I Can't Complain

I Can't Complain (But Sometimes I'm Still Blue)

I've been feeling pretty blue lately, for a variety of reasons, but as my husband has pointed out, I really have very little to be unhappy about. Which isn't to say I think that only people with "real" problems are allowed to be sad or unhappy, but I do think it's good to remind one's self of the good things once in awhile, just to keep everything in perspective. With that in mind, in no particular order, I bring you a few things that make me happy:

1. A sleeping Bomber.  Aside from the fact that he doesn't talk (much) while he's asleep, when he's asleep, I can still see the tiny infant he once was - in the expression on his face, the way he still holds his hands in his Han-Solo-Meets-Carbonite pose, and the tiny bit of drool running down his chin. Awake, he's all little boy who knows everything, but asleep, he's still my baby. 

2. Larry. He's all kinds of awesome. I don't know what I can say that doesn't sound ridiculously sappy, but I got seriously lucky when I met him.  He's cute, funny, understanding, thoughtful, a good father, an awesome partner, and the only person I can even imagine spending the rest of my life with.  He puts up with me when I'm moody and unpleasant, and tries to make me smile when I'm down. Yeah, he's a keeper.

3. Donuts. I really like donuts. I used to be fairly apathetic toward them.  I mean, I'd eat one and enjoy it, but I didn't have any particular love for them.  When I was pregnant, though, I craved them all the time, and the craving stayed with me afterwards.  Since almost five years has now passed, I figure the craving's not going away, so I might as well just embrace them. Figuratively, of course, since embracing donuts literally would be kind of sticky. But actually, it might also be kind of nice...mmm.... donuts...mmmm.... wait, what was I saying? *ahem*

4. The Money Eating House.  Not only am I grateful to have a roof over my head and the means to afford it, but I am especially grateful for the MEH in particular.  Yes, it eats money. A lot of money.  But there's nothing like walking on floors  that have been there for 106 years and wondering who else's feet have walked there, or shoving open a window and thinking about someone throwing the same window open in the spring of 1906 or so, and  taking in a deep breath of sweet-smelling southern air. So even though the walls aren't plumb, the windows aren't level, and nothing is either a standard size, nor the same size from one room to the next, I wouldn't choose to live anywhere else. 

5. Exercise.  Yeah, I have to get up at 5 AM to do it, but there's nothing like a great workout (or really, even a bad workout) to give your day a boost - even if you do nothing else that day, you've already accomplished something at the end of your workout.  And it can be motivation for eating healthy (why ruin all that work you dragged your butt out of bed at the crack of dawn for) or justification for eating something "bad" (hey, I worked out! I can have a donut! mmm....donuts....mmmmmm.....wait, what was I saying?)

6. Margaritas. Larry makes really good ones. I mean, REALLY good ones.  I could tell you the recipe, but then I'd have to kill you.  They're that good. He mixed up a post-rapture-five-year-old-birthday-party recovery batch this weekend, and they were TAY. STEE. And there's still some in the 'fridge...

So, there you go. Half a dozen things that make life pretty great. A lot of the stuff that's got me down is still there and getting me down, but I truly do have nothing to complain about (though I reserve the right to continue to do so), and lots of stuff to be happy about.

Is It Me, Or Does This Seem Counterintuitive?

A while back we hired a cleaning person on the recommendation of a friend from the neighborhood who literally stood on the sidewalk and gushed (and I do mean gushed) about how hiring this woman had changed her life. And this is not a gushing type, folks. She's from Scranton, PA for goodness sake! Anyway, Larry and I had pretty much come to the end of our rope trying to keep our house clean, our almost-4 year old happy, our jobs done adequately and our brains still in our skulls.  That last thing was becoming increasingly difficult to achieve, so we hired the cleaner, and let me tell you folks... it changed my life. Seriously, after agreeing to go out with the random guy who called me at Eddie Bauer after I'd sold him a belt, and bringing the Bomber into the world, it was the best decision I'd ever made. 

