The Last Week in Pictures

By popular demand, a picture of Cheeba. The reason she's not on the blog more often is because every time I ask her to help, she doesn't respond. I think it's because she's deaf and can't hear my repeated requests but Jesse thinks she's ignoring me.
Regardless, she's still here...I guess the sign from a few posts ago has been working. I think Jesse's getting used to living with a cat -- actually, I would go as far as to say he is enjoying it.Jesse and Tanner started working on tasks you don't need permits for (due to the delay I'll speak of later) -- one of these being sanding down the scratch-coat of stucco that is one of the reasons for our neighborhood 'crackhouse' designation. When I say Jesse and Tanner, I mostly mean Tanner. I wasn't actually present (no spring break for me...) but when I came home, Tanner was on the ladder and Jesse was watching from the ground. All of the pictures seemed to confirm this -- I saw no pictures of Jesse working...
One of the things I know Jesse did that day was to take a lot of trips to Home Depot and Harbor Freight Tools. I know this because of all the receipts that were handed to me when I got home from work. I think Jesse wrote a bit about this in his last post.
Tanner seems happy to be covered in dust. At least we sprung for the fancy eye protection. The masks came with the house.
One of the things Cheeba does while she ignores me is sleep. Right next to one of our dish drying stations. Granted, it's in the sun - but really? She later moved onto the towel...it was washed and the drying station moved shortly thereafter.
Tanner (again) hard at work. I guess someone's got to take the pictures...
There was no lighting in the garage and we couldn't really go in there after sun down. Jesse assured me this was not because vampires patrolled our garage and even installed some lights to prove it. Now I'll go in there - but only with garlic cloves in my pockets and if he's within screaming distance.
Semi-finished window -- all sanded down and ready for the top coat of stucco.
One of our weekend projects was lighting and furniture for the master bedroom. I'll spare you the drama surrounding the furniture and let Jesse tell his story later (suffice it to say he narrowly avoided a fistfight with a bedroom set purveyor.) Below is our new ceiling light in the master bedroom and our new bed -- it has nightstands on either side. (We still don't have window coverings...baby steps.)
Our dresser with two great lighted globes from Ikea. Detail below.

Close-up of the ceiling fixture. You would think it would be easy to install -- no. Apparently, we do things differently here in America than they do in Ikea land and nothing quite matches up. Maybe it has less to do with xenophobia and more to do with the old house and old junction boxes not matching with 21st century junction boxes, but oh well. Regardless, Jesse and I had to make a trip to Lowe's for parts then he made another dusty plaster mess in the hallway and bedroom before making my pretty new lights glow.
Jesse's old lampshade for his squat light broke so he decided to be edgy and match it with a tall skinny shade. I think it works.
Cheeba doesn't like it when we move her perch.
Ahh - the only proof we have of Jesse working on the stucco. Apparently, the pH of stucco is pretty high - and most people know to wear gloves when handling it (according to the lovely gentleman at Lowe's upon examining Jesse's hands). Jesse went gloveless that day and has paid the price with peeling, bleeding leprosy-hands ever since.



In this next picture you can see the ceiling light for the hallway along with Jesse's dangling legs. The story here is that at around 11:00pm he decided he'd had enough and wasn't going to take it anymore. The bathroom door opened the wrong way and the switch for the light was on the wrong side. Much banging and dust and drilling ensued. Now we have a much more functional bathroom door and light fixture.

Where the old light switch was. Notice the hole on the other side of the wall. That's our linen closet. Apparently, someone wanted access and they wanted it quickly.
This wall is coming out anyway so we did a quick-fix patch.
Oooohhh Aaaahhhh - the new light switch. Good job, Jesse.

A great many things happened in the last week that were not photo-documented. Here's a quick list of what I can think of (apologies for the very sleepy prose):
- Jesse did six loads of laundry at the laundrymat
- We tried going to Crate and Barrel twice in two days -- the first time it was closing as we walked up (at 7:00pm!!!) and the second time was Easter. Who knew that Crate and Barrel were religious folks?
- All clothing put away - this included a huge purge and arguments about who is entitled to what closet space (dresser drawer score: Corinne - 7, Jesse - 3)
- Box wars. They seem to attack us everywhere. We were minding our own business on the sofa, talking to Jesse's dad when a whole column of them fell on top of us -- twice! They also jump out when you're not paying attention and trip you.
- Drafting guy. Jesse gave up on the drawings and we hired drafting guy to finish them for us. It was getting ridiculously time-consuming.
- Lowe's and the Big Orange Box - too many trips to count.
- Accounting system established. This is a ridiculous accounting system that a CPA would have a hard time following. But it works for me!
- Paint color wars. This time the foes are Jesse and I. We've yet to see who comes out on top.


All in all, we've gotten a lot of the nitty gritty things out of the way. I had taken last Friday off and we sat down, dug in, and compromised a lot. I guess that's what this is all about. Not my way, not his way -- our way. It's still going to take some getting used to - this whole 'sharing a space with someone ALL OF THE TIME' but I think we're doing pretty well so far.

But I'm pretty sure I'll win the paint color wars.