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"I need a wall - like the US needs - but not quite as long - with a door and about 300sf of flooring." -Carpentry customer texting me about work he needs done.

Tuesday, 12-31-24: Our last crazy ride later today.
It's only 0754, but I've been up for over an hour. No worries I got a decent-enough night of sleep last night. I'm a bit sick so it's always that weird fever-dream type of sleep. I also fell asleep after supper last night for an hour or two hahha. I slept 11 hours Sunday night because I was wasted like Doc-J and 8-Ball from Full Metal Jacket. I was definitely getting sick Sunday and I was sick yesterday. I was functional, but very much unwell. What a bunch of crap!

I think I burned myself right out. Things have been pure chaos lately and the restaurant has been BUSY for its final days. We were only open Thursday through Sunday last week, but we did a little over $20,000 in sales. It's our first 20K+ week since the entire sale debacle from late October and early November, but it's bitter-sweet because its our end and $2000 of those sales were coupons and gift cards people are trying to use up.

We had a couple people bringing in really old coupons/vouchers that we didn't accept, and some of them were assholes about it. One type of voucher clearly states on the back valid for 3 months or if the vendor goes out of business. Some lady was trying to argue with me (I'm the guy who usually deals with this as it's my job) and starting to look it up on her phone saying it's a state law coupons don't expire. I told her I don't care we are going out of business, we owe $20k in back-rent (will be $25k back-rent as of tomorrow what a bunch of crap!), and if we accepted every expired voucher and coupon there would be no sense even keeping the doors open. Most customers were understanding, but a few were total dinks about it.

DON'T BE A CHEAPASS AND TRY TO USE EXPIRED COUPONS AND VOUCHERS WHEN YOU ARE AT A FAILING BUSINESS THAT HAS PUBLICLY ANNOUNCED IS HAS FAILED AND IS GOING OUT OF BUSINESS WHAT A BUNCH OF CRAP!

I was doing some rough-math on our business financial situation and it appears to fully 100% satisfy all our debts we would need $60k, give or take. After tonight we should have $23-26k including every jar of pennies and loose change there, cash from the tills and petty cash, etc. What a bunch of crap!

So over $30,000 can't get paid because there is no precious... precious money. First and foremost will be paying staff and paying the ones who stayed with us until the end their vacation pay. Bye bye $10-$11,000 for all of that. Second will be paying the vendors for food, booze, etc. Third will be utilities, fourth a loan we owe from our credit-card provider and finally rent. It seems almost certain we can't pay the $25k in rent, but we will be leaving four new-ish heat pumps, a new-ish huge nat gas furnace, and countless other upgrades.

We still are trying to sell the place as a package for around $100k. However, pulling that off at this point will take a damn miracle as we have to give the space back to the landlord ASAP so he can re-rent it. I had a good showing yesterday, they want the place, but they have to go try to get a CEI loan and I am NOT hopeful that will pan out, at least not in a timely manner. We would owner-finance a part of it, but if someone can't even come up with $50k down it's a joke and we are better off selling off everything in pieces and parts.

If we do end up scuttling the place I think $10k is the most we could get. What a bunch of crap! Still not enough to pay off the business outstanding debts. Hard to say what exactly will happen, especially since the landlord has yet to contact us and who knows where he even is right now? Florida maybe? Haven't even seen him in over 2.5 years what a bunch of crap!

Tonight will be chaos at work for our final day and on New Year's eve. I expect to work 11 or 12 hours not including the work I have to do today at our soon-to-be place in Eddington and around town.

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Wednesday, 12-25-24: Merry Christmas and we're going out of business.
What a dog-shit Christmas season this has been. I don't even like Christmas anyway so it didn't take much for this one to be the worst all-time in my sad, pathetic life. Today, Christmas day, wasn't so bad actually. We didn't have the precious... precious money to buy anyone gifts so I did ZERO shopping. I didn't even do cards. What a bunch of crap! We all spent most of the day in Eddington at Dillon and Debbie's house. Our place will be right there on the same lot as them in the large above-garage home, but it's not done yet so we can't live there until I finish more of the place. The bathroom as of yesterday:

Looks terrible, but won't actually take long to finish the 8x8 space. A little more mud and sanding, paint, 1/2" ply subfloor to go over the existing 3/4 ply, throw down flooring, vanity, sink, toilet, fin. Plumbers will do the vanity and toilet and I do the rest. I'd have it all done along with 99% of the living room and bedroom by the end of the week, but we will need to be at the restaurant a lot over the next several days. A LOT.

