Georgetown House

Not a word for two years, then two posts in one night

2011-11-23T22:33:00.003-05:00

I just bought this for my bathroom:

Do I have it in my budget to buy this right now? Well...... no. But it wasn't something that required a second mortgage or credit of any kind, and I don't buy something if I can't find the cash to pay for it, anyway (the only credit I have is my mortgage and I'm trying to get that paid off as soon as possible). But still, this will take a combination of creative rearranging and doing without to pay for it, but I just couldn't risk that someone else would buy it before I could more easily figure out how to pay for it.

I'm not someone who needs "things" to be happy, and yet there are things that make me feel happy. I love that this is at least roughly from the original period of this house (1920s/30s). I love imagining it being used for many generations -- little hands struggling to reach for a cup and lined hands dropping his teeth into a cup, toothbrushes and shaving powders and combs and tweezers and aspirin and valium taking their places and times on the shelf. I don't know if I believe in ghosts -- I'll accept that they might be possible, but have never seen or heard of any evidence that seemed credible to me -- but I do believe that somehow, well used and largely ignored household items pick up the energy from all the people who use them. How else can you explain that there can be an item that's 90 years old and a near-identical item that's newly made, and there is just something that emanates from the old and well-used item that can't be explained otherwise.

Dang, I didn't realize it had been so long

2011-11-23T19:16:00.002-05:00

Whoa! I didn't realize that it had been almost 3 years since I last updated. I know that some people are able to raise kids and get tons of work done, but apparently I'm not one of them -- our now 5.5 year old granddaughter has lived with us full time since 2/08, and our just-turned-16 year old granddaughter (who has lived with us off and on all her life) has lived with us full time for just over a year now. Maybe if I were 20 years younger I would have the energy to parent two very different (though both exceptionally wonderful) kids, but I tell you -- there's a reason why nature made it so that women in their 50's typically don't have very young kids to raise, and it's one of God's many jokes to combine a rising-hormonal teen with a disappearing-hormonal grandma.

We actually have done some things since then -- or rather, we've paid to have things done. We had a concrete floor poured in the garage (along with new walkway in back and some patching done on the basement floor), we had the garage and the front porch painted, we had some structural repairs done under the porch and a hole patched in the soffits, and thanks to my dad (along with some hired muscle to dig a long trench through a zillion roots) I now have updated power out to the garage (plus lights in the garden shed) so that in theory I could set up the workroom that I really want. And I was able to do a few things towards that goal: I built some scrap wood storage bins and a simple workbench (love the Kreg jig that made that so much easier!), and I bought a router from Craigslist but haven't used it yet, but between the garage being filled with most of my step-d's worldly possessions for the past year, my physical limitations that I finally learned were because I have two disks in my neck pushing into my spinal cord (surgery 1/3/12, fun fun fun!), and the fact that we pushed everything over to one now impenetrable side in order to get my van in there (what a concept, a VEHICLE in the garage!) when Irene came through here a couple of months ago, nothing else has happened.

And when I say nothing else, I mean nothing: The dining room floor project? Still not done (though we did at least find a much nicer rug to go over the crappy subfloor). The bathroom project? Still not done (though I'm going to ask my dad to fix the electrical issues that I wrote about almost 3 years ago when he and my mom are here to help out for a couple of weeks after my surgery). We will at least soon have natural gas in the house, which will mean a tankless HWH, a GAS STOVE (hallelujah!!), plus gas lines run for a future gas fireplace and future gas dryer, but that's only because we committed to the gas company that we'd have that done by the end of this year so that they'd run the hookup to our house for free, before the bottom fell out of our finances, so that's going to get paid... somehow.

But past that? Feh. Nothing serious on the horizon, since money is so extremely tight (can't do my usual extra jobs because of the physical issues, both 10 year old cars have needed WAY too much work in the past months, the impending gas installation, we've been sucked into financially supporting our elder granddaughter's cheerleading habit, and I'll be out on disability for two months after this surgery) and I'm not physically able to handle the work that I'd normally be able to do for very little money (rip out drywall, wiring, get the workshop set up, finish the dining room floor, etc.) because of the physical problems. But I'm hoping that by the time my summer break rolls around, I'll be given the go-ahead to finally do the work I've been wanting to do for a long while.

So how's that for a long-winded "not much to update but I'm gonna do it anyway" post?

Music and Paris

2009-01-20T19:16:00.003-05:00

We have a new member of our family. Folks, meet Paris:

She is a 1.5-2 year old lab mix the color of a really good piece of dark chocolate that we adopted from The Delaware Alliance for Animal Welfare Groups (www.daawgs.org) just over a week ago. She was a stray rescued by them from a shelter in VA where her time was up and she was about to be killed, then remained in their care for quite a while due to what her foster mom (and one of DAAWGS primary organizers) called something like "black dog syndrome" since apparently people are far less likely to show interest in a black dog.

Well let me tell you that their disinterest is our gain. As someone who has adopted and done my best to train seven rescued dogs in the past 30 years, most of which were too damaged to get past some of their significant issues, we have hit the doggie lottery jackpot here. She is without question the most well behaved and naturally patient and sweet dog I've ever had. Mellow. Sweet. CALM! I've never had a calm dog before. Thanks to her foster homes (and possibly some pre-shelter training) she is housebroken, does well on the leash (when not tempted by small furry things like squirrels), understands some basic obedience commands and is quickly learning others. She is every parent's/grandparent's dream with our 2.5 year old granddaughter, who climbs all over her, plays "peek-a-boo" with her ears, attempts to ride her like a horse, and tries to hand-feed her instead of allowing her to eat from her own bowl. Paris just sits patiently through even the most exasperating of our grandaughter's activities and covers her with kisses.

I also wanted to post to put in a plug for Woodstock Chimes (www.chimes.com). I've had their alto Gregorian Chimes in my Amazon wish list for years, based on an original recommendation for their chimes from a musician friend, and finally bought them for myself. The chimes are perfectly tuned. I can't carry a tune in a bucket myself and I don't have any exceptional musical talent, but one thing I can do is identify when something is even slightly out of tune (how I've survived so many elementary school musical productions so far is due only to love). I have seen and tested out dozens of chimes over the years and something is always just a tiny bit off on most of them. But every note of these chimes was tuned to a perfect 8-note chord.

They don't look any different than most chimes that you see out there, but their sound is extraordinary. Their website includes recordings of their different chimes (here's their recording of the chimes I have) but their recordings honestly don't do justice to their sound. I plan to place these in front of my house so that I can hear the chimes from my front porch or when my bedroom window is open, and I plan to add their baritone Gregorian chimes to my wish list to expand on my front-yard wind orchestra, and save up my pennies since I'm finally convinced of how much they are worth their cost.

Lusting After Power Tools

2008-12-16T21:20:00.002-05:00

I have said it before: I am a power tool slut. It doesn't matter that I'm a super-busy lazyass who gets less done in a year than most housebloggers get done in a weekend. Some power tools just get me... oh my Maude. Heart pounding, breath shallow and fast, pupils dilated, squirmy in my seat. Get the picture? Understand now why I love hanging out at Lowes?

I have a new object of insane desire: The Dewalt Tracksaw. Oh my freakin' Maude. I WANT. I can't justify getting one right now, even as a substitute for the table saw that I wanted SO much but can't really justify because in order to set up a real workshop I'd need to seriously upgrade the power going to my garage (which is not a simple task considering that it's on the other side of the yard from the house). But this... this can do what a table saw could do, without taking up the space of a table saw.

Check this baby out:

I'm entering into the contest at One Project Closer to try and win one. Oh the glorious things I could do with this tool...

Kitchen Inspiration

2008-11-15T01:52:00.005-05:00

Yes, I need to focus on the bathroom right now. But as I start to have a pretty clear idea of what I want in there, I can't help but allow my thoughts to stray into the kitchen, which we need to replace all of the cabinets and redesign the layout a bit so that we can collect on the wedding present my parents have offered to us: A dishwasher. There's just no place to put one in the current kitchen layout, and I don't see replacing a few of the cabinets with more of the same unfinished sawdust-board box cabinets that are in there now. I'd rather do it right and get a kitchen that I'm really going to like.

And as I've stated many times before: Yes, our kitchen is functional and there's nothing seriously wrong with it. I just don't like it. And I need to like it. The kitchen is the most important room in the house to me. Cooking is my most significant creative outlet, and I need that room to spark my creativity instead of make me feel like I'm still living in some cheapass rundown apartment in Canton, Ohio. I want something that makes me feel good, and that is suited to the character of our old home. Our kitchen, as it is now, will never make me feel good, and it is totally out of place in this house. I'm not fool enough to consider dropping a fortune on whatever we do - it's got to fit in the current footprint (meaning, I'm not going to be able to make it no longer too small) with minimal changes to the layout of electrical and plumbing, for example - but I know I can get a kitchen I can love even within those limitations. I don't need fancy bells and whistles. I just need a kitchen that makes me smile and feel good.

So I've started to poke around on ideas. Tonight I hadn't planned to focus on the kitchen, beyond researching microwaves to replace ours that blew out the other day in a shimmering sparking blaze of glory (two-year-old cheapass piece of shite that it was). But microwave research led to kitchen remodeling discussion with someone on another forum which led to a recommendation to check out this thread over at the GardenWeb forums, which led to that poster's set of pictures of his new kitchen, which led to this picture:

I love so much about this kitchen. Of course it's 3-4 times the size of mine, but I love the feel of it. The style of doors and drawers are exactly what I've been looking for. I love the varied cabinet heights. This is definitely an inspiration kitchen for me.

Thanks, Mrs. B.!!

It's not being greedy, just trying to get lucky

2008-10-31T23:28:00.003-04:00

I wasn't going to enter this month's One Project Closer contest because I just won one and I'm feeling a bit guilty that I won't be able to try it and review my new mosquito-ridding toy until the weather warms up a bit.

However, earlier this evening I turned on the ugly cheap "contractor grade" fan in the living room to diffuse killer over-sugared over-hyped toddler diaper from hell smell and it started acting all whonky and sounding totally off, to the point where I turned it off and raised the chain up to remind others not to use it. And I was going to leave it at that but then I went to check my email and read and replied to their latest post and remembered their contest for this month which is a $175 certificate for a ceiling fan from Home Depot, and I decided that there's nothing wrong with trying to get lucky.

So here it is, less than half an hour before the deadline, another shameless entry for one of their contests.

I feel lucky, oh so lucky, I feel lucky and plucky and GAY!! And I pity, any girl that isn't me today....

(OK, it's late and I'm weird, and I love old musicals and making up new lyrics to songs.)

Cold Weather as Motivator

2008-10-22T00:43:00.002-04:00

That does it. We finally had to turn the heat on (no chance of making it to my normal November 1st goal, which is always much more fantasy thatn reality). Though "heat" in this house is a very subjective term - our high temperature is what most folks turn theirs down to while they're gone in order to save money. We're most definitely a heavy sweaters, fuzzy slippers, lap robes and down comforters kind of household.

But cold weather means baths. And baths right now stil mean that dinky straight-sided shallow piece of cheap trash that's in my bathroom.

My remodel, planned as this past summer's project, has been delayed by unexpected events, economic concerns, and bald-ass laziness, but NO MORE. By the end of this week I will have done a final review of the plumbers that I interviewed and call one up and start making arrangements. By the middle of next week I want to have ordered all that I need to order (if I use the plumber who would have me do that instead of my buying it through him). I will have made at least the first call to my chosen plumber in an attempt to set up a date.

I WILL get my new bathtub in before the end of the year, so help me Maude.

The rest... no promises. At this rate the room might not be tiled and finished until Chanel marries a skilled carpenter and tiler, but that won't matter if I can relax in my tub with a well-worn book in my hands and perhaps a drink on the side.

I am SO ready to start ripping that crap out of there.

I should be embarrassed to do this, but...

2008-09-28T01:09:00.002-04:00

Yes, I haven't updated in a while, because there's nothing much house related to update: Bathroom renovation is still stalled, garage never got painted, dining room floor never got refinished. There's still a long list of "wants" and "to-do's" but very little activity. Life just keeps seeming to sidetrack us big-time, mostly in good ways (getting married, having the grandkids with us most weekend, being very busy with our good jobs that we're so blessed to have in these uncertain economic times), plus, let's face it -- when we're not sidetracked, we're usually either just wiped out by everything else, or just too damn lazy to get started on anything.

Oh, wait. I lied. There is one delightful update - my parents are getting us a dishwasher for a wedding present. This is wonderful because (a) a house this size needs a dishwasher for resale value somewhere down the road, and (b) V's eczema is making dishwashing more and more difficult and painful. Except, our tiny kitchen has no place for a dishwasher, so installing one means a pretty significant kitchen remodel. So we're adding that to the list.

But here's where the embarrassing part of this post comes in. I know that the last time I posted here, it was a shameless bid to win some tools from One Project Closer. But now the stakes are even higher: Now they're giving away a Mosquito 86 Gas-blower based Mosquito Prevention System. And HELLO, we live in Delaware, where the mosquitoes swarm as thick as flies on day-old dog poop.

Let me put this in perspective: Way back in the very early "getting to know each other and trying to impress" stage of our relationship, V. visited from NJ and volunteered to tackle a tedious outdoor project for me that took about an hour. I highly recommended bug spray; V. scoffed. I still found it in myself to be sympathetic over the next couple of days without ever saying "I told you so" (since it was, of course, still in the early stages of our relationship and V. was unaware of how bad we had it here - now of course I'd do my wifely best to say some variation on "What the HELL were you thinking?!?" as often as I could) as I repeatedly treated her swollen, itchy arms which - no exaggeration - had around one bite every square inch. One of the most shocking and delightful parts of our visit to San Francisco was realizing that there were no screens in the windows where we stayed, because there were no mosquitoes to eat us alive as we slept.

I really really really want to be able to go outside in the summer and not drench myself and my granddaughters in poison; to me, that more than balances out my ambivalence about spraying mosquito poison around my yard. I really really really want to have a summer that doesn't include keeping batches of my special mosquito bite salve -- the contents of benadryl capsules mixed up with neosporin with pain relief and cortisone cream -- stashed around the house. I really really really want to stop worrying so much with every heartworm check done on the dogs since I know they're bitten regularly.

So I really really really want to win this, and I have no shame in posting this here in order to significantly increase my chances of doing so. I will not pretend subtlety. Pick me. Please. K?

Keeping my fingers crossed

2008-08-21T21:33:00.002-04:00

Between getting married and the school year starting, I have done nothing on the house beyond arranging for some trees to be trimmed and browsing for kitchen cabinets.

So let me indulge in a little hopeful fun: Posting in order to enter a contest.

The folks over at the truly awesome One Project Closer blog have some Irwin tools to give away, and would like to know how I'd use them if I won.

The locking pliers are the most versatile: One of the first things I learned about home ownership is that there is very little that can't be fixed in a pinch with vise grips and duct tape. I already have duct tape. I already have vise grips, too, but they're all old and cranky and they don't have cool blue handles.
The adjustable wrench will go into my car to replace the adjustable wrench that Someone Who Shall Remain Nameless broke while trying to use them to pound something that should have been pounded with a hammer. EVERYone (well, everyone except S.W.S.R.N.) knows that if you need to pound something and you don't have a hammer, you use vise grips, not an adjustable wrench.
The spring loaded needle nose will become my dedicated kitchen needle nose pliers, and used to remove pin bones from trout and other pin-boney fish. Guests don't look all that comfy with the cook digging into a grimy toolbox for something that then gets used to prepare dinner.

I could have written about using these for far more house related purposes, described some specific projects, such as how the needle nose pliers will likely be useful as I continue redoing the electric in the bathroom remodeling project, the adjustable wrench will be used for the bolts on the small raised pool deck that we're getting from someone that needs to be disassembled and reassembled and added on to turn it into a fort for when BabyGrand gets a little older, or that the locking pliers will be used for... well, just about everything since locking pliers really are, in my book, one of the most useful tools out there (especially for folks like me who regularly need a third hand). But the answers I gave are my more honest ones.

I realize that I have about as much chance at winning as I do of getting the bathroom remodeled before the end of 2008 (yeah, RIGHT) but hey, it's fun to dream about winning! I've never won anything online before, except for a poem written in my honor. Oh, but what a fine poem that was, indeed...

A whole lotta nothing (except a wedding!)

2008-08-14T20:59:00.005-04:00

Well, so much for my summer break work-on-the-house plans. Between teaching, 2+ weeks in NC, and planning a wedding, it just didn't happen.

It's going to, though. I'm going to call the Selected Plumber this week to make sure of what the price quoted includes and get a date scheduled, then get the tub and fixtures ordered. Even if all that happens before the end of this year is my new tub, my new tub IS going to happen, dammit! Rest of the bathroom... we'll see. Eventually. Maybe next year when I'm determined to, for once, really truly take the summer off.

The wedding went beautifully, especially for something planned at the last minute. Some pictures are posted here, thanks to a talented friend who did it all with her toddler strapped to her back! I wish I had more pics of the front and inside of the beautiful old house, now a bed & breakfast called Noe's Nest, where we held the ceremony. You can see the garden in the pictures, and the house itself is every bit as lovely. I stayed there last year, and highly recommend it to anyone staying in the San Francisco area.

Here we are, just after having been declared legal spouses:

Going to San Francisco and we're gonna get ma-a-a-ried

2008-07-14T20:41:00.003-04:00

Finally, a really good excuse for not having done much of anything on the house this summer!

Yes, this is slightly last-minute: I just found out Thursday that, much to everyone's surprise, the budget was approved for me to go to a geekazoid conference in San Francisco the first week in August. Long story short, Partner decided to join me once it's over, we're going to have a little mini-vacation, and we're going to get married! We'd always planned to have both a small civil and a larger personal wedding, thinking we'd do the civil one in Canada on a "honeymoon" but this just moves the civil one up a bit!

Of course we'll be required to relinquish our legal rights as a married couple at the SFO security check-in, but we'll just go with the hope that in our lifetime we will see our marriage recognized in our state and by our country. It's the same hope that Mildred and Richard Loving had when they traveled to DC to marry, since their home state of VA prohibited their interracial marriage, and not only would not recognize their relationship as valid but could potentially arrest them for it, just like queerfolk could be arrested in many states until the Supreme Court finally ruled that the law has no business poking their noses into what grownups choose to do in the privacy of their own bedrooms. In the delightfully named landmark 1967 Supreme Court case, Loving vs. Virginia, the court ruled that despite Virginia's argument that it wasn't discrimination by race since both the white person and the person of color were considered to be breaking the law, and because both were free to marry someone of their own race, it was in fact discrimination, and those "radical judges" finally dismantled all of the laws that set race-based limits on who you were allowed to marry.

I can only hope that our country gets its head out of its ass soon and stops acting as if our loving each other is somehow going to dismantle the institution of marriage. Marriage in most countries is strictly a civil institution; we are doing what most people around the world do, which is to have a short simple civil ceremony which legally binds us, separate from a friends, family, ritual, religion, music and mojitos ceremony and reception that has no legal status.

Ok, enough rambling. Now, what the HELL am I going to wear, and where are we going to DO this, seeing how SF town hall is booked solid? Who knew that even a little short ceremony like we're having could take so much work?!?

Goin' to San Francisco, and we're... gonna get ma-a-a-ried... gee I really love you and we're... gonna get ma-a-aried...

Survivor Windows/Reliabilt gets A for customer service

2008-06-27T08:55:00.005-04:00

The replacement sash was waiting for me when I came back from my two weeks out of town.

It didn't include instructions on how to take out the old and put in the new, but with a hint from an online friend we finally got that figured out. I have no doubt that we could have also gotten instructions from their customer service desk, but I didn't call until after they were closed and of course I didn't want to wait until the next morning to do this. What, me? Impatient? Nahhhh.

