Bathroom Idea: Shower Hooks

If you've been reading this you know we've been A) re-doing the bathroom and B) chose a cool pebble tile as our bathroom floor.

So knowing all that, aren't these hooks pretty cool? And wouldn't they look pretty kick-$@* in the bathroom?Now the bad part, they are $42 ... each. For that kind of money I am challenging Matt to go spelunking for rocks and see if he can channel his inner handyman!

How cold can you go?

Right now, instead of freezing my $#@& off in Chicago, I could have been in Ixtapa enjoying 80 degree weather with my mom and other family.

They made plans to go to Mexico when my job was on the line so we waited to book the trip and then was told the flight was sold out. It didn't seem like a big deal at the time, but when there's a 90 degree difference in the weather, it's a big deal.

90 degree difference, yes that's right.

Memorial Day Madness: Week 1

Rosey:


Technically I lose 1.5 lbs, but this only tracks full lbs.

Week 1 was good; no goal, I just thought about what I eat and made sure to get some exercise every day. I did yoga almost every day and walked/ran on treadmill 1 day.


Matt:


Matt has nothing to report... only that this has happened before (remember biggest loser?)

2009 Goals

Who doesn’t love breaking New Year’s resolutions? I know I do.

I look forward to this time of year, when I can sum up all of my problems and neatly put them in a list of things to do or not to do, how and what I am going to change; I lovingly pour over each and every idea, until finally the list is made… and then promptly broken.

This year, I have a new list of resolutions to break.

1. Run a 5k race – more specifically the Cosely Animal Run in June that takes place every year not too far from my house.
2. Read 30 books – I only read 21 last year. I want to beat that!
3. Try out for a local orchestra – I am trying to find a teacher now, which is the first step since I need to ready myself and this is the only way. I’m anticipating at least 9 mos of lessons… minimum.
4. Lose 10 lbs and keep it off – hence the reason for the Memorial Day Madness
5. Save $10,000 - I think this is a nice round number, and I’d like to see if I can save it.

That’s it. 5 seems like a good number.

Let’s talk about #4. In order to train for #1 (the 5k in June), I thought I might lose 10 lbs in the process. I was 3 lbs away from this number last year and then I gained it all back by simply not exercising. Oh and by eating bagels and cream cheese.

Matt wants to lose 18 lbs, so he’s my buddy in our 20-week challenge called the Memorial Day Madness (or MDM for short).

Do you remember Matt’s biggest loser weight loss 3 years ago? Well he lost a ton of weight (he was almost too skinny). So he knows he can do it, but the winner got $600 (he was 2nd place).What’s the goal now? If there is none, it makes this less easy.

The solution: we’ve decided to give ourselves weekly incentives. Each week is different and if you miss a week, you don’t get that incentive. Such as: a dinner out, a new purse, a Wii game, etc. It has to be something we want and that we’re not able to get unless we reach our goal (which is to lose lbs, workout X times, eat a piece of fruit every day, refrain from chocolate, etc).

Monday the 12th is our first weigh-in. As soon as I get our incentive chart done, I’ll post that.

Onward!

The perils of bathroom renovations

No home renovation is without its pitfalls and perils, problems and post remodelers angst. This bathroom is no exception. How a space that’s only 6’ x 6’ could cause so many problems is beyond me, but to quote my dad, “This is the hardest job I’ve ever done.”

The biggest problem right now is the tile.

We just got back from the tile store where we had to request free boxes of tile, and it won’t come in for at least 2 more weeks. The marble we purchased is horrible. It looks nice – although the sample in the store and what we received looks like 2 different types of tile – but the quality is sub-par.

The first thing my dad noticed was that through the marbleized marks there were holes going through to the back. “This can’t go in a shower because of water damage,” he told us. The he noticed the mesh backing. “Marble shouldn’t have mesh backing because it’s solid. A mesh back means pieces are put together. This is bad.”

We were going to bring it back but my dad said he would try and do what he can – and the shower he built us is like a water barrier fortress so he wasn’t too worried. But when he started cutting tiles, they were breaking on odd fault lines. He was so pissed off and so were we.