Suddenly, the house was cleaner than it had ever been and it was made so by someone other than me or my overworked husband (who, I will be the first to admit, has a much lower threshold for dirt than I do, so he'd been doing the lion's share of the cleaning). It was a beautiful thing.  Time went on, and for various reasons Awesome Cleaning Lady had to move on, and suddenly, I realized: I cannot EVER go back to cleaning my own house. ACL ruined me forever. After a little scrambling, another friend gushingly recommended her cleaning company and by and by, we hired them.

As an aside, the company is owned by a fascinating Brazilian man who, before starting his own cleaning service, was performer in a German circus in South America, and a valet in Miami, FL. (Who knew people even still had valets?).  Anyway, the Brazilian Circus People (most of whom aren't actually Brazilian or former circus performers, but I do like the characters in my life to have catchy names) make poor old ACL look barely adequate. Don't get me wrong, she was awesome. They're just awesome-er.  On their first cleaning, which was a deep, no-holds-barred service, not only did they clean things that probably haven't been cleaned since we bought the house, but they made ROSES OUT OF MY TOILET PAPER.

Now I can die a happy woman.

So, the point of this really super-long introduction (yes, there is one) is this.  Since the very first day we hired ACL, and on through the Brazilian Circus People, we've always found ourselves running round like maniacs the day before they're scheduled to come, cleaning. For the cleaning people. Even the four year old sees the irony in this. Yesterday while I was frantically stuffing things into closets and trash bags, he said "Mommy, why are you cleaning if the people are coming tomorrow to clean?"  That's a good question, kid, but an informal poll of people I know who use cleaning services reveals that EVERYONE does this. I wonder if the cleaning people are sitting home laughing at us. "Can you just picture them picking up all that CRAP tonight? And have you seen how many Legos that kid has?!? And they have to find them all! Suckers!"  Is it me, or does anyone else ever stop in the middle of their whirlwind pre-cleaning-people-cleaning and wonder just what the hell they're doing?  I never wonder for long, though - i know I have to get everything cleaned up if I want to be found worthy of toilet paper roses.

There, that's my B52OMOLISBE for the week. One down, and 51, more or less, to go. Also, my friend and extremely talented photographer, Karen has decided to join in B52OMOLISBE (whoo! I've started a thing! Or do you need more than two people for a thing?), and her first post has absolutely amazing pictures of snowflakes. So go check them out, okay?

 

Where I Lay My Weary Head

I stole this from today's Writer's Block on LiveJournal because it seemed like a fun one, and I couldn't think of anything else to talk about:

How many different places (cities, houses, apartments, dorm rooms, etc.) have you lived in? Which is your favorite? And your least favorite?

Here's my list:

1. Lincoln Park, NJ: I lived here for the first year of my life, though I obviously don't remember it at all. My parents moved to a bigger house when I was not quite one.

2. Brookvale Rd., Smoke Rise, NJ.  This is the first place I remember living, and the place I still think of when I think of my childhood home. It was a  beautiful (and in retrospect, GIANT) colonial on a huge piece of property that backed up against a wood. My sisters and I spent a lot of time playing in the stream that ran through that wood, and I vividly remember walking up a path through the woods to catch the bus when I started kindergarten. My parents divorced when I was 7, and we moved with my mother not long after.

3. Eagle Rock Village, Budd Lake, NJ. This was the apartment we moved into after my parents' divorce. In contrast to our house in Smoke Rise, it seemed unbearably small and shabby. We lived there for a year or two, until my mother bought a townhouse in the same town.

4. Stedwick Village, Budd Lake, NJ.  It was a relief to move into this much bigger townhouse after living in the apartment. I lived there with my mom until I graduated high school.

5. Reimert Hall, Ursinus College. Reimert was the only co-ed dorm on campus at time, and it was all suites. I lived there as a freshman, when I got assigned to an empty slot in a suite of 7 seniors. That was....interesting.  I also lived there as a sophmore, when I found my own group of friend to move in with.