Once we knew the trick it took me three seconds solo to take out the old, and 3 minutes with Partner's help to put back in the new.

And so while the window really shouldn't have broken in the first place (and we still have no idea why it did), Survivor Windows (sold through Lowes as Reliabilt) gets a solid A for customer service because of their immediate action to send us out a replacement sash without making us jump through hoops, even knowing that the windows were 9 years old and that we didn't have the receipt, and they didn't even challenge me about or ask for pictures to back up my claim that the window broke all on its own, as evidenced by there being zero damage to the screen or inner pane. They would have earned an A+ had they included installation instruction, since it was not at all difficult but it was also not intuitive.

I'm especially happy with their customer service when I compare it to what my dad is going through with MW Manufacturers Windows, also sold through Lowes, to get them to fix or replace a broken window that he bought only a couple of years ago. If I understood his tirade correctly, they're basically saying "oh we don't have that part that broke and we won't replace the whole window so you're SOL."

I'm still no big fan of vinyl windows overall, particularly to replace original wood windows in old houses. I'd still much rather have the windows that were original to this house, and just fix them up and add on good quality storms and screens but the deed was done when we bought the house. But now that I have vinyl replacement windows, it's good to at least know that they're from a company that will solidly back up their product.

OK, so I crumbled.

2008-06-05T11:04:00.002-04:00

Every year I have November 1st as my goal date for turning on the heat. Most years I get close, and I think last year I missed it by just one day, but I really do try hard and if it was just me, I'd make it if I had to wear 15 layers.

I also have a goal date of June 15th before turning on the AC, but it's much more difficult for me to adhere to that one, especially now that I'm at that special age where I carry around my own internal furnace year-round. But add in Delaware's killer humidity and a whole bunch of rain with wind that made opening the windows impossible, I finally caved.

At least we have central air now, on an efficient system, and with a kick-ass good filtering system.

It's all about the customer service, baby.

2008-06-04T11:22:00.002-04:00

Well, this was quite unexpected and something worth passing along. The window that broke was 8-9 years old, we didn't install it, we don't have the receipt for it, but with one brief call to the company about the window, they are sending us out a totally new sash. Normally they would have me get it through where they were bought, since that's where the windows were purchased and they handle the warranty service on the windows they sell, but since this is an older discontinued model they're sending it to me directly.

Now, as long as it doesn't turn out to be a PITA to install (which I can't imagine it will be), I will call this a good experience and excellent customer service. I've always said that it's not about someone never making mistakes (or never having a product fail), it's how you respond when a mistake is made.

Freakin' POS Vinyl Windows

2008-06-03T13:08:00.006-04:00

Night before last I heard some strange POP sound from the vicinity of the laundry room. I investigated and here's what I found:

You can click on the picture to see a close up of the damage.

Of course, I was initially worried that it was someone trying to break in, but inspection that evening and re-inspection during the day yesterday confirmed that nope, no way this was caused by anything or anyone hitting the window, this glass just broke all on its own. It's just the exterior pane of the double-pane window that broke, but the screen is completely undamaged, and it's too far away from the window and much too taught for anything to have gotten through and broken this window without damaging the screen in some way. We poked and pushed on the screen and tried everything to see if we could get to the window without damaging the screen, and it just wasn't happening.

I did at least find out from the PO's where they got the windows (edited - see note at end), so I'm going to stop by the store where they got them from today while running errands and see if they can tell me if the pane can be replaced (since I'm told that on some double-pane vinyl windows they can't) or if I have to replace the whole blasted window.

Grrrrrrrr. What I wouldn't give to have the original windows and some good storms. Instead, I can foresee that within the next decade or so we'll likely be replacing the windows as one by one they fail in some way that, unlike a good wood window, can't be replaced.

Edited note: The store gave me the number for the manufacturer of these windows and it's not yet been confirmed since I wasn't at home to give them the sticker info off the windows, but it sounds like they are going to be covered under warranty even though I'm not the one who installed them and it's been 8 or 9 years since they were installed. Nothing will stop me from wishing I had the original wood windows, but if the manufacturer provides the kind of customer service that so far it seems that they might, I'll at least not blast them by Googleable name.

Some Honest Opinions Needed!

2008-05-29T22:21:00.006-04:00

It's crunch time in the Georgetown House Bathroom Renovation Project. I need to make some decisions about fixtures and finishes. I'm seriously design-challenged and have a really hard time visualizing how things will look together.

Honest honest HONEST feedback is appreciated on how these will all look together. FYI it's a very small bathroom (only around 60sq ft). The floor will be white & black 1930's hex tile, the tub surround will be white tile (probably a combo of subway and square) with some color border/accent (not determined what), and the walls will hopefully get tiled to coordinate with the tub surround before I run out of steam and money.

So here's what I'm considering. I thinking that they all will look fine together, but I'm also thinking that I'm missing some really essential thing of "but this curve really doesn't go with this one" or "you have too many variations on blah blah" or whatever. HELP!!

This tub (pictures not very clear - the side is basically a framed panel), Kohler Archer:

With this sink (also Kohler Archer, but not those faucets, and yes I talked about an old dresser as the sink base but I'm worried that it will be too big so I'm looking at alternatives):

And this toilet (Toto Promenade - the matching Kohler one is too long and too high - I don't have "comfort height" legs!):

Then there are these fixtures - double towel bar, toilet bar, toilet handle, brackets for glass shelf for over sink and for oval mirror (all polished nickel, Allen & Roth "Andrews" which is a Lowes-specific line):

This sink faucet and tub faucet/shower (both Danze Opulence line in polished nickel):

And finally, these lights (Rejuvenation's Umpqua, on either side of the oval mirror, but in polished nickel not the brushed nickel that's shown):

A Plea to Contractors

2008-05-28T20:53:00.002-04:00

If you tell me you're going to come and give me an estimate, please show up. I know that my little bathroom remodel is just a wee job compared to so many things that you work on, but still, I can't plan out the parts that I'm doing myself or start ripping things out without having some assurance that I have someone lined up to do the parts that I can't.

Thank you.

Doing, not Blogging

2008-05-24T02:16:00.004-04:00

For once I'm actually spending more time on a renovation project than I am on blogging about it. I've started the upstairs bathroom renovation. First on the list was getting the electrical worked out. It was initially a challenge to figure out how to put two wall sconces on this wall:

Note where the right-side sconce would go: Brick wall just behind the drywall. And to the left? A pipe taking up some prime real estate that could be used by the left sconce.

With help from my buddies at the Old House Web forums, I did manage to squeeze a pan box in front of the brick and a regular rectangular box just to the left of the pipe (a hex or round box would have put the light too far over to the left).

There is still much fun to be had. See the j-box sitting there to the left? It has a wire (on the lights circuit, btw) running down from the 2nd floor, connected to a wire running back up again - a path to nowhere. Being particularly un-fond of random junction boxes, I'm going to bring those wires up to the box I'll use for the left sconce and eliminate the random j-box.

The wiring for the left sconce is a hassle: See, the light was originally on the left wall instead of over the sink. What should have been good news was that there was JUST enough wire to reach over to the sconce location -- it only went into the box by an inch or two, but code allows me to pigtail it from there.

Except.

The PO's somehow had managed to get that wire past inspection even though it was missing the outer sheath for around a foot. I tried to find some way to allow that - put it through conduit? apply some sheathing material? But the code is clear: Sheathing must reach into the box, period. So getting this hooked up will require tearing out half my bathroom ceiling so that I can unstaple enough of this run of wire in order to pull it closer to that wall and give me the extra foot I need. Oh, did I mention that they took the wire from the switch, ran it up, angled it to the back of the room, then angled it back forward to use for this light? Brilliant. NOT.

I also won't have enough play to move the GFCI to the adjoining wall, so I'm going to do one of two things: Maybe (but less likely) I'll just leave it behind the sink, though move it as far to the left as possible. But more likely I'll take the wire into a j-box that I can see down the wall behind the bathroom sink cabinet (is that legal?!? probably not), and connect it to a new wire that I then run up to where I need it on the left side.

Now I just need to decide if it's going to be worth the extra cost of even more drywalling to tear out around the switch so that I can actually make use of the 3-wire they used on the switch for the vent/light, in order to put in separate controls for the light and the fan. WHY would they run the right kind of wire to do that, but not bother putting in the third switch?!?

I'm playing tag with my plumber, trying to get him here to give me an estimate for that work, which will include negotiating with him about whether I'm ordering what I've picked out or what he likes to use. We'll see.

I also need to start tracking down a drywall pro, since that's one project I'm not willing to tackle. I miss real plaster -- if for no other reason than no one ever expected it to look nice and smooth. I can't make drywall finishing look nice and smooth.

And in my next destructive moment (hormonal overload? office dickwad strikes again? Partner gets "in a mood"?) I'm' going to tear out the vinyl and laun, and make sure that I really do have a nice solid plywood subfloor under there. This will be my first big adventure in tiling. Pray for me.

Renovation without debt

2008-05-17T20:13:00.003-04:00

It's been a long time since I've had the chance to just read through other folks' houseblogs and catch up with the goings-on at houseblogs.net. I found it interesting to poke my head in there today and see that two of the featured topics are both related to building and renovating houses without debt.

I guess that technically we don't qualify to be considered in that category: After all, we do have a six-figure mortgage, and a small (think smaller most new car loans) second mortgage that we took out to consolidate (and make deductible) my student loans and pay for some medical bills. We also have about a year left on one of our car loans.

But we have zero credit card debt, and all house renovations are strictly on a cash basis, and it's going to stay that way except for any kind of serious emergency. This year we're completely renovating the upstairs bathroom, putting a new roof on the garden shed, painting the garage, and refinishing the dining room floor, though we're only doing maybe half that work and paying someone else to do the rest. And it will all be with cash, without touching our emergency money.

What's weird is that it doesn't seem to feel like we're making any big sacrifice to do that, though according to many folks reactions to our no-debt policy, we should be gnashing our teeth and wailing with the pain of having to hold back on spending. And it's not like I've always been good about staying away from debt: Just nine years ago I was told by my accountant that I had no choice but to declare bankruptcy because I had more credit card debt than I usually make in a year, but I managed to get it all paid off by simply doing without anything I didn't seriously need for the 7.5 years it took me to get from that point to being credit-card debt free.

But I think that going through that process made me a wee bit debt phobic, plus it taught me (through no real choice at the time) to do without unless I really needed it and could genuinely afford to pay for it. I'm glad that I'm to the point where it just feels totally normal to think in terms of waiting until we can pay for something before we do it. It doesn't feel like we're sacrificing or doing without, and it doesn't feel like we're doing anything special or difficult.

My only real emotional reaction to making this choice is exasperation when folks make a big deal over it: No, we haven't taken a real vacation in years. Yes, that sounds like a terrific price for a cruise but we'd rather put that money towards fixing up the house. Yes it gets frustrating to not have a dishwasher but we need to wait a couple of years until we save up enough to renovate the kitchen. Yes it would be great to do some major moving of walls and electric and plumbing in order to not have to live with a 7x7 main bathroom or a 9x10 kitchen but that would put those related renovations way beyond what we'd ever be able to pay for in cash and still do in our lifetimes so we'll renovate within the space we have. Yes it would look wonderful to have a professionally landscaped yard with a masonry patio but we can't afford it in the near future. Yes, we don't have the nicest furniture in the world, but we just have other priorities. Other folks seem to have a lot more need for instant gratification with regard to things around our house than we do, and it sometimes just gets on my nerves and feels rather judgmental (like there's something wrong with us if we're truly ok with not taking vacations or having a sofa that we got off freecycle). I honestly with they'd just freakin' deal with it and shut up!

But mostly I don't think of it as any big deal, and with all of this economic uncertainty surrounding us, I feel very blessed to be in this position.

Greenhouses and good friends

2008-04-14T20:09:00.004-04:00

I've always wanted a greenhouse, and when a friend offered me a bunch of salvaged windows they'd gotten for a project that they've now abandoned, I decided to try to take on the project of building one this summer, sometime after the garage painting and the bathroom remodeling (what, me? ambitious? or would you call it foolishly unrealistic? I know I would!!).

ANYway, I happened to mention this to a friend who I met through freecycle several years ago, and... well, let me tell you first about B. (B, if you read this, don't kill me for writing about it!!). B is this totally cool guy who I first met when he got a beat up non-working car from me through freecycle in order to turn it into yet another art car. His primary vehicle is an old van that he's painted with everything from giant cat heads (with a huge pink cat tongue poking out the front of the van) to naked people appearing to be in the driver and passenger seats. He lives in the woods and raises guineas, chickens and ducks, and sells the multi-colored eggs through the local farmers' markets. He is truly a "Renaissance man" who knows and thinks a lot about a HUGE range of things, from the intellectual and political to the artistic and creative over to welding, automotive repair, carpentry, and... geez, I doubt I even have a clue as to how much and what all he actually knows. But the best thing is that he's someone who will never fail you if you want to see a friendly smiling face and have some enjoyable conversation, and someone who you just know you could call on if you needed help or rescue.

So anyway, B. found out that I wanted to build a greenhouse from old windows and it turns out that he has had the same plan (and has all of the windows he needs already) but has been procrastinating. He talked me through a lot of things just today with regard to my rather clearly unformed (and uninformed) plans. He then happened to run into a mutual acquaintance of ours later that day and they got to talking about me and the greenhouses, and this mutual friend offered me (through him) the ten thermopane sliding glass doors that he has and wants to get rid of.

To tell you more about what kind of guy B. is, while I was having dinner tonight I was telling Partner about B's help with the greenhouse plans and our acquaintance's offer of the windows. I'd told B. that I appreciated it all but I had no place to keep them and (thinking they were framed sliding doors) no way to pick them up. I mentioned to Partner that knowing B., he'd offer to pick them up and hold them for me, which is exactly what he said in the email that was waiting for me after work. He'll help me design something that works out of those plus the smaller windows I'm getting, and as he said, we can always freecycle whatever is left over!

This is some serious incentive to actually get this done instead of just talking about it and planning it forever, and perhaps a mutually beneficial thing as well since I offered to help B build his if he helped me plan and build mine (since I have a lot more ambition than I have that kind of carpentry experience), and perhaps his being so amazingly helpful to me will give him the boost past his procrastination about building his own.

So this is really about two things: Greenhouses, and good friends who will really step up to help you out if you need it.

Vacuuming the gravel driveway

2008-04-13T20:01:00.005-04:00

You know how you move into a place and there's this one project that you're determined to take care of right away? Well, almost two years ago, that project was painting the badly peeling garage and garden shed. Finally, today we started scraping. We're doing the garage first, and doing one side at a time, start to finish, starting with the front. Even though it's hard to really see anything, I'll post a picture of our progress -- Everything below the door rail is scraped, top part still unscraped:

We'd hoped to scrape all of the loose paint off the front today, but a cold front moved in and it was the wind and not the dark-gray clouds that convinced us to stop - we're trying to keep the paint chips as contained as possible, so even a moderate wind is bad news when scraping from high up. We put tarps down, but still some blew away a bit or got behind the tarps. I have NO idea what folks driving by must have thought about seeing us out there as we were cleaning up: We were vacuuming our gravel driveway with the shop vac, trying to pick up runaway paint chips! Next time I need to also put tarps over my nearby garden beds, though -- definitely not a place where I want lead paint chips to land.

So now we need to scrape the top part, then strip or heat-gun the rest off. Visually I'm totally find with painting over odd layers of paint that don't choose to leave the wood surface -- it's a 75 year old garage, fer cripes sake, not a piece of fine furniture. But there's so much wood that's been exposed for a long time that we definitely need to sand before we prime. And I'm just not really keen on sanding lead paint; even if we took appropriate protections for ourselves, there is no way that I know of to keep the lead paint dust from getting everywhere. After we get the last of the paint off, we'll sand, prime with oil-based primer, then paint. I read some places about how we should treat the surface with a turpentine-boiled linseed oil combo before we prime, but other places that say that's not necessary, so I need to do more research.

Plus we need to figure out a color. Here is where we're stumped, but we obviously need to decide soon.

Not satisfied with a halfway job...

2008-04-12T15:48:00.003-04:00

Even though it was raining off and on today, I was determined to take things a step further in the garden shed, so this is what I got done:

Now, that represents a lot more work than it looks: The shelf was in the garage, in the back-back corner way behind lots of stuff that I had to rearrange to get to it, plus I had to deal with all the things that were already on it. Then I had to clear an even bigger path to get it out, which at the time seemed easier than just snapping apart the pieces in order to reassemble them in the shed. It fit into that spot perfectly, and holds even more than I expected.

I wish I could say that I did the right thing and put everything that I touched in the garage "away" as I moved it, but there was no "away" to put most of the things. I did move some garden-shed type things into the shed, loaded up my car with five grocery-sized bags of baby clothes to pass along to a friend who has a new baby granddaughter plus a bunch of cardboard for recycling, pulled together several things to donate to the new local Habitat ReStore (though it will be a couple of weeks before I'll be able to get them over there), and took pictures of a few things that will be going onto freecycle or craig's list.

Now if I could only find the bag of things that I bought to convert the big plastic barrels I have into rain barrels, I will be very happy. UGH. I HATE losing things in the clutter!!

Cutting the Crap in the Garden Shed

2008-04-11T18:39:00.008-04:00

What a great feeling of accomplishment. Using Chile Chew's "Cut the Crap" challenge as my overall incentive to get something done that I've been meaning to tackle for a very long time, yet facing the possibility of a rainy weekend that would keep me from doing it, I bagged out of work a little early today and came home, completely emptied the garden shed, cleaned it out, patched the roof in a couple of spots, and then put stuff back in ORGANIZED.

It's really hard to take interior pics of very small rooms, but this will at least give you some idea of what I was facing, as we attempt to use this shed for everything related to gardening, yard care, and Summer Fun. Over the past two years of living here, lacking any real organization in there to begin with we basically just started dumping.

Pool and garden dump spot:

The problem with dumping things in there, of course, is that it makes it very hard to find things, and to get larger things in and out. What you can't tell from this picture is that getting the tiller in and out of that spot required taking out the lawn mower and the wheelbarrow.

Now, the finished product doesn't look as good as I'd hoped, mostly because there are some things that I need to go back in and do, such as put more nails into the wall to hang things up, put a shelf along the ceiling in the back to stack lawn chairs, move the building wood that's in there to the garage, and build something to hold the firewood instead of trusting the stack to stay in place. But overall I'm pretty happy with what I was able to accomplish alone in just three hours.

To the right as you walk in, a new shelf for all the gardening stuff, the beach and pool stuff in the back corner, and the two tarps and pool that were just dumped in there folded more neatly, pressed to get them more compact, and put back with a lot more organization that this picture indicates. I just bought the white shelf from the new Habitat ReStore last weekend.

The lawnmower, wheelbarrow and tiller now all have their own parking spots along the back wall so that we don't need to move the others to get one out. That wood behind them is going into the garage as soon as I can tackle that nightmare.

Right now the beach and lawn chairs are just stacked, as are the various accessories for the blowers and lawnmower, but I'm hoping to figure out a way get those up on shelves. Also, we have THREE leaf blower/mulchers, all functional. We've used two at a time before, but that was at the old house where the big oak trees dropped 6" of leaves a week. And I know if I ask Partner which one to get rid of, the answer will be "none of them!!" I did get rid of two big bags of junk/trash from in here, though.

I love seeing all the tools hung up like this, and ACCESSIBLE. What a freakin' concept.

Oh and the other thing I did before I did all this was get up on the roof and patch a couple of spots where rain was clearly coming through, but I realized too late that I clearly missed a spot where the light is still shining through, so I'm going to have to get up there again soon, to at least deal with the holes until we can put a new roof on.

