Flanges and Merges....

Today was a rather muddled day at work. It began with doughnuts. Lately in the office, we've been having a lot of 'mystery' snacks. They just show up and no-one says why they're there or who brought them in. This makes it a little awkward because you know you're supposed to eat them but without knowing the origin, you don't know who to thank. Also, it's a bit weird to eat someone's food without truly knowing whether it was for an occasion and thus deserves a 'happy birthday' or someone just felt like bringing in doughnuts.

I usually don't eat doughnuts. I'm not opposed to them, per se. I just don't really enjoy them much. They're just...there. Today, I forgot my morning banana and so I was hungry. I ended up eating a doughnut that looked like it was a jelly-filled one. It also happened to have the added bonus of fluorescent pink icing. This would put most adults off, most likely. Not me, I'm a sucker for weird coloured things like that. Yes, it's unnatural but it's fun.

When I bit into my doughnut, I was very disappointed. I'm a firm believer that a jelly doughnut should have jelly. These days, most bakeries cheat and use that strawberry pie filling crap. I may have vented about this before. If I have, I apologize. Anyway, the pie filling is runny and smooth. I like my jelly with seeds in it. This doughnut was NOT the doughnut I had expected. I take my doughnuts quite seriously and I felt slightly betrayed. It looked like a jelly doughnut. It pretended to be a jelly doughnut but it wasn't.

Anyway, shortly after the mystery doughnuts showed up, a second batch of identical doughnuts from the same bakery arrived. These, at least, were not mystery doughnuts. It was our tech support person's birthday. I think he felt bad that he doubled the doughnuts but our company never wastes such things and managed to get through quite a lot of them, even though there were about 50 doughnuts in the office this morning for 23 of us.


After the doughnuts, us non-conference attendees were left out in the cold while the conference attendees met to discuss the conference. I would quite like to have heard how it went but we weren't invited. During this time, we found out that our slightly impromptu staff meeting was going to be attended by the head of our 'sister company.'


Long story short, this means we're merging with our sister company. I know it means a lot but it doesn't seem to be affecting us much. We have to change our company name which means new logos and all that stuff. We're being 'rehired' by the merged company. This means yet another tax season next year with more than one W-2. As far as I can see, for now, it doesn't mean much to us. I'm sure in the long run, it will. Some people are worried, mostly the new folks who weren't here for the scary dark period last year where we were being sold and thought we were going to all lose our jobs. Those who were here tend to feel a little like veterans and this, compared to last year, feels like nothing.

To me, the only major question I had was: Were we going to keep our jobs. The answer is yes. We also keep our benefits. That's good enough for me.

Of course, all this was coupled with the fact that today was the day my kind parents were driving down so my dad could do the home repairs in my house that I was unable to do. This means I had to make sure I was available if they had questions and stuff. It also meant they were puppy-sitting. I got to run home and lunch and feed my parents and say hello. My dad had already replaced my ceiling fan/light in the kitchen.

When I came home from work this evening, I discovered that even though I had only expected a new faucet in my kitchen, my father had decided I needed a new sink. My dad's not the type to think, "oh, wait, maybe she doesn't want a new sink." When he decides something is needed, that's it.

I'm not complaining, naturally. The sink is nice. It's very, uh, sinky. Also, it has nice new taps and it doesn't gurgle like my old one. It's lovely to have a new sink so I was glad. I wasn't glad that when I got home, dad needed a new pipe for under the sink so he sent my mum and I off to Lowe's. We asked one of the Lowes employees for help because, let's face it, mum and I are not plumbers and know nothing about pipes. Unfortunately, it seems, neither did the Lowe's employee. For one thing, he was incredibly rude. He snatched the old pipe literally out of my hand and tried to match it. He was clueless even though, technically, he was working in the plumbing department. It's rather sad when I had to be the one to identify the fact that since the pld pipes were joined with a connector in a perpendicular fashion, perhaps the new pipes ought to be also. Needless to say, we were sent home with the wrong thing. This meant my dad and I had to return to Lowes to get the right thing. So, back to Lowes I went, this time with my dad while mum stayed at my place and puppy-sat.

We got home only to discover that the pipes we'd bought weren't equipped with a flange. My dad said flange a lot. Flange was the word of the day. I kept singing it, "Flange! Flange! Flange" as we drove, yes, you've guessed it, back to Lowes. I think I drove my dad a little potty but soon he was saying "flange" in every other word.

We were successful with finding pipes that had flanges. I made dad buy and extra one, just in case since I did not want to return to Lowes a fourth time in an hour. Turned out he needed the extra one so I'm glad I made him buy it.

Finally, the pipes fit. We didn't have to go back to Lowes. I'm glad. I'm a bit tired of Lowes, actually.

