Yardwork and Other Thrills

I'm trying to be better and more consistent with this blogging/updating thing, but every time I'm about to call our settling in "complete enough for a routine to establish itself," I am proved wrong.

I'd like to think we're closing in on the home stretch, but my husband is still deciding what to do about bookshelves in his study/the parlor - which unfortunately means that we still have boxes and boxes of books lying about. The core problem is that he wants to do built-in bookcases, and built-in bookcases are crazypants-expensive and time-consuming to achieve; but regular bookcases are also less than ideal because we have these massive 11-foot ceilings, and anything except absurdly tall bookcases would look weirdly stubby in there.

Absurdly tall bookcases are also crazypants-expensive, as it turns out. I'm not sure what, exactly, we're going to do yet. But I sure would love to unpack these books.

Also in the Not Quite Finished category ... the Perplexing Back Room. The PBR - part of a bonus area added in the early 30s - is still empty except for the cat's condo and some curtains. And okay, in the interest of full disclosure, it's also littered with all the crap we can't be bothered to take out to the garage, or haul up into the attic right this moment.

This littering/stashing is made all the easier by a Truly Questionable Built-In Cabinet.

It's awful. Painted a dozen times through the years, with all twelve layers peeling. Topped by doors installed so poorly that they won't stay shut unless you loop a rubber-band around their knobs. There's only one really nice thing about it: It's so shitty we aren't worried about messing it up. That's why it's stocked with paint cans, birdseed, plant food, and gardening supplies.

As a side note, while vacuuming yesterday it occurred to me that I'd never before had a place with so much room that I had to keep moving the cord around from outlet to outlet. I was tickled by this, until I noticed that I also had so much room that I had an entire room with almost nothing in it but room.

*sigh*

I swear to God, you guys - apart from the Perplexing Back Room and the Unfortunate Master Bath, the rest of the house is just gorgeous. If you don't see me going on and on about anything else, it's because everything else has been so damn easy.

Well, except for the yard.

The yard is somewhat less easy, but that having been said, it's not that bad, and it's very pretty. We have a lushly overgrown back (prettily landscaped with that precise intent), but we don't have a lot of front yard - which works out just fine for us and our interest in yardwork, which could best be described as "intermittent."

On Friday we actually took a crack at it, though.

I donned ratty jeans, long sleeves, work gloves, safety eyewear, and my stepmom's old combat boots ... then seized the electric hedge trimmer and went to town.* Town needed to be gone to. The yard had been unaddressed for the better part of a month, and those of you familiar with the southeast in the summer can just guess what this place was starting to look like.

I didn't do any cool shapes with the bushes or anything. Mostly I just took a little off the top, to make it look like civilized adults live here. Joke's on the neighbors, I suppose.

While I was at it, I cut a narrow swath behind the holly bushes, clearing the way for me to reach the garden hose and spigot. This also allowed me to reach my very tall, somewhat high-placed windows - a feat I achieved via ladder and a whole lot of swearing, plus an army of holly-leaf scratches up and down my shoulders.

This was a lot of trouble for the sake of some window-reaching, yes, but it had to happen. Why, you ask? Because our million-year-old screens were in utter tatters, and they'd been installed at some distant point on top of some old storm windows. This struck me as odd at first, but then I realized that the storm windows were installed at an even more distant point, back when the primary windows still opened, and all three levels of window-covering could be easily accessed from indoors.

Long story short, here in 2012 these particular windows don't open** and the screens couldn't be removed - even though they made the house look vaguely like a ghost ship with fluttering sails every time a breeze came curling down the mountain.

I could sit here and make up a bad-ass home improvement story about how I Macgyvered some fabulous resolution to this issue; but in fact, what I really did was take a box-cutter to the damn things, and slice them right out of the frame. Not the world's most elegant feat of problem-solving, I'll grant you, but I am not prepared to give a damn. They're gone, and the place looks much, much better.

Hmm. What else has been going on? Let's see.

We once again have TV in our lives, which is nice. Just basic thirteen, because any more than that, and I'd never get any work done. The TV hook-up was a low-drama affair, as compared to the internet hookup - but I don't think I remembered to post about that. In short, the internet guy drilled a hole through our water line. It was our first full day in the house, and our first minor crisis as homeowners. Luckily, this particular crisis wasn't our fault, and EPB fixed everything within a few hours.

Yesterday, my cousin Ryan (formerly of cat-sitting fame) swung by for a visit with his wife and son. His son is about 14 months old, so the cat stayed hunkered in the bedroom closet the whole time, but that was probably for the best. After awhile of kicking around the homestead, we wandered off for ice cream and pizza, and lo, a fine time was had by all. It was fabulous to see them! I'm absolutely delighted to be back in their time zone.

Next up: becoming local. Tomorrow I'll hit up the DMV for a new license, and get new tags put on the car. With any luck, we'll get registered for health insurance once again. I hate doing the self-coverage thing; it's expensive and the coverage you get is crappy, but it's (somewhat) better than nothing. I think.

Anyway. I believe this post has run long enough, so I'll wrap it up and go see about making myself some tea. I don't want to get too optimistic over here, but I just might try and get some work done ...


* The husband donned shorts and flip-flops, and started out the door with the edger/trimmer.
** Most of the house has newer windows, but this stretch doesn't. Naturally.