Cracks & Calories

Here I am, wide awake at 5:00 am on a Sunday.  That's not particularly unusual for me.  The problem is that today that's 4:00 am since last night was Fall Back.  Maybe I'll take a nap this afternoon.

I thought I'd post a couple pictures of some of the foundation-related cracks in my house.   This is the ceiling in my master bathroom.  Not only is the ceiling cracked, but it goes down that corner and cracks the grout at the top of the shower stall.  And in the second picture you can kind of see that the cracks extend across the whole bathroom ceiling.  The third picture is the corner of the window in the sun room.  It's hard to wait 2 - 3 months for the house to finish settling to get them repaired.  Considering that the slab leak repairs will probably cause more damage needing repair, it's probably just as well to wait and have everything repaired together though.  I currently have a two page list of everything that needs to be repaired.  Now I just need to decide whether to have the repairs done in December or wait until after the holidays.  I'm leaning toward December, but we'll see.

I gave up on those little pine trees I was growing.  I have SUCH a brown thumb.  No matter what I've tried, they continue to seem to be dying.  Give them more water, give them less water, re-pot them (twice!).  The needles keep turning yellow, then brown and that's spreading up the little trees.   So this week I put them outside.  They're pine trees, so they should be able to live outside, and I figured if they're going to live at all, their chances are better out in the elements, than under my tender loving care.   Poor things.  It it weren't for cacti and wandering jews, I suspect I couldn't grow any plants at all.    

I did plant the three remaining peach tree seedlings out into the yard.  The oldest one was looking pretty bad, so we'll see if being planted in the ground will allow it to survive.  The other two seem happy enough.  I won't believe in their overall survival until they leaf out next Spring though.  I haven't replaced any of the shrubbery that died from the foundation work yet.  I figured I'd wait until the slab leak guys finish digging up the place and then replace everything that needs it.  

I haven't been able to go nine months without drinking alcohol.  *laughing*  I sound like an alcoholic, but I'm not.  I'm not even much of a drinker - basically never drink at home - but when I'm out socially, I do like an occasional drink.  So since I've been lucky enough to have zero side effects from the INH (TB drug) I'm taking, I have had three drinks now since the first week in September.  Two half glasses of wine and one beer.  I'm counting on my liver to be able to handle that much alcohol along with the INH, but I'm not going to push it much more than that.  After November, I won't be traveling for work much for several months, so I won't be in those social occasions where I most like to have a drink.    

I am traveling the next two weeks though.  A BOD meeting in Washington DC next week, then I'm going to give a talk in Florida the following week.  Then the third week in November is when they're coming to fix my slab leaks.  Then Thanksgiving.  I think November is going to fly past even faster than the rest of the year has.  Which is scary, considering how fast the rest of the year has passed.

Besides the usual cohort of sparrows, I have a flock of 12 mourning doves under my bird feeders this morning.  I hung a second feeder out there because they were going through one feeder so fast.  The sparrows and doves are the only birds I'm seeing out there lately. And only the mourning doves - no white-winged doves.

I destroyed my diet yesterday by going out to eat with a friend.  It was worth it though.  I'll have to be extra good today to make up for some of those calories.  I'm really not very strict on this diet.  I don't pay much attention to what I eat except I've pretty much stopped eating any fast food, and don't drink cokes except very rarely.  Plus I began eating yogurt and fruit.  Other than that I just watch portion sizes and keep track of overall calories.  In June when I got serious about it, I set my calorie limit to 1400 per day.  In the month of June I averaged 1404 calories per day.  In July, I averaged 1356/day.  In August it was 1303/day.  September - 1233/day and October 1188/day.  So I've been steadily decreasing my calorie intake just by keeping track.

I have this cool little app on my phone called FatSecret Calorie Counter that lets me keep track easily of calorie intake and expenditure.  I need to stop decreasing my overall calories soon though or I won't be taking in enough to keep someone my size healthy.   


I guess that's about it for today.

Shopping

I really should get rid of my Internet connection.  Except that I would be lost without it.  So why am I saying that?  I have been shopping almost non-stop for the last month and much of it has been online shopping.  

Partly my shopping has been because I've been depressed about various things (house issues and health issues).  When I'm depressed, nothing cheers me up like spending money.  Unfortunately, that's especially true if my depression is related to money issues!  So that's partly it, but the other part of it is that I'm doing a good job losing weight.  I'm now 20 pounds lighter than my peak weight!  That's wonderful and I'm enjoying my new weight, but the downside is that literally NONE of my clothes fit me.  Pants fall off unless I cinch them up with a belt, and then they and my tops look like I'm wearing bags.  I've gone shopping at the stores, but  often cannot find styles I like.  So I'm doing a lot of my shopping online.

