A little bit frustrating

This weekend has had it's good points but had some very frustrating ones. Friday morning I watched my friend Jean's little boy. He and Alex are good buddies. The only problem is together the get up to mischief that would normally not occur to either one of them on their own. They have now been given the nicknames of Butch and Sundance, and if they're with their third partner in crime (another little boy from the playgroup) they're the three bandits. So the boys went down stairs to play with the HO scale track Ken had set up on the floor for Alex. I'm on my laptop keeping an ear out for the baby who's taking a nap. It seemed kind of quiet downstairs, and that should have given me a hint that they were up to something. It wasn't until I heard the toilet flush that I went down to check. What I found was cat litter everywhere, all over the laundry room floor, all over my clean folded laundry, all over the carpet at the foot of the stairs then tracked over to where the track was, as well as on several of the toys they'd been playing with.

I washed them up then sent them upstairs so I wouldn't strangle them and cleaned up. I think having to rewash all the laundry was the most annoying part. The thing is they both know better than to touch the cat litter because Jean has cats too. Alex always asks what the cat box is I say "the cat's potty" "he poops and pees in the potty?" "yes" So he knows what it is and not to touch it. Luckily they avoided all the clumps in the litter and it looked like they used the scoop to get it out of the box. Still, they knew better. Ken came home right after I cleaned up the worst of it he laughed when I told him, but soon got a little pissed too as he helped me finish cleaning up. I told Jean what had happened when she came to pick up her son. At that point I was able to laugh. Her comment was "I guess it'll come as no surprise if we get a call from jail one day"

We are now on track to getting our kitchen remodeled. YAHOOOOOOOOOOO!!! We've been wanting to do this since we moved in almost three years ago. We even got an estimate on refacing which was like $35,000. We were both stunned because we thought it ws supposed to be cheaper than remodeling. Then we talked to a few people, including Ken's friend Ted who does home remodeling. He said for top of the line and replaceing all your appliances (which we wouldn't be doing) it would be about $20-25,000. For what we want he estimated $12-15,000. We had a basic plan for the changes almost from he start. Last spring I got the idea for having a huge combined bithday party for Ken and I during the summer of 2008 for our fortieth birthdays. Mine is in the spring his is in the fall, so one between the two seemed a good idea. But I wanted the kitchen done before that happened. He talked to Ted, who said he'd do the work for us but it would have to be during his slow time if we wanted a break on what he charges, which would mean Jan-Feb. That being the case we went into Lowe's to flesh out the design and get a cost estimate on cabinets and counter tops.
We were a walk in, so she worked with us until her appointment came in and will send us the final numbers this week. She told us since our project was January to order the cabinets early in Dec. We'll be able to get a pretty good deal because at that point it's so slow they'll make deals to get the sales. Very cool.

Now the frustrationin all this is we want to get a gas range. Both Ken and I grew up cooking on gas ranges. It's possible to get a gas line in this neighborhood, even though we have electric heat/ac. Our neighbor works for BGE and said it would be $800-1000 to get a line installed. So we've called (well Ken has) several times in the last year and a half and BGE keeps saying they'll call back and send us a letter telling us what we need to do on our end. Never happened, we've still got a few months to get through to them but it would be easier for them to do while the weather is still good.

Now my final frustration is Ken's travel schedule. He's been talking, trying to set up a schedule to go to the various Air Force bases to do the installations for the project he's been working on since March. The PM (project manager) is a civilian working for the Air Force. He sent a possible schedule in March, along with the project info they needed. He sent additional info as he went along. He's been in touch with a few of the bases, even visited a couple. The impression he got from them was any schedule he gave them would be fine, they just want it done. But he has to go through channels which means the PM. Ken's impression of this guy is that they gave him this position because he'll be retiring soon, and this is something he can't screw up too much. Boy were they wrong. He's been sitting on the schedule and the info. In July he had Ken resend everything because he couldn't find any of it. This really burned Ken up, as he'd all ready sent everything as he got it. So he flooded the guy's e-mail with reports. PM is now getting it from both sides the AF wants this done before '07 is out and has been trying to get a schedule since spring.
He's becoming very resentful. Now if this guy had done his job back in March everything would be done except for one or two more installs. Now Ken may have to work through the holidays to get all this done and get and extention on his use or loose time. It also means the trips he takes are the entire week, meaning he's gone from Monday morning to Friday evening. This screws my work schedule because then the only days I can work are Saturday and Sunday and he's got weddings two Saturdays each in September and October. In September we also have my MIL's birthday party one of those and Quin's first birthday party on another.

Ken not being used to a weekly work schedule, because his is bi-weekly, assumed that for the Monday's I miss at work I can make them up the Friday before. Doesn't work that way if I want to switch days I have to do it with in the same pay period. So now I'm losing two days of work because we have no one to watch the boys. The two people I'd ask are both about to have babies. Jean is due mid-Sept but because of GD she'll probably be induced the end of this week. And my neighbor is due first week in Oct so she can go any time now too. can I say ARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So I leave Wednesday to go visit my mom for about 5 days, I'll take my laptop so should be able to post.