This is not a post about my house so much as what is in it. Friday was a very expired day for me. I live alone, so after dinner I took a swig of milk out of the carton. This milk was dated July 7th, but was VERY expired. It was gloopy. Thank goodness I spit that out in time.
Later, I went to make myself a peach soda with seltzer and some very good Bellini mix that I picked up at World Market. That apparently had also been in the fridge too long, because it tasted a bit like a wet washcloth. Unfortunately, I swallowed that before I realized what was happening.
Now, it’s about 1am, and it could be that I’m getting a cold or my body is just upset about the spoiled food, but I don’t feel so hot. I don’t get sick often, but when I feel this bad, I go for nyQuil. That is good stuff. I took my trusty bottle of red stuff out of the cabinet and, for kicks, wondered when I had last been sick enough to need this. Apparently it was a long time ago because this bottle expired in November. November of 2005. I don’t know if that goes bad, but I’m not going to risk it. It’s too bad, too, because this was the good stuff that still had the pseudoephedrine in it. I guess I’ll have to go with the more recently purchased dayQuil for now.
Last time I talked to Cabinet Guy, he told me my cabinet doors would be in on June 24th, 9 weeks after they were ordered, and 6 weeks late. I emailed him and called and left messages every day since then but, shockingly, I haven’t heard from him at all this week! I’m certain this means the cabinet doors are not here, but who knows where they are or if they have even been ordered yet.
It appears this Cabinet Guy Saga will continue well into August.
I had my contractor leave a pile of dirt for me so I could work on the grading. It’s nothing worth photographing, but I hauled a bunch of it around and properly graded the last space that was causing puddling against the house. This should really, hopefully, FINALLY keep any water from seeping in.
Here it is - all finished. I got new furniture, too, from World Market.
This is a proper time to relate the conversation Dad and I had this week:
Jen: The patio is just about done and I got some furniture for it.
Dad: Good! Now I can ask you about the Irishman in your back yard.
Jen: (panicking - what bad thing could I have done with an Irishman that he knows about?? Do I even *know* any Irish people here in the US?) What Irishman?
Dad: Come on - who could be the Irishman in your backyard??
Jen: I have no idea.
Dad: Patty.
Jen: Patty who?
Dad: Patty O’Furniture.
Yeah. I’ve been laughing about that for 3 or 4 days now.
Sunday night, I discovered these spikey things on the bottom of a leaf on a vine crawling over from my neighbor’s jungle of a yard. Any idea what they are?
Also, here in DC we have lots of evening thunderstorms in order to keep it nice and swampy all summer. When I was taking pictures of the spikes, I also caught this double rainbow (though the second one is faint).
The patio will be done on Tuesday ! You can see they are almost finished:
If you believe in ghosts, you will see that I also captured an orb in this photo. If you believe in rain, you will see I captured a raindrop.
The guys showed up at 7am, much to my surprise. I appreciate it, but I did not appreciate the grinding that started shortly thereafter. I don’t imagine my neighbors did either. In any case, there has been some really good progress and what they have done looks amazing.
I managed to snap this picture of me and the girls on the incomplete patio.
As you can see, the girls aren’t quite looking at the camera, but making them sit there was a big step.
Now - on to the time capsule. Here’s what I’ve included:
The photo above
A letter briefly describing my little history of the house and a little about myself
A receipt from my last shopping trip to Whole Foods
A dollar (because everyone likes to find money)
A coffee spoon that I stole from a hotel in Holland. I have a bunch of these, and old utensils are cool
A Victoria’s Secret catalog - I don’t have any porn nor an Amish Sex Toy, but this is kind of close.
A flash drive that has photos of the house before and after I moved in, pictures of the dogs, copies of some news websites and the current baseball standings, the apple store homepage, a bunch of MP3s, copies of a few of my papers and my CV, my facebook profile, and my university website. I hope they will actually be able to access some of that stuff.
And finally, I thought about what I’d want to find - something cool, maybe usable, displayable, and that comes with a story. Thus, I included this flute from the University of Chicago. I went there for undergrad and my masters, and for my first graduation I bought a set of 8 of these glasses to use at the party I had for my family afterward (then President Clinton spoke at that graduation). I don’t think I’ve used them since then, and I have a full set of crystal anyway, so this seemed like the perfect thing. Plus, now if anyone asks what happened to the 8th glass, I have a great story, too!
It’s all going in that Bailey’s tin. I wonder if they will be disappointed that it’s not Bailey’s they find inside.
I’m going to put the flash drive in a ziplock bag, just in case, and will probably wrap up and seal the tin in plastic as well. I still feel like there is not enough good stuff in there. I may throw in a few other things before it goes into the ground in the morning. We’ll see.
The flooding in the basement was coming in through the door frame. It was all rotted and gross, so it had to come out. There was also a big gap under the door allowing bugs in, which is completely unacceptable.
Here’s the frame of the old door. How did my inspector miss this damage? Those little black spots are mold.
Now, that’s gone. Here is the new door with a new frame to go along with the entryway MOM and I put in a couple weeks ago:
The style is exactly the same, but this one is steel instead of wood, insulated, and properly sealed. Aaaahhhh…no more water worries and no more bug worries.
