As you may or may not know we had a lot of problems during the building phase of our new house.
Jump ahead 6 months - we have been living in the house.
A crack appeard in our tile that went from one wall to the other.....odd right?
They came out took a look.. patched up the grout and on we go. SO WE THOUGHT....
A few months later a neighbor came to my door knocking, "Hey... I am your neighbor. I want you to come look at the inside of my house and see what we are living on...becuase we are suing CENTEX" So, off I went to check it out. Turned out their slab was poured incorrectly and didnt "cure" and it looks like an earthquake hit their slab. I have never seen anything like it in my life...but then again I dont work construction. All of their floors were ripped up and they were living on concrete with large cracks going from one side of the hosue to the other.
WELL.... it turned out that a lot of the slabs in the neighborhood were not reinforced and/or poured correctly. We figured out that we have one crack that goes from one side of the house to the other. We realized this because our hardwood floors are splittinig right where the crack is. CENTEX has been quite attentive to the issue...
LOW AND BEHOLD... when we get back from the Dominican they are ripping up ALL of our Hardwoods and part of our kitchen tile. I cant imagine how this is going to affect the paint we put on all of the trim and walls as well as the just destroy the cleanliness of my house! Good thing this is getting taken care of before we have kids.....
They will be filling the cracks to prevent them from spreading or getting larger as well as putting this protective barrier between the slab and the wood floor so that the hardwoods will not split in the future. I think maybe they should stop pouring concrete slabs.... and start building the foundations like all of the other sections of this neighborhood.
Let's hope in 5 years my house is still standing tall, God willing!
Never a dull moment.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Matzah and More...
This year we had the pleasure of attending THREE Passover Seder's.
Typically we only have one Seder but seeing that we are now SUPER JEWS we participated in THREE.
First Seder: We arrived at my parents house at 4:30 PM. My sister and her boyfriend Rich came in to town for Seder and this was Rich's first Jewish Holiday with our family. I think he enjoyed it...especially all of our entertaining Passover songs. My mom made us name tags or maybe place holders for the table on name tags... not sure why, but let's just say that there were only 7 of us and all of us were family except my sister's boyfriend. I am still laughing thinking about it. Just another one of my mom's cute and very memorable touches. This is one of the many reasons why I love her so much. Philip thought it was funny so he put my uncle's name tag, my mom's name tag and his name tage all on his shirt for the seder. The food was very yummy and exactly what I grew up on. I give my mom credit... she does a darn good job with Jewish Holiday food... or at least I think so since I grew up on it.
Second Seder: Philip's parents had some friends in town that were on their way down from Pittsburgh heading to Hilton Head. They stopped through with their grand children. Abe, Nathan and Mollie were so cute! I wish I had a photo of all three of them to show off. Philip and I led the Seder and we had 10 adults and 3 kids participate. We used a Haggadah that Rabbi Judy made just for the Schreibman's and it even had current events information throughout. Very cool....The food and company were great.
After Seder: Now that Philip and I live here in Charlotte we are love that our house has become a place for all of our friends that come home for the Holidays to hang out at. Typically this is much better than the long haul to uptown to go out, pay for over priced drinks and parking etc. We had a good amount of friends come over for drinks and the guys played the Wii and the girls all chatted around the kitchen island as usual. It was great to see everyone. I am really hoping that Courtney, Josh, Ben and Lisa.... all move to Charlotte soon. I always miss them when they are gone and wish that they lived here. It can not happen soon enough :)
Third Seder: Pamela and Josh hosted the 2nd night of Passover at their house with many of our friends from NextDOR (the temple's 20's/30's group that we are active in). Pamela and Josh opened their home up to everyone even though they are getting married in less than 3 weeks. They are amazing....let's leave it at that. The table was set so pretty and it was great to get everyone together.
Josh led the Seder using the new Haggadah's that Philip and I purchased with our names on them ...that we will eventually use when we have kids. They are great and everyone seemed to like them! Thank you to Pamela and Josh for such a wonderful Seder wiiith FANTASTIC FOOD! I particularly loved Kim's mashed potatoes and the corn casserole. Yummmm!
