hello... is this thing on?
Well... if anybody's still reading, here's a catch-up post on what's up in the life of me, since it's been over a month since my last post. (oops)
First, this actually pre-dates my last post by a month, but since I forgot to mention it here... I have a new cat! Fiddler rounds out the kitty crew at four, taking the spot as Izzy's playmate, which was vacated when Bigfoot died. I adopted Fiddler from the Humane Society of Hamilton County, an excellent no-kill shelter in the county just south of me (where I work and where I used to live). He spent the first couple of weeks living upstairs while the other cats were downstairs, letting him get good and bonded to me and used to being here before introducing the rest of the crew. Then I let Izzy come up and she and Fiddler got a couple of weeks to become buds before Smudge and Gorby (sibling pair) were added to the mix. Izzy and Fiddler turned out to be the best of friends, and they play and play and play. Izzy has a waist again! (She'd been getting pudgy without a playmate.)
Now... fast forward to my last post, when I had just finished drying out the basement after the two weeks of epic rain. The next thing on the agenda was InConJunction, where Wild Mercy were the music GOHs. We had a fabulous time, and Drummer got to go be Dog In Residence for the weekend. There were lots of well-behaved doggies at InCon, and Drummer had a great weekend being social with people and with other dogs. The InCon concom took very good care of us, especially in making sure that Sally, who was recently post-surgical and still under weight restrictions, didn't have to carry anything heavier than a bodhran all weekend. (Also, guest liaison per_solo went beyond the call of duty when my very tired self text-messaged him at something like 2 a.m. to see if he was (a) still awake and (b) willing to help me haul Too Much Stuff from the filkroom back to the band suite. Thanks again, Chris!) The filk was smallish in the evenings... it would be nice to have a few more filkers at InCon next year. This is a con that's actively working to regain a reputation for being filk-friendly, and it's time for people to give them another try!
Shortly after InCon, I decided that part of my annual bonus would go to fixing the Beetle and most would go to fixing the flooding-basement problem. I had the guy who did my original pre-purchase home inspection back out to see if he could help me figure out where the water was coming from, and he did!! Lo and behold, the problem was completely at the other end of the house, where a dinky little sidewalk was trapping water in an all-too-narrow flowerbed, allowing it to seep down into the crawl space, where it then ran the length of the house before winding up in my basement. No wonder we couldn't find drainage problems on the end of the house where the basement is... that's not where the problem was! Best $125 I've ever spent. Also, it's entertaining to be getting text messages from under the house (he took pictures in the crawlspace with his Blackberry and sent them to me to explain what he was seeing).
Of course, looking at what it would take to really fix the problem, I realized that the project to replace the dinky little sidewalk with something useful and more attractive should come off the "some day" project list and move to the "right now please" list. Called my handy local landscaper, and we plotted and planned, and decided that the old sidewalk would come out, the entire front yard, sidewalk and porch would be reworked, and additional drainage would be added.
Then I left for vacation. Spent a week in Mississippi visiting family, while Mike (the landscaper) did all the digging and got the forms in place for the new walkway. I had originally thought of doing a fieldstone walk, but Mike brought me the quote for that and then also quoted doing stamped concrete in a fieldstone pattern, which I hadn't even considered. The latter is lower maintenance and turned out to cost $1k less. Sold! So he started tear-out on July 7, I played around with marker paint 'til I figured out exactly where I wanted the new walk to go, and he built the forms while I was on vacation, then saved the actual concrete pouring 'til I got back, 'cause I wanted to watch. :-)
On July 29th, a cement mixer lumbered across my poor battered yard (with my permission, since Mike had promised to fix anything the mixer messed up), and by the end of the day I had a new front porch and a new sidewalk with lots of cool texture. The whole process is documented in this album, and I'll add a few last pictures once there's mulch and grass again!
So the yard has pretty much consumed my spare time (including this weekend, where I spent all my possible waking hours (except when at Wild Mercy rehearsal today) trimming shrubs, mowing, picking up sticks, and power-washing the section of driveway nearest the house, getting rid of a ton of dirt that had built up over the last year while the drainage was so screwed up. I did make it to the zoo with my friend Tim from work and his wife Melody. Tim has a new camera, so we all took cameras and went on a photo expedition. It was nice to wander the zoo with other people who were perfectly happy to spend a leisurely Saturday trying to get The Perfect Picture at various exhibits!
So that's my last month or so in a nutshell (and in pictures!). How've y'all been?
