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Dog Days

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Mojo (Sandie’s little dog) went to the vet yesterday. He (the dog) wasn’t particularly thrilled about this, but he had (probably still has) an ear infection that looked nasty, smelled disgusting, and was obviously bothering him. Sandie spent some time Monday night torturing him by pulling hair out of his ear, and I couldn’t stand listening to him yelp, so I insisted that he go to the vet.

Ear looks better and doesn’t smell anymore. And I didn’t have to hear him scream.

In other news, it has been hot and rainy since we returned from Canada last week. The yard is slowly growing into a jungle because it’s always raining – or when it’s not it’s like walking into a steam room whenever you go outside, so nobody has felt much like mowing. I’ve been spending some time in my shop redecorating. Pulling cabinets off of walls, reconfiguring them, planning in my mind how I want things to look. It’s a slow process, but should give me a lot more bench space when all is said and done.

Work is beginning to really bore me. I feel more sorry for the folks that I used to supervise every day, because doing tech support is just so uninspiring. You fix one thing and there are 10 more lined up to look at. Half of the questions seem to be variations of “Why doesn’t report A match report B?” My knee jerk response has always been, “Because they’re different reports,” but that wouldn’t fly, so I end up going into the database and comparing the reports on a line-by-line level until I can pinpoint exactly which record is missing from one report or the other, and it’s always because, for whatever reason, that record shouldn’t BE on report A or B and the user has done something stupid. I can’t explain this to them in technical terms, and I don’t understand it in accounting terms, so I usually end up finding the issue and then asking a teammate to translate for me. It’s just…boring. I like having projects that have endings. This type of support just doesn’t have those. Don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to do it.

Got a call from a group of doctors who stick cameras up your butt a few days ago. Seems that my doc REALLY wants them to do this to me. I’ve avoided it for nearly 60 years, but I guess I’ll bite the bullet and get it done, if only to get Sandie off of my back about it. Not something that I’m looking forward to, although I am a bit curious about how much weight I’ll lose during the purge process before I do it. That could be interesting.

Football season is only a month or so away. So that’s nice.

Not much else to say today. Maybe something amazing will happen tonight.

The Rise of the iPad

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About 6 months ago, my favorite laptop – a Surface Book that I bought in 2015 – finally got to the point where it was unusable. The screen had been heated up and forced out from the frame by an expanding battery to the point that it was just pointless to continue using it for as much as I had been. I bought a replacement battery and screen, but have not yet attempted the repair (it’s a very delicate and tedious process and I’m waiting to be in just the right mood before I get started on it).

I have other machines, so things like databases and email and games and whatnot were not a huge problem. The biggest issue was that I had been using the Surface Book for several years as my de facto sheet music repository. GBB music, gig music, wind symphony music, tuba and horn etudes….all of my sheet music was on the Surface Book and there was no way I was going back to using paper music. So I needed a solution.

At first, I tried using my phone. Bad plan. I’m almost 60 and my eyes have been shot for 25 years. In a pinch, I can read off the phone, but it’s strictly for emergencies at this point. After determining that the phone wasn’t going to work, I tried using a small (6”) Android tablet that Sandie had no further use for. It was a definite improvement, but the screen real estate was so limited that doing markup on the music was difficult and nearly impossible. Also, the software options for music display and markup available for Android is/was pretty limited. There’s basically one program for it, and it just doesn’t work that well. Apple, however, has an excellent piece of software for musicians called forScore, and so I finally took the plunge and bought myself an iPad – something that I’ve been swearing was a pointless thing to do since the iPad was first released.

To a large extent, I still believe that. I use my iPad almost exclusively as a sheet music organizer/editor/displayer; but I’ve started to play around with the little thing more and more trying to figure out just how much I can actually use it for. And, much to my surprise, I’m finding that I do indeed have uses for it.

For years, I kept the GBB library updated and organized using Microsoft Access. I like doing it that way because…well…because I was an Access Developer for many years and I’m comfortable building and customizing programs to do exactly what I want them to do in Access. The biggest problem with that is that if I don’t have the machine with the database on it, I can’t use the data in it. If I want to check to see if the band has a particular chart while I’m at rehearsal, for example, I can’t do it unless I’ve got a computer with Access installed. When I was using my Surface Book, that was not a problem.