I now have a working sink, a working ceiling fan and the word 'flange' stuck in my head. Also, big things happened at work but I'm a bit over worrying about it. There's no point. I'm actually sort of enjoying my job at the moment and I get to keep it for now so why worry? I might have to do that later but for now, there seems to be no point.

In the meantime, tomorrow is Friday which is always welcome. Also, there'll probably be doughnuts tomorrow though they'll be stale. We also have to have meetings to talk about the change at work. I have a lot of meetings tomorrow, unfortunately. Still, if they get too boring, I can always yell "FLANGE".

FLANGE!

Happy Friday!

Sometimes, It'd Be Nice to Have a Husband...

So I decided not to wait until tomorrow to blog even though, typically, I only blog on weekdays. It's been a few days since I had a chance to blog. The conference got the better of me. I did end up being social and going out both Wednesday and Thursday nights but I ended up watching other people drink rather than imbibe too much myself. It's amazing to see how much people let loose and also sort of fascinating in a voyeuristic way. I don't judge: I'm a firm believer that everyone needs to let down their hair once in a while.

The ending of the conference took a bit weight off my shoulders. It's hard to be social for such long periods of time; We started at 8 a.m. and went out until at least midnight. I was pretty exhausted by the time we got back.

Yet I wasn't too exhausted to ignore the fact that my house is now...my house. Friday afternoon, not too long after I got back from Indianapolis, I headed to my house, let myself in the front door for the very first time and took stock of what I had done.

I confess...when I saw my new house, I had a bad case of buyer's remorse. I mentioned that the previous owner was a sweet little old lady. However, I don't know whether she just didn't clean or just couldn't clean properly but I'm telling you, that house looked nasty. The carpets were grey with cobwebs, the walls filthy with stains. There was a layer of grime over everything. I walked through hoping to find something, anything to remind me why I wanted to live there.

Yet it was too late to back out. The house is mine. With a heavy heart, I finally plugged in my vacuum cleaner and went over each room multiple times. Three hours later and three vacuum bags full, the house suddenly looked different...better. The carpets were blue again and spending that much time in each room began to help me feel like it truly was my house. I moved on, throwing out many of the items the old lady had left behind. I couldn't decide if she forgot to pack them or she thought she was doing me a favour. For example, the fridge was still full of old mayonnaise, pickles, ketchup and cheese. Sadly, much of it had expired and what was left just didn't appeal so I did a thorough purge. At first, when I opened the freezer, I was excited. There was an unopened filet mignon in there, wrapped in bacon, ready to grill. Then I checked the date. It's "sell-by" date was July of 2005. Now, I'm a believer in freezers providing a way to preserve food but, well...that...was a little beyond preserving.

I spent the rest of the weekend shampooing the carpets. I love doing that, I've decided. Though the grime that came out of each room when I emptied the bucket of the Rug Doctor machine was disgusting, there was something very fulfilling about seeing it. I scrubbed down the walls and scrubbed the kitchen. I think the house is finally looking good. I'm going to paint next and have already begun putting masking tape down. It's my house and I'm planning on making it really mine.

It's been an exciting, if exhausting, weekend. I realize that, as a single woman, it's probably a little harder for me to get everything done. I don't have assistance when I'm doing anything. This makes the smallest things difficult. For example, I rented the carpet cleaner and brought it home only to discover it had a three-prong plug. The outlets in my house are primarily two prong. Back I went to Lowe's to buy outlet adapters. If I had someone to help me, they could have done that for me. When I was done cleaning the carpets, I had to run the carpet cleaner back. Again, an errand that I could have sent someone else to do while I started cleaning.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not complaining. I pride myself on my independence. I'm used to it. It's just hard sometimes when all the people who know I bought a house will tell me things I need to do and make me think of things I never would have thought of without them bringing it up. It's nice to have that type of help but sometimes, there are things I just can't think about because I simply don't have the time. I'd love to be able to get a lawnmower and mow the grass. I know it'd be cheaper to buy a used mower. However, that would entail finding the time to search Craigslist for a mower, arranging to see it, going to look at it and then buying it. I'd like to do that but, alas, I'm trying to move into my house and get it fixed up. I have to weigh my priorities. I have enlisted my sister and brother-in-law's help with that, asking them to keep an eye out.

I'd like to be able to do everything by myself; I'm just not sure it's possible. There are only so many hours in the day and with the house being 30 minutes from my apartment, the drive is a factor. On the plus side, there's a huge, lovely Lowe's store five minutes down the street. That's going to be useful. Well, actually, since I went there four times in two days, it's already been useful. Trouble is, each time I go, I realize just how much stuff I'm going to have to learn.