6. Main St., Collegeville, PA.  My junior year my roommate from sophmore year and I moved to one of the "Main street houses." It was as close to off-campus living as you could get at Ursinus in those days. There were 10 other women in the house. That's a lot of estrogen, people.  We called ourselves Hogan House, because of the life-size cardboard cutout of Paul Hogan some previous occupants had lef behind. I lived there again as a senior, with a better different roommate.

7. Wilson Ave., Riverdale, NJ. After college, I moved in with my dad so I could attend law school at Rutgers-Newark. That lasted a year, until the long-distance relationship with Dr. Stinky and my dad's tendency to play music at approximately 130 dB took its toll.

8. South Jersey, NJ. After my first year at Rutgers-Newark, I transferred to Rutgers-Camden to be closer to Dr. Stinky and save my hearing from certain ruin. I can't remember the exact address, but I lived with my aunt outside Cherry Hill, NJ for a month, since classes started before my apartment was available.

9. S. 41st Street, Philadelphia, PA.  I had a great apartment in West Philly, in a converted Victorian. The common areas left a little to be desired, especially at first, but my apartment had built-in bookshelves and a gorgeous bay window with a window seat. The fact that it was directly on the surface-subway line didn't bother me at all.   It was the first place of my very own.  I lived there for my second and third years of law school.

10. York Ave., New York, NY.  Dr. Stinky and I moved to our dee-luxe apartment in the sky in December 1995. It was small by almost anyone else's standards (625 sf), but more than a few locals came in the door and said "hey, this is BIG." I think it was the shape and the giant windows overlooking the East River.

11. Hampton Greene, Columbia, SC. This was our landing spot when we moved to Columbia in 2002. We weren't ready to buy a  house, so we lived in an apartment near the medical school for a year while we we looked. It was two bedrooms and two bathrooms, which seemed luxurious after our place in NYC.

12. Park Street, Columbia, SC. Also known as the Money Eating House, this is my current location. It was 98 years old when We bought it in June 2003.  It had long been a dream of mine to own an old Victorian, and now I realize how foolish that was my dream has been realized.  Despite its money eating tendencies, I love the MEH, and I expect we'll stay here for quite a while longer.

If I had to choose a favorite, it would be a toss-up between the MEH and my place in Philly. The place in Philly was the first (and actually only) place I could ever call my own, alone, but the MEH is home and it's the place the Bomber has lived his entire life, since he was a teeny five pounder through now, when he's a sassy about-to-be-three year old.

Least favorite...hmmm... I love my dad, but I didn't love living with his giant speakers, especially while I was trying to figure out what the hell a tort was and why anyone would buy a place called Blackacre. The apartment we moved to after my parents got divorced is also not a favorite, since it was cramped and unhappy, and someone stole our fake Christmas tree and all of our family ornaments out of the basement storage room while we lived there.

So I Got That Going For Me, Which Is Nice

Another retread, folks, sorry.
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We have squirrels in our attic. Now, this is not an uncommon problem especially in a house as old as the Money Eating House, in a neighborhood with as many large, well developed trees as ours. The squirrels have eaten a fist-sized hole in the molding covering the joint between the roof and the wall, and use it to wiggle through to the attic.

This is not, as far as I'm concerned, a major problem. We put *ahem* treats *ahem* in the attic for them, and we patch up the hole whenever we notice they've gotten through again. (Obviously, the wood needs to be replaced altogether, which we're planning on having done this spring.) For the most part we've been successful at keeping them from doing any damage or taking up permanent residence. That said, one managed to break through sometime late last week, and could be heard scampering happily around our attic early Saturday morning.

For some reason, this latest squirrel incursion has turned Larry into the groundskeeper from Caddyshack. He spent the weekend devising and implementing increasingly more outrageous methods of removing and/or exterminating the "devious little beasts". He has developed a slightly maniacal gleam in his eyes, and has been heard muttering under his breath about the joys of killing squirrels and the possibility of conducting experiments on them. I finally had to draw the line when he suggested purchasing a gun and shooting the "evil buggers"

He's taking the day off tomorrow to do some stuff around the house - I have this dreadful fear I will return home to find the house a smoking ruin, and Larry standing in the middle of it laughing gleefully that he finally got rid of the squirrels.

