It's a beautiful day for... SHUT THE #*&% UP!

Permit Wars 2006 - duh, duh duh duh duh duuuuu duhhh... Ok, now that I've gotten that out of my system, back to the show. My name's Jess and I'll be your hostess with the mostess. Ew, how I hate that phrase, or fraze for the spelling impaired.

So, the town hall says, no, I can't do any work without the permit. That's a shame. I left a message for Bob but haven't heard anything. I would suspect that someone would call me if there was a problem. But then again, that's the problem. I don't want to be called if there's a problem - I want to be called when everything's ok.

"Hi is Jessica there?"

"This is she."

"Just wanted to tell you that everything's going as planned. Things are awesome! Put yourself at ease."

"Awesome-kay-possum-dudicator!"

"Ok luv ya bu bye."

That would make me feel loved. But seeing how I'm not loved, I have to worry about it. I mean, what if xxxxx xxxxxx xxxxx xx xxxxxxx. And that's just the beginning of my uselessness. Confused yet? I am.

What am I going to do with myself this weekend? Any suggestions, internet? No. Damn. Something's ticking. I think my computer is going to blow up. Either that or I have mistakenly injested a bomb. I knew that jolly-rancher tasted weird.

Forever and A Day

Yes, that's how long it's been since I've posted. Bad jess, bad. I know. I've been very depressed for the last couple of months. Work has been hard, good, but hard. A lot of late nights. Money has been short. Vehicles were lost. Mistakes were made. Engines blew up... Times were tough. The holidays hit us hard - like a cinder block... with bricks tied to it.... encased in cement... and large rocks.

Hardly anything's been getting done on the house, much to my dismay. Mike has been rebelling against my honey-do list and, honestly, I haven't been pushing the envelope because of the whole money/exhaustion from work thang. We've done some yard work in the unseasonably good weather. Our carpenter did our garage roof when he was supposed to be installing my stairway. And then I couldn't afford the stairway... poop head. We put up the pendant lights in my office, trimmed out 2 windows in the living room, and bought a door for our bedroom.

I was getting more and more angry with our housemover every day that passed without a call from him. He actually got in touch with Mike around x-mas. Thank god he didn't talk to me because I was pissed at him. You know, the whole broken promises, unreturned phone calls, extra long wait - see previous posts for more details. Anyway, he told Mike he WOULD do the job after Jan 1. Jan 2 Mike called and left him another message.... as usual, we didn't hear from him.

A couple weeks ago I called him intending to leave a message along the lines of: "Can you telll me what the obstacle is? If someone was going to pay me thousands of dollars in cash to do a job, I think I'd jump on the opportunity. We want you to do this job, what is the problem?" So I dialed his shop number - it was a fax number. To me, this was the last straw. I grabbed the phone book and started making calls to every housemover in southeastern MA. I was more than pissed - I was a woman on a mission. 2006 is my year to get this thing done, I thought. Ånd I want it done NOW.

Unfortunately, two weeks later I hadn't heard a damn thing from any of these guys I called.

Then, just 2 days ago, something unexpected and miraculous happened.

Our housemover we'd been trying to get out to lift our house and pour our basement for nearly 6 months called Mike and told him he wanted to drop a machine at our house. Mike was completely dumbfounded. "Well, we don't have a permit or a contract," he said rightly. Bob replied, I'll get you the contract, you get the permit.

When we got home that night, a Bob Hayden building movers sign was on our lawn. I was extactic and grabbed the video camera for the first time in months to film it. This was a milestone. I could have died of joy.

Mike went to the town hall yesterday and got the paperwork for us to fill out.
Last night, there was a pile of steel beams, concrete blocks, and wood blocks on my front lawn.
This morning, I delivered the paperwork back to town hall. Within 10 business days we'll have our permit, they said.

