Handy, take 2

I think I’m just a lucky person. Or unlucky… but I bounce back?

I got up this morning to shower, turned on the tub faucet, and it went “pffffttttt”. No water. Frozen pipes. It was supa-dupah cold here overnight, with lows of -12°… and I completely forgot to leave a faucet running. Oops. I called my dad, who suggested that if the pipes had not yet burst they surely would, so I should attempt to thaw them with a hair dryer. I couldn’t imagine that it would work, so I (naturally) second-guessed him and checked on the internet. Lo and behold, every website I read said to use a hair dryer. I bundled up and headed into the garage with my trusty Conair and set to work – it took 45 minutes, but I was able to get things flowing again. According to a local news channel, it is currently NA°, which is why I left the faucet in my bathroom running and the furnace at a nice, steady 71°.

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In other news, I mentioned the other day that I ordered a hard drive enclosure so I could take the hard drive out of the decrepit Gateway desktop and try to recover files. It arrived yesterday – can you say quick shipping?? – and I was able to mount the hard drive and get it up and running. There’s clearly nothing wrong with it, so something else in the Gateway malfunctioned… I’m not even going to bother trying to find out what. If I had to guess, I’d say the graphics card finally died, but it’s just not worth it to me to try and keep it going. I am relieved to know that I didn’t lose any data, though, and I’m glad I can keep that hard drive for additional storage. I consider that $39 well spent…

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Missed it by *that* much

I was so going to participate in NaBloPoMo in January, and I completely and totally messed up already by missing yesterday’s post. And it’s not like I was doing something important… I spent New Year’s Day on the couch for my annual Lord of The Rings rewatch (the extended edition, almost 12 full hours of LoTR), snacking on spreadable cheese and rosemary & olive oil Triscuits and drinking rum and coke. It was FUN, let me tell you. So, anyway, as far as I’m concerned this is the first real day of January, so I’m starting my posts today.

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Since I’ve spent so much time at home this week, I’ve been thinking a lot about what changes I might like to make to the house this year. I don’t know how much of it I’ll be able to accomplish – some of it is going to require financing of some kind, which I totally dread. I think I can do a lot of the work myself, or with assistance from RC, which will help with the financial part.

• To start, I want to paint and re-floor the living room, hallway, and foyer. I ultimately want hardwood floors throughout the house, but I’m okay to start with just the main living area. The living room is actually a combination living and dining room, but I don’t have dining room furniture. It’s about 15′ wide and 24′ long, but it’s a big rectangle, so I think I could install the flooring without too much trouble. Painting will require some help since I have cathedral ceilings, but I think RC can help with that. I’m also thinking about wallpapering half the foyer and the dining room wall, but I have to find just the right wallpaper.
• In the kitchen, I’m going to put beadboard paneling and a chair rail along the two walls that don’t have cabinets. I’m also going to paint above the paneling, which will require RC’s help, again. I’d love to put in a tile floor or a stained concrete floor, and I’d also like to install a concrete countertop to replace the existing laminate and reface the existing cabinetry, but I don’t know how feasible that really is for this year. I don’t have a lot of issues with the kitchen as it is, so I’m hesitant to put a lot of money into it.
• Paint and new flooring in the master bedroom. Paint is definitely doable this year, flooring is more of a maybe. Like I said, I’d really like to do hardwood throughout the house, but we’ll see.
• Paint and new flooring in the guest bedroom. Again, not sure if flooring will happen, but paint is going to happen for sure. I would also like to furnish this room – I’m going to have to start watching Craigslist to see if I can find some furniture bargains. I’d really like to put a daybed with a trundle in here for when the girls spend the night, but it also needs to have space for crafting, and potentially a very big dog crate…
• In the bathrooms and the laundry room I’d REALLY love to put down tile flooring, and I think that’s something I could handle on my own (with a little help cutting the curved and angled tiles). I’d also love to install a new tankless water heater, but I can’t justify doing that until my existing water heater dies. It’s a fairly energy efficient model, and I don’t think it makes sense to replace it yet.

Short list, eh? Who knows how much of this will actually get done… the paint I can do easily, but the flooring is going to cost a lot. I don’t want to finance any of it if I can avoid it, which means paying cash. It’s times like these I think it would really be nice to have two incomes.

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I’m still here!

Yes, I’ve been away from blogging… but I have good excuses. One, I’m feeling uninspired. The only subject I can really think to write about is how unhappy I am at work, but who wants to read about that? Nobody, that’s who.

Second, I have a sick bunny. Hazel had surgery almost 3 years ago to open his floppy, loppy ear canals to combat recurring ear infections, but somehow he managed to develop one in the last month that caused some facial nerve damage, leaving him unable to chew properly. He got to the point where he would eat a soft mush on his own, but in the last few days he’s having a harder time with that so I’m syringe-feeding him again. He doesn’t mind it, but it’s just a lot of extra work. Life is much easier when he eats on his own, and fortunately he seems to be back to it as of yesterday.

Third, I’ve been landscaping! I started Thursday night by spreading 18 bags of topsoil on the flowerbed. Naturally it rained on Friday, so I spent the day driving around buying plants and more dirt. It doesn’t sound like I did much those two days, but when I think about the fact that I, personally, moved almost 2000 lbs. of dirt… it’s a wonder I’m still standing! Saturday I got up early and added cow manure and peat to the flowerbed, then turned it all under. The soil here is such heavy clay, it really needs a lot of work. I also bought mulch, and then spread some of it around some existing spots. Sunday was D-Day… I spent the entire day adding another 22 bags of topsoil to the flowerbed, raking it smooth, putting down landscape fabric, planting all but 5 plants, and mulching. I finished at 8:30… just 1/2 an hour before sunset. Phew! My goal was to get it done over the weekend, and it is mostly done. I have a few more plants coming from White Flower Farm, and I’ll be visiting Soules Garden in a couple of weeks to pick out some daylilies to fill in the big bare space. I’m planting all perennials, and most of them are not mature plants, so I’m excited to see how it looks in the next couple of years.

I may join NaBloPoMo for June… just waiting to hear what the theme is. I’m hoping it’s something I can be creative with, but I can say for certain that it’s a lot easier for me to post when I have to… it’s easier having a reminder of sorts.

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