November 29, 2016
Chow's really does have the best Vietnamese food in town. We went there last night for dinner after working
on the house. I managed to get the master bathroom painted with its first coat. Today will be the second coat
and that should be it for the master bath except for the glass wall for the shower. The dumpster guy called to
check up on us since we have been holding his dumpster hostage since mid-October. I told him we should have it to
him by the end of this weekend. It should be full after the Friday night move. It looks like we will be moving
in the rain after all. Thank you, Sarah! We appreciate the weather forecast. I hope the rain will die down in
the evening. However, the forecast calls for rain all day Friday and Saturday. Sunday is turning into a beautiful
sunny day after all. I am putting away my Stinnett golf shirts until the spring time. It was a bad idea wearing it
yesterday and walking to lunch. The sun was out but the wind was brutal. Uniqlo is where it's at...stylish and
simple, affordable, no tax, and no shipping. By the way, I refuse to buy furniture from West Elm because of the
stupid white glove service, shipping, and tax. I do not need a butler to unpack my furniture and assemble for me.
They need to make that service an option.
The move on Sunday did not happen after all. I'm not really that surprised. The move was moved to this
Sunday but it has since moved up to Friday night due to the snowstorm coming our way. This week would be six weeks
in temporary housing. I am getting quite antsy to live in the new house. What is left are painting in the two
bathrooms, installing the mirror, sconces, and fan in the bathroom, hanging of the fixtures and ceiling fans, and
installing the below cabinet lights. Armando did a great job finishing up the rest of the stuff over the weekend.
He went in early Sunday morning to finish his work. He stopped by last night to pick up the remaining cement
debris and to check up on things. He will be building out a cellar door for us as his next project. This guy
really is a true handy man. The only think he can't do is the electrical work. Everything else is fair game.
My goal this week is to have the bathrooms painted and all the touch up work done by Thursday night. Friday is
a hard deadline that cannot adjust any further.
It looks like Eddie and his family are not coming home for Christmas. He says he has no money and does not
want to fly Nicolas. You think I'm cheap with spending? He barely spends anything on his house, yet he spends
a butt load of money on his two fancy cars. There is only one driver in his family. That's him. His wife still
cannot drive because he thinks she will run off with his baby. Yes, that's what he said. This guy
is insane. Why have two cars when you only need one? Anyways, we are disappointed that they are not coming home.
He thinks the Grapevine trip from September is good enough. Wait until Mom hears about this. I actually
think he is saving up to go to Vietnam in the spring. He asked me if we wanted to come and I said no.
The alarm was on full blast this morning. I really didn't want to wake up. The holiday party was a lot of fun.
I'm glad we made to the Mayo for the "after party". We won a hand puppet thing and hamper. We will give them
to Sarah and Jim for their baby boy. Carrie didn't want to take her toaster oven home to San Antonio plus she
doesn't cook so she gave us her oven...pretty sweet deal. We definitely have countertop room for the oven. This also
means I can keep my stand mixer out on the countertop. The friendship funeral to take place today was the
best part about Saturday night. Paul got read. After stopping at Pho Lien Hoa, we went
straight to the house. I replaced the paper on the floors. That took all day. The contractor started on the
side entrance stairs. Paul finished texturing and started to caulk the windows. Tess finished painting the laundry
room ceiling. We got back to Sharon's with chili and a snacks spread waiting for us. It was very nice of Sharon.
She also switched out the cars so the Pilot was on the outside of her Altima. We will definitely miss living there.
But...as any adult child, it is time to move out of the homestead and start living on your own. Carlos and his guys
should finish all of their work today. This leaves us with painting, hanging of the fixtures and ceiling fans, and
finish building out the main bathroom. This week is short but it should be a full week of work. Fifth Harmony
tore it up last night at the AMAs. Ariana and Nicki Minaj were nasty.
I've managed to reduce the time of baking and decorating sugar cookies from two days to one day. Use
the freezer to cool down the dough before cutting into them. The freezer speeds up the process tremendously.
When I use the word "tremendous" now, I can only think of our President-Elect. Thank you to Tess, Sarah, and Paul
for decorating the cookies. It's definitely a team effort. I'm not big on decorating. I'll supply the cookies
and icing and people can take it from there. Perhaps we need to do a cookie decorating sesh with the boys
at some point for the holidays. Sharon stayed clear of the production area while we worked. I managed to get up
this morning and did an abbreviated work out. I picked up Taylor from her hotel and we had breakfast at McDonald's
like old times. We picked up a biscuit and coffee for Marci. Tess, thank you for packaging the cookies and taking
them to the store!
The house alarm is definitely working. They call immediately when the alarm code is entered
incorrectly. I tell them the secret password and identify myself after they call. It's all good after that.
So the bathroom contractor has been released from his duties. I paid him what we owe him and that was that.
His friend is supposed to come by on Sunday to pick up the plywood. Today is big trash day and somehow
the bags of leaves and dry wall were picked up yesterday in the regular trash run. They left the cardboard boxes
behind though. Also, the two trash cans were flipped around as if a tornado went through the pile of trash.