Work on the house is about to begin anew! We have to take down the old rotted chimney on the back of the house. We have to jackhammer the mudroom's cement block out. We have to disconnect the electrical, plumbing - everything so that the house can be raised off the rocks and dirt.

We're moving out soon because of course, we'll have no heat or running water during the procedure. And, if all goes well, in a month's time, we'll be living in a house with a basement. So no more ants, no more dirt smell, no more snakes, no more freaky crawl spaces! And finally I can get the litter box out of my mudroom, where it has been stinking up the entire house!

I am so ready for this.

Fiesta Fiesta

It's countdown time for the biggest bash of the year, the annual Halloween party. You may be saying to yourself, "Uh, did you notice that Halloween is over, by any chance?!" Well I did. This party is always on the Saturday after Halloween - this way, we take advantage of HUGE markdowns on Halloween stuff. Evil scheme, isn't it?

Well, in preparation for this momentous occassion - also the first huge party we've had at the house - we've had to hurry like heck to get a whole bunch of stuff done.

For the past two weekends, I've been painting the master bedroom the beautifully dark burgandy red color I picked out about two months ago. I was nervous about it, I must admit. It's a bold choice even for a dark-color-lover like me. But I love the result. The room makes me really happy. To accent the red, we've got splashes of gold in the room - the bedspread, the curtains, and, just this weekend, I re-upholstered my cedar chest in a gold microfiber fabric to match.

Meanwhile, Mike had Chad our carpenter over last weekend to stabilize the living room floor. In its before state, you would jump on the floor and everything in the room would jump with you. So they went down to the dusty musty crawl space of hell and jacked it up, stabilizing the whole area with wood supports - basically just a lot of shimming the floor up. (I think that's the right word.) Now you can jump all you want and the pictures stay on the wall! Perfect for a night of dancing!

Plus, BONUS! My couch de resistance was delivered today! I'm so excited - I haven't seen it yet, as I'm on lunch break at work right now. I was thinking of zipping home, but decided against it because I know I'm going to want to cuddle with the couch for about 5 hours. Anyway, this means that the couch and love seat that were in the living room can go upstairs to the office where we had originally planned to put them. Extra seating and space for party guests!

Tonight I'm doing some of the post-halloween sale shopping I talked about earlier. My friend Amanda is taking care of the food, Mike is taking care of the keg, and once we have everything assembled, Amanda will come over on Friday and we'll start the mad task of decorating and cooking up some delicious holiday specialties!

It's true, I wish I could have prepared the house more. I wish I could have all the bi-fold closet doors up and more recessed light trim. I wish Mike would install the pendant lights in my office and put in a breaker for the office outlets. I wish the outside was more organized and that our fire pit looked more presentable. Maybe next year, right? We had to focus on the important stuff.

Getting High In My House

Wait, no. That title is misleading isn't it? Well, probably got your attention. Again, Mike and I talked to a friend who's dad is friends with our house mover. He told him to tell us that he thought we should call the house mover again and let him know we have the money in our bank account.

So, I gave him a call, expecting to leave a message. Of course, the one time I want to leave a message, he answers the phone. (I feel like I'm being super annoying because I've called him so much... although once a month shouldn't be considered super annoying...) Anyway, he said he would be in the office Wednesday evening and could talk to me then. He also said he had a job he was doing near my house, sooo, he could do my house at the same time.

It's all very good news... except for the fact that my Halloween party is in less than 3 weeks. THE BIGGEST BASH O DA YEAR peepholes. I'm scared that my house will be in the air on the date of the party. I don't want to cancel, because I haven't been able to hold this party in two years! I'd be very sad. But I know if Bob says he has time to do the job - I need to jump on the opportunity.

Ooops #1,982,345

Everyday this house foils me. Once I complete one task - there they are, 10 others unfinished. I begged and pleaded and Mike finally gave himself to the house last weekend.