Still, it's all experience and learning and knowing how to do things is half the battle. Going it alone is always hard but there's something rewarding in knowing I found the house and bought it by myself and I'm going to get it fixed up just the way I like it without having to bounce paint colours off someone else. It'd be nice to have a husband to help with the hard stuff but, at the same time, he might not like the cranberry-sage colour scheme I'm going with in the living room.

There are some advantages to being a singleton.

Happy Sunday.

Adventures in Apartment Dwelling..

I think I might actually have an evening at home tonight in which I don't have to go anywhere at all. These days, that's a rare thing. Buying the house is fun but it's exhausting. Last night, for example, I had to go watch my new home being inspected. It passed with only a few minor fixes but the hardest part to accept is that they're minor fixes I will have to make. Gone will be the days of calling my landlord and saying "[x] is broken!" and having them come and fix it for me. Nope, it'll be all me.

Not that it will be the first time. My first apartment in Los Angeles had some issues and I had one of those landlords who somehow never seems to be around and doesn't know how to answer the phone. I became an expert at repairing my toilet since the stupid ball thingy kept coming off or the chain kept breaking. There was one day when my toilet really broke though and the connection to the water source broke. It wasn't really my fault. I was mopping vigourously and I accidentally hit the piping. It broke. In my defense, I was told that it was really old piping and had become very brittle so it wasn't like my Super Mopping was really to blame. Unfortunately, it meant that the water source to my toilet had to be turned off. Not fun. I had to pour buckets of water from the shower down it to flush it. My landlord didn't fix it for two days. I think he did that on purpose.

My last apartment in Los Angeles was far worse though. I lived there with my roommate and when we moved in, we thought we had a bargain. Well, two years later, I think we were both rather relieved to be moving out. We were the only apartment on the ground floor. The foundations leaked. One day, I found my carpet was wet by my outer wall so I moved back a bookcase only to discover a layer of mildew had grown up the wall and it went all the way around the corner into my storage closet. I rarely went in that closet but I had a lot of boxes in there. I discovered that many of my boxes were soaked and already mildewing. It turned out that the sprinklers on the grass outside were flooding the ground which meant the water had to go somewhere. It went into my room. Not fun. My room smelled bad for days. The landlord threw a sandbag down outside. I had to throw a lot of stuff away. In the end, they didn't even kill the mildew, just painted over it and turned off the sprinkler. Of course, they couldn't turn off the rainy season so I ended up just moving stuff out of the closet and keeping towels on the floor when it rained.

We also had an ant infestation in that apartment. I don't mind ants when they're on their own or even in small groups. I do, however, have a rather strong dislike bordering on fear when I see an army swarming. It bothers me. I got to the point where I couldn't see an ant without getting panicky because it meant there was another swarm somewhere. When I do see a gathering of ants, I tend to squeal. My roommate became a champion ant killer. Me, I'd just keep that can of Raid nearby and get a little fanatical about finding the source of the problem.

The other thing about that apartment is that the ceiling fell in about my roommate's shower. The bathroom above ours was leaking. It leaked into her bathroom. The ceiling fell in. Fortunately, it wasn't while she was in the shower. The landlord came over and tidied up the hole. He never patched it up though and when we moved out, the hole was still there.

You're probably getting that our landlord wasn't the best in that apartment. There were actually two of them. We think they were a couple. The lady was older and obviously 'the boss'. The man was younger. He had a lot of enthusiasm but wasn't terribly useful. He also seemed to drink a lot. He would come by our apartment to fix stuff and tell us all sorts of interesting stories about his cousins and people who were in jail and things like that. He was an interesting character. He kept us amused, anyway. It didn't help with the fact that our apartment was a disaster area but it gave us something to joke about.

My current apartment building/managers couldn't be more opposite. If I want something fixed, it's done by the time I get home from work the next day. It's a clean apartment, well kept. I keep waiting to discover the secret flaw but, so far, there isn't one. I haven't even broken anything of any significance. Well, ok, so I did break an entire bottle of wine and have to clear it up but you can't tell that ever happened. I am also having a bit of a problem with the vertical blinds. Two of the slats fell off and they don't open properly. I'm rather hoping to hide this problem when I move out so that I don't get billed for it. I'm actually going to miss this apartment; it's been a good home to me.

I'm looking on the brightside of the home repairs I will have to do. I can do them on my own time frame, I can choose who fixes them and how they get fixed. There's nothing major wrong with the house which is a wonderful thing. The only thing standing in my way right now from starting the repairs is time. Also, there's a little old lady living in the house. Also, I haven't paid for it yet. Also, I need to pack.

Reality really gets in the way of being lyrical sometimes, doesn't it?

Happy Tuesday...