A Lovely Memorial Day Weekend Underway

The Memorial Day weekend has officially begun! We started the weekend off by celebrating Ken's niece, Elizabeth's, graduation from CF High School at her open house on Saturday. The food was amazing and the decor just right! Kudos to the family for all their hard work. It looked great!

Then just as things at the open house were getting into full swing, Ken and I jetted off to get ready for friends Josh and Emily's wedding. What a beautiful event! The sun came out just in time to add to the lovely day of celebrating. It was wonderful to see the Simon family again and enjoy good food and dancing. Cheers to Josh and Emily for a wonderful new beginning together!

Once we petered out of dancing at the wedding (we are getting old after all), we headed home to rest and enjoy the marathon of Memorial Day military movies on TV. We watched (and nearly finished) Apocalypse Now. That was my first time watching that, and "yikes" is about all I can say. This morning, I caught the end of From Here to Eternity and Ken picked up a bit of MacArthur. We're both taking a break from the TV now so as to get work done. For me, this means catching up on some laundry and working on my summer course materials. For him, it means hiding in the den working away at emails and "paper shuffling."

Tomorrow will be a birthday party for a friend's daughter and then maybe a trip to a few cemeteries. Of course at this time of the year we cannot help but also think about the tornado that came through Parkersburg just three years ago this weekend. Watching the devastation of other areas of the country, including Joplin, have caused us to relive some of those feelings again. We pray for the people who are going through such a difficult time now.

We wish everyone a safe and relaxing Memorial Day weekend. Most importantly, please remember those who are gone, those who have served, and those who are currently serving. God bless.

Weeds, weeds, and more weeds.

Concrete dude came back today which made me really happy! There was no rain in sight for today, so I was very hopeful that I'd see something resembling steps appearing in the front of my house. No such luck. Shortly after arriving and pounding around out there, he came to tell me that it was still too wet out there to do anything. Crap! He also said that he's so backed up on other jobs he has due to the weather, that he's going to have the other two guys that were there the other day come next week to finish the job. This is fine with me. I don't care who finishes it as long as I don't have to live with a hole in front of my house for much longer.

Because the weather was so nice out today, I spent most of the day outside working on landscaping issues, namely weeds. My neighbor Keith, who is a Master Gardener, shared some ideas with me. Basically, I wanted him to walk around the house with me and tell me what are weeds and what aren't. He came through and so today I went around with a wheel barrow, hedge trimmers, and some gardening gloves. I chopped down a big ole weed bush structure in front of the house, so that looks better. Then I worked my way around the side to where the screen porch is and began hacking into a similar weed bush. What a pain in the you-know-what! Oh man! I really shouldn't have let that thing go so outrageous. That sucker has roots all over the place, some that I could pull up easily and others that are, I swear, weighed down with anchors. I even tried digging them up which didn't make so much as a dent.

Finally, I got sick of doing that. I actually got light-headed and so gave it up for the day and went in for a rest. I ended up falling asleep on the couch for a couple of hours. Vile weeds! You won that round, but I'll be back... I just hope they don't grow back over night.

House Projects Galore!

...and so let the house projects begin! Last week, we got the water softener purchased and installed. Culligan really came through for us and I'm already enjoying softer water. Sadly, I'm not into the taste and so there may be an adjustment made for the cold drinking water. I hate to make the guy come back and do that, but then again, I don't want to keep buying water at the store either.

Then the very next day, the guy we chose to replace our front steps started in on that lovely project. He managed to get the steps out, but not before we had a minor moment of panic wondering if the bricks on the archway were part of a support beam/foundation for the house. The bad part of that is that some of those bricks are crumbling and he was worried about what could happen if we get too far into the project. After two more people arrived to check it out, we got the go-ahead to keep tearing things apart. The job ended up being somewhat bigger than expected (go figure!) as we had to also tear our part of the sidewalk in front of the steps in order to get them out easier. That'll raise the cost a bit, and we may even need to take out more of the sidewalk later to meet code. Sigh.

That was an exhausting day! Dealing with the possibility of losing the front part of my house was more than I was prepared to deal with. We've now had a nice bout of rain since the steps went bye-bye, so the dude hasn't come back to work on the project. Instead of steps, we have a blue tarp covering a large hole. Oh, and that same day, I also had to run to Menards to get a mailbox to attach to the railing outside the steps so that we can continue to have our mail delivered while we await the return of construction dude and the re-pouring of our steps. I am not exactly one to figure out how to attach a thing, so my fix may not be the most beautiful, but it is functional. Wondering what I did? Two words: Bungee Cord!

Next project on the horizon: a new roof. Ugh. The thought of getting into that one isn't even something I want to think about right now. We've had some good recommendations from others though so that's a positive. I'm not sure if we'll actually do the roof this summer, but I have a feeling it will need to be done sooner rather than later given the look of it and the ice dams we had last winter.

Ah, the wonders of home ownership! Perhaps I should revise that to say "the wonders of 70-year old home ownership." It seems that as we dig into projects like these, confusion ensues thanks to the previous owners of this 70-year old gem we call home. We love the house, but whoa! So far, we've learned about some crazy wiring in the basement and some funky strange pipes leading to God knows where in our basement ceiling. We still have some mystery cords plugged in places in the basement that appear to be coming from a distant part of the house, or dare I say it, maybe even outside.

I'm just hopeful that during one of these house projects I will discover a million dollars or some crazy good treasure hidden somewhere in the fireplace, in the wall, the basement ceiling, the garage loft, or the sewing room attic cubbie! I'm ready to call Geraldo to come broadcast the experience.

End of my 3rd year

Well, I've made it to the end of my probationary period at work! Woo Hoo! I don't know that such a feat will actually change anything, but it feels good to know I've made it that far.

Things here are fine. Ken and I are dealing with house issues, namely the fact that we need to replace our front steps. What an ordeal! Quotes, quotes, and more quotes! Naturally, I would have gone with the first one and just gotten it over with, but being the savvy consumer he is, Ken checked around until he found a real deal. I just hope that it isn't too much of a "deal" (you get what you pay for is playing in my head as I write this).

Add to that the fact that we're also working on getting a new water softener and need to think about some gutter repairs and a new roof. I don't think all of this needs to happen at once, but it does seem a bit overwhelming when one puts it all together. Welcome to home ownership I guess.