Is to pack and get ready for our house to have a big pretty termite tent over it on Thursday. What a pain in the neck! They give you these cellophane bags specially designed to keep the gas that kills all living things from getting into your foods with specific instructions that all boxes of food need to go into them
Cept they are fragile. Well, not really fragile expect for when a cereal or pasta box corner hits the side of the bag it goes right through it. They gave us 100 bags and said "oh, that's enough for a family of 9" and I said "Can I have more, anyway?" and it's a good thing, because at the rate I've popped or broken them I still might need more. I'm getting about 5 bags done for every 2 popped. Oh, yeah- you have to double bag everything. And that includes toothpaste, vitamins and all other things you might put into your mouth. Oh, yeah, and I joined Costco last week. I didn't think I went overboard on buying stuff but now realize maybe the week before we were having our house tented wasn't exactly the best timing for buying warehouse size boxes and bags of granola bars, peppers, veggies, and flour.
I'm actually glad we're not doing this the day before we are getting on a plane. I think I'd spin myself into OCD orbit. As it is I'm packing beach and pool stuff, food, clothes, toiletries and the dog and all her stuff to last for 3 days. I can imagine how much more spazzy I'd be if I was packing for our plane trip, too. That was the original plan, but the termite company said they needed to do it sooner than August.
And there's still unresolved issues there. When they were messing around in the attic last week someone one stepped off the attic joist and cracked our ceiling. And not only did they crack it, they cracked it where it is super vaulted and where we had just had it textured and painted it in the fix-the-house-project. That seems to be the theme of this house- any company we hire here has some sort of problem.
The non-company hired help outside has been working out well. The cement pad is in for the shed, the brand-spanking-new backyard sprinkler system is working. It's amazing how fast things can be doine when you have 2 people working on it full time who aren't trying to keep the kids out of danger and from destroying work already done.
It's been unseasonably hot, so I've been keeping the kids mostly inside anyway. Because they can cause a whole lot of damage and because it's just plain old too hot to run around outside for long. I'd let them play with the hose except all it does is make mud that gets on everything. They did have a water gun fight. And as soon as we check into the hotel next to the pool I can guarantee you the weather will be unseasonably cool. That's how this works, ya know.
So my break is over. Back to filling and breaking those dumb cellophane bags...
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Nothing New
No really. It's been an uneventful week. Our hired help has been making quick work of the landscaping project. One of our neighbors saw our backhoe last week and came up and asked if they could have the dirt we would be removing for the pool they thought we were putting in. I was a bit disappointed that we weren't putting in a pool, too, but we did manage to donate a bit of dirt after all the moving of dirt around.
Let me tell you... the 18 houses between us are just *thrilled* to pieces that he drove his tractor up and down the street picking up dirt from our house and delivering it to his. I'm sure they're scratching their heads and wondering if they can come up with an ordinance against such redneck activities.
But until then... We've made nice with the neighbor with the apple pies and made them an apple pie to ensure the constant supply of apples landing on our doorstep. I thought apples need a hard frost to grow, but apparently there is some (I shudder to wonder if it's genetically mutated) granny smith apple tree that grows here. And it's a more mushy apple than one I'd love to pick and munch off a tree from New England it's just perfect to make my most favorite thing with apples- apple pie and apple crisp.
And yeah, they're ripe now. I know. Weird California growing seasons.
We discovered we had 2 peach trees in our back yard on the other side of the fence, but the ground squirrels ate all buy 1 measley peach which they couldn't reach. I declare war on them. My old WW2 vet neighbor we call "the warden" admitted to me that you can kill them with the pellets you can shoot from a bb gun. I thought that was a fabulous idea and debate getting one for Joey although the phrase "you'll shoot your eye out" comes to mind and the realization that it wouldn't be his eye that gets shot out.
We still have a leaking pipe or two which will be replaced or fixed this week. Or so I'm told.
I've commandeered the Civic for my own personal use since S and J are spending the month in CT. It's been nice having a zippy little car. Really nice. I wish they made it in a hatch back version with an optional 3rd row seat. And Larry's been using the truck to get all the supplies and parts at Home Depot that we've been needing this month.
And yeah, the van still needs to be fixed. I parked it across the street and down a bit in front of a neighbor's house while all the landscaping has been getting done. Better than in our driveway and put it on cinder blocks. I'm only partly kidding.
