What should be happening today, but isn't

What should be happening today, but isn't? The vinyl flooring in my laundry room and hall bathroom, that's what. (Insert a really CRANKY face here)

Last week the Project Manager called and scheduled the vinyl floor installation for this morning at 9:00 a.m. Oh, I was so excited! I knew the jobs were small enough that they'd be finished by the end of the day and had planned to start my very first load of laundry as soon as the washer and dryer had been hooked up again. And then I planned to do laundry for about the next 36 hours straight to get myself all caught up again. I have never looked forward to doing laundry in my life but I can tell you that pretty much nothing would make me happier at this point.

Yesterday, the Project Manager called and said that the installation couldn't take place today because the vinyl I chose was a "special order" and wouldn't be available for a few days. So hang on a sec--I emailed my vinyl choices to the Estimator on Friday, February 15--more than a week ago. SOMEBODY dropped the ball BIG TIME--I don't know if it was the Estimator or the Project Manager, but I am MAD! If they had ordered my vinyl last week when they were supposed to do it, then it would have been ready to install today. Instead, I get to continue haul my laundry to my friends' homes for YET ANOTHER WEEK. Ooh, I am STEAMING MAD!

Not to mention the fact that my husband removed the toilet in the hall bathroom yesterday morning, a few hours before the Project Manager called. The Estimator wanted to charge us $200 to remove and replace the toilet--a fairly simple DIY job--so we opted to do it ourselves and The Mister had it all done and ready to go for the installation this morning. There's no point in buying a new wax seal and reinstalling the toilet, when we'll just have to do it again in a week. Only now there's a new complication--The Mister is leaving on Thursday morning to go out of town for an entire MONTH--so now I have to see if I can 'borrow' one of my friends' husbands to come and put the darn toilet back together when the vinyl is done next week. AND--I'm down one toilet for a week! That's not a crisis as we have 3 others in the house, but STILL--it's a needless hassle.

I swear, every friend or family member I've ever known that has had to use a contractor in their homes said it ALWAYS took longer than expected and ALWAYS was fraught with headaches and extra hassles. Count me in among them. At the end of this, it will have taken more than an entire month for those bozos to complete THREE days of actual work. Believe me, I can't wait until the job is done to write a LOVELY evaluation of their services for the agency that recommended them. I'm getting my typing fingers ready right now.

Tick tock, a broken red clock

Yesterday, there was a tragedy in my house.

Okay, fine, it might not exactly qualify as a tragedy, but I'm still sad! My beloved red plastic retro kitchen clock fell right off the wall and met with an untimely end on the wood floors. I thrifted the clock back in 2008--I was surprised to see that I've had it so long!

When I first bought it at the thrift store for 80¢ the clock mechanism didn't work. I fixed it by buying another 80¢ clock at the same thrift store and using the working mechanism in it to replace the non-working one in my red clock. Pretty thrifty and smart, if I do say so myself!

Now I'm on the hunt for a new retro-style wall clock. All day long yesterday I caught myself looking at the wall where this one hung! There's actually a carriage-style clock hanging directly on the other side of the kitchen so if I just turn my head in the other direction there's still a clock--but force of habit has me looking at the empty spot. If you know of a cute clock I need to see, let me know!

Soda-lighted it's Valentine's Day!

Possibly one of my favorite vintage Valentines ever! Found via Pinterest.

PS--The visit with the Project Manager yesterday went well--as I type, there are dudes in my basement building a new subfloor! It's a Valentine's Day Miracle!

The Laundry room saga...stalled

So, an update on my basement situation. Let me remind you what my laundry/food storage room looked like back on January 25:

And let me show you how my basement looks today, February 12:

Well, to be honest, that's not totally accurate. Cover up the machinery in the corners of the second photo and that's what it looks like. Astute readers such as yourself might notice that there has been NO CHANGE. And that, of course, is the problem.

The mold/water remediation guys packed up their big blower machines and left on Monday, January 28. We contacted the restoration/building company the following day, they called me back on Wednesday and their estimator came out to see the job on Thursday. Since then, we've been waiting for the project manager to contact us; he finally called last Friday to schedule a time to come see the job tomorrow. So that means for the last two weeks we've been sitting around and twiddling our thumbs because we're totally at their mercy. Two weeks more of doing my laundry at my friends' homes. Two weeks more of having to buy groceries that I know I already had down on my food storage shelves, but can no longer locate because all the food is boxed up and piled in the basement family room.

So the project manager will come tomorrow, look at the job, and then assign out the work to subcontractors. And who knows when they'll show up or how long it will take them to get the work done and my laundry room back in working order? It could be another few weeks, if things continue at the same (glacial) speed that they have so far. Monday marked one month since we filed our insurance claim and back when we did that, I naively thought it would all be over and done with by now. Wrong!

So after you read this, do me a favor and be thankful for your washer and dryer, if you're lucky enough to have a set in your home. You might even give them a kind word and a little pat if nobody's looking. I know that I took my ability to do laundry in my own home, on my own terms and timeline completely for granted before. You can bet your Tide With Bleach I won't be making that mistake again!