Tuesday, May 18, 2010

And so it begins...

Well, we're scheduled to get started on Thursday. Or at least that's when I'll be mostly out of the house, so that work can start.

It's feeling a little overwhelming right now, I have to admit. The movers are coming tomorrow to get the big things - sofa, tables, bed, etc. - and I'm trying to get the little things corralled into bins or bags to carry over to Mom and Dad's. Today was going to be all about packing, but it got highjacked by dealing with insurance policies and security systems and just, yuck. Nothing major at all, just annoying, compounded by the fact that my ears are stopped up so I can't hear and feel like I'm talking in an echo chamber. Plus, my cell phone seems not to have reception at the house.

So, I'm sitting in the house with random, half-full, bins that have no matching lids and kind of pouting. It's my usual pattern of dealing with things not going the way I had originally planned by just stopping. Maturity, woo!

On the up side, sweet Stacy called to see if I wanted to join her and the boys at DQ for snack. Blizzard, yea!

I'm hoping to have the "before" pictures up soon, though!

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Yard waste

It’s official. I’ve become that neighbor.

Well, OK, it’s not “official” in the sense that I’ve gotten any sort of notice from the city or even a nasty note from a neighbor. But still. My backyard is a mess. The weeds are… waist high in some spots. It’s embarrassing.

It got that way without my really noticing. I mean, sure, I’d noticed on some level. It was hard to ignore Daisy bounding through the yard like a gazelle. And disappearing when she landed. The dandelions were a pretty clear sign, as well. Higher than the fence just couldn’t be good. But I kept thinking that construction was going to start any day, and what would be the point of making it pretty when it was just going to get messed up as soon as they started on the foundation. Right?

When the loan finally went through last week, I ventured out back to take some of the “before” shots of the house, and I was more than a little appalled to realize just how bad it was. In fact you couldn’t even see the three-foot hole that was dug weeks ago for the soil samples. Couldn’t. See it. It was like a tiger trap. Oops. Thank goodness Daisy’s smart or savvy enough to avoid it.

Anyway. In anticipation of the workers needing to actually see the ground if they’re going to build on it, I spent a couple of hours this afternoon pulling weeds and using the weed eater I borrowed from Paul (“You know it doesn’t actually eat the weeds, right?”). And seriously? Holy cow. Weed eating is hard. I’m not sure why I thought it would be a quick little operation, but, boy, was I wrong. I’m not finished, but I think with another day I’ll have made a good start.

I’m pretty sure I’m going to be crazy sore tomorrow. But it will be good sore!