Cleaning the sewer line

Ok, so I didn’t do this myself. I had someone from Schoonover Sewer Service come out and do it for me. He sent in his snake and what did he find? You guessed it (or maybe you didn’t, if you haven’t read back far enough in the blog)… roots! He said he cleared the 6 in. pipe all the way to the street, but recommended I get some kind of insurance from the water company because if the roots mess up the tiles in the street and they collapse, I’m the one that has to pay for it. Sounds like it might be a good idea…

Taking care of my gutters

I have a very elaborate gutter system on my house.  This is not true.  I have some running along the front edge of the roof and some running along the back edge of the roof and they have downspouts on all four corners.  Two of the downspouts are out of the way and not a hazard during parties.  One of them gets tripped on or stepped on pretty much whenever I’m in my backyard.  One of them gets knocked off whenever I mow.

I’ve been admiring the downspouts at one of the houses I babysit at.  Is it weird to covet a downspout?

Anyway, here’s what I had:

You can see one of my tomatoes on the ground.  The squirrels steal them.  The squirrels also dig holes in all my potted plants.

I replaced it with a flexible plastic “Flex-A-Spout”:

It can just hang out over by the fence and not trip people anymore!  Now I just have to fix the holes in my yard and it will be mostly hazard free.

The other problematic spout was in the front.

That front “garden” is such a mess, my camera doesn’t even know where to focus.

Here is the new and improved spout:

It’s green so it blends in with all the foliage.

While I was wandering in my front yard, I noticed something mysterious.  I won’t post a picture because it’s really gross, but it seems that my sewer is backing up out of the access hole thing in my yard.  Schoonover is coming tomorrow to check it out.  It should be quite a show.

The little tree in my front yard is turning red!  And Pat is confused about trees.

I built a Hamlet and caught a possum

So, once we had “many hours” to devote to Hamlet-building, Pat and I set about our task.  Actually, the day began with a new refrigerator moving into the house.

First, Dad took the old one out…

…then we moved the “new” one in!  It’s actually a hand-me-down refrigerator, but my old one always froze my lemonade, so when I wanted a vodka lemonade I had to make a whole new pitcher of lemonade.  That was quite an inconvenience for me.

And now, on to the Hamlet!

Dad went home to paint his house or something and left Pat and I to build the Hamlet.  We tried to tell him how much fun it is to build a Hamlet, but he really enjoys painting his house.

First, Annabel inspected all pieces of the Hamlet.

Once she gave us approval, we started assembling.

I don’t know if it’s because it was the second Hamlet we had assembled or because it was not as hot and we were in the shade or because there was beer involved, but this assembly process seemed to go much faster than that of the MMO Hamlet.

Yes, there’s a tree stump in my shed.

TA DA!!!

After we stood and admired our handiwork for awhile, it was time to empty out the old shed.  Pat and I got to work getting out the lawnmower, chairs, patio table…  Then suddenly Pat ran out of the shed yelling obscenities.  I’m glad the kids next door had gone inside at this point.

I asked him “what is it?”

And he said “what do you think it is?”

And I said “oh, a possum.”

Pat has had a few run-ins with our stupid little fleshy-tailed friends, and he has not enjoyed any of them.  At least now he’s growing up and not running around screaming like a girl.  He only drew enough attention this time for my neighbor to come out of her house to make sure everything was ok.

Here is a picture of his new acquaintance peeking out around the leaf bag:

What a cutie!

I borrowed Dad’s cat trap, I mean, live animal trap and put it in the shed.  The next day, I caught the possum.  I called Animal Control to see if they’d come pick it up, but they said the state protects possums or some crap like that but they could give me the number of a person who would come pick it up.  I said no thanks, my dad will do it for free if I let him borrow my coveted extension ladder.

There he is in the back of the truck, with the ladder and some flooring.  Dad took him out and dropped him off somewhere in the country where he can learn to live like Bear Grylls and survive in the wild while trying to find his way back to civilization.  Good luck, possum friend.

And now I’m a…shed builder

So, remember that shed?  It’s still there, but now there’s a bigger, better shed in the back corner of my yard.  That blue shed is just enjoying its last days in the yard before I break out the sledgehammer and knock it down.

When I bought the house, I knew the shed needed help.  The tarp worked for the first year, but it’s had that puddle of water in it all summer and I’m sure that doesn’t help the bug problem in my yard.

