Top Ten Things I Hate About my House

Just as a preface, I have loved living in the house we are in. I love the neighbors, I love the school, I love my girls friends, I love my friends. I have met some of the best people in the world right here in this little neighborhood. I really love where we live and am thankful every day that we found this place. However, sometimes a girl has to vent. The only thing I don't love about where I live, is the house I live in, and here are the top ten (ok, i need eleven) reasons why...

11. This old house has no insulation and ancient windows. Sometimes it feels like the wind is blowing in the house. And our utility bill....YIKES!!!!
10. The plumbing is awful. I have to use a plunger on some part of the house almost every day and twice everything I put down the garbage disposal blew up out of the washing machine drain and all over the family room. My landlord did not clean the carpet after that...which brings me to #9
9. This house has the sickest carpet in the world. By the time we had our furniture in, a thousand old black marks had appeared, along with a whole bunch of traffic stains. I clean the carpet nearly every week but it looks bad by day three. WHO HAS TIME TO CLEAN CARPET EVERY WEEK???
8. This house has tile everywhere and not good, new, sealed tile, oh no, seventies bumpy tile that is impossible to clean and even when it is clean it looks like crap. Also, some of it has been cracked in earth quakes so it is all uneven and has big holes that multitudes of crap get in then I have to fish it all out. YUCK.
7. MOLD. EVERYWHERE.
6. The grass (I love the yard) is 100% weeds and those thirsty little buggers cost us $250 one month to keep "not totally dead." We made the mistake of putting weed and feed on the lawn and nearly killed the whole thing. We have been nursing our weeds back to health ever since. We are very bad nurses. Dead grass everywhere. Pray for rain cause we'll never remember to water.
5. Two words--flat paint. I hate flat paint. It is so hard to wash the walls and believe me, my walls need washing. See photo.




4. Bad wiring. Once we had electricity in only 1/4 of the house for four days. We had to move the fridge and couldn't wash the clothes. If I plug the vacuum in the wrong outlet it always knocks out the breaker and sometimes ruins an entire switch of some kind that my landlord hates me to ruin since they aren't for sale anymore (they are obsolete). So I must be very careful where I plug stuff and forget about using the oven AND the Kitchenaid for fear of no lights for a week.
3. The sprinklers in the sprinkler system sit four inches out of the ground and Cyrus is eternally hitting them with the lawn mower and breaking them, then we have to fix them which takes like a month so then I have to water the grass with the sprinkler which I keep forgetting and then the grass burns up...but hey, at least the water bill won't be $250. Oh, and even when the sprinkler system works, it doesn't get all the grass so there are these lovely halos of green surrounded by dead grass, which I have to water by hand, which I forget to do...are you seeing the trend?
2. The roof is going to fall any day now. Pieces of the roof come off every time the wind blows. If the wind is blowing and we are playing outside, we have to be very aware of the flying shingles for fear of losing a limb. It is very dangerous. The other day, a roof inspector coming to inspect a new roof on our street, just stopped by to let me know my roof was exceedingly dangerous and I really ought to fix it. I told my landlord. Still no response. I hope the roof doesn't fall on us. I guess it could fall on me this week since I have to teach Relief Society.
1. Now, all those things are pretty bad but the worst thing is THIS HOUSE DOESN'T HAVE ANY CLOSET SPACE. Or a garage. We do have two sheds but these darn racoons chew on anything we put in there...our old car seat, my bike trailer, a box of old shoes, I mean anything. The closets in the bedroom are only three feet across, there is one long closet in the family room but Cyrus has to keep his clothes in half of it, leaving only one large closet to store EVERYTHING WE OWN. This may not seem like a big deal but we are really bursiting at the seam of that one closet. The stuff could fall at anytime. Very dangerous. Really, we are living in mortal peril every day. Just ask the roof inspector. I am sure he would be horrified by my closet.

So if you ever think your house stinks, just come visit the Javadi's...our's literally stinks...the carpet does anyway and so does the dog poo from my nieghbors disgusting animals they never clean up after, oh and the toilet backing up AGAIN is not too peachy a smell either.. I should take out stock in carpet shampoo, bleach, and Fabreeze.

One more garage sale find

This bed has a footboard that is the same as this headboard only smaller. I got it for $15.00 at a garage sale. I think it is super cute. It is in great condition. One of the little acorns on the corners had fallen off but Cyrus fixed it and now it looks just great!! I just had a matress and box springs so it is cool to have a cute bed!!!

The Lemon

No I am not talking about my stupid car again (see post below), I am talking about this huge lemon my friend Kathy grew. She grows lots of them. They don't taste good but it is cool to see it that big!!! She thinks she'll take it to the fair next year.

Sam thinks anything that is almost or nearly round is a ball so all oranges, apples or other various fruits are in mortal danger all day long in the Javadi house. His favorite activity is climbing on the table and chucking fruit from the basket all over the kitchen. So, when I gave him the lemon to hold so you could see how big it was in relation to something else, he immediately threw it right back at me. I think he will be a baseball man.

