Tag Archives: update

The Mood: Good Grief

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If it ain’t one thing, it’s something else. That’s what my Granny used to say. Now I say it because it’s true. I swear, every time I think things are looking up, we get slapped with more bad luck.

The stupid car is….well, stupid. We’ve had to call AAA 3 times in the last month. We just don’t use it enough to keep the battery charged. So, now if we aren’t going anywhere, I start the car up and waste gas letting it run for 30 minutes twice a day. It seems to be doing the trick. The a/c went out again and that cost us a pretty penny to fix! Last summer, they replaced the evaporator. This time, the compressor had to be replaced. Both times, the bill was around $1100. That came out of our new house money!!

I despise being without wheels! The last time, it was 3 weeks before Dad called AAA. I got so behind on taking the trash up to the dumpster, that my laundry room was stuffed full of trash! I couldn’t even do laundry! I have been taking trash up slowly. I don’t have the energy to drag it all to the door and then load it all in the trunk – not that it would all fit – and do it all in one day! What’s left now, aside from the 2 bags we have normally each week, are cardboard boxes that I’ve broken down. It’s amazing how much trash we (just Dad and I) accumulate each week!

Anyway…

The new house is at a stand-still, yet again. We are waiting for Contractor #3 to be available to help us with cabinetry. It’s a very busy time of the year. We are getting antsy. I am getting to where I just can’t do all this walking. I need to be able to use my wheelchair more than I can in this old house. The new house will have more room. The new house will not have any steps! This old house has just one step (6-inch, I believe) that leads to the bathroom. I have a 3-inch riser but it can still be a real bitch since we can’t use wheelchairs to get up there! I can’t wait to get to the point that we can move into the new house! Even if we don’t have a complete kitchen (cabinets cost money and we have a tight budget going into the project) it will still be livable and I can deal with that.

Dad is doing well these days, considering what he’s been through. He uses a walker most days but this past week, he’s been using his cane more and sometimes goes without anything at all! He doesn’t like the idea of taking the walker out in public, (can’t say I blame him) so he uses his cane. He keeps up with his exercises and his appetite is getting better. I wish he could eat more in one sitting but he just can’t eat that much before he’s full. Like I said though, his appetite is improving and that’s a good thing.

Signing off until next Spring…No, I’m kidding. I just don’t know when I’ll post again because life just keeps getting in the way.

Until next time,

Update. Holy Hell. Where To Start?

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Since I can’t get in touch with Contractor #2, I have reached out to Contractor #3. He has given us a reasonable bid on the little things that still need to be done in the new house. I think he feels sorry for us because of what happened last Wednesday night. Let me tell you the story:

It was around 11:45 pm and I was thinking about getting settled in my lift chair for the night. Alice was sleeping in Dad’s chair as she does most nights after Dad goes to bed. I just happened to look up and notice she was staring at the wall. She decided to jump down, and as soon as her front paws hit the floor, the ceiling just above the chair fell in! Yes, you read that right. The ceiling FELL IN, and all I could do was scream. There was dust from the old insulation everywhere. I couldn’t breathe. I had to get out of there! Old, decaying wood pieces and ceiling paint all over the place. My cats are all fine. They skidaddled out of there so fast, you’d have never known they were even there! I’m just thankful that Dad had already gone to bed.

Dad didn’t sleep a wink that night. I had nowhere else to sleep but my chair. I wore a mask to keep from breathing in any ick while I slept. I never saw Jack or Alice until the next day. BobCat slept in my lap. Every time he woke up, I woke up. He was always looking at the wide open HOLE in our ceiling. There was a small rat or a big mouse that kept running back and forth on the wall edge of the hole. BobCat and I watched him several times during the night. I kept the TV and my lamp on, thinking it would keep the critter movement at a minimum. I sure didn’t want any rat-mice falling through the hole!

The next morning, Thursday, I texted Contractor #3 and sent him a photo. I asked him if he could help us. He said he’d be there that day, and he was here in an hour. He brought his crew, and they hauled off all the debris. They even vacuumed! Before they left, they covered the hole with plywood. Bless his heart, he didn’t charge us a dime!

Here’s what it looked like after it caved in. The wall has been cracking and shifting for quite some time, so it was just a matter of time before this happened. Dad would be in the hospital or worse if he had been sitting there.

Here’s the after photo:

Don’t mind Dad. He’s bent over, putting all of his “stuff” back into the disarray it was before. I swear, all he could worry about was his “stuff,” and I told him that his “stuff” should be the least of his worries.

Contractor #3 is coming this Thursday or Friday to work on our new house. It’s good to be able to count on someone to help us when we need help.

As soon as the little things in the new house are finished, we’ll know how much we have to spend on kitchen cabinets, sink, and countertop. I know it won’t be a complete kitchen right away, and that’s ok because I have been through hell in this old house, so I know I can survive without a completed kitchen!

Until next time,

The Outhouse and Update

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Funny, not funny… More like embarrassing, disgusting, depressing, and irritating!

Several months ago, our toilet decided it was going to spring a teeny-tiny, itty-bitty, slooow water leak. Contractor #1 tried to fix it, thought he had fixed it, in fact. It was not fixed. We were going to have Contractor #1 look at it again, but we never saw him after that. That was in May, I believe.

In June, we were hopeful that Contractor #1 would be coming to work on the house and that we would ask him to look at the toilet leak again. We didn’t know at the time that he had no intention of coming back, so we just waited and put up with the water leak. It was very slow, after all. Then the freakin’ toilet decided it wasn’t going to flush anymore. I turned off the water to the toilet at this point. We used a pitcher of water to flush the damn toilet after that.