What I really wish I could have done when I finished was to make myself a martini and sit on the porch with my laptop, but sunsets makes the laptop screen pretty impossible to see, and Life with Endless Hot Flashes makes drinking even one drink a Gateway to Misery, so I've got my big glass of water here at my desk instead.

It feels good, though. My muscles are a bit sore, I'm grimy and ::sniff sniff:: ewww yeah, badly in need of a shower. But I DID IT.

And I'm tackling that garage soon come hell or high water.

Sorry, Gary, but it's NOT an Amish sex toy

2008-04-08T18:05:00.005-04:00

A gentle little poke from ege (ow!!) reminded me that if I'm going to run a contest on two sites simultaneously, I need to announce the results on both sites when the contest is finally won.

The contest was to determine what this was originally, and what it's being used for now:

Many folks got that it was the tip of a lightning rod, but it was my friend Nat from Oklahoma who finally guessed its current use: A back scratcher. Cookies will be on their way to her house once I get to the store and get more butter.

Of course a back scratcher isn't anywhere near as interesting as a Amish sex toy, as suggested by Gary from This Old Crack House. You been smokin' crack, boy?!? Do you see the point on that thing?!?

And oh my Maude, I wonder what kind of blog hits that particular phrase is going to lead to!

"Hey, if you can't remember the URL for my house blog, just google Amish sex toy and it should pop right up!"

Oy.

*gigglesnort*

(edited to add: I just left a comment to ensure that anyone googling that particular phrase will hit the crack house as well, though he already gets way more interesting search engine hits than I do!)

Cut the Crap - Declutter!

2008-04-08T14:39:00.002-04:00

I've decided to participate in a blog challenge to "cut the crap and declutter." After all, it's been on my to-do list forever, but I need to get my ass in gear and make it happen. If you're interested in reading more about the challenge, click on the huge blue button on my right sidebar.

I'm going to focus on the following areas:

Garden shed: Pull everything out, set up shelves, cabinets, and places to hang tools while leaving space to easily park the lawnmower, tiller and wheelbarrow, build something to allow the small pile of firewood in there to be neatly stacked, then put everything back. Get rid of all the beach fun stuff that you're not likely to bring with you even if you do actually make it to the beach again.
Garage: Oh lord help me. Start by getting rid of all the crap that's in there that was supposed to go to various charities and people asap. Build something to help better organize the wood in there, especially the big pieces. Hang up the bike hangers that we bought a year ago (they're SOMEwhere in there) and hang the bikes up. Organize the stuff that's on the shelves. Put stuff into the garden shed or house that don't belong in the garage. Get rid of as much of that crap as you can.
Third floor: Sort through all the old computer crap that's up there and get rid of anything I don't absolutely need. Ditto for the boxes of glassware and dishes. Ebay the various antique do-dads that are sitting up there gathering dust. Get rid of that big dresser that's taking up a huge amount of space that we don't use -- face it, you're NOT going to sell it. Just Freecycle it and be done with it.
Attic: Get rid of at least half of the luggage that's in there. Get rid of the boxes for anything out of warranty. Get rid of anything electronic that we're holding on to "just in case." Get rid of half the Christmas stuff - I'm Jewish and Partner is Agnostic for cripes sake!!!

A contest

2008-04-02T01:04:00.003-04:00

Well, since school and work and relative worries have destroyed my ability to get squat done around the house before May, I'm going to at least hold a contest.

The item you see above was once on an old house. It now sits on my desk and performs an important function.

So, what was it originally, and what do I use it for now?

The winner gets a choice of either shortbread cookies, or a grabbag of dollar-store tzotchkes. I'll announce the winner after a few days.

The one that got away

2008-04-01T09:06:00.002-04:00

Salisbury Freecycle: Offer, cast iron tub, new in crate, not a clawfoot.

Me: Heart attack city as I can't type a "ME! ME!!! PICK ME!!!" reply fast enough.

Them: I have had lots of interest in the tub. It sounds like you are in need of one. I would like to offer it to you.

Me: I forgot to ask the measurements.

Them: The label says 60' long, 32.5" wide. It doesn't say how deep but it looks really deep.

Me: Thats so perfect - one last important question, does it have a left or right hand drain?

Them: Right side.

Me: $#!+

::sigh:: At least we're heading north to NY in a couple of weeks to pick up the free tile that someone from Old House Web is giving us -- enough white bullnose edge and cove base subway tile to do the whole bathroom (I'll use that for border and something else, I'm thinking maybe a 6" square, for the main part), plus almost enough black & white hex tile to do the floor if it turns out that the wood floor can't be used.

The best laid plans...

2008-03-22T11:16:00.003-04:00

Originally on my to-do list for today: Buy the materials to put up the wainscoting in our downstairs hallway as my spring-break project.

That was before I got the call from my mom that my Granny was just admitted to the hospital with an oxygen saturation of 45, which I didn't even think was compatible with life. Her heart is failing and, at 90 years old and with a long-standing DNR order and a clearly expressed wish to go join her beloved siblings made long before the Alzheimer's took over, all the doctors are going to do is keep her comfortable. She'll go home in the next day or two with hospice support, and the doctors say it could be weeks or months.

So my spring break time will be used to make sure that absolutely everything I need to do for the rest of the semester (tests and labs that need to be created or revised, etc.) is done, so that if she dies before the end of the semester, I can go to be with my family for a week without leaving my students in a bad situation.

I'm surprisingly not feeling sad. She's ready to go, and has been ready for a very long time. She's living a life that was always her worst nightmare -- dependent on others to take care of her, no longer in the house that symbolized everything good to her. She was my hero, the person who showed me that women could be physically and emotionally very strong, who taught me that you could set and enforce boundaries but still show absolutely unconditional love.

To tie this back to my house journal, she was always so proud of when I talked about doing work on my house. For all of her strength, I believe that she still felt limited by the expectations placed on women of her generation, and was tickled to see me doing things that were "men's" work.

Successful Garden Cleanup

2008-03-16T18:54:00.009-04:00

Fortunately, my knee was feeling much better Friday after my fall Thursday, and I was able to get a lot of work done on the yard.

This is what I was attacking:

Note the carcasses of last year's tomatoes, the tomato cages, the plastic from my attempts to save the last of the tomatoes from the first possible frost, plus a lot of trash and leaves that had blown into the area.

An hour or so of work got me to this point:

Those things you see growing in the garden are all of the perennial flowers that I transplanted from my old house and put here as a temporary measure... 1.5 years ago. But it was very clear that they needed to be moved in order to use this for the veggies, but I simply wasn't ready to figure out where to move them permanently.

I decided instead to create another temporary bed off to the side of our driveway (which is really wide), but my first attempt to dig in made me realize that I'll be dead by the end of the day if I tried to dig out a 10' x 3' bed by hand. So that led to this:

That is the tiller that my friends bought a couple of years ago for their ginormous garden. They're abandoning me and moving to California so they asked me a while back if I wanted to buy it for half of what they paid and I said no - I don't need something that big for my dinky garden. But when I called them to borrow it, they'd dropped the price by half again, and I couldn't resist a good bargain, so now this baby is mine, and it cut through the hard-packed dirt (with quite a bit of gravel) with dramatically less effort than hand-digging. It definitely needs a tune-up but hey, it worked.

So, I tilled, shoveled out that dirt, tilled again, and then transplanted everything over, leading me to this:

(that's Elder Granddaughter on the far left of the picture)

and this:

And before we lost the last of the light, I was able to clear out the brush pile, leaving the leaf pile to mulch and add to a leaf compost heap some other day.

My goal is to eventually put in a bunch of 4' raised beds in this area, from the shed you see in the back up to around where I transplanted the flowers. The problem is that once you get past the big bed, it's a lot of packed gravel. That little square that you see (temporarily framed in with PT lumber, which I plan to replace asap with a better wood) took me about 3-4 hours of hard labor to dig into the dirt, sieve out the rocks from the dirt, and then replace the dirt and relocate the rocks. At least the tiller will help make the "dig into the dirt" part easier, and maybe Elder Granddaughter is desperate enough for $$ to put some minutes onto her phone to help with the rest.

Now I just need to find me some spinach and peas to get into the ground this week before I once again do my usual garden nonsense and miss my window of opportunity.

Grill explosion

2008-03-16T18:38:00.006-04:00

Yesterday, about 20 minutes before I planned to slap this beautiful thick porterhouse from a local farm which raises all-natural pastured cattle (thanks, CSA!), I went out and fired up the grill. Everything lit just fine so I closed the lid and came inside. This is what I found when I went back out:

(there was more soot yesterday evening before last night's light rain)

And this was on the ground about 2' in front of the grill:

That's a mangled, melted burner knob, in case you couldn't tell.

Since the grill was nice and hot and running, and I wasn't about to let this steak go to waste, I went ahead and cooked the steak (standing back as much as I could), but I'm going to get something replaced/fixed before I use it again, that's for sure!

I just feel a little freaked out about what must have happened. It looks to me as if flames were shooting out from behind the knob, possibly even a big whoosh of fire out from around the knob (else why would it have come off and ended up so far in front of the grill?). If anyone has a clue as to what might have caused this, I'd appreciate you letting me know!

The grill's less than a year old so I'm contacting their warranty service number tomorrow. Let's hope that it's not a royal PITA to get it fixed, something like "well, box it up and ship it to us, at your cost, of course..."

Well $#!+

2008-03-13T22:11:00.002-04:00

I took off tomorrow because it's supposed to be 65, partly cloudy, and a perfect day to tackle my absolute mess of a garden.

And this evening I was playing around with Elder Granddaughter in the Hell-mart parking lot, and she twisted and accidentally-on-purpose fell which pulled me down hard onto my left knee.

It's a little swollen, a lotta hurtin', and I'm doing a lot of preemptive bitching about how pissed I'm going to be if I can't work outside tomorrow.

Let's hope that ice and ibuprofen help pretty dramatically.

Bleh.

Scared to look

2008-03-09T03:39:00.002-04:00

After all the rain of the past two days, the sump pump is occasionally running for the first time in over a year.

And I'm scared to go look in my basement to see if we have any water down there.

My excuse is that there's a case of bacardi mojitos and a 12-pack of amstel light blocking the basement door. They're supposed to go down there since they're not rapidly consumed around here.

How to rationalize a new kitchen

2008-03-06T18:49:00.004-05:00

Partner has a bad spot of eczema on one hand, pretty much covering the bottom quarter of her left hand on the pinky-finger side.

It first showed up maybe a year ago, and is definitely getting worse as the months go by. Therefore there is no real reason to expect that it will be gone a year from now, considering eczema's notoriously chronic nature.

In our family, I do the cooking, Partner washes dishes. And no, I will not start doing it all because of Partner's disability.

Dishwashing definitely exacerbates eczema.

We have no dishwasher, and no place to put a dishwasher without a significant remodeling of our tiny cheap-apartment quality kitchen.

Therefore, our kitchen must be remodeled for medical reasons.

Now, of course my bathroom remodeling which we have planned for this summer must come first, since of course my ability to soak in a nice comfy deep tub has priority over Partner's pain and intense itching due in part to a bull-headed reluctance to wear protective gloves while washing dishes. But I think it's very reasonable to consider a full remodeling of our kitchen as an appropriate project to begin planning for next summer.

I'm wondering if we could deduct the costs from our taxes as a medical necessity... ::grin::

How could someone DO this to a house?!?

2008-03-03T21:17:00.002-05:00

You see this simple but cute little beach cottage that I lived in and dearly loved until June '06 and sold that fall?

You see the three pretty sweet bay magnolias in front that really help soften the stark concrete-blockness of the house?

We drove by our old house last night on our way to Dairy Queen, and the new owners have TAKEN THEM OUT! They're gone! GONE!! They had told me I could take any and all plants, that they planned to replace it all with really low maintenance stuff (as if there's anything high-maintenance about day lilies and irises and all, but I was happy to have them) but THEY TOOK OUT THE TREES!!! Those trees were beautiful! They totally did not contribute in any significant way to the leaf fall -- if you look back you can see the trunks of a zillion 100' old oak trees that surround the house and cover the yard in a thick blanket of leaves every fall, so it's not like three little sweet bay magnolias are going to make a difference in terms of yard maintenance.

The yard was stone cold bare. BARE. Absolutely nothing planted anywhere - concrete block all the way down to the ground. The house was ugly without those trees, and with nothing at all around it to soften its lines.

All I can think of is how much they're going to regret creating a stark bare yard if they ever want to sell that place again.

(I can't believe they took out those sweet little trees!!!!!!! GAH!)

If someone in your life has Down's Syndrome or another genetic disability...

2008-02-24T10:21:00.005-05:00

"We don’t want a world where parents feel driven to justify their children’s existence."

Sorry to venture away from "house blog" topics but I'm trying to help gather signatures for an important petition in support of a legislation that would require physicians to provide appropriate education to expectant parents about the realities of prenatally-diagnosed conditions, instead of the too-common practice of simply dumping the results of an imperfect test onto the parents without any real education about the realities of living with that condition, along with an implied expectation that the parents should choose to abort now that they know that their child is not "perfect."

This petition and legislation came about because the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) now instructs their doctors to recommend diagnostic testing for all pregnant women, regardless of age, for Down syndrome. Yet they have provided no resources or guidelines to the doctor's as to how to make it clear to parents that testing is an option and not a requirement, how to present the news of a positive result from the test, how to properly support the parents in making a fully informed decision, or how to help parents who choose not to abort to emotionally and logistically prepare to raise a child who has Down's Syndrome.

Not only that, most expectant mothers would not get amniocentesis with genetic testing, but a first-trimester blood test and ultrasound which is known to result in false positives, and which has led to a number of families choosing to abort healthy fetuses who are then found to not have Down's Syndrome.

The petition is located here: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/DS-advocacy

The legislation is here: http://brownback.senate.gov/pressapp/record.cfm?id=233702

My personal view is that to push this imperfect testing, or any kind of testing, without any education for the doctor or the patient, and with the clearly implied expectation that the parents would choose to abort if the results were positive, is sliding down the slippery slope of eugenics, and creates an assumption that we should only allow "perfect" children to be born. Raw information without substantial education as to how to process that information goes firmly against a physicians oath of "first do no harm." While I am someone who supports freedom of choice overall, to put expectant parents in a situation where they are essentially being pressured to choose to abort, even just by virtue of leaving them to make that decision without any substantive education of what life is really like as a person with DS or as a parent to a child with DS, is morally appalling to me.

Thanks in advance to anyone who signs their name to this petition.

Bathroom Bling, or "Let the Renovation Begin"

2008-02-23T02:03:00.006-05:00

I made my first real purchase for the bathroom renovation: Bling. Otherwise known as shiny new matching hardware. I got one of these:

And one of these:

plus an oval mirror, the trendy new kind that mounts in the middle and tilts down a bit, a toilet paper holder, two robe hooks, and a matching toilet flush lever. Yes, dammit, I wanted even my toilet to match. I've never had a bathroom where things actually matched (and never one that didn't match in a cool trendy "ooh look at all that cool original stuff", it was always more like "ooohhh well, we got that on sale, then we found that one in the scratch & dent and see, it kinda matches...") and dammit, I want one!!

Oh I did also buy a wall-mounted soap dish and toothbrush holder but those are going back.

There are two things that are a little off about this purchase:

First, it wasn't planned. If I'm going to spend more than $25, I research it to death. Even my rare "impulse purchases" are carefully evaluated and done only if I am totally confident in my decision AND it's pretty much a one-chance one of a kind deal. But no, not this. We went into Lowes for a Brita pitcher and a shower organizer and I walked out with nearly $300 in bathroom hardware. It was just one of those love at first sight things: We weren't really seriously looking at the hardware, just passing through that aisle, but I looked up and just knew that was what I wanted for this bathroom reno. I really like both the knob decoration on the end, and the really rich polished nickel finish.

The other thing is that this hardware stuff is generally last on a renovation task list, like, after you rip out most of the drywall and put up the tile. But it's also one of the few parts of a renovation that can be put up then taken down again without all that huge of an effort.

I think what's happened is that now I can actually see the renovation on the horizon, the nastyass ugliness of that bathroom makes me cringe. Honestly, it just screams "cheap" and "generic" and "boarding house for young community-college baseball players." So even though the full renovation isn't starting until I start my summer break, I'm hanging this bling this weekend, baby. The mirrors - cheapest possible paper-thin glass with the silvering all mottled around the edge are coming down and the new one going up, with the glass shelf underneath. Towel rack, toilet paper holder, even the flush lever is going up. I know it will probably look it's own shade of ugly, to have those things up in contrast with the vinyl scrap floor, economy grade tub, dingy worn out looking sink base, and misplaced ugly lighting. But at least I'll have a really nice looking toilet paper holder.

Just for my own benefit, here's a running total of acquisitions and rough-budgeted items to date:

Antique dresser that will be used as sinkbase: free (trashpicked)
Nice decorative exhaust fan/light: $80 (bought long before the renovation was planned, or I would have chosen a different design, but I'm counting it in the long-term reno.
Hardware including mirror: $245 (after I take back the toothbrush and soap holders)
Beautiful custom-made all-wood medicine cabinet and matching front for the linen cabinet: Estimate $500. I'll post pics and post a link to the cabinetmaker's website once I have them. I might get these and install the medicine cabinet before the full reno, because I don't have one and need one, and medicine cabinets are pretty easy to install and take out, and it will make me happy to see it there.
Base/edge and other tiles for the shower and walls: Free from someone on Old House Web, as soon as I can get up there to pick them up!

I want so much to run out and get lighting, which is also something easily reinstalled, but the over-sink lighting and sink-area receptacle need to be moved to the adjacent walls, so I'm going to have to tear out a bunch of drywall and pray I can move the wiring around without over-uglifying things with those damn junction boxes required by code. Ah for the days when you could just twist a couple of wires together, slap some electrical tape around them, and shove them behind drywall. (NOT!)

Wait. I can move a fixture easily. I can put it up in the current position for now. Duh.

Important Note to Self

2008-02-18T18:10:00.003-05:00

If you decide what you're going to buy for yourself out of your share of Tax Refund Toy Money -- say, for example, a Kreg Jig K3 Master System

(as opposed to the RockStar game that's being bought with Partner's share of Tax Refund Toy Money, since the two of us have very different definitions for the word "Toy").

Anyway, if you're looking for that online and you find a company that offers the lowest price, free shipping, AND $20+ worth of pocket jig screws, it would be a Really Good Idea to make note of that company's name.

Sitting here refreshing Google three dozen times after each possible combination of search keywords in hopes that the same offer will show up once again in the "sponsored links" section is just not a very good use of your time. And by the time you get back to the classroom where you were when you first saw the link, that PC's daily history will be cleared out.

I found some classes to take! WOOOOOT!!

2008-02-09T23:08:00.000-05:00

After searching forever, I finally found some woodworking classes that are within a 1.5 hour drive from me, with classes long enough to give me at worst a 1:1 driving-time to class-time ratio. Whooo-hoooo, right? Well, for me, definitely, if that' s my only choice!! There is NOTHING in my neck of the woods, and even some serious efforts to find someone to teach me one-on-one have totally failed.

The classes are at the Woodcraft store in the Wilmington area, and if they check out (as in, no one tells me that the classes at the Woodcraft stores aren't worth the drive) I'll be signing up for an evening class in Tablesaw basics, a full day of Router Basics in the morning followed by Router Table Techniques in the afternoon, and an almost-full-day Raised Panel Door class subtitled "Routing with Stile." They even have a cabinetmaking series, but the next one starts next weekend and that's just not possible (especially since I'd need some of the other courses or experience to really get the most out of it), but hopefully the next round will work out for me. The prices seem pretty reasonable - around $60 per 3-hour session - and materials are included in that, plus the class sizes are small, just 5-8 students. It likely beats my original plan to spend a week in Vermont spending $2000+ for tuition plus travel, room and board, for a class with 20 or so people in it.