(NOTE: Picture links to Facebook are public links... no Facebook membership required. The Zoo gallery is on Flickr.)
First, this actually pre-dates my last post by a month, but since I forgot to mention it here... I have a new cat! Fiddler rounds out the kitty crew at four, taking the spot as Izzy's playmate, which was vacated when Bigfoot died. I adopted Fiddler from the Humane Society of Hamilton County, an excellent no-kill shelter in the county just south of me (where I work and where I used to live). He spent the first couple of weeks living upstairs while the other cats were downstairs, letting him get good and bonded to me and used to being here before introducing the rest of the crew. Then I let Izzy come up and she and Fiddler got a couple of weeks to become buds before Smudge and Gorby (sibling pair) were added to the mix. Izzy and Fiddler turned out to be the best of friends, and they play and play and play. Izzy has a waist again! (She'd been getting pudgy without a playmate.)
Now... fast forward to my last post, when I had just finished drying out the basement after the two weeks of epic rain. The next thing on the agenda was InConJunction, where Wild Mercy were the music GOHs. We had a fabulous time, and Drummer got to go be Dog In Residence for the weekend. There were lots of well-behaved doggies at InCon, and Drummer had a great weekend being social with people and with other dogs. The InCon concom took very good care of us, especially in making sure that Sally, who was recently post-surgical and still under weight restrictions, didn't have to carry anything heavier than a bodhran all weekend. (Also, guest liaison per_solo went beyond the call of duty when my very tired self text-messaged him at something like 2 a.m. to see if he was (a) still awake and (b) willing to help me haul Too Much Stuff from the filkroom back to the band suite. Thanks again, Chris!) The filk was smallish in the evenings... it would be nice to have a few more filkers at InCon next year. This is a con that's actively working to regain a reputation for being filk-friendly, and it's time for people to give them another try!
Shortly after InCon, I decided that part of my annual bonus would go to fixing the Beetle and most would go to fixing the flooding-basement problem. I had the guy who did my original pre-purchase home inspection back out to see if he could help me figure out where the water was coming from, and he did!! Lo and behold, the problem was completely at the other end of the house, where a dinky little sidewalk was trapping water in an all-too-narrow flowerbed, allowing it to seep down into the crawl space, where it then ran the length of the house before winding up in my basement. No wonder we couldn't find drainage problems on the end of the house where the basement is... that's not where the problem was! Best $125 I've ever spent. Also, it's entertaining to be getting text messages from under the house (he took pictures in the crawlspace with his Blackberry and sent them to me to explain what he was seeing).
Of course, looking at what it would take to really fix the problem, I realized that the project to replace the dinky little sidewalk with something useful and more attractive should come off the "some day" project list and move to the "right now please" list. Called my handy local landscaper, and we plotted and planned, and decided that the old sidewalk would come out, the entire front yard, sidewalk and porch would be reworked, and additional drainage would be added.
Then I left for vacation. Spent a week in Mississippi visiting family, while Mike (the landscaper) did all the digging and got the forms in place for the new walkway. I had originally thought of doing a fieldstone walk, but Mike brought me the quote for that and then also quoted doing stamped concrete in a fieldstone pattern, which I hadn't even considered. The latter is lower maintenance and turned out to cost $1k less. Sold! So he started tear-out on July 7, I played around with marker paint 'til I figured out exactly where I wanted the new walk to go, and he built the forms while I was on vacation, then saved the actual concrete pouring 'til I got back, 'cause I wanted to watch. :-)
On July 29th, a cement mixer lumbered across my poor battered yard (with my permission, since Mike had promised to fix anything the mixer messed up), and by the end of the day I had a new front porch and a new sidewalk with lots of cool texture. The whole process is documented in this album, and I'll add a few last pictures once there's mulch and grass again!
So the yard has pretty much consumed my spare time (including this weekend, where I spent all my possible waking hours (except when at Wild Mercy rehearsal today) trimming shrubs, mowing, picking up sticks, and power-washing the section of driveway nearest the house, getting rid of a ton of dirt that had built up over the last year while the drainage was so screwed up. I did make it to the zoo with my friend Tim from work and his wife Melody. Tim has a new camera, so we all took cameras and went on a photo expedition. It was nice to wander the zoo with other people who were perfectly happy to spend a leisurely Saturday trying to get The Perfect Picture at various exhibits!
So that's my last month or so in a nutshell (and in pictures!). How've y'all been?
(NOTE: Picture links to Facebook are public links... no Facebook membership required. The Zoo gallery is on Flickr.)