Our first task was trimming out the closets for doors. In the laundry/mudroom, we discovered that we hadn't counted on trim when we built the closet door opening. So the finished opening wasn't wide enough for the doors we had originally planned on. Now we have to go with one larger bi-fold and one smaller one instead of two large ones. Ooops #1.

Then we discovered that we had trimmed the inside of the guest room closet before it had been drywalled. So, we had to cut the drywall, get the old trim out of there, and nail on the correct trim boards. Ooops #2.

Next, we headed upstairs and trimmed the two closets there relatively painlessly. However, when we went to put on the one set of closet doors we had, we discovered that they were the short doors and not the tall doors the closet opening had been built for. Ooops #3. And we can't return these doors because they've already been opened and have sat in our garage for 4-6 months. AND and, they won't fit anywhere else either. Ooops #1,982,345. Nothing is ever easy!

We also installed the curtain rods on the second floor. That went well, no oops there, thank goodness. It's finally good to get the curtains I bought 2 months ago up in the bedroom. Privacy sweet privacy, if you know what I mean.

But then it was on to the kitchen and the super-sale cabinet pulls I bought online to replace the ugly knobs that were on all the cabinet doors and drawers earlier. You know, the ones that have also been sitting there a good 2-3 months or more. Well, turns out the supplied hardware is impossible to work with. I can't even tell you why, it would boggle your mind. Imagine screws that you have to cut and there's no template to tell you where to drill the 2nd hole for the pull and you can't screw in the screws all the way because of their weird blank space in the middle of the threads design ahhhhhhhh. We finally had to go to the Depot and buy washers so that the pulls could be installed correctly. I'm not sure if all the headache was worth the money I saved on the pulls themselves. And they're still not done yet. Fatigue set in after we finished the upper cabinets.

Rumors of Good News

I've been at work all night, watching random TV and ripping DVDs. Don't ask. I was thinking about our house. How much I want it up in the air. How much I hate waiting and waiting and not hearing. I looked back on blogs past to find out when it was the last time I'd heard from our contractor... it was a month ago, nearly to the day. What did he say then? That he was finishing up on several jobs and would mail us out a letter with a start date asap.

I really hoped I would have this job done before I made the first payment on our equity loan, but no such luck. I mailed it at the end of last week with a heavy heart. If we could just get the basement poured, I could get the appraisal done and get this damned PMI off my mortgage payment and pay this loan a lot easier, a lot faster.

Mike's friend Chad whos dad is friends with our contractor told Mike who told me that the contractor is the type of guy who makes you wait and wait and wait until you've nearly given up hope (Like I have) AND THEN, and only then, he shows up at your house and wants to do the job that very day! Only, when will our day come? If he wants to be crazay like that, fine, but I wish he'd let me know when he's randomly going to show up.

Meanwhile Mike and I put up curtains and vacuum the rugs and buy little red toaster ovens while we wait. I'd rather be tackling the basement.

Pics

The Wheel Wreath

So long ago in a galaxy far far oasis I promised you guys I'd show you a picture of the steering wheel wreath, made from the old steering wheel we found while digging up the yard. Oh, and you probably want to see that too - the excavation sensation that's gripping the nation... or at least I thought it was pretty cool the way we took down that annoying and ugly hill next to the garage.

So in this pic you can see the remnants of the hill to the right. Imagine that hill stretching up to the wall of the garage and all the way back... even beyond where that trailer is in the middle of the picture. That's what it used to look like. Now it's nearly flat. And there's my truck and my boat and way in the back is our John Deere skid steer.

Ok, on to the wreath. I forgot to take a before picture, so you'll just have to imagine what the rusty crusty steering wheel looks like underneath all the pretty stuff. I think it turned out pretty cool.
It looks better than this in real life. In the pic it just looks like a pile of leaves and flowers and the color's kinda off. Sorry everyone, all the pics on this site are taken with my Palm and the resolution isn't fantastic.

Middle - Middle

The upstairs office in the beginning of the middle of finish work. This was after the bad drywallers, before the good drywallers came to fix it. Notice the crappy cutting around the windows.

