home improvement: where's our al?

I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to say I’m a Home Improvement expert. I mean I think I’ve seen every episode and sometimes I feel just like Tim "The Tool Man" Taylor.

But actually grabbing a tool and fixing something? No, I have no idea what I’m doing.

I’m no stranger to broken appliances and fixtures, but I’ve always rented so I have a landlord to call when something goes wrong and then it’s not my problem.

Last summer that changed when I moved into Jason’s recently purchased second condo.

Jason signing the papers to buy the condo!

I’m a little more attached to Jason than I was to my previous landlords, so I’ve found myself volunteering and being enlisted to help with projects. 

Since the condo I moved into was a foreclosure we had a lot of projects to tackle. Our accomplishments included: 

• Eliminating the cat pee stench from the condo by removing the cat-pee soaked carpet and applying many coats of a special enzyme to extract the cat pee from the concrete. 
• Pulled out a set of cabinets above the kitchen bar 
• Painted (and hired a painter to help) 
• Tried unsuccessfully to fix the light fixture in the kitchen 
• Installed appliances 

I think this is the only action shot I have of our projects last year. 

Jason's prepping our cabinet removal project.

And that’s just the highlights. We learned a lot during our projects last summer. I learned that I don’t like to paint after working all day. We learned that Jason is definitely still allergic to cats (no question there). We also learned how to install a dishwasher which involved a lot of trust between the two of us – imagine Jason with the flashlight reassuring me that he turned the breaker off for the dishwasher while I’m holding the screwdriver to tighten the screw that keeps the wire in place. Good times. Stressful, but still good.

What Jason and I lack in home improvement know-how, we make up for in project management skills. We’re both organized and we love to plan. Last year, Jason was in charge of researching appliances and carpets and I was incharge of aesthetics. Together, and with the help of a plumber, a painter, a handyman and a good friend, we got my place in great shape and I love it.

A few months back, we decided to turn our attention to Jason’s condo (the condo upstairs). It’s in much better shape than our last adventure, but it still needs an upgrade. This project began when Jason said he was thinking about getting hardwood floors to replace the stained and dingy carpet. From there our list grew to include:

• Hardwood floor in halls, kitchen, foyer, living, dining and den 
• New carpets in the bedrooms 
• Tile floors in the bathrooms 
• Replace kitchen cabinets 
• Replace kitchen countertops 
• Tile the kitchen backsplash 
• Replace the kitchen sink and faucet 
• Fresh paint everywhere 
• Remove the cabinet above the bar 
• Replace the florescent light tubes with recessed lighting 
• Remove the popcorn ceiling 

Obviously, our eyes are bigger than our tool belts. After a bit of research, we realized we could probably spend $50,000 doing everything.

 

Look at how organized we are! This was to help us figure out how many 

square feet of countertop we would need. 

Since we don't want to spend $50,000, we pared the list down to:

• Hardwood floor in halls, kitchen, foyer, living, dining and den 
• Deep clean carpets in bedrooms 
• Tile floors in bathrooms 
• Refinish cabinets, replaces hinges, add hardware 
• Paint countertops (looking more into our options) 
• Fresh paint on all the walls 
• Remove the cabinet above the bar 
• Replace the florescent light tubes with recessed lighting 
• Remove the popcorn ceiling (maybe) 

We’re trying to stay within a budget of $10,000-$13,000, which is going to be tight. We decided to keep the hardwood floors because it will have the biggest impact on the value and the look of the condo. We’re still trying to figure out what we can do ourselves and what we’ll need help with, but in the meantime we’re making progress on some projects.

Jason and some friends already removed the cabinet above the bar, which we forgot to document with pictures, but I can tell you it’s a great improvement.

The recreated "before" picture.

Since the place has tons of storage, removing the cabinet opened 

the kitchen up and brought a lot of natural light in. 

As you can see from the second picture we’re also making progress on the cabinets. All the cabinet doors are downstairs, on my condo’s deck waiting to be cleaned, deglossed, and painted.