With the iPad, however, using Access isn’t an option. And there really isn’t a decent alternative, short of putting everything online in MySQL or something and building a front end that I can use on the iPad. I actually tried this, but the MySQL clients that I could find for iPad absolutely suck and weren’t worth my time.

Next, I built a Power BI application on my work laptop and pointed it to a OneDrive copy of my GBB database, and it worked great! Power BI is available for iPad and I can fire it up and search the DB easily. Unfortunately, I can’t UPDATE data with Power BI, and I also can’t use it unless I’ve got a corporate license (that’s why I did this on my work machine), and nobody’s got the time or money for that.*

So I started looking into “database” applications built specifically for the iPad and found one that isn’t too terrible called MyStuff2. In spite of the ridiculous name, and in spite of the fact that there’s no way to do any real programming with it, MS2 has done a pretty good job for me in helping to organize and build out the GBB music library, and it allows me to have a to-the-minute reference of the library with me when I’m at rehearsal. I had to do quite a bit of initial setup to get things like I needed them and to export the information from my original Access DB into MS2, but having done that, things are looking good.

As I start building more advanced stuff in the woodshop, I’ve also been able to use the iPad to help with that.

Table saw workstation in construction
Adding a wing to my table saw workstation

One of those tools is called Moblo 3D, which is a kind of limited CAD and allows me to model what I want to build, calculate measurements, and build shopping and cut lists. For example, Sandie wants some very specific shelving units build for the master closet. So I used Moblo to start sketching those out. Works pretty good, although I really haven’t spent enough time with it to understand all that it can (or cannot) do for me. It wasn’t totally free, but I can’t complain about $8 for this thing.

Moblo 3D rendering of a couple of closet organizers. The nicest part of this for me is that I can design what I want and then export a list of the wood that I need and a cut list for it

Another tool that I’ve been using in the shop is the iPad version of X-Tool Creative Space, which connects to my laser engraver and lets me design stuff for it. The engraver is still very much of a toy, but I’ve been able to use it for branding wooden creations (rather than using my physical metal brand), and most recently did some engraving on a baton box for a gift that the band gave to our founder/music director on the occasion of his stepping down after 25 years.

The concert, by the way – the finale of our 25th season – went really well. Joe, the director, pulled out all the stops and included a couple of championship-level test pieces near the end. A severe chops buster, but the crowd seemed to enjoy it, and it was an exhausting but exhilarating set list.

Creation screen of X-Tools Creative Space

I guess the most recent tool I’ve added to the iPad is what I’m typing this on – the WordPress editor. I installed it a few days ago after realizing that – having purchased a mouse and keyboard for the iPad (specifically to use with the GBB library database) – I could probably do a lot more with the iPad than I had been previously. Restarting the blog entries seemed like a logical place to start, so that’s what I’m doing. Since the iPad is so portable, and since it’s so much easier to use as an editor than my phone is, I should be able to do updates from campsites (or anywhere else outside of my office) a lot easier than I’ve been able to previously. I’ll put that to the test in Canada (next month) and Michigan (in November).

For today, however, this has been enough.

*Actually, the GBB may be able to get a full-blown O365 license, including PBI, for a reasonable price by using our non-profit status. That is being investigated.

The Eve of Destruction

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Once again, I’ve managed to go a couple of months with nothing new written here – which is sort of odd, because a lot of new things have happened since August. I guess the most earth-shaking is that I’ve kinda started dating again. At the end of the last post, I mentioned that a couple of friends and I might hike up to Bob Bald since Joyce Kilmer was open. The two friends were one of my bartenders and one of her girlfriends, and the bartender bailed – so the girlfriend and I went alone, had a nice couple of days (in spite of the fact that we went up in the tail end of a hurricane), and decided to continue seeing each other when we got back to the big city.