Goodbye Old Unreliable...

The car looks kind of pretty in this picture but it isn't. It is a piece of crap. We got a new car. You see, this car has slowly been falling apart. It all started right around the time Cyrus decided to go back to school to become a dentist (another LLOOOOOONNNGGG story). These are all the things that have been wrong with the van in recent years:

Water pump broke

Timing got off when Cyrus tried to fix the water pump himself.

It stalled in intersections and had a hard time getting going when you pushed the gas. They replaced some wires--sound cheap and easy but it wasn't.

A flat tire tore off the place where you put gas in plus tore a big hole in the bumper.

New head gasket

Old head gasket had been improperly replaced so we had to rebuild the whole engine.

Some mechanic had broken off a piece of something in one of the spark plugs which broke something else which we had to fix. I don't know what it was but it cost a lot.

Some mechanic left a tool in the fan and broke the fan. Too bad we had to see about a million different mechanics to finally get the van fixed right so we don't know which one broke it twice.

All hoses replaced.

New brakes, twice (fixed wrong once).

Oil pan replaced.

So the end came when I took all four kids to Walmart (I know, WHAT WAS I THINKING) and we got this cart full of crap out to the parking lot and all the coolant was all over the ground. I went back inside and called Cyrus on a pay phone (since Sam had thrown my cell phone in the toilet). Of course, despite my earnest prayers, Cyrus didn't pick up and I just lost it...(crying, of course) "Hi honey, I was hoping you would answer the phone because I am at Walmart and the car is broken and the coolant is all over the ground and I don't know what to do and I had to use a pay phone so Bye." Meanwhile Sam is climbing all over that thing that they use to round up the carts and dropping his animal crackers our of his little box all over the floor, the girls are running all over--playing tag, picking out which toy they would get out of the grab the toy game, trying to pick up Sam who in turn screams like a girl. It was awful. I went in the store and bought some water,filled the radiator and made it home on a prayer.

We tried our darndest to see if we could fix the car, we had Curt look at it and our neighbor, Don look at it, but in the end, it was going to be another expensive fix so we sold it on Craig's list, made enough to get out of the lease on the Yaris and traded up for a light blue Sienna. Now we are a one car family again but I feel much better. Hopefully no one will ever again see me crying on the pay phone in Walmart while my kids destoy the store!! (Also, I got a new phone!)

Missed (photo) opportunities

I forget things a lot. Lately, I have been forgetting my camera or forgetting to use it even when I have it!!!

Some of the missed opportunities:
...we went to Heart's Desire Beach and on a beautiful hike TWICE.
...we made the trek to Tennessee Valley Cove
...Cyrus took the kids camping and hiking
...Sam got all dressed up in a pink My Little Pony helmet, my high heels. and a hammer. He then sat down and started to hammer the heels. Then he got in his sister's bath with his helmet and clothes.
...the girls first day of school (ok, I took the camera but we had to park like a mile away from school so by the time we got there it was getting late and we had to rush then Sam had to try to get away to get on every toy in the playground and open and close every desk and the girls had to say hi to all their former teacher, when all was said and done there was no more time left...I just had to kiss them and say goodbye)
...riding the bus every day
...the camp out with Alyse and Jasmin in the backyard
...three swim parties with neighbors

The list could really go on and on. The kids do cute and funny things every day and I miss so many of them. BUT I also catch some...here are some good random shots from recent days....

Hannah using a bib to keep her school clothes pretty on the first day of school...boy was she excited when she got to go to school again. She has a lot of fun every day she spends at school.



Carolyn looking pretty for the second day of school...the picture isn't the best but the girl in it is really beautiful!!!



Hannah on day two of school. What a pretty lady. She loves to have her hair curled.




Sam's reaction to the school bus. He gets so excited to see it that I can't let him down or he will run right out in front of it. He loves the school bus and he loves the garbage truck. Friday is an especially great day for him, since he gets to see the bus and the garbage truck. It's little boy heaven. Also, just an aside--we have the nicest garbage man in the world. He is so kind to Sam--he waves at him and talks to him and makes a special effort to have the garbage truck shake the cans a little extra, just for my boy. He is really nice--a father of four himself. I could probably do a whole blog on how great our garbage man is and the funny thing is, I would have never met him if Sam didn't insist on chasing the garbage truck down the road screaming at it every Friday morning. Ahhh, the unexpected blessings of having children.



Katie after dropping the girls for their first day of school. That was an exciting morning! The afternoon however, wasn't as exciting, because by then Kate had remembered how bad Mommy is at pretending and playing.

Mom: "Let's play fold the clothes, Katie."
Katie: "That is NOT a game Mommy, that is work."

My tricks worked much better last year. Katie is catching on to her old mom, it's time for Kindergarten.



Sam and Katie just being cute.