Arrears...

Last month, I accidentally paid too much on the water bill--I looked at the wrong column and paid the "amount due after due date" instead of the "amount due on or before due date". Rather than fix the check, I figured it wouldn't hurt to loan them the $.95 for one month.

Yesterday, I received the bill in the mail. It took me a couple of minutes to remember the overpayment. Apparently the computer system didn't appreciate the my gesture. I now owe the water district -$.95 "immediately!"

I wonder how I could write that check.

My Island Adventure

(the before pic)

My dad left last Sunday, after more than 3 weeks of remodeling/fixing things around my house. It was an exhausting marathon for both of us, but I am very happy with the results. I'm blessed to have such a great dad who would tolerate my pickiness and let me basically tell him what to do the whole time!

His crowning achievement was definitely the kitchen island and lighting. As you can see from the top picture, it was a nice kitchen before (certainly more kitchen than I've ever had before), but I have always wanted an island with an eating bar.

This was my first experience with a significant home improvement project, and being just a little bit of a control freak, it was hard to deal with wallboard dust (that stuff is evil) all over my house and all the other things that go with remodeling. During one low point, I came in to discover the spray paint Dad used to finish the wood had drifted all over the floor, well beyond the plastic tarp! (I'm still finding black paint in nooks and crannies--thank goodness it scrapes off without too much effort.) I broke out in hives on the day the installer told us they wouldn't install the quartz countertop they had already cut (and I had already paid for--nonrefundable!) due to "liability issues"--the island has wheels on it and isn't bolted to the floor. Dad told them to bring it anyway and he would install it himself. I so did not want my island to be his first experience installing countertop! After a sleepless night or two and lots of prayer and crossed fingers, the installers came, checked out the island (even complimented Dad on his workmanship), and installed it. I was doing a happy dance the entire day after that one.

The painting is my work. I have to give credit to my SIL Deri--her cupboards are the same color as mine, and over the holidays, I fell in love with her red kitchen. The dining area is still unfinished, but it took me 3 tries to find the perfect shade of yellow for it, so I have to show it off, too. In a year or so, I hope to replace the kitchen countertops with black quartz, install a tile backsplash, and I'm toying with the idea of painting my cabinets a cream color and then "aging" them with a dark stain.

My house is almost clean again, but we are still finding tools in odd places. Two days ago, CeCee brought me a miter saw she found in the closet, and last night Doodle found the missing flathead screwdriver wedged between the sofa cushions during bedtime stories. I'll be finding mementos of my dad's visit for a few more weeks, but we'll always be grateful for the help he gave me!

Lamest Interview Ever!

I wonder what Joaquin was on last night!



Ok, they pulled it off of YouTube, but you can still watch it here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/11/joaquin-phoenixs-bizarre_n_166229.html

Understanding Parkinson's

My dad has suffered Parkinson's symptoms since 2001 and was diagnosed in 2003. Tonight, we watched the Frontline Documentary, "My Father, My Brother, and Me" and I highly recommend it. It was certainly an hour well spent.

You can watch it online at their website.

I learned a few things relevant to us.

First, researchers have discovered mutations in the LRRK2 gene have been associated with both familial and sporadic late-onset Parkinson's disease, particularly with people from the coast of Norway (where some of Dad's ancestors are from).

Second, researchers found (through tainted heroin of all things), a link between exposure to herbicides and the onset of Parkinson's. My dad was exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam; he's convinced that was his trigger. My maternal grandmother also suffered from mild Parkinson's; I imagine her years farming exposed her to plenty of herbicides.

Dave Iverson also interviewed with Terry Gross on Fresh Air . I know at least one podcast junkie will want to listen to it:-)

The Home Improvement Binge

While James sails the Pacific between Tonga and Fiji, my dad is here for three whole weeks!

I've lots to keep him busy. First thing he did when he arrived was to finish shoveling my long driveway so I could easily drive up it. He rebuilt a hopelessly clogged toilet, replaced a blue toilet with a new, white one, fixed my back door deadbolt so it can actually lock, and rebuilt the closets in the master bedroom and the toy room. Also on his list are: installing new lighting in my kitchen, building a custom kitchen island and bar (I'm so very excited about this), and repairing the burst pipe in the barn. My house is a giant home improvement project right now, with tools scattered in various places, and lots of odds and ends to pick up. I keep shutting doors behind him, turning off lights, and am constantly interrupted to find a tool, hold this in place, make another trip to Lowes or Home Depot, etc. IT IS SO WORTH IT!

