Catching Up

Work has been crazy recently, with busy days and evening calls, and no mental energy left over for anything else. But I think things will start to settle down soon, so maybe I'll be able to come up with some blog-worthy topics. (Because I don't want to blog about work.)

How about cats? The other morning, Detour apparently got hungry well before the alarm went off. So she walked on me, and nudged my hand with her nose. I tucked my hand under the covers. What did she come up with next? She actually licked my closed eyelids, and then stuck her nose in my nostril! Not wanting to encourage this behavior, I continued to pretend to be asleep, and she eventually gave up and left. But I have to give her points for creativity.

Quilting: Last weekend was another HeartStrings day in Wisconsin. It was nice to get away and to nothing but quilt and hang out with quilters for a day. But I haven't had time to do much sewing otherwise.

Running: It was 46 degrees this morning when I started my run. It's been a cool summer, but I'm surprised I had to wear a long sleeve shirt in August. My foot is still doing pretty well, and I'm slowly increasing my distance and time. I'm a long way from where I was last year, but still hope to run a 5K this fall.

Home Improvement: Time to re-gravel the driveway. We also extended the culvert and had some fill dirt brought in to level out the slope in a couple places where cars tend to slide off in the winter. No excuses now!

Grand Prix food: Tomorrow is the Belgium Grand Prix. All I could think of for the race party was chocolate. Mike suggested waffles, which sounded perfect, and easy: we'll just take our waffle-maker to Tim's house and make them on the spot.

A hint of spring - a pile of wood

Friday was a beautiful day, 48 degrees and sunny. So it must be time to move the woodpile (again). When the furnace died, and Mike was still under lifting restrictions from his surgery, I just tossed all the wood from the garage out the door into the snow. Now, with the snow melted and the ground fairly dry, we moved the jumble of wood into a couple of stacks underneath the back deck. We'd like to put at least some of it back into the garage, where it will stay dry, but need to wait for the radon guys. (They were initially delayed until warmer weather so we could move the woodpile, and are now further delayed so we can recover from the shock of paying for the new furnace.)

But the weather was nice, and stacking the wood was oddly satisfying. We then proceeded to cook some steaks on the grill for the first time this year - a good dinner to end the workweek. Of course, good weather is always followed by bad, and there is a winter storm watch tonight. Ah, springtime in the midwest!

Toasty warm with my new gadget

We're back in business with a new furnace. The "patch" from early in the week had already failed by Thursday morning, when the new furnace install began. The new heat pump is supposed to be about twice as efficient as the old one. So far, it seems to be doing it's job.



I don't consider myself a big gadget person, but I've been intrigued by Amazon's Kindle for a couple years. I researched their first generation electronic book reader, but it had some short-comings. When version 2 was announced, I gave in and placed my order. It was delivered yesterday (when, of course, I didn't get home until after 9:00pm due to volleyball), so I haven't had a chance to do much with it yet, but I'm pretty pleased so far. It fits in my purse, will hold 1500 books, and is easy to read. I won't give up old-fashioned paper books entirely, but I will no longer need an extra bag for reading material when I'm on vacation - I'll just take my Kindle.

If it's not one thing, it's another

Our house is 32 years old. That means our furnace is 32 years old. This week, it decided that it would not make it to 33 years old.

Strangely, for the middle of winter, the furnace failed in the preferred manner - it wouldn't shut off (as opposed to not turning on). Sunday was a lovely sunny day, relatively warm. But when I got home from the grocery store, the thermostat read 78 degrees! So I turned the heat off. And nothing happened...the furnace kept running. We had to turn it off at the breaker to get it to shut off. By the time we went to bed, we were able to turn it back on (good thing - it was about -14 overnight), and called the service guy on Monday. He found a mess of melted wires, cracked housing, stray voltages, etc. He was able to make some repairs and get the thermostat control re-established, but this is the beginning of the end. It's geriatric and could fail again at any time. So today we got the estimate for complete replacement. (Ouch! to the checking account.) But, we sort of like having the house warm in winter and cool in summer, so a new heat pump is on order.

