80%

I am about 80% done with painting the basement, and I feel so accomplished! It feels good and right to be transforming a place that just held boxes from my past into usable space that will make my little house feel bigger.  Not sure what got me going on this, but the metaphorical implications have me thinking about personal growth and all that stuff. It's good. And good to have a bonus room.

I forgot to upload pictures from my phone, but I did take a couple of before shots that I'll post tomorrow. I am especially happy with the ceiling. As I mentioned before, it is a low 6' 2" or so, and was painted this sort of darkish peach color. And there was a thin coat of white that barely covered the fact that the walls used to be the same color.

I read somewhere that painting a low ceiling with semi-gloss white was the best choice, because it reflected light or some such thing. The paint department woman at Home Depot said they didn't have ceiling paint in semi-gloss, so I said to just give me the semi-gloss. Paint is so thick these days that it didn't spatter all that much. I am so happy with the results. Going down there the next day, even with no lights on, and it was a brighter, happier space.

I've cut in around the top and corners with the Pear color and it's going to work great, too. I'm glad I didn't go with anything more intense in color. This is light, and fresh and just what I wanted. I'll finish cutting in around the floor this weekend, and I figure Mr W won't mind rolling the walls as long as I've done the detail work. "Stay away from the ceiling with the roll- D'oh! Nevermind, we'll repaint that part later..."

I like the idea of a couple of low-to-the-floor chairs. Maybe like this in a different fabric:

It's fun to think about decorating options. 

Image from here.

"Pear" and some thoughts on weather forecasting

We have a winner in the basement paint decision making. It is Pear, by Behr. Here's a picture pulled off the web (source below) with a rockin' blue ceiling that I'm not going to do this round, but really like.

I intentionally picked something kind of bright because the basement only has a couple of small windows. It's funny how different the paint chip looked at Home Depot vs. in my car driving to work (stopped at a light, of course), vs. when I was in bed with the compact fluorescent bulb lamp illuminating things vs at work. 

Compared to the color of this on my screen, the paint chip has a bit more yellow than the picture. I figure it will match nicely with browns, as well as blues, and yellow as well. I'm going to finish my coffee, have some breakfast and get to it.

We are supposed to have a doozy of a winter storm today, and so far, it's been a bit of a disappointment, although it is snowing steadily at the moment. We had temps in the high 50's this week, so surfaces are pretty warm to begin with, and the temperature is in the low 30's now. Even if it just rains, we in CO are so grateful for moisture, as it has been a very dry winter. 

It's time to think about starting seeds, and I'm on the fence about what to start. The chances of me being able to grow lettuce starts comparable to those I can find at the local nursery are slim. And it helps that they satisfy, in that I buy a red leaf, a green leaf and a spinach and like my salads just fine with those. I have a packet of seeds that is a variety of spring mix things. Maybe I'll give that a go. I can always buy the starts if if doesn't work out.

One thing I am most certainly going to start is several varieties of zinnias. They've consistently done well in my hot, south-facing alley garden, so I'm going to take advantage of that. There are so many kinds, too. For the rest of the growing slots in my little bit of seed starting space (one heat mat and one 2' grow light) I'll have to ponder and see what appeals to me.

I have had the great good fortune to cross paths with a super-gardener. She's in the gamer group I joined about a year ago, and growing food is her thing. I am so inspired by her, and look forward to talking garden stuff as this season progresses. She's also come to most of the trivia nights that I've been organizing, so she is a friend as well. Win-win!!

And speaking of trivia, it has been a lot of fun to get some friends together and participate. The music is too loud sometimes, and we probably don't drink as much as the bar would like us too (I say that facetiously) but I have really enjoyed it. This past week, there were people from three different parts of my life there, and that was really cool. 

Image from here.

So many choices

My basement purge is pretty much complete, and it does feel good to be done going through boxes that evoked some strong emotions. I still have a lot of stuff, but it all fits in the unfinished furnace room in my basement. That leaves the finished room, which I envision as a TV room (if I had a TV, which I'm almost considering, but not there yet), place to play board games, etc. It wasn't until I had gotten the stuff out of there and arranged the few pieces of furniture that it actually clicked in my mind that, "hey, this will be a good usable space". It was as though I had received a bonus room all of the sudden.