The office in its current, middle of the middle state. See the lovely color block between the windows? That art peice is a decorator fabric, found on Ebay that I stretched on an artists canvas. I call it Symmetic Ladies... no I don't, I just made that up.

The living room - beginning of the middle. Would you believe most of this junk is my friend Kylene's? Well it is, or it was. She lived with us briefly, but sadly, she began work nearly an hour away, so had to leave us.

The living room in its current state. Sans couch of course, that will take another 40 days to arrive, but the room is coming together nonetheless.

The downstairs bedroom when Mike and I had to live in it because the upstairs drywall wasn't good enough to live in yet and it was the middle of winter and there was no heat up there. (And all our crap was disorganized and all over the place.)

The downstairs, now a guest bedroom, but still containing a couple junky items that we don't have any other place for... plus all my girlie decor from college.

You've seen this before - the laundry room when we first moved in. Look, Kamikazee is sitting on a pile of kitchen tile, still yet uninstalled at this point.

The current laundry/mudroom. Notice the pile of carpet samples I have yet to cut into a cool carpet-tile-like pattern. Hmmm, if Kamikazee had just been sitting on them, the circle would be complete...

The kitchen - notice my computer on the kitchen table. This was again, because the upstairs wasn't done and we were still sanding drywall in the rest of the house. See that coat on the chair? I threw that over the CPU whenever we sanded.

The kitchen now. It's hard to see the details. Those three art peices on the wall are all paintings of martinis. I'm a big appletini girl.

My Bidding...

Last weekend Mike hit the trails in New Hampshire for a little off-road R&R on the Kawi with his guy pals. Meanwhile I was stuck at home, dealthy ill with some sort of nasty stomach bug/food poisoning/migrane/hormones/you know. Very first time I stuck my head in my toilet... quite a momentus occassion. That aweful green color did not help the nausea, I tell you.

Since returning to 99% efficiency, leaving the customary 1% procrastination, I feel the need to be productive on the house this upcoming weekend. I mean really, when was the last time something got done? A project completed? I know we're waiting on the house lifter, and we're hesitant to spend excess dinero, but come on. There's so much to do that can be done.

I'm working on Saturday, so I'm going to tell Mike, we're working on the house on Sunday - no ifs, no ands, no skuttlebutts about it. We should at least finish the damn stairway. We put the first coat of stain/varnish on the steps what, a month ago?! We could at least give them a quick rub down with steal wool and hit 'em up with a second coat, if nothing else. The coats take 6 hours to dry, so ideally, we should do that Saturday night after work so they'd be ready for either a third coat or an install on Sunday.

Warm days are going to run short here on Cape Cod. We've already entered into what they call the Cat Nights.... you know, dog days of summer, cat nights? Anyhoo - if we're going to be sanding plaster and priming the hallway/stairway, I'd really love to have the doors and windows open with the fans-a-flyin' without freezing to death.

I don't think its too much to ask Mike to do my bidding for a day. And when did it become MY bidding anyway? It's our house, jeezus! You would think he'd want it done too. I know deep down he does, but he doesn't like sanding and carpentry's not his forte' either. Don't think we're fighting or anything, cause I've been lazy too and I admit it. I just have to take the initiative and stop being lazy first. Then I'll just feed him an Amp or two and we'll both have at it and have a wonderful time like we always do.

Good News

On the decorating side - I got an email from Fay from China with pictures of my sofa. My ACTUAL sofa that they just finished building. I ok-ed the pictures and hopefully it will be in the next shipment to LA and then to me! Here's one of the pictures Fay sent me.

Stagnant - Like Puddle Water

Doo bee doo, la la, na na, - OH, it's my audience. Hi everybody. Don't mind my quiet singing to myself, it's just a sign of my complete transition into boredom. Thousands of thousands of dollars are sitting in my savings account, just waiting to help lift up my house. And if not lift up my house, re-do my bathroom, build a fireplace - who knows what else! But, as happens very often in the wide world of contractors and homeowners, I have lost track of all my bargaining chips and am at the will of the contractor.