And that wood pile that we stacked this fall? Have to move it all to make room for the new compressor. (And of course, Mike is still under a post surgery lifting restriction of 5 pounds.)

The next home improvement: radon mitigation

I started this blog when we did our last major home improvement (water-proofing the basement). Now it's time for the next project.

It all started this summer when I read an article about elevated radon* levels being occasionally found due to granite countertops (which we now have after the kitchen remodel). Since Mike works from home just a few feet from that granite, we got a couple of test kits and did short term tests in the basement (the standard radon test area) and the kitchen. Both came back over the EPA limit, but the countertop didn't seem to be a contributor, since the radon level in the kitchen was lower than the basement.

Apparently the short term tests aren't extremely accurate, so the next step was to get another kit, and this time do a long term test in the basement. Four months later, and the result was still over the limit (5.8 - it should be below 4).

So this past week we've been getting estimates from radon mitigation contractors. It will just be a one day job, instead of lasting for weeks or months like the kitchen and waterproofing. But it will result in more holes in the floor and/or foundation and/or roof, and a continuously running fan to vent the radon out of the house. But hey, better than lung cancer, right?


*Radon is a naturally occurring radioactive gas, common in Minnesota soil. Long term exposure can lead to lung cancer. So it's a good thing that our bedroom is on the highest level of the house, farthest away from all that radon-y soil.

More than you need to know can be found here: http://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/eh/indoorair/radon/index.html

Ready for a good night's sleep

Way back when I started this blog and we were water-proofing the basement, we gave away the old hide-a-bed. That has left us with no place for overnight guests, which was fine, since no one ever visits us in the winter. But with spring comes the first sleep-over, so it was time to go to the furniture store.

What were the options? Bed frame with box spring and mattress? No, we don't have a spare room - this has to go in the basement family room. Futon or day-bed? Nope, too uncomfortable. Hide-a-beds? We found a few, but they were quite ugly, and not very comfortable as a couch or a bed. The best choice seemed to be a hide-a-bed with an air mattress: fairly comfortable, but poorly built and unstable.

As we were leaving the store, empty-handed, we noticed a box on the floor - an air mattress that fits into a standard couch, eliminating the need for a hide-a-bed. Well, we already have a couch in the basement, and the price was right, so we bought it, and the result is in the picture above. It actually seems quite stable and comfortable. The narrow section fits over the couch (cushions removed), and the base sits on the floor. No bars in the midde of your back. The little airpump fills it quickly, and it isn't wobbly, even with two people and a cat or three.

We're testing for leaks now, but it looks like we're ready for guests again. Come on up!

Hard Disk Drive woes

About three years ago Mike bought me an iPod, and I started copying all of our CDs onto my PC hard drive so I could listen to them on the iPod. It quickly became apparent that we had way more CDs than would fit on my PC, so we bought an external USB hard drive (160 GB) and loaded all the CDs into iTunes.

Over the past few months, that drive turned flaky, and would disconnect and reconnect the USB link randomly. I tried different USB ports and different USB cables; we tried laying the drive on it's side; even tried keeping it cool with an ice pack to see if it the problem was temperature related, but no luck. It was time for a replacement, before the old one died completely. So last week was spent copying all of the photos and music from the old drive to a new one (500 GB!), a painful task since I couldn't just do a bulk copy and let it go, due to the continuous dropped connections. Windows isn't smart enough to pick up where it left off when the device appears to go away. I finally finished the copying last weekend, and I'm happy to say that the new drive has behaved flawlessly, and is even faster.

Being former hard drive development engineers, we're still tempted to take the old one apart and see if we can diagnose it. We couldn't find any paperwork that would say if the thing is still under warranty (probably not), so we don't have anything to lose, but we also don't have access to any of the nifty tools that would make the problem easy to diagnose.

