Well, the world keeps spinning and I keep blogging. The furious pace of autumn when you have a son who plays college football is upon us but as tired as I am, I couldn't be happier. The Bulldogs are off to a 3-2 start and had a great win last weekend - an upset over the Dayton Flyers capped off with an interception and a field goal to win the game! Doesn't get much better than that! Jeff had another great game, so forgive me if my pride is showing heartily this week. This weekend Brad and I are off to North Carolina in search of watching win number four! Go Dawgs!
I know a few of you have asked what's up with the electrical situation at the house and sorry it's taken me so long to let you know. There is hope!!! I know last I wrote, I spoke of being apprehensive about the electrician, but after meeting him I feel much better. He is simply a rather laid back guy and perhaps that works well with me in this situation since it's the one I tend to get the most uptight about. Perhaps he is the yin to my yang on this situation. Once he got to the house and we talked a bit, he basically told me he wanted to start with my meter and my breaker boxes. Checked out the meter and it all looked fine to him (that's kind of what I figured too). Then we moved inside and he took the covers of the two breaker panels that I have. To me it looked pretty much like chaos with wires everywhere, but he said it didn't look too bad to him. He was really good at explaining to me what he was doing as he went along (sometimes I wonder if they can all tell that I want to know or if they just think of me as the crazy hovering homeowner!). He basically checked all of the connections ..... where all of the "hot wires" came into each circuit breaker and also where each neutral wire connected. Seems like all of the hot wires were in pretty good shape, BUT tons of the neutral wires were very loose!! He tightened everything up and told me that that alone might help me quite a bit.
In easy-to-understand terms, the way I understand it is that when the connection is loose, it creates heat, which uses more energy. Over time, that becomes a huge fire hazard as with the heat also comes the risk of an electrical arc which can cause the wire to short or burn out. If you were to look in your own circuit breaker panel and see a lot of white wires that have become dark, that is not a good thing. If anyone out there reading this has a better way of explaining this to me, please do so - or correct me if I am wrong! Overall, my wires looked okay at this point, but I am hoping that perhaps the tightening up he did will be one more step in helping to make this house at least a bit more energy efficient. And safer. Peace of mind is definitely worth it!
He and I walked through the house discussing all of the issues I had written down ( imagine a full sheet of lined notebook paper!) ..... switches that didn't seem to turn anything on, a couple of lights I can't seem to be able to turn on, fireplace blowers that don't blow, and of course, my crazy, crazy back yard. Complete with way too many junction boxes in really weird places, GFCI outlets that don't work, yard lights that hang down in shame and who knows what else. We both agreed this would be a very good place to start looking for issues as we are both sure there are many!
What I liked about Tom - the electrician - is that he made suggestions and gave me options. Never a "you've got to do this" but rather "we could do this or that". He's a busy guy and I am an impatient woman, but I think we'll get this worked out. The plan for now is that I will make a priority list and next week he will come and start on a few things. Then from there, we will keep attacking the list until maybe, just maybe, we feel like we have resolution.
But I must admit to feeling better. I feel like there is hope and that it's maybe not as bad as I had feared. (Then again, he hasn't actually been in my attic yet!)
So since I was feeling pretty good about all of that, I decided to have a window and glass guy come to the house. I have several windows that are foggy and obviously the seal between the panes of glass has been broken. A few windows in need of repair - non-functioning hardware and in other cases, a few BB holes! - and a few sliding glass doors that require Herculean effort to slide open and closed. Didn't necessarily like what he had to say as he felt like a lot of them might need to be replaced but on the plus side, he is going to see if he can get someone from Pella to come out and look at them since they have had a history of having problems with some of these and he had another customer who got hers fixed for free! I like free, so once again, I will test my patience and sit politely and wait to hear back from him.
Let's see...... what else ..... I finally got the fence stained yesterday. Decided to go ahead and buy an airless sprayer as the plan is to paint my own house exterior next spring (can you say masochist?!?!) and it definitely helped speed up the process and was a great way to practice my technique! And that nasty old neglected pole next to the driveway that had one held a basketball hoop? Well, it's now officially a shiny metal flag pole that is currently waving a Butler Bulldog flag! When life gives you lemon, make lemonade!
Of course the antics with the dogs just keep on coming. George has decided that it's pretty fun to actually go out into the middle of the pool - on top of the mesh pool cover!! I have these horrible visions of him falling through, but so far it's good to know that it's held his weight. We started up with a new vet this week and apparently George has been packing on a few! He's gained some weight! Time to cut the food back a bit. A friend brought her son over tonight to play with the dogs and get his dog fix. It was great from my perspective since he threw the ball for an hour. The only downside was later when we came in: Madison decided she was really thirsty so drank and drank and drank from the water bowl (visual image: Madison now always lays down to drink, with the bowl between her outstretched front paws). It was all good until about a half hour later when most of that water and a few other tidbits came up while she was laying at my feet as I watched TV. Good times!
So that's my life this week. All in all pretty good in the scheme of things. Whenever I get overwhelmed thinking of everything there is to do here at the house, I try to step back and realize that I have really only been here 4 months and realistically, things are better already. I have always been my own worst enemy and my own worst critic, so I will try to keep the doubter quiet. Baby steps ......
The song I picked for today is "Going to Carolina" by James Taylor. Always a good song and it seemed fitting seeing as Friday morning, I will indeed be going to Carolina! Have a great week!