For the rest of the projects, we’ll document our progress and share the highs and lows with you all!

As a sneak peak, here's some painting in progress...

Jason paints better when he's uninhibited by a t-shirt.

thrill-seeker and secret-keeper

These are two attributes I wouldn't generally assign to myself but a weekend not long ago proved that I might be a little more adventurous than I thought.

My boyfriend, Jason, and I planned a trip to Las Vegas for his birthday. Shortly after we booked the tickets, I started brainstorming fun ways we could celebrate. Inspiration struck about a month before we left and gave me a huge secret to keep.

Skydiving. Jumping out of an airplane attached to another person with just a piece of cloth to keep you from splatting on the ground.

Over the last year or so, we talked about skydiving and I had always said I would do it but I couldn't know about it in advance because I thought I would talk myself out of it. But how could I pass up this opportunity to surprise him, especially when we were going somewhere with ideal skydiving weather?  

I booked our skydiving adventure and I started telling everyone I could: coworkers, friends, people on the bus, my parents (which was a big mistake, but too long for this story). While I told everyone else I possibly could, I kept it a secret from Jason.

The week before our trip I had dreams about skydiving, some more funny than others – the worst was jumping out of the airplane and then realizing that I wasn't attached to my tandem partner. Jason was oblivious to the goings-on in my mind and it's probably for the best. I thought about it enough for the both of us.

Jason knew I had something planned and the stress of not knowing finally came to a peak that morning. After our taxi dropped us off at the pick-up location, Jason said he couldn’t wait any longer to find out. Mr. Patience finally had to know and when I told him, all he said was “okay,” and then he started mentally preparing himself. [Editor’s note: He really was excited; it was just a lot to take in at 7 a.m.]

Shortly after I told him, we signed our lives away to Skydive Las Vegas. We signed and initialed that neither we nor our heirs would sue if we were injured or killed. We read statistics of how many people die each year skydiving and what the odds are of being injured. We watched a video about the risk of skydiving. Heavy information to digest so early in the morning.

After the shuttle ride to the hangar and waiting three hours for our turn, they finally called our names. We suited up, said our goodbyes, and met our tandem partners. Jason was paired up with Kyle and I was with Steve. We loaded into the airplane and took off while our partners started hooking us up.

By the time we were 15,000 feet up (13,000 feet above sea level) the first pair jumped. I was surprised I wasn’t freaking out yet. Then my turn was up. I was third in line and Jason was eighth (and last). Steve pushed me to the end of our bench toward the open door and we sat down on the floor of the plane. I stuck my legs outside in the rushing wind and tucked them under the plane. Before I knew it, we were free falling.

As you can guess, I thinking, “I JUST JUMPED OUT OF AN AIRPLANE!”

It took me a second to get over the falling feeling and in no time I felt like I was flying. Steve released our parachute and we slowed down (A LOT). Steve said our lines were twisted, which is a scary thing to hear when your lines are the only thing attaching you to the parachute, but he got them untwisted and we glided over Boulder City for a few minutes. The landing was a piece of cake. My partner Steve asked how my first skydive went and all I could say was “WOOHOOO! That was awesome!!”

Jason had a great jump as well and even steered his parachute as they were gliding down.

As soon as I was unhooked from my parachute, I headed over to Jason who had just landed as well.

We survived! Jason lived to see his 26th birthday. His partner, Kyle asked him the same question, how was your first skydive? Jason’s response: “It was great, thanks!”

We had a very sane and un-adventurous rest of the trip and mostly sat out by the pool enjoying the warm weather.

[Follow-up note: Jason said I’m not allowed to plan anymore surprises; this, plus his surprise party last year, is too much stress. We’ll see about that…]

In Memory of Rosalie Zill 7/1/1931-4/14/2011

“Hello?”

Her voice is tired and it sounds like I’m interrupting something important, but I know that she likes getting phone calls.

“Hi, Grandma!” 

“Oh, hi princess!”

She immediately perks up and I wince at that term of endearment. She’s the only person I let call me that.  