While the squirrels dance merrily around him, of course. :-)

The Word For the Day Is "Bracing"

I had a terribly busy day, and I'm not feeling well tonight, so I'm posting another rerun from Tales of the Money Eating House.  This one was originally posted on LiveJournal in May 2004.

As in, "that cold shower I took this morning was quite bracing".

Larry woke me this morning by whispering those three little words. No, not "I love you". The other ones - "No hot water".

Being the mechanically inclined person in the family, I pulled on some clothes, and stomped outside, where the water heater lives... (make a note of this, it becomes important later). The little aluminum cabinet that the water heater sits in had about an inch of water in the bottom of it, with more pouring off the top of the heater while we stood there and watched.

After an in-depth examination of the problem (which involved me opening the cabinet door, peering in and noting the water collecting on the bottom), I came up with this brilliant assessment: "This is not good." (I'm quite the master of the obvious, aren't I?)

No problem! We have a home warranty! So after a few false starts, I call the home warranty company, who tell me that yes, they cover water heaters; they'll send someone out to have a look, and is it located someplace the plumber can access it without me? No problem, I say! It's outside! Outside, says the nice home warranty person, doubt creeping into her voice. In an attached garage? Noo... in a little aluminum shed. Oh, she says, hold please....

At this point I can tell something has happened to the nice home warranty people. They've become the evil and unpleasant home warranty people who are about to deny coverage. It turns out that the terms of the warranty state pretty clearly they only cover stuff that's located inside the house or in an attached garage. Since the water heater is outside, in its own cabinet, it's not covered. I tried some lawyerly interpretations of the contract, and appealed to their sense of logic (hah!) but no dice. I did console myself by responding to the "were you satisfied with the results of this call" question with "you're kidding, right?"

Luckily, of all the things that could have died, this is among the cheapest. And the old water heater was OLD (and rusty, and wildly inefficient), so we really needed a new one anyway. Larry has called R, the contractor we've used (and who is doing our driveway), and R is coming out to look at it this afternoon. Hopefully I will not have another bracing shower tomorrow morning...

Overweight Ghost Meets Smally Furry Elephant

(I was planning on writing a whole big post about the state of my next door neighbors' living room, but I promised them I wouldn't. ;-)  Instead, I'm dredging up another re-run, originally posted to my Live Journal in February 2005. Apologies to those who have seen this before.)

A play in three acts:

Act 1:

Small furry elephant (otherwise known as our ten month old Bengal kitten, Boo) is introduced to Money Eating House. SFE commences wailing sufficient to not only wake the dead, but chase him from his hearth and home. The Overweight Ghost becomes conspicuously absent from the MEH (presumably the neighbors were treated to creaky stairs and mysteriously moved items for the next few days). The Money Eating Homeowners contemplate a new business: Exorcism by Kitten.

Act 2:

The Overweight Ghost girds his loins (assuming non-corporeal beings have loins) and returns to face his nemesis, the Small Furry Elephant. OG immediately begins a campaign of cat intimidation, which appears to involve primarily creaking the stairs for most of the night, with a few instances of hiding SFE's Beloved Catnip Mice. The latter tactic serves only to prove that the Money Eating Homeowners are, in fact, giant suckers who will spend inordinate amounts of time looking for small bits of felt to keep the SFE happy.

Act 3:

The Overweight Ghost and the Small Furry Elephant become fast friends and nighttime playmates. For anyone who doesn't have both a ghost and a kitten, that sounds something like this:

Creeeeeeeak. Thump. Thumpity-thump-thump. Creak. Creakity-creak. Thump. Thump Thump Creak. Creakity-thump. Repeat for several hours.

The Money Eating Homeowners wake up exceedingly cranky, and contemplate abandoning the MEH to anyone brave or foolish enough to take on a ghost and a cat in the same house.

Begone, Foul HVAC Demons!

