Tiny updates

So it's been a while.

Bich has reasons, though not any worse/better/busier than anyone else's. Sometimes life just gets in the way. Or Penn State football gets in the way, or scandals, or whatever. Let's not talk about that.

Very minor updates, though, before Brooke restarts the basement project. (Last week, the Irene cleanup was completed, and repainting of the once-repainted section can commence this evening, or whenever.)

-- This morning, we had our 41-year-old boiler maintenanced. Yep, we're hangin' on to that puppy for as long as we can.

-- Our lawn has come in quite nicely -- nicely enough, in fact, that Brooke went apoplectic when she discovered that a very unneighborly pet owner let their obviously large dog defecate on the new sidewalk. Four signs were then added to our stretch of grass, with the following messages: "Your dog did his duty. Now do yours: Pick up after your dog"; "Please leave your address so I can let my dog dump on your lawn next"; "Be a good neighbor -- pick up after your pooch"; and another in that line of thinking.

-- We need a new camera. For some reason, the one we have stopped working, which meant no new pictures, which meant no blogging. Guess I'm back in the market for one.

Weathering the storm

Damn you, Irene, you homewrecking bitch.

Don't get me wrong -- the House of Bich made it through the storm in relatively fine form, and we're quite lucky.

But Irene sent me back to square one on the Super-Secret Basement Project! that I'd managed to keep from Rich's eyes.

It's no longer secret (and -- confession -- it was only secret because I once again waited for Rich to leave town to engage the services of 1-800-GOT JUNK; I love those guys), and in fact, he had to see it at its worst and start the cleaning process.

However, Rich was quite happy that the Got Junk dudes took away the old refrigerator, old shelves, leftover pieces of cabinetry, and a lot of heavy junk items that had been just sitting down there gathering even more dust. 

Unfortunately, my dreams of getting the project done for $1,000 or less are now unreachable: We got four inches of water in the basement, though our stuff and our appliances made it out fine. (The shelves and plastic tubs I bought to organize what I kept did that job.)

We are also the new owners of a sump pump. And we have two friends' Shop-Vacs in our basement. We've done a lot of cleaning. I've done a lot of re-stripping already, thanks to the moisture that seeped in from a record-August's-worth of rain in the soil.

Here, video of the morning after:

And a few pictures from about six weeks ago, though I'd done more work before Irene:

Here was our street at about 8:30 a.m. on Sunday morning (boy, I'm so happy we took those trees out):

And the backyard:

 Yes, I managed to take the hanging plants down and save my hydrangeas:

More of the basement and what greeted me when I woke after a couple hours of sleep:

Almost-funny story: I went downstairs at about midnight during the storm and saw a few rivulets coming from under one of the windows, and a little water seeping through a crack in the wall. I could have cleaned it up with a few paper towels, but I got worried anyway and threw down some old dropcloths and a couple of towels. On Sunday morning, the dropcloths were floating.

My Wellies came in handy.

Just a few hours later, the waters from a river tributary behind our poor neighbors' houses -- the one directly across from us had been pumping since midnight -- had receded:

And come September, we'll be reseeding the lawn; I recently killed all the grass, weeds and crabgrass that had taken over.

Smooth walking

In a pretty short period of time, two trees have come down, and all-new sidewalks have been installed. Crazy!

The removal of the old sidewalks has presented a new problem we didn't anticipate (though we shouldn't have been surprised -- we learn something new every week): the desperate need for landscaping help. Which, really, is pretty cool.

House gone CRAZY!

Projects currently under way at the House of Bich:

1. The basement. I learned two things last night as I stayed up until 2 a.m. slathering Drylok (which is basically Home Depot's version of Marshmallow Fluff) on a section of the stripped-down, cleaned-off walls: This project is more ambitious than I anticipated, and boy, is it going to look a million times better when I'm done.

I've actually learned a lot more than that, such as which paint stripper to never ever use again, how long it really takes to get rid of decades of paint, how much better this stuff is already making my basement look, and that a respirator is probably the only thing keeping my brain cells intact.

