What a Crock: One Year, One Crockpot and One Reno Wreck

Food Mood :Treatin’ Myself to some smoked salmon and mostly not cookin’ Reno Ridiculouso : The doors and windows and the…. Oh for F’s sake!   Why the bleep is nothing straightforward????? Ok, so the title might have given away that I’m feeling much less serene than last post.   Cool Contractor worked fast and efficient and got all the walls and roof up and we’re ready for windows and doors, which thankfully have been onsite for about three weeks. And that’s when we realize that every door and window that has arrived is wrong.   Not just a little bit wrong, dramatically, ridiculously wrong. The Hubby goes back to the big box company from which they were ordered and…. Yep.   They agree that the doors and windows were definitely manufactured wrong.   Yep.   Sorry man. We’ll order you new ones, should take about three weeks.  Ok.   Right.   So I get that people make mistakes and I’m trying to be cool and the Hubby is...

Food Mood :Feelin’ the Fall and the Farm:   Sausage Corn Chowder Reno Ridiculouso : Walls going back up In early October we get a new contractor hired who we’ll call Cool Contractor.   Cool Contractor is straight forward, he and the Hubby discuss every aspect and when the Hubby asks him to do something, they debate, they clarify and it’s done.   And… sigh of relief. However, until (and unless) we deal with sueing Bull Talker Contractor, we don’t have a lot of cash left.   So we agree that Cool Contractor will frame the walls, put ‘em back up, do the roof joists and roofing, the windows and door and leave it all ready for Tyvekking.   At which point Hubby and I and a small army of little independent jobbers will do the rest.   Which, by the by, is why this thing will end up taking another eight months, but there ya go.    In the meanwhile, my Uncle decided to move out of his farm and into a retirement home.   This is a gre...

Food Mood : chilled out and back on track, Chicken Burritos  Reno Ridiculouso: Supporting Things After the debacle with Bull Talker Contractor, we elect to ignore him, pick ourselves up and move on.   Unfortunately to do so in a legally defendable way (who knows where this train is headed) we’ve had to wait seven weeks and give him the chance to adhere to the original architects drawings or at least bring it up to standard via the engineers amendments.   But it’s clear to us that this relationship is never going to work and Bull Talker is going to have to go if we’re not going to come to blows over this.   So adios.   Sayonara.   Don’t let the door hit your backside on the way out.   Oh wait, that’s right we don’t have a door.   Bye. The good news story?   Our friends are awesome.   As you yourself have likely figured out by now, friends in your forties are kinda weird.   They’re like this shadowy background idea....