Between Thanksgiving and Christmas I furnished my living room because I was tired of sitting on my bed with my laptop perched on my knees to freeload WiFi, watch DVDs, read, knit etc. I wanted a proper place to sit since it was going to be at least 3 more months before construction begins. I knew I'd have space for this stuff in my storage unit when the time came. Here's the living room full of holiday cheer:
Here's the best pic I have of the outside all decked for the holidays:
The first weekend after the new year will forever live in my memory as The Great Flood of '08. The bay area had a whopper of a storm (actually, 3 storms back-to-back-to-back) that flooded lots of places, knocked down redwoods in Marin, killed power to hundreds of thousands of people, and generally wreaked havoc. That Friday was my first day train commuting (my new year's resolution). As I drove home through Atherton, it was quite dark. I passed a street closed down by PG&E--my neighborhood was without power. In fact, most of RWC was without power, including the shopping center across the street where I was going to venture to acquire some candles and a flashlight. Instead, I decided to go to my storage unit since I knew there was a box labeled "candles" readily accessible. Thankfully they had power, but they also had water. I opened my unit (3rd floor with 2 exterior walls) to find my TV and several boxes sitting in a large puddle of water.
I immediately called Mrs. Blanco since she also has a unit on the 3rd floor. She informed me that her yard (in my neighborhood) was under 12" of water because their sump pump can't do it's job without power. At that point I knew I was in trouble at home, but first I had to resolve this minor flood.
I called Kat to see if I could pull a major favor from them and have them come help me move into a new unit. She in turn called Axt and he and his lady Susan rolled over to pitch in too. I have GREAT peeps in my life!!! Blancos, Inneses, Axt and Susan, mom and I set about moving everything into a new unit, which is happily on the first floor, but unhappily, is smaller than my current unit. Putting off facing what was waiting at home, I took everyone out to dinner as a small gesture of my great appreciation for what they did for me.
After that, I went home and found Great Lake RWC in my crawlspace. I had a sneaking suspicion that the submersible pump I found in the shed at the close of escrow meant this would happen, so I was not totally surprised. However, I WAS surprised at how much water I proceeded to pump out of the crawlspace over the next 2 days (the three storms didn't give the ground enough time to drain). I'm fully aware that this issue will be resolved during construction--adequate gutters, french drain, sump pump etc will all prevent this from being a long term problem.
However, all that water must have triggered a massive growth of mold because I've been plagued by a hideous amount of snot for the past two weeks.
Last Saturday I was vacuuming and got totally frustrated by my vacuum's poor performance on hard floors that I went out and bought a new one:
Notice how full the canister is after one pass of my whole house. I have a very hairy feline. Hopefully the new Dyson will help reduce her impact on my allergies since the mold is definitely doing a fine job on it's own (again, I am NOT freaking out about this since the house is going to be gutted in approx 2 months!).Last Sunday I attended a rose pruning seminar hosted by my local garden center. I immediately came home and pruned my roses that definitely have not been properly pruned in many years. Here's how they look after I was finished with them:
The adorably crusty old man who taught the seminar said that I will likely lose the really thick woody part of the climbing floribunda, but to leave it for this season and let new canes sprout from the base (oops! Mom thought those were suckers and pruned them the first weekend here!). The tea rose has also been poorly pruned, so I'm hoping some new canes sprout up this year and I'll be able to bring it back into a normal shape at pruning time next year.I fertilized and spread a preemergent weedkiller today and will spray them with copper and horticultural oil next weekend (rain in the forecast for Monday) to see if I can help prevent rust and mildew issues.
Alright, this brings me up to the current week. I figured out how to use my work phone as an internet connection, so I can use the computer anyplace in my house. yay!
Also, I got the drawings from Remy's QC on Friday. SOOO EXCITED! They sent over one version of the floorplan exactly as it is now, and one with a lot of walls knocked out so that I may doodle all over it. We're meeting Tuesday evening to go over it and move forward. It's pretty exciting to finally be doing something that feels like progress. I'll see if I can figure out how to get the drawings up here so y'all can give me some suggestions.
