jonathanhickman.com

The mosquitos found me

I love our house. I am extremely happy with our luck in finding and buying it. I loved it from the first step I took inside the front door. I loved it from stepping on the front porch, but I tried not to get carried away. Even our realtor could tell that it was meant to be.

But one definite thing I don’t like about our house is the mosquito problem. With our yard backing up to a creek, we’re definitely in the mosquito zone. In the warm weather, they’re everywhere.

And this week they’ve found me. And my ankles, they itch.

We have a date for a new fence!

And I’m so excited!

Waiting, watching, wishing

As Katie said, we’ve decided to shift out house repair focus from the master bath to the upstairs. It was a pretty abrupt shift, actually.

As of Friday, we were definitely going to spend the refinance money on the master bath, which is in terrible shape - part of the reason we could afford the house. The tub is incredibly ugly and stained, with random exposed pipes complete with shelves build around them. The walls are also in bad shape, and someone stuck white boards - like you see in classrooms - over the lower half of the walls, presumably to cover up water damage. And speaking of water damage, the floor is soggy in several places from years of unrepaired leaks, and after massive damage to the existing plaster ceiling, it was replaced with a hideous drop ceiling. And the wiring for the overhead light (of course there’s no fan) was done so poorly that I have the switch taped over. Our bathroom is a dump.

But on Saturday, Katie and I had a drastic change in plans. While our bathroom is in desperate need of work, it does function, and the same can’t really be said of the upstairs bathroom. When we bought the house, we didn’t realize that the upstairs shower didn’t work - it only has an incredibly ugly pink bath tub that sits at an odd angle. And lets just say the toilet and sink could use updating. Plus, the kids would probably appreciate some nice carpet in their rooms, and the third bedroom upstairs really needs to get turned into a bedroom instead of a massive closet. And tied into the project would be moving the outdated gas heat and air system upstairs, which will probably save us a fair amount of money per month. And while they’re doing that, they can figure out why J’s room gets so little air.

It should make for a fun project, and I’m definitely leaving some stuff out that needs to get done. But right now, we’re just waiting for the appraisal to come through and give us the go. We’re supposed to find out on Wednesday, and while I’m optimistic, I’m quite uncomfortable not knowing for sure what the appraiser will say (he inspected it this morning but gave no hints).

I’m crossing my fingers.

What I got done this weekend

I finally took out the tree *and* fixed the doorknob on the door out to the mudporch (it’s been broken for months).

That’s two big things that I’ve been desperately needing to get done. And it feels good.

I’m no longer in college

I feel great about how much stuff we got accomplished this weekend. The house looks 10x better than it did on Friday, and I got to have fun with Katie and baby C. I also caught up some on sleep, and we even made it to church this morning!

But I’ve got to whine. I am beyond happy that I found time this evening to clean out my closet. After Christmas I always need to find room for the new clothes and get rid of stuff I haven’t worn in a year … or haven’t been able to wear in years.

You see, I took a break from cleaning out my closet this evening to show off my nice suit. I got the suit a few years ago for a friend’s wedding, and that was probably the only time I’ve worn the thing. My friend had a brilliant idea for his groomsmen: instead of forcing everyone to pay out the ear for a tux for one evening, let’s all buy nice, tailored suits that we can use for years!

Except I wasn’t able to wear it for years. I’ve apparently grown some since that wedding not five years ago, and I’m not talking about my waistline.

My nice suit got used all of once. Maybe H will appreciate it.