By this time, he had done the floor and some of the shower so we couldn’t turn back. But the odds were not in our favor of having enough tiles to finish the job. For every tile that broke, I was out money and I was getting madder with each CRACK. So we went to the tile store, with my dad in tow, and we brought pieces to show them and told them how this was a horrible product and that they owe us. So we ended up getting free boxes of tile so that we can finish the job.

Lesson learned: Ask where the tile comes from, how it’s made. When it came in and my dad was unhappy, we should have brought it back immediately. Know that marble should not have mesh, should not have holes, and should not break.

But I also had a setback with the toilet.

I ordered the toilet from an on-line plumbing store where I bought the shower components. Three weeks into the order, we still didn’t get the toilet. I went on-line to check and the site said, “Store Out of Business.” What?! I started to panic, but received an email from them at the same time telling me that the economy has impacted the company and it’s closed effective immediately. I managed to get credited for the toilet on my credit card, but now I was back to the drawing board.

The good news is that I found it somewhere else for cheaper … except I accidentally ordered the toilet seat in the wrong color. Drat!!

Finally, and maybe this made me the most mad, my dad goofed up on the tile.

We were supposed to have a border going around the shower in the pebbles (hence following the design rule of repeating patterns). And my dad did the shower when I was at work last week and he forgot to add them – even though we talked about it a few days ahead of time.
He says he forgot, but if you know my dad he’s the type to make a calculated move like that when he doesn’t want to do something.

I can’t wait for this thing to be finished.

Flickr is starting to annoy me.

I used to have an unlimited storage account because I’m an AT&T internet user, but that agreement has ended.

Then I found out that my family who wanted to download photos from flickr couldn’t unless they wanted to view a 1 inch photo. And they couldn’t print/buy the photos very easily either.

I need a new online hosting site for my photos. I don’t upload that many photos anyway, but I want to be able to upload ones to share with my family that they can either download to their computer or buy prints. I wanted something that I can link to via my blogger weblogs – mainly my garden photos for rosemariegarden.blogspot.com – that the public could view without being invited. And I wanted something free.

This NY Times article did more than I could ever hope for, detailing the online photo hosting sites clean and simple.

The verdict… I am migrating over the Picasa. My viewers can download full resolution photos that they can keep and print. It works the best with blogger. And I can upload photos from Mac’s iPhotos.

I hope this works well, I’ll keep you posted on when it too starts to annoy me.

Ringing in the New Year and looking back on 2008

The holiday extravaganza, which begins with Thanksgiving and ends with New Years, is over.

Happy New Year!

We rang in the New Year at our humble abode surrounded by family and a plethora of breakfast goodies. At the 11th hour, I changed my menu (already bought, mind you) from soup and stew to the breakfast of champions: waffles, sausage, bacon, eggs, toast, and hash browns. Some training as a short order cook would have served me and Matt well.

The consensus was that 2008 could take a hike, we were ready for a new year and a new start. Looking back on the year that saw our retirement portfolios sink faster than the Titanic, we can say we survived it.

Puerto Vallarta, Fort Meyers Beach Florida, Door County Wisconsin, Nashville Tennessee... those were some of the places we visited this year and each one was special. But the most special was Door County. Matt and I celebrated our 5th anniversary in the place where we got engaged and it still holds fond memories and happiness for us.

While my work life rode an endless series of roller coaster turns and loops, I haven't yet fallen out of my seat. My company merged with a competitor, consolidated divisions, and had 3 series of layoffs. I saw my old department be eliminated entirely, while I held on. My role in the organization changed three times this year, a personal work relationship crumbled, and for the better I was able to start anew in a new department, but that again, has now changed and I'm holding on to the bar very tightly anticipating the next curve or dip.

Our house got a chance to be enjoyed rather than torn apart -- at least for most of the year. Last year was one project after the next, but in 2008 we just sat and relaxed, enjoying the new living room and dining room. Only at the end of October did we start the lower level bathroom renovation after the mold seeping from the shower couldn't be ignore one minute longer. But this won't get done until 2009... February maybe?

We didn't go out as much as we wanted, or connect with friends as often as we wanted. I hope that 2009 lets us make up for that.

Onward 2009!