren't going to raise greyhounds because it was very much set up for that. "Lots of possibilities" we think meant that you might want to gut the whole house and start new. The biggest problem really was that someone had obviously put their foot through the floor upstairs. We got upstairs and there was obvious termite damage in the hardwood floor. The realtor and I were afraid to even walk that far to see the room on the other side of the hallway. Other than that and the fact that you would have to do some serious cleaning, it could have been a nice place.

We didn't actually go into this house, but drove by it to see if we might want to take a look inside (we would have had to acquire the key and people were still residing in it). It really didn't look too bad from the outside, but there was almost zero backyard and it was in town, so the houses felt a bit crowded.

This was a nice, old victorian-style house up against the river in Abilene. It was obviously well taken care of, though you did have a few age issues of a tipping toilet upstairs and a tipping stove downstairs. It had a somewhat small backyard (that was considerably higher than the river) with a deck and good sized garden shed. Paul described it as more of a "grandma's house." And the biggest non-selling points: No garage, and no driveway. That was odd. It also was only about 3 houses down from one of the main streets through town.

This was on 6 acres with a barn with a tack shed for horses. Pretty nice old house out in the country, though the neighbors were a lot closer than you'd normally figure for the country. And I mean a lot closer. The property went straight back with the house fairly close to the road. It really wasn't much good unless you had animals to use the property for. I also didn't like how minimal storage was in the kitchen--one of the features of our current home that I'm not a fan of.

Located in Milford, this was the only ranch we looked at and kind of with good reason--neither Paul nor I are big fans of the ranch style, especially since we both grew up with it and currently live in the same basic layout--it's boring. We liked this house, however, because of its location: 3 blocks from Milford Lake. It was a nice house with a big backyard, two car garage, full basement ready to be finished and put in another bathroom.

We only looked at one house in Junction City and this was it. We would have looked at one other that had a similar outward appearance and price, but apparently the owner is not very cooperative to let even the listing realtors (who was showing us all these properties) show his house--a really smart way to get buyers. :-P We looked at this house only because we had time and it was a good price. The square footage was smaller than our trailer if you didn't count the basement. It was a very interesting little house with a woodburning fireplace and hardwood floors. It was a foreclosure and if we were already in the business of buying foreclosed homes for cheap (because you can), doing a little remodeling, and relisting for twice what we paid for it, we would have done it in a heartbeat. Someday we will likely do that with homes. We, however, are looking right now only for a place we'd like to live for 3 years and this house didn't fit the bill. The neighborhood was crowded and the house was small and needed work.

After going back to the realtor's office, we looked at a few more homes online, then headed back onto Ft. Riley, while telling our realtor that we would probably have a decision on a house by 5 p.m. Once on post and after discussing it a little, we gave her a call and she started drawing up the papers to put in an offer on a house.

Can you guess which house? (Anyone at the Hester's parties this weekend is not eligible to guess. ;-))

10:52 + Zero! Zero random comments! Ha! Ha! Ha!

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

I was going to post about Paul's graduation

But instead I have to scoot because we're headed to Kansas tonight. Woohoo!!

16:17 + Zero! Zero random comments! Ha! Ha! Ha!

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

The trouble with work is--it's so daily.

So I really don't want to be here right now. I can't seem to find any motivation and all I really want is a nap. Maybe it's just that I'm starting not to feel so good because I think I'm going to be sick on Friday, but miraculously feel fine by Friday afternoon/evening. ;-) Seriously, though, I don't feel that great right now.

09:05 + Zero! Zero random comments! Ha! Ha! Ha!

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Never say you don't like eating/drinking something until you've tried it.

Examples of things that I used to think I didn't like:

Chinese--oh, Chinese is so good! Mmmm.....garlic chicken.....

Seafood--Oh my cow (I love my Ariane and she used to say that all the time :-))! I love seafood!

Beer--don't base dislike of beer on a sip as an 8-year-old, or trying Ryan's favorite: Miller High Life. Ugh. And my parents didn't used to drink exceptionally good beer because it cost too much.

Sushi--it's really not that bad, though I prefer the more cooked varieties.

Steak--ok, I admit it--six years ago when we went to the Flying W Ranch on the trip out to Colorado with SKKY, I had never had steak before, so I got the chicken. Yes, I was an idiot. Now, not only do I LOVE steak, but I'm a "medium-rare, emphasis rare" steak person.

OK, now I'm getting hungry. But my reason for this post is simply this:

With Pepsi, there is no substitution for the real thing. Not even Pepsi One (seeing as I have half a can of it sitting on my desk and I can't seem to make myself finish it). Not even Caffeine Free Pepsi. OK, so RC Cola is a darn good alternative--and usually my preference. But it's still just as bad for you as Pepsi. Thus my problem if I want to be better about my pop drinking habits. Though I do have to say that I have cut back considerably where that's concerned.

16:28 + Zero! Zero random comments! Ha! Ha! Ha!

Monday, May 01, 2006

Ready and Waiting...

So especially with getting orders and starting the process of looking for a home, I am getting increasingly impatient to be done with this job and moved to Kansas. I've loved Ames--it was a great place to grow up--but I'm ready to move on. One thing that I find myself increasingly more irritated by is the fact that I feel like I don't have the time to take care of the house the way I want to. I might have time to do a little in the morning, maybe some over lunch, and in the evening--especially if Paul's not home. Lately, even if Paul is home at a reasonable time, we both go back over to the school from 7-8 p.m. to take care of his horses for the evening. Our bedtime is around 9-9:30. It doesn't leave a ton of time for, like, anything.

Every morning I leave with this feeling of sadness and irritation that I can't just stay home and get housework done. I mentioned this to Paul one morning last week as we were both getting ready to leave for work and he added, "With a few hours of stuffing envelopes and maybe some proofreading thrown in, right?" "Exactly. That's exactly what I want." So that I'm not completely not making any money for us, but I can do it all from home and not have it consume 8 hours of the day.

3 months. That's all I have left. Paul has 3.5 days left. He was done with on-call as of Sunday at 8 a.m. Tonight he finishes in-house. Then he has Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and through rounds on Friday. Praise the LORD!!

We started looking at houses yesterday and today. Found a pretty nice-looking one in the town we really want to live in. Got the ball rolling with the housing people with the Army. Working on finding out if we're actually VA loan eligible. I'm not sure we are until after we want to have a house pinned down. I don't know what that will mean. I'm a little worried about it, but we've been put in touch with some really helpful people so far, so we'll get it all figured out.

Oh, and Paul's promotion ceremony is apparently immediately following the graduation ceremony, but we don't know where.

16:29 + Zero! Zero random comments! Ha! Ha! Ha!