As it turns out, Sandie (I’ll call her “Sandie” here – largely because that’s her name) bought a fixer-upper of a house several years ago, and she’s fixered-up the hell out of it since then; so she’s been very interested in making me move a lot faster with my own projects. What that means, frankly, is that she’d demolish my entire house if I let her. I’m not letting her. I’ve given her the upstairs guest bathroom as her own makeover project while I focus on replacing the floors in the rest of the house – at my own pace, thanks very much – which has been the plan all along.

The first step of that project was to buy some new power tools. Partly because I’d need them for putting down the floors, and partly because I needed them to build a new workbench so that I could clear up some space in my garage so that I’d have room in it for three pallets of laminate and my car. So I dipped into the refi money and bought a new table saw, miter saw, and brad nailer.

Yeah, so I didn’t really NEED the brad nailer, but I’ve always wanted one and I was in the store and…things just happened.

Next, I needed to buy enough lumber to make a long, sturdy workbench in the garage. The idea being that I’d be able to get rid of at least two of the three “benches” that are in the garage now and have plenty of room for the laminate. I built the bench top during the weekend of September 27th, and was moving along nicely….until I got word on the 28th that the laminate, which was supposed to have been delivered in the middle of October, would be delivered the following day. I spent much of the 28th moving as much stuff as I could out of the garage and into the attic above the garage, and throwing out a bunch of other things. Rather than freeing up room by replacing three benches with one, I actually received the pallets with FOUR benches in the garage (one being only half-built).

But I managed to get the pallets in.

I also managed to finish the bench – last night. The final glue-up for the top of it (a piece of MDF) is the subject of this post’s featured photo. The final product ended up looking like this:

So far, I haven’t actually started putting in the new floor. Sandie, however, has gone crazy on the guest bathroom. She removed the stipple from the ceiling, then spackled it (and the walls), sanded everything, primed and painted the ceiling, and has primed the walls.

She also managed to talk me into buying bead board for the walls, a new sink, new sink hardware, new light fixtures, and a new fan cover. Somehow, she convinced me to take out the toilet – which I did yesterday, which resulted in a whole new set of problems and necessitated my having to buy a new Dremel multi-tool in order to get the busted closet flange out of the main pipe (in addition to buying a new flange and the ever-popular wax ring). I also determined that the sub-floor around the toilet might be suspect, and I may have to replace that (leading to removing the bathtub and vanity). I dearly hope not. The bathroom will end up looking amazing. Of that, I have very little doubt. I’d never planned to spend so much time or effort on it, however. I just want to put the floors down, to take my time doing so, and to deal with whatever comes up next….NEXT. Some people like to do everything at once. I’m not one of those people.

In the good news department, I’ll be heading back to Cheboygan next month and spending a week in the 14-Foot Shoals cabin at Cheboygan State Park. I opted for a “staycation” last year – worried that I waited too late and I might have a problem with snow at the Straits of Mackinaw – and I was unable to get the kind of relaxation that I needed. Combined with my health issues at the beginning of this year (along with other pandemic-related things), missing that week away really took a toll on me this year. I’m really looking forward to just going to my little cabin on the shore, putting a nice fire in the stove, and doing absolutely nothing for 6 days. If I get snowed in, I’ll find a way to dig out. Nothing’s stopping me from going this year.

And that should bring everybody pretty much up to speed. I’ll try (again) not to wait two months to update this – but maybe I’ll wait a month and update it from my phone when I get to Cheboygan.

The Rise and Fall of the Turf

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Two more months have gone by, and we’re now officially well into the hottest part of the summer in Georgia. I’m quite settled into the work-from-home routine – though I’m actually at the office today because my internet crapped out at home and AT&T isn’t sending a technician until Friday. Yes, I do have a mobile hotspot, but it’s just barely sufficient for doing my job at home.

