Its cold, and I'll cry if I want to

Honestly, it annoys me when people say "Everyone needs to stop complaining about the cold,  People in (insert cold place here) deal with this all the time! And they don't have heat." Blah Blah Blah, Guess what, I don't live in that god forsaken cold place.  I live in a suburb right outside of Chicago. Weather.com says the average High for January should be 31, with the average low at 16.  December should be 35 and 21 respectively.  I want to be in a place where the average temperature falls between high teens and freezing.  Not the insane weather we have gotten.


Weather.com also says the average precipitation should be 1.73 total inches in the month of January and 2.25 for December.  (By the way, 10 inches of snow = 1 inch of precipitation.)


Do you want to know what January was like??? The average HIGH temperature has been 24 degrees, but the average LOW temperature is 6 degrees.  That's a huge difference.  Its been, on average, 10 degrees colder this year. While I don't know what data they use for average, I'm sure its more than the past 30 years.  And lets be honest, the past few years have been warm.   AND, none of this includes windchill.  I don't know what the windchill averages has been, but it has been a crazy windy month.


Guess what else, we broke 2 records this year for coldest temperature and tied another, 1 record was set in 1988, another in 1977, and the record we tied??? 1955.  Do you see what I'm trying to say?  It's been CRAZY cold.  So cold that we have broken/tied records that have been set for 59 years!


Lets compare precipitation now... We have had 4.88 inches of precipitation in the month of January.  That's almost 3 times the AVERAGE.  And guess what, there's a 60% chance it'll snow tomorrow. God only knows what that's going to be like. Oh and December?? also much higher than the average...


So lets go back to comparing warm places with cold places... On January 10th (this year) got 8.5 inches of snow... that was a lot.  And yesterday, Atlanta got 3 inches of snow, which is a lot for them.  Atlanta had 1200 accidents because of that snow, and you don't see people saying it was "no big deal."  Because guess what, while 3 inches of snow may not be a big deal for Chicago (it happened 5 times this month alone), its a HUGE deal for Atlanta.


I choose to live in Chicago, so when we have a 60 degree swing in temperatures of the span of 3 days, Its not a shock... That's what Chicago is like.  But I don't live in the North Woods, or Russia, or Alaska or any other cold place, I live in Chicago.  And you know what?  I'll cry about the snow if I want to.

Christmas Cards - Pinterest Inspired

What to do with all those Christmas Cards?  That's the main question.  I found these photos on pinterest -

      

They gave me some inspiration.  I love the old book idea, however I find it difficult to deface a book.  I may incorporate that into my Christmas cards later.

I was not a fan of keeping the Christmas cards separated by year, because I wanted to group them by families.  How neat would it be to be able to flip through the Christmas Card "book" and see each families Christmas Cards over the years. :)

So here is what I did.  I bought binder rings - 1 inch in diameter size.  Honestly, I would recommend going bigger than 1 inch.  Especially if your only creating 1 "book" as mine is pretty full already and I only have 3 years binded. If your doing each individual year, 1 inch would be perfect.

Here's my final-ish product.  It's awaiting a cover, either a book cover, or just something printed.   All in all, the whole project took 20 minutes?  The longest part was hole punching the cards. :) A very easy task, and now they are stored with the Christmas Decorations!

Misery Loves company - Home ownership part 2

Last I left off, C and I had just realized that our basement flooded with poop water.

It's after that we ask each other why the furnace hasn't kicked on.  I go upstairs to make sure I turned on the heat.  Maybe I didn't flip the switch or something.  So I take off my boots, before walking up the beautiful wood stairs we installed and hadn't had time to sand and stain.  Strange, the thermostat is turned on.  So I go back to the basement and C and I try to figure out what's wrong figuring the pilot light went out.  We take the panel off the furnace and see corrosion on
the circuit board.  Awesome. Our "newish" furnace is broken.  What about the water heater?  We turn on the laundry sink and see if the water heater kicks on. It doesn't.

I can barely keep myself from crying.  Our basement is flooded, its 40 degrees in the house.  We have no hot water, no heat and no money to replace any of these major appliances.  Luckily our neighbor owns an HVAC company so I go over and knock on the door.  I say "I know its late, but we were out of town when the flood happened we got a lot of water in the basement and now our furnace and water heater wont work and its really cold in the house.  Can you please look at it?"  He tells me he'll be over in 20 min after he puts his daughters to bed.  I'm relieved!

Our neighbor comes over and looks at the furnace.  Circuit board is fried, it'll be about $600 if that's the only problem it'll be a few days until he can get the part and its working. So that means we will be using the fireplace a lot to keep the house warm.  Unfortunately, all the water shortened the life cycle of our furnace by a lot.  Then we ask him about the water heater.  We can't get the pilot to light but after about 20 minutes he gets the pilot to light.  Woohooo! Hot shower here we come!