This could be the beginning of something good. See, I have a standing offer to use a coworker's seriously underutilized (and, according to his wife's tone and eye-rolls, seriously over-invested) workshop, but no one to teach me how to use anything -- he made it clear that he'd love to see it used, but he has neither the time or inclination to teach me what I'd need to know. If I get some training somewhere, then I can hopefully put some of that training to use in making doors for the storage and medicine cabinets for the bathroom remodel I'm planning, and then later to other good uses. And if my coworker is true to his word, I can do what I need to do without having to invest in the equipment myself (I'll find some way to pay him back).

This will have to suffice as an update

2008-02-07T13:01:00.000-05:00

I was just asked to give an update on my bathroom remodeling project. Bwaaaaaaaahahahaha.

OK, here's the update: Between Office 2007 being the cause of my having to completely redesign two of my classes which has required massive amounts of evening and weekend work in the past couple of weeks just to stay one step ahead of my students, an "OMG we need to get you checked out STAT" scare from my doctor with regard to some GI problems (I have a history of symptoms that are often consistent with colon cancer) which resulted in a CT scan and a frightening wait for the results (which turned out fine, though she's still scheduling me for a colonoscopy - oh such fun fun fun), and an anaphylactic reaction to an allergy shot that resulted in my first ever ambulance ride (and my first time ever missing the chance to vote in what I consider to be a significant election) followed by my now being on massive amounts of steroids that have lowered my IQ to about 12 and my patience and willingness to treat people around me with any shred of decency to nil, the sum total of work that I've done related to the house in the past two weeks is to check out and leaf through some books on bathroom redesign.

And today was supposed to be my "take off work and take it easy" day since I had to be at work for 13 hours yesterday (the day immediately after my lovely night in the ER). Oh, yeah, right. My "taking it easy" has consisted of being up since 7:30am since high-dose prednisone and sleep are not compatible in my body, a couple of hours on the phone, online and in email resolving issues related to the testing center not having Office 2007 (which means my students can't take their tests) and the textbook publisher website not supplying the correct data files for my students to use for the chapter they're supposed to start this weekend, my completing three tests and two homework assignments for two of the three classes I'm taking, two loads of laundry, cleaning the kitchen, cooking a batch of bacon that was about to expire, listing a stack of textbooks for sale on Amazon, and attempting to not scream at anything that dares move or make noise around me. And it's only 1:30 and I still have 8 items on my to-do list for the day: Taxes, take another test for one of my classes, do three more loads of laundry, move my PC back into the office (which requires finding space on my desk for my PC), pick up some prescriptions, pick up a bunch of clothes for baby granddaughter from a freecycle person who will only hold them for me through today, grocery shopping, and "relax." Yeah, RIGHT.

So THAT, my friends, is my update. Don't you wish you had my life?

Missing Old House Web forums

2008-02-02T11:15:00.000-05:00

I am seriously missing my regular oldhouseweb.com forums fix. For whatever reason I was able to get into the new forums one time a few days ago, and it seemed like others had been able to get to the redesigned forums before I was, but now it's been unavailable again for several days.

Any Old House Web folks know the status?

The Joy of Planning

2008-01-27T21:58:00.000-05:00

I love planning. OK, it could be easily argued that I love the planning far more than the execution since the planning generally doesn't require blood, sweat, tears and emptying your savings account. But I am having a blast planning this bathroom renovation. It looks like my acquisition of the initial $2000 that will be the seed money for this project is coming along nicely, and that we can do a nice little renovation once that seed money is supplemented with what we hope will be a tidy tax refund (since I did a few tax-savings things this year), perhaps a bit extra in "economic stimulus" from Pres. Bush*t (see note below), and the rest from savings (though not TOO much from there, since I get a little freaked if that number goes too low...).

Tonight we opened up the access panel that's in Elder Granddaughter's bedroom to verify that no, the new tub isn't one of those things plunked on top of an old original tub. Of COURSE not. The POs did a full rip-to-the-studs on every single room in this house, ripping out the studs in some. There is a big full-height space behind the tub that is WAY more than is needed to hold the various pipes, simply because it was what room was left once they put in the standard sized tub. It's as wide as the tub, and about 18" deep; the side of that space creates a blank wall to the left of the toilet, so one part of the renovation project will be to put a nice deep (maybe 10", to not interfere with any plumbing) recessed shelf there. That still leaves enough room to hide a body or two, though. Or at least enough room to stash stuff like rarely used suitcases or presents we're hiding from the kids.

One interesting thing we *think* we found back there is the framing to what used to be a window. We won't be able to tell for sure until we get that tub out of there, but it sure looks like it. Ironically, I had already made one significant change to the reno plan, and that is to NOT put a window in that wall over the tub, for two reasons. One, I've been reading too much about how no matter how good of a window you get, the cold from that window can simply be not what you want on a brisk winter day while you're taking a shower. But also, if we put a window in, that has to be done pretty much first on the checklist when in fact it's a really low priority for me. But I can't exactly tile the shower area and THEN put a window in later, you know? So I decided on an alternative: Since above the tub is simply the kneewall area of the third floor, I'm going to eventually put in (well, having someone else put in) a skylight, the type that has a tunnel leading down to the actual bathroom. That way I get my natural light, but it can go in later, just in case I need to build up my savings a bit after spending more on other things than I'd originally budgeted.

This is the "Note below": I generally try to not venture into politics in my house blog but I'm on political overload (just got my first candidate call today; I pressed 3 for "the other guy"), and so much that is happening with our economy in particular -- and my perception of just WHO exactly is to blame for it -- is just sending me over the edge. I tend to be very grouchy when faced with too much political bullshit, which of course is unavoidable in a presidential campaign year or when facing a possible recession or while our country is enmeshed in a hideously expensive war that we should have never gotten into, so right now is just the worst of it all for me. But on this whole "economic stimulus" package thing... I'm just someone who thinks that maybe that money should be focused on (among other possible options) doing things like giving some seriously hardworking poorfolk some genuinely affordable and decent housing instead of being divvied out to folks like me who honestly don't NEEEEED it like they do, when a good part of why we're in this economic hellhole is that too many people got into a helluva lot more debt than they ever should have -- so the answer is to give us more money to spend and put our country into even more debt?!? Not in my way of thinking. So don't be surprised if you see some campaigning on my part to get folks to donate at least half of any "economic stimulus" money to Habitat or a local food bank or domestic violence shelter or something. It doesn't take being a "bleeding heart liberal" to look around and feel that there's just something WRONG when you live in an area like I do (like so many do) when the average salary is maybe $10/hour and yet the average home costs $200-$300k. Let's find a way to create a way for people to genuinely afford a place to live and raise their families that doesn't include mortgages that make it affordable for a coupe of years then make folks lose absolutely everything once reality sets in. Should folks who took out those mortgages have known better? Probably. But just because someone should have known better than to get themselves into a no-win situation doesn't mean that they should have been given that opportunity when everyone who DID know better could clearly see the writing on the wall.

OK, end economic/political rant. For now.

Stupid blasted mrrffffkrffff bathroom exhaust fan

2008-01-20T21:55:00.000-05:00

I guess I could look at this as bathroom remodeling project step 1, except if the entire project went like this one has gone, I'm likely to say fergedaboudit (well, more likely to say something else that I wouldn't publish in my house blog).

It seemed like a fairly straightforward task: Take out old ugly loud bathroom exhaust fan/light, and replace it with new pretty quiet exhaust fan/light.

Uh-huh. Why, after over 27 years of old house ownership I would every apply the word "straightforward" to any project, I do not know. Foolish me.

First there was the task of getting the old one out. Previous Owners had installed it before putting up the ceiling drywall so of course it didn't want to come out. We finally won that bitterly fought battle, but only after having destroyed the old fixture beyond any possible reuse, as we had originally planned.

One brief moment of elation: The old opening is big enough for the new fixture!!

Except.

The old fixture was attached to the joist on the left side. The new fixture could only be attached on the right.

Ok, well it's just a little drywall, we'll just cut over to the next joist and patch.

So we cut. THEN we notice that the old opening is actually wider than the new box requires which means that the drywall patch must cover the big area vacated by the old box, but also an inch or so to either side. No big deal though. Let's just get this puppy screwed in and put up the drywall.

Except.

The space above the ceiling was just JUST big enough for the old fixture. And the sides of both fixtures were the same height. But the new fixture has bump-outs on top to the tune of making the bottom of the fixture drop 3/4" below the ceiling.

Many profane words happened here.

We ended up doing a combination of pushing down the bumped-up part of the top (after verifying that we'd still be able to get the motor in) and pulling up the lip of the bottom in order to get it sized small enough to fit.

Oh and getting the old ducting hooked up with NO maneuvering room was fun. It would have been impossible if we hadn't had the extra open space created by having to move it over.

And isn't it lovely that Hunter Fans doesn't bother telling you that they don't include one of the locking doodads for protecting wire from the sharp edges of the box and holding it in place until you're halfway through the instructions. We didn't have the locking one they specified and the plastic one from the old box had cracked in our efforts to take down that sucker, but we just wrapped it in some electrical tape, shoved it in the hole, and called it a day.

So the box is up, the electric was tested (well, for the fan - we'll presume a working light on faith), the crazy-shaped bit of drywall is in place, and the first layer of compound is drying. Partner will put on the second layer tomorrow, then we can finally put the light in place.

Though really we shouldn't put the light in place until after we repaint the ceiling since it wasn't actually drywall we put up but a scrap of greenboard, but I'm simply not going to even consider painting the ceiling this weekend so I'll just have to live with the greenboard for a week or twelve.

So much fun was had today, let me tell you.

First there was a new tub...

2008-01-20T21:45:00.000-05:00

For reasons I'm not going to explain in detail, it looks like I'm about to get $2000 that I would be totally justified in using for play money, instead of taking my usual route with any unexpected bonus of socking it into savings, using it to pay down the mortgage or pay off Partner's remaining car loan, or using it to do something chokingly practical.

But I get to play with this. No, due to its source, I'm practically obligated to play with it. But I'm a wee bit too practical for that, so instead I'm going to use it for something I want so much that I pout about it regularly, but can't otherwise justify: I'm going to get a new bathtub.

I absolutely love soaking in a comfy tub, but right now all we have is a modern plastic shallow straight-sided ugly tub, and it's just not in the least bit comfortable for soaking.

And for $2k I could definitely get a comfy tub.

But of course the problem is I can't just get a bathtub.

If I get a new bathtub I'm going to need to take out the old one including the integrated surround.

If I'm taking out the surround, I'm going to want to put up tile in its place.

If I'm going to put up tile, I'm going to want to go ahead and get a window put into that room before I tile because right now there is no natural light.

While the room's being torn apart anyway, I'm going to want to finally get the cheapass sink base replaced with the old dresser that I plan to refinish and remodel into a sink base.

Which of course I can't do without first putting down new floor, unless the wood floor under the luan under the ugly vinyl is in good condition in which case it will be refinished.

But before I put in the new floor and sink I need to move the receptacle that's almost behind the sink over to the side wall, and move the wiring for the lights from the side wall to above the sink (their original plans show the sink on that side wall, so I presume this is why things are switched around like this), though the least desirable part about that is the substantial amount of drywall tearout and replacement required.

So while I'm tearing out so much drywall I probably should consider continuing the tile from around the shower to throughout the room, maybe a white subway tile with a single row of some color.

And it goes without saying that getting a new tub requires replacing the frequently-clogged almond colored toilet.

Then of course I'll need new lighting, new fixtures, mirrors, a cabinet...

All of this in a bathroom that's maybe 60sq ft. Maybe.

I think there's a chance that if I pursue this route, it will take me over my $2k budget by a few dollars... ya think?!?. But then I'll be justified in spending it because it's the only way for me to get my new tub, right?!?

Please help me gussy up my houseblog

2008-01-07T23:55:00.000-05:00

I may be a computer geek, but that doesn't mean that I know squat about how to actually make something LOOK good. Let's face it: I got the overwhelming share of the math-related genetic material from my parents, while my sister got zilch for math and an overabundance of creative talent, since I kind of forgot to grab any on the way out.

Anyway, I'm seriously looking to pay someone who has a talent for such things who can help me to make this look a lot nicer. I don't CARE if only three people ever read it, I still want it to look so much nicer than it does, give it a little class, have it not scream "randomly chosen non-customized built-in template!!"

Any takers? Tell me the best way to reach you. Either post here or email me at tanama44 ataoldotcom.

Seriously. Help.

A present from my privet

2008-01-06T14:06:00.000-05:00

I hate the privet that has grown to the size of huge trees that pollute our yard with all kinds of baby privets and nasty berries, but today it's worth it: Right now they're filled with hundreds of cedar waxwings all having a serious feast.

(Dara, if you read this, remind me again what you recommended we put in its place, in the area where it's grown up high enough to be a good privacy screen? I am SO ready to get rid of this damned privet!)

WHOOMP, there it is...

2008-01-04T15:20:00.000-05:00

Well, finally the comment on the showerhead installation instructions that says "In the case where your installation of the mounted Delta In2ition shower requires it to be further away from the wall, please call toll-free ... for a free 8" shower arm" makes sense.

It looks just great when installed, but turn on the water and even with the head tilted forward as far as possible, the water is blasting high against the back wall, making it difficult to get in.

(ok, well "blasting" is perhaps a bit of wishful thinking, in this day of flow regulators and living in a town where many have complained about low pressure/low flow issues... I remember from the early '80's living in a 1920's era apartment building in Philly where the water would just blast you against the back wall, in a GOOD way; well, good when there was hot water, which was hit or miss. Yes, I know we need to conserve water and the power used to heat the water, but there is just something wonderful about being pummeled with hot water that is deliciously relaxing. But I digress...)

Anyway, the removable hand-held shower handle is too long to allow the head to tip down far enough, so I called and they're sending me a free extender.

I'm hoping that once it's tilted down further, that will address another issue: The water comes out with much greater force in the side fixed portions of the shower head than in the center hand-held portion. The result is a much more straight blast on each side, but a quickly falling flow in the middle. This kind of defeats the "rainshower" effect that was one of my primary reasons for getting this, since as it is right now, I can either get the sides of my head or the center of my head in the water, but not both at the same time. Customer Service did instruct me on how to remove the flow regulator from the hand-held part, which helped some but still not enough to get a nice even spray. I'm just hoping that once I can tilt the head down to the angle it needs to be, the difference will be negligible; otherwise, it will need to go back. ::sigh::

*and no, there's no special meaning to the title. It happens to be a friend's "ring tone" and I'd just called her before starting this post, so when I started typing this it somehow seemed to be related, as in "oh, that's why they said that..." Ok, can I blame it on the cold medicine?

Feed a fever, go to Lowes for a cold.

2008-01-04T14:00:00.000-05:00

Despite this cold making me feel like creamed caca, I had no choice but to leave the house to pick up a "get it today or lose it" major freecycle score -- a Little Tykes kitchen set for BabyGrand, or at least for once she's a year or two older. Great condition, too.

So while I was out I treated myself to a stop at the nearby Lowes (after all, I had a coupon that was about to expire!) and got a new kitchen sink faucet, another door-mounted shelf unit for the pantry, and something that I've been hoping someone would make for years but never saw in an affordable line: A shower fixture that is a combination wide-rainshower head AND a hand-held shower massager. The regular wide-head hand-helds don't do the real rainshower effect since the water only comes out of a relatively small number of the holes in the head, plus they're too big and usually heavy to be convenient to use. This one is unique -- the majority of the rainshower head is fixed, while the hand-held portion is just a narrow wedge that lifts out from the center. It's hard to describe, and I'm too damned lazy to take a picture.

If I can find the teflon tape, then I'll install this today and treat myself to a nice long hot shower to help relieve these cold symptoms. If I can't, then I'm not up to mucking around in the garage to figure out where it was stashed, and it will just have to wait. Kitchen faucet installations have always been Partner's bailiwick*, so that will wait.

*I looked up the official definition for "bailiwick," being nervous at having discovered recently that I had always misused a certain word, and was amused to see that while it's primary definition is (as I thought) "A person's specific area of interest, skill, or authority," it's secondary definition is "The office or district of a bailiff" which just happens to be Partner's profession.

Bummer to have to wait

2008-01-01T02:58:00.000-05:00

As I'm reading to better educate myself about floor refinishing, I realize that it's really just not a good idea to refinish a floor in the winter, when you don't want to keep the windows open. I'm thinking we need to wait until May. Warmer weather is also good since we'll have to go out the front door, around the side of the house, through the gate, and back into the house through the back door in order to let the dogs in and out of the house. The kitchen will also be completely inaccessible while we can't walk through the dining room.

I'm also starting to lean towards attempting to refinish it ourselves. I think we can do it. I know a lot of my reluctance to do it has been simply from not wanting to work on that floor any more, after I've already done so much backbreaking work on it. But another big part has been just plain worry that we'll screw it up and it will look awful. My confidence is building, though...

I think I want to use a Waterlox finish but I'm still deciding.

Please help me justify my rationalization

2007-12-31T10:47:00.000-05:00

This little cheapo thingy that was put (not by me) onto our bottom-of-the-line kitchen faucet to allow you to direct the water and also (supposedly) to select between a stream and a wider spray of water has just broken off.

I think this completely justifies my buying the nice gooseneck faucet that ~~we need~~ I want. Yes, I know we could replace that doohickey or just put the regular screen thingy back onto it (which we still have... somewhere; and yes there are technical names for these things but I'm far too undercaffeinated to imagine what they might be) but since clearly SOMEthing needs to be done, why shouldn't that something be that we put in a nice new faucet, yes?

If you agree, please let me know. And please share your own really stretched rationalization stories, like "the toilet paper holder broke off and so we completely remodeled the bathroom." That sort of thing. I need backup here, folks.

Maybe, in the spirit of "it's easier to ask forgiveness than to ask permission," I could just pick it up on my way into town to pick up the sushi and wine for tonight's dinner...

A rant about something not house related

2007-12-28T19:53:00.000-05:00

(Does something count as house-related if it's preventing you from doing work on your house?)

Microsoft Office 2007 SUCKS.

Let me explain why I am qualified to make that assessment.

My first five years of computing (in college) was on punched cards.
I wrote 30+ page research papers in college using a basic electric typewriter.
My first word processing was on a dedicated word processor that used 8" floppy disks.
I've written hundreds of pages of software documentation using Emacs in place of a word processor.
My first PC-based word processing program was FinalWord. It was DOS-based, and fit on a single 512k floppy disk.
I then progressed to WordPerfect (again, on DOS), then WordPerfect in Windows (I'm talking the first Windows, Windows 3 era).
Gradually, as Microsoft took over the world, I had no choice but to move to the Microsoft Office Suite and Word. I went through every Windows-based version provided, starting with the version for Windows 3.x and up through Word 2003, all without a hitch.
I have taught advanced classes and provided many hours of help-desk support for every single one of these PC-based word processors; my full-time job since 1984 has been to teach and support PC and network operating systems and applications.

Now I'm trying to figure out what the hell I'm doing in Word 2007, and there's just no question that it sucks beyond all language that I could justify using on my house blog.

Tasks that I could have told you how to do from memory, without a PC in front of me, are now hidden, moved to some place that is completely inconsistent with decades of prior word processing usage and totally counter-intuitive.

Features that have been no-brainers for decades are relocated or missing, from both the menus -- Oh! Wait! No! there AREN'T any menus!! -- and from the Help system. Features that used to take a simply right-mouseclick or keyboard shortcut now require five minutes to locate... is it on this tab? This one? Maybe if I clicked here...

GAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

The first person who can tell me why something as basic as a checkbox isn't working (the checkboxes which took me forever to figure out how to get into the document in the first place, because Oh!! The tab that has those commands on it isn't SHOWN by default! You have to go here then there then this other place to SAY that you want to see that tab in order to get those commands) will get a very special prize: A long, thick-handled stripped screwdriver with a dog-gnawed handle, indicative of exactly what I feel that Microsoft has done to the world by releasing this monstrosity. "Threads" my big fat behind; the only "threads" are on the screw that MS has decided to shove up our collective butts with this disaster -- a disaster that we will have no choice but to accept.

Resistance is futile.

What really scares me is that I've only really started looking at Word, but I don't TEACH Word this upcoming semester: I teach Excel and Access.

God help me when we have to start teaching Vista. The only thing that will keep my head from exploding at that point will be my Linux classes.

[/rant]

2008 To-Do List

2007-12-28T10:51:00.001-05:00

I can't call this a list of "resolutions" but I can call it a to-do list. Failure to accomplish a resolution comes across to me as exactly that: Failure. But a to-do list is a more fluid thing. A to-do list has plenty of wiggle room for changes in plans, life getting in the way, getting sidetracked by a project that suddenly just seems a lot more exciting than the other projects you had planned, unexpected illness, grandchildren, heat waves, cold snaps, or roof cave-ins. Well, hopefully not that last one but you know what I man.

That rationalization out of the way, I will create my overall to-do list for 2008:

Greening it up:

Build compost bin and find container to keep inside for compostable materials
Start recycling office papers
Increase commitment to locavorism: Join CSA, plant veggies to freeze, buy at least 50% local meat, eggs, dairy.
Insulate the attic room on the 3rd floor.
Finish making and installing the rainbarrels (requires installing gutters on garden shed and far side of garage)

Getting Organized:

Get the #!%^@ garage organized (a project that's been ongoing since I've moved here)
Organize the garden shed (mostly just get some shelves in there, and get rid of things we don't need)

Making it Pretty:

Get dining room floor refinished
Make new baseboard trim for dining room, living room.
Put up wainscoting in the downstairs hallway
Paint (or rather, scrape, treat, prime, paint) the garage and shed
Paint porch floor
Refinish/rebuild old dresser to be sink base cabinet for 2nd fl bathroom, and install.
Replace mirrors and lighting in 2nd floor bathroom
Replace vent/light in 2nd floor bathroom
Powerwash the siding and foundation block

Keeping it in Good Condition

Address porch roof problems
Route remaining gutters further away from the house
Clean up leftover mold in basement and re-insulate
Check condition of crawlspace insulation

I hope to actually do even more, but I have to be realistic. Plus, there are so many unknowns, "will we have the grandkids full-time" being the primary one. One of the things that I've found helpful so far, in the two weeks or so that I've been using it, is to keep an active to-do list on my blog (see link on the right side of the page if you're interested). We'll see how this works in the long run.

Cheesy, but we love it.

2007-12-24T11:07:00.000-05:00

After looking at hundreds of fabrics, we have decided that we both love this one for the little cafe curtain in our kitchen:

It has "grandmother" in all these different languages. I see that it has "Nana," I just hope that it also has Abuela and Bubbe.

Lost again

2007-12-24T09:00:00.000-05:00

I have three measuring tapes. I can't find any of them. Why does this always happen when I'm feeling most gung-ho to start planning something that can't be planned without accurate measurements?

Feh.

Advice sought RE: toddlers and house projects

2007-12-23T21:45:00.000-05:00

I know that some of you have one or more small children. How on earth do you do it? There are two of us and only one of our 19m granddaughter, and she isn't even with us full time (mostly all weekends though), but it just seems impossible to get much of any consequence done while she's here -- everything either has to be a one-person job, or it has to be doable while she's asleep (so much for my plans to install new shelves in the linen closet just outside of her room today...), or doable within the time span that she'll be content staying confined (crib, high-chair, playpen) which, needless to say, isn't long at all.

Anyway, I'd love to hear some feedback and tricks that folks with small children use to get things done. There's a chance that she'll be coming to live with us full-time for a while, and I can't see how we're going to get anything accomplished!! But I know there just has to be a way, there just HAS to be...

Too many questions at once about repainting our old garage.

2007-12-22T19:23:00.001-05:00

I posted these questions in a forum where wonderful advice is generously given, but I think sometimes I ask too many questions at once, which causes folks who might only know the answer to one or two to not answer, and causes folks who might know the answers to all of them to not want to be bothered with so much at once.

So, I'm deleting that set of questions from there and getting ready to just post one initial question in hopes that will get an answer, then I'll go on from there.

And in the interest of not forgetting what all I'd asked, I'm copying what I'd posted here. And if you happen to know any or all of the answers, I'd love to hear from you!

----------------------
Winter solstice is not exactly the right time of year to get hit with an intense desire to start doing the prep work for painting the garage, but I can at least start with the planning!

While the wood on our garage is mostly in good condition (except for near the ground in a few areas), the paint is peeling so badly that it's the main thing I use as a descriptor when giving people directions. I think this summer I'll finally be able to tackle repainting the garage as one of my summer-break projects.

My questions for now are:

Is there any reason why I shouldn't start scraping on days warm enough to be outside this winter? It already only has maybe 50% paint coverage, and the rest bare grayed wood.
(fyi, I hope to get the scraping finished before it's time to do ANY planting, even of early veggies, since my garden is right next to my garage and while I plan to be as careful as possible with the paint chips, I still don't want to get ANY lead paint chips/dust on my crops - I plan to very solidly secure a tarp over it for the duration of all scraping.)
I know that I can't just prime over weathered wood. What's the best thing to use to treat it before painting? Do I need to wait a certain time between treating and painting? Also, if I need to treat it, does that mean that I have to get it TOTALLY stripped of all paint, down to 100% wood, or if there are places where the paint really doesn't want to come off can I just leave it? And how warm does it have to be (and stay) to treat the wood?
With so much of the paint really really loose, is there some kind of attachment I can get for my shopvac to just wet it down (to minimize dust), scrape it and vacuum it up at the same time, at least for the first pass with the loosest paint?
Should we paint it a taupe/brown to coordinate with the current color of the [vinyl siding that the PO's put up on the] house, gray to stay with what appears to be its original color, or base it on the color we finally decide on for some of the house trim? FYI we have an L-shaped lot so it's almost impossible to see the house and the garage at the same time.

Thanks!!

Sometimes it's the little things...

2007-12-22T18:47:00.000-05:00

While it's great to sit back and declare some big project finally DONE, there is something deeply satisfying in finding a way to crank through a bunch of little projects that have been nagging you for a long time. I don't know about other folks, but I have this amazing capacity to comment to myself every single day about some little thing that I really should do and that won't really take that much time, but week after month after year it just never gets done.

Well, I'm on a roll with little stuff. It started a couple of weeks ago with my making a list of stuff to get done over my holiday break, morphed into a list twice the size of the original, and is kept going by the combined satisfaction and challenge of watching that list being whittled away.

In terms of being organizationally challenged, I'm probably the perfect candidate for a PDA but I really don't want to have to deal with anything other than a pen or a regular sized keyboard, and my paper lists get written but then just get lost in the muck and mire of my overall disorganization. And I tried keeping lists on the computer, in Word documents or whatever, but it's just so easy to ignore them. But I may have finally come up with what works: Adding a to-do list to my house blog.

I'm actually maintaining two lists. The first is my active to-do list -- what I'm trying to get done in the next couple of weeks or months. It's going to include house stuff plus some not-directly-house-related stuff just to keep it all together. I say "not directly house related" because, for example, getting the long overdue package sent to my friend or getting things dropped off at the domestic violence shelter may not seem house related, but it clears out space, removes clutter, and even simply lets me cross it off my list and move onto the next task which is hopefully house related.

I crossed two things off that list today: Getting the pantry organized, and getting all of my knives sharpened. Considering that I was out of the house for much of the day, I feel satisfied with that. If I get a second wind I may tackle something else, but this is enough for today -- it is my first day of holiday break, after all!!

My second list is my long-term list. I organized it room-by-room, and have both big and small projects listed. I tend to forget things that I know I need to do but can't get to for a while, so this will help me record that.

I'm feeling on my way towards getting organized, and for an ADD queen, that's a damn good feeling.

"Oh, this will only take a half-hour..."

2007-12-11T21:50:00.000-05:00

Well, it would have taken someone who knew what the heck she was doing "only a half-hour." For me, three.

The task? Sewing. Using the sewing machine that I bought 3-4 years ago and have now used 2-3 times. Attempting to finish the edges and then sew one freakin' 6" strip of material onto the bottom of a curtain, then sew strips of velcro along the top and bottom of that strip of material so that I can stuff a quilt-batting wrapped length of chain into the resulting pocket. Doing this to weight the curtain down to the floor so that all the first and second floor heat doesn't go whooshing under it, since the curtain is used to block the stairway to the third floor which we rarely use. Except for when I'm sewing, of course. It was kind of the equivalent of sewing one of those grain-filled "snakes" that you can get to block drafts at the bottoms of doors and windows onto the bottom of this curtain, except our occasional mouse problem dictates that using grain would be a Very Bad Idea, so I used chain and I wanted to make it removable (thus the velcro) so that the curtain could actually be washed if necessary.

Anyway, I'm babbling, but that's what happens when something you know a semi-competent person could do in half an hour takes you three. And along the way you misplace one part of the velcro then after 10 minutes of searching you find it on the back of your leg, attached to your sweatpants. And you forget the which direction to install the bobbin. And you realize after just ten minutes that the chair you chose to put into your sewing room is dreadfully uncomfortable and totally the wrong height. And your thread breaks about fifty zillion times. And you realize after three minutes that if you're going sew even small projects you need some decent light in that room, because you're old and therefor half-blind and even with your reading glasses on you can't see to thread the damned needle. Which you have to do over and over because of the thread breaking. And you feel ashamed because your mother sews so well (mostly quilts) that she owns six sewing machines (and variations thereof) including one which costs more than your car, and in theory you should have inherited at least one tiny spec of her aptitude. Plus she would have had that done in ten minutes, not thirty, even if she only used one hand. Then feel you resentful because one of the reason you don't like to sew is because in high school she forced you to sew every time you were on restriction, and you were on restriction a LOT.

Anyway, it's done, and the curtain is no longer pulled up by a draft of hot air looking for the highest spot in the house*. I'd take a picture but I'm more worn out and my back hurts more than if I'd just totally reorganized the garage.

Bleh.

*I originally wrote "a draft of hot air looking to get high" but I decided it wasn't appropriate, but it does tell you a bit about how frazzled I am by this if that's where my brain is going...

On the First Day of Winter break, My To-do List Said to Me...

2007-12-10T22:36:00.000-05:00

One of the true joys of being a teacher is the time off. I'm off for winter break this year from Saturday the 22nd through Sunday the 6th, 16 days in all. I'm determined to get at least some little projects done in that time.

I'll won't do work on the house on:

The 22nd just because it's my first week of break and I need to be a slug.
Christmas eve since V will also be off work that day and we'll probably choose to be lazy slugs together.
Christmas day since we'll hopefully be seeing our grandchildren, when we're not being slugs, that is!
New Years Eve, though I won't really be taking off since I'll be running around getting stuff for our Quiet Romantic Evening at Home (which is going to include an obscene amount of carry-out sushi and other Japanese food -- yummmmm!)
New Year's Day since isn't it the law that you have to slug on that day? Besides some friends who just had their brand new house built are having an open house/brunch and we want to go see them.
And the 6th just because I need to go back to work the next day, and so some last minute serious slugging is in order.

That leaves me 10 days to do stuff. Now, don't get me wrong: I'm not one of you super-heroes out there who remodel entire rooms in a day, build whole additions in a week. Nope, I'm just going to plan on getting at least 10 projects that should be easily done in a day (or much less) cranked out, projects that need to be done but that I've been avoiding.

I'll probably modify this as the time gets closer, but for now the list is going to be:

Get all of the stuff we have set aside for the local domestic violence shelter delivered over there. Toss in a handful of $25 Wal-Mart gift certificates.
Get the new shelves put up in the linen closet and organize that plus the cabinet stuffed full of way out of date toiletries.
Build two shelves for the cedar cabinet, and get it moved back into place and stuff put in there that belongs there.
Organize the pantry cupboard (it's scary; we have no idea what might be lurking under the layers of plastic grocery bags and reusable TJ's bags.
Clean off and organize my desk and associated paperwork crammed in its drawers and the filing cabinet next to it.
Go back through the attic, pull out things that can be recycled (boxes for stuff we've had past its warranty, for example), convince V to get rid of some of the crap that we do NOT need to be keeping, and add it to the shelter run pile. Done! 12/16: Boxes broken down and ready for the recycle run, we're getting rid of three of the extra chairs (two dining room, one office) that were stashed in the attic, and I listed a buttload of stuff on freecycle this weekend.
~~Identify two dressers that we can get rid of, and get rid of them (DV shelter again).~~ Actually we ended up finding a use for both of them - one now helps keep my office organized, the other is going to hold extra blankets.
~~Get the 3rd floor better organized once there's room created by disappearing the empty unused dressers.~~ Spent several hours yesterday (12/16) getting the 3rd floor a LOT better organized even with the dressers there. Put shelves in one of the closets to take some of the overflow from the attic. Went through the last of the moving boxes. Listed a bunch of stuff on Freeycycle. Got my sewing room much better organized - I'd call it 90% done, now! Found the parts (with one still missing - can I improvise? we'll see) needed to reassemble the futon couch.
Paint the bottom part of the old enamel-topped table and bring it to the dining room with some baskets/bins for mail sorting.
Uh... do one of the above tasks that still needs to be done because I blew off at least one more day to be a total slug.

I think I can do this. Or at least make a good dent in this list. We'll see.

Edited to add in a few more tasks that I can either substitute for items in the above list if I'm lazy, or add to the list if I'm ambitious:

Get hanging chain attached to stained glass piece in kitchen
Sharpen all my knives
Get rid of all the recycling stuff
Mail long overdue package to friend
If we get a relatively warm day, do some garden cleanup and hack back some of the privet.
Sort through old computer stuff, back up and wipe clean all old hard drives, get rid of most of it and organize what I'm keeping.
I'll keep adding more things as I think of them.

Some (maybe) really good news

2007-12-07T22:37:00.001-05:00

One of the flooring contractors for whom I got some really good references for both new floors and floor refinishing came today. This is one of the several contractors who told me that no way would they attempt to refinish a floor that had linoleum glue and felt still stuck to it.

Well, he came in today, saw how much I'd gotten totally off, saw how much I'd reduced the thickness of the rest of it, and thinks that they can refinish it. He pointed out the 1000 ways that it won't be perfect - the areas where it's been painted, the area that had been under the original cabinets up against an area with many stains, other stains, other significant dings, the many plumbing/heating holes they'll need to plug, etc. But he seemed actually very excited about refinishing it.

He didn't give me an absolute guarantee though. He said that they'd not really know until they started, and if they start and it clear is going to keep seriously gunking up their equipment, they'll have to pretty much stop right away and give me the choice of our manually taking the felt/glue down even further, or applying my deposit towards a new floor. But he seemed genuinely excited about seeing that it could probably be refinished.

So, fingers crossing here. He already warned me that the quote to refinish that floor will be somewhere between a normal refinish job and a brand new floor because of the extra work involved (lots of plugs, nails, a place that currently has just a 2x6 that they'll need to figure out how to "blend", etc.) and that's understandable. But it would just make me so happy to get that floor refinished instead of new floor put on top of it -- as long as I didn't need to take off all the felt/glue crap first.

We can finally paint the kitchen

2007-12-01T02:09:00.000-05:00

I've wanted to paint the kitchen for so long, but I brought in dozens, perhaps over a hundred paint swatches and never found anything that worked. Despite the fact that the colors that seemed to always look best were the greens, I didn't WANT more green, dammit, I wanted a really warm color, with orange being my tone of choice.

Well tonight we perused yet another bank of pain samples and came home with another stack. I did my normal ritual - take the colors and attach them to hang just behind/under the fronts of the wall cabinets. See, it's the natural oak cabinets with their yellow/orange tones that kept most warm colors from working in there.

I put up the colors and then start just looking at them, not just looking at the aesthetics but, at the risk of sounding really weird, I try to get a sense of how they make me feel, what emotions they provoke in me (if there's anything beyond ewww no). Until tonight, none of the warm colors have worked. But tonight I had up a half-dozen, and one just stood out. I called V. downstairs to look at them without saying which was calling to me. It took maybe two minutes, probably less, to decide definitively on the one I'd chosen. That's how we always end up picking color - we don't consider anything that doesn't just really FEEL right to both of us.

It's a mid-range tone, something like a brown-tinged orange, a lighter relative to terra cotta. But it works. V. even held it up to all of the key things in the kitchen - our painting of sunflowers, the stained glass of tulips, my 70's orange decoupaged breadbox, and they all went well. We even find a strange compatibility between it and the two mint-green tiles that I rescued that had been part of my beloved Granny's original kitchen - somehow, those two long edge tiles are going to be incorporated into a tile backsplash behind the stove.

Now I just need M.A. or Laura or ege's husband - you know, someone who actually can do a decent job painting - to come help me paint it. Because I really want it done nicely.

Maybe I'll ask for that as my Holiday present - hire a professional painter to paint the kitchen and the office, which might be a light teal though I'd love to find a soft warm grayish lavender/violet.

Random trivial updates

2007-11-29T21:13:00.001-05:00

The new Dysons have arrived and OMG do they rock. One small indoor/outdoor carpet that sits on the path between the Dog Hallway and the back door was always impossible to clean. About 15 seconds with the Animal DC17 and that sucker was jet black clean and the canister was filled with inches of dirt and pug hair. Very disgusting but wonderful now to think that we have something that actually really seriously sucks around here but in a GOOD way.

No floor estimates yet - one guy came out but no estimate yet, the other guy was going to call Thanksgiving week to set up a time to come out but haven't heard from him. I'll blame it on the holidays and cut them a break, but I also know that it's just pretty consistent with the fact that around here, most contractors just freakin' suck about getting back to you.

Not our HVAC guy, though, as I've said before. He rocks. And his Young Squire helper is a fresh-faced example that some kids (and yes, very-early 20's qualifies you as "Kid" to me now) actually have strong work ethics and professional behavior and all that.

One recommendation, though: If you decide that behind an attic knee-wall HVAC service panel is a great place to hide ::ahem:: things that you don't want your grandchildren to find, it's always a good idea to remove them from behind said service panel before the HVAC guys arrive to fine-tune your system. If I had a blushing-deep-purple emoticon to use right now, I would.

Hitting the CSA Jackpot

2007-11-20T15:59:00.000-05:00

I finally found a local CSA that

has shares small enough for the two of us,
delivers in our area instead of requiring us to drive 15+ miles to pick it up,
is very reasonably priced,
offers a nice variety, with a good balance between stuff people use more often and things that are new/unusual to many folks,
never overloads their CSA baskets with too much of any one thing like zucchini when it's in "can't even give it away" season,
allows us to order additional produce, free-range organic eggs, and naturally-raised poultry and meats, to be delivered with our CSA basket,
is run by Very Nice People (one of the other local CSAs is run by someone who comes across as a compulsive, aggressive control freak), and
doesn't require work (one of the local CSAs requires each member to work a certain significant number of hours, but the costs are still as much or more than the other CSAs).

This makes me very happy.

In case you have no clue what I'm talking about, CSA stands for "Community Supported Agriculture." Generally, CSAs are small local farms that apply natural and/or organic farming practices, though not all are "certified organic." While some CSA's simply allow members to order and buy what they want each week, and many CSA's are the farmers at your local farm markets, many offer a pre-paid discounted weekly farmer's-choice basket which is a sample of what was harvested that week. I like the challenge (or at least I like the idea of the challenge) of getting something new and having to figure out how to use it.

