Happy Birthday to our 4 year old Cats

 Ryder and Elsa turned four on July 11th.  Although we don't know their exact birthday, it was around this time and Seven-Eleven is as good as any other way to remember it.

We got these cuties the weekend after the twins' birthday when the kittens were about three months old.  The kids named them Elsa and Ryder and Boris was highly allergic.  But as it turns out, if you are allergic to cats, often you will become not allergic to your own cat.  As is the case with Boris, Ryder, and Elsa.

This gives me pause over how many people got rid of a cat because of a relationship.  

Boris is also mostly over his dairy allergy.  He can eat pizza with cheese, ice cream, and a few other dairy-infused items.  He hasn't tried milk yet, but I don't blame him for that one.  

A touch of Spring

Over the years we have had some makeshift furniture.  We started out with a patio set I got on clearance from Bed, Bath and Beyond when we still lived in the condo.  I was proud that I had waited until just before July 4th to nab these because they were discounted by $100 and with the 20% coupon, it was such a deal.  

After those bit the dust, we made do with various chairs and lounges and whatnot.  Mostly because every summer might have been our last here.  And it wasn't always the best outdoor space.  But since getting the railings fixed and finding a more permanent pergola solution, our outdoor space is cozier than ever.  Also, now that our kids are older and play with the girls down the street almost every day, that deck is gonna get a lot of use.

Last year, I watched for sales on patio furniture.  I missed the window and everything decent was sold out.  This year I decided to act sooner.  I thought it would be a hard sell to Nightingale since I'm still unemployed and we don't know how much longer we will truly live here.  But then we realized that we are gonna use that space every nice day possible from Spring until late fall and even beyond.  And while it will not increase the value of the house, it will stage the home nicely to show that there is a cool deck that everyone can enjoy.

I showed Nightingale a few links and she picked one before I could refill my coffee.  It arrived last week and it took the better part of an afternoon to put together.  It isn't high end but it isn't cheap stuff either.  I'd say it's just below the middle of that spectrum.  We should get at least two seasons out of it, but I'm counting on more.  

I also bought a sunblock shield from Walmart and replaced the canopy that came with the Aldi's pergola.  I didn't take them out of their packaging until Saturday but was pleasantly surprised to see that they match.  I still need to figure out a good way to tie everything down for windy days so that nothing gets destroyed.  And we probably should get an outdoor rug just to make it look pretty and keep little feet from getting burned on the composite deck.

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Two changes at the Icarus Compound

Two things I forgot to write about (thus I'm retro-posting this) two changes in our life.  First,  the decision to send our kids to parochial school for kindergarten.  With COVID requiring public schools to be online, Nightingale felt, rightfully so, that I wouldn't be able to handle keeping the kids engaged with schoolwork while simultaneously job hunting and managing the household.  

First Day of School, last week of August

We enrolled them in St John's Lutheran school which is about a half-mile from our house.  Drop off is even easier than at Belding, which was easier than Daycare.  I imagine drop off at Belding would have been easier for kindergarten than pre-K before COVID.  Not having to go inside a building or even walk someone to the door is just easier.

Pickup is a little tougher.  If I go at 3pm, I'm waiting for 20 minutes.  If I go at 3:15, I'm waiting for 10 minutes.  If I go at 3:20, surprise they got out early and are waiting for me in the playground.  Also, you still have douche bag parents who park in such a dickish manner that it behooves you to get there a little early.

It took no time at all before the kittens made themselves at home, as kittens do

The second change was the addition of two kittens as presents for Boris and Natasha's 6th birthday.  We got these cuties the weekend after the twins' birthday when the kittens were about three months old.  The kids named them Elsa and Ryder and it turns out Boris is highly allergic.  We are keeping them though, both the kids and the kittens.

Update from the future:  It turns out that people who are allergic to cats can become used to? unallergic to their own cat.  I don't remember exactly when it happened, but Boris is no longer sneezing or coughing when he pets Ryder.  This means Ryder has one more person who is now obligated to pet him when it strikes his fancy.

How I've spent my summer

 It’s been 2 months since I was told I was being let go at Big Audit.  In that time a few minor setbacks cropped up that can be magnified by the whole losing your job thing if you let it.  My iPad screen cracked that first week or so.  My tooth cracked last week.  It feels like a few other things have occurred. 

