Snow day!

[ Okay, so I've back-dated this post... I'm trusting that you'll all forgive me in the name of a fun photo. ]

It took me about an hour and a half to clear my driveway. This is a quick photo I took while taking cover in my garage before heading inside to rest.



While it may be hard to judge the amount of snow from the photo, let me assure you that it was at least a foot deep when I started digging. And it was heavy snow. Very heavy snow.

Blackout!

Yes, it's true. For the second time in a week, there was a blackout at my place. In fact, this one - which started at about 5:30am today - was almost enough of an excuse for me to call in “late” sometime around noon. But alas, after an hour of semi-consciousness and checking my Palm's World Clock application to make sure that I didn't miss my ride, I'm up and here at work.

As a kid, we all loved blackouts. At least I think we all did. They were super-cool things where your parents would break out the candles, you'd get to eat cereal for dinner, and - if you didn't get sent to bed early - you'd get to play Monopoly or Clue or something. This is all assuming that it happened in the evening; nothing sucked more than an afternoon blackout on a sunny day.

Nothing except for a blackout when you're working... or more specifically, trying to sleep before getting up to get ready to go to work. Now, my friend assures me that we're not living in the boonies (like the phone company thinks I am) and we're not going to continue to experience blackouts throughout the winter, but I'll believe that when I'm still cozy-warm in the depths of a February freeze.

The weirdest part of all this is that I haven't really been in the house long enough to recognize all its sounds and quirks. Every house (just like every car) has its own “signatures” - sounds and bumps that you recognize and come to ignore day after day. Also, being the first blackout that I was home for, I didn't know quite what to do. Should I check the breaker panel in the basement? Should I be turning something off? Should I turn something over? I dunno! In the end, I did what was easiest: I staggered, still half-asleep, to the front of the house and confirmed that it was the whole street that was out (and learned that some of my neighbours leave for work very early in the morning). Having determined that it wasn't just me, I grabbed my Palm (the first clock I could think of) and went back to bed.

So there you go, a slightly rambling retelling of the first blackout (that I was there for) in my new place. As for the sporadic posting here, between the holiday season and television pre-holiday cliff-hanger episodes I haven't been making enough time for this blog. Once all of this insanity is over, some sort of regular posting schedule should emerge.

Just in case I don't get to post again before the weekend... Merry Christmas!

List of lists

Tonight I hope to impart a little advice to all my readers... after all, that is one of the goals of this blog. Be organized. I don't care how, whatever works for you is good, but get organized and stay organized.

While I've always thought of myself as a bit of a planner, I took the extra step of picking myself up a Palm Tungsten|E about five months ago. I wanted to be as prepared as I could be to manage all the new bills and duties that I'd have as a homeowner. Little did I know what a chore this would be. Let me show you my list of lists as I remember it at the moment:

• Grocery list: this one should be obvious; but for anyone living at home where the fridge and shelves magically stock themselves, you'll soon uncover the secret of this trick!


• Chores/Cleaning: perhaps something that you're currently responsible for... but remember, now you get to do everything - the bathrooms, the kitchen, vacuum the floors, take out the trash, shovel the driveway, etc., etc. Oh, and nobody is going to give you 25 cents per chore either.


• Supplies: similar to the grocery list above, when you first move out, you'll find yourself missing a lot of items (usually halfway through the task where you need it).


• Household bills: this is where things get crazy. Remember when you only had to worry about your cell phone bill and your credit card bill? Now add gas, electric, water, land tax, mortgage, telephone, cable, internet... and probably others that I'm forgetting. And just to keep you on your toes, these bills could be due every other week, bi-monthly, monthly... they could be automatically withdrawn or awaiting your final touch.


• Personal tasks: all the things that you want to do. Yes, it's true. Despite the gloomy picture I've painted above, you can still make time to do things like write a blog or play the guitar. In fact, next to the list of household bills, I might argue that this is the most important list. Owning a house is a ton of work, but don't forget to take some time for yourself.

And there are probably more lists, but I imagine that people are starting to skim the text, looking for this paragraph, by now. My point is simple: there is a lot of different things going on when you move and end up in a new place. Until you can build a routine that accounts for everything going on, it's a bit chaotic. The good news is, I think that I'm almost there now: all of my appliances are in and set-up (yes, the water softener is running quite well... now I just have to get rid of six weeks of hard water stains and build-up), I've figured out the garbage and recycling day, my route to work is well established, and I'm getting better about this whole cooking-dinner thing... not to mention the clean-up afterwards.

However you do it - by yourself or with your housemate(s) - get organized. Keep lists of what needs to be done. Maybe buy a big wall calendar on which you can mark due dates. Go big and get a PDA of some sort. On top of getting everything done on time (or in a timely fashion), you get that little satisfaction of crossing things off your various lists now and then.

Two outta three installed

Okay, so it's not the water softener as promised, and it's probably not a photo that you'll treasure for years to come, but I present to you: my new washer/dryer!



Awesome, eh? In case you hadn't noticed yet, buying a house makes you think weird things. I am excited about a washer/dryer. What is going on. But let me - just for a minute - tell you how awesome this pair (or, “team” as they call them in the store) are. These babies are so quiet that you can barely hear them running - even when you're standing right in front of them! The front-loading set-up really is worth the extra money; the washer must use about one-fifth of the water that a top-loader does. I'm hoping that the water softener, once fully installed, will run just as nicely.

I've had this entry sitting on my PC for two days now, trying to get it finished and posted, and now - after an unexpected nap I just woke from - let me get something on-line as an update and move on next time to something more picturesque.

I haven't used the washer-dryer since the weekend, however, I have heard from my dad that the final pieces to the water softener puzzle assembly are built and ready to go. I have to say that I'll be very happy to see the end of hard water around here. It just isn't good for the pipes, etc., and although I've only been here about six weeks, I can already see evidence of it around. The biggest problem is in the installation point - e.g., where to cut into the main water line. Ideally you should have the softener between the external water outlets and the water heater. This is just not going to happen in my place. Despite the fact that every house will require a softener, the plumbing here is not softener-friendly. Granted, it'd have required a lot of backtracking (or double-piping) to accommodate a softener in the “right” place, but... then again, I'm not about to do it, so how much can I complain, right?

Hopefully I'll have my kitchen cleaned up enough to snap a shot of it next; otherwise, you'll probably get a glimpse of my family room couch (the place of my aforementioned nap I'll have you know!). Either way, I'll try to keep the photos coming.

Soft water weekend

Okay- just a quick update on a cold Friday morning:

Tomorrow is all set. My dad is coming over and we're going to tackle this whole “water softener” thing (and the washer/dryer... but that's just a matter of tools). 9:00am he's going to arrive and we'll get started. From the look of my water lines, I'll probably be serving soft water to my backyard, however, it'll make for a much easier install. A friend in the area keeps telling me that you can't find connectors for plastic water pipe (like I have installed), but I'm hoping that he's wrong. I'm not really looking forward to connecting plastic to copper and back if that's the case!

Otherwise, “where are all the photos?” you ask? They're waiting to be shot. As soon as I get home and remember to charge my camera, I'll shoot a whole bunch more. I have 'before' (read: pre-furniture) photos of my bedroom and family room already shot, but they're not too interesting without the 'after' shots.

So, I'm going to get back to work now; eMail myself a reminder to charge my camera tonight; and hopefully I'll have some images of the water softener and house up before the end of the weekend. Now that I've caught up on some of my freelance work, I'm hoping to get more postings up here (and maybe on insideericshead.com as well).

It's Friday! Have a good day everyone.