So, it still sits there on the desk, looking archaic next to the new sleek, quiet drive. I feel better having everything backed up again locally. The next step will be to set up an off-site automatic back-up, something we've talked about, and even investigated, but have not actually acted upon.

Some home improvements are less dramatic than others

(Mike provided the title for this picture.)

For just $20 and five minutes, we now have a new toilet seat in the upstairs bathroom. Say goodbye to the broken peg/foot/thingy that led to a wobbly seat.

It's Finished!

Just 5 months after we first moved all the furniture upstairs to escape the seeping flood, the basement is finally restored, and better than ever with the new carpeting. The new, darker color should be better suited to a household with three cats and three cats' worth of hairballs.

We have had the basement contents spread throughout the rest of the house during the waterproofing and refurbishing, and now that it's all back in place, the rest of the house seems so much bigger! There's room to walk between the table and couch, I can get to the bookshelves (and there is actually some room on the shelves), and Mike can get to and use the spare room workbench again.

As nice as the new carpet is downstairs, though, I was reminded of how much work it is to move everything out of the way, and I don't look forward to doing it again anytime soon, no matter how badly we need to replace the upstairs carpeting.

Basement Update

The progress on the basement has been slow, which is typical of all our household projects. But the new carpet is due to arrive in two days, so the installation has been scheduled for one week from today.

Plus, I splurged yesterday and bought a replacement ceiling light fixture for the downstairs hallway. I don't remember exactly why or when we took it out, either during the flood or during the waterproofing, but it's been gone for a while. I kept thinking Mike and I would go choose a new one together, but we never got around to it. So last night, when I had time to kill between work and the monthly quilter's guild meeting, I just stopped at the hardware store and picked one out myself (with a quick cell-phone consultation with Mike). He installed it today, so I'm crossing it off my list. Things that only take five minutes to buy (a whopping ten bucks!) and ten minutes to install shouldn't take several months to complete, but sometimes the low priority stuff just never makes it to the top of the list.

Are you tired of year-end reviews yet?

Well, here's my personal 2007 year in review...

1. Changing jobs was the biggest event of the year for me. After 22+ years combined at big blue and the company they sold us to, I was needing a change. After we were sold, the job opportunities became pretty limited. When I heard that a new company in town was having a job fair, I refreshed my resume, went to the job fair, and got an offer on the spot. Three weeks later, with a raise and a promotion, I started my new job. So far, so good. I have no regrets about making the change.
2. Running became a major part of my fitness routine. I started the year most of the way through a "learning to run" program, and finished the year with 5 5K races under my belt, logging about 475 miles for the year. No major injuries, amazing increases in stamina, lung capacity, and overall health. I'm still the slowest runner out there, but that's OK. I'm moving, and actually having fun.
3. I kept up the quilting, and ended the year with less fabric than I started with. I only finished 4 crib-sized quilts, but I have one more that is done except for the binding, and another almost ready for quilting. Quilting is a big stress relieving hobby, so I don't worry too much about having accomplishments; I just don't want it to turn into a fabric-accumulation hobby.
4. I still read a lot of books, and, being a natural born list-maker, can tell you that I read 46 books this year. (My list of books read goes back to 1995.) Actually, that's a fairly low yearly total for me, being less than one a week. But again, it's for enjoyment, not something I feel compelled to do.
5. 2007 was not a big travelling year. The job change mid-year resulted in fewer vacation days for me. We still went to the Formula 1 Grand Prix at Indy in June, and from there to St. Louis for Mom & Dad G's 50th wedding anniversary festivities. That only left me 3 days for the rest of the summer. Jury duty forced a delay in using those few days, so we had a quick fall getaway to Bayfield, WI to finish September. Business travel sent Mike to Australia again, and me to Houston, San Jose, and Boise.
6. Our biggest unplanned financial investment was the basement waterproofing, prompted by the torrential 11 inch rain in August. Now it's January, and we're almost (hopefully) done restoring the family room to it's former comfort level.