Well, before I procure any more stuff to put in this room, I want to paint it. The ceiling is low (about 6' 2") and I want to paint it white (it's this peachy color at the moment, which draws your eye up to see how low the ceiling is...) and then paint the walls a nice fresh color. 

The website Design Seeds, as I think I have mentioned here before, has tons of color combinations and I've listed a few here. It's looking like bluish green, greenish blue, yellowish green, something like that. I'll just have to get some samples to tape on the walls, and sit with a glass of wine to decide. 

Purple is always a possibility. This is one good thing about living alone. The color choice is mine all mine, and I don't have to negotiate to get the color I want on the walls. Do you like using color on your walls, or do you like to keep it neutral and then decorate around that?

Project pictures

This is a picture mid-project of the table that Mr W and I are tiling. Here, the tiles have been set, but we haven't put the grout on yet, as he was sick over the weekend (poor kid). He stayed home yesterday and will hopefully be back at it today. 

This is totally my kind of DIY project. Want to include some glass beads? No problem. They don't fit well? Just put them how you like them. The black and white tiles don't exactly "go" with the iridescent tiles? That's OK, it still looks good. 

Up at the top of the bottom photo, it's hard to see, but there are is one regular sized bead set next to one globby, kind of double, bead. Mr W wanted to include it so it didn't feel left out. I thought that was a great sentiment. 

The iridescent tile sheets we picked up at Home Depot on sale for $7 each. I LOVE this stuff. I'm looking forward to getting the rest of it done next time the kid is here and will post pictures. I want to include some glass tile in the kitchen redo. 

Success!

Not sure if I mentioned it here, but I signed up to do a talk with a group in town called Ignite Fort Collins. They organize quarterly events where 14 people talk for 5 minutes on topics of their choice. The motto is "Enlighten us, but make it quick!" I volunteer for them, doing a bit of communication stuff, and think it's a great organization. I think I've been doing this for almost a year, so it was time to do a talk.

They'll put videos of the talks online, and I'll post it here when that happens. It talks a surprisingly long time to prepare for a five minute talk. I spoke about the human microbiome. The trillions of bacteria in us and on us that call us home. It was a good experience to speak in front of 200 people. I was nervous, but did my power poses, and doing them helped. The lights were such that I couldn't really see anyone, but they laughed at my jokes, so that was good.

Preparations for the talk took most of my evenings this week. Mr W had a band concert at school last night that I missed, but his dad took him, attended it and kept Mr W for the night. I took Mr W to his rehearsal the day before and heard the two pieces they played. They've improved since their first concert in December. I'm thinking of framing Mr W's percussion activity as something that he just does as part of school. As in, if he's liking it well enough, he'll do it through middle school.

And, it's Friday! I am going to make a big push to get rid of basement stuff this weekend. I've got bags of trash, boxes of recyclable paper, and bags of stuff to give to Goodwill that need to GO. With all that stuff out, I'll get a few more plastic boxes for the stuff that needs to be stored well, stack those puppies and get my finished room back. Yea!! I might not be able to resist getting an area rug and some new lights from Target, and then wait for good deals on a couple of chairs to go down there. We'll see.

It begins

I'm having two contractors come to the house today to give me estimates on my home improvement projects. Hopefully there is common ground between the three things I want done and the resources I have to do them. They both do work on old houses in my neighborhood, and come on good recommendation.

The first project is to update the kitchen with new cabinets, probably a new stove (but I could keep my fridge), a dishwasher (which I don't currently have), new tile, new floor, new window.

Second project is the deck on the side of the house I've been going on about for years.

Third is to fashion another bedroom out of the existing unheated (but enclosed) front porch, and a bit of the living room.

If there's anything left, I want to cute-ify the front of the house by adding some wood trim. Probably need to paint the house, too.

We'll see how far the money goes. I'm meeting with a money person tomorrow to file the paperwork to refinance and pull some money out to pay for the renovations. If I do these projects, it's going to add an amount equal to the cost of the projects to the value of the house. Maybe more.