I started to write this about a week before my grandma died. It’s sad to think I’ll never hear “Hi princess!” in her warbly little voice again.

She was the last link my brother and I had to our grandparents. Losing her was hard because I got to know her better than any of my other grandparents. We talked at least once a week since I graduated from high school. Over the past seven years, I heard a lot from her. I knew she always wanted to know what it would be like to kiss Denzel Washington. I learned how different college was in her time. I got regular recaps of the Bachelor, Detroit Tigers' games, and Hallmark movies that reminded her of me. She was at the top of my list of people to call when I had exciting news. She always told me that she loved me and was proud of me.

Every spring since graduating college I visited her with my mom. This year, I visited her in the hospital after she had emergency surgery. She wasn’t doing well and it was hard seeing her there. She didn’t look like the grandma I had known for almost 25 years. A few hours before I left the hospital for the airport the doctors told my mom and me that she was dying.

As my mom and my uncle talked to the doctors in the hallway; I stayed with my grandma and fed her orange sherbet ice cream, the first food she’d eaten since before her surgery. That was the first time that week that I’d recognized the spark in her eye and realized she hadn’t lost her sense of humor; they were just buried under all the medicine and pain.

It’s hard to say goodbye, but I’m thankful I got the chance to. Another thing I learned from our many conversations is that she was excited to see my grandpa again one day. So while she never got to know what it was like kissing Denzel, I know she's more than happy with her current company.

I'm a bad blogger

I know it would appear from the outside, that blogging has become one of my many hobbies that has fallen by the wayside, but I've made a promise to myself to keep this going.

I haven't been trying many new things lately, so I'm switching gears with the blog and I plan on blogging whatever fancies me. My first post will be something I started a little while ago but forgot about. Thanks for sticking around and reading!

A taxing experience...

Yikes! As my Uncle Rob reminded me tonight it's been forever since I last wrote and I have some serious updating to do. The biggest activity I've been dabbling in lately is filing tax returns.

Let's travel back in time 12 or so years. Picture young Alissa sitting at the dining room table with a younger-ish Dad. Math books, papers, pencil and a calculator are spread out. My dad is explaining some math concept over and over and I'm still not getting it. Flashforward through several math tutors and some very basic math requirements in college and here we are today. I'm not good at math, that's why I'm in communications - I don't have to deal with it very often and when I do I have someone double-check my work.

So you can imagine that filing other people's taxes might not be an activity I would pursue. But you'd be wrong.

Back in December I worked with the United Way of King County to organize a workplace giving campaign in my office. Our United Way coordinator convinced me that I could be good at their tax campaign for low income families in the area. After about 16 hours of training and a test (which I almost had a perfect score on!) I started volunteering three hours every Saturday in Kent doing taxes for others. Nevermind that I had never even done my own taxes - that would come later.

I have to say, I enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I would. I have no idea how many returns I did but some days it seemed like I saw 10-12 families. Most people got money back which was the highlight of my time, but one of the hardest things was having to tell people they owed money. And I did my own tax return for the first time ever.

I haven't been audited yet, so I think I can say it's been a successful adventure :)

Cooking My Way to Thanksgiving, Part Two

I survived! But more importantly, so did my Thanksgiving-food eaters.

This year's eaters included: my mom, dad, brother, brother's fiancee, brother's roommate, aunt and uncle (and of course me). It's safe to say we had a full table.

Preparation started the day before. My aunt and uncle came over to my apartment at around 9 a.m. to make our family cinnamon rolls as a surprise for my dad's birthday which happened to land on Thanksgiving this year. I got up early to get some of the cooking done ahead of time so I could talk to my relatives without neglecting my food babies.

I frosted the turkey birthday cake (it only looked like a turkey, I didn't think the family would be ready for a cake that tasted like turkey, but maybe next year...), boiled and mashed the sweet potatoes and started the pumpkin torte. That's when I encountered my first problem. I couldn't understand the recipe, it seemed like steps were missing and for all I know, it could have been written in another language. Luckily, my aunt is fluent in confusing recipes and explained it to me a language I can understand: simple-ese.