What's in store for 2008? Unfortunately, we're still too young to retire, so we'll keep working. We'll keep going to the gym and running (to offset all those chocolate goodies). This is also a regularly scheduled car buying year, so stay tuned.

The agony of decision making

Sometimes I think we must be the world's slowest decision makers when it comes to selecting things for home remodeling projects. We talked and talked about the kitchen remodeling for a couple of years before we finally made a commitment on the cabinets. That finally forced us to decide on everything else with a real deadline, because the old stuff was definitely going away. And of course the actual remodeling then took several times longer to finish than it was supposed to (although that's not primarily our fault).

Now with the basement, we've finally decided on the new carpet, after bringing home samples from four shops, and visiting several others where we didn't find anything we could agree on. But after looking at the latest samples for a week, we finally chose a pattern, and had the shop come out this week and take measurements for the estimate. Tonight, after looking at all the color choices of this pattern for another week, we chose a color. I know it's not earth-shattering, and in most respects doesn't matter one bit, but I still find it hard to choose. Maybe it's the engineer's curse of over-analyzing things, or too many choices. Whatever it is, it's hard to overcome.

So, tomorrow morning, we plan on placing the order, and paying the deposit. Won't it be nice to finally have warm, soft carpeting underfoot instead of dusty, cold, concrete?

Winter's (autumn's?) snow

Would you believe we have ten inches of snow on the ground already? And it's still not officially winter yet. Temperatures have been below freezing for most of December, and the snowplow is on the truck. I don't think there's any doubt we'll have a white Christmas this year. But we're getting back into the winter groove with coats and hats and boots and shovels; we remember how to drive on snow and how to plow the driveway. At first I always resent winter a little bit, but then I get used to it, and it's not so bad. We're even talking about going skiing sometime (locally).

I bought some new long-johns and am determined to try running in colder weather. I only run outside on weekends, since our normal exercise time is before work (meaning dark this time of year) - I use the gym treadmill during the week. I've been running in 30 degrees, and didn't get cold; in 20 degrees, my legs stayed cold, thus the new long-johns. But the past couple weekends have been a lot colder than 20 degrees, plus the city doesn't plow the bike path I normally run on, so not only am I waiting for a bit of relief weather-wise, I'm also looking for a new, mostly cleared of snow, route.

New carpet samples are laying on the basement floor. We'll look at these for week and see if we can agree that we like any of them. It's fairly easy to find something one of us likes; much more difficult to find something we both like.

Back to where we started...at least with the fireplace

Here's the repaired fireplace. The only change we made was to replace the brick hearth with stone. Several bricks broke or were damaged when the original hearth was removed for waterproofing, and also when the fireplace bricks fell off the wall. Switching to the stone hearth provided plenty of good bricks for the repair, with a smaller pile left over. Next on the list: choose carpeting.

Fireplace update

Mike says the fireplace is done! (I'll take and post a picture when I get back home.) Now we really have to find carpeting.

Bricks and stones

A quick basement update...The masons are back from their vacation, and today we were able to make a decision on the fireplace hearth. We will replace the old brick hearth with a limestone slab, which will be easier to keep clean, and free up some good bricks to replace the ones that broke. Work starts Wednesday, 11/28. We also went carpet shopping this weekend and brought home some samples, but there are no clear winners there.

Fireplace update

On Friday, we got an estimate on updating the fireplace. Unfortunately, the old fireplace cannot be used with a new insert, and the cost of completely replacing the fireplace is way more than we want to spend right now. That simplifies our plans, and means we will call back the mason who gave us the estimate for just restoring the tumbled-down bricks, and be done with it. Time to shop for carpeting!

Electrician = Magician?