Give it to me

With Sandy bearing down on the east coast of the US, I've been thinking about buying a generator. It seems to me like things could naturally go such that big storms get more common over time and it would be good to be ready for that.

Now, I know that many of you who read my blog come over from Mama Pea's or Susan's blogs, so you know your stuff about this sort of thing. What are your thoughts on this idea, and what should I look for in a generator? 

From the research I've done, it seems a 3000 watt one would be fine. Keeping the fridge on is tops, maybe a chest freezer in the future, too. I want to be able to have a couple of space heaters going or be able to run our room A/C unit. Then lights and computers :-)

I had another question along these same lines, but it escapes me at the moment. If you've got two cents' on this, let me know what you think.

It's 2 am, do you know if you have a spare 9V battery?

You'd think I'd learn. When I had Mr W's room fashioned out of the back porch of this old house, they put in two smoke detectors that are directly wired into the electricity of the house. Except that they both take 9V batteries too, and those batteries need to be periodically replaced.

I'm all for home safety, but this system has an uncanny ability to start its alarm beeps in the middle of the night. Like last night, for instance. At 2:15 am, I hear something that wakes me up with a start, but then hear nothing, so think it was my dream. At 3:15, I hear three short beeps coming from Mr W's end of the house and know what's going on.

I get up and rummage through the box that has spare batteries. I can report I've got a bunch of size D and size C, but no 9V. I thought that I might have to go to Wal Mart in the middle of the night to get a battery until I had the idea to take the battery out of the regular smoke alarm in my room and see if that had enough juice to last until I could get new batteries for everything.

Thanks goodness it worked. I sort of drifted in and out until it was time to get up, and I think everyone else slept OK after that. I'm putting it on my Google calendar to do this next September 1st. I've been in this house (as of yesterday) seven years now. You'd think I'd learn... :-)

Historical value

A couple of weeks ago, I got a flier in my door saying that there was a group of neighbors concerned about the plans to demolish a house on the next block and build a large house that was in a different style than the existing houses in the area.

I live in the old part of town, and the houses are all about 100 years old. My little house, as I think I've mentioned before is nothing special architectural-wise. The first flier asked if I would attend a meeting of the city department that hears people's concerns when their neighbors are potentially changing the character of a group of older houses.

This has been an interesting thing for me to share with Mr W, as I don't know how I feel about it. The neighbor who is organizing the effort clearly does not want the existing plans to proceed. I received a second flyer in my box a couple of days ago saying that she wants to explore the possibility of seeking "historical neighborhood district" status for the two blocks that would include this proposed project (and my house too).

When the flier mentioned that we would be meeting as well to discuss "compromises with the new owners" over the property, I felt more conflicted. The words "reasonable design compromise" were used.

I don't know. On the one hand, the immediate neighbors certainly have cause to complain if their views will be blocked, or their house shaded, or their houses' foundations potentially compromised as a result of the work done on this new house. I think that building houses out to the very edges of the property line is an un-neighborly thing to do.

On the other hand, if someone builds a (I'm guessing) $500,000 house, that's not going to negatively impact my property values. I can't see the house from my house, though, so I don't have a horse in this race to the extent that the neighbor who is organizing does.

The historical neighborhood designation seems like too much control for me. People who live in this part of town like old houses to begin with. Putting restrictions on what people can do seems like it might be overreaching.

The meeting is tomorrow night, and I'm thinking of taking Mr W so he can see this kind of neighborhood thing in action. Stay tuned.

Kitchen designer

The kitchen designer came and looked at my kitchen yesterday. She asked how much I wanted to spend, and said that it was very doable. She took some measurements and will take them back to her office to draw up some ideas. It's a pretty small space, so I don't imagine that there will be big revelations, but there were a few things that I'd like to see drawn out (literally).

For one thing, the cabinets are original. This means they are shallow (18" deep from the wall instead of 24") and that the counters are about 4" lower than what is done today. We talked about getting more counter space by making the new cabinets turn the corners onto the presently bare walls, and I'm excited to see what that looks like. It sorts of feels like there will be a lot less space in the middle of the room, but that's fine.

