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By kilax, March 25, 2016 4:17 am

What’s the general consensus on group texts (you know, the text you get that happens to include many other people – and sometimes phone numbers you don’t recognize – then blows up your phone as those many people respond)? Yay or nay?

Only acceptable when sharing cute human or fur children pictures?

Only acceptable when everyone in the group knows everyone else?

Only acceptable for emergencies (in which case a phone call would have been better but wasn’t possible)?

Only acceptable for forming plans with large groups?

Only acceptable for continuing inside jokes?

Acceptable all the time?!

Hmm.

I admit, sometimes I like them and sometimes I don’t. And I am MAJORLY guilty of using one for a long time now.

I mentioned in December that I was doing a bad job keeping people updated on house stuff. So I started a group text to update everyone anytime we had news.

“The septic was finally fixed!”

“We think we’ll close in two weeks!”

“Nevermind.”

Ha ha.

I updated everyone throughout the move then asked if anyone wanted to be dropped off the conversation or if they wanted to keep getting house updates – because there is still stuff going on every day (as you’ve seen here).

Everyone stayed on! Ha ha.

And I’ve found the group text is a nice place for me to find house photos on my phone. I upload photos (and delete them off my phone) most days, so I can’t access them in my photos folder. I have a folder on Google Drive for storing photos (which I can get to by my phone), but sometimes it’s easier to find one in the group text (if I don’t want to show my blog to someone). Anyway.

So I enjoy the group text… but I still feel like I’m being annoying!

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By kilax, March 24, 2016 6:23 am

• Storage room update! Someone worked very hard on putting in conduit, replacing the light, and adding outlets (not all shown below)! A lot of our boxes are in there, and now there is much more free space in the rest of the basement. We still need to adjust the shelf heights – and get the rest of our stuff from the warehouse. We’re getting there!

• I read a lot of blogs, and often read the comments, and usually, all the commenters agree with the author or encourage whatever the author is doing. It’s true that we’re more likely to read blogs we relate to and comment when we relate (I am not trying to encourage trolling!!!), but please, please, don’t always agree with the author or encourage them when it seems like they are doing something unhealthy or harmful to themselves. It’s okay to ask if they’ve considering something else or if they are sure that’s a good decision. I try to… until I give up and stop reading the blog because of the repetitive bad decision and then “why did this happen?” cycle. Horrible, I know. And of course, please leave those types of comments here.
• Two years ago I wrote about a Runner’s World article about uncertainty speed workouts – not knowing what your speedwork would be until you were doing it, and how that uncertainty helps you mentally train for the uncertainties of race day. I thought it was a good idea, and still do. From time to time, I just go out and do whatever speedwork comes to mind. Well, Runner’s World is repetitive if nothing else, and they had a similar article with fresh ideas a few issues ago. I was waiting forever for it to come online to share with you – here it finally is (pdf here)!
• Ahh, I miss these days, and knew I would when I wrote that post. We’ve been go go go since the move and I am T-I-R-E-D. Which I also knew I would be. I look forward to when contractors aren’t coming in and out of the house most days. And I am looking forward to some visits with family and friends that will slow things down. And someday, a nice long nap! (I am very grateful we can have work done on our house and that we live in this home, period, I am just tired and in need of a recharge).
• I was in work training the first three days of the week, and I got to take the class with one of the first coworkers I ever worked with! She moved on to a different division soon after I started but we really clicked, and sitting next to her, well, may not have been the best idea in class. Ha ha. But it made it fun. I love how she laughs at ALL my stupid jokes. I tell a lot of them, guys. They don’t all deserve to be laughed at. I am not even sure 50% do. But it sure feels good when I make people laugh.

Link to Random Thoughts Thursday 91

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By kilax, March 21, 2016 4:22 am

The move is official now – Data and I have new ID tags that list Zion as our place of residence!

Data also got a new collar with his – and it’s a shout-out to his namesake:

In the correct color, of course.

I think these collars would have worked too, but whatevs. Ha ha.

There are so many places you need to update your address when you move. The ID tags were just one thing on a huge list* of items I wanted to update. Hence it taking me so long to get them updated (we updated Data’s chip much more quickly).

*Holy cow. That list. I’ve been working away on it since we moved but I am still adding things to it, as well! And a bad time to move? That would be when all your tax documents are being mailed to your home. We don’t know where a lot of them went. To the townhome? The rental home? Luckily we got the missing ones online!

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By kilax, March 19, 2016 6:44 am

My bathtub is sitting there, just waiting to be used! Eek! Soon, my lovely.

Our carpenter found some interesting stuff when he was demolishing the bathroom:

That octagon shape? It’s likely framing for what used to be a window, like this:

Octagon windows on our garage (this picture also features our new gutters!)