The routine for the last few months has been pretty much set in stone. I get up at 5:00, feed the cats, drink a cup of coffee while watching the news or some YouTube videos. Shortly before 6:00, I’ll head out for a 5-mile walk, which gets me home at just after 7:00. At that point, I’ll have another cup of coffee (decaf, by the way – always), will watch the tube a bit more, and might eat something for breakfast – egg white omelet, bowl of cereal, or some fruit. As often as not, I’ll skip the food altogether. At around 7:30, I’ll take a shower and start work. Somewhere between 4:00 and 5:00, I’ll turn off the computer, feed the cats again, take another walk, put something on the stove for dinner, and drink a couple of rocks glasses of bourbon while looking at Facebook or playing a game on my phone – generally sitting in the screen house on my deck, though it’s recently gotten so hot that it’s uncomfortable to sit outside for too long.

The “Bourbon Barn” on my deck – a screen-house with removable wind/rain panels – is where I’ve taken to spending most evenings. I took this picture the day the roof was being replaced, which explains the rope on the roof.

After an hour or so, I’ll wander back inside, eat whatever was cooking, watch part of a movie or something, and generally hit the sack before 9:00. Lather, rinse, repeat. It really shouldn’t be surprising that I quite often do not know what day it is. Seriously – it’s not unusual at all for me to start the day by saying, “Alexa, what day is it?”

There are some highlights and banner days, however. For example, I had my gutters replaced last Thursday. After getting quotes from three different roofers to do the job – and after all three of them gave me quotes, but never followed up to schedule the work even when I sent them emails, I called a fourth company who was recommended by my bartender on Sunday. They came out and took pictures on Monday, gave me a quote on Tuesday, and did the job Thursday. The gutters look great, the work was done in less than three hours, and I’m not sure why the first three companies didn’t think it was worth three hours of their time to make $1500.

Another example: yesterday was Tuesday the 11th – and on Tuesday the 11th, my new retaining wall was completed. While it was expensive, it came out looking great and I’m confident that the erosion that has claimed about a foot and a half of my backyard over the last 20 years will now stop. I ended up hiring a hardscraper who lives in my neighborhood, and he went to town: 85-pound blocks, a few tons of gravel, two large drainage tubes, another ton of fill dirt, another ton or two of large rocks….the upper yard is not going anywhere anytime soon.

The new retaining wall shortly after it was finished.

The biggest disappointment with the new wall, however, is that my lawns were absolutely destroyed by the equipment and materiel needed to build it. As you can see in the picture, both the lower and upper yards are now little more than dirt. I’m fairly certain that it’s too late in the year to try planting grass, but I’m going to give it a shot anyway. Wendell (the guy who built the wall) really wanted me to hire him to resod the yard, but I’m not doing that anytime soon. The plan all along has been “Roof then wall then floors,” and I’m sticking to it. My floors – at least downstairs – are getting replaced next.

And I think the upstairs will get replaced sooner rather than later, too. Since I’m going to be working out of the house for the long term, I really want to get my upstairs office into better shape, starting with a new floor. It’s okay right now, but I need to make it feel less like a spare bedroom and more like an office, so I might as well start at the bottom, rip out the floor, repaint it, replace the lights, then put in a new floor and start getting the furniture laid out like an office. I think it will help me put some distance between home and work, and make the days a little less monotonous.

I did drive up to the NC mountains last weekend – mainly to find out if they were open and people could camp there again. I went to the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest and drove along the forest road next to the Little Santeetlah River, where all of my favorite spots did indeed have people in them. So that’s a good thing. I stopped for 45 minutes or so just to sit by the river and soak up the sound of quiet. Now that I’ve established that the place is open, a couple of friends and I may hike up to Bob Bald in the next couple of weeks and spend a night up there. That should be really nice.

Solutions, Part 2

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A while back, I opined that it was time to get the retaining walls in my lower yard replaced, and pondered doing it myself vs. hiring somebody who knows what they’re doing to take care of it.

I opted for the latter, and had a number of people come out to take a look and give me some estimates. While they were here, I also asked each of them to give me an estimate on rebuilding my deck. One guy, basically a handyman who came highly recommended, stood out with his estimates for both the walls and the deck, and so I hired him to replace the deck. I didn’t have the money to do both, the deck was a bit cheaper, and I wanted to get something done that I’d be able to SEE right away.