Now I'll need to decide what, if anything, to put into my own garden.

I miss you, Max.

2007-11-18T20:21:00.000-05:00

Friday evening, just after 6, I said my last good-bye to Max, who was without question the most special dog I ever had. He was an odd and interesting mix of pitbull and whippet (and who knows what else) - looking like a scared, skinny pitbull. I adoped him in the spring of '93, when he was probably 2-3 years old. A small Philadelphia rescue group had picked him up off the street and gave his "owner" the choice of being reported for the the fight injuries indicative of being "pit bait" and the chain collar that had started to grow into the skin of his neck, or to sign him over to them. They signed. The rescue group had the collar surgically removed and began the process of trying to find a loving home for a fearful pit-mix dog that was not well socialized among people or animals.

A friend who was involved in that rescue group knew that I was looking for a companion for my other dog, but I never in a moment imagined that this agressive abused dog that she described would be a good match for Buster, but to finally appease her I brought Buster over. Despite the fact that Buster tended to just annoy other dogs (and many people) to death, and that Max tended to be higly agressive with other dogs, it was total love at first sight between those two boys, so he came home with me. And boy, what a lovefest it was for the two of them - I used to joke that with their big grinning faces as they did all the :::ahem::: "getting to know you" things that boy dogs tend to do, I kept expecting to find the living room where they stayed littered with cigarette butts and little foil packets. But they did definitely bond, and it wasn't long before it was clear that Max was a very special dog.

It took a long time to get him properly socialized, but within a couple of years he was the sweetest gentlest boy you could imagine. His two favorite things, beyond snuggling up to whoever would have him, were running (and the whippet in him made him run faster than any dog I'd ever known) and rolling in dead things in the park. Ah, well, he WAS a dog.

He was a total sun-god and would bask in the warm sun, even on the hottest days, and shiver like a blizzard was passing through if it dropped below 60 -- that is, of course, unless I had him out for a run on the beach where it could be 25 degrees and he'd still jump around in the water as if it were mid-summer.

I have so many Max stories, and it breaks my heart that there won't be any more, but as the weather started to get colder around here it became clear that his body wasn't at all up to another winter, that his quality of life was gone, and it was time to say good-bye.

Here's Max several years ago, basking in the sun, showing off his characteristic big happy-dog grin.

I miss you, Max.

Dust mites and leaf mold and corn, OH MY!

2007-11-13T01:50:00.000-05:00

My body has decided to do me the gracious honor of reintroducing me to one of the delightful wonders of my youth: Asthma. Except of course with the decorum of a matured lady, I no longer indulge in the loud wheezy rattling coughing hacking gasps for air that peppered my youth after I played in the forbidden hay lofts and corn fields and fall's leaf piles. This sudden resurgance of asthma in my middle years takes an outwardly more subtle form, card-on-bike-tire rattle replaced by long but ladylike yawns and short stops between breathy phrases as I struggle to talk, trying to force air into tightened passageways. I'm unsettled by the occasional sense of gradual suffocation, but I keep my head together enough to not freak the hell out on anyone, especially myself.

Asthma just sucks. It's awful. I got some work done on the house this weekend but there was no energy in it, only this sense that I have to slog through what needs to be done - laundry, mopping, sealing the bottom of the baseboards in the doggie hallway, going through another box or two in the attic. Nothing that will give me any real satisfaction. Nothing that takes me less than fifteen minutes when it should take me five. Nothing that will remotely push my body into feeling like it worked.

I've been having some restrictive breathing for a few weeks, or maybe even a few months (I tend to ignore such things), but honestly I think it was the allergy tests I got two weeks ago that sent me over the edge into this Asthma Hell a few days later, deep into breathing treatments and prednisone shots and "gee, your oxygen is only 93, if it doesn't go up I'm sending you to the ER" and two types of inhalers and one nose spray and two types of pills forever plus a week of prednisone to make me freakin' nuts and some antibiotics to take care of that fever, without bothering to look too hard for what the fever might be from. And still, there are bands on my chest, allowing me to breath but not with the full use of my lungs.

I can't transplant dozens of perennials, trim privet monster trees, get the attic insulated or the garage organized, put the gutters on the garage, or even figure out what to do with my outside potted herbs - the prednisone having stripped me of my logical stamina as thoroughly as the asthma removed my physical stamina, and so I just can't think of my options, and they may freeze before I can bring myself to evaluate the best possible solution. I can't put up the shelves in the linen closet, think through what type of bar we should use to hang up my mother's quilt, clean out the pantry, make pies, or even just clean my desk.

Ironically, we've dramatically lowerd our exposure to allergens since moving here: No carpet, just small rugs. A new central heat/air system wtih two 5-6" thick super-filters and a built-in humidifier. A house that's not subject to the endless mold and mildew that plagued our former concrete block beach cottage. Dogs (which, by the way, rank right up with cockroaches as The Two Things Leslie Wasn't Allergic To) are not allowed in most of the house, cats banned, no smoking inside. Sure we could dust and vacuum a bit more often, and we need to get those dust mite covers for the bedding. But we're doing ok.

I just want it to be over. I want to be working on my house, rearranging my garden, riding my bike to school on these cool fall mornings, frantically building my 4x4 boxes for next spring's garden, sitting thickly bundled on the porch with my morning tea as I engorge myself on long slow deep hits of the morning's moist cool clear air. I want to be well.

A cold, the flu - those I could deal with because there is an end to it. But asthma sucks. I have no guarantee when, or if, things will get better.

And I'm getting tested for food allergies Thursday. Please don't let life just dive straight down into Suck, full speed, by making me allergic to some of my most loved foods, like nuts and cheeses.

Exploring new ways to just suck it up

2007-11-11T11:31:00.000-05:00

I couldn't resist that title. I really do feel like I have to just suck it up on a lot of things in my life, which isn't always a pleasant thing. And in the past few weeks I've been having a very rough time sucking it up - sucking up (in) air in particular, because of some serious asthma that's kicking my ass.

However, this time I'm actually very excited about two new ways to really suck it up:

The Dyson DC17 Absolute Animal

And the Dyson DC16 Root 6.

And both for around half the regular retail cost through a Dyson employee's "Friends and Family" discount. I don't think I could have ever justified the cost if I were paying full retail (and these suckers just never go on sale), but this will be a sweet early holiday gift to ourselves. With all my focus on not wanting to be wasteful, I'm feeling a wee bit guilty that our current vacuum cleaner is less than 4 years old and works perfectly, but despite it having a "hepa" filter, it stinks. It works fine, but there's this smell that just never goes away with most bag vaccuums even if you change the filter and clean that sucker out as often and as well as you can. I have received promises all around from current Dyson owners that the Dyson's don't stink.

I just love new toys for the house. Oh, and the handheld? I... um... kinda sorta forgot to double-check with V about ordering that before I added it to the order form. Oops.

Have I mentioned lately how much I love my HVAC guys?

2007-11-09T02:37:00.000-05:00

The chill of late fall finally upon us, my HVAC installer came out to check the balance of the systems, install new super-filters, and hook up the humidifier (though he can't really test until it gets dry enough to create a need). All as part of our initial installation costs.

He decided that the 2nd/3rd floor heat was not balanced as nicely as he'd like, so he did yet another load evaluation (couldn't find his original), then spent a full day here with his cutie-pie assistant, getting me all set up.

They even build an insulated cover for my 2nd floor emergency exit door which totally not installed correctly, so that we could just bash right through the cover and door in case of an emergency and lose a lot less heat in the mean time.

He says that we need to insulate the unfinished attic room where the unit is installed, and if he says we need to do it, we'll do it. Not this weekend - too much stress going on. But maybe next. We'll see.

We'll need them to come out and balance the first floor a bit as well, since the office is always a good 6 degrees warmer than the rest of the house. Then again, that's where the dogs sleep, so maybe it would be ok for them to be at 66 while the rest of the downstairs is at 60.

Speaking of temps, HVAC guy is amazed that we actually LIKE the thermostat set to 66 while we're here. He can't think of a house he's serviced where 72 wasn't considered the lowest comfort setting.

He also doesn't get why I want the thermostat programmed so that unless it's less than 55 in the house, the electric supplement heat does not come on. We always have the option of turning it back on if it gets wicked cold, but we really don't mind that it may take 2 hours to get up to temperature without using the expensive electric supplement. I mean, the thermostat is actually designed to ramp up the temps slowly between automatic setting, so if we say that we want it to be 66 at 5pm, it starts bringing the heat up at 3:30 so that it can do so more efficiently

We're just into sweaters and down comforters around here.

In other news, we'll hopefully have at least two estimates for getting a new dining room floor put down within the next two weeks. It would be totally luverly to get it put in place by mid-December, but that still might not be realistic.

And in even other news, very little has been done here around Casa de Jorge, a combination of V and I both being super-stressed for a variety of reasons, and my lifelong asthma deciding that it was tired of making only an occasional quick walk-on bit-part appearance in my life, and so now it's kicking my ass with a vengeance. Nothing like suddenly finding yourself feeling as if you were being suffocated to get you into the work-on-the-house mood. Ugh.

Halloween Harvest

2007-10-27T00:52:00.000-04:00

This is what you logically should see when you Google "Halloween Harvest":

Instead, this is our Halloween Harvest at Georgetown House:

Yup, that's what I collected TODAY from our five tomato plants in our garden. On October 26th. Five days before Halloween.

And I'm sitting here in my office after midnight ("I go out bloggin'... after midnight... out in the moonlight...ju-ust like we used to do, I'm always bloggin'... after midnight, searchin' for you-oo-ooooooo" Oops. Sorry. Got distracted.)

Anyway, I'm sitting here and it's after midnight and it's now officially October 27th and I have the window open and the fan on. Now, one could argue with some merit that it could be because I'm, shall we say, a woman of a certain age. You know, that age when at any moment I'm likely to break out in a profuse sweat and have my face turn bright red like I'd just run a marathon and have this incredible urge to rip all my clothes off - in front of my students. However, I could also argue with some merit that it's because it's 73 in this room and only 69 outside.

And it's the end of October.

At least we have tomatoes. Lots and lots and lots of tomatoes with still many on the vine, waiting to ripen.

And it's almost November 1st - the date which for many years has been my "don't turn the heat on until" goal date, though I haven't made it to November 1st for as long as I can remember. Hell, I'll be glad to not have to turn the AC on after November 1st at this rate.

Year-round sunflowers

2007-10-24T00:22:00.000-04:00

An online friend made a casual post about how an hour of sunshine in her Pacific NW home gave her what she needed to paint this:

A few minutes later I asked if it was for sale, a few minutes after that she replied yes for far less than I ever imagined, and a day later I purchased it from her Etsy shop, which I didn't even know existed. It just makes me smile with its color and brightness.

Life on the front porch

2007-10-20T22:53:00.000-04:00

I started my day sitting in a wicker rocker on my front porch, book in hand, shearling slippers on my feet, big mug of tea at my side.

Early-afternoon found me returning to that same rocker, book still in hand, slippers still on my feet, big glass of iced tea at my side.

As the sun set, I was back in the rocker, closing the book because of the darkness closing in, slippers still on my feet, and I sat through the sunset while drinking the last sips of a really kickass good martini.

The porch was what made us fall instantly in love with this house, from its wraparound coziness to the arts & crafts feel of its tapered pillars and low-pitched roof. And we still love it, especially on days like today where we can enjoy the last bits of this fall's unseasonably warm weather.

It was a good day.

What's wrong with graywater collection?

2007-10-20T21:06:00.001-04:00

It's amazing to me that with all of the issues that we face with our fresh-water supply, both in this immediate time of drought and as areas continue to be increasingly over-populated, that so many state and local codes forbid graywater collection and reuse.

How much would we save if we simply set houses up so that water used in our sinks and showers/tubs was automatically collected to be used to flush toilets and water plants? The technology is really very simple, and yet it's generally forbidden by the housing codes in so many areas, including in our rural county.

Why?!? I just don't get it.

My Favorite Houseporn

2007-10-19T20:14:00.001-04:00

Sometimes I can sit for hours and lose myself in lust-from-afar over the houses listed on http://www.historicproperties.com. After I find something there, I always try to go to the original listing agency's site because they're the ones who will have the good picture, the details, the bigger pictures, the closeups of the woodwork, all that yummy detail that an old house freak like me just thrives on - all the joy of a porn site without any of the pop-ups, spy-ware, or computer viruses. I find myself going into mapquest to see just where the house is located, investigating what I an about little towns tucked away in the middle of nowhere in NC and VA and OH. I pull V over to look at cute little well-preserved craftsman-style cottages: "Look, honey, only $75k - when we retire [in 15-20 years] we can look for something like this anywhere we want. We can sell this house, buy a new one that's smaller, in good shape, with a bedroom on the first floor, tucked into a cute little town with a low cost of living that's perfect for the beginning years of our retirement."

Of course, many of the houses end up being in deteriorating towns that have quickly rising crime problems. Or they're in states that have passed laws that say that we're not allowed to even write out medical powers-of-attorney for each other in case one of us falls off a ladder and cracks our skull open and can't authorize our own surgery, or create wills that acknowledge that we both own the sofa and the dogs, because such paperwork would *gasp* give us rights just like we were MARRIED or something. Some houses just need a little too much TLC. Many wouldn't be remotely practical for two 60-something's searching for a place to hang out for the next 20 years. And some are just so far back in Boonieville that certain criteria important to retirees such as access to decent medical care simply couldn't be met without a private helicopter on-call for us.

But still I lust. For the moment at least, it's like regular porn-industry porn (or ::ahem:: so I've heard): I don't care that it's not realistic. I don't care if the pictures have been retouched. I don't care that it's no place that I could ever actually live. Just the chance to spend some time looking at those wood floors and fireplaces and original woodwork is all the fix I need to get off... the computer for a while and go read a book. ::hee::

It's not easy being Green

2007-10-15T22:30:00.000-04:00

Today is Blog Action Day, and many of my fellow housebloggers are writing some very interesting posts on the topic of what we can do to save the environment.

I put off writing all day out of guilt, and then it dawned on me that that's what I'll write about: Not letting "oh I'm not doing enough" stop you (ok, not you, ME) from doing the little things that you can do, and improving on them in at least baby steps.

It's just hard to not slink into the corner when you read about folks who have completely eliminated their use of paper products (I even know folks who use rags and bidet-type things instead of toilet paper) , who never eat anything that's not produced/grown within 100 miles of their home, who don't own a car and bike everywhere, who bake all of their own bread in a wood-fired oven in the back yard, and who sell electricity back to the power company because of their solar panels or windmills or whatever.

However, I'm not one of those people. I dream about it, fantasize about it the way that pre-teen girls fantasize about being the next Hannah Montana, but I know it's not going to happen overnight or even over-year.

So here are my baby steps:

We moved closer to work and replaced a 72 miles round trip daily commute (36 x the two of us) to a 3 mile round-trip total for the two of us. Yes, that means that we should be able to walk/bike but for V that's not practical and for me it's happening less than I want it to. But that's 33 miles a day less, more when I bike.
We're finally recycling again. This house is 3x the size of our old house but has no practical place for recycling bins, and since we don't have curbside recycling, storage becomes a problem. I finally figured out that we could squeeze one of the little tarp-type material Trader Joe's bags behind our extra-skinny trash can, then bring it to the bins in the detached garage when it's full. Then when we're seriously out of room in the bins in the garage, I'll load them up and bring them to the recycling center.
FREECYCLE. It totally rocks. I've listed and given away stuff that most folks would consider pure trash. I totally love Freecycle.
Minimize food waste. We are serious about using up leftovers here.
Grow what we can. OK, so right now it's only tomatoes, and I'm about to have to figure out what to do with fifty zillion green tomatoes. But next year I'll do a bit more, then a bit more after that.
Lights out, or low voltage. We're working hard on turning off lights, and replacing bulbs with compact fluorescents. I'd feel a wee bit better if they had a better handle on what to do with the mercury in those bulbs, but hopefully by the time we need to replace them, there will be a disposal program around here.
Rain barrels. OK, so I don't have them all built yet but they wouldn't have done any good in this summer's heavy drought anyway, but it's a great concept and very easy to make.
Being more conscious about buying local and in-season. I'm doing better, but it's also turning out to be a challenge to balance that with minimizing food waste and minimizing my drive to buy those foods.
Body heat instead of heated air. In the winter, we wear sweaters and thick fleece pants around the house, use an almost too-thick down comforter over our flannel PJ's, and keep the temps down low. I'm hoping that this year our near-90's temps in October will mean I finally meet my goal of not turning on the heat until after November 1st. I just reminded Von that the heat goes on when it gets below 60 in the house during the day. But even when we're heating, even though we now have these fairly efficient new systems, it will never be set above 68, and will generally be set much lower than that.
The rag bin is there and we use it for most house cleaning tasks; we just need to find a way to use rags more in the kitchen, instead of always reaching for a paper towel.

So there you have it. It's not much, but it gives us a base to build on. So let me set some goals for me to meet by next year's blog action day:

Get rainbarrels finished and hooked up.
Start a compost bin and compost our food waste as well as the outdoor stuff.
Plant at least 3 more foods that we will eat regularly into next year's garden.
Buy all local meats, eggs and dairy.
Bike to work at least 50% of the time that it's possible (due to weather, what I need to be wearing, if I have to go somewhere during work, etc.).
Make my own yogurt regularly instead of haphazardly (we go through LOTS of yogurt here)
Buy an energy-star mini-chest freezer for the extra produce we grow and foods we could buy local in season and eat year-round.
Get out of the fast food habit (obviously benefits us not just for "green" reasons).
Separate out the bottles on which we paid a deposit from the recycling, and have them picked up by someone who needs the money.
Less computer, more reading.

Shame on Jennifer Saranow and the WSJ

2007-10-12T13:36:00.000-04:00

Back on 9/21, in a comment that she has since deleted, Jennifer Saranow from the Wall Street Journal left a message similar to this one as a comment on my blog:

Hello,
My name is Jennifer Saranow and I'm a reporter with The Wall Street Journal in New York. I came across your blog and some of the posts fit into a story I'm working on. I would love to set up a time this week to interview you for the story. Look forward to hearing from you and really appreciate the help.
Best,
Jennifer
212-416-4184
jennifer.saranow@wsj.com

That was copied from someone else's houseblog, by the way - in the comment she left for me, she chose to omit her name and email, and only described her work as being for a major publication.

I'm writing this post for one single reason: So that if someone else is contacted by her and Googles her name or contact information (as I did, before contacting her), they can potentially find out about how she really works. Her name, her affiliation with the WSJ, her email and her phone number are all publicly available, so I'm not posting anything that's not already easy to find. I just want to make sure that it's easy to find in a place that directly addresses her tactics.

She told me, and the many other housebloggers that she contacted, that she was writing an article on people who throw "parties" to get friends to come over and help with work that needs to be done on their homes. I never did this (and had only mentioned the possibility of it in an earlier post) so I didn't have much to contribute, but I thought it would be an interesting article. I often talk with long-distance friends who are very much into home renovation about how nice it would be to live closer and be able to share work and trade off our various skills, so I enjoyed that they were writing on how people come together to help each other.

I was totally shocked to learn today about the real purpose of her interview: Her article, "The Three-Martini Renovation," was instead about folks who had house-fixup parties, served alcohol, and then had all kinds of problems as a result.

But the big problem isn't the topic of her article, though in my mind it belongs on some cheesy TV reality show, not in the WSJ. The big problem is that not only did she deceive the people she talked to by not telling them the actual focus of her article, she purposefully distorted many of the facts and pictures given to her to make them fit into this article. A fellow houseblogger, "1902 Victorian," has far more of those details to share; be sure to read the comments after that blog entry from even more folks that she talked to.