This summer, I spent pretty much every waking moment of my life getting MMO, NFP ready for business.  You may think preschool is all fun and games, but there is actually quite a bit of behind the scene legal stuff that goes on.  Anyway, I recruited all-purpose Pat to come help out with some of the random stuff there and one of our projects was to build a Hamlet.  Yes, a Hamlet, in the parking lot of MMO.  Our Hamlet isn’t nearly as exciting as the ones on that website (what?  no pool?  are you kidding me?) but it was so much fun to build that I had to go buy one for my house, too.  Pat was thrilled when I told him about it.

I went to Menard’s and told the man I wanted a Hamlet and then I went and paid for my piece of paper.  Then I pulled around to the pick-up gate thing and the girl looked at my paper and got confused and told me to just pull around over by the garden center.  So helpful.  I pulled over there and flagged down some guy on a forklift, who had to go find an electric forklift so he could drive it in the store and then he finally brought my Hamlet to my car.  I folded down my seats and they stuffed it in the back of my car, but it was just barely too long so I had to move my seat forward.  Which means I had to drive home with my knees hitting my steering wheel, and not intentionally, like when I eat a Spicy Southwest Sonic burger.  Dad was coming over anyway to pick up some branches or something so he helped get it out of the Jeep and into the garage.

Then I forgot about it for a month or so.

When things finally settled down and I was only working 65 hours a week, I decided it was time to tackle the Hamlet.

First, we had to clear a spot in the jungle for the Hamlet.

It only took Pat about 20 minutes while I stood around debating whether I should go buy another shovel so I could help.  By the time I decided I would, he was finished.  How convenient!

Then we had to go to Mom and Dad’s house to get the dolly to roll the Hamlet from the garage to the backyard.  I wasn’t about to tear up my grass again by dragging it through the yard.  It had just finally grown back from when I dragged the keg for my birthday party back there.

There was a small ordeal with a dead squirrel in the driveway.  I didn’t know what people in town did with dead animals they find in their yard.  I’ve always just thrown them over the back fence, but I didn’t think my neighbors would appreciate this, especially as it was Labor Day weekend and they were having a cookout.  We put it in a gift bag and took it to Dad, then I threw it over their back fence.

We got the box back there and got to work doing the pre-assembly.

Hard to imagine a whole Hamlet fits in that little box!

We got the base frame put together…

Then we got to work assembling all the pieces that needed to be assembled before we started the actual building process.

Good thing we had already built one Hamlet and knew exactly what to do.

This is the point in the instructions where it tells you that you need two people and “many hours” to finish the Hamlet.  We did not have “many hours” so we put off the rest of the construction for a week or two.

And now I will put off writing the rest of this post for a day or two (or maybe a week, who knows?) and leave you with a picture of my new pet.

And Now I’m a Lumberjack!

Lumberjane?  Either way, I cut down a tree recently.  With the help of Pat, who thankfully accepts rootbeer floats as payment, I cut down one of the three redbuds in my backyard.  It had grown over the fence and was viciously attacking my neighbor’s redbud.  All those redbuds are lovely in the spring, but they just look like normal trees the rest of the time.

So, here’s the before picture:

The one that’s going down is the one on the right that already looks like it’s falling down.  The one with two trunks in the background, not the foreground.  Why do all my trees look like they’re falling down?

There was much tree-climbing and precarious balancing and reaching to trim branches and untangle them from the neighbor’s tree.  We didn’t take any pictures of this because we didn’t want Mom to see.  She would probably never let Pat help me with yardwork again.  This is also why I didn’t video him falling off the ladder with the chainsaw.

I used the chainsaw!

After many fancy maneuvers to avoid power lines, we had the whole tree down.

And then we had some root beer floats.

The branches stayed in the yard for a couple weeks…

…and then on Saturday I woke up feeling productive.

Getting rid of this is the next project:

Quick fix for the sink

A few weeks ago, I noticed that the water was coming out of the faucet kind of crazy.  It wasn’t just a nice stream, something had happened to the screen thing in it.  No problem, I’ve got this.  I went to Menard’s and got a new aerator.  I couldn’t remember if my faucet needed a male or a female, so I got a female.  I was wrong.  After waiting in the exchange line for about 20 minutes, I got the right kind.

I got the old aerator off with some pliers.  It looked pretty gross.

I know you’re all jealous of my gold flecked counter top.