I'll get a dishwasher, even if I don't use it much for just me. It will be nice to have it when I'm cooking several things and would otherwise have to stop and do dishes to make room for the next recipe. I don't particularly like my stove, so I'll probably get another. I like my fridge just fine, but I'm wondering if I should replace that as well to... what, start fresh with new appliances? The designer did say there are smaller fridges out there, and it does dominate the room, so maybe I'll check it out. I could live with keeping both stove and fridge if it comes to that.

Anyone want to weigh in on appliance colors? I do like how bright my kitchen is with its yellow cabinets and white appliances. Does anyone just love their stainless steel appliances?

I'm going to call the builder the designer recommended, and then talk to the builder that did Mr W's room when I first moved in and see what it's going to take to do both the kitchen and the deck. Cha-ching (in the money way, not really the 'wow I just got something great' way).

It struck me as I drove back to work yesterday that I can stay here if I want. That I'm meeting more and more people who are part of this neighborhood, part of the community here, and I am part of it too. It was sort of like the feeling when one rides without training wheels and thinks, "Hey, I'm doing it!"

That's where I planted those bulbs

Most years, when it gets to be Spring, I'm annoyed with myself for not making the effort to plant bulbs the year before. But last year I finally bought some AND got them in the ground. Sometimes the second part is sort of tricky. I'm a fan of the clump of color, as opposed to spacing them out, which would require more digging than I'm usually willing to do. 

I was outside a couple of days ago and saw these had come up. My first thought was, "Oh, I forgot I had planted those." I wonder if the squirrels are so dense. I did remember planting tulips by the back door, and those are coming up nicely. The other surprise was going out to look at these yesterday and there were several daffodil leaves starting to poke up behind the iris. Oh yeah...

I watered everything but my grass yesterday. It's been really dry this month. March is usually a wet one around here. We were talking about it at the dog park yesterday, and a friend said that we're still at normal or a little above precipitation levels for the season. We got a couple of good dumps of snow early on, but it seems like a long time ago.

In other news, I've made an appointment with the kitchen designer for tomorrow afternoon and am pretty excited. Mr W had a friend sleep over Saturday night, and it reminded me of yet another thing I'd like to do to this house. My living room runs the most of the length house (25') and I've thought about getting a wall put up with (yet another) pocket door to make a living room which could sort of be a living room/rec room/guest room and then have the other side as the dining room, which would also have the doorway to the (to be built) deck. Sorry if this description is lacking. I'm still mulling over ideas, and they're coming out as blog posts.

This push to DO something to the house is exciting. It's also an admission that I'm OK being here for a while. 

Improvements

I got Graycie the campervan's classified ad (she wants to meet someone online) posted last night. One of the sites is called The Samba, and has all sorts of stuff for fans of old VWs. I checked this morning and it had 135 views in less than 12 hours. Not bad. It was free too. Take that, craigslist! Ha.

The impetus to finally do this is that I want the deck built off of my living room before my brother and his family come to visit in August. And, I'll have some money for such projects once the van is sold. However, thinking about the deck has started sort of a cascade of home improvement wonderings that I've been thinking about lately.

I am fortunate to live in a part of town where it is not uncommon at all to see people adding on to their houses because they don't want to leave the area. It's also getting more common to see a little old house for sale, then demolished to make way for a new (often ostentatiously larger, but not always) house. So I think it's safe to say that almost any improvements I make will increase the value of the house and I'll "get my money back".

So I've started to think about updating my kitchen. It's one of those spaces where things could be arranged better (doesn't everyone store their crockpots on the floor? It's temporary). You can see how the stove (without a hood, which I would like to have) sits at an angle to prevent the user from burning the cupboards above. Good design? I put that little table next to it when I rearranged my living room, and it is really nice to have a flat space next to the stove. It does tend to accumulate things, though. 

Anyway, if you look at the door to the bathroom, you can see there is nothing along the wall so that the door can fully open. I'm thinking of having someone make it into a pocket door, even if it has to be built a little bit away from the wall. Then I could have some more counter space and cabinets. 