On Friday morning my awesome wife and I woke up probably 0630-ish, she looked at me before we could even start the day, and she suggested we just close the place. Of course I was already mentally on that path, especially after a Thursday of sales that didn't even cover payroll for the day, so we agreed. We did marinate on it a bit, but by that evening we were will 100% sold on closing so I drafted a letter and we told the staff Saturday. Sales were TERRIBLE last week, most likely the worst we've ever had in December, so that helped us to decide. Sadly telling the staff they were all losing thier jobs sucked. A lot. Especially only a few days before Christmas.

I felt like I was saying "Merry Christmas instead of a bonus you are getting a pink-slip and losing your job."

WHAT A BUNCH OF CRAP!

I am sad for the staff who did want to stay on, about half of them. We had some people leaving after the 31st and one of our daytime managers quit and walked out Sunday, just two days after we decided to go out of business, so that really firmed up the decision. We gots almost nothing left in the tank at that place and it's damaged beyond repair. It's over.

We have five days left of being open. Tomorrow, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and New Year's eve. I hope we do good great sales for those last five days so we can pay off what will be a large final debt. We owe the landlord $20,000 in back-rent OMG. WHAT A BUNCH OF CRAP! What's even worse is the fact he hasn't even asked for it. I do hope we can still sell everything as an asset-sale, have someone take over the lease, and get that rent paid. However, chances of that drop by the day.

Even though I feel badly and a little guilty regarding the staff losing jobs I do feel a sense of relief and there is less stress bottled up inside of me. I still get a little angry when I think about how we should have had the place sold a couple months ago and been done with it I don't let that define me and I hope we can reslove that festering wound in 2025. Our laywer will handle that one. I've hated that restaurant for a while and it hasn't been the same since the sale fell through. The vibe is off, sales are down, it's all-bad. Mad Kat and Company Bar and Grill in the North Brewer Shopping Plaza is toast. The Google rating is still fantastic, but word around town wasn't close to that and people had already thought we went out of business.

Kat posted on Failbook that we were going out of business and we get lots of heartwarming support. Then we get the occasional idiot wanting to know how to refund coupons. OH YEAH THAT'S JUST WHAT WE WANT TO DO BEFORE WE GO OUT OF BUSINESS BEAUSE WE CAN'T AFFORD THE PLACE ANYMORE.

^People who want to use expired-ass coupons at a failing business = EPIC FAIL YOU SUCK.

A few people have emailed asking about buying the place. Kat also put in the post the entire package is for sale as a ready-to-go restaurant and bar. Hopefully one of those emails will bear fruit. Oh, we also got this gem of an email yesterday morning:

E-mail header: GOOD RIDDANCE!!!!
E-mail subject: My only regret is that you opened in the first place.

OMG WHAT A BUNCH OF CRAP!

So I wrote back: "25 employees are losing their jobs so that's a really nice thing to write so close to the holidays. At least you had the guts to sign your name to this email. Merry Christmas to you and your family."

What a fuckin' DINK! We think it's an older guy whom we had to boot a couple weeks ago because he walked out without paying for a food order. Who knows, though?

I'll have to put in extra time at that restaurant over the next 5 days of being open, our place in Eddington isn't ready yet, we're running out of money, and we still don't know when the closing will happen for our house here in Brewer. Everything generally sucks. What a bunch of crap!

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Thursday, 12-19-24: It's time to close this shit-show place.
We have no excuses today. Sales were ten pounds of crap stuffed into a five-pound bag, and that is a bunch of crap. I'm so done with that stupid fuckin' restaurant that has ruined my shitty life and made me depressed and at times a little suicidal. I don't fuckin' care if I live. If a giant asteroid comes to pulverize this planet oh well at least I had a good run before it all ended. Fuck that Mad Kat restaurant.

I had to go wash dishes for the last 2.5 hours yesterday because the dishwasher was feeling sick and he tapped out like a little bitch. What a bunch of crap! My bad not getting drunk so I couldn't go. I fixed that tonight by drinking, but it was too late because a cook called out and I had to be there to help with dinner. Thankfully but not thankfully Thursdays are somehow ruined and we do almost no business on Thursdays anymore so I wasn't needed much. What a bunch of crap!