Carlos and his plumber should be done with the remaining work this week. PeeWee is supposed to come by and
finish the electrical work. Our trip to Pawhuska is cancelled. We will see Mrs. Drummond another time.
Thursday night, I showed Taylor the new house (under construction). I showed up a few minutes earlier than
anticipated. The drive from my office to Enable is literally like two minutes. The third ceiling fan was
returned to the merchant because we didn't pick up from the Avana office on time. They don't keep packages for
former tenants. They actually sent us our refund check a few days after the move-out. I was expecting at least
a month to get our check. I left a good review for them on Yelp. Barrios was pretty neat. It was still Mexican
food no matter what you say. Barrio means poor neighborhood according to JC. Friday night, we welcomed Tess and Blain
into their new home. Looks like everyone will be living off of Western except for us. Good thing for I-44 to
take us from BFE to civilization in no time. We worked on the house all day on Saturday. I cleaned all of the
windows and finished cleaning the bathroom tiles. We didn't win Trivial Pursuit. We couldn't get those pink
categories. I got a few of the Geography questions of course. The other team for sure got easier questions. Everyone
enjoyed Chow's. It was an experience for Sharon. We went to morning mass this morning. Father Novak told us
we will be fine. He was definitely a Hillary supporter. We worked on the house a bit more after mass. Sharon
and I opted to have breakfast at home instead of meeting Carrie and them. Paul knocked down Tess's wall. We picked
up almost all of the leaves in their backyard and transported them to our place for big trash day. I am never
doing self checkout at Walmart again. The machine is way too sensitive with bagging or not bagging items.
We had frozen pizza for dinner and as I write this, it's not even 7pm yet and I'm ready for bed.
Unsettling but survivable to say the least.
Election day is finally here. A lot of us, including me, did absentee ballots to beat the rush. Whoever you
vote for today and however you answer those state questions, it is your duty to exercise that right. I know a lot
of people are turned off with the elections. Now is the time to tell your local, state, and federal
governments how you feel. No matter who gets elected, we will have our next president determined hopefully by the end of
tonight. The cliffhanger from the Gore/Bush fiasco was drawn out into the following year. Although Gore
won the popular vote, he had to accept his defeat because the electoral college rules. Let's see how it all
pans out tonight. Good workout this morning after a long hiatus. I felt frumpy and sloppy the past couple of weeks. It didn't
help that I sat in a car for 20 hours over a course of three days. It's good to be back in the groove. Let's see
how long this lasts until I fall off the wagon again. We stopped by John's for Halloween. It was funny seeing all
the kids dressed up. A lot of them were intrigued with the zipper on John's face. A couple of them were freaked out
but almost all were like what the heck is going on with his face.
Marci and I left OKC at about 11:30am. We made a pit stop in Dallas to visit with our old coworker. He was actually
Marci's old boss. He now works for match.com. We visited his office, which reminded me of Yelp's office but not as big
and not as noisy. It was actually super quiet. We had lunch at Whole Foods right next door to the office. We then
left for our road trip to Houma. We stopped in Shreveport for Starbucks and continued on. I love I-49 because
there is never any traffic on that road. It essentially connects north Louisiana with the southern part of the start.
The interstate ends at Lafayette, which turns into a crazy system of roads that eventually spits out as Highway 90.
I was impressed with the improvements to Highway 90 in and around Lafayette, but there was a lot going on with
construction. Driving in the dark while trying to stay in the narrow lanes was a challenge. For the most part,
Highway 90 resembled a legitimate interstate with ramps to take you on and off the road. There are a handful of
traffic lights sprinkled throughout the road. We got to Houma late Friday night and went straight to bed.
The next morning, we got up to run some serious ends. We picked up donuts from Mr. Ronnie's, replaced the battery on
her car's remote control, and got our nails done. Before the wedding, we had a snack and a drink at a restaurant
near the cathedral. The wedding was beautiful. It was actually the longest wedding mass I've been to. It was a solid
1.5 hours. The Trump/Pence sign awaited us as we entered the reception grounds. Keep in mind, no signage was up
to direct guests to the reception but we were greeted with the Trump sign. Very classy! After the wedding, we drove
to Marrero and had a quick snack. We went down to the French Quarter. Marci got her beignets, hand grenades, and
a reading from a tarot card reader. I also picked up pralines from my favorite place. Luckily, they were open.
The quarter was crowded but not too crowded. I suspect most of the folks were at Voodoo Fest. I literally just
missed Andrew and Tino never called me back. We drove back to Chi Chinh's house and were knocked out. We left
the West Bank at about 7am. We almost ran out of gas between Alexandria and Shreveport. There was no gas station in
sight until Marci found one that was about seven miles away. Keep in mind, we were driving at 0 miles left of gas
(according to the gas reader). Luckily, we got gas and continued on. I was back at Chris and Sharon's at 4:45pm.
I baked Halloween sugar cookies minus the frosting. We carved pumpkins. Blain or Noah won...I'm not sure. I couldn't
get up for the gym this morning. I should go after work. Congratulations, Stephen! See you guys in San Antonio!
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