So, as of May 23rd, I have a new deck. Not only is it not falling over. Not only does it not have a horrible paint job. Not only does it not have those stupid built-in benches that some decks have. Not only is it not attached to the side of my house (it’s attached to the foundation). But also – it’s 8 feet longer than my old one was. It’s a really nice deck. The guy was able to re-use a lot of my old deck (most of the supports, for example, were fine – they just needed to be set in concrete), got everything leveled up, extended it to the end of my house (where it logically should have gone to begin with), and built a new set of steps there. It looks amazing, and – now that I’ve put up a screen house on it that my neighbor calls, “The Bourbon Barn,” I’m spending just about every morning out there drinking coffee and watering the lawn, and just about every every evening drinking bourbon and reading. In short, I’m using the deck, which – honestly – I really haven’t done in 20 years.

The new deck as it was being built. The edge of the old deck can be seen where the color of the support beams changes. Everything to the right (8 additional feet) is the expansion.

At the same time that I was getting estimates for the walls and deck, I was working with a roofer and State Farm (again) to try to get my roof replaced. I first put in a claim with State Farm in about 2008 because water was leaking into my master bath. It was declined. Since then, I’ve tried two more times to get my roof replaced, and State Farm turned me down both times. A few months ago, I replaced my front door, and saw water literally pouring out of the front wall of the house once the door was removed. I took the opportunity to rip up a large section of my water-damaged foyer floor. I also vowed that State Farm was going to replace the roof THIS QUARTER or I’d be insurance shopping.

State Farm sent a guy out to look at the roof. He found a few large holes. I also showed him the foyer floor, the garage ceiling and walls (evident water damage to both), and he went on his way. And about two weeks later, miracle of miracles, State Farm agreed to replace the roof.

Working from home while all this was going on was not fun – but it’s so nice to have a roof that isn’t an eyesore, and should actually keep things dry!

That is being done today. The roofing crew was onsite by about 6:20 this morning. It is now 3:40 in the afternoon, and I believe that they’re finishing up on the ridge vents and getting ready to start cleaning up. After 12 years, I’ve got a new roof. It looks amazing, and – assuming that I don’t have water in my foyer after the next heavy rain – I can now begin focusing on replacing the floors in the house. I’ve wanted to do this for years, but could not until I got the leaks taken care of for good.

What about the retaining walls? Well, they’re on the docket, too. While I’ve been doing all this other stuff, I’ve also been in the process of refinancing the house and pulling some money out to do all of these improvements. I’m now in the final stages of that project – waiting for the mortgage company to give me a closing date. They’re at the point of verifying my employment and insurance, and I’m fairly sure that I’ll be able to close within a week or two. As soon as that happens and the money is in my account, I’ll get one more estimate on the retaining walls and then pull the trigger on that project. The floors downstairs will come next. Then upstairs. Then I start looking at the kitchen.

Solutions. I’m getting them.

Getting Started

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So I’ve made good progress on most of the things I mentioned in my last entry. I actually completed one of those things, if you count “walk 100 miles in a week,” as I managed to get in about 105 miles between the 27th and the 3rd. I did not attempt a repeat of that this week – I haven’t even taken my walk yet today. I think I’ll end up at around 75 miles, which is plenty. I did the 100-mile week just to see if I could.

On the house front, I’m happy to say that State Farm finally came through for me on a home insurance claim! They’ve made things as difficult as possible, but they are going to pay to replace my roof (minus my deductible), and I’ve got a contractor signed up to do the work. Actually sent the signed contract back to him this morning. State Farm started things off by telling me that the replacement value of the roof was just over $9,000 and that the depreciated value was just over $5,000 and then said they were sending me a check for $2,600 – which has to be endorsed by me AND by Chase Manhattan, because they hold the mortgage. I started to lose my mind when all that happened, but after a few chats with the claims agent, I managed to deduce that they’ll send me ANOTHER check (again, to be endorsed by Chase…sigh) either after the work is done or (hopefully) when I send them a copy of the contract to do the work.

