I think home improvements that come with no effort or cost are pretty great.
I live one spot down from an angled intersection. It’s the reason I have a nice deep back yard.
Behind my backyard is a house that faces out onto the other street that angles into that intersection. That house was for sale when I first looked at mine in the Spring of 2007. It has stood empty and abandoned since then. However, last week there was life. The towering grass got cut, things were power washed, and my back fence was cut down. I have not focused much attention on said fence, so here’s a picture of part of it from a photo last winter.
It’s kind of rotted and beaten up. The part that extended into Scary Neighbor’s backyard had actually fallen over and was laying flat on the ground.
It turns out that a nice retired couple bought the house (the woman, a retired pediatrician, introduced herself to me as Dr. LastName - very cute). This is great news many times over. Finally the house won’t be empty and they are my kind of neighbors - quiet and friendly. She has already invited me over for Indian cooking lessons once they are settled in.
They are fixing up all kinds of things, including the fence. Today, the new fence came. With no cost and effort on my part, my backyard just became a nicer looking place. Horay!
I am not a cleaner. I like my house clean, and I do the basics to keep it somewhat fur free and in acceptable form, but it is nothing like my Gramma’s spotless, sparkling house. I often look around and think she would be mortified if she happened to stop by.
The deeper cleaning - real floor washing, baseboard cleaning, tub scrubbing, etc - that I rarely do. When it gets desperate or when guests are coming, I’ll do it, but the time between those activities is measured in months. Seasons, really.
Thus, I decided to hire a cleaning service to come in once a month to do all that. The owner came by last week and, after scoping out the house and giving me a price said, “Well, I can see you need us now, but when would you like us to start?”
While she was here, she gave me a list of cleaning products to buy that I didn’t have. Nothing major - just comet and some scrubby pads. I stopped by the local hardware store today to get that and discovered Mrs. Meyers cleaning products.
It is not tested on animals. It’s all very eco-friendly and green. It smells amazing. It has that cool retro cartoon woman on the packages. I was intrigued. I sniffed around and decided to try some counter top cleaner and laundry detergent. The latter is an especially big deal since I have been a dedicated Tide user since I started doing my own laundry, but the basil scented Mrs. Meyers seemed really good, so I decided to give it a try.
And now, I am in love. I went back and picked up basically the full line of cleaners - scrubby stuff, all purpose cleaner, glass cleaner, dishwasher tabs, etc. It makes me want to clean. Not so much that I will cancel the monthly cleaning service, but enough that I suspect things are going to start smelling like Lemon Verbena pretty soon.
All you eco-conscious types should check this stuff out if you don’t know about it already. It works great, smells amazing, and has a very happy ingredient list. Perhaps using it will make me more like their cartoon ladies around the house.
While there hasn’t been much working going on around here on the house, I’ve been thinking about working on the house. And, if you accept “I think therefore I am” as true, then by thinking about working on the house I am working on the house.
What I’ve been thinking about specifically is the driveway and sidewalk and the front steps. The driveway needs paving / repaving. I could get blacktop, but that’s not the standard in the neighborhood and, more importantly, it’s not what I really want. While pavers would be nice, they would also be insanely expensive, I suspect. So my thoughts have turned to stamped concrete. Something like this, perhaps:
From there, I thought it might be good to do the sidewalk the same way. Right now there are a few flagstones, and they are cute. However, it gets overgrown in the summer despite my regular mowing, and I can’t (and won’t) just keep dumping weed killer on it.
So then, I think maybe I should get the front steps fixed. They have big chunks missing from the concrete and the bottom step is loose and too short. However, I have bigger ambitions for that area so I am inclined to put that part off for now.
Any thoughts on / experiences with stamped concrete?
K has been furiously nosing around the back of the shed. We haven’t seen the rat for a while, but this morning when I went back to check on her I saw the end of a tail slowly move under the shed. I didn’t know if it was a snake (which wouldn’t bother me) or the rat. I searched under there, but didn’t see anything.