Snow Day #3

School is canceled today and tomorrow.

I start the day with a nagging feeling; I should check the barn. A frozen pipe has burst, spraying a wall all the way up to the ceiling. The stuff stacked there, including all my boxes of canning jars, is soaking wet. The pegboard is warped beyond use; I don't know if the wallboard will need to be replaced. I found the shut-off valve; the mess will have to wait.

I spend three and a half hours chipping with the garden shovel to carve out one long, skinny, tire track up the hill and digging down the snow berm left by the plows. After about an hour, the poor shovel has lost its nice, pointy tip. It's also very dull, but it's still doing the job.

I see half a dozen earth movers drive down the road--I need to get me one of those! I dig down by the main road in hopes that one of them will have pity on me and stop to help. No dice.

Finally, I dig out enough and I hurt enough that I decide to give my track a try. I head into the house.

My house is a wreck. While I've been shoveling these past two days, Chaos, Entropy, and Disorder have been playing--using the whole house as their toyroom and kitchen. I'm too tired to care--let's go to McDonald's.

The driveway is still scary--the girls gasp each way as we inch and slide down the lane, and then a couple hours later when I gun the engine to clear the berm and slip into the track for the trip up, then gun it again to reach the flat stretch of ice at the top.

The van is safely back in the garage. I am already starting to ache all over. Advil PM will be my best friend tonight.

I can hardly wait for Snow Day #4.

How Can Something So Beautiful Be So Very Vile?

Yesterday, school was canceled due to 3 inches of sleet. We had a snow day at home. We slept in, ate banana bread for breakfast, had hot chocolate with marshmallows and candy canes, watched too much television. We even played out in the sleet, but not for long as the stuff kept falling. It was messy and cold outside. I tried to shovel out the driveway, but it was rough going, and the sky kept dumping as much as I could clear up. The weather turned to rain around 10 pm, and then snow around 2 am.

School is canceled today, too. We wake to find beautiful, sunny skies, and 3 more inches of fluffy snow. Time to tackle driveway. We have pumpkin bread for breakfast (can you see I'm trying to conserve the milk here?), I ask the girls to get themselves dressed, and head out to start shoveling.

My cheap, plastic shovel can only tackle the top layer. Still, I figure, if I can get the top off, maybe I can work on the rest with salt. Besides, I have all day. I can chisel it out later this afternoon.

Two hours later, the girls decide they want to come outside and hinder join me. We make snow angels, sled down the hill, and play on the shoveled snow mountain (More pics on Facebook). They get cold and head inside. I keep shoveling. An hour later, they demand hot chocolate; I'm feeling overheated and starving, so I head inside.

I get sidetracked with tidying up and gabbing on the phone. Really, I just don't want to get out and shovel any more. It's depressing, it's slow, it's painful, and it's useless. Even after I get the layer of snow off, there's the thick layer of ice. It's like someone poured the contents of an entire sno-cone truck onto the driveway and then packed it down with an asphalt roller. Even if I can ski the van down this hill to the road, there's no way I'm going to make it back into the garage, or even over the foot-high snow berm the plows at the street.

Finally, I decide I need to at least get that snow layer off. Two more hours of shoveling and lots of thinking. Thinking how convenient it is that James is in the south Pacific, even if he's worried about a cyclone and getting very wet. Realizing that the only vehicles out and about are 4x4s. I'm very grumpy and my hip is starting to hurt. I take a break to hike down and check the mail, only to see that the mailman didn't deliver at all today, again. I chisel out a few token holes down to the pavement and sprinkle some ice, in hopes that somehow the patches will grow and make things easier tomorrow. Five hours of shoveling, and my lane looks like a mini version of the bunny hill at Sundance. All it needs is a tow rope. If I had a tow rope, maybe I could get the van up the lane, too.

James will be making a big purchase this fall. He will buy a snow blade for the tractor, or a Honda Pilot.

More Info on January's IBM Resource Action

I've noticed a spike in folks coming here for information on the IBM resource action. That would probably be because there is so little out there. Somehow, IBM manages to keep layoffs under the radar. Below is the only national news story I've seen on it:

After Profits Grow, IBM Quietly Lays Off Workers: NPR

Hope this helps.