 Oh and the electrical in our basement is acting wonky.  A couple Sundays ago, the power went out, but just to the basement.  The electrician I worked with was out of town so I did some googling.  I started flipping breakers until I identified the one for the basement (lucky number  13) and that brought power back, but only momentarily.  It kept tripping.  When they finally were able to fit me in their schedule, they came over to troubleshoot.   Seems like disconnecting the printer helped, but not completely.  As a short term solution they replaced the breaker.  It seemed to work.  I even reconnected the printer and everything was fine.  Until Saturday.  I think our cleaning lady tripped the breaker again when she vacuumed.  I’ve relocated the printer to the dining room and everything is fine for now, but I know this is a short term solution.  Just when I fixed one issue with the house, another one cropped up.

 I’m not sure why it is all of a sudden a problem.  The printer had been running down there for years, even before the electrical project.  I did add a roku, and apple TV and a NETGEAR FVS318 ProSafe VPN Firewall 8 with 8-Port 10/100 Switch, but I doubt any of those draw enough power especially when passive.  Michal said it might have to do with how humidity affects some of the remaining tube and knob wiring that is within our walls.  We had a Derecho the week before the power outage and he said that might have built up some additional humidity issues.   He later said that I have too many outlets and lights connected to one line.  I think they were in a hurry to get to their next project and didn’t want to take this one on yet.

 Just before we got the news, Nightingale and I hired a baby sitter to watch our kids while we worked.  We learned quickly that both of us WFH was not working well.  Often times we both had to be on calls and that left Moose and Squirrel free to run around and cause trouble.  And sharing an office was not working out either.  

Even after getting the news, we decided we could still afford to keep The Baby Sitter and I could use the help to work on projects around the house, run critical errands, and job hunt.  On that last point,  I want to point out that job hunting during normal times can be slow.  Each time I’ve been between jobs, it’s taken several weeks to several months before I was brought on just because of the byzantine processes of Corporate America.  During a Pandemic, jobs are even harder to come by, especially for someone who specializes in a particular DM software solution.

I did manage to get the basement painted.  I used an old 5 gallon bucket of ceiling paint that I had bought for my condo in 2003 and never used.   I wouldn’t use this for a real project but it was suitable for covering up the smudges getting the ceiling and walls  one uniform color of white (more or less). 

 I feel like I accomplished some other projects but I just cannot think of them right now.  

 

 

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thank you for coming to my Ted Talk

right now there are two loudest camps -- the wear a mask (always) Camp and the masks don't help much, if at all Camp -- but there are other camps in-between.

I wear a mask in the store and if a repair person comes over, but when walking outside I often do not and simply keep my distance from others. My family has sheltered at home from the beginning and we do interact with some other people who have done the same (sans masks).

I'm not going sit in a crowded restaurant, or beach. However, I will go for a walk and if I pass someone without a mask or don't have mine, I'll move as far and quickly away as possible. Certainly not gonna stop and chat with anyone at length.

When this first began, I was reminded of the Y2K scare and how IT professionals had to embellish the risks to get everyone's attention. I think there has been a little bit of (necessary) theatre not to intentionally mislead but to get people to take this more seriously. Because humans need simple messages, ie "don't do this all the time" versus "don't do this unless condition#1, Condition#2, etc".

There is still a lot we don't know about COVID-19 and as we learn, we must adapt.

To be clear, I am taking this seriously and believe we should have started with a "play it safe" and "do no harm to others" approach and are sorely lacking consistent, nonpartisan leadership.
thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

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Knocked another item on our Get The House Ready to Sell List

When we bought this house our inspector told us that we had a couple of problems with the electrical.  First problem was the feed was over the deck, which is absolutely against code.  Like it was never okay and there is no grandfather clause for that one.

Second, the electric panel in the basement was also not up to code.  It was using something called 'Cheaters' which allowed a 200 amp service to work with a 100 amp panel.  At least that is how it was explained to me.  It was also explained that this is fine in most parts of the country but not in Cook County.  Yay government oversight! 

We asked the owner to address it and he reluctantly gave us some money to take care of it.  I was prepared to walk away because this is a legitimate get out of contract free card issue.  But the respective realtors wanted their money after spending so much effort finding us a home and marketing his, so they convinced him to give us a credit.   Of course the standard way of determining how much money is by getting three of your electrician friends to give you lowball quotes and you take the average.  You will never find an electrician who will do the work for that price. 

Can you picture Boris hitting this with a rake?

I've been getting quotes for years from electricians who would do the panel and the move and upgrade the service (I wasn't sure if we had a 200 Amp service but it appears we do) and they all came in around $3K. 

Honestly, I don't remember how much was given but now that I think about it, it might have been more generous than I remember.

I got the panel taken care of in 2017, or was it 2018, via an Angie's list deal for about $800, IIRC.  But the electrician kept upping the price to move the feed because there are only so many good spots to put it and putting it in the best exterior location might have meant moving the panel which is a lot of work. 