That's one idea. I met someone through a friend who does kitchen design, and I'd like to have her come over and give me some ideas. I admire the ability to see the possibilities this way. The other thing that really does need to be done is to get new windows for the place. I've counted, there's only seven, so it shouldn't be too expensive. 

I've got my stack of This Old House magazines close by to get some ideas for the kitchen. I like simple styles and neutral colors for the cabinets, floor and countertops, but I've got a thing for those sheets of glass tile, so I'm pretty sure I'll have to do a backsplash with those. 

And that's as far as I've gotten. I'll have to get some kind of a home improvement loan, but the credit union can help with that. I think I've talked myself into feeling that it's a good investment. 

2012 Mouse Wars

My house was built in 1905, or 1910, depending on whether you believe the neighbors or the paperwork. Either way, it's been here a while. It's got the feel of a house that was built for the grandma of a family that would have lived on the adjacent lot. When I bought it, it was a one bedroom house, and I had the back porch bumped out for Mr W's room. They made bedrooms small back in the day, and I can look on the floor of my bedroom and see that the front part of it used to be part of the front porch.

Anyway, it's a good solid little house and I've been very happy here. I've mentioned before that The Plan was to stay here for a year or two after my divorce, and then meet Mr. Right, move into another house, and live happily ever after. I try to say that without rolling my eyes, but here six years later, I laugh at myself for my presumption that I would know how my life would unfold.

Oh yes, the point of this post. So, about a year ago, I started seeing evidence of mice in my kitchen. Eww. They had quite the party and left quite a mess, but I snap-trapped them and was mouse-free until a couple of weeks ago. IMO, I don't see the point of live trapping mice to make them someone else's problem.

It's funny how there's an initial period of denial. Is that a mouse dropping? No, couldn't be. Well, the evidence is incontrovertible, so I went out yesterday and bought four more traps, for a total of six. I don't want to draw this out any longer than necessary. Last year I had a bag of dog food in the basement (oh, my naiveté), that in retrospect makes me wonder why they even bothered coming upstairs. Maybe they had to get a drink to wash it all down with. Anyway, there's no food stored in the basement, and the dog food is in a plastic tub that as far as I can tell has not been breached.

I set the traps last night and haven't caught anything yet.

Blubarb and More Yardwork - Updated! Now with more Mulch

A blog that I follow regularly, A Home Grown Journal, recently had a recipe for a Rhubarb Crisp that was just the thing I was looking for. I happened to succumb to an impulse purchase of blueberries the other day, so I used half rhubarb from the plant that grows outside my back door, and half blueberries. Thus Blubarb. My rhubarb wasn't the screaming red that I've seen in the store, but the Crisp tastes really good. I brought it to a party tonight, and brought one piece home to eat. I might make another, as there's plenty of rhubarb yet.

Here's the finished product. I might fool around a bit with the topping. I like more topping, but there's already a stick of butter in there as it is, so maybe I could tweak something. It was yummy. Thanks, Mama Pea!

This is certainly the Spring of yardwork around here. Here's today's project. I'm certain it's because it has been a wet and cool spring, and the weather's been conducive to working outside without wilting (that's without ME wilting, not the plants). It's a good thing, too, because my yard looked bad, and I like how it's shaping up.

Here's the before. See all the plants along the sidewalk? They're some kind of violet, and have been slowly taking over this bed. So much so that when I went to dig them out, I found their roots had permeated the cedar edging there, so I had to remove a stretch of it and replace it. I thought all of the nice Penstemmon had died in the dry winter, but found a few hangers on that I moved around so they were distributed nicely. I also divided one of the ornamental grasses, which you can't see in the picture, as well as trimmed the larger ornamental grass that is quite happy where it is.

I then scraped most of the pea gravel out, and replaced it with mulch. Let me just say this so the world knows: I hate pea gravel. Weed city. I did dump and spread it on the alley side of the garden alongside my house, and am sure it's packed with weed seeds. But I had the bright idea to cover it with black plastic for a few weeks so it kills the weeds. Hopefully that will work.

