Kong Hei Fat Choi 2013

Happy (Lunar/Chinese) New Year!

As keeping with tradition, preparations are last-minute in our household again (what else is new ?). Snowstorm Nemo threw a wrench in our plans when we found out that our usual kiddie-salon was closed for the day and we decided to just bring Swe-cha to my salon. It turned out 50/50. The back part of his hair turned out nicer than usual while his bangs were cut straight in a  Lego/Moe (three stooges) style.

We brought Swe-cha home immediately after his haircut and gave him a bath and while he was having lunch, I snuck out and got a haircut for myself. Hubby, unfortunately, was not able to get a haircut because he napped instead. Worried, we decided to check why we're not supposed to get haircuts after the new year and when we can, it turns out that by tradition (superstition), you can get haircuts on the 2nd day of the 2nd lunar month.

Hubby says that he can make it another month w/o a haircut while I, on the other hand, was skeptical. So I asked what the consequence was and according to that article that we read, if you have a haircut during the 1st lunar month, a maternal uncle will die. AY SOS! Yun lang naman pala. Lusot na lusot because MIL is an only child kaya walang maternal uncle si hubby. So ayan, no pressure na.

I dropped by the neighborhood Chinese takeout place for some lunch and got into a nice conversation w/ the owner. Now, we don't usually buy from them but we got to know them because my parents order from them a lot whenever they're around. We also used to see them every day whenever I pick Swe-cha back when he was still attending the school beside the take-out place.

Anyway, the owner was prepping some nian-gao [translation: tikoy] (Chinese New year cake made from sticky rice) and gave me some to taste. I told her that I have not eaten it in a long long time and when I explained how it's called Tikoy in the Philippines and how everybody would eat Tikoy, even Filipinos, during the new year season... she gave me the entire batch that she cooked and also gave me a small block of uncooked tikoy to bring home. Free. Ambait, no ? It's also good marketing because now, I feel the need to go back and order from them the next time we want takeout food.

Dear God

"Dear God, Please make my Ah-I's worries go away" - overheard from my 8 year old nephew's prayers.

Uh-oh

From Swe-cha's classmate in daycare:

"S talks in daycare now, he says "uh oh" to himself. But he doesn't talk to me!"

Flooding Aftermath 2 - Repairs

We booked our favorite handyman, Jeff (Nice Guy Handyman), for the repair job this weekend.

He started with the ceiling and cut off the parts that were damaged, repaired it & spackled. I'm sure I took pictures of the damages in the ceiling but I cannot find them now, will update this blog if I do come across them later.

While he was here to repair our entire 1st floor ceiling, we decided to also ask him to just fix the following in addition:

- hole in the wall under our window, this wall has been open since 2010. We were supposed to fix it ourselves but I figured that since it's been 2 years and we haven't gotten around to it yet, it was better to just pay to have it fixed.

- In 2009, I started replacing our old-style switches with decora style switches. Unfortunately, I also discovered that one of the 3-switches on one wall wasn't really done correctly. Instead of installing a 3-switch box in the wall, they installed a 2-switch box side by side with a single switch box. The result was that the spacing of the switches never fit quite right, their "fix" was not to screw in  the last switch to the wall, it was just left floating and was supported by the first two switches. Jeff dug up the old switch boxes and replaced it with a correct one (3-switch box). Among the repairs that was done this weekend, hubby thinks this is the most sulit because it was hard to do & he feels that we wouldn't even be able to do it ourselves.

- If you've been following my blog for a while, you would've seen references to my red wall a few times. In Jan 2012, a pipe burst and the superintendent had to cut a hole in the wall and ceiling to fix it. He later patched this up and spackled it, the actual fix was covered by the association but they refused to repaint the wall / ceiling. Super says that per our condo's rules, they will only cover the repainting if it was painted recently and since this was done over 5 years ago, it wasn't covered anymore (unfair, right ?).

So for the longest time, we had this huge patch of white on our red wall & ceiling. We still had leftover paint from when I first painted the red wall but since it was a dark colored, the white patch had to be primed first before we can paint. Needless to say, we never got around to it and it was an eyesore.

Today, we decided (at the last minute) to just have the entire wall painted to match the rest of the room (color: Gobi desert) since we had enough leftover paint anyway. Sulit rin.