All I wanna know is why? Why don't I just close the place for good and call it a day? I might, but first I think I can make it another week or two. I wanted to stay open until Jan 12th, but I think I'll call our sales guy tomorrow and tell him we are done Dec 31. Might as well make good money on what will most-likely be a busy New Year's Eve then close. We have a few events booked for the first 1.5 weeks of January, but I don't even care... whether or not I care about them. I am literally dying because of this stupid fuck resstaurant, and the same thing is happened to my wife.

Who knows, maybe someone will buy the place as an asset-sale? It's officially all done as "Mad Kat" and is has been done since that sale fell through on Halloween day several weeks ago. I can't even put into words how crippling that was, and I might not ever recover from it in my dog-shit life. I am being serious right now, too. It DESTROYED me personally and it hit Kat almost as hard. In hindsight, knowing what we know now, we should have just closed and gone to court to see if we can make a little lemonade out of all these lemons.

I hate my fucking life with a passion. It's the worst it's ever been and by a lot.

Christmas is in 6 days and I am doing nothing for it. No gifts, no shopping, no holiday spirit, fuck it. I've hated Christmas for a long time, decades, but this one is the worst of all-time. I wish I could wake up Christmas morning, go do some carpentry somewhere, then get drunk around midday and live the rest of the day in a fog until I pass the fuck out. I HATE GODS DAMNED CHRISTMAS.

Christmas can eat the peanuts out of my ssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhheeeeeeeeeeeeeiiiiiiiiiiiiitttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt!

In other shitty news, we haven't closed on the sale of our house yet due to factors beyond my control. Bank shit on buyer's end, but I've been texting and talking to him and I know he wants the place. I believe all the pieces are in place now, but everyone gets really lazy at Christmas so nothing is getting done. What a bunch of crap! If the sale of this house falls through I am getting fuckin' TRASHED and getting into the freezer. I said I wouldn't do that because it's not fair to loved ones still here, but selfishly once I check out it's not y problem anymore. People check out every day and I don't even want to be old in life so better to do it sooner rather than later. Fuck being old. FUCK IT.

At least our soon-to-be place that I'm not even sure I want to live in is looking more complete. Here is the living room as of a few days ago:

I could finish the floor, but I'm getting poor and I don't want to spend the precious... precious money yet when we haven't even closed on the sale of this house. Plus there is a lot of other things to do like installing insulation in the attic. We had to pull all the old insulation due to mouse and squirrel issues Turds, piss-stains, etc. Acorns falling out as I cut holes for recessed lights. What a bunch of crap!

FUCK MY LIFE.

I'm not drunk enough to pass out and it's not cold enough to freeze to death. Even worse.

If this place in Eddington is a shit-show I am leaving, and I might not even stay in Maine or on this plane of existence. This is absolutely, without a doubt, my last chance to have a life that doesn't suck. I don't have it in me to start over anywhere else I'd rather just be dead. Dying isn't that bad because every living thing does it and if you believe in reincarnation (which I cerrainly don't!) then it's all good.

I told Kat today now I understand why the owner of what was once City Side put a chain and a padlock on the doors at 0300 and texted the staff there is no more job. You get physically and emotionally demolished when you run a failing business, and one that is failing and cost you decades worth of income.

One of my best friends, Phil, came up Monday to help me install kitchen cabinets at our soon-to-be home and it was great working with him and catching up during the day. This is what we accomplished:

^It's gonna be great! I was all proud of what we got done then I got home and my wife was being a beotch because she wanted to help me do the cabinets. OMG CHICK WTF, OVER?! SOME OF THOSE CABINETS ARE HEAVY AND PHIL HAS CARPENTRY SKILLS NO OFFENSE YOU'RE NOT AN IDOIT BUT YOU'RE NOT A CARPENTER!

WHAT A BUNCH OF CRAP!

I was pretty salty about my wife treating me like shit and ignoring me to watch that overrated Big Bang Theory show (fuck off Shelton you are a fuckin' DINK.) so we didn't even hang out Monday night. I should have gotten drunk and passed out, but I'm not the town drunk... yet. I might be at some point soon!

