#LowesBlows

In the past few years we have bought the following items at Lowes:

• A Washing Machine
• Carpeting
• A Dishwasher
• A Storm Door

And every single installation had a problem. Every single one. And believe me it’s not us…we’re not those type of people who are high maintenance or hard to please. At least I’m not.

It started with the storm door. I take the day off of work, the dude shows up to install the door, and realizes he doesn’t have the door on the truck. And guess what? There’s no time to go back to Lowe’s and get the door because that would make him late for every other installation he’s got…you know, those lucky folks whose doors are on the truck?

Next it was the carpeting. We shell out what for us is serious coin for new carpeting for 85% of our ground floor. After moving ALL the furniture out, the dudes show up to install it, take out our old carpet and begin rolling out the new. The head installer starts scratching his head and calls Lowes. Seems they cut the carpet wrong. I don’t understand all there is to know about carpeting, but Lowes messed up our measurements somehow. They were able to install it, but there are areas where I can see the cut lines…they don’t join seemlessly…something about the nap due to the cutting error.

We called, complained, and got $300 off our bill. Oh, and that carpet? After only a few years it’s buckling. Our carpet looks like a tidal wave right in front of our wall unit. We called to ask if this was normal after just a few years and got some song and dance from the manager. Thanks, fella.

With two strikes against them, we next purchased a washing machine from Lowes. When the dudes installed it, they busted our turn on valve. They claimed it was old and rusty, and we needed to call a plumber to get it fixed before he could install the washer.

I went ballistic.

I said something to the effect of you are the professional and should’ve realized before you forced it that the valve had the potential to break. I got on the phone with the store manager and insisted that THEY pay for the plumber to come and fix the valve that his installer broke. They did.

And we got a gift card for this being the third time we’d had problems.

When our dishwasher broke just a few weeks ago, I pleaded with hubby that we go anywhere else to buy it. Problem is, the Lowes by us is the only game in town. All the other joints that sell appliances were either too expensive or too far away for reasonable deliver. So we were back at Lowes with high hopes and crossed fingers.

After all, they couldn’t possibly fuck up a 4th time, right?

Installation of the new d-wash was successful! I’d run it a few times, was pleased with how quiet it was, and doubly pleased that the utensil basket did NOT go on the door. I hated that about our old washer – all sorts of crap would get stuck behind it on the door, and it was gross.

So I go to do dishes this past Saturday, open the d-wash door and see that 1/3 of the seal gasket had totally become detached…it was just hanging there like a black snake. After two weeks.

LowesBlows strikes again.

Hubby gets on the blower and ruins some poor appliances manager’s Saturday evening. We were promised Monday delivery of an upgraded dishwasher at no extra cost. Monday comes and hubby calls the installer to find out when he’s showing up.

Good thing he did.

The installer says, “The washing machine is there already right?”

Hubby says, “no, it’s at Lowes.”

Installer says, “Lowes told me it was at your house already.”

WTF…..can you imagine if my husband didn’t call the installer? He would have showed up and it would’ve been the storm door all over again…”gee willikers sir, it’s not on my truck!”

Hubby calls Lowes again. I am now the proud owner of an upgraded Whirlpool dishwasher and a $100 Lowes gift card. But you know what blows as much as Lowes?

The utensil basket is on the door. Typical.

POSTSCRIPT:
We spent our $100 gift card on a new grill. We get it home, and over the Memorial Day weekend, buy a ton of meat, and go to start that bad boy up.

Nothing. We managed to get the pre-built grill with a busted starter. After a phone call to the store manager, we got a new one delivered ON Memorial Day. But not the same grill. Oh no. This sucker has 4 gas jets and a side burner. I’ll be grilling and chilling all summer long.

The Grass is Rarely Greener

When my husband and I bought our little house 12 years ago, there was no lawn. There were weeds, and saplings, and bramble, but no lawn. The property had been left to the ways of the wild; every acorn given free reign to grow into a mighty oak, every pine nut encouraged to sprout up a tiny little pine tree.