And here's where I stopped today. I need to buy a couple more plants for this area, and just a wee bit more edging, then mulch some more. Mulch, mulch, mulch. I still have quite a bit to go, and it looks like I've got enough to do all the areas that need it. It's funny, the "after" picture doesn't look all that different, but in person, it's a big improvement! It's raining (again!) and hopefully will clear so I can finish this tomorrow.

Update - 5-29-11
OK, here it is. I forgot to buy another roll of edging, so there's a 2' gap down at the other end, but this job is pretty much donesville. I'm very happy with how it turned out. I know there will be stray weeds, but now I can keep on top of it a lot easier. I know, there's one stray violet at the edge of the sidewalk. I thought the better of pulling it, as doing that pulled up the edging in other places. I'm going to spray this one.

Now I need to paint the porch, paint the fence a nice bright white, and I think I'm done for a while. It's supposed to finally start getting warmer, and I'm already happy I got this done before that happens.

I shake my head when I think about how this got to look so ratty. I think it's related to the idea that, according to The Plan, I wasn't supposed to still be in this house this long. I was supposed to be married to some great guy and we'd be well into our new life together by now (six years from when my x and I split). I know that great guy thing is going to happen one of these days, but now at least my house doesn't look like I'm waiting anymore, and I like that.

More House Doings to Do

The garden is doing well, under Sally's careful supervision. I've since put the green fencing around most of the raised beds to keep her from snacking.

Memorial Day Weekend is coming up, and there's a good chance that the weather will be nice enough to do more work around the yard. I'm not sure what switched, but I feel the urge to get a few more things done before I can let myself go camping this summer. The list isn't long, but there are a few things yet that I need to do to make the place look presentable.

One thing that's always bugged me about the front of my house is the pea gravel that the previous owners put down around some pieces of flagstone to create a path that leads to the little porch and front door. If Blogger lets me upload a second picture here, I'll show it. OK, no luck yet. What I dislike about it is the extent to which the weeds just proliferate there. It looks terrible, and I end up spraying the weeds, which I don't want to do. So one of my projects for the weekend is to rake the gravel up, wash it off a bit (hopefully getting any hitchhiking weed seeds off) and putting it on the alley side of the 4 x 4 timbers I lined the alley garden with.

There we go, I was able to upload the photo. You can see the weeds around the flagstone pieces above. There's not all that much gravel there, but I'll replace it with mulch, and then pull out some of the volunteer plants that have proliferated in that semi-circular area where the dead ornamental grass is. Then I'll plant a few more plants (thinking about a bunch of Blue Flax, which grows wild around here). I lost my awesome Penstemmons over the dry winter, which made their own little hybrid zone that was fun to watch each year.

I'm rambling, sorry. I need to also paint that little porch thing, which is down to the bare wood on the horizontal part. I think I'll paint it with something that shows that it's wood (as opposed to outright paint), and then am planning to paint the picket fence white at some point in the near future. Then, I'm good to get out and do some camping.

I've got a couple of social things to do as well, which is good. I got invited to a party by a woman in my Spin class, who happens to live just a couple of blocks away from me. They are big into the local music scene, so they'll have actual live entertainment by people I've heard of (coooool). Then I'm going to get together with my friend J in Denver, who has just had her oldest graduate from high school and is busy busy and we need to catch up.

I sent P, the person I met while hiking, an email saying that I was done. I told him it was the distance (he lives an hour away), which it was, but I'm afraid I didn't feel a click with him either. At least initially, we'd only be able to get together every other weekend - twice a month - and it made me realize I need to look closer to home. Who knows what will happen, but it feels more right to try to find someone I can have lunch with during the week, and see on the weeknights I have free. So, the search continues, and it will happen when it happens. With the job stuff occupying my mind, it doesn't seem so urgent.

Knock Knock

I live in a safe neighborhood. I know my neighbors by name, and I feel safe here. Having a big dog who barks when people come to the door helps too. I've thought about adding more/better locks to my doors, but haven't done it yet.

