For remembrance: The good, the bad, and the ugly.

728 East Wall Street.

We are now close enough to leaving the rental house that I can bear to post pictures and write about it.  When I told Robert that's what I was going to do he said, "why now?"  It's not that it has been terrible, it has just been a "bit" of a challenge.  It's hard to explain but  I just couldn't post them before now.  I do want all of us to be able to look back and remember how we spent 7 months in close contact and we all lived to tell about it!  I don't want to seem ungrateful.  We have been very fortunate.  Our landlords have been very nice and are letting us stay our few days in February for free.  Nevertheless, I shall document the good, the bad and yes, even a little ugly.

The good:  Big screen, high definition TV.  I gave up Fox News for the Food Network.  Honestly, if we had
not had this we probably wouldn't have survived.  Sad, but true.
The bad:  The boys got addicted to Adventure Time.""

The good:  Large back yard.
The bad:  Large back yard that has a lot of cat traffic.

The good:  Such a sweet dog.
The bad:  She had to be on a tie-out in the large back yard.
The ugly:  She eats cat poop.

The good:  Robert's very clean room.  He didn't grow so fast that he couldn't fit in this bed.
The bad:  This bed.

The good:  A dedicated office space.  We managed to stay fairly organized.
The bad/ugly:  It sits outside both boys rooms and their bathroom.

The good:  an actual laundry room.
The bad/ugly:  I had to clean gum out of this dryer twice.

The good:  Large master bedroom with king sized bed.  Please notice Susie up there on the pillows.
The bad:  It's just not our bed.  Susie doesn't seem to mind.

The good:  A big enough kitchen to function in.  I have become more proficient at crock-pot cooking.
The bad:  Try cooking out of ziplock reusable containers and foil pans for 7 months.
The dishwasher sounds like a jet taking off.  Oh wait, maybe that was an actual jet...

The bad:  Pizza does not fit in this freezer.
The ugly:  Joe has been in pizza withdrawal and has become addicted to corn dogs.

The good:  a reasonable living room, and the aforementioned TV.
The seating arrangement allowed Jim to have lots and lots (and lots) of foot massages.
The bad:  Once Jim stretches out on one side and Joe stretches out on the other there is no
 room for the rest of us.  

Skipping the good and the bad... this is Joe's room.  7 months of UGLY.

The good:  The boys had their own bathroom.
The bad:  The boys had to share a bathroom.
The ugly:  Robert had to share a bathroom with Joe.

The good:  We had our own master bathroom.
The bad:  The vinyl shower curtain accosts the person showering.
The ugly:  Having to get the plumber out twice (and verging on a third time)
to clean out the tub drain:  standing in inches of water to shower.  
Sorry if that is too much information.

Another view of our master bathroom.

Here is Susie sacked out in the sun... poor baby will go anywhere to sleep in the sun, including the bare floor!

 The good:  The little house across the street.  It was our home for a week...
back when we thought we would only be renters for 3 or 4 months.
It housed Michelle and Miles twice.

For the last what-feels-like-17-months-but-has-actually-only-been 7, I have taken Susie on walks almost every day unless it has been too cold.  (Below 42 degrees.)  It is an interesting neighborhood with a lot of personality.  Yes, it also has good, bad, and ugly.  And just plain weird.

The good:  Susie loves to go for walks
The bad:  Susie knows when it is late afternoon and she should be going on a walk.
She is very good at making her wishes known by following me around and giving me a
look, as well as a lot of huffing and puffing.  

The good:  New construction in the neighborhood.
The bad:  Once a dog jumped over this fence and I thought it was going to eat Susie.

The good:  There is a large diversity of houses to look at when walking.
The bad:  Some of them are scary.

The good:  This house is condemned.
The bad:  This lady was a true hoarder.
The ugly:  According to the builder that bought the property, the lady lived in one
room with no running water and there were cats, raccoons and armadillos living in
the house along with her.  The city had to come and trap all the feral cats in the
neighborhood.  Sadly, there are still some left that frequent our back yard.

Here's a back view of the "hoarder house."  

Ok, so this doesn't really qualify for the "good, bad, ugly" routine.  It is just plain weird.
The sign is hard to read, but it says "Chair-ee Tree."  And those are little red plastic chairs
hanging from the tree.  I cannot think of a single other thing to say about it.

So we are just days away from moving.  Almost close enough to count hours.  This morning I had to count up how many more showers in the vinyl-shower-curtain 

wrapping-around-you-while-you-stand-in-soapy-water shower.  

At the house and barn, it's all good (other than the inches of rain that we got yesterday which prevented them from bringing trucks with sod and swimming pool plaster on the property today.)

The landscaping crews have been going gung-ho for the last week.  This is outside Jim's office.

Backyard pathway from pool deck to garage

Fireplace installation

I cannot wait to sit in front of a fire again!  This one will put off a bit of heat.

Here's the fireplace in Jim's office.  This one is unvented.  Clean burning.  Oh, but you should have
a window vented when it is burning.  And a carbon-monoxide detector.  And it puts off enough heat to
warm up the whole room.  I wonder if Jim will let me come sit by this fire when he is working.

It's a little hard to see in this light but the tub front is finally completely tiled.  I think
all of the tile is done now... Jim and I started looking at tile last January 25.  I am
tired just thinking about it.

This is how the concrete on the barn floor stained.  It is waaaay darker than I wanted.  It looks fine.  But
that little whiny voice in my head just says, "why can't they do things the way I have picked them???"  

This picture shows how rust colored it really is.  I wanted TAN.  Are they color blind?
Does this look anything like tan?  I hope that once we get moved in and I am busy
doing barn stuff that I can learn to ignore the whiny voice.

So, there it is.  The good, the bad, and the ugly.  I think the sheer relief I feel that we will soon be out of this rental house moving into our new house is keeping me from fully realizing the backbreaking work that is ahead in the next two weeks.  Ignorance is bliss.  Or maybe denial is the better word!