I'm starting to think the Money Eating House is haunted. Yeah, it's 103 years old, built on the old Confederate fair grounds, not far from a graveyard full of Confederate soldiers.  Yeah, the stairs creak at night, in order, first down, then up. Yeah, the cat sometimes looks like she's looking at something and then sprints away as if terrified. Yeah, the light in the living room goes on and off, and and the ceiling fan changes speed for no apparent reason.  But none of this is why I think the house is haunted. 

I'm convinced the MEH is haunted by the ghost of a disgruntled HVAC repair guy. Maybe one came, years ago, to help install the furnace under the house, met his untimely demise due to a freak HVAC accident, and rather than explain this to the authorities, his fellow HVAC guys simply dug a hole and covered him over.  Maybe they even installed the furnace on top of him.  What other explanation can there be for why something HVAC-related is always breaking down at the MEH.

I mean, really, of the six major pieces of equipment involved in heating and cooling our house, we've replaced five, plus the ductwork in the attic, and several minor HVAC-related items.  And still the HVAC guys spend more time at our house than they do at their own.  We're thinking of just giving them keys to the front door and a spot in the medicine cabinet.  But I digress...

Last night I stumbled home from work a little early to grab a quick nap before L and H-bomb got home.  I turned up the theromstat on the first floor and then headed upstairs. Two hours later, I came downstairs and noticed that it was 64F.  I assure you, this is NOT what I set the thermostat to. A short investigation revealed that the furnace was running, but the blower was not blowing any hot air. (Wait! I know this one! It was being efficient!)

Anyway, a call to the HVAC Guys was placed, and one showed up around 10 PM and got the thing running again.  He claimed it was something with the flue pipe, but I know better now.  Next time this happens, I won't be calling the HVAC Guys.  I'll be calling an exorcist.

Oh, THAT'S What Efficient Means

When we bought the Money Eating House back in June 2003, it came equipped with two gas furnaces, one down in the crawl space and one in the attic.  The one in the attic was installed up there in 1970, which is elderly even for a furnace in a temperate climate, and was manufactured by Hotpoint, a company that primarily manufactured freezers and refrigerators (no, I don't know why it was called Hotpoint) until it was merged into GE in the late 80s and then ultimately purchased by a company in Italy, a land not, as any Fiat driver will tell you, renowned for its mechanical ability.  But I digress.

The point is, that 33 year old furnace worked just fine. Oh, it needed some minor repairs along the way, but generally, when you turned up the thermostat, it came on, with a satisfying *pop*pop*pop* sound from the ignitiion and then a WHOOSH as the burner ignited.  Despite the reliability and dependability of the Old Faithful Hotpoint, every (and OH, there have been many) HVAC repairman that came through our door told us we needed to replace it. "You know, that old furnace isn't very efficient. You should think about replacing it."  or "1970! I can't believe that thing's still running. You should really replace that!."  One even tried fear: "You know, I bet that old furnace is giving off a lot of carbon monoxide." (It wasn't.) 

After a while, HVAC guys from other companies would just stop by to tell us to replace poor Old Faithful Hotpoint. If we weren't there, they'd leave notes: "Sorry we missed you, replace that furnace! All the best, Palmetto Heating and Air."   One day I was in the supermarket, and a guy wearing a hat from a local plumbing supply company sidled up next to me. "Psst. Replace the furnace." There was even a set of Burma Shave style signs along our street - Money Eating House Owners / Should Replace / Old Furnaces!"  But we stood firm, and OFH just kept popping and whooshing and heating the Money Eating House.

Until one day this summer. Our upstairs air conditioning unit needed to be repaired, and in the course of that project, the HVAC guys discovered that the platform the two units were sitting on was deteriorating and needed to be replaced. In fact, the platform was tilting so badly that the A/C unit was sliding into the furnace and causing some safety valve on the A/C unit to trip and turn the A/C off.  The choices were, pay an enormous amount for labor to remove the old furnace, replace the platform and then put the furnace back, with no guarantee that OFH would even survive such an ordeal, or pay a slightly larger enormous amount, remove the old furnace and... you guessed it... replace it with a new one.