I talked to our house lifter last week... I hadn't heard from him for over a month, and so I called to say, "Hey what's going on? I thought you were going to do this job over the summer - SUMMER"S OVER!" Good news was, a mutal friend of ours mentioned us to him. Never hurts to have a connection, no matter how small... keeps things human.... or so I keep telling myself.

Anyway, he said he was finishing up a few jobs. Again confirmed that our house would be easy and he wasn't going anywhere. He said he'd get a letter/contract with a start date in the mail ASAP.

That was a week ago. *sigh* So here I am, back to twiddling my thumbs. I have a feeling it will be another month before I hear from him. And I'll have to call him. It's depressing. I know he's a good guy - he is the undisputed source for house lifting on Cape Cod and I'd never go anywhere else. I just wish we could be first on his list.

Resistance to the Couch de Resistaunce

Yes, yes, I know I stopped the previous post mid-sentence, but there's a REASON for it. Just yesterday I hopped online and took a peek at my lovely couch, which I check on every once in a while just to make sure it isn't a dream and the company hasn't gone out of business - you know, psychotic decorator obessive habits. AND THE PRICE HAD GONE UP.

I had a small freak out, considering I was still trying to save up to buy it. So I frantically emailed the company... I swear, I don't make a habit of emailing and complaining to companies. I know I've done it twice in the past couple months - but I'm really a nice, normal person, so don't think I'm a complaining-jane or something.

I recieved a return email from them today - I can purchase the sofa at the previous price. Of course, this is a one time, short term offer. So... despite the fact that I wasn't quite ready to buy the sofa, here I am, buying the sofa!

I can feel it underneath my butt already - the soft microfiber, the cushy ottoman for my dirty feet that I'll have to clean up now, and all those cushions in vibrant color. Maybe I needed this little push to get myself in gear buying this... now I just have to somehow tell Mike he can't have electricity in the garage yet because I bought a sofa.

Stripe that from the record!

Ah the living room. When we first saw it, it was lime green with a woven rug, some sparse furniture, and one, very seventies light fixture. (Which I kept by the way, and put in my guest room - it's oh so funky, just not for the living room.)

I didn't really have a plan for this room, but what I did have was a gorgous shade of dark, hunter green for the walls and a creamy cream color for the ceiling. It looked great when painted, but even then, I still didn't really have all the inspiration I needed. Then, I discovered the couch-de-resistaunce. This gorgeous creamy colored modern masterpeice with it's corner chaise and big cushy ottoman is going to be just the item that will make the room. Plus the pillows add the punch of color that all girls just love - a little red and a little purple to match my floor pillows. (Which are purple, duh.)

I've already anchored the floor to the ceiling and balanced the dark walls with a cream and white area rug with a modern square in square pattern. It'll be just fabulous with the sofa and the floor pillows.

Then, just last week, I discovered gold! Well... in my eyes anyway. I make a habit of checking the local VNA Thrift Store (one of the only ones in the mid-cape area to sell furniture and homegoods) on a weekly basis. Last Wednesday, the moment I walked in, I laid eyes on THE CHAIR. Clean modern lines, comfy cushioning, suedy soft fabric, and a stripe pattern in cream, green, red, and blue. It was love at first sight and I was carting it home the next morning. It's going to be a fine compliment to the couch... though I'm still

Escavation = New Sensation!

WOW! What a difference the escavation makes. Mike and I picked up the dump truck Saturday night and the escavator arrived early Sunday morning. In fact, I woke up to that familiar BEEP BEEP BEEP of the backup alarm. Mike started working around 9am so as not to offend our neighbors - who are pretty cool about this kinda stuff anyway - and stopped work around 5:30pm.
By noon, Mike was already nearly past the garage. By two, the bulk of the hill had been conquered. By 5:30, we had a big flat space where a hill used to be. We weren't able to completely grade the land, but getting rid of that hump was the hard part and that is done!

