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return of the prodigal...
several months later, she reappears...
The last few months have been busy, and when it hasn't been busy I've been letting myself be a lazy bum.
To recap, we bought a house this summer, and moved in mid August. We're still unpacking- things are mostly in the right rooms now, at least! We love our house. (It's still odd and exciting to be able to say that!)
Of course, as with any place you live for a while, you start noticing little things that you'll change "one of these days"... like the "country" wallpaper in the upstairs bathroom...
The cats seem to like the new place. Kitty loves all the sun we get from the big south windows. (She'll be 19 in January!) Loki likes having all the space, though he's often grumpy about not being allowed outside unless he's wearing a harness & line.
We got a foot of heavy, wet snow the Friday two weeks before Thanksgiving, which was our inaugural shoveling event. (No joke - 12".) Since then absolutely nothing. At this rate, we'll be lucky if we get a hard frost for Christmas.
Work has taken up a lot of time, too. Major deadlines for both of us in November.
We had P's family here for Thanksgiving, and my family joined in later in the afternoon. As the old newspapers say, "A Good Time was had by All."
We were both sick with some kind of cold/flu thing the week after Thanksgiving, which was "fun". (Not what we meant by "bring something to share"... though a coworker pointed out that viruses can be considered "organic" and "free range".) I was out the first half of the week, and Peter was out the rest of it. Mine turned into a sinus infection (lucky me) which meant antibiotics for the next week.
Sure didn't help with getting anything done!
Right now, we're trying to get things ready for the winter holidays. Sunday we finally got some lights up on the front of the house, and last night the (now sadly old and scraggly) tree came out of the box and had lights draped over it. At this rate, we might have decorations up by New Year's...
While the weather was still decent there was yardwork and assorted other outdoor tasks to be dealt with. My uncle lives a block away, so we were able to borrow his mower rather than buying one right away, which was a big help. Our yard isn't very big, so we might try to find an old fashioned rotary mower rather than get a motorized one. Especially since there's a motorized one a block away that we can borrow if need be!
A couple branches in the large ash in the backyard came down during storms in September. Actually, the came from the top and landed on the lower branches (still 10-15' up), which were showing the strain. We bought a ladder and a pole trimmer and somehow managed to take down several branches without landing either of us in the emergency room. The only damage was breaking one of the gutter supports on the garage when the last and biggest branch came down and hooked it. (since replaced)
We also had to replace a basement window this fall. We knew one corner of the frame was rotting, but had hoped to caulk it up and replace it when spring rolled around - no such luck. While cleaning out the rotten bits (to get a good seal) we discovered that about 2/3 of the bottom framing was rotten and crumbling. So... one evening after work we chipped out masonry cement to make a flat surface, and that weekend built in a glass block window. Came out pretty darned nice!
We've also built a compost bin. Yeah, terribly exciting, I know... but I feel better about composting leftover vegetable matter than throwing it away, and it will make for a great garden booster. With a large ash in back and two maples in the front yard, and the neighbor's big ash overhanging the front, we had plenty of leaves to get it started!
Did some winterizing, changed the furnace filter, and cleaned the Aprilaire filter (which is working much more efficiently now). Vacuumed out the heat and cold air return vents on the first floor. That's when I discovered why we weren't getting heat in part of the living room - the ductwork was disconnected to blow heat into the basement, and the floor vent stuffed with a rag of a flannel shirt... We finally picked up ductwork to replace the missing pieces last week, but haven't had time to put it in yet.
Still need to clean, patch, and seal the grout in the upstairs bathroom, and put in a real vent for the exhaust fan - whoever installed it just ran it into the attic stairway, which is closed off with insulated panels. Not quite a proper installation...
Eventually P wants to build a workbench in the basement, and we'd like to wall off part of the basement to be a cold cellar. Someday, we'll also put in a sauna. Hopefully next year, but it may have to wait. We'll see...
I'm hoping that in the next few months we'll have time to unblock the attic and go look around. We saw it when the inspector went through, so it's not a total mystery or anything. There aren't any floorboards, just rafters and insulation for the most part. However, there is a big wooden box, sitting on a couple of boards. I want to know what's in it...!!! Most likely nothing exciting, but I wanna know!
So, that's my exciting life the past few months. I've been trying to catch up on all the people on my friend's list, but this is going to take a while...
