I Am NOT Your "Sweetie"!

It's been a long time since I've had a soapbox.  Today is the day.  I HATE when people I don't know use terms of endearment for me!  It seriously drives me nuts. 

Today I was on the phone with the granite people.  We Still don't have granite.  It's been four weeks.  That was Not the projected timeline.  To make matters worse our granite isn't even in the state and the truck that should go pick it up has been broken TWO months (is this Enough unnecessary use Of capital LETTERS??).  So I finally get ahold of the company who is supposed to have already completed this job.  This is, in itself a feat, because for some reason they don't answer their phone.  So I am being firm, but kind.  I'm really trying to get an idea of when we could possibly have granite on our waiting cabinets.  I am dying without my sink!  There can be no sink until there are countertops.  The woman on the phone keeps calling me sweetie.  And it isn't just that she is calling me sweetie, it's the tone.  As in:

"Look, I'm just trying to get a timeframe on this.  We had deadline and we were told when these were going to be installed and they weren't and now we aren't even being contacted and told what is going on."
"Well, sweetie, I'm sure that's frustrating but the only truck we have to haul the granite has been in the shop, like, two months."

And then later:  "Sweetie, I'm working on it."

GRRRR!  In the first place, this was no small amount of money that we have given to these people.  I mean, granite does not come cheap!  I want what I paid for!  In the second place, this is a professional call so "sweetie" is not really appropriate.  Stop it.  It's annoying.  I'm not a child, I'm a disgruntled customer and your condescension isn't helping matters one single bit!  I will continue to say GRRR until I see some results!  I want to see granite in my home!

For My Friend with the Phlegm

Sung to the tune of Have I Told You Lately

Have I told you lately that I hate that?

Have I told you it makes me want to vomit?

It feels my heart with sadness!

Takes away all my gladness!

Hearing you hocking, that's what it do.

From the morning sniff, I know it's coming

Greets the day with gags and tears of dread

You feel my ears with bad sound!

Even through the wall I am hound

By all the hocking that you do

Have I told you lately that I hate that?

Have I told you it makes me want to vomit?

It feels my heart with sadness!

Takes away all my gladness!

Hearing you hocking, that's what it do.

There is a place for the spitting

There it would be oh so fitting

It's called the bathroom, away from me!

At the end of the day

We should give thanks and pray

That I don't live with you, with you

Headed to Rocky Top

So much has gone on in the past little bit.  Josh and I are racing trying to get the kitchen finished.  Our countertops are off, I have no sink.  You have no idea just HOW much you use your kitchen sink until it's gone.  Josh's best friend, Ian, came down this weekend.  Even work has been hectic for both of us.  It's all pretty much been leading up to tomorrow and Wednesday.

Tomorrow is Josh's last day at work and Wednesday is his first day back to college.  We are alternating between excitement and nervousness.  Most of the time we are just a bundle of mixed emotions and slight anxiousness to get started.

Josh will be going for his mechanical engineering degree at UT.  I am so very proud of him for making the decision to go instead of staying at an only okay job and trying to make a career out of it.  We think he will be a lot happier in the long run in engineering.  Still, in the short term it will be hard.  He has five semesters of difficult classes and a long commute in front of him.  I think the most difficult thing of all might be becoming a true Vol, he doesn't understand the concept of your blood running orange and not being a fair weather fan ;)

I'll be here, holding down the home front.  Hmm, that sounds like I should put my hair in pin curls and plant a victory garden haha!  I'm going to take advantage of this public place to say this:  I am COMPLETELY okay with him going back to school and me supporting the both of us for a bit.  We have both gotten a lot of negative comments about me working while he goes back to school.  In the first place, I think that is just part of the give and take of marriage, sometimes you have can't split everything right down the middle.  Josh will be working super hard at what he's doing, even though it won't be bringing it income.  In the second place, it isn't completely selfless.  Josh and I want me to have the ability to stay home with the kids we eventually want to have.  An engineering job would allow this much more comfortably than the job he did have (weird to say that in the past tense!).

Send up a quick prayer for us as we start this.  Most especially pray that Josh is safe driving to and from school.  He has a tendency to fall asleep in a rhythmically moving, quiet car.  I'll keep you posted on how it goes.  Also I hope to post pictures of our new counter tops very soon (hopefully this week, crossing fingers, toes, legs, and anything else I can cross, it's even better than a yoga pose!). 

More Kitchen Reno

We are not quite two weeks into the kitchen/living room renovation.  It has been...frantic, chaotic, messy, frustrating, etc.  Still, progress is being made.  We have primered and painted all the doors on the top of the cabinets (Phase I).  There are three phases.  We are about halfway through Phase II (the bottom cabinet doors and bases).

All the doors went back up and the stuff went back into the cabinets (happy day!!).

There has been much painting.  We had colors that we affectionately call ketchup and mustard.  We are replacing with cream and chocolate.  The mustard color was Everywhere!  We have painted the hallway, taken everything out of the closets and painted inside, and we've done some of the big walls.  Two walls will be accented in chocolate.  One of those walls is done.

There is still much left to do but it's nice to see it written down and documented.  It's going to look nice I think.