I almost drank on the job yesterday. I was really close, and I might do that next week, but so far I haven't done it. Technically our liquor license means my wife and I are allowed to drink when we are there since we co-own the place. Amazing! So I can get trashed and wash dishes?! The only reason I haven't done that yet is the sad example it sets for the staff. Plus can I really make the dishes clean when I'm shitfaced? 50/50 on that one since the machine does a lot of the work.

I came as close as I ever have to just having a drink last night. One of my other great friends, Walter, was there having a beer and I barely had time to say a polite hello before I had to get back to work in the piled-up dish area. WHAT A BUNCH OF CRAP! I should have had a beer and let the dishes pile on up.

I'm pretty drunk now and I can't stay up much more. I forgot what I am even writing about. What a bunch of crap!

MY LIFE STILL SUCKS!

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Thursday, 12-12-24: This is a fuckin' joke!
Sales for the week at the restaurant are around $1300. It's Thursday at 2200 and that was taps, taps, lights out all hands maintain silence on the decks in a life a long time ago on a really big ship. Sales that low = epic fuckin' fail. It's a total joke!

There were times I absolutely hated being in the Navy and being on the aircraft carrier. However, I did my shit and got my honorable on the DD-214. I look back and I think ya know, it really wasn't that bad as compared to how fucked up my current life is. Are my best years long behind me? I don't know, but I lost hope and I need to get it back ASAP. I often say to myself "I hate my life." and I said it a few times today. Can't get a screw to bite into anything but sheetrock? "I hate my life." Shoveling up soaking-wet drywall debris outside the house in Eddington because I couldn't get it all up before snow and then epic rain hit? "I hate my life."

Today was another pwned day in a long string of them. We've had a brutal stretch of weather lately including a few rounds of snow, nothing huge but annoying snow, and on Sunday that cost the restaurant a lot of money. A LOT. There wasn't enough snow to justify closing, but it was enough to scare half our customers off for the day. Then last night there was another epic huge rain and wind-storm. Gusts up to 60MPH and Bangor officially reported a 59 last night. 3" of rain, all-bad.

We get at least one of these totally-fucked storm every year now. This one compared to the one we got around this time last year, but at least I planned ahead a little for it. I went onto the restaurant roof and cleared a couple storm drains and I cleaned out the gutters at the house. Last year we had some basement flooding because the gutters were filled with leaves and ice, it poured rain, and the water had no gutters to use.

There was no flooding at the bar and no flooding at the house, but power was pwned. By some magic we never lost power at our house. However, the restaurant that I totally hate lost one of its 2-phase power systems so no walk-in coolers, no heat, no kitchen hoods, no opening. Eddington houses? Forget it looked like all of Eddington was in the dark. Trees down all over the place, 65,000 without power.

WHAT A BUNCH OF CRAP!

Thankfully it got stupid-warm last night during the deluge of rain so all the snow melted and I could get some yard-stuff packed up and clean some debris in Eddington. I took a load of stuff up and I had my Dewalt stuff mostly charged so I could install our bedroom ceiling today with my cordless drill and cordless little Skil-Saw. I actually worked up there longer than I thought I could today thanks, but not really thanks, to the restaurant not being able to open on time because of fail-weather.

We are definitely NOT ready to move yet. Can we be ready in 4 days? I dunno but probably not thanks to the stupid restaurant. I did get most of the living room ceiling and floor done yesterday:

In a world were December weather isn't totally fucked I would have quit working there earlier because I was planning to go down to the ol' homestead for Nadia's 14th birthday. I can't friggin' believe I have a 14-year old niece! I can barely remember how old she is, but Mom texted it to me hahaha. Yeah, I suck as an uncle. Lately I suck at everything. What a bunch of crap!

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Tuesday, 12-10-24: The closing that didn't happen.
It's Tuesday evening, and if people somewhere else had done their jobs this house would have been sold already. However, the closing that was scheduled for today is now pushed back to the 16th, next Monday. Do I care and am I mad about it? NOPE!

I'm very happy to be able to stay here for another week because our new place is NOT ready. Here is the living room as of a few hours ago:

^Half done half still under construction hahahaha!

^Could use a bedroom door. We could not live there now, not just yet, especially not with pets.

Thankfully we do have the water turned on and when I was there Saturday with Bruce and Kevin (plumbers) they got it going. It was easy for them, but for me it was like nuclear physics.