So with that non update I need to go water my dirt so it'll be easier to dig up tomorrow. If you ever want to understand mudslides here, you need to come play with our dirt. When it's dry it feels and digs like cement- nearly impossible to get through and feels incredibly solid. Wet it turns to slippery sloshy claylike mud. Weird. But you can slosh it into bricks, let it dry and build a house. Which explains why they did that. Cept it's not so great when it rains. Albeit it rains hardly ever, so guess it's a well calculated gamble.
Let me tell you... the 18 houses between us are just *thrilled* to pieces that he drove his tractor up and down the street picking up dirt from our house and delivering it to his. I'm sure they're scratching their heads and wondering if they can come up with an ordinance against such redneck activities.
But until then... We've made nice with the neighbor with the apple pies and made them an apple pie to ensure the constant supply of apples landing on our doorstep. I thought apples need a hard frost to grow, but apparently there is some (I shudder to wonder if it's genetically mutated) granny smith apple tree that grows here. And it's a more mushy apple than one I'd love to pick and munch off a tree from New England it's just perfect to make my most favorite thing with apples- apple pie and apple crisp.
And yeah, they're ripe now. I know. Weird California growing seasons.
We discovered we had 2 peach trees in our back yard on the other side of the fence, but the ground squirrels ate all buy 1 measley peach which they couldn't reach. I declare war on them. My old WW2 vet neighbor we call "the warden" admitted to me that you can kill them with the pellets you can shoot from a bb gun. I thought that was a fabulous idea and debate getting one for Joey although the phrase "you'll shoot your eye out" comes to mind and the realization that it wouldn't be his eye that gets shot out.
We still have a leaking pipe or two which will be replaced or fixed this week. Or so I'm told.
I've commandeered the Civic for my own personal use since S and J are spending the month in CT. It's been nice having a zippy little car. Really nice. I wish they made it in a hatch back version with an optional 3rd row seat. And Larry's been using the truck to get all the supplies and parts at Home Depot that we've been needing this month.
And yeah, the van still needs to be fixed. I parked it across the street and down a bit in front of a neighbor's house while all the landscaping has been getting done. Better than in our driveway and put it on cinder blocks. I'm only partly kidding.
So with that non update I need to go water my dirt so it'll be easier to dig up tomorrow. If you ever want to understand mudslides here, you need to come play with our dirt. When it's dry it feels and digs like cement- nearly impossible to get through and feels incredibly solid. Wet it turns to slippery sloshy claylike mud. Weird. But you can slosh it into bricks, let it dry and build a house. Which explains why they did that. Cept it's not so great when it rains. Albeit it rains hardly ever, so guess it's a well calculated gamble.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Alot of pictures
because pictures say 1000 words
The update on the yard can be found here
As far as "after" on the house, I'm a bit behind on that,but I'll update a few of what we have. Keep inmind that if you can walk without stepping on toys or legos I consider the kid rooms clean.
Boy Bedroom (this is before I go moving any furniture around)
Girl Room (With my camera hound)
Guest Room:
With bed "down" it's a murphy bed and stands up in that case when it's not needed. Cool. huh?
With the bed up looking into the dining room
that closet looking thing on the left is the bed. Those are what's left our our school books
looking from dining room, this is the other 1/2 of the guest room
my new to me washer and dryer. door leads to the garage. yes. It needs door knobs.but right now I'm happy that I have functioning indoor plumbing.
Still to come- pictures of a clean kitchen (ha! you'll be waiting a while)
Dining room
Bathroom (gee I thought I'd taken those...)
Office ( I should show what it really looks like now so when it gets unpacked and clean I can look back and appreciate how far it came)
living room
Master bedroom and recently finished master bathroom
Right now I'm captive in my house with the termite folk. My living room is draped in plastic drop sheets, there is huge tubes blowing in new after sucking out old insulation. And I think it's 90 degrees. In the house. The attic is probably 190 degrees. .
The update on the yard can be found here
As far as "after" on the house, I'm a bit behind on that,but I'll update a few of what we have. Keep inmind that if you can walk without stepping on toys or legos I consider the kid rooms clean.
Boy Bedroom (this is before I go moving any furniture around)
Girl Room (With my camera hound)
With bed "down" it's a murphy bed and stands up in that case when it's not needed. Cool. huh?
Still to come- pictures of a clean kitchen (ha! you'll be waiting a while)
Dining room
Bathroom (gee I thought I'd taken those...)
Office ( I should show what it really looks like now so when it gets unpacked and clean I can look back and appreciate how far it came)
living room
Master bedroom and recently finished master bathroom
Right now I'm captive in my house with the termite folk. My living room is draped in plastic drop sheets, there is huge tubes blowing in new after sucking out old insulation. And I think it's 90 degrees. In the house. The attic is probably 190 degrees. .