I was in bed last night and had turned the light off around 10:45. I should mention that my bedroom is at the very front of the house, perhaps 10 feet from the sidewalk, and very close to the front door. I frequently hear soft voices of people walking by in the summer, and it's not a big deal.

At 11:03 last night, someone knocked on my door. Not hard, but knocked, and I could hear a male voice talking. I might not have heard it if my room was in the back of the house. The dog of course starts barking (good girl!) and I have this visceral reaction, where my heart starts pounding in my chest as I think about what I'm going to do if they force their way into my home. They also have flashlights, or headlamps, and I can see the light pass by my window several times. They knock a second time, the dog barks, and my heart starts pounding again. I work up the nerve to peek out the side window, not the front, and can see the light from the flashlight.

I wait, never even considering answering the door, and they go away after what seems like 10 minutes or so. Could it have been that long? I don't remember looking at the clock again. I laid back down and had a restless night's sleep.

What happened? I'm guessing it was a case of mistaken house identity, as there are several parallel streets in this area, all with old houses, and maybe they got the address mixed up. This put quite a scare in me, though, and I felt really vulnerable. Mr W was here too. But they didn't really want to get in, otherwise they could have. I've got a big pane of glass on the porch door, and a big old window on the porch that could both be broken if someone wanted in badly enough.

Hmmm. Maybe I'll go door shopping this weekend. I'm very happy with how the dog did her job, though. Good dog, Sally!

Edging

Now THAT's an exciting blog post! Ha. I got my income tax refund recently and feel like I've got a few bucks to do some small improvements in my yard. One of them involves large quantities of mulch to cover or re-cover areas that I don't want to cut with the mower, with the related job of containing the mulch by installing edging. With the rain we've had lately, it should be relatively easy to install the edging, and it make such a difference to how my little yard will look. I'm keeping my options open for another raised bed or two where I put some of the mulch, but won't being doing those this year.

The tax refund has also made it OK that I hang on to the van for a while longer, despite no immediate job prospects come November. It's been running warm since I had the heater coil replaced last fall, and I made the appointment to bring it in to have them look at that, plus to make sure she's trip-worthy for the summer. I want to get out a lot this summer (note to self, maybe it's time to make some campground reservations...).

I did succumb and email the contact person for the Biologist job, as I haven't heard anything, and it's been over 4 weeks. Four rather anxious weeks, despite my best efforts to go with the flow, knowing that I have given it my best shot. She was gracious enough to get right back to me, and said they had received a large number of applications, and she expected to "have an update by Friday". I'm glad I emailed her. I'm just about to the point where I feel like I am checking the job sites enough, but not too much. When I look at something like "all the jobs in Fort Collins" that were posted in the last 24 hours, it's several hundred. I mean, it looks like there are a lot of jobs open, even if almost all of them are not my thing. Lots of medical, IT, financial positions. But this is a good place to have the skill I have, and I remain optimistic that I can find something in town.

Lastly, I finally got to speak again with P, the person I met when I was hiking the other day. He was out of town for a week, and we traded a few emails, but got to actually talk on the phone yesterday. So far so good. It's hard (duh) to get the nonverbal communication stuff over the phone, but we talked for about 40 minutes. We nailed down a time for coffee on Saturday.

Current Events

I'm just about back into my groove from being out of town. Even when I'm gone for just a few days, there always seems to be a big list of things waiting for me when I return. The night before I left, I was doing laundry, and heard the sound of water hitting the floor in the basement.  I went down to find water coming up out of the vertical pipe that drains the washer. I needed those clothes, so I put towels down and hoped for the best - the load was almost done anyway. 

Fast forward to yesterday, when the plumber comes out.  Do the pipes gurgle when I flush the toilet? No. When I take a shower? Nope. He snaked the line and determined that there was just lint blocking the part of the line between the washer and the main. Lint. Like from someone's early felting projects where she didn't use a pillow case. Ahem. Oops. Well, $90 and no harm done. I use pillowcases now, so hopefully this won't be a problem. I am thankful that previous workers put a cleanout next to the house the last time I had sewer issues.