If I were restricting it to clothes shopping, this rationalization would work better.   Truthfully, I'm just shopping.  On top of that, this time of year is when I usually do my Christmas shopping.  I get more than 10 catalogs a day in the mail, and I shop for Christmas presents.  This year the family decided to only gift the grand-kids, so that shopping outlet is not available to me.  When I hit a shopping mood like this, it doesn't matter very much who I'm buying for, as long as I'm buying stuff.  

Yup, they call that an addiction.  I'm going to need to work on reining it in a bit.  At least until my credit cards stop smoking. 

I'm beginning to get irritated with my newspaper delivery.  I've had to call 4 of the last 5 Sundays because my papers weren't delivered.  Looks like today is going to be the same again.  Considering what I pay for delivery, that's unacceptable.  And irritating.  I try to give him the benefit of the doubt and wait as long as I can, but if I don't call it in by 9:00 am, I don't get today's paper delivered.  Ah!  Just got them.  8:20 am.  He's pushing it.

I scheduled the plumbers to come and fix my leaks.  They'll be here the week before Thanksgiving, and expect it to take 3 - 4 days to complete.  So that will be my November expensive project.  They'll need to go through the floor in my guest bedroom to repair one leak.  That'll involve pulling the carpet back.  I talked them into trying to get to the leak under the master bathroom shower from the outside.  They said they would try that first, so I don't know whether I'll have to replace the bathroom tiles or not.  The third leak is not under the house, so they'll simply have to dig up my front lawn and shrubbery (again) to get to that one.  Then my December expensive project will be to have someone put my house back together.  Repair and repaint all the cracks, re-stretch the carpet and re-tile the bathroom if necessary.   Hopefully that will then be the last of the house-disruptive work I'll have to have done.  I hope anything I do in the future will be cosmetic and intentional.

I went to Lowe's yesterday and they no longer carry the grout they used when they put in my bathroom floor last year.  So if I do have to have that floor repaired I'm going to have to try to match the grout they used.  That'll be a pain.  Do you know how many different colors of off-white/beige there are?

I guess that's all for today.

Plumbers

The plumbers are here today to find my leaks.  Not to fix them.  That's the next plumbing appointment.  Today they're here to figure out how many there are and to locate them.  I'm finding out two things.  One, I'm not very patient, waiting to hear the bad news, and the longer they're here the more anxious I get.  And two, I should have thought more about drinking all that coffee this morning.  I didn't consider that my water would be off for the duration of this process, and my teeth are beginning to float.

So far what I know is that I have three sewer line leaks.  Those alone are going to run me about $5000.00 to repair, and will involve losing about 4 tiles out of the master bath floor for one of them.  The other two they can go through the floor under carpeting.  Luckily, no damage to my wood floors is planned so far.  

Right now they're working on the water lines.  The guys who did my plumbing checks said I have both water and sewer line leaks, so I imagine they'll find more leaks to fix.   Can you say, sucky inspection?  Oh.  I've said that before, haven't I?

The picture today is of the wandering jew I'm growing.  This is the plant that I started when I picked up two ragged pieces of it off the floor of Lowe's and put them in dirt when I got home.  As you can see it's an easy plant to grow.  This one is getting out of hand though.  I think I'll probably take off these long runners and pot them in another pot.  Maybe hang them outside to grow.  

OMG.  NO water line leaks in the house!!!!  Apparently I had slow seeps in two of my toilets that caused the meter to register like water line leaks.  The plumbers replaced the washers in the toilet cutoffs and there are now no more leak indications in the house.  They did say that somewhere in my sprinkler system it's leaking a bit, but I can get sprinkler system people to come and find that sometime.  When the sprinkler system is shut off, the house shows no leaks at all now.

So they're gone now and after all that, it's still going to cost me roughly $5000.00 to fix the sewer leaks and it's going to be disruptive in my house.  But it's not worse than that and it could have been.  I'll just add replacing those four bathroom tiles to the home repairs that need to be done to repair the foundation-caused cracks.  I have tiles left from having that floor put in a year ago.  I'll just have to match the grout. 

And along the way today I learned how and where to shut off the water to my house should I ever need to, and how and where to shut off the water to my sprinkler system.  And I got leaking toilet washers replaced for free.  Or anyway, thrown in with the fee for locating the leaks. So not too bad of a day, all told.

