Friday, January 30, 2009

Can't Find my Camera Cable!

Grrrr... I can't find my cable for my camera to upload my pics! I want to put up some more pics. It's gotta be around here somewhere! I put up a new profile pic, taken on my phone of course.
And I have a few unfinished posts as well. I'll try to finish those and get them up this weekend!

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Still...

getting things fixed 4 months after that damn hurricane! So yeah, the roof is done. Now the next thing is the electricity box. Before the hurricane it was already being pulled from my house because the energy company changed the pole that my electric wires are connected to. When they moved the pole it pulled on my wires and started to pull the electric box off the back of my house ( i told the electric company this and they said it wasn't their problem that I would need to get an electrician and pay for it myself!) . So then when hurricane Gustav hit the wind moved the pole and pulled my wires even more and pulled the nails out more. Well, after they finished the roof and I was looking back there I noticed the box was pretty much hanging off! Not good! So I have been calling my roofer who is really a general contractor and asking him if he could get his electrician out to look at it. I figured we'd just stay with him instead of calling around and finding the electrician ourself. So anyway, my roofer calls me this morning to tell me the electrician came out and his charge to fix the electric box is going to be $1,135! Yes, he must be crazy! The insurance company only gave us $300. So I call my husband and tell him and he's like no way, we'll get another estimate. So he calls another company and they came out within 15 minutes! The guy takes a look at the damage and tells me it'll cost between $300 and $400. Whoo, ok, much better! So he is coming out next Tuesday to fix it. Now I have to call the roofer to tell his guy not to come out. I'm sure he'll be pissed but oh well, he shouldn't have tried to jack up the price on me so much.
And after that's finished we still have the inside repairs to do, the sheetrock and drywall. He said he was going to send someone out this week to come do it but I was like nope. First you need to come and write up an estimate telling me exactly what's being done and then give me a total price! Because I'm sure he's going to try to jack me on that too. I guess if he trys that I'll just find someone else!

Monday, January 19, 2009

Rock & Rye Whiskey

Have you heard of this before? Well, most people haven't. It's a rye whiskey mixed with rock candy and fruit. It's a little sweet and a little thicker than regular whiskey. I would call it very smooth. Anyway, back in the old days this was prescribed as a cough suppressant. When my Dad was a little boy and his Dad was in the Navy he was told to drink this and when I was younger my Grandma would give it to me. We're all sick here with this sore throat, cough, sniffle thing and I remembered the Rock & Rye. So I went online to see if it was even still made and it is! But before ordering some I figured I'd call around town first. The first place I called had no idea what I was talking about, but the second place knew exactly what I was talking about! And they had it in stock. So this afternoon I drove all the way across town to Marcello's Liquor store off Perkins. The guy I had spoken to on the phone with was right there and took me right to it. They only had 2 bottles left b/c he said a few other customers had come in looking for it for the very same purpose I was. It is made by LeRoux and was only $10.99. And I have to say that the whole staff at this liquor store was so nice, very friendly. While there I also looked for a Guatamalan Rum my Dad was wanting and they had that as well. They had just about every kind of liquor you could possibly imagine. On the way out one of the girls asked me how I had heard about the Rock & Rye cough remedy...she said they had so many people talking about it that she wondered if we had seen it on TV or something. Nope, just an old time remedy. But if you have a cough and a sore throat this stuff really does work. And it tastes good too!
Ok, off to take a shot and then get some sleep so I can get better.
Night!

