Adventures in lawn mowing....and other things

It seems as though the battery charger for my point-and-shoot camera is now MIA, and I failed to take any good pictures of the freshly painted master bedroom.  So, this post will be picture-less!

My parents were kind enough to send me a monetary donation towards a shiny new lawn mower last week.  I promptly went out on Friday after work and bought this beauty of a mower.  Today was the first time I actually used it, and it did a great job of cutting the lawn.....I just didn't put enough gas in it to get the job done!  I didn't want to risk putting gas into it until later, so I'll be finishing the two random patches of un-cut grass tomorrow after work.  I also learned that you really should do a thorough walk-through of the yard to get the bigger sticks out of the way, along with some other things.  I ran over a baseball that the previous owners left behind, but I also ran over one of Chloe's favorite toys!  She doesn't seem too fazed by it since she actually brought it inside the house and has been playing by herself with the tennis ball for the past 20 minutes.  Chloe was quite the trooper while I mowed too, watching me from the kitchen while I did the back and perching on the chair in the living room to see out the window while I was out front.

In a previous post I mentioned finally finding the perfect gray/blue/white paint color for my room.  Well, I decided I didn't want to use Valspar paint since it's much thinner than the Behr paint with the primer built in, due in large part to the fact that I was covering that much darker color and didn't want to shell out cash for primer AND two gallons of paint.  That dark color was a pain to cover, but much to my surprise, one gallon of Behr's Glimmer did the trick!  The room looks great and is much brighter and airier.  I'm considering doing the accent wall in a different color now (go figure).  But isn't that the beauty of paint?  It's easy and cheap to change if you don't like it!  The Behr paint has a slightly different tone to it than Valspar's Dew Drop, which is why I'm considering a different option.  So many other bloggers have been using Martha Stewart's Plumage, and I have to say, I'm quite drawn to it!  Thanks to the myriad of color chips and booklets featuring every single color many of my favorite brands have, I can easily tape up a swatch of that color to see what I think!

Chloe is staring me down now, so it seems we're off to the backyard again.  Doing all this mowing has gotten me thinking about possible projects for the backyard now.  A small paved seating area sounds awfully nice right about now.....

Moving right along....

A few weeks ago, I posted all about Operation Kitchen.  I haven't quite gotten started on it yet, but I'm finally in the process of narrowing down the cabinet color and the wall color.  I came across this great blog today, Favorite Paint Colors, and was completely inspired to go for a very light gray with blue undertones, to compliment the yellow of the living room.  I present you with a ridiculous amount of paint swatches taped up to my walls:

I have no clue why there's such a blue-ish tint to these photos.  My regular camera's battery charger has gone MIA, so it's cell phone pictures for now.  One swatch has come down from the wall, and I think a second may be following soon.  That's also why I don't have pictures of the delicious chocolate-covered matzo!  But I'll happily post the link to the recipe.  My Trademark, Most Requested, Absolutely Magnificent Caramel Matzoh Crunch

I've been fighting with the home warranty company for a couple weeks now too.  The washing machine stopped working, so I paid my deductible and they sent someone out to look at it.  I think we're up to five visits now to repair this thing.  Yes, you read that correctly - FIVE VISITS.  Let's recap....

1. Simple visit to check out the problem; fill out paperwork, figure out what parts need to be ordered
2. Repair guy returns with the parts; I was supposed to take a "late lunch" but instead didn't get the call they would be there until 3:30pm....when I had been at work since 7am and hadn't taken a break, so I just got to leave for the day.  Repair guy spends an hour and a half in the laundry room, only to discover that all the mechanical parts are completely rusted.  Discover that MORE parts need to be ordered to complete the repair.  Repair guy even says "No offense, but I hope I don't see you again.  They should really just get you a new machine."
3. Same repair guy returns, with even more parts.  I think it's been over two weeks at this point.  He gets halfway down the stairs before turning around and saying "I don't feel good, I can't do this repair today."  I proceeded to be not-so-nice and demanded he get someone else to the house.  I ended up taking a half day at work because it took so long to get someone out there.  Second repair guy gets everything replaced.  All is well in the world, right?  OH SO WRONG.  The machine started sounding like a freight train when I ran it.  Seriously.
4. Call the repair company back, they send the second repair guy back to my house.  Go figure, the stupid machine doesn't make the noise.  This guy tells me to run it again after I'm done at work and to call him if it's still making the noise.  Guess what happened?
5. Second repair guy came back this past Saturday.  The machine finally made the noise for him.  Turns out it was missing a clip, but he didn't have an extra so......he switched the old one to the other side and said that should do the trick.  Call the warranty company if it doesn't stop, then call him to give him a heads up.

And.......the machine is still making the noise.  I can hear it outside.  I can hear it all the way in the master bedroom with the door closed.  I just need to find my policy booklet with my account number so that I can call them again.  At this point, they could have replaced the machine twice over.  I really think they should just replace the entire machine with a shiny new one.  The one I have is 18 years old and being phased out by Kenmore.  It's time!  We'll find out what happens tomorrow in The Washing Machine Saga.