We needed another outlet in the laundry room for our new sump pump, so our neighbor (and former co-worker) Chuck came by yesterday to install one, plus a few more in the basement to make things a little more livable. Then, last night, I turned on the lights in the quilting room/office, and had no power. The breaker wasn't tripped, but both bedrooms were out, although the water softener, on the same circuit, wasn't. Mike was unable to figure out the problem, so we called Chuck back this afternoon. In his words, he just "waved the magic screwdriver" and restored power. Something is apparently loose somewhere, but it's working now.

With the lights restored, I was able to baste this stack-n-whack quilt. I started it last year when my small quilt group did an informal tutorial with one of our members. It hasn't been my favorite project, but the top has been finished for a few months, waiting for a backing and quilting. The focus fabric is a fall print with corn-cobs, so it would be nice to finish it by Thanksgiving. But probably unlikely.

Basement Waterproofing

Back in August, we had about 24 hours of steady heavy rain, totaling about 11 inches at our house. Around 18 hours into it, water started seeping into the basement storeroom, a spot that had leaked once before (when we had a clogged gutter). We couldn't blame the gutters this time, because they were brand new this summer and not clogged. It soon became apparent that our wet-vac was not going to keep up, so Mike ran to Home Depot and bought a second one. For the next seven hours, we fought a losing battle. We hauled everything movable upstairs, and moved the piano and couches away from the perimeter and into the center of the room. We sucked up the water as fast as we could, but it flowed over and under the carpet, soaked into the carpet, and left us exhausted. The next morning we bought more fans and started trying to dry out the carpet.

The carpet actually did dry, and we had it cleaned, but decided it was time to have the professionals in for a permanent waterproofing solution. So about three weeks ago, we once again hauled everything out of the basement, and then ripped out the carpeting. (It was in the house when we moved in 16 years ago, so we got our money's worth.) We also had the brick hearth in front of the fireplace removed, and Mike removed the bottom row of panelling (the insulation inside the wall was still wet), because the waterproofers needed access to the entire inside perimeter. And we had to disconnect the water heater, water softener, and iron filter, so no water for the duration of the work.

The waterproofing involved cutting a trough in the concrete floor, laying some perforated pipe to route the water to the sump, installing a new battery-backed-up sump pump and drain, and pouring new concrete. But in the process of jackhammering to cut the trough, about half of the bricks on the fireplace fell off. That's what you see in the picture. The bricks are supposed to go all the way to the floor.

So, instead of laying new carpet and being done with it, we're now waiting for some bids on the fireplace. We know what it will cost to just fix the bricks (and the waterproofers deducted that from their bill, since it was their fault). Next week we will find out what it would cost to put in a more efficient insert and/or replace the fireplace entirely. There is no gas out here, so it will still be wood-burning, but there were no doors on the old fireplace, so we likely lost more heat than we ever produced with it.

No sense replacing the carpet until the fireplace is done.

No sense hauling the furniture back downstairs until the carpet is done.

This is gonna take a while.

A new blog!

Several years ago, when we were remodeling our kitchen and in the midst of Mike's month-long multi-continent business trip, I set up a blog to keep him up-to-date on the progress and problems. It was both fun and useful at that time, but I never updated it after the kitchen was done.That blog seems to have been consigned to the great internet bit bucket, and is no longer around.

Lately, I've been reading some other blogs for entertainment, and it reminded me of the good old remodeling days. And once again Mike was out of the country last week. I was also out of town on a business trip. A blog would have been one way to stay in contact when we were 16 time zones apart.

We've got some other mostly unintended remodeling to do now, following the recent basement waterproofing. And, I've got a new digital camera. This seemed like a good time to restart the blog...so here it is.

Remember when Uncle Ken published a few family newsletters several years ago? It was fun keeping up on the extended family that way...but blogging should be much easier. So feel free to post your own happenings in the comments, or point us to your blog (it's simple to set up).

I assume only family and friends will have any interest in reading this, but don't feel obligated if it bores you to tears. And if strangers stumble upon my blog, they are welcome to peek into these rather ordinary aspects of my life.