The bathroom wall is suspiciously thick, so we’re thinking what is our foyer now used to be an exterior patio or porch. That would (kind of?) explain why the storage room below the foyer is so odd, and all the elevation changes (steps) in the house.

I wish we had more of the history of the house! Finding clues like this is fun, too, though!

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By kilax, March 17, 2016 11:02 am

• Do you have a content proof reader for your blog posts? Mine lately is my snister. I just send her the post in an email with the subject line “too whiny?” She always says no, but sometimes I never publish the post. It feels good to write it and get it out. But it doesn’t need to be shared (here).
• After a few nights of bad sleep because we were constantly getting up to push the sump pump float down, we finally slept well last night – because we had the sump pumps fixed. Yay! Steven bought new equipment Tuesday and we were going to put it in ourselves, but there happened to be a plumber at the house yesterday working on something else – so why not have him do it? I am very happy Steven made the executive decision to pay him for the install! The plumber had all the tools and materials there and I am sure it saved us a lot of time (and maybe some frustration, ha).
• Guess what Steven found in the sump pump yesterday? Ha. He said this guy tried to jump out!

• The other day a friend asked me if stretching and foam rolling is how I stay injury free, with the amount of miles I run (she felt like she had an injury coming on and wanted to know what I do). The truth is, I don’t stretch or foam roll, like I should. But I do strength train three times a week and am diligent about cross training and rest days (and active recovery). AND (and I forgot to share this with her) – changing my shoes out when my legs start to feel wonky.
• And… it’s actually time for a shoe refresh. I am currently rotating between six pairs (plus speed and trail shoes), and I think three need to go. I have four pairs on standby, and for whatever reason, Zappos sent me a $25 credit, so I just got these (below) to add to my collection. This is probably the first time in a long time I’ve had the more updated version of my shoes – I am usually in the old model for a loooong time (because it’s cheaper and I go through shoes so fast). Squeee! Exciting!

• I have drooled over Moxie Cycling gear for a long time, but have never purchased anything. I was dreaming again, and looking at their sizing chart, and I have to say, I LOVE how they have different body shapes for their models! Awesome!
• I am itching to hang some artwork/my jewelry holders in the house! But it’s not a priority at this time. Maybe when my snister visits? For now, having some stuff propped up on shelves will have to do!

Ha ha, you can’t tell cause I cropped it, but Data is pretty high up. Brat!!!

Link to Random Thoughts Thursday 90

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By kilax, March 16, 2016 4:42 am

Allow me to introduce you to the creepiest room in the house:

We affectionately call it “the kill room.”

But it’s so fun to sing in there! Ha!

And that is NOT what it looks like now!

Who knows what this room was. A bomb shelter? A cellar? It’s right under our foyer and has hella thick walls and isn’t useful for much other than storage (and playing around with the echo). So we decided to make it a storage room. First though, a few changes.

Dad and Steven power washed it on February 7th, which helped a ton:

Already looking better!

Steven ordered* Rust-Oleum EpoxyShield Basement Floor Coating to cover the floors, walls and ceiling. That required a bit of prep work, before we could paint (here’s their how to video).

First, Steven got all the random pieces of concrete off the surfaces of the room, using a hammer and chisel. There were pieces stuck on the floors, walls and ceiling.

On February 24th, we used Rust-Oleum EPOXYShield Concrete Patch to patch some of the cracks and fill in ridges/divots on the walls.

Hence the spots in the photos below!

Then the real fun began… We spent about four hours on February 27th rinsing the walls – getting more chunks (and stains) off with steel brushes,

then using a concrete etch to clean all the surfaces to prepare them to receive the paint.

The picture on the right is so much darker because we had to take the installed light out of the room to do this part of the project, and use a floor lamp!

Each surface received the etch,

it sat on the surface for 1-2 minutes, then we scrubbed it with a brush,

then rinsed and squeegeed each surface THREE TIMES each. Hence it taking four hours.

But! By the end, the water we squeegeed out was coming off clear (it was important the room be very clean so the paint would adhere). Yay!

Then we waited for it to dry out. We put a dehumidifier in the room and ran it for a few days. On March 4th, we taped a piece of plastic on the floor to test and see if any condensation showed up…

… nope! All good! Ready to paint!

I vacuumed the room March 12th (unfortunately, we didn’t have a big time chunk in our schedule to start painting until then!) and we got to painting! You simply pour part A in to part B, stir it for three minutes, then let it sit for thirty minutes before painting.

We started with the ceiling (ouch – my shoulders!) so any drips on the floor or walls would be painted over later. One set of this paint is supposed to be enough for 250 square feet, and our room is 9’x13’x7′, so we got two sets, hoping that would just be enough.

The first can covered all of the ceiling and the front and back walls (and took us about two hours to paint).