Our neighbor asks us how we got so much water.  We explain that we have no idea, but it came up through the drains so it must be sewage. He asks what that manhole cover is in the front of our house, and I explained that its an electronic backflow preventer.  Not the best flood prevention system in the world since it relies on electricity, but since we didn't loose power we have no idea why it malfunctioned.  We go out in the misty rain and open the manhole cover.  Everything looks ok, but our neighbor decides to jump down and see what happened.  He jiggles the lever and all of a sudden we see the lift gate close.

To this day we have no idea why the lift gate was stuck open. And the only thing I can say is in the future, every spring, we are going to have the flood protection serviced.  We had inspected the lift gate prior to purchasing the house, and there was supposedly nothing wrong with it, but what can be done? Lesson Learned #2 - inspect/service flood protection every year.

Our neighbor says to call the insurance company because we should be able to get some money to cover the cost.  So after he leaves I call the insurance agent and get a voicemail. Not surprising as its 9 PM.

We light a fire, pull out the blankets and wait until morning to start digging into the damage.

So, below are pictures of the damage.  Mind you, this is more than 24 hours after the flood started.

I promise we did NOT leave our basement this much of a disaster. Everything was neatly stacked.

Notice the leather couches have water marks and are puckering.

 Now, granted our floors weren't spotless, but they didn't look like this when we left. If you look at the wall on the right, there is a water line about 20 inches high.

I took a picture of the house outside... it looked so "normal."  Also notice its snowing out... that's how cold it was.

This is the file cabinet I was talking about. See the water line?

This is the wet bar I was talking about. Water came up through the drains.

More water marks.   

The powder room.  See the floor, with the muck... Yeah.  Nasty.

TBC.

Misery Loves company - Home ownership

The flood of 2013.

I don't really know where to start.  The fiance and I were in Pittsburgh for work.  We had a security system and a flood prevention system.  We should have been golden.

It was April of 2013, Everyone in Chicago knew a gigantic storm was heading their way.  And everyone knew when it arrived.  4 AM Eastern time, I got a phone call from the security company.  The water detection system detected water.  That meant there was water in the basement.  I tried to go back to bed as I was in Pittsburgh, I had to show up to work, and there was absolutely nothing I could do.  I kept trying to tell myself, hopefully there was only a small amount of water, maybe the water was coming in from the window wells or something.

At 6 AM Eastern I called my dad.  I knew it was rude to wake him up, but I was getting worried about the house.  The village we live in had been sending us updates on the storm.  The storm sewers were full hours ago and there was "nothing the village could do."  Turns out, my father was awake dealing with his own issues.  Everyone I knew either had their own flooding issues, or they didn't have keys to the house.

Seeing as we had the locks changed after we moved into the house we never fully exchanged everyone's house keys.  My future in-laws didn't have keys, neither did any of our friends.  (this has since changed, Lesson Learned #1)

So I waited anxiously for my parents to be able to get to our house and tell us the damage.  Unfortunately, a few hours into the day my dad calls me to tell me his water problem is under "control" but they can't get out of the house.  I get these pictures from my mom to show what he means.


The black car is parked in the street my parents garage sits on.

 If you look closely, you can sort of see a firehydrant almost entirely under water.

My parents garage.  Obviously, no way they can drive in the street.  They may be able to get a car out of the garage, but then where?

If you look closely you can see a red car with the trunk open and the water almost all the way up to the trunk.  Basically, it wasn't safe to drive.

So unfortunately, we had to wait longer. By this time the storm had died down, so hopefully it was only a matter of time before we got news about the house.

At noon, I told my boss in Pittsburgh that I had to drive back to Chicago.  Our house was flooded and I don't know how long I'll be gone or how serious the flood is.  I suspected I'd be back by Monday as "I'm sure its not that bad."

And so my fiance and I made the 7 hour drive back to Chicago.  We hit Chicago around 5 PM.  It was then that I really got scared.  There was no traffic, literally no traffic. While driving from Indiana through Chicago to the North side of the city we didn't see a single break light.  Oh jeeze I thought.  This is not good news.  Also around 5:00 my parents made it to our house.  They said there was "muck" everywhere on the floor so we definitely got water, but it "didn't look bad."  They commented on how the basement kinda looked like we just threw everything there when we left.  I was confused, I knew we had a few "storage" areas, but I thought I left everything stacked in an organized fashion.

We finally got home around 6 or 7 PM.  The house was freezing, but that didn't matter we had the heat down low while we were out of town.  We immediately went to the basement to see the damage and turned up the heat.  We put on our work boots and decided to see how bad it was.

