Spike's Bitches 25 to Life
[NAFDA] Spike-centric discussion. Lusty, lewd (only occasionally crude), risque (and frisque), bawdy (Oh, lawdy!), flirty ('cuz we're purty), raunchy talk inside. Caveat lector.
We love our house & yard, but neither of us has the skills needed for fixing things.
This is Scott and me. If I had it to do over again, I would have spent $25K more, in 1997. In our neck of the woods, house prices nearly doubled in the six years we owned that house. We could have stayed wherever we landed, rather than the wee house we started in and had to sell. We're looking at re-doing tons of the stuff here that we were fortunate enough to be able to do in that house. But even though this is a different house, it still feels like "We JUST did this in old!house". Plus now, we have no extra money. We are totally living check to check. I love this house, but I often feel like we made a mistake in buying it.
Plei, what were you talking about before--thick siding boards? Wood? Do you have clapboards, rather than cedar shakes? Could you jimmy one off, and take it to a lumber yard, so they could see what you're talking about?
There's no space for new construction, but the town is so desirable (shortish commute to NYC, pretty town) people are spending $500K for a tiny Cape Cods, then *knocking them down* and building McMansions on the wee lots instead. The big old Vicorians go for $800K and up. Crazy.
This is happening in my neighborhood. (In fact, right next door to me, so that the fucking thing has windows that look straight down into our bedroom and huge bay kitchen windows with no curtains or shades right next to our bedroom, where the developer leaves the lights on all night so it always looks like it's about 5 in the afternoon in our bedroom- can you tell I'm pissed?) They are hideous and most of them are on spec, so it's not actual people who will be living there knocking stuff down, but developers looking for a quick buck. We have an organization against them now and stopping the trend was the sole reason I voted for my city council woman. I'm going to get a nomcmansions sign and plant it in the front yard.
And I suppose that's part of the reason we rent. I like living in the city. I like funky old apartments and duplexes and walking to the supermercado or tacos y mas. I do not want to live in a house in Plano and drive 20 minutes to get to On the Border. I've been looking in south dallas, and with a little improvement I would maybe consider a house there. Mr. H has also figured out a 10 year plan he's interested in. We have a pretty good network here. We're thinking of saving up and then moving out to Arkansas where his parents are.
If it's man made siding it could be hardee board. I looks like wood, but is basically cement.
bt, lot's of ~ma for the AS. She sounds like a wonderful woman and I hope when you get together it is everything you wished for. And I liked your anwers to the dating site questions. Particularly the one about romance. That's an awesomely baited hook there. Although, if things go well with AS it would be well to fling anything you catch with it back into the dating pool. And, she is one lucky lady to be getting you.
Hee. Well, I certainly can't complain about the impression I've made so far. Apparently she just about fell off her chair when I got in touch and said I was an actuary. Good start.
I really was satisfied with the comment I came up with about romance. This points to one of the (few) concerns I had with using online dating sites. I want a relationship, but my romantic side also wants a love story, not just a transaction analysis. I want to be able to tell my children how their mother and I met and fell in love. I want something that makes our story unique. The experience of scrolling through a list of women like it's a menu still doesn't sit entirely comfortably with me. Efficient, yes, but not a love story.
But now I'm into the messy, exciting, nervous-making process of getting to know someone. Now we're just possibly writing something lasting, I feel so much more at home.
The experience of scrolling through a list of women like it's a menu still doesn't sit entirely comfortably with me. Efficient, yes, but not a love story.
I don't think that's true. I mean, maybe if that were the end of the story, but it never is.
I mean the story of me and Mr. H could just be "met him in a bar," but it's not. It's "Saw this good looking guy in a bar and said 'want that.' But he had a girlfriend, so we became very good friends. Boyfriends and girlfriends came and went, but we stayed friends until one day Mr. H needed a roomate. He called up to see if I wanted to move to Dallas, and I thought 'why the hell not?' so we're living together and still dating people and it's not really working out with any of them, so one night we're commiserating over martinis at a gorgeous jazz club, and we say, 'He's too needy!' 'She's too uptight' 'He's not very bright!' 'Neither is she!' 'I need to date someone like you' and then the 9 fingered piano player struck up 'As Time Goes By' and 3 months later we were engaged." And of course, there are all sorts of little diversions and additions to the story, but essentially it's "met him in a bar..."
So yours will be "found her on the internet..." not to be confused with "found her on the internet."
I don't think that's true. I mean, maybe if that were the end of the story, but it never is.
Oh yes, but there are some key points in the narrative of a relationship, and how you met is one of them. Meeting Bec, for instance, made for a good story. Hell, the whole relationship made for a good story, if not a completely happily ending one. It's just a concern of mine, not an obsession, of course. I like the story we're making so far (as Brendan discovered to his regret, when I did the 'AS likes carrots' thing on the trip home).
Anne, so sorry about your grandmother.
Plei, what were you talking about before--thick siding boards? Wood? Do you have clapboards, rather than cedar shakes? Could you jimmy one off, and take it to a lumber yard, so they could see what you're talking about?
It's the insanely wide, insanely thick wood lap siding that you see in a lot of houses from the 1960s. I'd guess that at the thickest, it's about 3/4", and they're damn near a foot wide. I have some that are off already, in our precious stash of "please don't let us need more than this for patching" from when we put the windows back in where the POs had removed them. Contractors and painting professionals may have a stash, but I've never seen a match in the lumberyards, and I used to spend a lot of time in the lumberyards, before we burnt out on working on the place.
The smart thing for the idiots to do would have been to match the original, but they were trying to update the whole look, methinks. Get it to look like crap 50s/60s construction instead of crap 1920s construction.
When people have major things done, do they get loans? How does it work? A cheap kitchen remodel job is still about 20k, and I'm probably lowballing. Do people save that much somehow? How do regular adults do this? My parents did, and still basically do, everything DIY, and almost always with ready money.
{{Anne}} My condolences to you and your family.
Heather, that is a sweet, schmoopy story! It made me sniffle.
bt, tell Brendan to start baking a carrot cake so he doesn't get overwhelmed.
