July 21, 2006 :: Changes, Sadness, and Progress
Work on the house came to a standstill after the last update. I had many issues to deal with, primarily financial, which caused everything to be put on hold. Long and short of it is, I'm broke. I took Lyrus to the vet because he was lethargic, moaning, in obvious pain, and hadn't peed in days. He ended up staying at the vet for several days, and I was preparing for having him "put to sleep". The vet decided that Lyrus had kidney disease and wouldn't last long. It ended up apparently being only a really bad kidney infection. However, in the end, it cost me $600 and Lyrus has to have expensive Renal Care cat food now.
I know $600 isn't a lot of money to some people. To me it is. I just started working again in April after a long period of unemployment/partial employment. I had just started getting caught up again when this happened. Add property taxes to that, and there was absolutely nothing in my wallet and things were about to start getting turned off. They did, actually. My gas was turned off in June.
My gas bill for February was $660. That's keeping the house at 65° ONLY while I was here. It was set to 50° while I was away or sleeping. Yet it was still $660. I'd been paying on it a little at a time while paying the current gas bills coming in as well. I missed one of the payments. They sent me a disconnect notice, I told them I would have the money the day after the last date on the notice, and they said fine. The day before I was to pay them, they turned the gas off. My total remaining balance, including the current bill, was around $300. They want $885 to turn it back on.
I forgot to mention the best part of this though. Siân was going to be arriving for another visit the next week. I wasn't worried about heat, and the kitchen stove is on LP, so it still works. However, women tend to like hot showers. So, I weighed the options, drove to Ace Hardware, and bought an electric water heater.
There has been an unused 240V outlet in the kitchen since Grandma bought the house. Instant dedicated 240V circuit for the new water heater. I re-routed the wire to the basement, positioned the water heater, (Which is a short model and STILL hits the furnace ducting. GRRRRR), and hooked it all up. After wiping the water off of my face and tightening the supply lines again, I called it good and prepared for Siân's arrival.
Siân arrived and all was happy and good. It tells me something that it feels wrong when she isn't here, and normal and right when she is. Anyway, one night we were sitting here in the office when we heard a pop and saw a bright light in the porch room. Or thought we did. We weren't sure. I looked in there, all seemed fine, so we forgot about it. The next day I went to take a shower. No hot water. Down to the basement I went. Water heater was cold. Smelled like fried ozone, too. Off came the access panels. Everything looked good there. Tested the voltage with my multimeter. 120V on the first branch, 0V on the other one. Oops. I ran upstairs, pulled the fuse (yes, still on fuses here) and returned to the basement. I pulled the access cover for the wiring on top of the water heater, noting that there was water up there. There was also a pool of water in the hole where the wiring was. One of the twist-loc connectors was a black, charred mess.
We had a dinner date with my Mom, so we stopped at Headly Hardware on the way. I bought new fuses (The big 35A main fuses), more connectors, and a roll of super-heavy-duty electrical tape. After dinner I returned to the basement. I had left a bit of extra wire for later work on the water heater. Good thing. I cut the melted bit off, twisted a connector on, tape the holy hell out of it, and left the connection sticking out of the water heater, rather than trying to cram it all inside. Tightened the water lines again, too. It's been 2 weeks now with no problems, so I'm starting to relax a bit about it. I still pull the fuse when I go to work, though.
Anyway, as I've mentioned, Siân came for a visit. She was here from June 25th - July 11th. She arrived back in London on the 12th, got home, and her Dad called her 7 minutes later. Her Mom has had cancer for a while now, and wasn't expected to last long. Her Dad told her to get to Malta (where they live) ASAP. Siân flew to Malta on Saturday. Yesterday morning at 4 a.m. she sent me a text message telling me that her Mum had died. By the way, the day before that was my birthday. I had decided to not go to work the night of the 19th, and likewise decided to stay up all night for some unknown reason. As it was, I was awake when Siân sent me the text message, so I was able to respond immediately. I'm very grateful for that. Since I couldn't be there for her, at least I could be HERE for her.
Sian will be in Malta for another week or so. I miss her terribly and wish I could be with her now, but I can't and she probably needs to deal with this on her own anyway. I'm always just a phone call, text message, or email away. I feel so sad for Siân, and am missing my almost mother-in-law whom I never got to meet. I feel like I should be doing more for her, but I don't know what it could be.
By the way, I was watching "The Notebook" (a birthday gift from Siân) when the text message came in.
As for the house....
While Siân was here we looked at different paint colours. I found a paint chip that I had picked up years ago and decided that it was THE colour I wanted for the exterior of the house. Siân likes light colours, and I tend toward darker ones for some things. I wanted the house to be a darker colour with light trim; partly because of the white vinyl (or aluminum-clad wood) windows I'll be installing temporarily. She decided that it wasn't TOO bad, so a few days after she left I went and bought the paint. I wish I could say that I've painted one wall of the house now and it looks fabulous. Not even close. With work and the massive heatwave, I've managed to paint two doors and prime the once-green trim around the door and two windows. That resulted in a massive outpouring of sweat, and sent me back inside to sit in front of the air conditioner.
The colour for the doors and trim bits is called "Brown Bread" (American Traditions line of paint). It's a slightly reddish-brown colour. I've painted the side door and front screen door so far.
Here's the side door with its' new coat of paint. I haven't decided what to do with the fake grid yet. Same colour or the off-white of the trim?
As for the main colour for the house, I can't find a paint chip online, so I've come up with an HTML colour that's close... #4E7270. Here's what that looks like....
The windows and trim will be a very slight antique white.
So, there's the update. Some happy, some sad, some just whining on my part. There's likely to be many updates coming up though, as it's getting closer to the time for Sian to move here and I have a LOT of work to do. Thursdays and Fridays are my days off, so look for updates then.