By the end of the day, I felt so bad for Jeff. He was supposed to do this job in 3 installments with the following time estimates:
day 1: 2 hrs
day 2: 2 hrs
day 3: 4 hrs

But he decided to combine days 2 and 3 together - not sure if this was suggested by him or hubby when they talked about schedules last night. It works out well for us that he completed the job today because we only have to clean up - the house is so dusty from all the sanding - and only have to endure the paint fumes once (it's not so bad, really). On his end, he did say something about next week being Superbowl Sunday so I'm pretty sure he would not want to work that weekend either.

By the time he was replacing the wonky mechanism that controls the tub drain in our 2nd bathroom, I asked him if he was still okay. "I want to take a bath right here, right now... but if I do that, I'll fall asleep and won't be able to get up anymore," he said.

Poor guy... and then I remembered how much we were paying him for this job and I didn't feel so bad for him anymore.

Flooding Aftermath 1

We don't really have any pictures of the actual flooding while it was happening - we were too busy doing damage control and by the time we were done, taking pictures was the last thing on our minds.... It was bad though, pics or no pics, trust me.

After the water was sucked out by the big-a$$ wet vacuum machines (hubby spent a few hours using the one we borrowed from the B family and later, the restoration company came over with their own and sucked out more water. Our home insurance sent the restoration company, Paul Davis Restoration Company of North & Passaic Counties.

These were left running at home for 3 days (24hrs x 3 days) to dry out our house. These ones were downstairs - a 200 HT dehunmidifer, and 4 centrifugal fans (only 3 were in the picture). The fans were pointed towards the ceiling. Paul Davis staff would come over every day to inspect the drywall & check for moisture & they would reposition the machines as needed.
 

Meanwhile, the following were left to dry our master bedroom: another dehumidifier and 3 more fans (only 2 in the pic).

 

When these babies are all running, we can barely hear each other talk. Also, we had our central heating turned off and while temperatures were in the arctic zones outside (10-20 degrees Celsius), we were 80+ degrees inside the house - we were sweating and had to crank open a window or two for short periods of time!

These ran from Monday 1/21 and were finally taken out on Thursday 1/24 when the Paul Davis team declared our home dry.

Flood Update

I called up Mom, Dad & Big Sis to tell them what happened and the first thing they say is "insurance ?"

*knocks head on wall* It did not even enter my mind.

I called up our home insurance company and they quickly processed my claim & sent our info over to a restoration company. Said company got in touch w/ me today but said they need permission from the management company of our bldg before they can come due to possible noise. When asked what they're going to be doing, I'm told that they're going to have huge vacuums to suck water out, fans to dry stuff and possibly demolition work to check the ceilings.

Okay.

They're coming tomorrow at 9a. I don't have work (fortunately) and hubby is staying home from work.

Would like to thank the P family for the suggestions and the B family for lending us their industrial wet-dry vacuum.

Would also like to thank swe-cha for being cooperative and behaving well while Mommy and Daddy are frantically running around doing damage control. Would also like to commend him for not touching the buckets we placed in his play area to catch the water dripping down through the air vents.

Paminsan-minsan lang mag cooperate itong batang ito, buti good timing at di siya nakisabay sa baha.

Flooding

We've replaced almost all of our major appliances in the last 2 years.

- windows in 2010
- central AC in 2011
- washing machine in 2012
- dishwasher in 2012

Our refrigerator is fairly new since I bought it new when I moved in to this place.

When we replaced the dishwasher, hubby commented, "o, ayan, ano na ang next na masisira ?" I shushed him and asked him not to jinx us.

As it turns out, we were sitting down for dinner this evening when hubby heard what sounded like the pitter patter of rain. Now our dining room is located in the 2nd floor and our bedrooms are upstairs so we shouldn't be hearing rain this close. He rushed upstairs and found our washer running water continuously.

[curse words]

Our wall to wall carpeting upstairs is soaking wet and will have to be replaced, I'm sure. And while we're soaking up the excess water, hubby is wondering aloud about our ceiling downstairs - do we have to replace it ?

"Pwede ba ? Let's deal with this one at a time."

We started searching (frantically) for a place to rent a wet/dry vacuum. Maski purchase sige na.  Unfortunately, this happened at 8:15p, stores closed at 8p.

[more curse words]

The good thing that I see here is that I suddenly lost my appetite. Okay pala to sa nag di diet.

Oh, and we did find a friend who has a wet/dry vacuum and hopefully, it's an industrial one. Hubby's on his way there to borrow.

It just hit me that we happily escaped Hurricane Sandy's reach, only to succumb to a washing machine.