I'm getting kind of used to spending thousands of dollars for work on this house every month now.   Maybe I should just continue on after I get the crack-etc work done and tackle a project each month.  Like new windows. And new blinds for the windows.  And sprinkler system repair. I'm sure I can find other projects too.

Anyway, that's it for today.  I'll let you know how the actual plumbing repairs go. 

Finally - October and new car pictures

I have to say, I'm glad to start a new month.  I just feel like things are going to look up now.

I finally took some pictures of the new car, so here it is.  This car is so fun to drive.  Although the car really doesn't like how I drive in heavy traffic.  I'm ending up talking to this car much more than I talked to my other cars, mostly reassuring it when it fusses at me (gives me collision warnings). "yes, I see that car", "yes, yes, I'll signal when I change lanes"  "Oh come on, I'm not that close!"  etc, etc.  I could turn the cameras off, but that wouldn't be nearly as fun.  And actually, the warnings are not because of the distance between me and the other car, they're because of the difference in our speeds.  So if I'm accelerating toward the car ahead of me in preparation for changing lanes to go around it, the warnings go off.  Or if another car crosses the road ahead of me, the warnings go off.  So it's mostly the difference in speed between us rather than the distance between us that sets it off.  The car is also very responsive and has lots of bells and whistles (which of course I don't play with while I'm driving).  It's just overall a pleasure to drive.

One thing has already looked up.  I thought I was going to have to call an electrician at the house, on top of everything else.  I went to put some drinks in the frig in the garage on Wednesday and it was dead!  As in, dark and hot.  And smelled like a dead refrigerator. I'm glad I really didn't have any food in there to speak of. I think for the most part it doesn't hurt beverages to get hot and then cold again.

Anyway, I figure the foundation guys probably did this. After investigating, it turns out it's not the frig, it's that circuit that is blown.  I tried flipping all my breakers, and nothing made it come back. So I plugged the frig into the house with an extension cord. Luckily the door into the garage mostly closed over the cord. I say the foundation guys did it because they had been using the outlet outside my front door the first day they were there. Then the second day they had their extension cord running through the bedroom window and told me that the outlet by the front door didn't work. I also noticed that day that the boxes next to the garage frig were pulled out, so they must have tried using that outlet in the garage when the one out front failed, before they went through the bedroom window to an outlet. In their defense, they may not have realized that frig was running before that circuit blew, and they did tell me the one in front was out.  I certainly never thought to check the frig. I just pushed those boxes back in place. So it was down from September 17th until October 3rd. 

Anyway, I was telling the frig story at work on Thursday and one of my friends asked if I had pushed all those GFCI buttons on the outlets in the house.  I looked at her with a completely blank expression, and she said, "you know, the red buttons on the outlets. In my house the circuits are linked funny, so when one blows in the garage, I push the red button on the outlet in my guest bathroom to reset it."  I'll be damned. I never even thought about what those red buttons are for. So when I got home I went looking, and sure enough, the outlet that the frig was plugged into in the garage has one of those GFCI buttons! I pushed it, and everything is back to working normally. I owe my friend so big time. She saved me from paying for a electrician service call and looking like a fool. So not having to call an electrician is a serious mark in the positive column for the month.  

And another positive:  I got an email from the head guy at the foundation company to call him regarding the plumbing check results.  I figured he wanted to tell me that I should fix the leaks or they could cause future foundation problems, or that their company wasn't liable for them.  So when I called him, I started out assuring him that I would get the leaks fixed, etc, etc.  He said, "all that's fine, but not why I wanted you to call."  He told me that most plumbing companies in this area charge $300 per foot of tunneling if they have to tunnel to fix leaks.  He said if they have to tunnel to fix my leaks, to call him.  He and his guys would come and do the tunneling for $150 per foot.  I was really amazed.  It's not like these guys are not busy and just need extra work.  And they didn't have to offer this at all.  So I appreciate the offer and will take him up on it if I need to.  Yes, $150/foot is expensive, but it's half what the plumbers will charge me.  

So a few things are moving my way.  Now if they can find the leaks easily this coming week and it doesn't cost me a fortune to have them fixed, I'll know my luck has finally turned.

Isn't September done yet!?

*sigh*  The rest of September has continued to be as bad luck for me as the first part was, so I'm happy to note there's only two days left in this month, counting today.  For this post I threw in more pictures of my continued close encounter with the sorghum.  I wonder when in this progression sorghum is usually harvested?  Anyway, where to start with the bad luck stories . . . 