Shame on Jennifer Saranow for such unethical tactics. And shame on the Wall Street Journal for allowing them.

This is October?

2007-10-11T19:31:00.000-04:00

Two days ago, I was running the air conditioner - and had been, for several days. Normally October is my month to battle towards my goal of not turning the heat on until November 1st. Normally, I lose. But still, it's usually one of my utility-bill break months, with minimal heat and no AC running.

Tonight it's cool but we still have all the windows open.

Today I picked another half-dozen very ripe wonderfully fresh and tasty tomatoes from my garden. One in particular was absolutely perfect: That heady fresh-tomato smell, the skin a clear deep red, the shape a perfect orb the size of a large orange. I used it to make myself a cheese, tomato and fresh-picked basil sandwich for dinner. A mist of EVO, some fresh ground sea-salt and pepper, all on some fresh nutty whole grain bread. Oh yeah. That's the perfect summer sandwich.

Except it's FALL.

And not only are my tomato plants covered in ripening fruit, they have new blossoms on them.

It's October. OCTOBER.

In other news, that damned rabbit ate all my fall broccoli plants. I definitely need to add a rabbit-proof fence to my gardening plans.

Getting misty-eyed over horse poop.

2007-09-27T11:18:00.000-04:00

Well, not over horsepoop but over the kindness of the folks who are giving me a bunch of already well-composted horsepoop. A woman with whom I've exchanged lots of different things on Freecycle has a horse farm, and I had planned on going to her house this weekend to pick up as much well-composted horsepoop as I could get, in order to start working it into the garden beds that I plan to start preparing for the spring.

Then life exploded: Not only did I find out a week ago that my mom has a "severe bacterial infection consistent with active TB" and has been put on the meds used to treat multiple-drug-resistant TB (even though she's not yet officially diagnosed until they hear back from the CDC), we also got word that V's dad was just put into a nursing home and has been asking for Von, though they've been basically estranged for years. So we're going up there this weekend.

When I told my Freecycle friend that I wouldn't be able to pick up the composted manure this weekend, she and her husband offered to bag it up and deliver it for me. Normally I'm very reluctant to allow folks to do things for me that I can't necessarily repay in kind, but I'm learning to accept people's kindnesses.

While I'm at it, I want to do a shout-out to Deb, another person I met through Freecycle who is now a friend and neighbor. She is going to take care of our dogs this weekend, and despite being currently unemployed she is adamantly refusing payment.

What someone told me this morning, when I was expressing my discomfort about accepting people's generous offers to help out with things like this, is that I've always been a giver and never want to allow others to give back, but that it's time I learned that "what goes around comes around" applies not only to folks who do ugly things to other people, but to people who frequently try to be there for other people. It really is not comfortable for me, but I guess this is a lesson I should learn. It's humbling, and definitely makes me misty-eyed with thanks.

I want to be a foodie.

2007-09-24T01:19:00.000-04:00

I'm not totally sure what really constitutes a "foodie" (a judge just used the term on Iron Chef) but my presumption of its meaning seems to really capture what I want: I want to really know food, know GOOD food, know how to plan simple but delicious meals that focus on seasonal and local foods, and know how to prepare really good food. The first thing out of my mouth every time I'm asked what I'd do if I won the lottery is that I'd attend a good chef school or get private training in cooking techniques. Ten years ago I seriously considered bagging a lifetime of techie work to go to chef school, but I just couldn't rationalize putting that kind of effort into trying to get into a job with terrible hours, rotten pay to start, difficult working conditions, and where women still have a rough time proving themselves to be as worthy as the guys. All I really want to do is learn to cook really well for myself and the people I love.

I don't do too bad, though. I'm a totally improvisational/gut instinct cook, which usually works and sometimes doesn't. I love cookbooks and cooking-related magazines and websites and cooking shows, but to me a recipe is simply a guide; in fact I wish I could be more disciplined to follow certain recipes in order to use them as a basis for learning a core set of techniques.

I am pretty proud of some of the things I made recently, though. The other night when our friends were in town, I made local kale sautéed in a really good olive oil with white beans, onions and garlic; penne pasta (boxed) with more olive oil and fresh grated really good parmesean cheese; and shrimp coated with a slightly spicy dry rub and course salt mixture and then pan grilled in my granny's 60+ year old cast iron skillet (one of my most precious possessions). Then tonight it was more pan-grilled shrimp, but this time coated with a paste of olive oil, salt, pepper and a little bit of brown sugar; simple white rice cooked with salt and olive oil and butter; and a sauce made from butter, lots of garlic, a bit of vietnamese red pepper/garlic sauce, a bit of brown sugar, a little squeeze of lime, and a whole lemon - I then took the sauce and used it to deglaze the pan once the shrimp were done. I'd planned to also roast some fresh local brussels sprouts, but it was late and they take about 45 minutes to roast properly, so that will make it into a different meal in a day or two.

What I enjoy most is figuring out how to make really good food that doesn't take hours and hours to fix. Tonight's dinner took me 20 minutes - the time it took the rice to cook. Dinner the other night took maybe 30, but a good 10 of that was just from washing the local farm-grown kale which is always dirtier than the presumably pre-washed stuff from the grocery store. I'm the queen of the quick meal, baby. I just want to be the queen of the quick meal made using better techniques, more focus on local ingredients, and a greater variety of foods and dishes.

If anyone reads this far, then there's a chance that you're a foodie as well. If you know of sites or blogs that really feed that need to learn more about cooking and share ideas and recipes, please let me know about them!!

What makes a house into a home.

2007-09-21T02:09:00.000-04:00

The past few days have been delightful. Some very special friends from New Orleans have been here since Tuesday night, and I'm very sad that they'll be leaving tomorrow (Friday). It's been great having them here to just hang out, watching their two children explore the house, having our two granddaughters over to visit and observing how they interact, sharing meals together, running errands together. We've both joked (though it will never happen) about their buying the house next to ours. It would just make me beyond thrilled to have someone live next door who were truly close friends like this.

Oh, and my friend even willingly and with a smile on her face did some touch-ups on the dining room paint and did the cutting-in for our stairway, so that now all we need to do is roll it!!

So that's the story behind the sappy post title: It's when a house is filled with friends and family that you love that it really becomes a home.

Happy Birthday, Von!!! I love you (even though I doubt you'll read this!) and love the home that we have together.

Oldhouseweb.com

2007-09-18T01:22:00.000-04:00

There's something just immensely soothing to an old house freak about just reading through the titles in a forum populated by old house freaks like me:

Vintage thermostats
Carpet vs wood floor
Save the Moss House!
Bathroom pictures
Would you paint this screen door?
BEES!!
What was the purpose of this dormer window?
Ghost story, anyone?
What I did this weekend

I don't even have to read the threads, just reading the titles is enough to start feeling at home. These are my people, my tribe. They GET IT in a way that non-old house lovers will never understand.

Now, off to look at bathroom pictures and maybe write about what I did this weekend.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

2007-09-16T21:56:00.000-04:00

You know your body is going to hurt by the end of the day when your gardening tool of ~~choice~~ necessity turns out to be a heavy pickax.

Let me explain.

We have an odd backwards-L-shaped lot. Our garage and garden shed are situated along the line between the two sections, and the rest of the side section is a huge ~~parking lot~~ extra-wide driveway. Between the vast wasted space in that area, the good sun, and the lack of dogs to pee on my veggies, I decided that it was a great spot to put my garden.

Round 1 was to dig up the area that's not officially part of the driveway because it's to the side of the garage, behind the garden shed, and everything we put there did very well. My plans for the spring were to redo the whole area into six or eight 4x4 raised beds, to do "square foot gardening," and building and prepping those beds is on my fall to-do list.

I came across some broccoli plants for fall planting and bought some thinking "I can just set up one of the 4x4's and plant these!! It shouldn't take any time at all, since I already have a 4x4 frame built and ready to go!! Ah, the enthusiasm of ~~idiots~~ innocents.

Looking over the site I was certain that the hardest part was simply going to be to hoe out the weeds then hand-till the spot and dig in some well-rotted compost that I was going to swing over and pick up from a horse-owning gardening friend who has way too much compost ready and waiting to be used.

Wrong.

The weeds on that side of the driveway hid the fact that there wasn't just a scattering of gravel there (it had looked like most of the gravel was in front of the garage). There was a good 6-8"+ of very hard-packed gravel. I'm not an expert gardener, but despite the fact that the weeds were clearly loving it, I didn't think the broccoli would be as fond of those conditions.

The gravel-packed dirt just laughed at the shovel. It broke the handle of my favorite hoe. It refused to allow the gardening fork or heavy rake any headway. So out comes the pickax.

What followed was a workout that no one at Gold's Gym could have forced me into. It doesn't sound as much work as it is, but (in stages) I loosened the soil with the pickax to make it possible to shovel it up, then put 1-2 shovelfuls at a time into one of those 1'x2' or so plastic thingies that serve as a base for a group of plants at the garden store, shook and massaged it over the wheelbarrow to separate the gravel (which mostly stayed in) from the dirt (which mostly sifted through), dumped the gravel onto a tarp, repeat repeat repeat until the wheelbarrow was mostly full and I had a large pile of gravel (both substances being about equal in builk). I then took the gravel over to spread in sparse areas of the driveway that are supposed to have gravel, dumped the dirt from the wheelbarrow onto a second tarp, and repeated THAT cycle probably 10-12 times.

When I started, my plan to get out all the gravel. About 1/4 of the way through I figured I'd be satisfied with most of it. As I was nearing the end of what I accomplished I decided that 6" was deep enough no matter how much gravel was left.

Of course, what comes out must go back in. At this point, going to the horse farm to get compost wasn't going to happen, so I put in about half the dirt, mixed the other half with a bag of fine chicken-scratched (and chicken pooped) leaf mulch that I had left over from the main garden bed, and put that back in.

I then couldn't find my hand spade. I couldn't find ANY of my hand spades. After 20 minutes of looking, and an aborted attempt to just poke holes with a pointed 2x2, I finally found an old rusted bent cheapo spade in a basket of my granddaughter's old play-in-the-sand toys that would just freakin' have to do. I got my broccoli planted and managed to summon the energy to put my tools away.

Oh and then since Von's still out of commission with a post-surgical hand, I then cooked dinner, washed the day's dishes, cleaned up the kitchen, de-ribbed the kale I bought today at he local produce market, did two loads of wash, and took a shower.

My body HURTS.

And if my friendly neighborhood rabbit decides that broccoli shoots are the best thing going, that little fucker's going to be introduced to Julia Child. Actually, I think one of my Jacques Pépin cookbooks has a section with full-color photo-illustrated very detailed step-by-step instructions for skinning a rabbit. I've always avoided it before, but under those circumstances I'd open it with pleasure.

The Joys of Organizing

2007-09-15T18:00:00.000-04:00

There are just some times when the satisfaction of finally tackling a long-overdue organization project is better than "the joys of sex." The work I did on the garage today was definitely one of those times. I'm not done, not even close to halfway. But damn, it feels good. I'm having to work around a few things that I just can't do/move by myself, but I should have a lot of it done by tomorrow.

As predicted, I'm starting to find things that I thought we'd lost forever - or things that we've already long replaced. Like leashes. After we moved in last year, we couldn't find any of the dogs' leashes. We now have three dogs, only two that can be walked (the other is too old and falls down too much), and five retractable plus seven regular leashes, and enough dog toys to last the pugs until their old age. And since I'm starting on the big stuff, like moving large piles of wood out of the way and getting rid of totally non-functional furniture and things that must be freecycled, I'm sure I'll discover an entire Lowes store worth of stuff that we need before I'm done -- or at least stuff that we needed at some point recently, but then ultimately replaced because we couldn't find it.

I tried my damndest to hide the gigantic professionally framed oil-retouched photograph that my folks had done of me when I was five years old, thinking that Von (who loves it) must have forgotten it by now, but wouldn't you know it that Von would come in and spot it tucked behind a cabinet before noticing practically anything else of my work, scold me for trying to get rid of it, then put up a huge fight to hang it in the living room. I'll hang ME in the living room before I let that picture live in there. We each have our own private rooms on the 3rd floor, and Von can put that picture up there where I don't have to see it, thankyouverymuch.

I took before pics of the garage and I'll take and post the before and after pics once I'm done.

Now if I could just figure out what to do with the extra picnic table set that lives in the middle of the garage that we never use but won't get rid of because Von and Chanel hand-stenciled it...

A note to my houseblog friends

2007-09-14T18:54:00.000-04:00

While I really haven't been commenting much lately on most folks' blogs, I wanted to just do a heads-up that if you start seeing comments from "Leslie," that's me (probably - unless there's another Leslie). It just dawned on me that I'm trying to maintain three separate blogs but all three were being signed "Georgetown House" and that was just seeming weird.

So now it's just me. Leslie. But still at Georgetown house.

Maybe once the pie is done I'll go read me some houseblogs. It's been too long time away.

Sushi and Peach Pie

2007-09-14T17:35:00.001-04:00

It keeps threatening rain so that's reason enough for me to bag the weeding I had told myself I should do.

Instead, Von and I just finished off the supermarket sushi that I bought as a "thought you might enjoy this" treat that in truth was as much for myself as for the poor patient, and I'm waiting for a pot of water to boil so that I can peel the local peaches I bought for a big yummy peach pie. Again, "oh honey, this is a yummy treat just for you!!" Yeah, right.

On the "oh shit" side of things, I just realized that my dishwasher (Von) is completely and irreparably out of commission for the next week, meaning that I'll be doing all the cooking AND washing the dishes. **mumblegrumblegrowlcuss**

So, I've got "Party Favorites" cranked up on the cable-feed music with the bass a little extra-thumpy, I'll make up a yummy fresh peach pie, do the dishes, and maybe sip on a chocolate martini or something equally decadent while I'm at it.

Von's hand surgery today means...

2007-09-14T15:04:00.000-04:00

...that I can focus on whatever I want to get done this weekend without having to negotiate priorities. Von definitely isn't big on prioritizing gardening or organizing, even if I'm the only one working on it, so this is my chance, especially since we're still riding on the high that comes from finishing a big [for us] project (dining room/hallway painting). Go, Vicodin!

So far my tentative plans are:

Today:

Sit on my ass doing nothing for a bit longer
Go out and apply the weedkiller that I've reluctantly accepted is our only real option in the driveway
Chop out as many weeds as possible then start putting newspaper (NOT weedkiller) down on the weeds/grass in the area I plan on turning into garden beds to help keep them from regrowing/growing more.

Tomorrow:

Pick up the grandkids and go play for the afternoon at the local Pridefest
Do some spare room organizing in preparations for some much loved house guests who are arriving in a few days.

Sunday (high 60's and clear - WOOT! for the weather!)

Start getting the garage organized
See if my friend will come over with her tiller to help me move some flowers

Just in case anyone is interested...

2007-09-12T23:38:00.000-04:00

I created a separate blog that I'm going to use for general updates, ramblings, to-do lists, questions to the universe, and rants (probably thickly laced with profanity) with regard to this wedding that I'm now going to be planning. If you're masochist enough to want to read about this stuff, the website is http://leslieandvon.blogspot.com/.

Fulfilling my Grandmotherly duties

2007-09-12T20:38:00.000-04:00

As I have mentioned before (for those who do not know this already) grandmothers are legally required to foist pictures (and, when possible, videos) of their grandchildren onto unwilling strangers on at least a semi-annual basis, particularly for any major event in their grandchildrens' lives.

So here, for your viewing pleasure, is my baby granddaughter finally walking, after many weeks of only taking one or two very tentative steps at a time:

Soon to come: Elder granddaughter doing her self-choreographed dance moves while singing to Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus. I know y'all just can't WAIT for that one!!

(and yes, those are my two fugly free couches in the background with their ill-fitting need-to-be-tucked-back-in-place slipcovers. One of these days we'll have grownup furniture in the living room, I swear it.)

It figures.

2007-09-12T13:11:00.000-04:00

"Hmmm, it's 12:15, the plumber said he'd be here sometime in the early afternoon, I'm just going to squeeze in a very quick shower before he gets here. I mean, what's the chance of his getting here in the 3-4 minutes it takes me to do a quick PTA? :::turning on the water, stepping in, quickly lathering my hair::: ok it would really be hysterical if right now while I've got a head full of suds, suddenly the water...."

::klank sputter drip nothing::

It was less than 60 seconds after stepping into the shower that he turned the water off.

At least the plumber, his helper and I were all laughing when I opened the door, wrapped solidly in my most modest robe but otherwise dripping wet, and asked him to give me just five more minutes of water before he got started.

Now I need to have him show me where the house shutoff is located, since I have absolutely no idea.

And just to make sure that I don't forget it: Happy 90th Birthday (tomorrow) to my beloved Granny. You will always be my greatest inspiration, the one true hero of my life, the person who taught me the most about being a strong independent woman and about how to give completely unconditional love. You no longer know who I am, but your smile and your voice still show me who you really are. I love you with every cell in my body and every bit of my soul.

tinktinktink tink May I have your attention please?

2007-09-11T21:05:00.000-04:00

Our priorities with regards to what we work on over the next year or so may have just changed, though which direction they'll change will depend on whether we decide to get married here at the house (making more visible projects a higher priority) or somewhere else (making saving money a higher priority).

Yup, folks, we're getting married.

Not that we don't already consider ourselves married already; in fact we had a private (just the two of us) ceremony formally expressing our commitment to each other several years ago. But this will be the part where I finally have a reason to put on a fancy dress, Von gets an excuse to wear a tux, we get to hang out with a few dozen of our friends and family, and more than anything, we get to exchange vows with those friends, family, and God as our witnesses -- all of whom we hope will share in our happiness, celebrate with us, hold us to those vows, and support us through times when things aren't going so well. And then we dance. And eat. And dance some more. And hope there are a few Lowes' gift certificates slipped our way as gifts.

So far we're pretty light on the details: Von asked me the other night if we could get married with a public ceremony, and I said yes, and that's about as far as our conversations have gone . Since the only time for us to do something like this is while I'm on summer break, I'm guessing late spring 2009, since I can't imagine my getting my act together enough to plan this for next year, or our getting our finances together enough post-all our recent big expenses, plus I'm not into the heat and humidity of our summers here. When we were semi-planning something like this years ago (before life got in the way), we decided on a Jewish wedding (since I'm Jewish though basically no one else there will be) and a Latin reception (since Von's PuertoRican and Dominican). We want low key and low budget, and since it will be a stretch if we come up with even just 50 people to invite, that will help keep the expenses low and the intimacy high.

One thing we do want though, is a "honeymoon" in Canada where we will have a short civil service, so that at least someone somewhere will recognize that when we're a couple who owns a house, pays our taxes, fights but works it out, wills each other everything, works together to help raise our grandchildren, and is willing to make a personal and legally binding commitment to each other, then dammit we're married, and we are NOT legally strangers as the US and most state governments consider us to be. It's hard enough knowing that no matter what kind of paperwork we draw up, I could be denied access to Von's hospital room if she were to become seriously ill, that her father from whom she is totally estranged could swoop down and take her body away from her and bury her in a dress while their evangelical church prayed over what a sinful life she'd led, that Von will have to pay taxes on everything I leave to her if I die, that if Von dies in the line of duty I am not entitled to the same compensation that any other spouse would get, and the list goes on and on and on. Why do so many folks insist that my wanting those things is asking for "special rights?" Whose marriage am we hurting by wanting our relationship to be both legally binding and legally recognized?