When COVID-19 derailed our plans to list the house and move south, I decided it was time to fix this issue so that I wouldn't have to give the next buyer a credit for this.  I'm likely gonna have to give them a credit for something else, because there is always something else, so this helps.  Plus Boris was walking up the stairs once with an outstretched rake in his arms and although he's too short to reach the power line now...it's only a matter of time before we have fried Moose.

I got a couple of quotes and found someone I liked.  He figured out a way to move the line with minimal impact and without having to do some of the destructive things other electricians threatened.  He also consulted with ComEd to verify that it was up to code and best practices and we got their blessing so yay!

He came in April to give the estimate and I was honest and said I wanted to do this but couldn't pull the trigger at that moment because i had other projects in-flight but wanted to get this going before summer ended.  He was very accomodating and not pushy at all.

Ironically, once I was able to get to this, we had issues with weather.  May was rather rainy and we kept having to reschedule.  We pushed it out to the first Thursday in June but then Nightingale had us join the Adamas on a lakehouse vacation.  We were going to have him do the work anyway with my mom here to reach out if there  were any problems but my spidey sense said not to do that.  So I cancelled 11th hour and reschedule for the following week.  Between his schedule and the weather, we got it done on Friday, June 12th.  It was a good thing I rescheduled too because there was a slight misunderstanding in where they would put the new feed and by being there, they were able to rethink it on the fly. 

It cost $2500 and I do like how it came out.  I'm worried that if we stay here, we'll someday put an addition on the house and that will mean this was for naught but what can you do.

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Staying put literally and figuratively

Like most of the world, we are under Home Quarantine because of the COVID-19 virus.  I don't have any hot takes or thinky-thoughts that anyone else doesn't have though I will try to write more here and at ChicagoNow for future alien anthropologists that explore our post-apocalyptic planet to consume.

Before this all begin, we were getting ready to put the house on the market.  We were trying to figure out when Nightingale could quit her job.  In order to not burn bridges, she needed to give at least a month's
notice.

We also needed to do a few more things around the house before we could officially put it on the market.  Our realtors felt like we should have listed ASAP but hat's what realtors always say.  in their line of work it a bird in the hand is better than two in the bush.  But there was no way we could have had everything ready by March 1.  And our house shows better in optimal weather, especially with the lack of central air.

Below is a list of things we need to address, more or less in the order of priority.  Meaning if we could only do one thing, start with number one, etc.

at the same time, our biggest need is the need to purge.  I started by selling things on FB marketplace and Letgo, with mixed results.  I did manage to get rid of some big items and make a little money at the same time.   But I also got ghosted and the usual freaks and weirdos.

My thought is that I don't want to move things into a local storage center.  Then transport things to a Memphis area storage center.  and then to our new home once we finally find it.  Also, everything has a cost: do I pay to move it or replace it?  Or do we really need it at all?

I thought that FIL could fly up on a Tuesday, load a truck with the first batch of stuff we know we are keeping but don't need here (NG family dressers, the spare grill I bought that is still in the box, our free weights, etc) and then he could drive off early the next morning, with NG.  They would get down there in time to drop it off at storage and return the truck to the local U-haul, or even if they did it the next morning that's fine.  Then NG would fly back that Thursday afternoon, or even stay until Saturday.

Decorative Railing:  This has two fixes, expensive or cheap.  The cheap easy fix is to remove it.  And I am prepared to do so.  However,  part of me feels like it could be repaired and restored with some help.  It might mean hiring a pro and spending more than I should or if my MIL truly can help, we could do it together.

New Window Treatment for middle bedroom, living room bay window, and kitchen windows.

Paint the Basement: one consistent color of white.  There is no point in doing this while the kiddos are still running around making a mess down there.

Replace carpet in the basement.  There is no point in doing this before the basement gets painted.

Repair Plaster ceiling in the living room.  This is also easy or hard.  I don't know enough about it but I think we can get it cosmetically repaired quickly.  Or do it the right way which will take longer and cause more dust and clean up issues.  I even think we might get away with not doing anything about it but it will be the realtor's call.

Attic Steps painting:  this one is just a nice to have.  Right now the stairs are white but very dingy looking.  I think a dark grey color will make it look better and hide dirt.

Pipe Dream:  I would still like to fix the basement shower.  The problem it doesn't' seem like a cheap fix and I am not gonna pay for a bathroom reno that I won't get to enjoy.

Also, the fence between our house and our neighbor to the North of us is falling down.  At least three posts have rotted through so its likely at the point where replace versus repair costs about the same.  I suspect that if I were to check the survey, my property line is a little more north than it is right now.  which could be an issue because I don't want to screw the next owner out of land.

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