Feelin' it again

I try not to be a vengeful person. Really, I do try. However, I am feeling that vengence is due. Our money pit is opening up again it seems. We saw our first warmish hot day last week and our upstairs turned into an oven...literally (just about). You should not live in a home and feel the need to completely avoid trurning on the AC because it costs so much. You should also not have to turn on an AC and have to wait hours for your house to cool down 1-2 degrees. Not right. At all. I am learning so much about Texas through the inabilities that our house has given us. I am not feeling thankful one bit to the previous owners for this. I wish my anger and frustration at them would go away, but every time it starts to leave something happens and it shoots right back up. They used up everything in this house and moved on....fetching top dollar for a home that was not deserving of it. I suppose it's a lesson learned for Mike and I. A long, hard, expensive lesson.

Oh no, Snow. We're Closed!

Of all the years we lived in Utah never did a day "close" because of weather. There were some real humdingers as far as snow storms were concerned, yet, people still had to go to work, kids still had to go to school, and life continued on through it. Although there are snow plows, and salt and gravel trucks galore, I still remember many a day driving too of from work with white knuckles....praying I would not get stuck, or my car would not start sliding. I also recall many a morning driving the girls to school and being thankful that I needed only pull up and let them out, lest I would need to get out in that weather! Fast forward to present day. Texas. Yes, Texas. They do not do snow or ice or plows or salt here. Not at all. Just the slightest threat of either and they shut things down. To date....and in the past 10 days....we've had a total of 5 school cancellations. That means that Mike is home and the kids are home. And by home, I mean, stuck at home. Literally, when there is ice and snow and no way to clear it, the roads become sudden death. It's quite scary. Who am I to complain. This year, so far, it's been kinda nice to have unexpected days off to spend at home, however, when the school year gets extended so we can make up those days I'm sure no one will be quite as happy. All I know it I've never known how much I hated the freezing cold and snow until it hit Texas. The is a big difference between 19 degrees in Texas and 19 degrees in Utah. I will take Utah's 19 degrees any day over Texas'. Apparently this is the worst winter that Texas has seen in decades. The most school has been closed that anyone around here recalls is two days total...and not in a row.

The Poop that Binds

You know you have toilet issues when you've used your toilet auger so many times it breaks in two. Ugh! At least I unclogged one of the two clogged toilets before it broke. Guess I'm off to Home Depot to re-invest in my most beloved house tool! No pooping upstairs for a little while longer.

Stuck Like Chuck

I haven't posted in a while. Perhaps it was the holiday spirit that kept me from "venting", or perhaps I have just started to "roll with it" better. We have settled with the previous homeowners. We pretty much got half-way screwed, but it's nice to just be done with it. I'm working on making things prettier in the house and am having a lot of fun "accessorizing". Now if I could only get out of my garage!
Yes, something else is broken - the garage door. After tinkering around with it a bit I can see that one of the sensors is out. Tried to "adjust" it a bit, but it's not correcting it. Good thing for our home warranty which, you guessed it, covers garage door openers.

Denied!

Half our homeowners claim was officially denied today. Feeling deflated....and poorer....and completely angry again at the previous owners of our house. The roof repairs and rot in the wall were deemed previous, long-term damage, and not covered by our policy. I was afraid of this. I was also hopeful that we could squeeze past the clause. What a great feeling to be out not only our deductible, but another 2 1/2times it to boot. Ahh..."more fuel for the fire", as Mike says. Our fire is quickly turning into an inferno.

What's that Bulge?

Got up this morning and noticed a big black bulge hanging down beneath my sofa. Hmmm....did the cat get under there and rip the lining so it's hanging down? Nope. As I reach down to feel it I realize the entire middle section of our couch is hanging near the floor. Wonder if my magic hammer can fix that one? Guess I'll flip the couch upside down today and see. Anything to avoid having to purchase new living room furniture right now. Don't get me wrong, it is in our plans to replace our sofa and loveseat in the near future, but I am not ready to look around and choose something right now...and even more not ready to spend money on it.

Seems like it's our stuff brought to this home that it failing us now. Lawn mower broke, washing machine agitator broke, and our clothes dryer takes no less than 3 complete cycles to dry our stuff. Joy. Hopefully that means that our "house surprises" have ended. That also means that if you come for a visit you might be sleeping on dirty sheets.

It's called flip-flopping, according to Property Ladder

Should I be surprised that more stuff is broken, or that things are even worse than anticipated? At this point I'd like to say the element of surprise is gone, yet, seems like it still shocks the heck out of me. Yesterday the back fence gate fell off the fence. The post is completely rotted out and the gate just literally fell off. Great. This morning our contractors started repairs in our living room and upon opening up the wall found, yet, another unsuspecting surprise.....not one, but two rotted out studs. Yep, rotted completely through from the ceiling to the floor. They fell apart when tapped with a hammer. That would be several years of continuous water leaks that would cause those bad boys to disintegrate like that. Feeling sick to my stomach. I suppose the good thing is that the innerds of the wall are repaired and the sheetrock is back up and mudded and taped (is that how you would say it in past tense?). The bad part is that the drywallers did something to my DirecTV wires so we have no TV until DTV can get out here on Wednesday to fix the problem (hello Hulu...please have my shows up promptly). The good part is that my two broken outdoor outlets (redundant) are no longer broken which means I can put up my orange Halloween lights around my front door now and they can light up...and Mike can plug the weed eater in out back without running an extension cord through the house.

Mike thinks our house is a lemon. Ella is worried it is going to fall down. Owen is indifferent. I just say the people before us had no clue how to take care of a house....that they neglected everything, patch fixed what they could, and covered up things and hoped it would not backfire. Once we clean up their mess (hopefully at their expense) we will take care of things the way they should be and this house will love us more than any homeowner before. Can't wait to get to that point....hopefully it's soon. Not sure my stomach can handle many more U-Turns.