Some New House Pics.

Hey all....

I know you all have been asking for some new images of our new home-to-be, so here are a few. Not too much is visibly new. However, the outgoing sewer lines are now in place, the incoming water lines have been pressure tested for leaks and the insulation (R-30) has now been installed on all walls and the ceiling. Hope the pics hold you for a while till we visit the house again in a week or so.

Farewell, adieu, we had to say goodbye UPDATE: RIP

to Bandit.

We had to give up our firstborn today. Not to the devil though. He went to a really good home. Jeff's uncle and aunt and their 2 little munchkins and 3 other cats took Bandit in.

Our cat allergies kept getting worse, even with allergy shots. Jeff found out his constant sinus infections were due to severe allergies to nature and the cat. We couldn't get rid of all the nature Maryland has to offer but the cat had to go.

Next weekend, we are going to visit them and I'll have pictures of a hopefully happy Bandit settling in with his new non-allergic family.

UPDATE: After a few days of Bandit scratching and biting and hissing at everybody, they had to take him to SPCA where Bandit was put down yesterday afternoon. I spend my time swinging between guilt and anger at myself. I wonder what I could have done differently so he wouldn't have turned out the way he did. He had suddenly gotten aggressive and this was before the dog came home. We thought being without the dog and with other cats might help but it made him worse. I hope wherever he is, it's a better place for him because he was obviously unhappy and sick here.

R.I.P. Bandit Williams - Sometime in April 2006 - July 26, 2007.

Oh, how much I love thee ...

Bed, Bath and Beyond

I love the deals I find at this store. This package was torn at the top, so they'd marked it down 50%. I also had a 20% off coupon, so I got this set of Pyrex dishes for 60% off. And, this isn't the first time Jeff and I have found deals at BB&B.

I have this set of red square cannisters from Target that we bought a second set. While I put the cannisters in the dishwasher, Jeff threw the box out. The next day, I realised the spoons with the cannisters got thrown out as well. Lo and behold, a couple days later, we're at BB&B and they have a set of the spoons for those cannisters for $2.98. AWESOME!

I also got a Noritake chip and dip set for 75% off that was originallky like a gazillion dolalrs.

You get the idea. I love Bed, Bath and Beyond!

Dogs, bruises and street names.

Nowhere near as hilarious as Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

We had a busy last week. First, we helped my boss move a huge Viking range. We took Smokey with us and he had tons of fun playing with her Golden Doodle, Mel. Smokey has a slight crush on Mel, we think. He followed her everywhere.



I didn't even work as much; I helped pull the fridge up a step and pushed the old fridge out off the kitchen, but I have war injury.

We also went by the new condo site to do the electrical walk through. We were worried it wouldn't have enough sockets in each room but we were pleasantly surprised. Enough sockets and they are placed in easy to get to places.

We also have our street name up. DARBY DOWNS, it's not pretentious sounding at all.

You can keep up to date with our condo pictures at our Flickr set: The Williamses' condo!

Blue Lapis

So, after learing from Jeff, I made a set for myself out of blue Lapis Lazuli beads and some glass beads. I am pretty proud of myself:

Condo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We went to the condo site last Thursday and met with Guardian Technology representative who marked where our phone lines, cable lines and the alarm system are going to go.

This is so darn exciting. Next week, we do our electrical walk through.

Pictures are here!

4th of July fireworks

Jeff and I decided to brave Baltimore once again for the 4th of July. We weren't impressed with the food on our last year's dinner and fireworks cruise. So, this year, we decided to go with the Deck BBQ and fireworks viewing aboard the U.S.S. Constellation in the Inner Harbor.

The program was supposed to go from 7-10. We got there at about 8:30 and had barely gotten some dinner when it started storming. And, I mean storming. Downpour so bad, they brought one of the firework barges back in and the shipdeck had a foot of water along the sides. We almost left but the rain ended almost as suddenly as it had begun. So, we stuck around. And, I am glad we did. There are pictures here.

I think we'll do that again, though we might look for another parking pace, since it took us an hour and a half to just get out of the Inner Harbor area which usually takes us 15 minutes. Also, scary hordes of teenagers running through the streets and when Jeff honked at one who suddenly ran out in front of us, he cocked his finger at us and went, "bang, bang, bang!"

I got new accessories

for my kitchen!

I gave a best answer!

So, I just got addicted to a something new I just discovered: Yahoo! Answers. After answering almost 50 questions, one of my first ones was picked as the Best Answer by the asker. Not a Nobel Peace Prize or anything, but it gave me a little Wheee!

You can read my awesomely genius answer right here.

Libby's sentence commuted: why are people shocked and enraged?

How could you not have seen it coming? Did you really think that the whole checks and balances system still exists as it was created? Laws aren't for our current administration. Our current President is way above such flimsy details as perjury and compromised national security. They are BFF (best friends forever, for those who don't watch movies with teenage girls anymore). I think Hillary put this as accurately as possible when she said that this was a case of where "cronyism and ideology trump competence and justice."

I remember Bush saying that anybody found guilty in Valerie Plame's leak case would be held accountability. I really wish the citizens of Ameria could be allowed to look him directly in the eyes and ask where that accountability went today. What this says to me is his promises to us, the lowly common people, mean nothing, when it comes to his buddies and cronies in the White House. He'll pardon them anything.

You can read the Grant of Executive Clemency. Now, Mr. Bush, what part of "Libby was convicted" for putting our national security at risk, did you not understand? What happens when a lowly common citizen is arrested for something similar? He or she loses all his or her rights and might be sent to Guantanamo Bay for an indeterminate amount of time.

Do I scream? Do I leave and become a Canadian citizen?

Crazy Maddie was here!

Madelyn visited yesterday ... last time we saw her was in India more than half a year ago. Ahe is still as crazy and as in love with everything Indian as always. So, we had Indian food for lunch and she danced to Indian movie songs.

Then, went to pick up Jeff, and along the way, stopped at the condo site. We now have doors and windows, yay!!!

Then, we took Madelyn down to Annapolis, and had crabcake sandwiches at Pusser's.

Baltimore Gas and Electric (BGE) rate hike

Our May bill was $73 which was almost twice our April bill but that was because of our average temerature in the house being kept at 65 degrees (Yikes!) So, in June, Jeff and I made a very conscious effort to keep the temperature above 70 and we had a fan in our bedroom for nighttime. We made sure lights got turned off. We use lesser lights in the living room when we're eating or watching the idiot box.

So, imagin my charin when our une bill came in close to $140. I went online to check the KWatt usage and discovered not only had our average temperaure been 75 degrees, we only used maybe a 100 more Kiloqatts, so we went from 877 to 943. No amount of mathematical manipulation could make me believe that 100 Kwatts should double my bill. Till I looked closed and saw that a clause was missing form my bill that had been there last month - such and such part of your bill has been reduced due to recent legislation, or somethign along those lines.

I don't understand why a company that seemed to do ok for the past yr with charging us half what they are now charging, should be allowed to hike the rate.

Bring back the legislation, please?