Typically we only have one Seder but seeing that we are now SUPER JEWS we participated in THREE.
First Seder: We arrived at my parents house at 4:30 PM. My sister and her boyfriend Rich came in to town for Seder and this was Rich's first Jewish Holiday with our family. I think he enjoyed it...especially all of our entertaining Passover songs. My mom made us name tags or maybe place holders for the table on name tags... not sure why, but let's just say that there were only 7 of us and all of us were family except my sister's boyfriend. I am still laughing thinking about it. Just another one of my mom's cute and very memorable touches. This is one of the many reasons why I love her so much. Philip thought it was funny so he put my uncle's name tag, my mom's name tag and his name tage all on his shirt for the seder. The food was very yummy and exactly what I grew up on. I give my mom credit... she does a darn good job with Jewish Holiday food... or at least I think so since I grew up on it.
Second Seder: Philip's parents had some friends in town that were on their way down from Pittsburgh heading to Hilton Head. They stopped through with their grand children. Abe, Nathan and Mollie were so cute! I wish I had a photo of all three of them to show off. Philip and I led the Seder and we had 10 adults and 3 kids participate. We used a Haggadah that Rabbi Judy made just for the Schreibman's and it even had current events information throughout. Very cool....The food and company were great.
After Seder: Now that Philip and I live here in Charlotte we are love that our house has become a place for all of our friends that come home for the Holidays to hang out at. Typically this is much better than the long haul to uptown to go out, pay for over priced drinks and parking etc. We had a good amount of friends come over for drinks and the guys played the Wii and the girls all chatted around the kitchen island as usual. It was great to see everyone. I am really hoping that Courtney, Josh, Ben and Lisa.... all move to Charlotte soon. I always miss them when they are gone and wish that they lived here. It can not happen soon enough :)
Third Seder: Pamela and Josh hosted the 2nd night of Passover at their house with many of our friends from NextDOR (the temple's 20's/30's group that we are active in). Pamela and Josh opened their home up to everyone even though they are getting married in less than 3 weeks. They are amazing....let's leave it at that. The table was set so pretty and it was great to get everyone together.
Josh led the Seder using the new Haggadah's that Philip and I purchased with our names on them ...that we will eventually use when we have kids. They are great and everyone seemed to like them! Thank you to Pamela and Josh for such a wonderful Seder wiiith FANTASTIC FOOD! I particularly loved Kim's mashed potatoes and the corn casserole. Yummmm!
Philip, Josh and Hal taking a break outside to enjoy the lovely evening weather!
By now Philip and I are tired of Matzah and I think we have had enough Seder's for this year. We are so thankful that we got to spend Passover with so many friends and our families!
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Catch up....
My first blog... wow.
Big shoes to fill with all of my fantastic friends that blog away and keep my days full of laughs and tears as they share their journey's through relationship, engagements, marriages, babies, deaths and life.
I think I need to play catch up.
ALMOST ONE YEAR AGO...Philip and I quit our jobs, sold our townhouse and started building a house in South Charlotte. Pretty lofty I must say, seeing that neither of us had jobs. However, we had each other, a plan and a goal and in my opinion that is all we needed. I moved to Charlotte without Philip to pursue a job that didn't end up working out. (Let's leave it at that!). I lived here in Charlotte for about 3 months without Philip and stayed with my parents. Philip stayed back in Raleigh and finished out his job with the state. After months of interviewing and searching he finally secured a job (A HUGE PROMOTION!) working for a company called Gevity, Inc as an HR Consultant. He joined me at my parents in Charlotte in August to start his new job!
Side note: Staying with my parents was not nearly what we though it would be like. Everyone talks about moving back home and how terrible it is once your an adult or even married. We never thought that we would live with my parents only one year after we got married. My parents were great hosts. It wasn't the easiest time for them personally (which had nothing to do with us) so it was great that Philip and I were there to lend our support. We love them and thank them for allowing us to live with them for almost 6 months! ALSO...while I was living with my parents in Charlotte I met my weight loss goal of 40 lbs weighing in under 138 lbs. I started Jenny Craig back in October of 2006 and by May 2007 I was 40 lbs skinner and had dropped almost 10 sizes! The move was a very good test on my weight loss but I was able to pull threw and continue to lose and maintain at 140lbs (my original goal!)