The last few months have been busy, and when it hasn't been busy I've been letting myself be a lazy bum.
To recap, we bought a house this summer, and moved in mid August. We're still unpacking- things are mostly in the right rooms now, at least! We love our house. (It's still odd and exciting to be able to say that!)
Of course, as with any place you live for a while, you start noticing little things that you'll change "one of these days"... like the "country" wallpaper in the upstairs bathroom...
The cats seem to like the new place. Kitty loves all the sun we get from the big south windows. (She'll be 19 in January!) Loki likes having all the space, though he's often grumpy about not being allowed outside unless he's wearing a harness & line.
We got a foot of heavy, wet snow the Friday two weeks before Thanksgiving, which was our inaugural shoveling event. (No joke - 12".) Since then absolutely nothing. At this rate, we'll be lucky if we get a hard frost for Christmas.
Work has taken up a lot of time, too. Major deadlines for both of us in November.
We had P's family here for Thanksgiving, and my family joined in later in the afternoon. As the old newspapers say, "A Good Time was had by All."
We were both sick with some kind of cold/flu thing the week after Thanksgiving, which was "fun". (Not what we meant by "bring something to share"... though a coworker pointed out that viruses can be considered "organic" and "free range".) I was out the first half of the week, and Peter was out the rest of it. Mine turned into a sinus infection (lucky me) which meant antibiotics for the next week.
Sure didn't help with getting anything done!
Right now, we're trying to get things ready for the winter holidays. Sunday we finally got some lights up on the front of the house, and last night the (now sadly old and scraggly) tree came out of the box and had lights draped over it. At this rate, we might have decorations up by New Year's...
While the weather was still decent there was yardwork and assorted other outdoor tasks to be dealt with. My uncle lives a block away, so we were able to borrow his mower rather than buying one right away, which was a big help. Our yard isn't very big, so we might try to find an old fashioned rotary mower rather than get a motorized one. Especially since there's a motorized one a block away that we can borrow if need be!
A couple branches in the large ash in the backyard came down during storms in September. Actually, the came from the top and landed on the lower branches (still 10-15' up), which were showing the strain. We bought a ladder and a pole trimmer and somehow managed to take down several branches without landing either of us in the emergency room. The only damage was breaking one of the gutter supports on the garage when the last and biggest branch came down and hooked it. (since replaced)
We also had to replace a basement window this fall. We knew one corner of the frame was rotting, but had hoped to caulk it up and replace it when spring rolled around - no such luck. While cleaning out the rotten bits (to get a good seal) we discovered that about 2/3 of the bottom framing was rotten and crumbling. So... one evening after work we chipped out masonry cement to make a flat surface, and that weekend built in a glass block window. Came out pretty darned nice!
We've also built a compost bin. Yeah, terribly exciting, I know... but I feel better about composting leftover vegetable matter than throwing it away, and it will make for a great garden booster. With a large ash in back and two maples in the front yard, and the neighbor's big ash overhanging the front, we had plenty of leaves to get it started!
Did some winterizing, changed the furnace filter, and cleaned the Aprilaire filter (which is working much more efficiently now). Vacuumed out the heat and cold air return vents on the first floor. That's when I discovered why we weren't getting heat in part of the living room - the ductwork was disconnected to blow heat into the basement, and the floor vent stuffed with a rag of a flannel shirt... We finally picked up ductwork to replace the missing pieces last week, but haven't had time to put it in yet.
Still need to clean, patch, and seal the grout in the upstairs bathroom, and put in a real vent for the exhaust fan - whoever installed it just ran it into the attic stairway, which is closed off with insulated panels. Not quite a proper installation...
Eventually P wants to build a workbench in the basement, and we'd like to wall off part of the basement to be a cold cellar. Someday, we'll also put in a sauna. Hopefully next year, but it may have to wait. We'll see...
I'm hoping that in the next few months we'll have time to unblock the attic and go look around. We saw it when the inspector went through, so it's not a total mystery or anything. There aren't any floorboards, just rafters and insulation for the most part. However, there is a big wooden box, sitting on a couple of boards. I want to know what's in it...!!! Most likely nothing exciting, but I wanna know!
So, that's my exciting life the past few months. I've been trying to catch up on all the people on my friend's list, but this is going to take a while...
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