Maybe with some good news.  My foundation has been repaired.  It took them 3 and half days to dig 23 holes, place 23 piers and lift the house.  Considering the amount of work it took, I'm pleased to report that you almost can't tell I had it done.  The guys were great, replacing the shrubbery and even filling in the hole in the patio (replacing the patio concrete) that they jack-hammered through in one place.  I left to attend a meeting when the place looked like a war zone, so I was very pleased when I got back.  I'm still gonna lose about 5 holly shrubs I think that aren't recovering from being uprooted for 3.5 days, but overall it looks good.  In the first post picture you can see the three holly's in the front of the house that probably won't survive, the ones with the brownish look.  The internal cracks in the house are another story.  Two of them closed up, but my master bathroom had large cracks come up across the whole ceiling when they lifted the house.  I'll have to get all that repaired, but they told me to wait a couple months before repairing any cracks.

That's the good news.  The continuing bad luck is that the post-foundation-work plumbing checks sucked, big time.  I have leaks in my sewer lines and water lines and probably in my sprinkler system.  Yup.  I figure it's a combination of foundation work and existing problems because I've always thought the water bills were too high in this house.  I just had nothing to compare them to.  Can you say "really sucky inspection" when I bought this place?   Anyway, I have plumbers coming out in another week and a half to locate all the leaks and then tell me what it's going to cost me to have them all repaired.  If I'm living right, they'll be able to do the repairs from the outside.  If my September luck spills over into October, they'll have to go through the foundation in the house to repair them.  Either way, it'll cost me roughly $600 just for them to find the leaks,so I'm not even going to guess what the repair cost will be.

On the medical front my bad luck is somewhat continuing too.  I had to get a measles-mumps-rubella shot because my blood work came up that I wasn't immune to one of them (can't remember which).  This last week I had a reaction to the shot.  I had a full body measles-like rash and joints so stiff and painful that I had trouble getting up and down.  Luckily it only lasted two days and then went away.  But early this month I began having excruciating pain in my right knee, but only at night.  It was waking me up every night, but during the day it didn't bother me.  It seemed to be starting to go away, but after the shot-reaction, the right knee pain is back in full force.  And it's bad enough at night that the knee is sore all day now, with some minor swelling. I suppose I'm going to have to find a new primary care physician and make an appointment.  I was hoping it would clear up on it's own.

Good news on the medical front, the new dentist is great.  I had an appointment with the guy recommended by my old dentist, and I like him and the hygienist who worked on me.  Other good news medically, I'm not having any side-effects at all from the TB drug *knocks on wood*. 

So that's been my September.  See why I'm ready for it to be over.  I'm hoping for better luck next month.  This last picture is Zoe.  She likes to sleep between the two quilts on my bed, so this cat-sized lump is her.  It's kind of a metaphor for what I wish I could have done this last month - hide from everything.   If I'm searching for a silver lining though, at least when all this is done I shouldn't have to worry about any more major house issues.  *knocks on wood again*  



   

Bad luck month

You know the old saying about if it weren't for bad luck you'd have no luck at all?  Usually I ignore that saying because as a general rule I'm one of the luckiest people on the planet.  September has NOT followed my general rule!  Seriously not.  

It started on Labor Day as I was doing general house cleaning, and began noticing many more cracks inside this house in places that hadn't shown cracks before.  So I bit the bullet and called two foundation companies to come and check the place out that first week of September.  I found out that the left front corner of the house is four inches lower than the center and the left rear corner is two inches lower.  The bottom line is that it's going to cost me $8000.00 to fix my foundation.  On a house I've lived in just over a year.  Can you say, bad inspection? *sigh*  What can you do?  It has to be fixed.  So that foundation work will start Monday. 

I've already mentioned that I bought a car the last Saturday in August.  A really cool car that's a blast to drive, by the way.  But anyway, on September 4th, (car not two weeks old yet) I took a rock to the windshield, which proceeded to form a crack about a foot and a half across the windshield.  *sobbing quietly*  My new car!!!!    Luckily my insurance covered it, but I had to order the new windshield from the dealership because the car is so new (2014), nobody had the windshield for it.  The windshield was replaced yesterday, so the car is like new again.

