Karma...The Gift That Keeps On Giving

So.
Recognize this little cutie? Yeppers, it's our old house, all dolled up and missing her front yard trees. Pretty! And for sale...STILL.
The asking price is $192, 000.00. You freaking heard me! So, these two yokels who bought the thing for $116, 000.00 stand to make, erm, let's see...carry the three, borrow 97...yep. LOTS of dough. The funny part is that for as fast as they gave us the boot and hauled ass getting the place gutted and redone, it still hasn't sold. Coming up on four(ish) months. I have to be careful here, I don't want to piss Karma off, but I get to feel a little bit thrilled that they have yet to collect their giant check. My awesome gal-pal Sam did a little recon for me when they had an open house a while ago, and she said that while it looks gorgeous, it's pretty "vanilla" and definitely not our house anymore. So good.
I was just telling my parents that I hope a very nice young family moves into the place and builds a life of great memories there. The house deserves that.
I just hope it takes a liittttle bit longer for that to happen.
I'd really like to email the realtor and tell him that his clients can send our portion of the profits to Bend...but I'm thinking that may be frowned upon. Ha!
Well, that's my quick update. Enjoy, more soon.
Peace!

Going Postal

So here's a new one...
Most of the people reading this probably already know that I share my name with one of my sisters-in-law. First name, last name, middle initial. Yup. You could say that both of us had the good fortune of marrying brothers. We like to say that they had the good fortune of marrying us. When she was a practicing midwife, I used to get calls from women who wanted me to deliver their babies. I was always quick to inform them that they had the wrong girl, because if I did any baby-catching there were sure to be drugs involved, whether they wanted them or not. And of course, I would pass along the correct information! We have had a few funny cases of "mistaken identity," or more appropriately, "confused identity," particularly when people thought that I was a nurse or in some way qualified to minister medical attention to the masses. I am most definitely not. Qualified. Nor, for that matter, am I a nurse.
Now, after the HELL that was the whole house fiasco, the fam and I moved in with said glorious sister-in-law and her hubby. YAY! And it was fantastic. But, clever me...I filled out a change of address form when we did...mainly because I wanted to keep getting Rolling Stone and the Fingerhut catalog. That was fine, although it did make for some excitement when the mail came. We managed to figure out which mail went to whom, and while she got MUCH cooler mail than I did, we did just fine.
Fast forward now. Remember, we moved to Bend. And what comes with moving, kids? CHANG OF ADDRESS forms. Because I am, as I think I may have mentioned once or twice, clever, I went ahead and filled out the online version of the change form. Good job, yeah?
No.
In an uncharacteristic moment that was seriously NOT clever, I filled out the change for the family instead of doing it individually. As it turns out, I inadvertently chose the "pain in the ass" version of the change form. That's right, I pretty much told the United States Postal Service that not only had I and my husband and children moved to Bend, but I essentially told them that my sister and brother-in-law had moved as well!!!!!
AAAAAAGGGGGHHHH!!!
Luckily, the mail carrier at who has their route knew them and the situation and actually knocked on the door to inform them of my faux pas. I had to go back and change the address back to the correct one for the bro and sis in law, and only change our address in the hubby's name. So my sis in law and I will still experience some confusion for a little while, but generally the mail should be getting where it needs to go and my brother in law will be getting the correct mail. Resolved, you ask? Why yes, I thought it was.
So guess what came in the mail today? Their garbage bill and their cable bill.
And while it's going to take some time to iron out the kinks, I'm not even going to lie...it was pretty groovy to be able to receive a bill in the mail (or two bills!) and be able to rip it up and not have to pay it.
Peace...

Rockin' The New Bathroom

So! I know it's been a month since I last posted, but things have been hairy, busy and fabulous. Woo hoo! As most of you know, we had packed up kith and kin (and kittens, cat, dogs and turtle) and boogied over the mountains into beautiful Central Oregon. We arrived on Father's Day, and since then it as only rained twice. For, like, fifteen minutes each. Yup, it's definitely NOT the valley. Some things I have learned over here:

1. Target, Walmart, BiMart, Old Navy, McDonald's Starbucks...They are all pretty much the same as the ones in Eugene. Which is oddly reassuring and disturbing at the same time.

2. Moving into a lovely, nearly brand new house and getting lovely, totally brand new furniture rocks. A lot!


3. Ahhhh, cable (or rather, satellite) tv is, no matter what the "experts" say, a beautiful and wonderous thing. And don't get me started on the miracle that is DVR. Sigh...all the episodes of Dog the Bounty Hunter, Sunset Tan, Miami Ink and The Soup a girl could ever want.

4. Let's not forget about high speed internet. For appropriate adjectives, please see item #3.

5. There exists, in Bend, a street called "Xerxes." That, and Robal Street is LABOR spelled backwards.

6. Children, no matter where they live, still seem to be incapable of locating and utilizing a trash can, laundry hamper or dishwasher.

7. Seeing your kids finally happy after years of real misery is priceless.

Pretty sure there are more, but you'll just have to be satisfied with that for now. Deal.
Now on to more important things. Like our "Hell" bathroom. Because I now have two bathrooms (I keep telling Zak and the boys that they aren't allowed to use my fabulous master (that's right, I said it, MASTER) bathrooom for any reason other than showering. Hasn't worked yet, but I shall perservere. This weekend I spend most of the my time making some additional "decor" for the "public" restroom. With the flaming shower curtain and devil-y things from our bathroom on Skipper Ave, I did a whole bunch of "art" to go with that hell-ish theme. It rules. I know it's weird to decorate a room based on the Underworld, but it's no newsflash that am just a skosh on the weird side myself. LOVE it. And besides, if it disturbs anyone, there will always be the MASTER bathroom. Only, if you are afraid or bothered by zombies and zombie paraphernalia, probably you should run up to the Chevron station on HWY 97 and ask for the key.

So I have interspersed (ooh, vocab word...add it to the collection, Angie Sue) this blog with pictures of our happy hell (please do note the oh-so- clever touches I added because I am a huge nut job). I can tell you all the painted stuff in there is mine, and (come to think of it there are some things that aren't painted that are mine as well, but picky-picky. Shhhhheeeeeoooott!) Nothing in there is intended to be scary or offensive. Well, maybe a teesny bit. Scary like cheesy horror movies are scary. Not scary like in Devil's Rejects scary.
So there you are, kids, brief history of this branch of the Zacharek Family. Oh YEAH. Love, and Peace...