The Wayward Celt

I just signed over the title for the hearse to a new owner.

Now, many of you are surely shocked and surprised by this. Let me explain how this came to be:

When we moved to Oregon in late May, the hearse was probably one of the best vehicles to help us on the journey; with storage/cargo space galore, I doubt we could have done it as easily without her.

Since the move, I am now working from home; making my commute minimal at worst, non-existent at best. Because of this change in lifestyle, Lenore has sat in our driveway months on end without use. I can count on one hand the number of times I have driven her since last May; and THAT my friends, is a shame.

What this all boils down to is:
1. my motorcycle is my primary mode of transport. The Benz is my secondary. I have no need for a third vehicle which would only get used once every other month at most.
2. Lenore is a large vehicle which makes parking interesting, and I am the only one in the house comfortable driving her to work.
3. She’s a gas guzzler. Being the cheap-ass-bastards we are we tend to drive the Benz since Lenore costs so much to operate.
4. This is the one I HATE to admit… We didn’t want to have any issues with the new neighbors when we moved in. And we didn’t, but all the same. While this really is at the bottom of our reasons, it is still a small part of why we sold her.

Yes, I know. ALL of the reasons above are issues and items we knew before buying her initially. Really, the driving force behind the sale was the simple fact that we DON’T drive her. She just sits in the drive way. And THAT is sad.

So… we put her on the PDX Craig’s list and after a few weeks found someone who will take good care of her. He will not only give here the attention she needs cosmetically and mechanically, but he’ll actually DRIVE her and love her. It makes me happy to know she is with someone who will appreciate her. We are sad she is gone, but very happy that she is with someone who will love her properly.

With that, we bid Lenore a very fond adieu. She will be missed. Perhaps we will cross paths again someday…

It seems that I have gone more than a month without any sort of content rich post. Wow. I AM teh sux0r, as the kids say these days. The lack of communication has only been driven by my own tired emotional state. Too much to do and worry about makes for no energy left to make any meaningful posts. So, what follows will be more of a brain dump in some unorganized fashion. You were warned….

-Work has been, well… work. Busy as ever trying to get two full time jobs to fit in the space of one.
-We have been at the new house every night and weekend since taking possession of it, excluding the 4 days Jean’s parents and sister were in town.
-Playing host to in-laws can be a very emotionally taxing role, especially when you have 5billion other things to think about.

We have been refinishing the front stairs, which has amounted to a huge amount of time spent hunkered over them with sand paper. We FINALLY got the first two coats of stain on over the weekend and are very please thus far with the results. Next up is the polyurethane coats and then cleaning up the base-boards, rail spindles, and risers with a nice coat of white semi-gloss. Pics follow under the cut below…

The next few weeks are going to be very interesting in a BUSY sort of way.
We are waiting on our flooring to be delivered, which may or may not make it in time to be installed before we move in. I am still hopeful, but I don’t think it is going to happen, so we are planning on moving in without the floors installed.
I am also working on getting an electrician out to resolve some grounding issues in the old 2-wire part of the home and to split off some unwise double-tapping in the breaker box.

Of course, work had to get in the way. We move into the house on Jan 18th, and then I am off on Jan 21st to fly down to Irvine for 3 days of work. I fly Back to PDX on Jan 24th, so the trip will be short and stress filled I am sure. During that time, Jean gets the fun task of staying home and making sure the rental is clean enough to hand back to the property management group, as well as organizing the new home as best she can before I return. Once back from the trip, we’ll be able to focus properly on getting the work on the floors done. In the mean-time, we will need to figure out how to move in such a way that things can be easily moved around to accommodate the flooring work.

Right now, I just need to see progress. Sitting around and waiting is NOT doing it for me. Having ONE project finished would go a long ways to helping me deal 🙂

Now, on to the work in progress pics…