Month: March 2009 (Page 3 of 7)

My roof is done! I can’t believe how fast it went. My head is still spinning.

I rushed home yesterday to meet the roof guy and give him the one-third downpayment. When I got there, the workers were just leaving. I called the office, and they said everything was done and that I could just give the workers the full amount. I was a little nervous about that, because during the course of this whole process I haven’t felt like I knew what the heck was going on. I asked if I could bring it to the office myself. They said yes. Besides, they hadn’t done the back porch roof and I was freaking out. As it turns out, that wasn’t in the contract. How was that possible? Am I that much of an idiot? As it turns out, yes. Yes I am that much of an idiot. At least the back porch roof is in pretty good shape.

So I felt like I should ask some questions. No one had told me anything during the whole process. I was only able to ask whatever questions popped into my mind just that moment. Does the roof need some kind of coating or maintenance? No. Should the work on the skylights be done from the top or bottom? From the bottom. The top is sealed. How do I answer my neighbor’s concern that there’s no wall on the roof between our two houses? No worries. The roof works just fine without a wall.

And that was it. I have a new roof. I went to the office and wrote a check for $10,200. I’m still freaking out.

Porch roof BEFORE:

Porch roof AFTER:

Upper roof BEFORE

Upper roof AFTER:

Upper roof FRONT:

I will have a little bit of work to do to open the ceiling under the stairwell skylight. But in the back room, it’s just a matter of pulling back a board.

The next installment of my beekeeping course was last night. I seem to be getting more excited about the topic as I go along. I almost signed up for some bees last night. What stopped me at first was the fact that I go to Nebraska every summer. Would it be okay to leave the bees for a month each year? As it turns out, summer is the time you’re supposed to leave the bees alone. The honey harvest comes some time during the summer, but besides that, they hardly need any attention at all.

The other thing that kept me from signing up for bees was last night’s topic: getting stung. It helped to hear Steve talk about it, but not having been stung in so long, I am really freaked out about it. He said things like ounce-for-ounce, bee venom is more deadly than cobra venom. But you have to be stung by 2,500 bees to get enough venom to die.

I wonder if I could just ask him to bring a bee in so I could have it sting me. Then I could get the first sting all over with. He said that after a while you build up a tolerance for it, but at first there is some swelling of your hand or even your whole arm. Sheesh!

Steve’s wife was there, and they had brought many of his photography prints, which were gorgeous. They also brought some honey, but I didn’t get any because I still have about a quart left from the gallon bottle I bought in Nebraska a couple summers ago.

I did get a book they were selling. It’s used as a college textbook, so it’s usually really expensive, but they could offer it for cheap because they know the author. In fact, they had asked him to sign the copies they were selling. Cool!

Yesterday while I was at school a bunch of guys tore off my roof.

My bank loan went through, and I’ve been trying to remember to call the roofing company to tell them I had the money. I remembered to call on Monday. They started work yesterday. I’m very excited. It has taken them one day to pull the old roof off. Only one worker was still there when I got home yesterday. He told me everything went pretty smoothly. He said there were two patches of rotten wood under the roof. I expected a lot of rotten wood, so that was pretty happy news. I wish I could go up there to see it, but I don’t know if I could handle the height. The guy said that if it doesn’t rain today they will get the roof replaced and will begin on the front and back porch roofs. It’s going to rain today, so I don’t know what that means. I guess I’ll find out.

When I scheduled the work to be done, I asked about the pond. The lady said I should cover it. I’m glad she did. A lot of black crumbly stuff came off the old roof. That probably wouldn’t be so good for the fish I want to add this spring.

I’ve had a little back pain lately. I’m writing about it so I can remember when it started: two nights ago. I woke up Monday morning and my back and leg hurt.

My drug of choice when my back hurts is ibuprofen. I have a bottle at school and a bottle at home. I’ve been having trouble deciding where to keep my “home” bottle. The obvious location would be behind the bathroom mirror. But I often want to take the ibuprofen with some food, and unless you count toothpaste, there’s no food in the bathroom. So I’ve been keeping it downstairs in the kitchen. This way, I take it with my breakfast. It’s also closer for when I want to get at it in the evening.

So my next decision is what to do about exercise. Will it make my back worse? I exercised on Monday, and I felt my back twinge. Yesterday I had a dentist appointment after school so I didn’t exercise, and my back hurt anyway. Would it be prudent to lay off the exercise for a couple days, or would it be lazy? I’ll pack my exercise clothes today and decide after school’s out.

I bet the title of this post is going to get me all kinds of spam.

Yesterday in class I was talking with the kids about photo albums. The Religion book was using it as an “opener” to the lesson. In the lesson, they’d be looking at “snapshots” of the early Christian church – particularly in regard to how it grew.

So anyway, I talked about how my siblings and I loved to look at our “baby books”, which were albums from our early lives. I even had a picture to show them. A few years ago for a chapel message, I showed pictures of my birthdays from 1 year-old to 10 years-old. My sixth birthday picture always makes me laugh. I’m wearing a purple shirt that I think I liked. (It also appears in my seveth birthday picture). I also laugh because Beth has been banished to another table. In the picture, she’s kind of twisting her head around and peeking over my shoulder. Hehe… Poor Beth: little sisters ruin everything, so they must be exiled.

In the picture, clockwise, from the bottom left: Jimmy Baskin, Keith Ledbetter, Beth, Me, Robby Price, Patrick Randolph, and Brent.