This afternoon, K stopped sniffing and instead jammed her whole head and then the top of her body under the shed. Much to her dismay, I yanked her out of there to see the rat, stretched out along one of the cinder blocks, quite dead.
I still feel very bad about this, but I’m glad we found it and could bury it instead of discovering it by smell later on.
The rat had been back a few times since Friday, but we haven’t seen him since Tuesday morning.
Perhaps he’s tired of K tracking him through the garden.
Perhaps he heard my curses.
Perhaps he saw the new weapon.
(yes, it’s a pellet gun with a scope).
In reality, I wish I’d had the chance to use the gun. I’m not gun-happy, but I think it would have been a kinder fate than what likely happened. The last possibility is that he’s responsible for eating the full tray of rat decon that I placed under my shed and found empty today.
I hate decon. I think it is immoral and cruel and vicious and dangerous. It makes me ill to think about that rat eating decon - especially decon that I provided. At the same time, I’m also morally opposed to a rat getting into my house and rubbing rat nastiness all over my garden. I’d prefer not to kill the rat, but he has to go. I just wish it could have been quick and relatively painless.
On Friday evening I was chatting with my mom online. K was looking out the window and got the look on her face that all golden retrievers get when they see a creature. I figured there was a squirrel in the garden, so I peered out the window to see not a squirrel but a RAT eating my strawberries.
A RAT. IN MY YARD.
I tried to take a picture through the window, but I could only caught a photo of the tail and the back half.
I called Orkin who promised someone would either come after shift Friday night or that they would call me Saturday. Neither happened (not surprising given the previous responsiveness of my local branch) but I am still going to try to get in touch with someone there on Monday.
I kind of hoped it had left since I didn’t see it Saturday. However, K is very intent on hunting it and chased it out tonight as well. I guess the good news is that it runs away from the house, but still. I will be purchasing a pellet gun tomorrow in case my hunting dog and I can deal with this on our own.
When I was in Chicago, my mom and I ran the Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon. Since it starts bloody early (6:30am), we stayed downtown at the Hard Rock Hotel. I’m a big fan of this place. When I was unpacking today, I found my keycard.
Nothing special on front (though a $25 gift card is pretty cool). However, I found this on the back:
It’s made of bioPVC which allegedly bio-degrades in 18 months to 5 years. Do you believe it? I figured we should try it out.
Card, meet composter.
Using plastic line bought for an old trimmer, one end goes through a hole I drilled in the card, and one end gets tied to the top of the composter.
Next summer, we’ll pull it out and see how it’s looking.
For those of you who had not previously noticed, I am a scientist. These are the types of things I do for fun.
π, K, and I arrived home today from a 2 week trip to Chicago. My front yard looked like a jungle. My vegetable garden was primeval. Within half an hour of pulling into the driveway, I mowed the front lawn so my neighbors wouldn’t be mortified at how neglected the place looked. I had to take the weed whacker between rows in the garden. One of the tomato plants had leaned over and created a nasty rotten tomato mess.
Other than that, the biggest problem is that fruit flies have invaded my composter. I will be picking up some organic fly spray tomorrow to take care of that. Thankfully, during our time away there was no repeat of last year’s fridge incident.
So, we’re settling back in and, by tomorrow night, everything with dogs and jen should be back in order. We missed you, house!
Last year, my mom bought me 2 sets of 1,000 thread count sheets from Smart Bargains. I love these sheets so much. So cool and soft and thick and smooth and wonderful. I’ve looked since then, but haven’t found any more for a good price. Today, though, they were having a 25% off sale!
I picked up a set of 1,500 thread count (!) blue sheets:
Some 1,000 tc red sheets:
And a matching red duvet cover. All three items shipped to me for under $250. I’m very excited about this! Two sets of sheets is not enough. I’ve had a few evenings where one set is dirtied by a dog’s muddy paws and the other set is wet in the wash or sitting in the laundry basket. Now, I will have four luxurious options and two duvet covers in case the same problem happens with paws on the top layer.
If you want to take advantage of this goodness, go through this link - you can get free shipping and an extra 15% off (I don’t get anything for this - I’m just sharing the love).
