this house repair situation has gotten me a bit bummed out. i tried not to think about it last night otherwise i wouldn't have been able to fall asleep. got an e-mail from steve this morning suggesting we should get a new estimate from carlos, one with a few less items (removing anything that aren't critical or that we can do ourselves). carlos got back to me with a new price, about $1500 cheaper, but still expensive. at this point i have no idea whether his quote is cheap or expensive. feeling a bit helpless about the circumstances, i went to the only place i know for help: craig's list. having never used it to find hired services, i have no idea about the quality of the general contractors advertising online, but if they're promoting themselves through craig's list, at the very least i'd hope they'd be cheap.

i found two promising contractors, both with experience in roof work. one was a brazilian man, the other a scottish man. by evening both had contacted me to make appointments to come over to the house in the morning and give me an estimate. so hopefully by tomorrow we will have 3 prices to consider for the repair work, and by next week the house will be fixed (for cheap), and i won't have deal with this headache anymore.

the weather today certainly wasn't helping with my mood. it was so dark and rainy, that by the early afternoon i'd already drawn the blinds and turned on the lights. at least it was warm. my father came by to drop off some mantou buns. i spent the rest of the day watching movies on my laptop.