After I got that off, all I had to do was screw on the new one.

And now my faucet flows at a water-efficient 2.2 gallons per minute.  Yay!

Big things are happening…

This has been a big week here at my house.

It all started on Monday, when I had a tonsillectomy/adenoidectomy.  I only recommend having this done if you really like pain.  And ice cream.  I’ve spent a lot of time on the couch, groggily watching Top Chef marathons.

The next big thing has actually been in the works for about a month.  Let me start from the beginning.

In mid-May, I got a nice big check for my tax refund.  It was quite a hefty amount since it had my first-time homebuyer credit on it.  When I had the house inspected before I moved in, the inspector told me that I would want to keep a large sum of money to the side in case my furnace/air-conditioner bites the dust.  They were 30+ years old and their days were numbered.

When I got my tax credit, I figured that I would at least get some quotes on new furnace/ac systems, just to see what’s out there.  I ended up finding an offer that was too good to pass up.  There are so many tax credits and company rebates and such out there right now, I could get a top of the line Bryant system for the same price (actually a little bit less) than their lower end system.  I love fancy new things.  I couldn’t pass up this opportunity.

Which brings us to yesterday, when the guys from Hoveln showed up to install my shiny new furnace and air-conditioner.

I got the Evolution system, which is “the heating and cooling system of the future.”  I now have a futuristic house.  Pretty exciting.

They finished installing it today and the city inspector came and approved of it.  Yay!

Here is my old stuff:

The furnace with the incredibly dangerous squared-off intake duct that stuck halfway out into the walking area.  Many awkward head bashes occurred because of this.

The lovely old air-conditioner.  Now imagine it before I pulled all the ivy out of the protective cage thingy.

And now presenting my futuristic new furnace:

Notice the rounded intake duct, which should prevent some of our laundry related concussions.  Also notice that it’s so shiny that the beautiful asbestos floor tiles reflect off of it in a nice artsy pattern.

And now for the air-conditioner:

If the ivy even tries to come near it, it extends its futuristic spinning blades to fight it off.

Oh yeah, it’s a two stage.

It even has a really fancy thermostat with a 31 page booklet on how to use it.

Annabel is quite pleased with the comfort the new system provides her with.  Hopefully my bank account will be equally as pleased.

And now I’m off to take a vicodin induced nap.

Front Yard Fountain

At the beginning of May, I came home to this guy in my yard:

Literally in my yard.  (Notice, I still haven’t figured out how to use my camera.)

A few weeks before I had noticed some water coming out of the ground by the curb while I was mowing.  I asked my water expert (Dad) and he said I should probably call the water company.  Eventually, they came out and marked everything and said they would be out to dig in the next few days.

I’m kind of disappointed I missed the initial digging since I was at work because it looked like it was probably a good show.  They had just gotten the pipes all fixed up when I pulled up and the whole driveway and sidewalk was wet.  Must have been quite a fountain.

They put all the dirt back but haven’t done anything else, so now there’s a big dirt patch in my front yard.  It’s in the parkway between the sidewalk and the street so I’m not sure if I’m supposed to level it out and plant grass or if the city or the water company does it.  I was hoping if I just left it someone would do it, but that doesn’t seem to be happening.

While the front yard is looking muddy, the backyard is coming together quite nicely.  I planted some new flowers on Saturday.  Check back in the next few days for some pretty pictures.

Beautiful weather

As I sit on the patio enjoying this beautiful Sunday afternoon, I thought I would share some pictures of the spring flowers.  Most of them have finished blooming now and I’m still watching for more summer flowers to come up.  I’ve planted some herbs in pots and mowed the grass for the first time this year yesterday.  Hopefully spring is finally here.

I am quite enjoying the lovely weather.  I am also enjoying my clothesline.

Plumbing Update!

I am very happy to report that for a couple weeks now we have been washing dishes for hours at a time with no water backing up in the sink! OK, maybe I’m exaggerating a little bit, but really, we can wash dishes for quite a while and not have the sinks fill up with water. It is lovely.

And on a lovely note, it’s springtime here and the flowers are starting to bloom. Also, Zoe, Dan and I have been hard at work in the yard. We have big plans. It’s going to be amazing.

Pictures to come soon, I just have to find the cord to upload the photos from my camera.  Also, I’ll show you my latest carpentry project.  Be prepared to be impressed.