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
If you're wondering where I've been
I've been here, up to my eyebrows in chaos.
Lets see... to start.. the big chaos-
We had a water line break in our front yard. So I walked outside and noticed a big puddle. And while people who don't live in CA may see puddles in their yards- here- unless you've actually turned on a faucet- you don't see water. Especially nothing that goes "splash" when you step in it.
And this is the point I should have just told myself that God blessed us with a spring in our front yard much like Moses did when hitting a rock in the desert... but... I didn't.
Instead I got a shovel and dug down 3 feet and found a bunch of white PVC pipe, one of which was spewing out water.
So we turned off the water main and had take out pizza for dinner. I called our home insurance (it came with the house- I myself would never, ever, ever recommend buying it) who said if it wasn't in the foundation, it wasn't their problem.
Then I called 4 or 5 irrigation companies, thinking it was a sprinkler line. The first time one could come out was 4 days later.
Larry (with help) hand dug the pipes out of the front yard and exposed them. There are 3 layers of pipe deep. And while the bottom most one leaked, the top one took some damage in the digging. Both were repaired. The bottom most one by the guy who could come out soonest, the top by Larry who thought I never should have paid the guy to fix the pipe, much less the money he charged. *I* on the other hand just wanted it done and the 3 foot deep trench in the front yard filled back in.
And it could have ended there. Pipe fixed, end of story.
But then that would make a boring blog. And that wouldn't be life here.
Larry decided we needed to "just fix the yard" while we were at it since the front yard was effectively destroyed. And rented a backhoe. A real live full size backhow. It was 7.5 feet wide. Of course knowing how wide it is is rather important because we have 8 feet between our house and the fence that separates us from our neighbor. (on one side, the other side has less)
So backhoe arrived on the back of a flat bed truck while the neighbors watched at a distance in disbelief. Everyone of them were working in their garages, yards or just walking back and forth to the mailbox 4 or 5 times. No, stealthy they're not.
So the hole was filled in and the wall that attached our house to that 8 foot away wall was taken down by said backhoe- on purpose- so that the backhoe could get into the back yard and dig up the yard. About a day of digging and the dead trees and not dead brushes were pulled up and tossed over the fence with the torn down wall and dirt which was removed to angle the yard away from the house and to dig a part perfectly level for our future shed.
The shed will be the latest home for Little Lions' excess inventory. Dispite my threats to sell, close and/or give away the company its still been hard for me to let go that control. It's finally growing and I kinda want to see where it's going. And I really like the wholesale aspect of it. I realize Larry was right- wholesale is far less time consuming and stressful, so I'm hoping to develop more in that direction.
Right now we've been waiting for them to pick up the backhoe. They were supposed to get it 2 days ago. When Larry called tonight, they said they thought they'd picked it up.( Well... if you don't want it... I'd be happy to keep it -said Larry). This is the same company who needed a driver's license number to be able to rent/deliver equipment and when Larry said it was a VA driver license, they said 'you don't really expect us to deliver to VA, do you?!' and Larry asked 'why? will that be a problem?'
The backyard is still dirt, tho the hole in the front yard is covered. There is a different perpetual puddle on the concrete which we're both plugging our ears saying "la la la la la" and pretending like we don't see it. Larry says he's going to tackle it next. After he finished the back yard. As long as he completes one project before tackling the next, I won't squawk. Much.
The backyard is now piles of dirt. In theory there is a mostly staked out frame for the theortecial shed, but if you look at it, it's just alot of dirt. some holes. And a big mess. All the old sprinkler pipes are now out of the ground and will need to be fixed. We've called an acquaintance who does landscapes for a living and hope he can help us out out of the goodness of his heart or offer to take over the project for a price we can afford. He'll be here Saturday.
Prior to all this fun, the plan was for the house to be treated for termites this month. XYZ termite company who did our inspection for us to close were chosen for their ability to let us close without delay due to termite damage discovery. But not for their accuracy. Our neighbor had massive work done this past month which prompted us to start looking, found active termite problems got a good inspection and as a result of that will be having our house tented. And treated for all things creapy and crawly. Starting Friday they come to do the attic.
I have some more time on my hands because as of yesterday, the oldest 2 went to spend some time with my parents. And it's changed the dynamic here. I'll elaborate on it further, but the mess containment, which I had been primarily been blaming on our 3 year old hasn't been nearly as bad as is is with all 4 of them here. And I had a chance to steam clean the couches, area rugs and re-steam clean the guest room. Tomorrow I tackle the furniture re-arrangement in the boy's room and possibly move the tread mill into the guest room and book shelves out of it. We'll see.