Later that day on the eve of Thanksgiving, I decided that our spread was lacking something. Sure, we had turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, stuffing, corn, green bean casserole, squash, sweet potatoes, cinnamon rolls, cranberry sauce, fudge (oh yeah, I made that too!), turkey birthday cake and pumpkin torte. As I was driving away from my parents house to the grocery store to pick up some things I forgot to buy the other three times I was at the grocery store, it dawned on me: we didn't have any pie. I'm not sure why I didn't think of it earlier, my mom subtlety mentioned it several times before because that's one of her favorite desserts.

Standing in the grocery store, I googled "easy pie recipes" on my phone. I wanted to make something with blackberries but I thought my mom would want something with apples so I compromised with a blackberry-apple pie with a latticed top. How hard could that be?

The next five or so hours were spent peeling, washing, coring, slicing, dicing, folding, kneading, mixing, spreading, baking and cooling (not necessarily in that order). There also was a lot of spilling, standing, sweating (not in the food of course), tasting and maybe a bit of swearing. Then I scrubbed, washed and dried the messiest kitchen I'd even seen in my life.

The food turned out delicious, my family was full and satisfied so in the end it was worth it. I took a bunch of pictures of the food and saved them here. I forgot to get quotes from our guests so I'll end with this one:

"This Thanksgiving food was the best I've ever tasted. It must have been cooked by highly skilled chef." ~Alissa

Cooking My Way to Thanksgiving, Part One

I'm not a bad cook. I like spending time in the kitchen. But mostly I only enjoy successful cooking endeavors. I have three recipes I could make blindfolded: chocolate chip cookies, homemade mac and cheese and homemade pizza dough.

Every now and then I'll try something new. Sometimes I don't read the recipe thoroughly or I forget an ingredient (who knew how important baking powder is in some recipes?). My honey glazed chicken stir fry was pretty tasty, but my marionberry pie was runny. My meatless tacos were flavorful and healthy but there are countless dishes that have ended up in the trash because of a slight error on my part (or maybe it's my tools? the oven?).

Friends and family have suffered through these "creative interpretations" of some recipes. One that stands out spectacularly is a snickerdoodle "loaf." I like to think at least I have dedication to my creations. Sure, the cookie dough is oozy and won't hold it's shape, but I'll stand by my dough and refashion it as a loaf of snickerdoodly deliciousness. Or a sure fire way to sentence my family to an evening indisposed.

I could be a great cook. People love the food I make using recipes I'm familiar with. I just need to focus, read the recipes carefully and not take shortcuts. And where else would be an excellent place to showcase my new method of cooking?

Thanksgiving.

That's right. This year my mom split the cooking duties with me. My responsibilities are all sides and desserts (I'm not trusted with the Holy Turkey). They range from the simple (rolls, cranberry sauce) to the "Alissa's never tasted or tried to make before." I almost said difficult but I'm afraid real cooks will laugh at me if I say a sweet potato casserole is difficult.

Here is what I'm in charge of (in order of expected difficulty):
-Rolls
-Cranberry sauce
-Cake (Thanksgiving also happens to be my Dad's birthday this year)
-Green bean casserole
-Sweet Potato casserole
-Pumpkin Torte
-Fudge

I've lined up most of my ingredients and am starting to create my battle plan. I've taken the Wednesday before Thanksgiving off of work to prepare mentally, physically and emotionally (and of course to do some cooking).

Wish me luck for Thursday, I'll be sure to take lots of pictures and get some reviews from my family.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Becoming a Soccer Star

That's me, lucky number 17!

I wouldn't call myself athletic. Actually, a lot of people wouldn't call me athletic. Especially my old P.E. teachers. I like to picture one in particular, and what his face would look like if he saw me now.

Recently, my company's soccer team desperately needed more female players. I was asked and of course I said yes.

Here's the problem: I've seen a few Sounders games, but I barely grasp the basic rules of the sport.