So we sadly agreed to replace Old Faithful Hotpoint.  I believe I heard HVAC guys in three states cheering that night. Our HVAC guy was beside himself with joy. "You'll love it! It's going to be 98% efficient. That old one is probably 75% efficient, at most." (Oddly, the HVAC guy who talked us into it? We haven't seen him since; I think he's taken his winnings from the Get The Money Eating House Owners to Replace Their Furnace contest and moved to a non-extradition-treaty country. But I digress. Again.)

In October a giant team of HVAC guys, quite possibly every HVAC guy that works for the company we use, came for the ceremonial Replacing of the Old Faithful Hotpoint with the fancy new Extremely Efficient Furnace. And the new one is beautiful - it's all stainless-steely and gleaming. And we loved it. That is, until winter came and we turned it on. At first it worked pretty well. And it really wasn't that cold, so it didn't run that much anyway. After a few weeks, though, we noticed that occasionally it would stop running before it reached the temperature set on the thermostat. Maybe this was the efficiency they were bragging about? "Oh foolish homeowners, I know you said you wanted it to be 69 up here, but I have decided in my Extremely Efficient Furnace wisdom that it would be more cost effective to only heat it to 66."  On these occasions, no amount of coaxing or turning on and off of the thermostat could convince it otherwise.  Eventually, it would relent and turn back on, but usually not until we'd given up and put on a sweater.

After a while, it started not coming on at all. No matter what we tried, there were points during the day (particularly first thing in the morning) in which it would simply not turn on, despite no small amount of fiddling with the thermostat, cursing the HVAC gods, performing the Dance of Cold Feet and Subservience to the Superiority of the EEF, and even a few ritual sacrifices. Then it occurred to me - THIS must be that ultra-efficiency they were talking about.  After all, it is WAY cheaper to not run the furnace, ever, than it is to, you know, actually heat your house with it. I can't believe I didn't realize it earlier. 

I think this may be the wave of the future. Want to make your car fuel efficient? Just don't drive it! Need to conserve electricity? Don't plug anything in or turn on the lights, ever. Want to save water? Just turn off the water supply to the house!  Sadly, Larry is not nearly the visionary I am, and he finally called the HVAC guys to come look at the EEF. Turns out, it's not supposed to be acting like this; there's actually something wrong with it.  I still think I may be on to something, though...

Hell Hath No Fury

You're wrong Mr. Congreve, it's not a woman scorned. It's a Money Eating House underestimated.

Two weeks ago, I foolishly let the thought cross my mind that not only had the Money Eating House not eaten much lately, but there wasn't really much left for it to eat.  "Not so fast foolish homeowners" the MEH seemed to say.  A few bricks, a couple piles of dirt and a mummified bird later, I'd learned my lesson - never underestimate the wrath of the Money Eating House.

Apparently the MEH was not satisfied with merely collapsing our chimneys as chastisement. Last night when I got home from work, I noticed that it was 83F on the second floor. A quick investigation revealed warm air coming out of the air conditioning vents. Now, I'm no HVAC guy, but I was *pretty* sure that wasn't a good thing.  

No worries, though. The whole system is new and under warranty, and we have this great HVAC repair service we use - not only do they pretty much come out at a moment's notice (although they do sometimes run on Furnace Time), but they provide entertainment, too.  Anyway, we called up the HVAC guys and they said they'd send someone out between 8:45 and 9:30.  That's PM.  And because having late-night air conditioning repair isn't enough, shortly before 8:45 a thunderstorm of biblical proportions blew in, the rain started raining in sideways sheets against the house, and our power started flickering on and off. 

So, our luck being what it is, the guy shows up at 9:15 and soaking wet.  Because what fun would it be if he didn't track water all over our hardwood floors? He goes up to the attic, rattles around up there for a couple of minutes, admires our happy family of bats and our antique furnace and comes back down.  Naturally, what's wrong with the a/c is something not covered by the warranty - apparently the ancient furnace gives off so much heat when it runs that over the winter it melted a crucial piece of plastic on the a/c unit which caused water to collect in the drain pan and ultimately shut the unit down. Wait just a minute, I think we've DONE this one before.  So hey, we don't have any cool air, but at least we don't have a mushy ceiling.