While all of this was going on I re-connected with a colleague at Global Knowledge (my former employer in Raleigh) and she put me in touch with her husband who owns a IT Recruiting firm in Cary, Surety Systems, Inc. Surety Systems offered me a job that would allow me to work from home as an IT Recruiter. I was very nervous about the change but threw myself in feet first.
During this time of transition and separation we had began building our dream house....with lots of room for a future family. I can confess I am a planner. I am constantly thinking...days, weeks, months, years ahead. Our house took 3 months to build and we had many obstacles throughout the process. The two major obstacles were the doors to the study didn't fit into the frame of the house and the house looked like a hurricane less than 1 week before we were scheduled to close (which is supposedly not the norm for our builder). We had 3 project managers, 3 sales reps and 3 mortgage consultants in 3 months. Let' s just sum this experience up with: We never got our JD Power's Survey that they brag about and I am sure we didn't get it for a reason. They knew it was going to be ugly!
We love our house and could not be more thankful that everything worked out! Our house has 4 bedrooms, a large bonus room ("man room filled with Philip's NC State Stuff") an office for me to work out of and all the other normal rooms! 2700 sq ft.... with plenty of empty rooms! We painted the majority of the house before we moved in so that we wouldn't have to deal with moving all of the furniture around.
Big shoes to fill with all of my fantastic friends that blog away and keep my days full of laughs and tears as they share their journey's through relationship, engagements, marriages, babies, deaths and life.
I think I need to play catch up.
ALMOST ONE YEAR AGO...Philip and I quit our jobs, sold our townhouse and started building a house in South Charlotte. Pretty lofty I must say, seeing that neither of us had jobs. However, we had each other, a plan and a goal and in my opinion that is all we needed. I moved to Charlotte without Philip to pursue a job that didn't end up working out. (Let's leave it at that!). I lived here in Charlotte for about 3 months without Philip and stayed with my parents. Philip stayed back in Raleigh and finished out his job with the state. After months of interviewing and searching he finally secured a job (A HUGE PROMOTION!) working for a company called Gevity, Inc as an HR Consultant. He joined me at my parents in Charlotte in August to start his new job!
Side note: Staying with my parents was not nearly what we though it would be like. Everyone talks about moving back home and how terrible it is once your an adult or even married. We never thought that we would live with my parents only one year after we got married. My parents were great hosts. It wasn't the easiest time for them personally (which had nothing to do with us) so it was great that Philip and I were there to lend our support. We love them and thank them for allowing us to live with them for almost 6 months! ALSO...while I was living with my parents in Charlotte I met my weight loss goal of 40 lbs weighing in under 138 lbs. I started Jenny Craig back in October of 2006 and by May 2007 I was 40 lbs skinner and had dropped almost 10 sizes! The move was a very good test on my weight loss but I was able to pull threw and continue to lose and maintain at 140lbs (my original goal!)
While all of this was going on I re-connected with a colleague at Global Knowledge (my former employer in Raleigh) and she put me in touch with her husband who owns a IT Recruiting firm in Cary, Surety Systems, Inc. Surety Systems offered me a job that would allow me to work from home as an IT Recruiter. I was very nervous about the change but threw myself in feet first.
During this time of transition and separation we had began building our dream house....with lots of room for a future family. I can confess I am a planner. I am constantly thinking...days, weeks, months, years ahead. Our house took 3 months to build and we had many obstacles throughout the process. The two major obstacles were the doors to the study didn't fit into the frame of the house and the house looked like a hurricane less than 1 week before we were scheduled to close (which is supposedly not the norm for our builder). We had 3 project managers, 3 sales reps and 3 mortgage consultants in 3 months. Let' s just sum this experience up with: We never got our JD Power's Survey that they brag about and I am sure we didn't get it for a reason. They knew it was going to be ugly!