The facts:
We had wood paneling in the basement. Not my favorite thing in the world but not terrible, it was good quality.  There were water marks 15-20 inches up on the wood.  However, wood is not a reliable measuring tool when dealing with water.  There was a metal filing cabinet that had a water mark 11.5 inches high.  My fiance makes meade using wine bottles.  We store the empty wine bottles on their sides in the basement.  3 of the "levels" of wine bottles were filled with "water." The 4th was not.  The 4th bottle opening was at 13 inches off the ground.  The 3rd was at 10.5 inches off the ground.  So, we got water, we got a lot of water.  Somewhere around 11.5 inches.

We went into the basement powder room and saw "muck" in the sink as well as toilet.  "huh, so the water came out of the sink..... that means .... this... is .... sewage." Beautiful.  We went to the wet bar, there were standpipes in the wet bar sink.  The wet bar sink was full of water because the standpipes made it so it couldn't drain fully.  Definitely sewage.  There is no way anything could come out of the sink except through the drain.  Sewage.... Poop water.  We were walking in poop water.  We are breathing poop water.  omg. But why didn't the backflow preventer work?

TBC....

American is not a language

At work we are dealing with the Chinese and the Spanish (as in Spain).  Therefore, frequently things will be translated from Chinese to Spanish to English.  Lets just say, a LOT gets lost in translation.

But what I really want to write about is how stupid people sound when they say "So it was translated from Chinese to Spanish to American?"  This happens quite frequently and when this happens I want to scream American is not a language you moron!  However, I bite my tongue (sometimes literally) and move on with the conversation.

Statements like this make me fear for future generations.

I still call him my boyfriend

A few weeks ago, I came home from Pitt.  C surprised me with a date.  Actually, C will say it wasn't a surprise, I should have known because I asked him to plan it.  However, I thought the date would be us going out to dinner, not going to a dinner theater detective show.  (Which was AMAZING btw)

Anyway, the show required me to dress up.  Since I had only brought jeans home, and the only nice clothes I had in Chicago were summery, I had to go shopping.  So, C and I went shopping.

I narrowed down the choice to 2 outfits so I asked the fitting room attendant "to go get my boyfriend, C."  As soon as she left I realized my mistake.  Sorry C!


C and I got engaged September 30th.  It is now the end of January, we have set a date, picked a venue, hired a DJ and photographer, chosen our colors and are getting ready to send out the Save the Dates, and I still catch myself calling C my boyfriend.

When my friends/family or whoever would call their fiances their boyfriends, I always thought they were just doing it for the attention.  They wanted to show off the fact that they are engaged.  

I can tell you for a fact I am not doing it on purpose.  

Save the Dates - Abbreviations

I don't know if its just me, or if its all engineers or what, but when I'm chatting with people (via gchat, sametime, or office communicator) I tend to abbreviate things all the time.  Pittsburgh gets abbreviated to Pitt.  Marquette University gets abbreviated to MU.  Engineering terms get truncated.  The Kentucky Derby is just The Derby (because honestly, what other Derby matters?)  Basically, I've developed my own language.

So, when I'm talking to someone about Save The Dates, of course that gets abbreviated.  Hence my hilarious conversation -

I'll let you know, but i'm pretty sure we are sending STD's to everyone who she put on the list. If I remember it was ~ 70 people

C and I should probably get on those STDs...

  HAHA

  STDs!

  Save The Dates

  LOL

Since this convo I have started to abbreviate Save the Dates as StDs.  Its helped a little.  But has still been some hilarious conversations.

I Bought the Dress I'm going to be Married In!!

I've been to two bridal salons.  Both were amazing experiences.  (Message me if you need recommendations in the Chicago Area.)

My fiance reads this blog so I can't get detailed except to say it is white. ;)  And its beautiful.  And I look beautiful in it. (What can I say, I'm modest.  Haha)

But, they say as soon as you try on the dress you know, and that's the case.  I tried on the dress at the 2nd salon and I didn't want to try on anything else.  The only reason I tried on the rest of the dresses was this was the first dress I tried on at that salon and I booked a 2 hour appointment.  Once I put it on, it was perfect.  It fit like a glove and I felt happy in it.



Every once in a while I get really giddy and excited about the fact that I am marrying C.  I can't wait to start our life together.

Used Furniture Grosses me out

So, I'm in Pittsburgh (which many of you already know).  I'm only here for 6 months so I do not want to

1.  Move all my stuff here.
2.  Buy all new expensive stuff.

So I had a few options.  Try to find a furnished apartment (they are as much as $500 more than what I'm paying now, btw it was CRAPPY furniture), Try to rent Furniture (as much as $600 a month on TOP of rent), OR stay in a hotel (as much as $800 a month more than I'm paying now).  So I decided that I could furnish an apartment for less than 3k ($500 times 6 months...)