HVAC Guy rattles off an estimate (which is only about $400 more than we thought we'd be paying), toddles off to his truck for the part, and then finally gets started on the "45 minute" repair at 9:45. Larry and I adjourned to the still climate-controlled living room, where I plurked my woes and eventually fell asleep.  At 11:15 (you're all welcome to stop and do the math here) he emerges from the attic accompanied by cool air, and we celebrate our spendy, but relatively simple, triumph over the Money Eating House.

Once again the MEH scoffs at our foolish optimism.  "Not so fast, silly homeowners. I still have a few tricks up my sleeve...er... pipes."  And so it did. Not five minutes after HVAC Guy had returned to his truck, the power flickered briefly, and then came mostly back on.  I say "mostly", because for some reason undoubtedly related to the motley collection of electrical "upgrades" done to the MEH, a seemingly random collection of outlets and fixtures failed to come back on.  These include one outlet in the master bedroom (the one under the bed, of course), the hallway light fixtures, the porch light, two outlets in the living room (but not the one that lies between them) and the stove (but not the range hood).  And of course, the outlets that went out powered the TV and DVR in the living room, and the cable modem and wireless router in the bedroom. 

Larry trotted out to the breaker box in the rain, and eventually the HVAC Guy took pity on us and joined him.  After conferring for a few minutes and resetting all of the breakers in the box, they were able to determine that they have absolutely no idea what the problem is. HVAC Guy was probably also able to determine that no amount of overtime was possibly enough to ever get him back into our bat-infested, backwards-wired, nothing-ever-standard Money Eating House, especially in the middle of the night. I think he actually left skid-marks.

And today we have extension cords running across the living room floor (because a certain family member *must* watch 10 minutes of Little Einsteins after breakfast) and a date with an electrician. I hope the MEH has forgiven us by the time he gets there.

At Least It Wasn't Santa

About two weeks ago it occurred to me that not only had we not had any major repairs lately, but there isn't really a whole lot left to be done that could even be considered a major repair.  We've replaced both A/C units, the ductwork in the attic, the water heater, the breaker box, the stove, the dishwasher (twice), the GFI outlet in the kitchen (twice), and the front door (just once). We've also had both furnaces repaired, the driveway extended, the house jacked up in two different places, had four new ceiling fans hung and had the whole thing painted day-glo aqua.  Seriously, what else could there be?

HAH. The Money Eating House scoffs at my foolish optimism.  "What else, you say?  I'll show you what else!"  And show me, it did.  Last Wednesday evening when we returned home, we discovered a large-ish portion of the chimney had relocated itself to the fireplace in the dining room.  In case there is any question in anyone's mind, the chimney? Does not typically belong in the fireplace.  The cat had already discovered the pile of bricks, soot and dirt and was gleefully tracking it around the house. 

We adjourned upstairs so Larry could don his relocated-chimney-removal gear, and I discovered another large-ish portion of the chimney had come to rest in the guest room fireplace.  This pile had a little bonus, though - atop the bricks and soot and dirt was a mummified chimney swift.  As one of my ever-supportive internet friends pointed out, at least it wasn't a mummified Santa.  (Laugh all you want, but I wouldn't open any packages from South Carolina if I were you, buddy...)

The next day, I emailed a friend who used to own a similar MEH up the street and is married to an architect.  I was mostly looking for a referral to a chimney repair service, but she also offered this incredibly useful advice. "R (the architect husband) says not to have any fires in the fireplaces until you get this taken care of."  Oh thank GOD she told us this, or we'd have had a fire that very night. It being the middle of AUGUST in SOUTH CAROLINA and all...

When we cleared away all the rubble and deceased birds, it actually didn't look that bad - it was only five bricks, total, and there's nothing visibly missing from either the portion of the chimney in the attic or of what we can see on the roof, from the ground.  On the bright side, I get to hire a genuine, certified chimney sweep.  I'm going to be really disappointed if he doesn't look like Dick Van Dyke and sing.