We love our house and could not be more thankful that everything worked out! Our house has 4 bedrooms, a large bonus room ("man room filled with Philip's NC State Stuff") an office for me to work out of and all the other normal rooms! 2700 sq ft.... with plenty of empty rooms! We painted the majority of the house before we moved in so that we wouldn't have to deal with moving all of the furniture around.
We moved in the week of September 21st, 2007 just in time to celebrate Philip's 28th birthday. Ironically we moved in and three days later Philip left me for a week in this huge brand new house to go to a new hire training in FL for his job. Both of our mom's helped me unpack and get settled. I can admit I was very anxious about getting all of the boxes out of the house and unpacked. I am proud to say we got it all done in less than 2 weeks! We already purchased all of the furniture we needed for the house prior to moving in so all we had left to do was mount the two plasma's. Somehow Philip and I mounted both TVs by ourselves. That is what I call determination!
We have settled in quite nicely. We have made some great friends in Charlotte by getting involved at the Temple, JCC and Federation.
Philip and I have already thrown numerous parties at our house which is perfect for entertaining: Random party with new and old friends, Vodka Latke Party, Final Four Cook out and more. In preparation for future summer parties and cookouts we decide to expand our puny 10x12 cement patio and make it 15x16 with bluestone pavers. To save money Philip and I took this project on ourselves. Thanks to Blue Maxx materials here in Charlotte this project was a success! We are very proud of this project and love the way it came out. I am sure our neighbors think we are nuts because we spent one rainy freezing cold week outside trying to get it done in time for a large party we had at the beginning of April (however it rained and we were forced to play beer pong in the garage instead of volleyball and horseshoes). Some other home improvements that we did were to have custom book shelves and cabinets built on either side of our television. We love them and definitely this that they add a lot to the room as well as space for future toys! For our two year anniversary my in-laws helped us purchased a substantial amount of landscaping and had their landscaper come and plant all of the trees and bushes as well as create beds throughout the backyard to beautify the yard! I can honestly say that we are the ONLY ones that have landscaped our yard around us and it makes the world of a difference...especially since they knocked down every tree possible in our neighborhood before building. Hopefully in 5 years we will have a very nicely shaded/landscaped yard.
Can you imagine what this looked like without these? Big indention's in the wall!
Flower bed next to our patio under the kitchen windows.
We used to left over stone to create the border
Stage 1 Dig up all of the sod and create the space for the patio extension
Stage 2, Pouring the crushed stone for drainage
Stage 3 Extending the Patio with Cement Pavers to level the surface
Stage 4 Filling in all of the gaps with ABC to prepare for the stone
Stage 5 - Spread Sand to prepare for the laying the stone. What is underneath is now a mystery!
Stage 6 - Laying the Stone and Leveling each piece of Stone
Stage 7 - ALL DONE! Hopefully the grass around the patio will come back alive sooner than later! We love rain right now.
This brings us to now....
Philip loves his job and is really succeeding. I have never seen Philip so passionate about something like he is about his work. He is getting ready to take the SPHR exam for his HR certification and hopefully will be pursuing his MBA in the fall at UNCC. We are in the process of working out the logistics and getting him registered to take some of the pre-req's that he will need. Philip has also taken on a role volunteering for the Jewish Federation for 2008 and I think he will do an awesome job getting involved through this organization.
I have been with my company almost one year now and I have really grown to like what I am doing. Initially as many of you know I was very concerned about our financial situation and the large pay cut I took for this position. I am happy to say that I have already exceeded my own expectations for 2008 and couldn't be more proud. I was recently nominated for the Board of Directors at Temple Beth El and couldn't be more excited about this honor. I think I am the youngest board member ever! This past year I led the Temple's 20's and 30's group titled NextDOR (next generation) through its most successful programming year yet and it allowed me to meet so many people I would've never met sitting at home working away in my office all day. The group has grown so much that we have over 50+ people at most of our events! It has been a great outlet for both Philip and I.
The past few months have been our busiest yet!
Lots of Birthdays and anniversaries....house projects...cook outs...
Passover begins this weekend and next Friday we head to the Dominican Republic for our 2 Year Anniversary trip. More details to follow.....
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