No pictures yet, as Rich is not allowed in the basement. But they'll be up soon ...

2. Sidewalks! This is what I woke up to this morning.

At first, I was pissed that there was jackhammering before 7 a.m., but I remembered that it's going to be near 90 degrees today and I was sufficiently sorry.

Also, I was thrilled that Rich talked me out of planting trees before this started, because half our lawn seems to be gone. On the bright side, it was shitty anyway; they begin actual installation Monday, after they've torn out the rest of the sidewalks and installed the new curbs. And then I will talk to the landscaper.

Also-also, everyone thank Rich for not being afraid to march out to the Dumpster, talk the boss out of it and demand to know why his secretary kept giving him the runaround, then get a quote and a timeline on the spot ... all for less than what we thought we'd have to pay.

3. Landscaping (a corollary to No. 2). Once the sidewalks are done, we'll have the landscaper put down sod where the trees used to be, plant two trees in a better location, tear out all the detritus -- i.e. what the previous owner thought was "gardening" -- along the side of the house, and get the grass around the new sidewalks going.

4. New dining room table. OK, not a project, but another vast improvement to HoB. It arrives tomorrow (not last week, as I thought). Which means I need to get all the stuff from the basement back into the basement tonight ...

5. Fixing the oven. Also not a "project," per se, but it's broken. Something to do with the gas, pilot light, etc. etc. Good thing it's been too freakin' hot to use an oven these days.

Tearing it down

First, before I start getting yelled at for destroying old, beautiful trees, know that:

1. It had to be done. The roots were pushing through the decrepit sidewalk, creating a situation ripe for litigious members of our society to take advantage.

2. The trees weren't as healthy as they might have appeared. Poor trimming and pruning over the years hadn't done them any favors, and every time we had a strong storm, I feared weakened branches taking down the power lines with them (and a few branches had actually grown into the wire).

I'll let Rich tell the amazing story of Woodbridge Mayor John McCormac's assistance in getting our trees taken down for free (township ordinance!). In the meantime, here's the before ...

... and here is the after:

When I got home that afternoon and saw the empty hole in our neighborhood -- of course, the day before was beautiful and sunny, while I arrived home the next day to threatening clouds -- I poured myself a glass of wine, sat on the front steps and mourned a little. What a mistake, I thought.

But we have grand plans, and I'm setting up a meeting with a landscaper to help us bring the beauty back to the house. The new sidewalks will be done by the end of the summer, and that will help immensely; we're considering tearing up the grass and putting down sod instead, and we're definitely planting two trees in the front again -- this time, between the house and the sidewalk.

Our next-door neighbor came over and said she was shocked, but in the end, she was pleased -- it'll increase the safety in the neighborhood, and that made her feel better. Us, too.

On the bright side, the township even removed the stumps:

Everything we could possibly hate about the outside of our house suddenly became very, very apparent.

I did repaint the mailbox post and install a brand-new mailbox; at its base are two sets of Little Lime hydrangeas.

Ah, well. We're taking things down to build it back up again -- it'll be ours.

*sob*

Snowed in

A blizzard welcomed Bich home to Jersey after our trip to Ohio and Western PA for Christmas. Stan was a real trooper through the snow, but we have definitely decided that our next car will have all-wheel drive.

Rich was still off from work, and I couldn't get Stan dug out of the snow to make it to work (and braving the roads would probably have been pretty stupid). So, real snow day for the ladies of Woman's World. At least we had time to shovel.

Brooke, seen through the front door

Two feet. Yep.

The front yard

Well, it sure made HoB look pretty.

The roads of our neighborhood. We were pretty lucky and saw a plow or two early, 

but this was the best it got.

Stan, completely buried (and we didn't even arrive home until after the storm had begun)

This required creative shoveling.

Our driveway (gimme a snowblower!)

This was the most shoveling we got done in the front; the plows left a massive pile at the corner we would have never gotten through, so we didn't bother. Some very good person, however, ran a snowblower through later. Yay!

Did I mention Woodbridge got two feet?