If they decide to wait until after the work is done, I need to figure out how to pay the contractor out of my pocket while waiting for the insurance (not sure how I’ll do that), or convince him to wait for it. He and I have discussed that, and he’ll probably be okay waiting if necessary.

He may not have to, though, because I’ve started the process of refinancing the mortgage and pulling out some money for the other projects. This process began as complete fiasco. I initially put in an application with Chase because they’ve had my mortgage for close to 20 years, they’ve been spamming me for the last three with offers to lower my interest rate, and I figured it’d be a piece of cake. And it was at first. Did the online application, gave them all of the relevant information, said that I wanted to lower my rate and pull out some money for home improvements. All good. Got a call back from a banker and everything was pleasant.

Until he mentioned that, because of COVID-19, anyone who wanted to pull money out during a refi had to show that they had 18 months of mortgage payments in reserve, and 12 months of those had to be liquid reserves. You following me on this? In order for me to pull out $20,000 in a refi, I had to have about $14,000 in liquidity. I was like, “Dude. If I had fourteen grand lying around, why would I be asking to borrow twenty?”

So he offered to lower that amount by adding two points on the loan, and rolling those into the loan. You following this? Because they’re so concerned that I’m going to either lose my job or die because of COVID, they insist that I have enough cash on hand to pay my mortgage for a full year, but if I DON’T have that, they’ll be happy to give me a BIGGER loan and only hold me to having enough to pay for nine months.

So I said, “Screw you,” and went to Quicken Loans. Fired up a RocketMortgage application, took 2.5 percent off of my existing interest rate and pulled out $25,000. Changed from a 30-year mortgage to a 15 and lowered my payment to boot. That took a morning. Now I’m just going through the follow-up stuff with my loan agent and he thinks we’ll close within a couple of weeks.

That will make things interesting with the State Farm checks…

Anyway, I also settled on a contractor to replace my deck, and I’m waiting for him to send me a contract for that. Going to tear the whole thing down, replace it with a few modifications, and extend it about 8 feet so that it takes up almost the entirety of the back wall of the house. Since I do have enough in savings to cover that work, I’m hoping he can get started as early as this week.

I might use the same guy for the retaining wall, as he’s given me a pretty attractive estimate for that work. Going to see how he does on the deck before I make that decision. I also need to call one other hardscaper who lives in my neighborhood and see what he’d charge me for that work.

So things are moving forward and I’m excited about the upcoming changes at home. Here’s hoping I survive the pandemic long enough to enjoy them!

Another Month Gone!

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Welcome to May! April was, to be honest, a very strange month. It had a little bit of everything, both good and bad. I can’t say that I’ll miss it, but parts of it were pretty nice. I don’t remember exactly when we started working from home, but I’m pretty sure that it was before April – which means that I’ve spent all month at home (with a few trips to the grocery or liquor store).

And I’ve really enjoyed working from home. Being completely honest…I don’t want to go back to the office. It’s nice to be able to take long walks in the morning, get home, have a leisurely cup of coffee on the deck while catching up on the news (maybe even eat breakfast!), then take a shower….and still sit down to work a full thirty minutes earlier than I would have if I’d have gone to the office.

On the other side of the day, it’s nice to put in a full day, then shut down the computer, take another long walk, then have a leisurely drink on the deck, cook dinner, watch some television, and get to bed before 9:00.

I love that kind of a schedule!

To be sure, April also had some downsides. The most glaringly obvious one to me is that I’ve developed some serious anxiety about being around other people. It doesn’t take a trained psychologist to figure out why: I had some chest pains after going out a month ago, I associated them with COVID-19, I couldn’t really call anyone (other than an ambulance) for help, and it freaked me out. Since then, I’ve experienced some degree of chest pain every time I’ve gone out to a store or have had someone come to my house (delivering packages or coming to give me home improvement estimates).

The good part of that is that it’s been so consistent that I know beyond any doubt that it’s psychological – and knowing that has allowed me to block it out and rebound back to normal pretty quickly the last couple of times that I’ve gone out. This is a big plus, because I’m really NOT “that guy.” I don’t get wrapped up in my health. I don’t worry about it. So worrying about it as I have been – to the point of having anxiety attacks about it…well, THAT bothers me more than the actual worry does. When I start stressing over something I really can’t control, that’s when I start to just give up.