^Precious... precious water running in our place. That vanity needs to GTFO! I'll buy a new one and take that bootleg-looking thing to the dump.

I rented a U-Haul for a couple days, I paid Chris and Mike (father and son duo who also work at the restaurant that I hate.) to help load it, and this was our house yesterday morning before a lot of it went into the 15-foot box-truck for the first of two trips:

^Even Tiger Lily is standing there thinking "What a bunch of crap!"

Moving sucks ass, especially in winter. We got 4-5" of snow Sunday morning, an inch last night, and periods of freezing drizzle all day. Thankfully the roads weren't busted so it was a clear trip with the U-Haul. These last couple days have been LONG days with lots to do. Too much to do, really.

I think I can have our living and bedrooms done in about a week, but the bathroom still needs some work and the stairs leading to and from the place are a little too steep for the dogs and, over time, of course for my awesome wife. Plus if we live there a long time doing the stairs will suck for me when I am older.

We dropped the price of the restaurant all the way down to $149,000 from its list price of $199,000. We need that place gone ASAP. I fuckin' hate doing that place now and it is still ruining my worthless life. On Friday I really had enough so I threw my name tag in the trash and went into the office to pout until one of the staff gave me ice cream. Everything I just wrote in that last sentence is true. What a bunch of crap! I was burned out and frustrated that two of the critical staff were an hour late on what was a busy Friday evening dinner-rush.

Sometimes the place is busy still, but often times it's not. Real winter is also here so the weather lately has hurt. A lot. Thursday and Sunday sales were ten pounds of shit stuffed into a five-pound bag thanks to wintry weather. What a bunch of crap! Friday and Saturday were great days for the placce thanks to three different events in the banquet room.

Before I pass the hell out after some drinks (not too many) and an edible I am listening to the Pet Shop Boys an extended version of What Have I Done to Deserve This? It's a fuckin' awesome song and if you disagree with me then I hate you. I probably hate you anyway, but I'll hate you a little more. It's funny and sort-of fitting because I can easily and often do ask myself "What have I done to deserve this?"

Sadly the answer is obvious and excuses can't hide it. I made shitty-life decisions so now here I am thinking 2024 has been the worst year of my worthless life. As Dad would put it "You make your own luck." I think that is true 80-90% of the time and my dumb decisions are mostly no one's fault but my own. What a bunch of crap!

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Thursday, 12-05-24: How are we gonna pull this off?
We have to be out of this house in 5 days and into our new place. This is our kitchen at the new place:

^Even my awesome wife is looking up wondering wtf we got ourselves into. All I wanna know is why? Why do I specialize in these types of things throughout my life? NO CEILING YET WHAT A BUNCH OF CRAP!

We still have a lot of stuff to move, and not one room is ready in our new place. every time I cut a hole in the sheetrock for a recessed light-can acorns fall out. I'm not even joking OMG! Obviously squirrels were living in the attic crawl-space above for years while the place was vacant. On the side where we ripped out the ceiling the problem appeared to have been mice, but there were hornets as well as squirrels and who knows what else all over that place like white on rice for a long time.

We both worked there today for a few hours. Kat finished painting the living room and most of the bedroom while I worked on other stuff like ceilings, insulation, and wiring. I need Sparkies out there soon, but not yet. I fucked up the wiring somewhere and have to fix it so we have some working outlets and lights. I will get it fixed, but it all eats up precious... precious time we usually can't spare.

I should be able to get back up there for a few hours tomorrow to work more on the ceilings and *hopefully* start a floor either in the living room or bedroom. I have a load of trash to take to the dump, that will be my third trip to the dump this week, and then it's off to Lowe's for a few more supplies and back at it. I will have to work at the restaurant tomorrow night, too. What a bunch of crap! I'll do what I can for work at our new place over the weekend before I pick up a 15-foot U-Haul for a couple days for what I expect to be two trips for moving the bed and other larger items we can't easily fit into either the car or my truck. We have moved a lot of stuff there already so that helps, but Monday and Tuesday we need to get it done.

The final walkthrough for this house is tomorrow at 0900. I plan to be here for that so if they try to fail my ass I can advocate for a different outcome. I did all kinds of stuff here and the buyer is getting a good deal so I'm not willing to get crazy on any more negotiations. Plus every time someone comes for some kind of tour or inspection stupid shit happens like the fence gate being left open so the dogs could run off into the street. What a bunch of crap! Or lights left on, thermostat turned up to 80 and not turned back down... F THAT!