Lets see... to start.. the big chaos-
We had a water line break in our front yard. So I walked outside and noticed a big puddle. And while people who don't live in CA may see puddles in their yards- here- unless you've actually turned on a faucet- you don't see water. Especially nothing that goes "splash" when you step in it.
And this is the point I should have just told myself that God blessed us with a spring in our front yard much like Moses did when hitting a rock in the desert... but... I didn't.
Instead I got a shovel and dug down 3 feet and found a bunch of white PVC pipe, one of which was spewing out water.
So we turned off the water main and had take out pizza for dinner. I called our home insurance (it came with the house- I myself would never, ever, ever recommend buying it) who said if it wasn't in the foundation, it wasn't their problem.
Then I called 4 or 5 irrigation companies, thinking it was a sprinkler line. The first time one could come out was 4 days later.
Larry (with help) hand dug the pipes out of the front yard and exposed them. There are 3 layers of pipe deep. And while the bottom most one leaked, the top one took some damage in the digging. Both were repaired. The bottom most one by the guy who could come out soonest, the top by Larry who thought I never should have paid the guy to fix the pipe, much less the money he charged. *I* on the other hand just wanted it done and the 3 foot deep trench in the front yard filled back in.
And it could have ended there. Pipe fixed, end of story.
But then that would make a boring blog. And that wouldn't be life here.
Larry decided we needed to "just fix the yard" while we were at it since the front yard was effectively destroyed. And rented a backhoe. A real live full size backhow. It was 7.5 feet wide. Of course knowing how wide it is is rather important because we have 8 feet between our house and the fence that separates us from our neighbor. (on one side, the other side has less)
So backhoe arrived on the back of a flat bed truck while the neighbors watched at a distance in disbelief. Everyone of them were working in their garages, yards or just walking back and forth to the mailbox 4 or 5 times. No, stealthy they're not.
So the hole was filled in and the wall that attached our house to that 8 foot away wall was taken down by said backhoe- on purpose- so that the backhoe could get into the back yard and dig up the yard. About a day of digging and the dead trees and not dead brushes were pulled up and tossed over the fence with the torn down wall and dirt which was removed to angle the yard away from the house and to dig a part perfectly level for our future shed.
The shed will be the latest home for Little Lions' excess inventory. Dispite my threats to sell, close and/or give away the company its still been hard for me to let go that control. It's finally growing and I kinda want to see where it's going. And I really like the wholesale aspect of it. I realize Larry was right- wholesale is far less time consuming and stressful, so I'm hoping to develop more in that direction.
Right now we've been waiting for them to pick up the backhoe. They were supposed to get it 2 days ago. When Larry called tonight, they said they thought they'd picked it up.( Well... if you don't want it... I'd be happy to keep it -said Larry). This is the same company who needed a driver's license number to be able to rent/deliver equipment and when Larry said it was a VA driver license, they said 'you don't really expect us to deliver to VA, do you?!' and Larry asked 'why? will that be a problem?'
The backyard is still dirt, tho the hole in the front yard is covered. There is a different perpetual puddle on the concrete which we're both plugging our ears saying "la la la la la" and pretending like we don't see it. Larry says he's going to tackle it next. After he finished the back yard. As long as he completes one project before tackling the next, I won't squawk. Much.
The backyard is now piles of dirt. In theory there is a mostly staked out frame for the theortecial shed, but if you look at it, it's just alot of dirt. some holes. And a big mess. All the old sprinkler pipes are now out of the ground and will need to be fixed. We've called an acquaintance who does landscapes for a living and hope he can help us out out of the goodness of his heart or offer to take over the project for a price we can afford. He'll be here Saturday.
Prior to all this fun, the plan was for the house to be treated for termites this month. XYZ termite company who did our inspection for us to close were chosen for their ability to let us close without delay due to termite damage discovery. But not for their accuracy. Our neighbor had massive work done this past month which prompted us to start looking, found active termite problems got a good inspection and as a result of that will be having our house tented. And treated for all things creapy and crawly. Starting Friday they come to do the attic.
I have some more time on my hands because as of yesterday, the oldest 2 went to spend some time with my parents. And it's changed the dynamic here. I'll elaborate on it further, but the mess containment, which I had been primarily been blaming on our 3 year old hasn't been nearly as bad as is is with all 4 of them here. And I had a chance to steam clean the couches, area rugs and re-steam clean the guest room. Tomorrow I tackle the furniture re-arrangement in the boy's room and possibly move the tread mill into the guest room and book shelves out of it. We'll see.
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