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Busy Sunday

We had 2 birthday parties today. Both at the same time! My nephews was at the bowling alley from 2-4 and my friends son's was at The Little Gym from 2:30-4. So I decided that Eddie would take our 2 older son's to the bowling party and I'd take Logan (almost 4) to the little gym party.
But before we went to go look for some shoes and jeans for my oldest son. We went to a few places but didn't find anything so my hubby and the 2 older boys went to the mall and me & Logan went to Walmart to get a gift for the party we were going to. We got him the Discovery viewfinder and a Shrek reel. Those things are pretty cool. They even talk to you now! Back in the day ours did not talk with each push of the button.
So after that we made our way on over to the party for 2:30. It was a cute little place. Had a gymnastics room with like mini size equiptment. Just right for the little ones. Logan ran right in and started playing. Running and jumping and walking on the balance beam and jumping off and then jumping up to the uneven bars yelling "Buzz Lightyear and Beyond" LOL! He was so cute. I saw a whole different side of him without his 2 mean big brothers around. They did little activities, like dancing and jumping and then they rolled out this big flat blow up jumpy thing. He had a lot of fun jumping on that. He had so much energy!
When we got home a little after 4 my husband and sons were already home. They had found some more deals at the mall. They got 3 pairs of jeans, 1 pr. shorts for 50% off and some Nike Shox regular $107 on sale for $79. So now my oldest son has clothes and shoes and can longer complain that he doesn't have anything to wear!

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Gotta love after Christmas sales!

We went to Dillard's this evening looking to buy some clothes for my oldest son and boy did we hit the jackpot! We were downstairs browsing when one of the sales ladies came and told me that we should check the clearance they had upstairs. Now, I hate shopping off clearance racks. Not that I don't love a great deal, it's just that it's such a pain to dig through racks of clothes that are just shoved there and all the sizes are mismatched etc. And b/c I always have the kids with me and they won't stay still long enough for me to dig. But we went ahead and dug through the racks and ended up finding some awesome deals. In the end we got 19 shirts, all name brand for 81 dollars and some change! When we got home I took all the tags and added them up by original price...the total was almost $600! Holy cow!
Now he needs pants and tennis shoes! So tomorrow we're going shopping again to see if we can find some more deals.

Friday, January 9, 2009

The Roof is Done!

They finished around 10 a.m. this morning. It looks great! I didn't get any pics yet but will soon.
Now onto the other stuff. An electrician was supposed to come by today. I'm not sure if he did b/c I had to leave but I should have an estimate for that soon. Hopefully, it won't be too bad. All he needs to do is reattach the electric box back to the house. Then in the next few weeks my contractor will send someone to fix my sheetrock and drywall inside. So at least things are moving along and getting taken care of.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

I Have a Roof Again!

The roofers came this morning, a little later than expected due to an order that wasn't ready for pick up yet but they made it! They got up there and got things going pretty quick. Unfortunately, once they got the tar paper scraped off we could see the extent of the damage. Much of the plywood was rotten. Thank goodness the roofer estimated the amount right and had just enough to replace the bad spots. It was kinda funny b/c when I pulled the door down to look in the attic it was bright and shiny sunlight with all the wood gone. It was very loud ALL day and the house shook and vibrated a lot, lol, kinda aggravating but in the end will be well worth it. They worked until dark and were close to finished when the owner called and said he didn't want the guys working in the dark so they had to stop. All they have left is 2 small spots and the ridge caps to finish. But it looks so much better already. We got Timberline 30 yr. architectural, and the color is weathered wood. It looks so nice. I'll take some pics when it's finished tomorrow!

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Cleaning up

Today the weather was much better! I worked in the yard most of the day picking up and packing away our Christmas decorations. Then we cleaned up and mowed the yard. It looks so much better, but pretty boring with no decorations =(
But Valentine's day and Mardi Gras will be here soon so I'll be decorating again!
Tonight my roofer came by for me to sign the contract. He says they will be here at 7:30 a.m. tomorrow to start on the roof! Yea!

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Happy 3 Kings Day!

Today is 3 kings day or also known as the last day of Christmas. To read more about 3 kings day go to this link-> http://three-kings-day.123holiday.net/
I always wait until 3 kings day to take down my Christmas decorations. And we eat King cake and have a nice dinner on this day. This year I had to take my tree down early b/c my middle son that has eczema and asthma really bad was sick and not getting better and the doctor thought he might be getting worse b/c we had a real Christmas tree in the house. Tomorrow when the weather is better I will take down the outside decorations and clean and mow the yard.

