I don’t post many of my own photographs on this blog as I’m just not that good at it and not at all interested in getting better, but the whole point of today’s post is the fact that yesterday was the deadline I had set for getting our patio cleared off. So did I fail? It sure looks like it! But there’s a plan for everything that needs to go, and those plans were made by EOB yesterday, so I’m counting it as a win. Everything should be gone by the end of the week. A mason is coming this morning to give us an estimate for repairing the area where the patio had to be excavated to repair the sewer pipe. I plan to post photos throughout the summer to document how this cluttered space gets turned into an oasis of order and beauty.
Oh man! What a morning we’ve just had! Have to mention this before I get into the meat of this post. So . . . we’ve had some plumbing issues sporadically since moving into this house, and the general opinion of the people who’ve looked at things was that the sewer pipe that goes out to the street was blocked with tree roots and also that a piece of the pipe (one of those old clay ones) had broken off and fallen down into the inside. It was therefore going to be necessary to dig a trench and replace that section of pipe.
Another insight today from my latest podcast fave, “
We continue to make our way through the chaos at our new home. Last night Jim started putting up the beautiful new sliding panel blinds on the patio door. I couldn’t begin to tell you how much time we spent agonizing over how we wanted to have those done.
I got into a conversation last night with my mother-in-law about cookware. The reason for this discussion was a mistake I’d made about not checking inside the oven before turning it on. She stores some of her pans in there, and I fried two handle covers. But I’d discovered that I could order replacement ones, so I’d told her about that, and then somehow we started talking about various metals that are used for pots and pans, and she mentioned that someone who’d stayed with them many years ago had given her a set of copper pans with a cooktop included. “Where is it?” I asked, intrigued. “Oh, somewhere in the garage. I’ve never used it–I don’t have room for it. I’d have to use it on top of the stove, and that wouldn’t make any sense–I’d be using it on top of the burners that are already there.”
This may sound like a very first-world issue. If you’re a refugee, your signature color is whatever happens to be on the clothes and blankets you manage to find. You don’t have the problem of wedding out your closet. You don’t have a closet, or a house surrounding it. As I said recently about some small problem or the other connected with our move, “I don’t have to worry about getting to the well and back again without somebody shooting me, so I don’t have anything to complain about.” On closing day, that pretty horrible time, I reminded myself, “This day isn’t going to end with anyone diseased or dead. The worst than can happen is that we’ll have to pay that $100 penalty if we don’t do the closing today.”