Houses

So, you may be able to infer from the lack of daily entries that I am actually busy these days with work! It turns out that last Thursday evening, I got an urgent page from my Program Director Dr. Mattrey asking me to write a grant for submission on Wednesday (yes, tomorrow). My advisor Dr. Jamieson had a paper and another grant to submit by the same deadline, so she wasn't going to be able to help me. I have written grants before, but never in a little over a weekend. To make the task even more challenging, I just joined the lab last Tuesday, and they study cancer stem cells, which is totally different from my area of expertise. Nevertheless, the field is super interesting, and I love to write, so I dug in full-throttle and the grant is done! Most people love research because they love to work at the bench. I love it because I love to read and write about research, so this was actually a lot of fun for me. Tomorrow, I'll get back to the experiments....

All of that aside, this post is supposed to be about houses. Some of you may know that we were scammed by D. Barrett Burge, our closing attorney for our house at 433 Horace Mann in NC. Instead of paying off the mortgage, the guy kept the money for himself as an interest-free loan (well, WE were stuck with the interest and the payments) until our banker finally forced him to pay it off. We have been trying desperately to get Mr. Burge to respond to us, but he has evaded us completely and has not provided any of the documentation or more than $2000 in reimbursement that we have demanded. So yesterday we filed a formal grievance with the NC State Bar and today we filed a claim with his Liability Insurance. Just remember: D. Barrett Burge is a CROOK!!! If any of you attorneys out there (and you know who you are) have any new ideas for how we can find justice, bring 'em on!!

In sharp contrast with that turbulence, we are currently undergoing the most pleasant renovation anyone could ever hope for. Our contractor Wally is always prompt and attentive, his workers leave the house cleaner than they found it, and George (one of the carpenters) leaves us little congratulatory love notes at the end of each day inviting us to enjoy our new look or to appreciate the way the arches turned out. It is kind of unbelievable. If Wally and his crew don't end up double-crossing us in the end (can you tell we've been burned?), we will build a SHRINE to them (next to the one for our real estate agent Sona) and adopt them into our family. We love them. Here are some photos from the kitchen transformation in progress....

BEFORE:

AFTER (so this is the is the left hand wall, now with Spanish-style arches!):

And this is the view from the adjacent room of the kitchen now that the right-hand wall has been knocked down! Mishka is modeling the former entrance hall, now part of the open floor plan! The floor in the kitchen will be tiled, and hard wood will go down in the rest of the house. Donations are accepted.