Neighborhood citation of the month: Boat on driveway

Okay, so maybe we don't get one every month and they are not really citations, but we sure have collected quite a few warning notices for breaking rules since living in our house in Alabama.  Some have made sense like the one about our lawn needing a mowing, which it really did and I was just waiting for someone to be home for us to go buy one.  Then there was the one about the scooter on the front porch, which I kind of get, but still think it looked better than the broken wicker chair Mom now has there (fixing it is on the list of projects somewhere between finding the guest bed under mom's stuff in her office/the guest bedroom and finding the desks and file cabinets under the boxes still not unpacked and stuffed in Dad's office).

When I left for Tucson at the beginning of the month, I totally predicted we were going to get a citation this month.  I thought it was going to be for the leaves in the yard which were just starting to fall and with me being gone for a month I figured no one would get around to taking care of them in a manner that pleases the reporter.  However, instead it was for having the boat parked in the driveway.

Now we never planned for the boat to be permanently parked in the driveway, but when Mom and Dad brought it from the cottage to keep (and use!) in Alabama for the winter they just put it in the driveway.  Apparently, that is not an okay thing to do.  I don't remember anything against it in the bylaws I read, which may or may not have been the real ones as we were confused on whether we ever got the right paperwork when we asked for them before officially purchasing the house (we were worried about the fact we had 4 cars to park on the driveway, which reminds me that I should do a post on how we now don't). I think I would have remembered, too, because I was dreaming about a truck and a boat since we were looking at houses last December.

Anyways, Dad told me today that he got a notice saying that we cannot have a boat on our driveway.  Of all the notices we have gotten, this one really bugs me as it makes absolutely no sense.  It is not like we have a garage to put it in.  Yeah, we were all along planning of getting a spot at the storage place, but sometimes we may want to have it on the driveway, such as the day before and/or after taking it out in order to load/unload and clean it up.  I feel like we should decide to just leave it in our driveway now until they show us the actual specific bylaw that we cannot.

Because it's been forever

Today Mom said Our Kaotic life hasn't been updated in forever (July to be exact).  It has been almost exactly a year since we made the decision to all move to Alabama and I am spending this month back in Tucson. I gave Dad a hard time about spending so much time back here when he came back in March to just work on making our house ready to rent for a few weeks and that turned into him being gone for two months.  Now I tried to make my one month into two months and stay until Thanksgiving, but Mik said I had to come home as planned.

He had several reasons why I could not stay gone longer.  His first was that the DirecTV genie box is getting full of shows. WTF, I have to come home so I can watch TV? I informed him I have been watching the shows on Hulu, so he went and deleted them and that problem was solved.

I forget what the other reasons he mentioned were, but somehow the conversation got around to how it is weird we did not go to D.C. this year and how we almost did go last month in a last minute road trip with Mom as part of her having to be there for work.  He said I should have gone, but he had forgotten that I was the one that was ready to do it and he was the one that didn't want to go.  I ended up not going because he wanted a mom weekend and if I went then mom and I would have been in D.C. for the weekend.  As much as he ruins all the fun yet again, I gave in and am not extending my stay in Tucson because at least in the end he admitted the real reason he wanted me home was he missed me.

Several random posts coming up in the next few days including the onion experience that I told Mom I would post to put something fresh on the blog.

So much for it being the spare microwave

Today Dad finally drilled a hole in the countertop and my cabinet area of my room is finally functional as my soap studio.  I had brought 2 microwaves with in the move to potentially use.  Dad hooked up the bigger seemingly nicer one and we were going to put the other in storage as a spare in case I ever needed it.  Well, it never got to storage because a little while later I went to use the microwave and found that it turns on and appeared to be cooking, but it didn't create any heat after the two minutes I set it for.  At least I already had a spare and I didn't have to mess up the kitchen, which finally has clean counter space after Dad and I coming home from the cottage to find the kitchen stuff, as we we call it, exploded.

Keep This Kitchen Clean Eat Out!

