Guess What

This big, old wreck of a house, yard, driveway, and the unattached garage are all ours now.

We paid off the mortgage.  We still have to pay property taxes for the luxury of having sidewalks that have to be shoveled, and roads, and city water, and sewers, and all that other city dweller stuff, but that expense is fairly manageable.

The next thing on the to do list is to get some estimates to re-shingle the house roof.  The west side has taken a gradual beating over the last few years with storms.  Unfortunately, it can't really be chalked up to one particular storm so the homeowner's insurance is very unlikely to cover any of it.  On the plus side, if it isn't an insurance job, the roofers can give an accurate estimate rather than trying to lowball it and come back with unexpected expenses like they tend to do on storm damage insurance jobs.

Oh, and the garage doors need replacing.

And I need to finish the work on the 1st floor.

And, and, and, ....

Ah, the "fun" never ends.

Remind me again why we bought a house.

Oh, yes, partly it was to have the simple freedoms that renters don't have, like being able to hang pictures wherever you want them and paint the walls whatever color you like.  And let us not forget the freedom to dig holes in the lawn and plant stuff and give the shrubbery police fits when the rose bush on the corner gets too tall for their liking.

Warmer Days

We have had a couple of warmer days this week with lots of melting happening.  I know it is still winter, but it does make it a bit easier to haul mom & stepfather to church on Sunday without the worry of "Will she turn into a frozen mom-sickle on the way out to the car?"  Sometimes I do wonder if it is worth the trouble, because neither of them remember anything beyond the last 5-10 minutes.  At least it helps keep them in a routine.  On the plus side, on the way home from dropping them off after church, a few rare sights appeared on the road.  First was a Maserati, and then there was a Corvette.  Although I probably could never justify buying things like that, they sure are pretty.  Hey, looking is free.  It was nice to have a Maserati Sunday, rather than a Buick Sunday.  (Cause face it, being stuck behind a Buick toodling 5 mph below the speed limit just takes the fun out of the day.)

As far as my car goes, it will be visiting the shop tomorrow.  The check engine light was traced back to a dead oxygen sensor.  Thankfully, Honda designed the civic with two for redundancy sake, so the car can still run until the bad one is replaced.  It is also getting the clutch replaced.  The mechanic said it isn't worn out yet, but I would rather schedule it than have it go at a really inconvenient time.  If it were just me, I could just walk if it went suddenly.  But if mom were in the car during bad weather, it would make for a bad situation.  And since this is our trusty mechanic's slow time of the year for business, it is a good fit.  Plus I did some online searches last week for used replacement cars that have four doors, capacious trunks for hauling mom's wheelchair, and manual transmissions.  The pickings were slim, and I really didn't like any of them.  At least the civic is tolerable.

Better Late than Never

Belated Happy Valentine's Day

Went looking through my photo library for something pretty and red to put in this post.  Since it has been particularly cold outside, I have really been missing summer.  Oh, and the check engine light on my car decided to turn itself on, so I have been driving dad's red truck because my car is at the mechanic until he solves the mystery of why the check engine light is illuminated.  Replacing the gas cap didn't fix it, so it was time for the mechanic to plug it in for some diagnostics.  So, a flashback to summer will now commence.  There is definitely a wide variety.

Hope you find something you like.

Sat-Nav Voices

A few years back hubby and I borrowed dad's GPS when we had to take a trip.  In general we found the directions to be a bit iffy (probably because dad hadn't paid to update the data in a while).  We also found the voice rather annoying.  The other day we were watching an episode of Top Gear in which Richard Hammond loved the car, but he was puzzled why the the voice for the sat-nav sounded like a women's prison warder (translation for American English = warden).  Hubby and I turned to each other and said, "So we're not the only ones who don't like the sat-nav voice."  Then hubby said, "I wonder what would happen if someone did a Marilyn Monroe voice for sat-nav?  Even if they got lost, they probably wouldn't mind."  Then I asked "What would happen if someone did Mae West sat-nav directions?"  Hubby replied, "They would probably get so distracted, that they'd have an accident."  Then we got to thinking what would happen if Ferrari contracted with Sophia Loren to do their sat-nav voice?  Oh, and not to leave the female drivers out of the loop, who wouldn't want sat nav directions by Vin Diesel, James Earl Jones, or Bruce Willis?  Unfortunately, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, and Sterling Holloway have all passed.  How cool would that be if the voice of Winnie the Pooh gave you driving directions?  So if you had your choice of voices to give you sat-nav directions, who would you pick?

Does it Help

to know what's wrong, when the doctor can't actually do anything about it?  There's an 80% blockage in an artery in mom's neck, but operating could make things much worse.  So, first do no wrong, and get her affairs in order.  Oh, and don't feed her a lot at once, because a big meal causes blood to rush to her stomach to digest the food, and then her brain gets less blood and oxygen.  Then things get interesting in a Tower of Babel sort of way.  Apparently it is called aphasia.  She was mostly back to normal yesterday and today thankfully.  She even seemed to have gotten a bit of a sense of humor back.  Of course, keeping her from eating all the time is next to impossible.  Cue the theme song for Mission Impossible, and prepare for a tantrum.

Oh, it snowed Tuesday.  Entirely too fitting for groundhog day.  I and the snowblower are tired.  Cleared my driveway, mom's driveway, and dad's driveway.  I used at least a gallon of gas in the snowblower and managed to lose the plug for the gas can spout, drat.  Have to buy a new plug on Wed.  Hope y'all are warm and dry.  And to those not feeling well, hope you get better soon.