Friday Faucet

Watercolor Water Faucet
6 1/4" x 6 3/4"

We finally had the water faucet handle replaced with one that actually turns off the water completely!

(including a bonus bit of foam and tape for insulation during our cold weather spell)

During our Hurricane Ike repairs, one of the subcontractors broke off the original faucet (how, I don't want to know) and we had water spewing all over.  They ran to a local hardware store and bought a close, but not quite the right size/the first one/the only one they had.  

Hey there, Buttercup!

Actually called Turnera - Mike at Another Place in Time helped me reidentify it. The blooms are almost 2 inches across. My garden has truly amazed me this year after Hurricane Ike -- I hadn't any true hope for it at all. I think most of the plants and flowers came back bigger and better than ever. (The jasmine however was a goner - a fence landing on top of it didn't help...)

Done and Done

Finally, five months after Hurricane Ike! The inspector came out yesterday to verify and report back to the mortgage company that yes, we did complete all the repairs to the house - duh! Now begins the fun once again of overnight mail, faxes and phone calls trying to get the remaining 15% of our insurance money they held back. I'll spare you the final repair photos of the repaired sheetrock over the water heater in the garage and the painted baseboards..and the upgraded ($2.38/two pack at Lowes) brushed nickel-finished doorstops. Sweet!

Final Stage

Can it possibly be true that almost five months after Hurricane Ike all my repairs will be complete?! They are painting ceilings, baseboards and sheetrock-ing this week. Thus begins the "fun" next week of trying to get the rest of my MY MY money back from the mortgage company. Sort of like the stimulus plan of the hurricane type (if you listen to talk radio). . . Not that I do all the time, I really enjoy Dennis Miller's show and then the station before and afterwards has the crazies on in the interim.

Floors - Before and After. . .

Last stop - ceilings and painting!

Git'cher Grout On!

Feeling woozy from the grout sealant! This from a girl who used to love the smell of mimeograph test sheets back in elementary school. Hoo-eey!

Time to go wipe off and do the last section. Hit me again!

Sandra Betzina Today's Fit OOP Butterick 3124 - Developing. . .

Doesn't that sound "Drudge-like"?! I'm still tweaking this top. And think I understand why Butterick no longer does Today's Fit. Unless we define "Fit" as a tantrum. Let's start with something positive: Love the V neckline. Flat, good depth, doesn't flop about. But be forewarned...If you are over 4 feet tall, you will have to lengthen, lengthen, lengthen this pattern. Kidding about the height requirement, but true this pattern runs short, really short. I added 3" to the sleeves and feel the need next time to add almost 2" more. Added 3" to the back. And correspondingly added 3" to the front, but it was still not long enough in the front. Evidently Sandra didn't make the same adjustments as she does for her Vogue line wherein the extra front length is already incorporated. So I added 1" to the center front, tapering to 1/2" at the sides and it all matched up. Much better. The dart - that's giving me fits. First it was too shallow. When I basted it all together, it looked like several darts were trying to form alongside it. There's too much fabric, too much pull at the underarm. Plus the dart as is was too low. I'm readjusting the dart depth and direction. But between all the disruption, tiling fun and "the water faucet outside broke off and we can't turn it off..." I decided to put this aside until later today...

Update #1: New outside water faucet.

Update #2: Stove is hooked back up, washer/dryer still in dining room, pending baseboard replacement on Saturday. Rather bake than do laundry anyway.

So Sew!

When your washer and dryer are sitting in the dining room, along with half of the pantry emptied on the table and the stove disconnected, too. The tile installers are on their way. Very good excuses to go sew and go out for dinner later.

Update #1: The refrigerator is in the living room and the stove is in the garage. You never want these things until you can't have them! Well, except for the refrigerator and it is step-saving. Trying to keep a positive spin! I am working on Butterick 3124, an OOP Sandra Betzina Today's Fit top. Love it so far!

Update #2: This isn't HGTV, it's Comedy Central!

What a way to cap the week

With a chimney cap! Looks like something from The Twilight Zone set. More repairs from Hurricane Ike damage. We even had a case of the "Bird Flu(e)" when a bird flew/fell down the chimney and into the house. No fun for us...or the bird.

Bye, Bye Birdie

Tah-TILE!

On order, to be installed next week in the kitchen and front entryway. Because it was on sale and I am getting someone else to pull up the old linoleum, I was able to afford to redo the entry, too. L picked this out - "Gold Dust 5202" from the Daltile Gold Rush line. I don't really see anything "gold" about it, except there are warm shades of gold/brown swirled through. I definitely wanted to stay away from anything light. See the difference? There is, the flash interferred. I sure learned my lesson having to sweep several times a day with the old flooring with "Cin-der-el-la, Cin-der-el-la - SWEEP the floor!" playing in my head.

Slowly, but surely progress is being made. Once the floor is in and the drywall repaired I can get the rest of my insurance money back from the mortgage company. I should say, begin the process all over again to get that last check. I filled four pages of the long-style legal pads with all the times I contacted and who I spoke to (as if those are their real names, I never got the same person twice) at the mortgage company. I'm not the only one in this boat, the other day the Houston Chronicle had a consumer watch article mentioning others with the same problem. Perhaps it will be easier this time. Ha-ha-ha! At least I won't be sweeping the floor while waiting on hold.

Patience is a virtue. . .

For those of you playing along with the home game, today I FINALLY got and deposited the check from the mortgage company to pay for the fence repair from Hurricane Ike!!! Now I will use it for the kitchen floor replacement and plan to wait another 2 months or so to get reimbursed for that money. . .sigh. Pay it forward, indeed. I am psyched about my new floor though and plan to go to the floor store on Monday.

Fence-d In!