I wonder when I can take another day off? I think it might be 2025, but hopefully Christmas. A lot of the days lately I'm only working at the restaurant a couple hours and most of the day I am in Eddington, but that still counts as work even if it is on the place where we plan to live. I really hope we can get it set up just how we want, and we need it for both of our sanities. I was thinking earlier I should just take a year off after we sell this house and the restaurant, but I don't forsee that actually happening. Who knows, though? If we do it right I could take a lot of time off after tax season into the spring, summer, and fall. I would love to take an actual vacation in 2025 as well. Haven't done a real vacation in something like 5 years. What a bunch of crap!

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Wednesday, 12-04-24: This is turning into a shit-show. No water, no appliances?!
I've made too many poor life-decisions over the past four years to even keep track of them all. That stupid fuckin' restaurant that we shouldn't even own anyore eats my soul. The latest poor decision? Waiting until today, five days before we plan to move into our new place, to try and turn the water on. Guess what happened? If you guessed no water you win my useless fail-trophy that I will be awarding to myself again for seemingly the 1000th time this decade. What a bunch of crap!

I didn't think about the water because I am 100% overwhelmed with my bootleg, piece of shit life. It's failing, everything about it, and if I can't fix it in 2025 then I am out of here like a fat kid in dodge ball. I'm so used to city water where all you do is make a phone call and it gets turned on. However, we have a well with a pump and a tank and it's all sat idle for years. YEARS. How long can a drilled well just sit idle? I have no idea, but I'm thinking not that long, not without filling up with dirt and crud. However, I realld don't know. All I do know is I turned off the correct valves (I think?) and powered up the pump and nothing happened. No sounds, no water, epic failer. Maybe I didn't wait long enough? Hell if I know because the live wire goes into the dirt and into the unknown. Let's just hope Bruce can work some magic for us Friday or over the weekend...

^Awarded to myself because I suck! I should have tried to get the water on weeks ago, but I wasn't sure about the heat and I didn't want pipes to freeze because it's real winter now and it has been for a week. We've had snow on the ground since Thanksgiving night last week. What a bunch of crap!

I haven't been able to work up on our new place in Eddington for more than 4-5 hours a day each day mostly because we still own a restaurant that is eating my soul and that is killing my wife. We gotta unload that place ASAP. We wanted a price-drop this week, but our broker told us to wait because he still has fish on the line. We did agree that if nothing happens this week we need to drop the price. At this point I'm half-ready to give it away for free!

Another HUGE epic failer in our life happened yesterday and today. This one is out of our control so we didn't make our own luck here like we usually do. We ordered a fridge, stove, washer, dryer, microwave, and upright freezer from Home Depot on the 21st last month. It all went well, we got a sweet package deal, delivery scheduled for this Friday the 6th. Yesterday I got a text message from Home Depot saying the order got pushed back to January 27. WHAT?! I was working so I kept it on my radar. Then a couple hours later I got an automated phone call saying the same thing as well as an email about it. No human actually called to tell me why.

HEY HOME DEPOT GIVE US OUR APPLIANCES GODS DAMN IT!

I went to the store yesterday evening to find out wtf. Unfortunately no one was in appliance department but I did get someone who was very helpful. Sadly they farm out deliveries to some other company and they weren't ansswering that late so I was pwned. I got a 1800 number to call, I did that today, I got nowhere and the manager didn't help much either. A lot of the stuff just isn't available so now we have to go back to the store and figure it all out, and we barely have time for that since it's always go, go, go. We have to pack this place still and move, we need water, we need APPLIANCES, and we need to finish the remodeling. No room is ready yet in our soon-to-be home, not one at all. What a bunch of crap!

We decided to take down the ceilings in the kitchen area due to mouse issues from the past. Good thing we did because we found stained, gross insulation and this HUGE wasp nest the size of a softball:

OMG! Thankfully it's too cold for them to live there anymore. If we did that in summer we would have had a total disaster on our hands with wasps everywhere. The little "access panel", if you can even call it that, is all chewed and rotted away. It's totally ridiculous!