While viewing the house with our Realtor I picked my way around the lot, tripping here and there on a root or a rock. I imagined a rich, sun-dappled lawn; green and lush and freshly mowed. My brother-in-law suggested we mulch the whole front, and I gaped at him in horror. Mulch? No sir!

Before the ink was dry on our mortgage papers we called in a landscaper. Hubby and I spent a weekend digging out and pulling up every tree, root, rock and weed. Then the men came and tilled the soil, added in pounds of lime and other things good for the soil, spread seed, and laid down the straw. Within a few weeks the front of our house was carpeted in green. A neighbor even stopped one day while walking past and told me how much nicer the house looked.

The lawn held it’s own – for a few years. There were spots where the grass never seemed to take hold, and I’d scrape up the earth and re-seed it each fall and spring, but eventually it would revert back to dirt, or clover, or moss.

We rented an aerator once and plugged the entire lawn, then put down more seed. Our lawn looked great until we hit a drought. It rained something like 4 times the entire summer. Everyone’s lawn looked like crap that year.

Then we decided to hire professionals – TruGreen to be exact. Their team came in and did a whole bunch of treatments and sprays and seedings and feedings, and our lawn looked great. Until we went on vacation for 2 weeks. We halted the service and by the time we got back our lawn had deteriorated greatly. Our neighbor told us we’d had plenty of rain, so it couldn’t have been that. It made me distrustful of the company – how could a lawn could fall to pieces in the span of 13 days?

So we fired them. Here we are 3 years later and our lawn is in the worst shape it’s ever been.

I stare at neighbor’s lawns with envy. My husband says it’s because we have too many trees on the property, but I’ve seen homes with lush, green lawns that have just as many trees as we have. I want to give up, but I just can’t.

I went out yesterday and bought a bag of plain Jane grass seed – nothing fancy. No self watering, mulch covered seed – that’s too expensive. I scraped and dug and scratched away 3 wheelbarrows full of moss, and seeded 1/8 of my lawn. I was too tired to do any more then, but I will today. I’ll work hard to fill in the gaps and maybe, just maybe, I’ll have a halfway decent lawn by July.

Then Hubby and I will fight over who gets to use the lawnmower.

 

String All The Lights Sweet Darlin’

Yesterday, in accordance with Thanksgiving weekend tradition, I dragged all the Christmas lights out of the garage and began the task of decorating the house.

The usual light string death toll was down this year – I think I only had to throw away 3 strands, which is pretty good. I don’t use the big, giant lights like my parents used back in 1977, and the new fangled LED lights are not really in my budget. Thus I am a mini lights gal…your average string of colored lights as hubby won’t let me use just white – he thinks they are boring.

Actually, hubby and I argue over the lights each and every year. The only thing we agree upon is the giant wreath we hang in the front window. See, our house has a mainly glass front, and the over-sized wreath covered in lights really looks nice against the warm glow of our home at night. The problem is that’s the only decoration hubby really wants. Simple. Classy.

Boring.

I like lots of lights. I gaze longingly at homes that are covered in lights and whose yards are jammed with light encrusted reindeer and snowmen and icicles. If they have music to accompany the lights I am positively pea green with envy.

Years ago I purchased some fake evergreen garland, wrapped several strands of lights around it, and have since used it to line the railing of our front deck. During the day it gives the deck a festive look, especially since it compliments the wreath. At night all those lights nestled in the garland give our deck a nice, thick rope of holiday cheer, rather than just a straggly line of dangling bulbs. Hubby hates this garland. HATES IT, and we argue over whether to put it up every year.

At the beginning I had icicle lights, but he hated the way they looked during the day, so that particular style of holiday lighting was forever banned. And because he doesn’t like wires to show, I figured hiding them in the evergreen garland was a stroke of sheer genius. It still leaves me scratching my head as to why he hates it so much.