Next step, we'll create a tie wall to hold back the remaining cliff wall and shape the side yard. Also, we'll bring in some stone so we can park our boat beside the garage and out of the driveway. When we grade the rest of the side yard and take out a couple yucky evergreens, we'll be able to put in nice grass and other trees and plantings.

The only downside to our new flat space - now you can see into the messy backyard from the road... I guess now we need to clean that up too. It's good to have some motivation now and then.

The Escavation Culmination

I thought of something! Mike told me two nights ago, but I was too tired to remember right away. Ur, I need a latte - a lotta latte. Anyhoo - there is a good chance that we will have an escavator and a dump truck at our house this weekend to do some leveling next to the garage. In fact, we could get all the leveling we need done in one weekend with this equipment.

Normally, you'd have to shell out the big money for a weekend rental of big equipment - but Mike has a friend or two who have access to it. And, one said he'd come dig all weekend if Mike would just fix his jet ski. No problem! We'll see if we can borrow the dump truck from another friend of ours. The escavator can dig a lot of dirt, but it doesn't move very quickly. With the dump truck, the dirt could be escavated into the truck and then dumped into our hole of a back yard. It's much more efficient to keep the escavator digging then to dig a little, drive it in back, dump it out, drive front, dig a little more, and so on and so forth.

Mike's so excited - it's something about big machines that just thrills him over and over again. Even I have to admit that I love watching them go. I'll probably just set up my lawn chair in a good location and indulge the kid in me all afternoon.

In case you've forgotten our hilly dillema - we have a weird hill next to our garage that's just got to go. So, we're going to slope the landscape along the same level as our gradually sloping driveway. We'll leave the tree line at the top of the old hill alone to provide privacy and hold up the cliff wall, which we may reinforce later with some kind of wall or stone or something pretty.

With the hill gone, we can park our boat next to the garage and regain that yard space with some grass and other nice plantings. I'd like to ditch two evergreens that border the driveway - they're not looking so hot anyway - and add some nice trees of some sort. I'm not the plantiest of people, but I have a general idea of what a nice yard looks like. And, like everything else, I'll learn as I go.

Great Moments in Monotony

I have been so bored over the past few days. I mean, it's been a week since my last post! What's up with that?! Well, I guess nothing's been happening. Which is, as always, frustrating. But what do you want from me? It's the end of summer on Cape Cod and I realize that I haven't been taking advantage of that. So Mike and I took this past weekend to party it up and leave our troubles behind... except he installed my faucet wrong.

So I told you about my great faucet right? The nice pull out sprayer by Delta in shiny chrome? One of the newer, sleeker ones, not the older, big headed ones. I wanted it installed without the base - so it's just a lovely tower of chrome. However, I guess the problem is that the sink has three holes. (How easy I forget after just installing the darn sink a few months ago!) One of those can be filled with the free soap dispenser that came with the faucet, but what to do with the other one?

As you can imagine, the soap dispenser has not been installed yet. I have to figure out what I want in the other hole and which side I want the soap dispenser on. I'm right handed, so I could go with the right....

You see how the lack of major progress has got me babbling on about faucets like a crazay woman? Ahhhhhh! I gots to get a list going for this weekend so I can stop driving myself to drink... oh wait, that's some good friends of mine who keep buying me shots.

A message, a Mike, and the framing.

Memories sweet memories.

Oh Yeah, And the Basement?

Ok - I've been posting a lot of random ramblings over the past week, reminiscing about the past, letting you in on some of my designs, and of course the passion that is SALE. But you may be wondering - what the heck is going on with the basement?