So far I've spent ~ $200.  I bought a blow up mattress that I plan on sleeping in until I find a cheap bed ($60), sheets and a comforter ($100), and miscellaneous items around the apt.  I "splurged" on the sheets and comforter because I think I am going to keep them and use them in the guest bedroom at the house.  The blow up mattress was also a splurge, but I have to sleep on this for at LEAST 1 week (perhaps as much as 6 months) so I wanted it to be nice.  BTW - this air mattress is "a Queen" and all I have to say is BS.  This is NOT a queen while fully blown up.  Its a full.... at MOST.  So, Coleman, liar, liar pants on fire.

Anyway, since I have nothing better to do (and goodwill failed me) I've been scouring Craigslist looking for cheap items.  I have to say most of the furniture grosses me out.  Basically anything with cloth gives me the heebie-jeebies. All I keep imagining is people peeing or puking or having S*X or doing other gross things on the furniture.  I mean lets face it, some people are NASTY. And it just grosses me out.  With a kitchen table, I can clean 99.9% of the germs off of it.  (According to Lysol or whoever).  Which means if I clean it twice with Lysol (or whatever) 99.9% x 2 leaves VERY FEW germs on it.  So stranger's puke or whatever germs are virtually gone.

BUT, I can't very easily bleach an entire sofa.  I may be able to clean the surface of the couch, but I can NOT clean the stuffing or whatever is under the cloth surface.  And liquid can penetrate stuff REAL deep... Ewwwww.

And, even though I can put a slip cover over the sofa, put a mattress cover and sheets over the bed, I still can't get over the grossness.... I know this is a "me" thing, but I can't get past it. :(

Week 1 DONE!

Week 1 in Pittsburgh down, 27 more to go.  In those 27 weeks I have almost a week off for Disney World with C, My first bachelorette party, and my MOH (Maid of Honor) coming to Pittsburgh to see the MU/Pitt game.  Unfortunately, right now, that's all I have scheduled.  (While I'm reading what I write I realize it may  be slightly confusing why I am having a "first bachelorette" party.  The first one is a destination party, while the 2nd one will be in Chicago.)

So everyone should come visit me. :D

Icey Windshield in a Rental

Honestly, I've been pretty lucky.  Today (Wednesday) was the first real cold day here in Pittsburgh.  However, last night was REAL cold.  Cold enough to make all the car windows frosty.  And that is the start of my problem.

But back to the beginning of the story.  I woke up and got ready for work.  I went to the cafe area (like I have been every morning) in my hotel and got my complimentary coffee.  As I went outside to get to my car I realized I could see my breath and there was a TON of frost on every single car in the lot.  I began to wonder if my rental car came with an ice scraper.

Even though I may not be able to drive well in the snow, I have dealt with frost quite often and I know what to do.  So I immediately turn on the car, blast the defroster (including the rear defroster) and start searching for the ice scraper I'm praying the car has.

Of course I can not find an ice scraper, so I got back into the car and sat there until the defroster began to work.

About 30 minutes go by until I finally admitted to myself that the defrosters and heaters in the car do not work.  I can still see my breath in the car, and there has been NO progress on defrosting my windshield.

So I went outside and try to find someone who does not look like they are in a hurry.  I see this gentleman and I walk up to him and explain my situation and ask if he has an ice scraper.  He explains that he does and he'll bring it right over.

Of course he managers to scrape off all the ice in about 3 minutes and I thank him profusely.  Unfortunately the entire endeavor made me about 45 minutes late for work and when I finally did arrive I was frozen to the bone.

I'm calling Avis in a little bit... we will see how that goes.

First day in Pittsburgh

They don't have a computer for me yet, which means I can not do any training.  Therefore, I have nothing to do.  I have already attempted to go to several banned websites including - Netflix, Hulu, Youtube and Pinterest.  For some reason they do not allow Pinterest, but they do allow Facebook.  And thankfully gmail is also on the "allowed list."  However, I'm bored of facebook.

So, I decided to waste some of my time writing C's brother (Navy) a letter.  He started basic last Tuesday and we got his address over the weekend.  In the letter, I told Navy how I was bored and tired.  Then I started to feel a bit guilty because I can only imagine how difficult it has been with doing PT and everything.  After 5 minutes of doing that, I ran out of things to say.  Nothing is really that exciting here.

I have explored the bathroom (they are very nice and new).  The cafeteria looks really nice too!  I've heard that there is a gym here, but I have yet to venture there.  And the rest of the 4 hours I've been here has been extremely boring.

*sigh*

Let me know if you want to send Navy a letter, I can email you his address.  If I figure out something interested to write about I will... until then.