The past few weeks, I have been doing cleanup–taking out dead plants, weeding, dividing perennials, etc. Fun stuff. Fall cleanup in the township is next week, so I’m trying to wrap things up by then.
The weather has been pretty nice so far this month. We’ve had a few days in the 80s this week. Unfortunately, it’s getting dark at 7:30pm so that doesn’t give me much time outside in the evenings, but I’ll take what I can get before the snow flies.
Ever since we bought our house 14 years ago, we’ve always intended on living out our days here. That said, I’ve always enjoyed looking at the properties in the paper and fantasizing about my dream house (that is, a house with more room and with a lot more land). I got away from that habit whenever we canceled our subscription to the newspaper. However, I started thinking about real estate again recently and did a search online for available properties. I found what I thought was the perfect place for us and it totally got me thinking about moving. I showed it to Brian and he was on board as well. The only problem was that our house isn’t quite paid off yet and it would need to be in order to make the upgrade in properties.
We drove past the property a few times to check it out and things looked pretty good. After obsessing about this for the past two months, we decided to make an appointment to check the place out, which we did yesterday. I have to say I was a little underwhelmed. The actual property is great–lots of room, but the house needs more work than I expected or want to do. So, while I’m not entirely ruling this place out, it’s probably not going to work out. That said, I’m going to keep my eyes open and see if anything else pops up. Realistically speaking we won’t be ready to buy until next year anyway.
I am really glad that we went to see it, though. If someone else would have bought it I would have thought that I missed out on my dream house, but now that I know that isn’t the case, I’ll be able to sleep at night.
We met up with Brian’s parents and our niece for the Steelers game this afternoon (which is why we were planning on spending the night in Pittsburgh last night). We had lunch at Max and Erma’s and then went to the game. It was a pretty nice day for football, weather-wise.
Due to the Lizzy situation, Brian and I only stayed until halftime. It wasn’t that great of a game, so I didn’t feel too bad about leaving early. Jake was able to stay on for the rest of the game, though.
Speaking of Lizzy, she’s about the same as yesterday–maybe a little better, definitely not worse. I have to call the vet on Monday or Tuesday with an update, so we’ll see what he says. I’m hoping to have something positive to report by then.
We were supposed to go to Pittsburgh this morning, do some stuff, and spend the night (a mini-vacation, if you will). However, when we woke up this morning, Lizzy was having problems getting around (she was 100% fine last night). It was pretty obvious that the problem was with her back. So, we canceled our plans, called the vet, and went to our appointment.
They took x-rays and found out that she has two herniated disks. Left untreated, it could lead to paralysis, which would not be a good thing. The vet gave her a steroid shot and sent her home with some steroid pills. We should see some improvement with her by tomorrow and if there’s no improvement by Monday, we’ll likely be making another trip to the vet. Let’s hope that is not the case.
Holy crap–what a busy weekend! It’s my own fault, but it couldn’t be helped. I really would have liked to have participated in some of the events the weekend had to offer, but that was just not in the cards for us this year.
I think I mentioned a while ago that we have leaky bathroom pipes at the office. I was able to apply a temporary fix, but all of the drain pipes for the main bathroom need to be replaced. We’re going to have someone do that for us, but before we can schedule that, we have to remodel the basement bathroom so that there’s a bathroom we can all use while the work is being done. Labor Day weekend seemed like the best time to do that because we haven’t had time up to this point, the rest of the month is going to be busy, and it’s a three day weekend.
Friday kind of set the tone for the weekend. Right after work, we went to Lowe’s to buy supplies for the project. After dropping off said supplies at the office, it was practically bedtime until we got home.
Saturday was even more crazy. The intention was to start working on the bathroom in the morning, but we had to get a proposal out for work. The proposal was done, but I had to pick it up at the Staples print shop and then mail it. Brian got things together at the office while I went to Staples. I got to the post office (in the Bel Air Plaza) 10 minutes before they were supposed to be closed and they were closed. Nice. So, I ran up to the UPS Store and was able to mail it from there. Of course, it was lunchtime by this point. So, we got a late start. I didn’t stay for very long because Brian was doing plumbing and there wasn’t anything I could do, so I went home and finished my laundry and did a few other things.
We went to church Saturday evening and then came home and had supper. Family Movie Night was scheduled for the evening, but there were a lot of other things that needed to be accomplished–putting away the laundry and bottling wine were the two most pressing issues. Since Jake wanted to watch the movie, he helped with both. After that, I got all of the bottles cleaned and sanitized for the wine and we bottled it (2 batches–strawberry and pacific quartet). Jake was the official bottle corker. We finished just in time to watch the movie. We started much later than usual, but that just made it more fun.
Sunday was more of the same. We got up, went to the office, and worked on the bathroom. By this point, we were a little behind according to the mythical schedule in my head, but the toilet was half-installed and Brian didn’t have any issues with the plumbing the previous day, so we’ll call it a winner. Brian’s parents had invited us over for a cookout that evening, so at least we got to enjoy a little bit of the weekend. Plus, we came home with a bounty of leftovers that covered our lunch (and my breakfast) for today.
Today, we did the same as yesterday and went to the office in the morning. We hit a few snags so we’re not where I’d like to be at this point, but we got through them and I think we’re in good shape to completely finish the project by the end of the month. The good news is that we now have a second working toilet in the office, so the other plumbing project can occur at any time. The bad news is that we have one more snag to figure out, but I don’t think it will be too difficult to overcome. At this point, the floor is mostly in, one of the walls is paneled, and a new light and switch have been installed. What’s left is to finish installing the floor, install the remaining paneling, install the sink and vanity, fir out the ceiling, install ceiling tiles, and install the trim. It sounds like a lot (now that I’ve listed it), but the sink and vanity will be a piece of cake (the only reason they are not in at this point is that they’d be in the road). The same goes for the trim and the remaining floor–easy. The paneling won’t be too bad, but we do have an issue with one of the walls, which is our remaining snag. The ceiling tiles will likely be time-consuming, but not difficult. So, there’s a lot of work left, but at least we got off to a good start this weekend, Labor Day.