What can I say about the last few weeks? It's been a mad house... almost literally. I'll try to hit a few of the high points.
I spent the first week of December working on our bathroom. We got a good deal on some towel racks from Restoration Hardware, and those needed to be installed before we had our housewarming on December 8th. We also got a wall cabinet at Bed, Bath & Beyond since the medicine cabinet over the sink is woefully undersized. That too needed installation. This meant taking down existing fixtures, patching holes, sanding, and touching up the paint. Thankfully, I found a can of paint in the appropriate color left by he previous owners. The towel racks went up easily enough. The cabinet was a mess -- we neglected to notice that the box was previously opened and taped shut. Someone had obviously assembled the cabinet before (at least partially) and one or two things were missing. Thankfully, they were standard parts, available at a hardware store. Installation went poorly, and I made and then patched an extra hole in the wall.
The housewarming went well enough. It was actually meant to be a combination birthday-housewarming party. I paid more attention to the birthday part, and Mrs. Geek (who wrote the invite) paid more attention to the housewarming. In addition to all sorts of crudites, I made a couple entrees... figuring that a few of our guests would be staying for dinner... and let me show off the capabilities of our new kitchen. Well, that didn't exactly pan out... one of Mrs. Geek's cousins hurt her back... another couple elected not to attend because of illness. The maid of honor at our wedding did stop by; we haven't seen much of her in the last year or two and Mrs. Geek was thrilled to see her. Pretty much everyone had other holiday plans for dinner though... and we were left with a mountain of food.
It ended well though. We just invited some of the same people back for dinner on Sunday (the actual day of my birth). A good time was had by all.
The week since has been full of highs and lows. On the plus side, I got a raise. On the minus side, we got the bill for the sewer line replacement:
$9000!!!
That was over double the estimate. I'm not horribly surprised. I was told by more than one person that these jobs can run this much... and the amount of work they actually did was more than twice the day and a half that was originally projected. So, we got a big "Merry Christmas" from the plumber this week. The upside to all this is that Company O. stock is riding pretty high... so I exercised a few stock options and we've covered the bill.
My parents were awesome about the whole situation. When I called home late this week to check on some Christmas Lists, my Dad insisted on getting on the phone to ask if he needed to send us any money to help cover the bill. I was able to say that we didn't... but wow, I am floored by my parents' generosity yet again.
said drgeek
on 2007-12-14 at 9:54 p.m.
|
The Wayback Machine - To Infinity And Beyond
|