Do I know how to say "no?" Probably not. Some may consider this a character flaw - but not me. Because I say yes, I've tried a lot of exciting and different things I never would have done on my own.

Over the years, I have learned that I go through five stages after saying "yes." The first stage is excitement. I think to myself that this may be my true calling. Maybe I could have a hidden talent for soccer. I could be to the soccer world what Tiger Woods is to the golf world. But then I actually start thinking about what I've agreed to do.

Stage two begins when the dread sets in. "What was I thinking? I'm going to get hit in the face with a soccer ball!!"

The purchasing phase comes next, it's somewhat similar to negotiating. "I may know nothing about soccer, but I bet buying shin guards and a pair of soccer socks will help somehow." (This is explains why I own barely used wood carving tools, tap dancing shoes, knitting needles and boxes full of other dabblings.)

The fourth stage is panic. This generally takes place right before the event and on the drive there. "How are socks supposed to make me play better?!"

The final phase is acceptance. This generally doesn't happen until I've started or possibly even after whatever I said yes to has taken place.

Anyway, back to becoming the next Brandy Chastain (she's a famous soccer player, right?) ... I showed up to the game (fully in panic phase) knowing little more than not to touch the ball with my hands. I also realized the field looks a lot bigger when you're standing on it as opposed to sitting in a seat looking down on it.

Lucky for me, I wasn't the only person playing for the first time. And even luckier, I'm pretty decent at doing what I'm told. I played defense and ran around a lot. I can't say I fully understood what was happening, but I did know when to run, put on the pressure, kick the ball and act as a human shield (not willingly of course).

We didn't win the game but I did have a lot of fun. And as an embarrassing side note, when the game was over the guy I had been guarding said "Good game." I, in my naivety, thought he geniunely believed I played well, so I thanked him and then he gave me a weird look. Anyway, I now know that's what everyone says to players on the other team after the game. Duh.

Would I play soccer again? Yes! And I have, we won our last two games!

I also said yes to playing on the winter team ... maybe I should buy some active winter wear ... and cleats!

Running a 5K Obstacle Course

Standing at the start line with my three teammates, my heart pounding, I began to wonder what I had gotten myself into again, when I realized I didn't even know how many miles were in a 5K. What had I agreed to?? I asked one of my teammates how many miles a 5K was and just as we started running she replied, "Only 3.1 miles."

Only 3.1 miles. Phew. Or not. I haven't run 3.1 miles since...maybe ever. At least not straight. I'm more of a walker, always have been, always will be. I don't even run to catch the bus (not anymore, after a few unfortunate instances in high heels). But to my teammates - marathon runners - this was nothing.

How did I end up at the starting line of a 5K obstacle course (did I mention I ran AND did obstacles?!?)? The company I work for has some very active employees. They run marathons, triathalons, compete in cyclocrosses and all sorts of other feats of endurance and physical strength. At our last staff meeting, someone mentioned the Winter Pineapple Classic. A fun, obstacle course filled 5K that raises money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Everyone who participated last year had a great time.

I can do this, I thought to myself. How hard can a 5K obstacle course be? Forget the minor details that I don't run, climb over walls, play on monkey bars or jump hurdles. So I signed up.

And then there I was, running with my teammates to our first obstacle. I jumped over hurdles (somewhat haphazardly), climbed over hay stacks, crossed the monkey bars, climbed over a 5 foot wall, pulled myself up a rope ladder, mounted a ten foot wall, army crawled through mud and eventually crossed the finish line. All in about 40 minutes. Not bad.

The first thing my mom asked was "Did you finish?" Of course I finished. I had teammates relying on me. Did I want to stop before the finish line? YES. I was hoping, praying that someone would stop running and start walking so I could too. When I saw I had to army crawl through mud, I hesitated. But I sucked it up and pushed through.

Will I run again? Maybe, but not for awhile. I hurt everywhere. I make old person noises when I sit down, stand up and bend over. I also have some gruesome bruises on my legs.