Okay, saving probably the worst for last -  my TB test came back positive.  Yes, positive.  I had them repeat it to confirm.  I'm not sick, I have no symptoms, my chest x-ray is clear, but because I've always had negative TB tests before, they say I'm a "new converter" and I have a latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI).  So somewhere along the way between last November and this August, I picked up TB.  Luckily, LTBI is not infectious.  You can't give TB to anyone with it (thank God, since I've been around my not-so-well parents).  Not so luckily, a small percentage of people with LTBI convert to having active TB.  So Monday I will begin the treatment for it.  The treatment for LTBI is not mandatory because some people never convert.  But the treatment does lessen the chance of ever converting, so I figure it's worth it, even if the drug is pretty liver toxic.  I just can't drink while I'm on the drug.  Which I will be daily for the next NINE MONTHS.  

It's more of a pain in the ass than anything else, but it also freaks me out a bit to think I have TB bacteria in me, latent or not.  I have NO idea where I picked it up, but if I were a betting person, I'd lay my money on the county hospital where I sign out test results.   

So those are the big three reasons why I'm saying September has been an unlucky month for me.  Along the way I also got letters from both my dentist and my primary care physician informing me that they are retiring and I'll need to find someone else.   So a few other minor bad luck inconveniences also hit this month.  I'm thinking I'll be really glad to get out of September.

The pictures are of the apparently thriving sorghum plant by my back patio, with Zoe checking it out in the first picture.   I've never been up close and personal with a sorghum before, so I figured I'd share the pictures.

One of these days I will take pictures of the new car and post them.

Raining!

It's raining!  What a surprise.  They were calling for a chance of rain today, but they do that all the time and it rarely actually rains.  So I wasn't expecting it this morning.  They're still only calling for a 40% chance, even though I've got a continuous light rain where I am.   It's not a hard rain, just drippy enough to get everything wet.  I'm delighted to see it, but I imagine there are a lot of unhappy people to have their day off, Labor Day, spoiled by rain today.

For me it's okay.  I have no outdoor plans and would rather have the rain.

I've been doing house chores this weekend, kind of like Labor Day Spring Cleaning.  I've been working on thoroughly sweeping and mopping all the hardwood flooring, which is really pretty when it's freshly done.  Plus I've been dusting, vacuuming, etc.  Yesterday I went through my closet and pulled out everything I haven't worn since I moved into this house, and put most of it aside to give to Goodwill.  I also pulled out a lot of the things that I can't wear any more due to my weight loss.  I'm about 13 pounds lighter than I was in January, and am continuing to drop weight, thanks to my change in diet and exercise.  After the Japan wake-up call I've been motivated to stick with the diet changes.  

Did I mention the Japan wake-up call?  My cholesterol was 20 points lower than it usually runs after 9 days in Japan, eating essentially only fish, vegetables, rice and miso soup.  Plus I had dropped a couple pounds while there which was no doubt due to the increased exercise as much as the diet changes.  So I'm not eating the same stuff I ate in Japan, but I'm eating significantly less than I was and I'm eating fruit (which in itself is something of a miracle because fruit has never been high on my list of favorite foods).  Basically eating less processed food and eating MUCH less fast food.  And I'm exercising three times a week.  It's working, because as I mentioned, I'm continuing to slowly drop weight.  I'll have to see how my cholesterol does the next time I give a pint of blood. 

13 pounds isn't a lot, but it's made enough difference in my waist and hips that a lot of my work slacks slide off me without a belt to hold them up.  Some of my current work slacks I have to just give up.  Even with a belt I'm lapping more than an inch of material.  So I have been doing a little work-clothes shopping this week while I've been off.   

I think I'm going to need to have foundation work done on this house, which is kind of depressing.  Especially since I just bought an expensive car.  Since I've been home all week, I've noticed some cracks I don't remember seeing.  I'll call around and get some estimates this coming week.   Damn.  Usually when I get depressing news it makes me want to go shopping, but considering this is likely to be expensive depressing news, I think I'll skip shopping today.

Which gives me plenty of time to do household chores and puttering.  I'm considering tackling straightening up the garage a little.  The rain today broke those nasty 100+ temperatures, so I can actually stand to be in the garage to more than a few minutes.  I could feasibly clean it up some.  Maybe.  Don't know if I'm quite that motivated.

I couldn't decide which pictures to use today, so went back to some of the several million from Japan that I haven't posted.  The first pic is of a small garden shrine inside one of the restaurants where we ate on Miyajima.  Then there's a picture of the turtles attempting to sun (no sun present) at Toji Temple and the ducks chilling at the Unknown Soldier Buddha temple.  

That's about it for today.