Dad fell and had a heat stroke in July. Up until then, I expected Dad to find another contractor to finish the house. It’s his money so it’s his responsibility, right? He should be making the decisions and hiring people because I know nothing about building a house and hiring people. I don’t know what’s a fair price to pay for this or for that. But now, it was up to me. Dad was in the hospital and didn’t come home until the beginning of August. By then, I had made arrangements to get the car fixed: alignment, new tires, and a/c. It was in serious bad shape! With the help of Other Daughter, I even found Contractor #2, who has finished up the house nicely! (Update at the end of this post.) I decided that, as big a pain in the huge royal ass it is, we can suffer with the toilet having to be flushed with a pitcher of water, because why spend the money on a new toilet or whatever would need to be done when we would be in the new house soon? That would be money better spent on the new house!

So, here we are, mid-November. We are still flushing with a pitcher of water. The bathroom always stinks like an outhouse. It’s like having an inside outhouse! I hate it! I hate it when someone comes over! Even close friends and family. I light candles (good candles) when I think someone is coming. When we move to the new house, it’s going to be weird having a flushable toilet! There are many things we’ll have to get used to. That might make an interesting post later on!

Anyway, the house is nearly ready for move-in. The HVAC is the last big thing left to do. The HVAC guy is always busy, but he said we are on his schedule for next week. Fingers crossed. Hmm… Maybe kitchen cabinets are actually the last big thing we’ll have to do. IF IF IF we have any money left over, that is. Even if we can’t get all the cabinets we want, we’ll make the kitchen usable. I can deal with it, being that it is a much better situation than this old dump of a house we are in now. We also need to go pick out a stove and a stove hood. I have some new furniture that needs to be put together, too. My new medicine cabinet needs to be hung in the bathroom. There are a few little things to be done that may or may not wait until we move in.

Of course, there’s still the flooring and trim that have to be done later. If we had done it after painting the interior, as most people do, it would have taken at least $6,000 for vinyl planking, plus labor! That would have taken a lot out of our funds, and we definitely wouldn’t be as far along as we are now. Nothing wrong with plywood floors for now. 

When the day comes that we will be moving into the new house, we can finally say goodbye to the inside outhouse! I can’t wait! (It gets old after a while!)

It’s a busy time of the year, friends. Pay attention and wear your seatbelt!

Until next time,

New House Update

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Well, folks… The interior of the new house has been painted and it looks great! I forgot to take photos the last time I was out there because my daughter and her crew came for an unexpected visit. I took them out to see the house because they hadn’t seen it in such “nearly finished” condition.

It’s time to pick out flooring and we decided a while back that we were going to use vinyl plank flooring. We also decided on a “wood look” but not too dark and not too light. Well… That shit is expensive! Anywhere from $4000 to $6000 for the flooring and not counting labor. Holy crap. Dad wants to go to Lowe’s to look at the flooring in person because it’s hard to choose online. Going to Lowe’s would be fine except for the fact that the a/c in our car doesn’t work and it’s an hour drive from our house! When we go out, even if it’s just a curbside order at Walmart, Dad gets overly tired and over heated so he ends up falling at some point after we get home.

A couple of weeks ago, Dad fell 3 times in one day! He fell last night while getting ready for bed. One of these times, he’s going to get hurt. I worry about him so much. I desperately need the house finished and my sister here to help me. I’m trying to be patient.

Nothing else new here; My furbabies are fine and still pains in my you-know-what, I’m still amongst the living, and I’m…still…crazy. Hahaha!

This and That

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The house is coming along slowly. I wish it were going faster because I am missing or have missed some good sales on appliances, cabinets, and many other things. I can’t get anything until the drywall is up and the flooring is down. Then I can measure and decide what to get and actually have a place to put it. I have nowhere to store anything!! Ugh! I know. I’m trying to be patient. Really, I am.

Last night, I was working a jigsaw puzzle in the kitchen and listening to an audiobook when all of a sudden, there was a huge crash in the living room. All 3 cats shot out of the living room and went into hiding! Scared the living shit out of everyone. It was Dad. Poor thing fell down. He’s ok but it sure sounded like he landed hard. He took my fan down with him and spilled his meds all over the room. I had a hell of a time getting him off the floor. I told him if he would stop being stubborn and use his cane, he could avoid falling, at least cut the number of falls down. The next time he got up he was using his cane. Today, not so much. Still stubborn. I guess that’s where I get it.

I decided to take my chances and purchase a LegXercise machine. I know it won’t help my pain or mobility issues. Please don’t insist that it will, like so many people do, because I know more about my issues than anyone else. Anyway, I primarily bought the LegXercise machine to help the circulation in my legs. It’s not painful to use, but I am feeling a bit of added pain after using it for 2 days. I started at twice a day for 15 minutes each time. Today, I did it once for 15 minutes.

I’m going to try my hand this week sometime at making homemade enchilada sauce and salsa. I’ve made salsa before but it’s been a long, long time. The enchilada sauce will be a new experience. Thanks to a dear friend, I have a tried and true recipe to try! Wish me luck!

It appears that Old Man Winter isn’t finished with us just yet. Snow in the forecast this week will slow work on the house again. Thankfully, we have propane and we don’t have to go anywhere.

That’s it for today, friends. Be good, be safe, and try not to strangle your MAGA neighbors for they know not what they have done!