But I was going to mention something else. I was visiting my dad in Florida last weekend, and my brothers were there as well. My dad is kind of old-school, socially and fiscally conservative. I'm kind of left-leaning. We talked a lot about current events over the weekend. A lot. And I have to say how impressed I was with the degree to which we all have been paying attention. Someone would bring up an angle on some issue, and pretty much all of us had heard about what they were talking about, or something similar. I really liked how, although we didn't agree on how to fix things, we agreed on big issues and respected each other's opinion. It made me wonder if I was spending too much time reading about current events, when I could keep up with my dad, who is retired, but I think I'm OK.

One other thing that I learned over the weekend is that my younger brother has a unique memory of past events. The birth order is my sister, my older brother and me - each a year apart - and then him, six years after me. On the one hand, we will talk of things, and he'll say, "I was too young", or "I wasn't there".  On the other, he remembered things that I had forgotten about, and in wonderful detail. I have a new appreciation for his memories. There was a snake story that I had almost forgotten, and it was fun to hear it again.

35 Minutes

That's all it took my new handyman BFF to replace the garbage disposal that had been waiting on my kitchen chair for the last *cough* three months.  Or more, I've lost count.  I used Angie's List to find another handyman, and when he was going to be out of town working on a job, he suggested this guy, who had worked for the housing authority in town and thus had lots of experience with this sort of thing.

Now, on the one hand, since it only took him 35 minutes, should I pay him for an hour's worth of work?  This though crossed my mind very briefly, but I ended up giving him an extra $10 because I was so happy to have the job done, AND I believe that a person should be paid for their expertise.  He even used a couple of small parts that he had, instead of opening up the packages possible things I'd need that I got from the hardware store.  "You can take these back to the store".  Now I'm starting to put together a project list of stuff that needs to be done around here.

It's funny, I've really gotten into the habit of not using the disposal, and instead am dutifully filling my compost pail and dumping it on the pile outside.  The best bit, though, is that replacing the disposal fixed the leak where the thing hooked into the drain line.  No more emptying out the pan under the sink after each load of dishes. 

In other news, I'm going to a wine tasting tonight, with folks from a single parents group I occasionally do things with.  There aren't really any romantic prospects there, but it's good practice for me to be out and mingling.  And there will be other people at the restaurant.  My goal is to chat with one guy that I don't know.  I hired a sitter for Mr W, and it's someone from church that I used a few years ago.  I'm trying to get Mr W's dad to switch back to the old schedule that I changed when I was dating B, but he doesn't want to.  It gets so complicated when we all have to accommodate not only the x's schedule, but the schedule of the person he is dating and HER x.  It's good, then, the Mr W has a sitter occasionally.

Mouses in My House

 

 When I went out of town last month, I originally was going to have my friend G both take Sally the dog to the kennel (a.k.a. Dog Camp) and pick her up, to avoid having to board her extra days.  I put a plastic bag with some dog food in it on my counter, so G could feed Sal and then Mr W and I would be home shortly after.  Well, that didn't work out, and we were able to pick up Sal on our own, but the food sat on the counter for a few days until I realized that about half of it was gone.  

Uh-oh.  Mice.  Again.  Most of the years that I've been in this house, I've seen a (as in just one) mouse in the fall, and I set my snap trap, kill it, and that's that.  This time, though, I think the one had babies and there's several around.  I keep the door to the back hallway closed when Mr W's not here to heat less of the house, and a couple of times in the last few days, I've opened the door to see a mouse scurrying away.

It has kind of hit a peak today, as I've seen two (maybe the same one twice) in the living room in the last hour or so, and this morning, one popped up in between the top of the stove and one of the burners, fer cryin' out loud.  No, I wasn't using the stove at the time.  It's almost comical; they see me and then it's as though they say, "Oops, she saw me!  Gotta go!"  I did catch one today behind the stove, and just set another trap after seeing the one in the living room.  The damn things are not silent, I heard them last night doing whatever it is they are doing.  I feel sort of bad using snap traps instead of live traps, but I do believe them to be humane.

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UPDATE 1-24-11, 6:24 am:  I caught three yesterday.  Two were juveniles, and one adult.  I reset the traps, we'll see if there's any more.