CaseyAndKelly.Com

Or that’s what it feels like. We turned off the air and have been sleeping with the windows open the past couple of nights. It’s been in the low 70s or so during the day and really nice. Last night it was FREEZING so no more sleeping with the windows open – fall is officially over (at least at night). I checked the thermostat after taking Casey to the VRE and it was 63 in here! The tile floors help keep the kitchen cool and so even though she was on a sheet, Stoli was pretty cold and kept jumping up to snuggle up my warmth so we’re upstairs on the bed so she can warm up. So today I have to get the duvet on the bed so we aren’t shivering and curled up in a big ball around Stoli in the middle of the bed.

I posted a few pics of my new do. Keep in mind that I took two of the pics of myself so they suck and Casey took the other one after a 4 HOUR commute. Take a peek…

Not ours anyway…yet. There’s another house in our row that’s for sale so that makes 2 for sale right now. If you remember a month ago when we moved in there were 2 for rent and 1 for sale and then one across the street for sale. The rentals went fast and the one across the street sold but the one that was for sale a month ago is still on the market. Although I’ve heard around here with the market the way it is they keep the sign up past the time it goes under contract and until the deal has already closed in case the deal falls through or something. On the way back from the train this morning, I drove around and there are 2 other houses for sale on another street and 2 further down on ours, for a grand total of 6 houses in the front (and newer) part of the subdivision. I read an article in the Post yesterday about how the housing market set another record last month but that this month with all the hurricanes that it would cause a shift. Then in the same article Greenspan is saying that the market is supposed to start cooling off. What?! That’s so not good for us! It might be time to sell while the market is still good…food for thought.

Since Netflix changed the distribution center we’ll now be using to Richmond our turn around time is the same! I got Crash and Hide & Seek in the mail today. I haven’t heard much from people about either but I did see Justin rated Crash very highly (5 stars was it?) so it better deliver. We’ll start watching after we get back from dinner. Casey’s in the shower now (took the day off to work from home, twice this week) and then we’re heading to Brock’s to use our gift certificate.

CSI premiered last night and was really graphic (2 slow cooked bodies in a trunk) but still disappointing. I think maybe I set my expectations too high after waiting all summer for premiers because once again I expected more. I’m glad the CSI team is back together again and would have been confused about the whole Catherine/Warrick thing had I not read TV Guide first. I didn’t even know there was a flirting/romantic interest there and I’ve seen almost all (except for a handful from season 5) the episodes!

Since Casey’s worse at posting than I am, I’ll break the news that they didn’t get the contract they were hoping for but at any rate James, Lana and their cats are in the car traveling across the Midwest en route. Important thing, they still have jobs!

We just finished watching The Apprentice: Martha Stewart. I thought it was pretty interesting although obviously more domestic than the original. There are a lot of annoying personalities and unprofessionalism. We watched Nip/Tuck last night and the premier just wasn’t as exciting as I thought it was gonna be especially since they’re not gonna reveal the identity of The Carver until the last episode of this season. We already waited a year and you’re gonna make us wait another season to find out?! This is the best show on TV right now so I know it’s gonna get better but still – a year! Casey thought ‘My Name is Earl was gonna be funny since Jason Lee is in it so we got through about 3 minutes of that before he insisted I turn it off. I think they’re using sixth graders as writers or something it was THAT bad. Our Monday shows, Las Vegas and Medium ended up like any other episodes – weren’t anything special. The point of the finale is to make sure people come back in the fall, the purpose of the premier is to reward the viewers for returning after hiatus.

Since moving to Stafford, our Netflix distribution center has switched from Gaithersburg (26 miles away from Fairfax) to Richmond (69 miles from Stafford). I haven’t seen how the turn arounds are going to be since I returned the last movies on a weekend but I’m thinking it’s gonna be a lot longer. I altered my Netflix ratings because there’s no OK star so 3 stars is OK (meaning I didn’t turn it off or feel stupid for watching the whole thing). We watched Employee of the Month (3 stars because it was OK, kept me interested although it was a little predictable with all the turn at the end and Steve Zahn was pretty damn funny in it) and The Wedding Date. It was so lame and predictable that I gave it 2 stars because I didn’t end up shutting it off (I don’t know why I didn’t).

Did everyone hear about the plane that had to land *without* functional landing gear? The Jet Blue flight took off from Burbank and was headed for New York with 139 passengers. It was in the air for 3 hours dumping fuel into the ocean (?) while attempting to make a safe landing at LAX because of its longer runways. My Uncle John and parents 3-wayed me to tell me of the news (I was in the car picked up Casey from Springfield) and by the time I got back here it had already landed safely. In other news Hurricane Rita is now a Category 5 hurricane. I was hoping that it would stay on course to hit New Orleans again since the damage and threat would be minimal but like my Mom said, it seems to be trying to attack the people from New Orleans and it now headed for Galveston, Texas. Well at least these people prepared after their last hurricane and have a 17 foot high levee. The southeasat is not on my list of places to live – from here on out – Colorado is as far east as we plan on living!

New photos were just added of Stoli’s first birthday party AND more new pictures of the house including the kitchen with the new appliances.

Happy birthday today to Sara & Stoli! I’ll post more pics after Stoli’s party of that and more of the house!

Two new albums have been added to the gallery. One of Stoli’s most recent pictures and the other of the house (before/after).

Still no pictures to post yet between doing all the painting and everything and cleanup involved with it, then having to do regular preventative cleaning (dishes, etc.) I haven’t tidied up enough that I’d want to take pictures. I did finish up another of the bathrooms so only the master is left to be painted. We finally got trash service too which is good because we’re being bad neighbors and letting it pile up in the back of the house. I wouldn’t feel so bad if we had a fence. Trash service is expensive! This is a first for us since we’ve always lived in apartments. Because Stafford is smaller (about 100,000) it was hard to find trash service. There were only 2 companies – Waste Management and Schifflett’s. All the others I tried calling either didn’t do residential service, didn’t do this area or were out of business (disconnected numbers). We ended up going with Schifflett’s since it’s gonna save us quite a bit and we’re spared the activation charges (it’s not a phone), delivery fee for the trash can, $75 for boxes through WM and the fuel surcharge fee (based on the price of diesel). I’m trying to get Rachel out here tomorrow to take me to the dump (she has a trailer) so on Friday I’m not blocking the *entire* sidewalk with bags and boxes but we’ll see I guess I can always ration the trash. Time for bed, 6:00 comes early especially when you don’t go back to bed because there’s too much else to do.

Casey finished tiling the breakfast nook area of the kitchen. He’s gonna wait till tomorrow and finish it up so we’re taking the rest of the afternoon off to relax so we’re watching season 2 of Nip/Tuck to catch us up before the 3rd season starts on the 20th. We’re gonna BBQ again tonight and take advantage of being able to while it lasts.

Yesterday we went to Lowes as planned and bought our appliances and track lighting for the basement. They were out of stock of some of our appliances so it looks like it’ll be about 2 weeks before they arrive. For those that are going to donate to the victims of Hurricane Katrina, stop by Lowes to make it. They are matching donations made up to a million dollars. I was gonna try to sell the old appliances on Craigslist but Casey doubts if anyone in Stafford has even heard of it so if we do decide to sell the old appliances I’ll stick with the Stafford Free Lance Star to get this stuff out of here. Casey installed the lighting last night and it looks awesome. Does a way better job than the previous stuff and looks ubber modern. Being the list maker that I am, I’ve drafted up a list of the rest of the to-do’s that need to be done. The list is pretty long but hopefuly we can get it done soon!