Now the bedroom, the one last room I have.

It's time to move on to the bedroom and change the windows around! So it was a little crazy this morning. We had to move the bed and the "office" all together into the middle of the room, so they could take the big window out of the front and drywall it up. Then move it to the wall where the smaller window was. Because of the laws, we had to have a bigger window than the one that was in already behind the bed.

But at the end of the day, it was like it never happened!

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Aag! I was locked out....

Sorry about that, I was locked out of my blog for several days, but now I'm back! Check me out sitting in my new living room in front of my fireplace, that's the square dug in the dirt there.... The joists are up on the garage and we're getting ready to add the next story!

But not before we do some wiring in the garage first. This is one of the fun things about building a house is deciding where you want to put the plugs and light switches, stuff like that.

There's my Mackie dog sitting in my "front door". He's so cute.

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WE GOT IT!

Well, we finally got our permit, but not until after going thru excrutiaing circumstances! It turns out that in order to get our permit, we must pay an LAUSD (los angeles unified school district) Developer Fee Program and no I don't know what that is either! All I know is that they are charging me an extra $8200.00! We either pay the fee or we don't get our permit. We paid the fee and we have our permit. On that end, you should now start to see lots and lots of progress. HD/L/S/WC:37

An Amazing Thing!

Many of you have heard me talk endless the last week or so about me waiting to volunteer for "Operatin Pet Airlift". This was a grassroots effort started by one woman and grew across the nation! Yesterday a privately funded Continenal Airliner pulled into LAX with 90 dogs and 13 cats that had been rescued from the Gulfcoast area! These dogs were being placed ONLY with animal rescue groups until their owners can be found. I volunteered to help with the dogs once they arrived. My job was a dog handler! I would get one of the dogs coming out of the crates and it was my responsibility until it had everything done and it was in the care of it's rescue group. Each dog had a quick check up with a vet, scanned for a microchip and one inserted if it wasn't there, a heartworm test (which 99% of the dogs were positive for!), Advantage for fleas and photos taken for petfinder.com to hopefully reunite these wonderful pets with their owners. Continental Airlines has graciously offered to fly any animal to be reunited back for free! So cool. I can't describe what it was like to help, so here are a few photos. This is my favorite photo:

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2am and the tarp!

It never fucking rains in California. It never fucking rains in September in California. It never fucking thunderstorms in California, in September, but as our luck would have it, all the stars were aligned last night! So at 2am I thought I heard rain. I got up and sure enough! I ran in and woke Jack up. We hurried, got dressed and ran outside. The good news, if you want to call it that is that it was only drizzling at 2am so it wasn't so bad. But let me describe it in detail for you? Please relive it with me again, it's pitch black out and raining and we have to go up on the roof. Side Bar: Biggest mistake I made was telling Juan to put the tarp up on the roof, just don't worry about setting it up because if it starts to rain Jack and I will take care of that. Why did I do that? I grab the flashlight and up we climb the slippery ladder to the roof. Yeah the roof is made up of 2x4 pieces of wood on the 2" side, so we are walking on the roof, in the dark, in the rain, on a 2" piece of wood, trying to unwrap a gigantic tarp at 2am. Oh yeah and we are trying to talk to one another about direction of the tarp, trying to whisper, not shout but we need to be heard over the crinkling of the tarp! Big shout out to my neighbors who again hate my living guts! Somehow we managed to get the damn thing on. We're sweating and exhausted and it's 2:45am! How are we ever going to get to sleep now? At about 4:20am the sky's opened up with a big boom and dumped a ton of rain down, but we were protected! After calming down the dog from the thundering, I finally start to drift off again and ba-boom, more thunder, more rain so I decide at 5:45am to get up, take a shower and get the night over with! Our handy work; So after the terrific night we had, after getting up before the crack of dawn, I decide to check on Tupac after the storm. Well of course, he made a HUGE mess in his house (gross I know but it is what it is to quote someone near and dear to me) so I go inside, get all the things I’m going to need because now instead of my house being surrounded in dirt, it is now surrounded in mud! My outside shoes are all getting muddy and I really have to think each move out thoroughly. Ok so I get the new towels for Tupac, get him some food, blah blah. Keep in mind it’s still raining, I gather all my supplies and make a run for the cage. I have to come running in the house to get more cleaning supplies. At the precise moment I decided to come back under the tarp to enter the house, Juan and Armando are on the roof securing the tarp and making it so the water flows off it and doesn’t pool up on the roof, are you getting where this is going? I run under the tarp at the precise moment they dump the water from the tarp, right where I am and ba-bam I’m soaked from head to toe. True story and it's only 10am. But you will see today will get much better. Check the next blog. HD/L/S/WC: 34

The Weekend!

Even though it seemed like a semi quiet weekend this weekend, it really wasn't! We had a lot of straightening out to do before moving on to the next step. But first Saturday morning what did I hear? At around 8am I say, "What's that I hear?" I looked out the window and much to my delight and my husbands shagrin, there it was a bounce house! Being set up right next door to my house! You know I had to go over there and check that out! But back to the house! As I said, a lot of straightening out to do. This is now what my kitchen looks like.... And again today, I've gotten struck with more bad news! I have to pear down my closet even more. Say what? Even more? and where am I supposed to put all my stuff and where am I supposed to live and what am I supposed to wear and where is it going to live? What woo what hey? Ding Ding Round Two: HD/L/S/WC: 34

All that's left is the kitchen sink!