Well, here's an update. I have just today deposited the $35,000 check. (Boy did I feel like Richie Rich - but I know I have to resist the urge to splurg.) Mike and I are still very excited - he can't stop talking about what he wants to do down there when it's done: make a jacuzzi room, drive a car under there, build a bar... you know guys and their love of rumpus rooms. I on the other hand think of a second bathroom, another bedroom, and comfy wall to wall carpet you can kick your high heels off on and party it up at 3am after getting out of the bar for a little after hours... I guess our needs can co-exist if we plan well - except for that car part. I nipped that in the butt, we just don't have the right yard for getting a car down into the basement. (It won't be the walk out kind, you see.)

Anyway. So the money's in place. Where's the house mover? That's what I'd like to know. I called him on his cell a couple weeks ago... maybe even 3 or 4 weeks ago, I'll have to check my logs. I hate to call him on his cell, but he gave me the number and I hadn't heard from him. At that time he confirmed his willingness to do the job and assured me he'd be sending out a "letter" outlining what he would do, what he wouldn't do, the time frame, and the cost. This letter would also serve as the contract. Sounded good to me... although he then said something about not knowing our address, and then quickly said, "oh I'll get it later."

After we closed last Thursday, I left him a message on his shop answering machine. I said we'd just secured the funds and I left him our address and said I'd expect his letter. Well - no letter yet. Did we close just last Thursday? I think it was the Thursday previous. Yes, I think so. So it's been two weeks now and no letter yet.

I think if I don't hear from him next week I'll have to call him again. I get so nervous that he'll pull out after we went ahead and got the money. But he seemed in such a hurry to do the job! He kept saying "this summer" this summer" so I decided to be ahead of the game for once and took care of the funds. I hope I did the right thing.

Taxachusetts

Everybody loves to make fun of us Massholes and call our state Taxachusetts and we who live here just hang our heads and admit that it sux like a dyson. (That means it never loses sux-tion.) But this past weekend, the lovely state began its second annual sales tax holiday - ie, no sales tax for two days. (Some restrictions may apply, see Massachusetts for details.)

Great for back to school shopping, large purchases under $2500 that you've been itching to save 5% on, and of course, home reno nuts. Mike and I didn't have HUGE plans for this weekend - after all, a HUGE shopping trip means dealing with HUGE crowds, HUGE lines, HUGE traffic jams... all for relatively little savings consitering that we weren't buying anything close to the $2500 limit.

But there was one thing that came to mind as soon as I heard the reminder radio ads a couple weeks prior. One thing that we needed to complete the mind-numbing finish work on the house. What was it? That saw that cuts the moulding! And that's the technical girlie term for it. (Cut me some slack, I can't keep track of all the saws in the world - jig saw, band saw, chainsaw, hacksaw, sawz-all...)

So we hit the depot late Saturday night to avoid the crowds - in addition to the tax holiday, the depot had a bunch of in-store specials, which was awesome. We picked out the saw right away - on sale for $99. Then, as we walked the store I spotted the kitchen faucet I wanted on sale for $128! I almost didn't buy it, but Mike wanted me to and then I saw that it came with a free soap dispenser. That kicked it. Unfortunately that was the end and over my budget.

The luckiest part of the shopping trip came as we went to the self checkout. The faucet came up $115 - I guess it was on sale even more than I thought! Then, the kicker, the saw came up $77. Now I knew that had to be an error - it had already been marked down over $50! Well, we paid for it and left and laughed to ourselves at the bargain of it all.

We had a similar experience when we bought our insulation. The R30 - thickest, most expensive of the insulation - not to mention a huge package of it in a longer width - rang up at $10 a package instead of $40 a package!!! We were buying four packages of it at the time, so we really really saved on that one.

Of course, Mike didn't want to install the faucet on Saturday night and then he was gone fishing all Sunday... I'll have to wait I guess on that one. And he hasn't even opened his saw yet! I can't wait to get this house trimmed up either! Of course, I need to buy some trim first. Another day I suppose...