Area rugs

The husband has been picking on our area rug in the dining room for weeks now and keeps talking about wanting to replace it. I wasn't opposed but didn't really feel that it was an urgent need so I didn't really pay attention and just left it to him to handle (and if you know us, this really means that nothing gets done because the husband just talks but doesn't really action on anything).

It wasn't until I sat down on the couch recently that I realized how shabby our living room rug had gotten. The edging on the back perimeter had been falling off but I figured I could glue that back on but I had not noticed until recently that there were areas that were already threadbare (i.e. the material had worn down). With this realization, I took another look at our dining area and agreed that yes, husband does have a point. 

Got a few rugs off of Amazon, these are made of synthetic materials that are non-shedding (for context, the previous living room rug shed A LOT). Not spectacular but not bad at the price-point and will be happy if they last us a few years. 

In retrospect, replacing these rugs is a no-brainer. The old rug in the dining area was from 2014/2015 and the rug in the living area was from 2018. 

Living room rug: 9x12 (next time, a 10x10 would probably be a better fit)

Dining room rug: 8x10

Ikea trip

Swe-cha had no classes today so we all decided to take a day off from work and go to Ikea for meatballs. We haven't been there in years. Husband and I had a plate of meatballs each, Swe-cha had chicken tenders and we shared a slice of chocolate cake.

The meatball entrees are served with peas now and not mixed veggies like last time. But the meatballs are still as good as I remembered.

Decided to walk around the showroom afterwards and boy, Swe-cha got so excited when he saw the beds. 

Every time he saw a bed that he liked, would plop down on it, "Mom, Dad, can I have this bed ?" He also got excited with the bedroom displays - "Mom, Dad, can I have a TV in my room ? Can I have this bed ?"

Sobrang excited.

And no, we didn't buy a bed yet but we did come home with an office chair. We told Swe-cha that we'd have to make plans to move things around before he can get a new (and bigger) bed. 

Dinnerware

Been giving away a lot of things to our local community and one "ISO" post caught my attention. It was a post soliciting everything - cookware, dinnerware, furniture (beds, etc)  - for a family who "literally has nothing at the moment". 

So I figure, we have a dinnerware set for 6 (dinner plates, saucers, soup bowls, coffee cups) that we've had stored in the basement for years. We haven't used them in a long time, husband wanted to keep it "just in case" and when I saw the post for a family who "literally has nothing", I convinced husband to just give it away. He agreed.

I reach out to the author of the post to ask if they are still looking for dinnerware and the response I got was "can you send photos ?" 

Hahanapin ko ba sa boxes, mag-u unpack pa ako. If they want photos, then they must not need it so much. Hindi na bale.

Swe Cha's Motivational Phrases

 3/7/2023 from class advisor, Mr S.

"Progress, not perfection."

3/23/2023 at home:

"We don't have to agree all the time. Let's agree to disagree, let us be kind to one another."

Year of the Tiger 2022

I haven't been doing this lately but I am reminded to check it out whenever I encounter adversity.

Since March of this year. Our team has had 3 resignations. N left in March, M left last week and in 2 weeks, G will be leaving. 

The good news is that they've all left to pursue better opportunities. The not-so-good news is that I'm now the most senior "expert".  

Poor J, my manager, in 2 weeks, I'm going to be his best SME and that's really not much. 

Somehow, pulling out my horoscope and seeing it written as such makes me feel a little bit better. 

It talks about opportunities and such, I know there seems to be plenty for all my friends,... I just hope that there's some for me. 

Wish me luck. 

PSEG Gas Line Upgrade Update

March 23, 2022

PSEG came and started working on upgrading our gas line to a high pressure line. 

They dug up part of the curb and some pavers in our front that led to the garage where the main gas line leads into our home.

 

They were done with the upgrade less than a day and left our front looking like this. 

We were told that a contractor was going to come by afterwards to re-set the pavers. So we waited. 

... and waited.

... and waited some more.

Meanwhile, we've had a few (strong) rainy days since then and we've been getting puddles in our basement. Thankfully, the puddles have formed in the area where we have our heavy-duty steel shelving units set up so we had nothing on the floor. We just had to do a lot of wiping and cleaning.

Husband and I have talking about calling PSEG to follow up on repairing our pavers but between work and other things, we couldn't find the right timing to call. 

Last week, someone from PSEG came by and took a photo of that dug-up area. Husband goes to talk to the PSEG crew and was told that their original contractor had reported that "pavers were not available" as a reason so they came over to check. Obviously, the pavers are all there and have been there since they dug them out in March. 

PSEG says that they have replaced their contractor since they found many anomalies and today, a different contractor came and made repairs. 

Hopefully, no more puddles in the basement.

Gotta hand it to PSEG. I'm pleasantly surprised that they did keep track of this and came to follow up even if we had not made any complaints yet. 

Toilet Fill Valve

Bathroom #2's toilet has been continuously running for weeks. 

It started off with a slight trickle that you can barely hear if you're nearby and by week 2, it had worsened to a stronger and continuous streaming that I could hear all day from my home office which was a room away.

I did score a good deal for Kohler Genuine Part Gp1138930 off of Amazon for $15 and got the husband to replace it last Friday.

Thankfully, it wasn't a big job, he was done in around 10 minutes. 

P.S. I was honestly amazed at how fast the husband completed this job. I consider myself handy around the house (relatively) but anything related to toilets make me nervous because of that unfortunate incident when I accidentally cracked one while trying to update the lever.  

I still avoid any toilet-related repairs even though it has been 13 years since then.