We've had several days of so much commotion I can hardly think of where to begin. If it wasn't for the damn lumberyard messing up my order, literally 4 times! Can you believe these guys still messed up my order after the whole "Ass Kickin'" incident! But it's true. Though as of today we have everything we ordered and we are moving along so fast my head is spinning. In the last few days, the pony walls have gone up around the garage: Check out Jack using all his cool tools:

2 days ago I went to the lumberyard in the morning, and came home to this: Bye Bye fireplace!!! But don't fret, it's just moving to my new living room!

The cupboards above the sink went first.....

Today it was like a fire drill around here when the rest of the kitchen came down. It was a very busy day. What is really exhausting is trying to communicate! I have to think of what I want to say in about one or two words, then I have to try and spell the word! Empty, how do you spell Empty? i have to flip thru my handy dandy translation dictionary, try to spell the word correctly and then try to pronounce the word in spanish. I tell you it's taxing! But somehow I manage to get my point across and it does seem to be getting a little easier everyday. Though the really really important stuff I still have to call Pablo for a smooth translation!

This is the back of my house. That wood frame area is the size of my new kitchen addition!And here it is, the last man standing......

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So ya say ya sell audio and video equipment, do ya?

Would you trust your Audio and Video system to these people? Yes, we're talkin' State Of The Art here, but hey I couldn't live without regular TV anymore..... it's Monday Night Football!

Lot's of work done today. All the drywall has been removed from the garage area and the "pony" walls are being built. Those walls in the garage, that's how high the ceilings are going to be in Jack's garage. How happy is he with 10 foot ceilings?

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Q: What am I going to be wearing for the next 4-6 months?

A: The same thing, over and over again!! Well the inevidible came suddenly this evening. I got the dreaded, we forgot to clean out the closet story at about 6:30pm!!!! You see this whole in the hall way? I know it's hard to see...

On the other side of that long skinny hole is my closet. There is a beam that needs to go there and they need to cut into the closet. It looks like this on the inside of the closet now.... And this is what I was left with when it was all said and done. Are you sitting down?

All those hangers came from those clothes on the bed! WOW! Luckily We had a BIG box laying around and I was able to pack it with all my clothes!

Just close your eyes and say, "Your new closet is as big as your current bedroom, Your new closet is as big as your current bedroom, Your new closet is as big as your current bedroom...."

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Aaaw!

Last night I awoke to find that T-Bone, who is usually sound asleep at my feet or on top of my legs, wasn't around. I took a look around and here's what I found:

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An Ass Kickin'

Had to hand out my first ass-kicking today! We had ordered quite a bit of wood from Stocks, special order and it was to be delivered today. We had a new garbage bin coming this morning (yeah shows up at 6:30AM, are you my neighbor lovin' me right about now? Can you feel the love?) so I had them make an afternoon delivery on the wood. The ambiguous, 12pm to 5pm story. So I come home around 5:20pm, there's no wood! I ask Juan, he has seen nothing and they are waiting to unload the truck and go home! I call over to Stocks, which of course closes at 5pm, no one answers. It's about 5-10 blocks away, so I jump in my car and go over there. Lucky day for them, they were having a company dinner and here I come at almost 5:30pm and start yelling to them thru the closed and locked gate! "A Hey, I was supposed to have a delivery today before 5pm, it's 5:30 and I don't have any wood and my guys are waiting at my house to unload." Of course, they kinda want to give me the deer in the headlights look, huh? One second. Another guy comes over, "Can I help you"? A Yeah, I was supposed to have a delivery today, yadda yadda yadda.....Oh yeah, we got really busy today and it didn't go out. "Say What?" It's not like it was a small order. I said to him "Alberto I spent over $8000.00 in wood, it's not like I'm a nobody. You didn't get to it, ya don't call". I am a little annoyed at this time, I mean you don't even call, you just don't show up? Albert cames back and offered to put the wood on a truck and bring it over now, and you know I didn't hesitate to say yes. Company dinner or not! I have 2 guys waiting at my house to go home! You're darn tootin' I want you to put that shit on a truck and follow me home. And follow me home they did!

Someone finally did alert our salesperson and he came over to me very apologetic. He ran inside to give me a free gift to make up for it! Nice gift, a tool bag, with 10 free saw blades, some gloves and get this...the saw blades were missing!

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Bye Bye front door!

So I come home and there they are, two big holes where my front door and front window used to be! Great, now I guess we're moving into the freezer! The guys were just getting ready to leave so in a panic I'm racing around looking for my trusty Spanish dictonary. The best word I can come up with is COVER! Cover, Mucho Cold-o! And did the international signal for shivering! Obviously getting my point across!

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NOT THE CLOSET!

You can't touch my closet! Jack just told me today that this weekend a part of my closet has to come out to make way for a beam! I said, "did you just say my closet?" What am I supposed to do with all my clothes? or at least the clothes that are in that corner. I have not a clue as to how to proceed with this challenge. It should be interesting!

Where's the roof?

Tuesday, Lots more work on the roof, but not by me this time. Here's what's going on in the garage. We are getting ready for Friday's big delivery. A lot of the wood beams are showing up! Until then, the Garage has been taking a beating!

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Who moved our house into the refrigerator?

Wouldn't you know it, no sooner did we start our remodel that the weather has turned cold at night at the beach! With no outside walls or insulation and holes in the ceiling, I ask again, "Who moved our house into the refrigerator?" As I said we (again meaning Jack) spent the weekend working on the electrical at the house. this was fun! Here I am doing my part. We had to tear the bedroom apart to get to some of the outlets, oh yeah we're having a good time! FYI I had just made the bed the night before, with of course about 5 layers (refrigerator), so I had to do it again!

This is how we've been getting in and out of the house for the last week or so. You see that ramp on the right, that's my temporary front door. And someone (jack) broke the news to me today that, next week, my real front door will be gone! Replaced by a big beam. Wow, the reality is setting in.....

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