Best laid plans

You know what they say about the best laid plans? It's true. Today is a case in point.

I had plans to get a pile of work done at the office, probably stay late, and go out for dinner straight from work. It happens that this is the busiest time of year for us at work and we generally expect to work late most evenings just to keep up. Today was no different.

Except . . ..

We were getting ready for work this morning when my husband mentioned that there hadn't been much hot water for his shower. Uh oh. Maybe we should check the hot water heater.

We went into the garage to check. We heard water running. Not a good sign. We turned on the light to get a better look. Lo and behold there was a stream of water flowing out the bottom of the hot water tank, into the catch container thingy, into the pipe and down the drain hole in the floor. Not a small trickle either. It was flowing as fast as an open water faucet.

Luckily, there is a sticker on the hot water tank with instructions:




Being the resident handyperson around here, I figured how to do numbers 1 and 2, skipped 3 (see 2), and figured that the darn thing was leaking - rather flowing - quite efficiently enough to dispense with number 4 and finding another hose to drain it.

Husband called the plumbing people, then went off to work.

Meanwhile, I am sitting at home waiting for the plumbing/heating repairman to arrive "sometime after 1 pm".

Well, the roof looks like it might get finished by this weekend. It's taken them over two weeks, but hey, I'm going to have a new roof. Right?

As for the windows, they tell me the "expected date for completion of manufacturing" is November 20th. In other words,they're not made yet and we'll be lucky to get them installed by Christmas.

You know the picture of the empty dumpster in my last post? It's now full and they're not even finished. It's so full, I have no idea how they think they're going to move it without half of it falling out. I have visions of tiling, woodchips and debris trailing from our driveway all the way to the city dump.

Take a look . . .



Oh well, I'm not going to let any of it bother me because we'll be leaving on our European adventure in less than two weeks.

Despite the on and off hammering, thudding and cursing (by the roofers, not me), I've been happily busy finalizing our travel plans and scrambling to get my work done (the work that pays for all this stuff). It's always a mad rush just before going away. It seems like a million things need doing and there's not enough time to finish it all. Yet I know we'll be ready when the time comes.

Saga of the Roof - cont'd

To update:
This morning when the roofers hadn't arrived by 9:30 am, DH called their office. No answer, so called their cell number.

Apparently, they are running behind (well, yeah!) and won't be able to start yet. So, when can they start? Not until next Tuesday at the earliest! That's another five days from now.

Meanwhile, we have this huge dumpster sitting in our driveway, blocking the garage and there are piles of roofing materials on the front lawn. I'm sure the neighbours are very happy.





It would have been nice if they'd at least called to say they were delayed. Is that asking too much?

Clearing out the trash

The past two days, I've been going through the house, room by room to do a general clean-up before getting out the Christmas stuff. Having just gotten back from vacation, it's been hard getting back in the swing of things.

We have a lot of books and paper in our house. Books, magazines and paper are piled on every conceivable counter, shelf and flat surface. Bookshelves are double-stacked and crammed to overflowing onto the floorspace in front. Papers and books march inexorably up the side of our front hallway stairs. Part of this comes from having avid readers in the house, part of it comes from having full-time college students who leave both completed work and works-in-progress everywhere, part of it comes from a spouse who doesn't know how to throw out, well, anything. So, it occurred to me that the house needs more than a simple tidying.

I started pulling out textbooks and manuals that haven't been looked at in years, magazines that are twenty years old, stuff on the tops of shelves and closets that haven't seen the light of day since I-can't-remember-when. Aha! We don't need that old desk either. Or that old foam mattress. What about the computer desk in the corner? It's just piled with old games and disks. It hasn't had an actual computer on it for at least five years. And what about those old drapery tracks? Admittedly, I went a bit nuts.

Then I thought, what am I going to do with all this stuff? The solution came to me in a blinding flash! I remembered a coupon that came in the mail from a company that would "Remove your Junk". They even recycle the recyclables and donate stuff that's reusable. Much to my surprise, I actually 'found' the said coupon in my mail basket. I looked up their website and, as of today, booked a pick-up time for early next week. Now, all I have to do is get the junk ready.

Weird to do this just before Christmas, but it seems right - even a bit exhillarating. Liberating, in fact.