Sorry to get so political and near-pitiful on you, folks. But there is no question that Von is my life-mate, my spouse in not only my eyes but our family's, our friends', our coworkers', and our God's. I'm just tired of fighting, and sad that we have to get passports in order to get to a more civilized country who will legally recognize our commitment to each other.

(fyi, MA requires you to live there to be married there, and I'm not willing to settle for the "separate but kinda sorta equal" that a few other states have provided.)

Ahhhhhh, now THAT felt good...

2007-09-11T15:54:00.000-04:00

After an entire summer of putting off fixing the outside spigot ourselves (which the PO's inconveniently placed inside the crawlspace) with its broken handle and its shutoff that doesn't shut off, I just placed a call to a Highly Recommended Plumber who will be here in 15 minutes. We plan to hire him to fix all that needs fixing plus put the faucet on the OUTSIDE of the foundation where we really need it to be.

I haven't met him yet but this guy sounds like exactly the type of plumber we've been dreaming of finding: For years he owned one of the ares larger plumbing business but it just got to where, to quote my HVAC contractor who recommended him, "it just wasn't fun any more" since all he was doing was running the business and supervising a large staff who was mostly doing big new construction jobs. He wanted to go back to actually doing plumbing, so he sold the business for a buttload of money and is back to doing mostly relatively small jobs where it's just him and maybe one occasional assistant.

So, we're slowly finding all the essentials in life: A good electrician, a good plumber (if he works out, that is), and a good general handyman. Now if I could only find someone within 40 miles who was willing to work on my Mazda minivan I'd be happy.

Update: Got an immediate good impression of him. He's going to come do the work tomorrow, "shouldn't be more than $150, depends on how long it takes me to drill through that beam there." He's going to put in a spigot that doesn't need to be shut off during the winter. And it's worth way more than $150 to have someone else take on this task. WOOOT!!

Now if I could just win the lottery and hire folks to do EVERYthing around here. I am most definitely not one of those folks who does this work for the joy of it; I'd be very happy to let someone who really knew what they were doing do it all, thank you very much.

The Pee-Proof floor is finally done

2007-09-11T13:46:00.000-04:00

And here we have it folks. While the rest of you are showing off your gorgeous kitchens, rooms full of custom made-by-you woodwork, the bathroom you remodeled last weekend, and (for the angolito types among us) this month's house purchase and remodel, I'll show off my measely little hallway, now made relatively pee-proof because of the big guy in the first picture is an obsessive marker (which is probably how he ended up in pug rescue to begin with).

Bad doggie hallway:

Nice doggie hallway:

(minus the dogs, all the dog's stuff, the cabinet at the end, the new trim so we just put back the old, etc.)

Not only does the paint look a lot lighter on my monitor than for real, the wall at the end of the hallway looks white! It's not, it's the same Cincinnatian Hotel Taupe as the rest of the hall and dining room, a color I'd describe as a golden-brown coffee with a lot of cream in it.

One thing I'm going to do to add to its pee-proofness is run some clear caulk under the baseboards,so that if the little ****er lifts his leg on something, it can't run under the baseboards to where we can't clean it up properly.

The vinyl sheet flooring is only considered a 5-year plan; we hope he'll either grow out of his marking, or I'll kill him, we'll see which one it is.

Does this make me somehow less of a REAL do-it-yourselfer?

2007-09-09T13:18:00.000-04:00

I know that the decision I made yesterday certainly hurts my creds as a serious tool-slut in some folks' eyes, that's for sure.

I bought a finish nailer. Yes, that's a normal thing for a DIY-ing tool-slut to buy.

But I didn't buy a pneumatic nailer, I bought a Black & Decker Firestorm 18v 18 gauge electric/cordless nailer. Not one of those propane-based cordless nailers, just an ordinary cordless tool.

I anticipate so many of my house-fixup friends cringing and gnashing their teeth as they read about this. "WHY?!? Why not a pneumatic? Why waste your money on this cordless piece of crap when you could get a good compressor/nailer kit for only twice that?"

Probably someday I'll start doing the pneumatic tool route. But as I look at the projects we're realistically facing in the next few years, about the only thing we need is a finish nailer, and about the only thing we'll need it for is hanging some trim, installing a bit of wainscoting, and maybe assembling a medicine cabinet (hmmm... I need to add "build medicine cabinet" to my "50 by 50" list). And I just really like the idea of a totally cordless nailer. I checked with a couple of people who have the B&D nailer who said that it does just fine for what they need. I checked the reviews on various sites and they all were fine. I live close to a B&D outlet. I got a brand new one for around $100. It has a two year warranty and they give you a brand new one with a brand new 2-year warranty if anything goes wrong. I tried it, putting back up some of the trim we removed from the hallway, and it works GREAT.

So yeah, ok, it's not pneumatic. But don't even think of trying to challenge my tool-slut creds.

Now if this one last patch would just hurry up and dry so I could paint it so I could put the rest of the trim up, I'd take pics to post!

The original flooring is dead. Long live the floor.

2007-09-06T01:27:00.000-04:00

We think we're nearly ready to pull the plug on all our hopes of restoring our dining room floor. We were so excited a few months ago when we realized that there was original wood flooring under the dining room's nasty carpet. But it's wasn't exactly the fairy tale that others get to live, of pulling back carpet to find a beautiful condition original floor underneath. This floor wasn't in great condition, and we think there's a good chance that we'll never get it to even decent condition, particularly relative to the money and work we'd be sinking into it, because

it was never finished to begin with
it's probably much lower quality wood, meant as simply a subfloor to the linoleum that was in that room when it was originally the kitchen, the 30's version of a plywood subfloor
it can't be refinished until days and days and days of backbreaking scraping are done to take up the glue and felt from the old linoleum (floor refinishers won't touch it until every bit is gone)
we can't tell how badly it might be stained under all that felt and glue (it was a kitchen, after all, and a kitchen that had a fire no less)
there are a whole bunch of holes where water pipes and drain pipes and radiator pipes poked through the floor that would have to be patched
there is about 5sq ft that is missing and just has plywood in its place.

Add all those together, and it just seems not worth the effort. Not cost effective, not time effective, and no guarantees that I wouldn't slit my wrists with a floor scraper before we were 1/4 of the way done.

So we haven't said our final goodbye's or made our final decision yet, but the I think we're hearing the death rattle. I'm investigating other flooring - just to help us make a decision. I've emailed someone who, a few months ago, had a good price on salvaged heart pine - just in case we decide to go that way.

If we end up giving up on the original floor, I'll be sad but I won't mourn for long. I'll be too busy arguing with V over the fact that we absolutely positively could not even consider the possibility of putting back that badly stained 1x6 construction-grade lumber that the PO's used as "baseboards" throughout the house, not on top of newly refinished floors. No way, uh-uh, fuhgedaboudit. I will sneak out in the middle of the night and bring it all to the landfill if I must, in order to keep it from going back up in that dining room. V doesn't even fully realize yet that the battle lines have been firmly drawn on this issue and I WILL emerge victorious. But she'll be ok being the conquered one once she sees how nice it will look with baseboards that actually look good.

A'painting we will go

2007-09-05T09:03:00.000-04:00

We're finally painting the dog hallway (done except for some touch-ups) and we're in the middle of painting the dining room, which we hope to finish by this weekend. Finally found a color that we both said "YES! THAT one!" to - Just happened to be one of the historic colors: Cincinnatian Hotel Taupe, which translates to a kind of coffee heavy with cream with a hint of gold. My first choice was very similar and I wanted it just for the name: Dust Bunny. Now, how appropriate would THAT have been, huh? We'll hopefully get the baseboards back up in the hallway tonight, so I'll take pictures of our New Improved Doggie Hallway. The appearance (and, I'll fess up, the SMELL) is like night and day.

We finally caved and decided we're going to try and hire someone to do the dining room floor. It's just too much work, and we're too impatient. OK, and too lazy. That's one hell of a job. I start calling floor contractors today, starting with one that a coworker recently used and loved.

I miss blogging, and even more than that I miss reading other houseblogs, but life's just been too busy these days. Perhaps after the semester gets fully running, there will be time to just kick back and read.

My Mom (well, her quilt) is a covergirl!

2007-08-29T08:40:00.000-04:00

I had to brag on my mom, since she (well, one of her quilts) became the covergirl for the current issue of McCall's Quilting magazine. The quilt is one that she designed herself, and they included a bunch of photos plus the full directions for making the quilt, which they rated as "Advanced" in terms of the skill level required.

Her picture's even in the magazine, but I told her that it doesn't count as a centerfold if she doesn't have a staple through her belly.

Needless to say, I"m rather proud of her.

http://mccallsquilting.com/curiss/1007_reflectsmokies/

An anti-dog cleaning spree

2007-08-27T08:10:00.000-04:00

Well, not anti-dog but anti-dog smell. The dogs are confined to one room and one hallway, but between one of them being a partially incontinent old man and the other being a testosterone-poisoned obsessive marker, it wasn't pretty.

So on Sunday we had a Cleaning Marathon and tackled it all with a vengeance. Step 1 we actually did last weekend, when we took up the carpet and put down the vinyl in the hallway. Yes, a marking dog and a carpeted floor is a really nasty gross combination. This weekend's tasks included deep-cleaning the crates, deep cleaning the floors, saturating everything that ever touched Dog with Nature's Miracle, removing the area rug, removing all dog bedding ( no matter how much they loved it) that wasn't easily tossed in the wash or that was made of some nasty synthetic that held onto dog smells now matter how well you washed it. I also cut in half and sewed up the cut edges of some way over-sized comforters that we used for dog blankets to make them more easily washable and to make it easier for us to swap out a stinky blanket for a clean one.

Oh yeah, and we ~~cruelly tortured~~ washed the dogs. What a concept, eh? Of course, Obsessive Marker Dog was seen shortly thereafter lifting his leg on Tiny Brat Dog as she peed. Oy.

Other than that, I got some stuff freecycled (some picked up, some scheduled for this week), we did a full dust/walls/floors cleaning of the house, and I spent several hours getting my sewing room put together which included *gasp* unpacking three more boxes!!! We've only been here, what, going on 15 months now?!?

Ahhhhh :::taking a deep whiff of the air::: Do I detect a hint of minty freshness?!?

And the heat goes on...

2007-08-25T09:30:00.000-04:00

(Sonny and Cher have eaten my head)

Today: Expected high 95 degrees. Current humidity: 95%. This is not a combination that is conducive to doing anything more than being a wilted vegetable inside the house.

But of course it's the PERFECT day for our AC to decide to not work up to snuff. Last night after running for several hours it was still 80 degrees and 70% humidity downstairs (outside was 76 and 95% humidity). Oddly enough, the upstairs unit seems to be running fine except that the thermostat is going wonky - it reads 80 when it's really 76 (and, accordingly, keeps running), then it reads 74 when it's really 76.

Thankfully Head AC Company Guy is here bright and early (though he seems as awake as I feel, as I'm missing my sacred ritual of sleeping in until 10) to figure out what's going on. He doesn't look happy, but then again neither would I if I were up doing service calls at 9am on a Saturday.

"Oh, we can do this in just a couple of hours, tops."

2007-08-20T01:38:00.000-04:00

It is with great shame that I am admitting to the world that a pathetic little project - taking out the [nasty dog-pee-infused] carpet out of a hallway and putting down some sheet vinyl - has kicked my ass.

The first piece was easy enough to do, or at least it seemed that way until we realized that the amount of adhesive the HD guy recommended was bogus, and we had a 9' long section that was lumpy with excess glue. We gave it our best shot to smooth it out, squeegee it out, and finally we just picked up what we could of it and scraped off all the extra. And in the mean time I'm doing things like jamming one of my fingers and dropping large heavy tool batteries on my toe (ow! there were tears!)

By the time I was done with that first section, my back and knees were killing me. I was cranky, not nearly as careful as I had been earlier, but I got the second piece cut (this one was tricky because it included two doorways and a heat register, then turned the tools over to Von to glue down while I headed up for a long shower.

Several hours later my whole body aches, in that "don't even THINK you are going to be able to fall asleep without finding a hidden stash of percoset, darlin'" kind of way. Thanks to V's kindness I was treated to a backrub complete with sore-muscle cream, so now I smell like I have bathed in a really intense double-bubble bubble gum scent. My toe hurts but I didn't break it. My knees are a fascinating bright red, with dark bruises under the red. Of course, I never contemplated knee pads, I was too damn busy getting freaked out about the possibility of getting a permanent gob of floor adhesive stuck to my favorite rolling pin.

I'll post pictures once we put back the baseboards, which will be after V. paints the room, which will be after V finishes patching the drywall holes in there (one dug by our very own Lucy)
and my selecting and buying the paint.

I'm wondering if I actually got the ADD meds which my doctor will prescribe if I want them (since I have a real live gen-yew-wine ADD diagnosis with all the classic symptoms, which combined with menopause brain makes life quite challenging), if I could start accomplishing what 98% of the folks in housebloggerland seem to be able to do, such as completely remodel entire rooms in a weekend.

OK, it's 2am, school's back in session which means I must go earn my living tomorrow morning, and I need to make an attempt at sleep. Oh gee though look at this: Major thunderstorm just crossed over the Chesapeake Bay, headed straight for us. Even if I go to sleep now, I won't be sleeping for long it seems. Wheeeeehaaaaaaa!!

Peeking in and waving

2007-08-16T20:57:00.000-04:00

Life's just been far too nuts to blog: Illnesses, surgeries, cancer and heart surgery scares with friends and family (though everyone's pretty much ok for now), almost-walking babies and serious attitude pre-teens on the weekends (we're surviving both), a week-long trip to San Francisco for the LinuxWorld conference (where I stayed in a cool old house, met some wonderful people who I knew from online, ate some great food, learned a lot at my conference, and won a 250Gb external HD but did NOT win an iPhone, Wii, laptop or Vespa, dammit!), and I am now buried under "fall semester about to begin" insanity.

And except for general cleaning and a wee bit of late-night "if I don't do something I'll go nuts" organizing, life's been too nuts to do anything on the house, either. My only accomplishment worth bragging about - that I'm now riding my bike to work most days - isn't house related and is a pretty shameful thing to brag on considering that I only live a mile away and there's practically no excuse to not walk or bike, and yet last year I only did that twice.

Even through we've been overwhelmed with so much stuff, once the semester is actually started, V. and I are going to try and make a commitment to do at least a little bit every week; surely we can find two hours a week to work on the house, even if it's just organizing stuff in 15 minute increments.

Anyway, I doubt seriously if anyone missed me, but I just wanted to poke my head up and squeak "I"m here!" for a moment anyway.

The HVAC verdict is in

2007-07-28T16:02:00.001-04:00

Last summer we were running a window units only as we occupied the rooms and we were still sweating our asses off, and our electric bills were running over $200 for that privilege. The past six weeks or so we've run the AC a LOT, have never felt uncomfortable, we're cooling the whole house, and we just got a bill for $140, and our utility costs have certainly not gone down. Needless to say, we love our new central air. We do take advantage of the zoning, keeping the upper floors set a lot higher during the day and the first floor set higher at night (generally 77-78 on the floor we're using, 80-82 on the floor we're not), but there have also been days that I've been working on the house when I cranked that puppy down as far as 72 since frankly I'm a big fan of maximizing comfort as I'm busting my ass scraping floors or hauling boxes. We also turn the AC off on nights where it's actually cooling off, as long as the humidity isn't staying at 80-90% as it too often does around here. I'm just not a big fan of sleeping on sheets that feel like they're freshly out of the washer.

I must admit that I've been a little worried, having heard from a lot of folks who are having electric bills of $300-400, but this is our first bill where we've run the AC a LOT and it was totally doable. And we were COMFORTABLE. My allergies have been not giving me nearly the level of trouble as they usually do (though I did get a sinus infection that I finally kicked just before I managed to get food poisoning earlier this week - don't ask), thanks to the mega-filtration system we ordered. And did I mention that we were actually comfortable?!?

Oh, and I'll say another good word about our HVAC contractors. The downstairs system just wasn't cooling off as well as we thought it should, we called them 8:30am, they were here 10am, had it fixed by 10:30 (one of the coolant lines wasn't quite tightened down as much as it should have been).

There haven't been a lot of other updates because honestly there's been a lot of things going on that have prevented us from doing much of anything on the house. Hell, I haven't even had the time or emotional/mental energy to keep up with things I love to read about, like other folks' houseblogs. I did get the attic mostly organized in a fit of energy and exasperation one day, and had hoped to tackle the garage this week if my GI system hadn't lost that fight with a leftover bean burrito that got left in the car a wee bit too long.... (as I sit here sipping sweetened mint tea, my system not yet tolerant of much of anything else). But the dining room floor? Feh. It'll get done when it gets done. At this point I'd give my left arm to hire someone to finish it for us, but unfortunately that's probably what I'd have to do (that or sell a kidney or something) since the money certainly can't come from anywhere else, as we've been hit with some unexpected significant expenses with more on the horizon.

So... life in Georgetown goes on. Not much, but we're here, we're alive, we're doing pretty decently. I guess that's enough to be thankful for, eh?

What I love about small town life

2007-07-20T13:13:00.001-04:00

We live in a classic small town. The picture above is of the circle, just a half-mile from our house, with its beautiful landscaping and fountain, surrounded by historic buildings including the county's main courthouses. The population here is 4000-something, but that includes the folks who live in the rural areas outside of the town itself but that are served by the local post office. We live on one of the main streets, lined with beautiful and mostly very well kept old homes; the official historic district starts a couple of blocks in towards the circle, but I think it's fair to guess that the vast majority of the homes built within Georgetown itself were built anywhere from the late 1700's to the very early 1900's.

As much as I miss the quiet of living on dead-end streets, as I did for 20 years before I moved here, there are so many things here that delight me that are an integral part of small-town life.

Several times a day I stop and listen to the nearby church bells ringing, from one of the older churches in town. Most of the time it's just marking the time, but often they're playing songs on their carillon.
Often I hear the whistle from trains passing through town; the original train station, no longer used because there are no longer any passenger trains coming through, is recently restored and available to rent for public events, and is just a few blocks from my house.
There are little shops and restaurants and the library all within walking distance. I'd really appreciate it if there were more than there is, but the business area apparently died down considerably in the 60's. However, we could walk to Smith's (now known as the Georgetown Family Restaurant but no one with any history with it will ever call it anything but Smith's), to a delightful central-American Mercado, to a coffee shop, and just to the circle to exercise ourselves and the pugs and enjoy looking at all the old houses.
In theory, both Von and I could easily walk or bike to work (1/2 mile and 1 mile away, respectively). It doesn't happen often though, because of Von's reluctance to walk around in uniform and my reluctance to get up at anything other than the last possible minute for work.
We can go onto our front porch or let our granddaughter crawl around in the front yard and exchange smiles and waves with people who are walking by.

All in all, I'd say that I'm a real convert to the pace of small-town life, and I really enjoy our small town.

San Francisco, Here I Come!

2007-07-15T21:42:00.000-04:00

I'm going to be in San Francisco August 4-10 for a LinuxWorld conference, and I'm going to have some free time to play, but I'm not interested in the regular tourist stuff (been there, done all that). I'm hoping to find some native San Franciscans or regular visitors who can tell me about things such as:

Great neighborhoods of old houses or business areas with some really cool architecture that would be good for a walking tour
Museums that are definitely worth visiting (small or large, traditional or off-beat)
Restaurants!!! I must have really really really good food every night.
Shows, plays or concerts in the park, events that are going on that are worth visiting
Anything else that you think is well worth seeing but is not part of the regular tourist routine.

I'm not going to have a rental car, and I'm going to be staying in the Union Square area, so everything has to be either accessible by public transportation or a not hideously expensive cab ride from there.

Thanks for any advice you can give!

(And there's not been any house updates lately because I haven't been doing diddly on the house, other than getting the attic organized, finally.)