We Caved

May 23, 2012 / Ally Bean / 22 Comments

~ ~ • ~ ~

Remember two weeks ago when I told you that I had absolutely nothing planned for the week? That I was going to spend my days in quiet contemplation with a book or writing or just being? I was in a very good mood when I wrote that. Possibility awaited me.

Well, that didn’t happen. Practicality showed up instead.

You see, without any advanced warning, workers from the sprinkler installation company arrived– and began installing a sprinkler system in our front & back yards. A sprinkler system that we’ve tried to do without for all 13 years that we’ve lived here. A sprinkler system that we reluctantly decided to buy.

A sprinkler system that says to the world: yes, we’ve been assimilated. We are… suburban.

I remember when we first moved to this area we surprised our friends & relatives by voluntarily living like this. Suburban, that is. We’d always lived within walking distances of restaurants and grocery stores and parks. We’d been in high-rise apartment buildings and historic preservation districts and old-fashioned city suburbs. But never in exurbia, outside the ebb & flow of a city.

However, be that as it may, for the most part this has been a good way to live. I’ll admit that. Having space within your home and quiet outside your house is delightful. And Z-D loves to come back home from his workplace in the city to an area that is nothing like the city.

So if having a sprinkler system is part and parcel of this choice, then I guess I need to accept that caving on this subject might not be the worst idea ever. In fact, I suspect that come mid-August I’m going to think that a sprinkler system is the most brilliant thing that we’ve ever done around here.

Having come to the mature realization that: Resistance was futile.

My Weekend Summarized Into Two Sentences

May 21, 2012May 22, 2012 / Ally Bean / 18 Comments

√ When asked what color they stained their deck, she replied:

“It’s a color called– NOT THE ONE I PICKED OUT.”

√ While in the process of staining the deck when asked by her husband where she was going, she replied:

“I’ll be back. I just need to change my clothes– BECAUSE I HAVE TOO MANY SPLINTERS IN MY BUTT.”

… So how was everyone else’s weekend. Did we have fun?

~ • ~

{Photos added 05.22.12 for Margaret… because she asked.}

~ • ~

{Please Note: the deck color that you see here is a warm pearl gray instead of a light golden oak as originally planned. Fortunately our bricks have a gray undertone in them + our siding is SW Agreeable Gray so this “NOT THE ONE I PICKED OUT” color coordinates just fine. No harm done, really. In fact, Z-D really likes it so maybe it was meant to be.}

~ • ~

The State Of Our “To Do” List

April 23, 2012 / Ally Bean / 16 Comments

I am glad that it’s the beginning of a new week. All our doing last week just about did me in. It was stressful.

On the upside, we finished 3 projects. The mail box post, which we repaired & painted, is now sporting a new shiny black mailbox. The inside molding around the new [non-leaky] window in the bathroom is caulked & painted. And the dingy old sheer panels on the home study’s French doors are tea-dyed a lovely shade of tan, ironed & back in place.

On the other hand, we started about a dozen more projects that for one reason or another we couldn’t finish. I really wanted to have more projects completed by now, but everywhere we turned we encountered obstacles. Weather. Indecisiveness. Lack of supplies. Whatever we wanted not available. No-shows by tradesmen. Hours spent online trying to find furniture/accessories that will fit into our small room dimensions. And on & on it went.

Four years ago when we decided to stay in this house & remodel/update it, I had no idea that we’d still be working on it today. I thought that 1 year– maybe 2 years, tops— would be all the time that we’d need to re-do the house. Not that I thought that everything in the house would be completely finished, mind you; I just figured that we’d be where we should be for people living in a thirteen year old house.

However, despite my above grumbling, I will say that the progress we made last week is wonderful & encouraging. I’d even venture to say that with one more week like this last one, we’ll have all the bones of our house in place. Then there will be photos for you, my gentle readers– & a long-awaited sense of completion & belonging for me.

Until then, ever onward go I.

{An observation: this situation reminds me of when I got my Master’s degree. I planned for it to take me 3 years, but for one reason or another it took my 6 1/2 years to complete. Near the end of my studies, I didn’t care what courses I took. I just wanted the whole process finished so I could move on with my life. Same feeling here & now.}

Whatever The Day May Bring Us

January 20, 2012January 20, 2012 / Ally Bean / 12 Comments

The other afternoon I was at home writing and listening to a classical music radio station while waiting for Dave, the man from the chimney/roofing repair company, to arrive. Dave has been to the house before so I knew who to expect and that he’d find a solution to our latest homeowner problem.

He showed up on time and started by looking at our water/mud mess in the basement. Then he and his camera went up on the roof to figure out what was happening up there to cause the mess. It didn’t take long for him to determine that the builder had once again skimped on something important.

[Details of problem for those who care about such things. Chimney cap not installed with proper horizontal support. Hot water exhaust pipe, which goes up inside of the chimney, not surrounded by proper gasket where it intersects with chimney cap. Result: water doesn’t roll off top of chimney cap. Instead, water forms a 2″ deep puddle on top of chimney cap and then slowly drips down leak around the exhaust pipe into inside of chimney. Along the way to the basement water rots first floor sub-flooring under fireplace and creates a gentle steam down the basement concrete walls into the adjacent floor drain.]

So Dave got down off the roof and knocked on the door. He put on his standard issue contractor-inside-your-house paper booties, and stepped into the foyer to show me photos of this ~~year’s~~ ~~month’s~~ week’s problem. He explained to me how the problem could be repaired. And then he told me to expect an estimate in the mail in about 2 days.

Very standard.

But what made this visit different– and almost got me to the point of giggles— was that while Dave was talking with me the classical radio station was playing The Blue Danube Waltz. Just float-y, water-y, swoosh-y music drifting into the foyer from the radio in the next room.

I don’t think that the music registered with Dave at all, but to me it was very fitting and funny. I ask you, could there be any more perfect background music for a discussion about water running down the inside of your chimney into the basement and then flowing toward the drain? Me thinks not.

Well played, Universe. I bow to your sense of the absurd.

###