On to more pleasant things. I’ve decided to get serious about fixing up this old house (and landscape) over the next however long it takes. Big-ticket items that I’m looking at getting fixed now are the roof, the retaining wall in the back yard, the deck, all of the floors, the half-bath, and – maybe – the kitchen. Lots of work, lots of money, lots of time – but these are things that need to be addressed and I’ve put them off for too long.

The roof has been leaking for a while, and I’ve had the insurance company out again in the hopes of convincing them that it just needs to be replaced. I showed them damage inside the garage – the ceiling and walls – and in the foyer (front wall and floor). At least this time around, the guy they sent out admitted that he saw holes in the roof. The last one wouldn’t admit to any damage at all. What I’m hoping is that the new guy won’t give me $1000 and tell me to patch the holes. The roof is over 30 years old. It needs to be replaced. If I can’t get insurance to cover it, two things are going to happen. First, I’ll be getting a new insurance company. Second, I’ll be refinancing the house and pulling some money out of equity.

It’s obviously important to have a good roof over my head, and it’s made more important by the fact that I simply cannot replace my floors until I can control the leaking coming in to the front hall of the house. When I replaced the front door a couple of months ago, I pulled up most of the hall floor because it was so water damaged it was like walking on wet towels after a storm. Since doing so, I’ve had a literal towel next to my front wall to keep the water from pooling at the foot of the stairs after every rain storm. I’m not spending a penny on new flooring until I know that it will stay dry.

Heading to the back yard, my retaining walls need to be replaced (as pictured in the post entitled “Solutions”). This is somewhat vital because my upper lawn has been slowly washing away as the retaining walls fail. The level of the upper lawn has dropped about 8 inches over the last twenty years. One casualty of this slow slippage has been the deck.

The deck has pulled away from the house by a couple of inches, and has begun to list to one side as the earth underneath it erodes away at different rates. While it’s still standing – and fairly stable – it doesn’t take a genius to see that it’s not going to be either of those things for more than a year or so down the road. I had a contractor out this morning (the second in as many days) taking a look so that I can get estimates on repairing it vs. replacing it vs. a bit of both.

Both contractors are also giving me estimates on repairing/replacing the retaining walls, and I plan to get at least one – probably two – more estimates for both of those projects.

The half-bath project is something that I’ll be doing on my own. At first, I was just going to re-seat the toilet, as it has been leaking (I’ve turned off the water to it), but I’ve decided to go ahead and gut the room and use it as a learning experience. New floor (which will stretch out into the laundry room in front of the half bath) will let me get an idea of how I want to handle flooring for the rest of the house. A new sink will give me an idea of what sort of effort and expense will go into replacing the cabinets in the kitchen. Lighting, painting…it’s just a good project to let me get my hands dirty with home improvement – and if I completely screw it up, it’s in an enclosed area so nobody has to see it, and it’s small enough that it should be fairly inexpensive to get a pro to fix my mistakes should that become necessary.

Through thinking about all of these projects – and I’ve thought a lot about them – I’ve come to the inevitable conclusion that I’m not retiring next year as I’d hoped to do. For one thing, it’s going to be expensive and take time. For another, my 401(k) has been CRUSHED this year – I’ve already lost over $100,000, and I don’t have any reason to believe that that’s going to rebound anytime soon. So I’m just going to hunker down, do my job, try to enjoy it, and hope that I live another 10 years so that I can enjoy a funded retirement when I’m 65. By then, I should have the house paid off (or very close), even if I have to refi, it will be worth a lot more than it is now, and I can decide if I still want to move to the woods or if I’ll be happy just living where I am.

Lots of questions, yeah – but I’ve got sort of a plan, and that makes me happy.

It has been a beautiful day today, and this weekend should be more of the same. Looking forward to getting in some good walking to finish out the week (shooting for over 100 miles for the week), and to beginning to tackle that half-bath project. Should be fun!