Then there are the bushes. We have these three incredibly ugly bushes in front of our house that serve absolutely no purpose except from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day when I cover them with lights. This is no easy task. I don’t know what genus of evergreen these bushes are, but I think they were grown by the devil himself. The needles are razor sharp and stick in your fingers at the lightest touch. It was way too hot to wear gloves yesterday, and my hands are now covered in angry scratches and I had to tweeze more than one needle from my fingers. But the result is so worth it…the wreath, garland and bushes form a sort of triple play of Christmas lights – a very symmetrical triple play.

And Hubby still hates it.

Slovie Chalet in her Christmas Finery

So this year I let him get involved. He strung lights along both sides of the house, but we couldn’t quite get the lights to climb to the top of our roof peak…ain’t no ladder high enough…which was too bad because it really would’ve looked awesome. The finished result was okay, but nothing to write home about, and I think that bummed him out. He had no interest in continuing the light fest the next day, so I dragged out the garland and the lights for the three bushes, PLUS some light up reindeer I had bought on sale at the end of last year. And he groaned about all of it.

As the sun went down and the lights went on, I walked to the street to give my house it’s first holiday once over, and I was thrilled. I mean, we wouldn’t win any contests, but nobody else in our neighborhood puts up much in the way of Christmas lights, so it really makes our house stand out. And this is the first year I didn’t have to go back and fix something. Usually one bush has too few lights or a string of bulbs went out even though I thoroughly check them before I start. But it was all really nice. Simple and nice.

This morning I asked hubby if he thought the house looked good when he came home from work. He just said “eh”.

Bah humbug.

Dad the Lunchbox Bandit

the lunchbox has landed - sans one turkey sandwich

Yesterday was my kids’ first day of school. I know it’s early…I have blogged/whined about this fact in the past. All in all, their day went well.

Enter the morning of day two. I had to make both the girls lunch – corn dog nuggets and baked beans were on the cafeteria menu. Wouldn’t you pack a lunch, too? My girls like a good sandwich for lunch; ham for daughter #1 and turkey for daughter #2. I had two rolls left and I had just bought a pound of ham yesterday afternoon. I didn’t bother to buy turkey because I knew I still had some in the fridge.

As I dug through the meat & cheese drawer gathering all I needed to build these sandwiches, I couldn’t seem to find the turkey. Hmmm. No, that’s bacon. No, that’s Muenster cheese. I pop my head up and ask hubby, who is notorious for moving things around in the fridge, “Where did the turkey go?”

He looked at me with surprised horror and stated, “I ate it for lunch yesterday.”

This is another thing hubby is notorious for. He will use the last of something, be it turkey, mustard, cream cheese, zip lock bags, and not tell me. I, therefore, keep this food/pantry item in my mental store room and only find it’s missing when I need it the most. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve prepared a hot dog only to find there is no mustard – to me, that’s like eating cereal with no milk.

So I balled him out. A little. I didn’t have time for anything more elaborate because it was 6:30 a.m. and I had to scramble to invent a lunch. Daughter #2 tends to be a bit picky, so we went over all the choices and settled on a smorgasbord lunch comprised of this & that from the cabinets and fridge.

And today when I go to the store? I am loading up on things that can easily be made into a last-minute lunch. I just hope hubby doesn’t eat them all.

The Unexpected Dinner Guest – What Would my Mom Do?

One Greasy Slovak Spoon

My oldest daughter’s sorta-kinda boyfriend was over the house when I got home from work today. He’s a great kid, and I like having him around. So do both of  my daughters. I told my oldest that sorta-kinda boyfriend had to leave by 7 so we could eat dinner at a reasonable hour. A few minutes later youngest daughter came in begging to let him stay until 8. Or 9.