The second can covered most of the rest of the walls (and took a bit less time – just under two hours).

We wondered if a second coat of paint would cover the glossy concrete patches, but we didn’t care enough to find out.

And we ran out of paint. Luckily, Menards (we got the first two sets on Amazon) had it in stock so we got some to finish up painting on March 13th! (Note: there are specific instructions for mixing multiple sets of this paint to make sure the coloring matches, but we mixed one set at at time – they seem to match fine, and it’s a dark storage room – it’s not as important as painting an open space that gets natural daylight/viewed often.)

The floor was really easy to paint compared to the other surfaces, because it was smooth. We spent a lot of time (and extra paint – we used the entire third can) covering up all the bumps and divots on the ceiling and walls (in hindsight, spraying would probably be more effective than using a roller and brush for this type of surface)! Finishing up the walls and floors took us just over an hour.

And the best part about the floor? Doing the “sprinkles”!!!

You paint in roughly 4’x4′ areas, then throw the “sprinkles” on!

This looks goofy because it’s drying.

All painted!

The best part finally arrived yesterday – (after vacuuming up, again) we got to put the shelves in! Basements flood, and we know that ours definitely has, so we want to get things a bit off the floor and in plastic bins. This is one step closer to getting there!

There’s one shelf in the back,

three on the left,

and two on the right.

I can’t wait to start putting all our plastic bins in there! I love organizing! That’s been one of my favorite parts of moving – unpacking and organizing (I’d rather unpack, than pack).

Why’d we go to so much work prepping this room for storage? Because we’re gonna live here forever and we want shiz done right. And, we don’t want the storage room to be gross and creepy. Just creepy. It will be less creepy when we install overhead lights. Soon…

*This means we paid for it. This is not a sponsored post. We bought all this shiz ourselves. I am calling out the brands and showing pictures of what we used for future reference, nothing else.

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By kilax, March 15, 2016 6:25 am

Critter eviction is well underway at our house:

• We caught one mouse and the traps are still out
• The cage is set up for the flying squirrels

• And now we’ve got these guys…

Hopefully they’ll be easier to “evict.” Ha ha.

Steven found them in the sump pump late Sunday night. Steven made many visits to the sump pump that night because the float kept getting stuck, then the pump kept running, which made a very loud noise. Add that to another list of things to fix! (We actually have two sump pumps – one that goes in to the yard and one that goes in to the septic system – both need some work, of course.)

I really wonder what critter will show up next. I feel like I’m posting something about them here every few days! We haven’t seen Peoples (that’s what Data calls his friend) in awhile…

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By kilax, March 12, 2016 6:52 am

For the past three nights, Data has had a late night date with his new friend, and I finally got a picture of them together:

They decided to bring the party outside our bedroom window last night – that raccoon was VERY close to us, ha!

As long as that raccoon stays out of our attic and doesn’t destroy anything… he is welcome to visit. But that he’s hanging out on the second floor balcony has me a bit suspicious.

Sorry for all the odd reflections – flash was the only way to capture him!

It’s funny that Data doesn’t have the same reaction to the raccoon as he does to Denali or the deer. He growls at them (and hisses at Denali and tries to swat him/her), but he sings his excited “bird” song to this raccoon and chases it around like they’re playing. I wonder how many more late night dates they’ll have.

Data seems to be settling in to the new house quite well! He’s been eating like normal and using his litter box regularly since we moved in. He’s found all the sunny spots to lay,

and since I took him outside for the first time this week, he’s been crying to go out every day. I see lots of walks in our future.

He does seem to be spending A LOT of time sleeping in the bedroom… and I wondered if he was depressed or something. Then I remembered he’s a cat. And that the bedroom is a safe spot during all the construction on the house! He hasn’t hidden under the bed in a long time, so that’s good!

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By kilax, March 11, 2016 4:13 am

Updated 5/6/16 – SPOILER ALERT! We had to have the system I mentioned installing below (aerated) taken out, and the hydrogen peroxide one put in.

Part of the contingency of buying our house was that the bank (that owned the house due to foreclosure) inspect the septic and well systems and fix any issues with them. The septic tank had to be replaced and there’s money in escrow in case the drain fields need to be repaired (which is supposed to be inspected one month after living in the house – we’re pending an appointment to get it checked out).

The well tested with flying colors! Water is safe to drink/use. No issues there.

Except one.

The sulfur.

That rotten egg smell.

We couldn’t handle it. Ha! I am surprised people LIVE with that. We first thought the smell might go away after living in the house a bit. Nope. A few days after moving in, we had the well chlorinated. That made the smell go away for a few days, then it came back.

There was an existing water treatment system in our house (that wasn’t running). We had someone come over to look at it, and give us a quote for a new system (if needed). They suggested draining the old system. That made the smell even MORE intense.

