More Random Happenings

Well, it’s time for another update, I suppose, since it’s been a while since I posted one!  We have been busy here at Casa Kosior, mainly on account of the fact that I have been busy letting in tons of contractors to give me estimates on jobs around the house. 

Last night’s bid was hilarious.  We want to put new doors on the house.  Our front door sucks—you can see the sun shining between the door and the frame, there are cracks in the wood, it’s drafty and with no windows, very forbidding.  The French doors in the back are drafty and I find that they are rather uncomfortable to sit in front of during the winter, plus they swing into the dining room, which causes all kinds of problems with the table and hutch.  I also don’t like that they are all broken up in terms of having grids on the windows, where I’d like an unblemished view of the backyard.  So consequently, I am considering getting a sliding glass door back there.

So last night we had our first door estimate.  We were shell-shocked at the price of $8900 for two stupid doors.  Fortunately, this seems to be an anomaly based on everyone we’ve talked to, from the neighbor to my father-in-law to other contractors.  As nice as I’m sure the doors are, they ain’t no $8900 nice.  Particularly in light of the fact that I got an estimate to install all new shutters and paint the entire exterior of the house for $2600.  I mean, let’s get real here.

So from now until next Wednesday, I will be playing hostess to roughly 5 more contractors—one of whom did our windows and gutters and one of whom is recommended by a neighbor—who will do their best to woo us into accepting their proposals for our home.  It’s kind of exciting, really, on account of the fact that I never did like the paint color of the exterior when we moved here, and since I’ve painted 97% of the inside of the house, this is almost the finishing touches on the painting of our place.  I’m also excited to get much needed repairs done.  This week we had a company in who ripped out all kinds of trees and tree stumps and shrubs from the yard.  We kept the three largest trees out front, and everything else is gonzo.  The junk along both sides of the house has been removed as well, leaving us with 3 trees in the backyard and 3 in the front.  I’m pleased everything else is clean, and in time for Leah’s 1st birthday party.  I will put up some pictures of before and after when I get the chance—the upstairs computer is presently off, so I can’t do it just yet.  If you need someone in the Fredericksburg area to do tree removal work, I cannot recommend Kinetic Resources LLC highly enough.  They were out, gave us an awesome price, and showed up and did the job promptly.  They even managed to work around that giant antenna without damaging a thing, which was even better.

I hope to have everything completed in time for the party—nothing would make me happier, sincerely.  Because we have several different projects, we are getting bids from all different types of contractors.  However, the one guy we’re going to talk to on Saturday looks like he might be able to do everything, which would be nice.  It would also be nice if Uncle Sam would hurry up and fork over the cash.

I’ve also been negotiating with a baker recommended to me by Manda to make Leah’s 1st birthday cake.  I decided that I would have enough on my hands with getting the lunch part of the party ready and I didn’t much feel like making a cake, so we decided to hire the job out.  I went through 3 different bakers before I turned to Manda, which just proves I should always go to her first.  Dawn at http://www.dawns-desserts.com/ and I have put together what I think is going to be a gorgeous design based around the invitations I sent out to the party.  Did everyone get their invitations?  Is anyone coming?  So far I’ve gotten 1 yes and 1 no RSVP from over 20 invitees!!!  I’m a planner, people!!!  RSVP.  And if you didn’t get an invitation and want to come, RSVP in the comments here :-)  We’ve got plenty of room and plenty of cake!

Today we were blessed with gorgeous weather. Leah and I spent a lot of the day outside.  We sat on the porch and watched the world go by for a while, we took a nice long walk around the neighborhood, and tonight when Michael got home, all 3 of us hopped in the car and went over to a local park Cindy clued me into and we had a lovely picnic dinner and then pushed Leah on the swings for a while.  She LOVES the swings—she just grins and grins and grins ear to ear when she’s on them.  Hopefully tomorrow will be another nice day so that in the morning we could run over there for a little while between contractors and swing some more and maybe take a walk on the little trail down to the river.  I know she is frustrated with sitting around—she is desperately trying to climb out of both her stroller and her high chair, so I expect she’ll be walking before I know it.  But as much as the thought terrifies me (she crawls like lightning, I just know she’s going to run like the wind!), I am looking forward to taking little walks together.

We got our census form in the mail the other day and I took great delight in filling it out and sending it back in.  I wonder how much money the federal government wasted in sending out the pre-Census letter a week prior to tell me to fill out my census form and send it back in.  And I wonder if they’ll send another one that says, “Thanks for filling out your census form!” 

Leah’s lifebook is coming along nicely, although for some reason I had initally listed her birthday in it as April 6th.  I corrected it and reprinted everything, only to paste the wrong date in the book, so now I’ll have to redo that portion.  The book is beautiful and fun to look at.  I haven’t Cricuted that much in it, mainly just the first two pages because pasting all those damned little letters was driving me cuckoo.  But I’ll get back to it for sure.  I want to get my money’s worth!

Friday night is basket bingo at Courthouse Elementary with Wendy.  I am looking forward to it a lot.  She wants to come play regular bingo too, so maybe we’ll have to get another group together!  I am already looking forward to playing again.

I’ve joined a tea club here in town, our first meeting is March 28th.  I am looking forward to going and learning about tea.  I’ve promised to bake my famous scones, and we’ll see what it’s like.  I’m sure they’ll be nice people, or at least, I hope so.

So that’s the news that’s fit to print.  Till next time…