First frost (that I'm sure of) this morning. Not a hard freeze. We're generally later than inland, but this is the latest since I've been here. My first Autumn it was about November 1, earlier than that the following year.

Bulbs went in a month ago, and that felt late!

I have moved mostly over to Dreamwidth. Please comment there if you can.

I am a creature of habit. We've had people on the roof since Monday, mostly ripping things of the roof in anticipation of replacing it, which means they are in my front hall at 7:30 am. I know this. And yet when I was standing naked in my bedroom at 7:40 on Wednesday, I was surprised to hear a ladder hit the exterior wall. (I put clothes on and ( Read more... )

Yesterday afternoon, while I was clearing a good 12-16" of leaves out from under the front hedge, so you can actually see the sidewalk, no this hasn't been done in years because the leaves had become dirt and the hedges had put down roots therein in a carpet atop the concrete ( Read more... )

Depending on which authority you trust, it's either 5, 3, 1, or negative eleventy Fahrenheit outside. (That last is my authority.) It's also on the tail end of a northeast storm, which means the stress-test conditions on the heating and insulation of this my old house are somewhat biased by the fact that the windward side of the house is taking a ( Read more... )

One doesn't mind rain so much when (a) one does not have to drive in it and (b) it's at the end of a glorious sunny day, that sudden crowd of slate clouds on the horizon and then the deluge, and over again in an hour or two ( Read more... )

It's eleventy million degrees outside! Now that I've got the AC unit into the window (all by myself, multitudinous bruises on upper arms and thighs), it is occasionally cooler than that inside! The season of raw food and pantslessness has commenced ( Read more... )

We're well into spring now, the daffodils enormous, so it is time for me to gain my first bleeding blister of the season. Uh, yeah, I was clearing this damned creeper, with one-handed clippers (and gloves on), and after the first hour I kept feeling this weird stabbing pain in my thumb, even through the gloves. In my defense, the gloves do still ( Read more... )

Now I have joint compound all over (including my butt, look, I buttered a wall seam and then leaned into it, okay?), but the closet is drywalled and mudded, with great enthusiastic incompetence, up to eye level. Above that will require pulling a couple of clips and relocating phone cables, so I desisted for now ( Read more... )

Rare non-chemistry edition ( Read more... )

I started demo of the Wrong-y Closets, and hope to do it all with only a pry-bar, mallet, and screwdriver. So far not too bad, as I discovered a shelf was being held in place only by a top board tacked down over one end (pried it off) and the angle of the roof. Each board of the shelf was glued together with layers of paint (but no primer; again, ( Read more... )