Old system – the two blue tanks were the filters (water heater in the middle)

Eek!

I felt better when I talked to people about this, and heard that it is common with wells. “Oh yeah, my parents are on a well, so we don’t shower there.” “I had lots of friends on wells growing up, and they got used to the smell!”

We don’t plan on getting used to the smell (especially since it gets in your clothes… AND SMELLS LIKE ROTTEN EGGS – did I mention that?!) and we don’t want to be the house no one wants to visit because of that. And, I’d like to drink my water instead of buying gallons of it (I know it’s okay to drink, but ick).

So we had three different companies give us quotes for three different systems! The options were:

• An aerated system – least $
• A hydrogen peroxide system – $$
• A chlorinated system – most $$$

All of the systems used carbon filters. Each system was a different price, had different service plans, and required filters that could need to be changed every 3-10 years, depending on how hard your system is working! The aerated system gets out the sediment and gets rid of the sulfur smell, the hydrogen peroxide system does that and kills some bacteria, and the chlorinated system does all that and kills ALL bacteria. There’s more to it, but this is the gist of it. (And note: EVERYONE tried to sell us a water softener, but we’re not sure we want one, so we’ll wait on that.)

In the end, we decided to try the aerated system. It’s what our neighbors have, and it worked for them. Steven had a glass of water at their house, and it was fine. And, we’d like to try the system with less chemicals.

New system – filter on the left

We had it installed on February 26th and the sulfur smell left the cold water right away! Yay! I drank out of our faucet for the first time since moving in!

Steven drained the hot water heater to try to get rid of as much of the sitting sulfur water as possible. And… we still had some scent of it. Sigh.

The treatment system is set to “recharge” (clean the filter) every three days. We set it to two. Still smelled sulfur a bit toward the end of the day. We set it to ONE day. The most frequent we’re willing to go.

Ugh.

We had the installer come back and we talked to him about it. He had some ideas to try before we get a completely new system. He thought maybe there was still sulfur residue in the pipes, and that chlorinating the well would get it out.

Last time we had the well chlorinated, we paid someone to do it, but this time, we did it ourselves! You basically pour the chlorine in to the well, then run a hose back in to the well to make sure the chlorine is going through the system.

Our well is not what I picture in my head when I picture a well. I think of the typical storybook well, ha!

Then you have to run all the hot and cold water in the house in a certain order. Then not use your water for 24 hours (as to not put too much chlorine in the septic tank). Then drain it all out after 24 hours, and run all the hot and cold water in that order, again.

Fingers crossed this helps… otherwise, we might be getting a different treatment system installed!

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By kilax, March 10, 2016 6:27 am

• YAY! The first floor bathroom work will begin at our house today! Work includes: swapping the location of the toilet and vanity (and doing associated plumbing, flooring, lighting, electrical, etc. work) and installing the new bathtub and shower surround. YAY! YAY YAY YAY! YAY!

Bathroom “before” picture

• Did anyone else watch the final episode of Downton Abbey? It was nice how they tied everything up but… eh. I wasn’t in to it much the last few seasons. After they killed off Matthew I just didn’t love it as much. The first few seasons were my favorites.
• Remember when I talked about that article that said we think of our future self as separate from our current self and that is why we sign up for stuff we don’t want to do? I didn’t mention that I didn’t feel like that was applicable to me – I almost always say no to everything. Ha. But… I did see the research mentioned in another article about anger (pdf here), and interestingly, they mentioned how sometimes we make bad eating choices now because we aren’t thinking about how future us would be affected by it, and… yeah. That is totally me!
• Here’s an article I do agree with – “The worst kind of boss is not the one who’s always a jerk” (pdf here). Basically, it says that people would rather have a boss who is predictable – if they are going to be a jerk, be that way all the time. No Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Not your best friend one day and throwing you under the bus the next. Have you worked with people like this? I sure have (not my current boss!). And that is why I agree with the article – I’d rather just know what to expect than have it be a guessing game each day (or as my coworkers and I would say “whichever way the wind is blowing today…”).
• Are you getting sick of me talking about our mailbox? I was just so excited to see mail in it on Monday! Not driving to the post office is saving me so much time!!!! Woo hoo!

• Data woke us up making strange noises at 4:00 am today. He found another friend! Not a mouse, but there was a raccoon (or something raccoon sized) hanging out around the house. We saw it walk across the porch then off in to the woods. EARLY AM EXCITEMENT!!! (It was hard to wake up my cat alarm showed up a an hour or so later.)
• We set all the bird feeders up this week! And far from the house – so hopefully we can watch, but not invite any of those critters in. I have a feeling I am going to be seeing a lot of squirrels and other non-bird creatures eating out of these. Maybe that is what attracted the coon!

Link to Random Thoughts Thursday 89