A special shout-out to Missouri City Fence for the great job they did!

P-Raise the Roof!

Our new roof is on -- just in time, rain is forecast for the weekend. My roof is the No. 1 most popular roof in Houston now -- 30 year, GAF "Weathered Wood" stain-resist shingles...and it looks pretty. If you are in the Houston area and need a great roofer, I highly recommend Nick at Ochoa Roofing. Pricing, clean-up, quality of work -- And I never lost my Dish satellite signals! Wow! That saved us a $99 reconnect charge! (And their temporary roof repair held - no blue tarp on our roof.) That's "Big Bubba" in the foreground - he was in a "European Garden" (?!) plant basket 17 years ago and we stuck him outside. This is just part of him. He's now over 12 feet tall, trimmed at least ten times since. Keeps the stray cats from jumping over the fence - surprise! Well, what was the fence. He's guarding the backyard quite effectively now, to the point the meter readers won't try to go past him - those spikes are sharp!

Check, please!

FINALLY! Two months after Hurricane Ike I receive our insurance check. Yet while I look longingly at the 5 figures, 6 if you included the "$" sign, it's still not mine. It's also made out to our mortgage company. Which thanks to Hurricane Katrina, once they receive it, distribution back to us will be parsed in thirds. I'll get a third within two weeks, another third after 50% of the repairs are done and the last when it's all finished. Please allow 5-7 working days for disbursement processing. Add $10 for overnight mail. Great, except the fence and roof jobs will only take one day, two days most. We're on schedule for the fence the end of this month and the roof early December. In the meantime, I'm trying to keep positive, enjoying the wide open expanse from my sewing room (estate living!) and the roof repair has held. And shopping for our new kitchen floor will be a pleasant diversion. (Yes, that was damaged, too. I'll spare you the rest of the 11 page insurance report.) But isn't it ironic how we have to be on time with our insurance and mortgage payments?!

Life after Ike

Many of the Bradford Pears got the *%#$ kicked out of them by the wind, but those still standing started blooming like spring again!

New leaves and hopefully new blooms for the rest of the hummingbird migration

Heliotrope-what a fighter!

Help...Here

http://www.houstonfoodbank.org/

More Ike photos (new added)

This piece of paper was stuffed into my pocket during Hurricane Ike's landfall. My husband knows I like timelines and these were the predicted sustained winds and estimated time duration for our side of Ike and part of the county. 58 mph winds from 10:30 to 1:47. From 1:47 to 2:30 75+ mph winds. Then the eye would pass over, with the wind picking up again from 3:30 to 6:00. An hour at 70, then tapering off. The 30 with the left arrow was the plus or minus 30 minutes. It was comforting to tell myself and L that "it's almost over"...

These were the shingles I gathered, carried and dumped near the curb. Look at the nail sticking out! I just noticed that after I took the photo.

Some roof shots... hard to tell from the photos, but the adjuster determined the entire roof needed to be replaced.

Here is our hiding place in the hallway. The mattress was too wide, which turned out to be a good thing. At this point the power was out and there was a lull in the storm until I took the photo...that's why L looks so nervous - things started crashing into the house again!

You can't uproot a sense of humor

A few things I learned this past weekend --

Stock up on UNSCENTED votive candles -- they last longer than tealights and won't make you nauseous. A fat pillar candle is even better for a windowless bathroom. A radio with the TV channel band using 4 C batteries is much easier on the ears than one running on AA batteries. Listening to the the local TV news audio feed is also more comforting and calming in the midst of it all. At 3 AM, people calling in saying they were scared and hearing Bill Balleza, anchor turned storm therapist, on KPRC-TV Channel 2 telling them it will be OK and it would be almost over soon made us feel we were all in this together and not alone. I also liked his telling us, "Of course your house is making strange noises, it has probably never been in wind this strong this before and it will creak for awhile afterwards, too." (True!) (And true again I'm switching my local TV news allegiance to KPRC nowafter) The $32 we pay Verizon every month was worth every cent having our land-line hooked up to an "old fashioned phone"...with a 24 foot cord able to reach into the hallway. Keeping old towels on hand, even the hand/face size, to shove against the window and window sills. Some did get damp, and I'd rather deal with washing them afterwards instead of wet carpeting. Buy small jars or packets of mayonnaise to mix with canned tuna or chicken. Also purchase an Oscar-Mayer size slim packs of ham to slip into the cooler. Next time I'll get those cheese dipper stick packages, too. We craved salty and savory more than sweet afterwards. Adrenaline is a powerful drug -- As Hurricane Ike approached, the early rain band winds knocked down one of three panels of our front cedar panel fence door gate. To keep the gate from swinging or worse detaching and blowing away, I hoisted a 6 foot by 4 foot section and jammed it against the door and remaining section. Then I stepped back, concerned about its placement so close to my gardenia bush and repositioned it again. After the storm, I collected a lot of the shingle sheets in our front yard into a 8" pile and carried them all in a pile towards the curb grass. I wanted to move them later and couldn't even nudge them with my foot. Texas women are strong and capable. I hope my daughter learned that, too.

We are OK!

Power just came on for us. There's still 2.3 million without electricity, down from 3.2 million. We put up a good fight against Ike...some fences down, lost a few sections of roof shingles, a couple little leakies. Truly random damage -- Our next door neighbor's house lost its brick covered chimney with the bricks scattered all over their yard and the cap mangled and spinning crazily in the wind afterwards. I got back inside in a hurry! It was the scariest eight hours of our life barricaded in the hallway hearing noises never heard before and hope to never again. Truly, truly fortunate as we are seeing for the first time on TV all the destruction. Words cannot express what we saw as we ventured to Arby's for our first hot meal since Thursday. Please keep Texas in your thoughts and prayers.