Hurricane awnings

Remember those beautiful clamshell things over the windows?  Linda may have taken them off, but I got rid of them.  One of Craigslist's friends took them away.  

Tile delivered

The six pallets of tile, mortar and grout are delivered.  You can see the 2 empty pallets leaning against the wall in the background.  The one pallet of mortar, half pallet of grout and half pallet of tile that I already moved into the house were not worth taking back out for the sake of the picture. At around 75 pounds per case of tile, 20 cases per pallet, I figure I moved about 4 1/2 tons.  I put 2 cases on a hand truck, moved it to various rooms, and unloaded it.   Same with the bags of mortar and grout.  Took me three hours and cost me 14 ibuprofen and the use of my back for 3 days.

Dave becomes suicidal.

The financial and physical stress of our Florida venture has become overwhelming for Dave. Here he looks for a quick solution to his troubles.

We Move In!

Put the computer up against the window so you can steal internet access from the unprotected network down the street, break out the lawn chairs and it's a home.  Add a little scrubbing, primer paint and a trash bag taped over the ex-window and you have a tidy little place for the airbed.  Luxury!

Lace Curtains

Here I am at the end of January, making lace for the new curtains.  You can tell how much fun it is to scrape wet popcorn texture off the ceiling by the fact that I'm wearing my favorite shirt.  Linda and I had to work together to get the wallpaper border off.  No one person has the patience to do it all.  At least, neither of us do.  We are trying to get one room habitable, even if there is a great big hole in the wall.  We have to move in on Feb 1, when we have to be out of the apartment.

Teachers at Play

If their students knew what their teachers did on the weekend, they'd behave better.  Erin and Angela leave me with the mess, just like the kids do to them.

Cleaning the toilet

Friday  1/23

I clean the master bath MY WAY.  Removed walls, toilet and vanity, sealed off the plumbing and went to get a washing machine we bought off Craig's List.  I really hate this shirt, so I wear it for all the worst jobs, but it won't die!

Sneaky Barrs

First, the bottom row. Imagine: drive 1200 miles with a packed car, roof carrier and trailer w/flat tire.  Unpack the car and find these bizarre little ceramic fruit things and have no idea how or why they are in our stuff.  After a week or so, Linda opens them and finds a note.  The back story is that years ago, Phil and Julie used to be reverse house thieves.  They would break into our house when we were gone and leave a very ugly vase hidden somewhere.  Of course, the reason they had it was because we had left it in their house when they went on vacation, but since this is MY BLOG, I blame them.  How they managed to now invade my house from over a thousand miles away is beyond me. But I am impressed.  The upper row is ruled by the Papa Bear Construction Icon, a Christmas gift from daughter Erin.  Daughter Laura was more practical, or possibly more sarcastic, with a gift of a first aid kit.  The other items were found in the new house: little pickup truck, pokiemon disc and, appropriately, dice (okay, one die).

1/17 Saturday
Linda’s brother, Peter, and his marvelously talented wife, Jan, come down and straighten us out. Peter knows all the nuts and bolts about sanitation and health (like killing mold and cleaning air conditioning and wells) and Jan could redecorate GITMO so all the prisoners would want to stay. We (she) picked colors, designs and went over kitchen plans and we ordered the tile for the entire house.