A few months ago when unpacking boxes from the move that ended up in my room, I found this cross stitch that had been stored in the garage probably since we moved to Arizona from California in 1994. It was made by my grandma for my parents' first anniversary.

Right away I thought it should not go in the kitchen.  It is not because I do not like it, but I know Mom and she does not need any more encouragement to eat out (i.e. spend money).  Of course, once Mom saw it, though, she insisted we hang it in the kitchen.

The pinkish frame color did not really go with our Coca Cola theme, so today I repainted it the Coca Cola red from the leftover paint we had from painting the big wall in the kitchen/breakfast room.  Now it not only goes with the kitchen theme/color, but the whole thing looks better since it brings out the red in the cross stich.

Trains really do use the tracks

Living near the train tracks in Tucson we got used to have trains regularly go through and hearing them.  Here in Huntsville, though, until the night we left for the cruise we wondered how much/if ever trains used the track with the rough crossing signs that Dad learned to really slow down and heed after making the Smart car literally leave the ground going over it.  Not only did we discover the trains use it, but they also go really slow over it, although it turned out to be slow because it was actually stopping without clearing the crossing we were at.

I guess it is good we decided to leave the night before to drive down to Birmingham for our flight.  However, leaving at 11:30 p.m. and then ending up with a half hour train stop/detour made it seem kind of crazy to go up early to only save an hour of driving in the morning.  At least the hotel had free breakfast and we just used Hyatt points rather than paying.  Of course, it meant way less sleep overall and mom doing her final packing at hotel (we firmly had to tell her no packing in car in drive, as that sure leads to chaos!).

Where’s the Disney Magic?

On the first at sea day of our cruise we went to the DVC members welcome meeting in the morning.  Mom walked in to rejoin Dad and I while they were showing a preview of the Disney Magic’s dry dock.  First, she asked me what they were showing.  I told her what they are going to do to the Magic during dry dock in September and her next question was where is the Magic?  The answer….WE ARE ON IT!!!

Family Project Day

This weekend Mom asked us to pick one day for projects and one for fun as well as what we would do.  Before the weekend we decided on Saturday as the project day and the project being unpacking and finishing setting up Mik's room.  We also planned Mik getting a haircut and Mom going into work in the morning.  We had not (and still have) made fun day plans.

Here is how the project day went, though:

• ~7:15 a.m. I discover there are open houses in one of the developments we may be interested in several years when we save up for our dream house on the lake/river.  Dad and I decide to go to them and we piss Mik off who now says no haircut and no working on his room this afternoon, so the new family project becomes switching the bookcase from living room with the piano in Dad's office.
• 7:45 a.m. Mom, Dad, and I go to Farmer's Market as planned
• 9 a.m. Dad and I leave to go to open houses and Mom goes to work
• 10 a.m. We discover no signs and no cars for there to actually even be open houses at any of the four houses advertised, although one not advertised was oddly open unmanned and unfurnished, but it was not on the water.
• ~1 p.m. Dad and Mik are trying to decided what to make for lunch and decide to go to Panera Bread and use up a gift card we had.  I go with since it is also a good time to go by Target and pick up the rest of the Disney gift cards for our cruise next week.  As we leave Target Mik suddenly decides that while we are out he might as well get a haircut.
• ~3:30 p.m. We get home and instead of starting a family project Dad and I decide to figure out where our lawn mower basket is we ordered from Lowe's online and had not heard about it being in like it was expected.  We find it is at the store and leave to go get it.  On the way we end up finally stopping at Mad County Winery and tasting their fruit wines.  Mom and Mik were napping when we left and when we got home.
• 6:30 p.m. Dad, Mom, and I decide to play Rock Band

I guess we did get some to dos done, but it sure ended up seeming like more of a Fun Day than a Project Day and we certainly never did anything towards accomplishing any of the proposed projects for the day.  Maybe, tomorrow or our next weekend we are all home (i.e. a month or two!).  One thing is for sure I am determined this week's project of installing my cabinets will happen!!!