We plan to move in and *hopefully* have water by next week. Appliances would be nice, too. The kitchen and dining areas are separate from the bedroom and living room so we can still remodel that side without interfering too much in our peaceful living area. Once we get the living room finished I can start the kitchen and bathrooms. We need more time gods damn it! I could push the sale of this house back, but no guarantees that will work, the buyer could bail, and we need the precious... precious money from the sale of this place so we can pay off debts. At this point we are all-in on the place in Eddington even if we won't have water or appliances.

Hey, on the bright side of things, we do have good heat, electricity, and now fast Interweb after Spectrum came today to set us up. The guy said no one has ever had Spectrum (or cable?) there before so he had to run a line all the way from the street from a pole something like 700 feet away hahaha! He did a good job so hopefully not only do we have good Interweb but hopefully we also have good TV service for whatever the hell channels we get. My awesome wife signed up for that while I was doing my best on the carpentry up at our soon-to-be place. Thankfully the sheetrock work in the bedroom and living room is finally done, and I think most of the sheetrock work is done upstairs (downstairs can wait til 2025 as it's all garage and storage now.) Today I worked on ceilings after I failed to get the water on.

Tomorrow I'll come close to finishing one area and I think I can start the floor. Maybe? Hopefully! We need a floor somewhere so we have a place for the furniture!

I can't keep up anymore I can't wait to ditch the restaurant and this house so I can get some damn peace.

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Sunday, 12-01-24: Repairs at our hours that I should have done in the past...
I had to stop working on our soon-to-be home in Eddington Friday and half of today to take care of some "deferred maintenance" items here at our house. The inspection from a couple weeks ago led to the dreaded and not-unexpected list of fails. I knew most of them were coming because I kept blowing off work at our own house so I could work elsewhere. What a bunch of crap! It's embarassing for me loser-ass, especially considering I've spent ZERO dollars on most of the repairs because I already had the materials here in anticipation of doing the work.

Friday was the day to tackle the bathroom. I knew it would take several hours, and it certainly did. The carpenter who installed the bathroom floor many years ago didn't seat the toilet properly so there was a very slow leak that, over time, turned into this:

^WHAT A GROSS BUNCH OF CRAP! I was the carpenter who didn't get it right all those years ago and for the past couple years I've known there was some subfloor issues. Cutting that all out was messy, but it went well enough. About three hours later and I was at the halfway point with new subfloor and new flooring started:

Maybe 3 hours after that I finished the floor and got the toilet seated PROPERLY with a jumbo wax ring and got the vanity and trim back in place:

^All I had left to do after that photo was to nail the trim back into place and do a little caulking around the tub-side of the floor. Didn't take long at all and now the bathroom looks great. All I wanna know is why? Why didn't I make that a priority in the past? I suck!

Today Katherine rented a little U-Haul and moved up to Eddington. She'll rent a room on Dillon and Debbie's side at their adjacent house. For the first time in forever we won't have anyone living with us wow! I am looking forward to it. Having Katherine helped as she paid rent, but my awesome wife and I need more time with just us. I thought Katherine would need my help with some moving, but Dillon helped her so I could do more work here at our house before I did get to Eddington this afternoon. I had rotting deck boards on what was Katherine's little deck:

I also had to install two exterior outlet boxes since there were only wires there. I also should have done that years ago. What a bunch of crap!

All I have left is an exterior light and that won't take long. I also have to do some cleaning. This week will be a lot of time up in Eddington working on our soon-to-be home. We're planning to move up there next Monday the 9th and we plan to close on this house Tuesday, Dec 10. I have a lot to do this week to get our place ready! Thankfully tomorrow Chris and Mike will come up and do some demolition and other related work so I can focus on trim, a little more mud and sanding, doing a ceiling, and maybe doing some painting depending on how much painting my awesome wife can do before her afternoon appointments.

Sales were good at the restaurant this past week. Not all-time great, but better than the past 3 weeks and that's really amazing since we were closed Thursday. This coming week we will also get with our sales guy to lower the asking price. I wanted to get agressive with the price, but we shall see. Kat's imput is very important as is the feedback from our sales guy. Plus if all goes well with the reinspect of this house we can get it sold in 9 days and then we will have precious... precious money again. Having to NOT worry about money for the first time in months might change my perspective on the restaurant.

I still 100% want to sell the place of course.