I  knew this was going to present a dinner dilemma…mainly speaking, asking sorta-kinda boyfriend to stay. Many of you may be thinking “big deal.” Problem for me is, over the years I have become cook-a-phobic. I have come to the conclusion after 17 years of marriage, and almost 16 years of motherhood that I am not a very good cook.

Naturally, this means I get a bit panicky when it comes to cooking for strangers. I even get nervous cooking for my sister, the person outside my family that I see the most. Doesn’t help much that she is an excellent cook. bitch.

So I picked my self up, marched into the Wii infused living room and said “sorta-kinda boyfriend, would you like to stay for dinner?” He meekly replied that he didn’t want to be any trouble and would by happy to just watch us eat.

Watch us eat? They would take my Slovak membership card away if I allowed someone to just “watch us eat.” My mom would always ask friends of mine if they wanted to stay to dinner. Lots of times they did. Why am I missing this simple impulse? It was time for my hands to grasp the bull by the horns.

I told him nonsense and that he was staying for hamburgers. Yes, that was what was on the menu. It is what my oldest requested. I did them up gourmet style though with sauteed onions and mushrooms, pickles and bacon, and baked potatoes.

I could tell he was slightly uncomfortable while eating. I can remember back to my days eating over a friends house let alone a sorta-kinda boyfriend’s house. It could be murder. So I jabbered on about stupid, funny topical stuff trying to keep it casual. And I was really proud of myself.

My instincts were to not eat and force sorta-kinda boyfriend out of the house as early as possible, thus escaping the uncomfortable I-know-my-cooking-sucks-but-eat-it-anyway scenario. But I bucked up, took charge and fed the masses. And it turned out ok. We ate at a reasonable hour, and I showed  sorta-kinda boyfriend and my oldest that I am capable of being a normal mom.

A mom like my mom was. I can see her winking at me now and humming “Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries.”

I Heart Being Home

I love my teeny tiny too small for me home

Last evening we rolled back up our driveway after a 5 day trip, and let me tell you, I was glad to be home. A few minor inconveniences along the way made the trip good rather than great. It taught me a thing or two – things I won’t repeat on our next trip.

1. I hate living out of a duffel bag. When we stay more than 2 days at a hotel, or when I’m staying at my dads, I unpack. I can’t stand rummaging around a jumble of now unfolded clothes looking for a bra or socks or a specific pair of shorts. There was no place to unpack where we were, so I did a lot of rummaging.
2. Camping sucks when it rains. Our new tent, in agreement with many online reviews, did not stand up well to elements of the watery nature. Our first night under the stars it POURED. At first it was soothing – that pitter-patter of water on the tent was nature’s lullaby. Then, nature got a wet diaper…the head of our tent began to collect water and our pillows and sheets got wet. Needless to say, I was up early. It rained for most of the next day too. We went to bed after a long night of partying on damp beds.
3. When you want pizza in NYC, don’t wait until you hit Times Square. I knew this fact, but could not manage to convince my husband to stop in the Village at one of the many Rays Famous. We had Sabarro instead.
4. I really missed my cats

I don’t want you to think our adventures were all bad – there were good things on our trip too!

1. White Castles taste just as good 6 hours later. We had 4 murder burgers left after our family gorge fest, but I refused to throw them out. I tucked them in the car for later consumption. After a long day at our old hometown pool, those puppies were calling to me. They were just as good cold, but they did make the car smell fairly funky.
2. Walking around my hometown as an adult was emotional. I explored the main street, my old park, and my elementary school.  There were times I was very close to tears remembering the days I spent as a kid in a safe, quiet town.
3. Early mornings in the country are sacred. I got up with the sun on our first day in upstate NY, helped myself to a cup of tea and sat out on the deck perusing the local paper and the local nature. I was rewarded with humming birds and yellow finches. I also took a walk with my youngest daughter where we spotted wild blackberries and a garter snake.
4. It was really good to come home to our cats

Our family leaves for Florida in a few weeks. At lest there I can unpack my bag and stay a while.