What a...

Crappy day! It's been raining all day. It dropped from 75 degrees to 55 degree within an hour. And more and more places in my house are starting to leak, yikes! I talked to my roofer again today, he's supposed to come tomorrow to show me the color samples and then start on the roof either Thursday or Friday!

Since I have nothing better to do, here are some New Year's Eve pics:











Monday, January 5, 2009

4 Months Later...

and I'm still dealing with the insurance company and roofer! I am just so ready for this to be done with! My roofer called me today to tell me he wants to get my roof on this week, yea! FINALLY! He asked me if I had heard from my insurance adjuster about the latest estimate he sent in. I hadn't and told him I'd give him a call. So I call my adjuster only to find out on his voicemail that he has been moved to another branch. Great, just great. It tells me to call the main Allstate number. So I call the main number and get reassigned to another adjuster and I should hear from him within 3 days. This will be my 4th adjuster, ugh.
Thank goodness the other adjuster had finished my second claim and I did receive a new check for the mold and internal damage claim for $4690. But we had sent in another claim right before Christmas for the costs of the materials that they jacked me on and a few other things. No one can find that one so now my roofer will have to fax it in again and we'll wait some more. But it won't affect getting the roof done because we have enough for that now. So hopefully we will be getting our new roof this week! And it's going to be the 30 yr. architectural roof not the crappy 3 tab and he's doing it for a great price! I'm just so happy because it's been raining a lot here and leaking a lot in my house, not good!
Later this afternoon the new adjuster called, that was pretty quick! So I called the roofer and left a message with him to fax the last estimate to the new adjuster. Hopefully this new adjuster will be as easy to work with as the last one.

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Welcome 2009!

My first entry for 2009 =)
My hubby tried to fix my computer but the virus just kept renaming itself. It was a Virtumonde virus where it send you to the websites it wants to and keeps popping up their antivirus software for you to buy etc. Anyway, he wiped my computer clean and reinstalled everything. So now I'm good to go! And I wish I could tell you where I got the virus from but I can't remember the exact site. All I did was type in "Myspace happy new year comments" into the google toolbar. It brought up a list of sites and when I clicked on one of them my computer started getting all these popups! I now have AVG installed. I think we got it from CNET.com and it's a free program. It scans e-mail and websites.

So like that wasn't enough, new year's eve my camera's XD memory card decides to mess up! Everytime I would turn my camera on it would say turn off or format. That was the only 2 choices! And if I hit the format button it would say that all info was about to be erased! Thank goodness I had almost all my pics uploaded. So it was just the ones we had taken that night and my Christmas morning video. So Eddie went online and found a site that would allow me to recover the pics off the card before we reformat it. We did get the new year pics and 2 other video's but it won't give me my Christmas morning video, which really sucks!

Ok, so besides my electronics problems...we've had a good start to the new year. New year's day we went to my parents house in the afternoon to eat our black-eyed peas, cabbage and cornbread. It's a southern tradition! More info here... http://gosoutheast.about.com/od/restaurantslocalcuisine/a/blackeyedpeas.htm
My Dad cooks the cabbage and black-eyed peas (or Hoppin' John as they call it) and I make the cornbread. He does a really good job, it all tastes really good. So we ate that and had some summer sausage on the side. The kids wanted some more so I was cutting it with one of my Dad's super sharp knives and was trying to be careful b/c I know how sharp his knives were and of course I cut right into my thumb! Ick! It's a bad slice but didn't hurt, thank goodness!

This weekend it was kinda rainy and nasty so we didn't do much. Just ran a few errands and went to different stores checking out their after Christmas sales. We always find cool stuff at Radio Shack. We found a V-tech kidzoom digital camera and a V-tech CARS learning laptop for good prices so we went ahead and got those for Logan's birthday. It's coming up in February so now we won't have to be wondering what to get him!

Oh, and I was going to post some New Year resolutions, but ya know what? I never stick to them. So I'm thinking maybe I just won't make any this year and then there won't be any disappointment, LOL!