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Post by desposito on Mar 5, 2024 13:26:48 GMT -5
I brought in 12 gallons of water from the rain barrel, instead of 6--that's about a quarter of what's in there.
I'm eating lunch now, and will also take a reading break.
Diane
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Post by mylittlescholar on Mar 5, 2024 14:14:39 GMT -5
Good morning, everypony!
LD & 3 are coming this weekend. We have a LOT to do before this in the guest room and to prep the attic for more sorting and discarding and taking away. And we will be gone tomorrow. So that leaves today and Thursday.
DONE: caffeinated had breakfast updated log reviewed auto bill pay log
called DMIL re: dinner
checked online balance x2 checked calendar and updated checked challenges & updated messaged w/ LD and discussed plans w/ DVD
NEXT UP: take meds
wash up and get dressed suit up for work I think I'll play ping pong pickup
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Post by ohblondie on Mar 5, 2024 14:18:31 GMT -5
Diane - I have a target date and a sub target date. the sub target is more of a pre-target date. The ultimate goal is when my college friend is here - the pre-goal is my DD
retirement is likely mid april.
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Post by desposito on Mar 5, 2024 15:01:46 GMT -5
Mid-April would be great ohblondie, that will give you time to work on your house.
Scholar, now you have a "guest" project too!
Next:
10 minutes on paper Order my spring garden plants Make some book notes Delete 10 hard emails
Diane
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Post by catcats on Mar 5, 2024 15:17:56 GMT -5
Diane---All of your last 4 tasks are sit-downs. Good for you ! catcats
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Post by danny15 on Mar 5, 2024 16:26:17 GMT -5
Heads up ~ a looong portion of this post is about roofing in case someone doesn't want to read.
Diane, that is fascinating about setting the pithy stems upright for the bees to lay their eggs in them. Did you ever consider a career as a botanist or wildlife biologist? Good luck with the call to Covetrus.
Yes, I hope we didn't give bree more to worry about concerning pet care when she is already stressed!
Diane, about your roof ~ you may want to get that checked out sooner than later. I needed some small repairs last November, cedar shingles that were falling off. A neighbor was having a new roof put on so I asked the guy to stop by and look at mine. Of course, he recommended a whole new roof. In talking to people I found out that is pretty common. And for most people a whole new roof is not in their budget. So, roofers suggest using insurance and will offer to help in that process. They want you to sign an e-document (?) that if the replacement is approved you will use their roofing company to do it. DD2 had been helping me with major financial stuff and she talked that guy around until he agreed to do all the inspection and approval work with no formal agreement, just a good old-fashioned handshake and word of honor. The roofer and I had some excellent conversations over several weeks and I did trust him. I think because he felt confident with me he trusted my daughter.
When the roofer did the initial inspection he saw lots of damage that I was unaware of. He had all this fancy equipment (to me) about how to call up what the weather was on a map on a specific day and time right down to the actual location of my house. So he could prove that we had bad hailstorms and windstorms that caused the damage. No way I could have known that without an inspection. What was helpful also, as proof, was that large portions of my privacy fence had blown down that I paid to have repaired at my expense, not asking for reimbursement from insurance. I had pictures of the flattened fence panels, the crushed rose bushes and the brand new beautiful wood replacements. (And, of course, like any good hoarder I couldn't use insurance because I didn't want to raise any red flags and have them come inside for an overdue inspection.) Roofer said that if a certain amount of damage was done that insurance companies were bound to pay for the entire section of the damaged roof not just repairs. This all seemed a little sketchy and too good to be true to me. But what do I know?
I felt comfortable enough with the roofing guy that I was honest and told him I was a hoarder and could not take the insurance risk of being dropped. I invited him inside and he assured me that the rooms he saw were not terrible at all. He said I had a lot of stuff but there was no smell, no trash, no squalor. He told me that he had grown up in a badly hoarded house and been in quite a few. And that unless I had inside damage from roof leaks there was no need for the insurance inspector to come inside. Well I do have some inside damage but there is no way I would admit that and have to deal with lots of other problems.
Roofing guy did all the grit work and met with the insurance inspector a few days before Christmas so they could both go over the damage together. DD2 was here to supervise. This roofer was very professional and had amazing safety equipment and really knew his stuff which seemed reassuring to the insurance man who was on the roof with him. In January I received notice that my entire roof had been approved for replacement. Truly, I was speechless. A couple weeks later I received a check for the entire amount. (I'm going to go ahead and give a little personal info here, it was over $120,000.00). Insurance also agreed to pay any additional costs (within reason) if the roofer runs into unseen problems. Work will begin in April when the worst of cold weather is far behind us.
Now here is the *better sooner than later * part. The claim had to be put in within a certain amount of time of the damage happening. It was getting to the outer limit for me to have made that claim. Had I waited another 6 months it would have been too late. Because the entire roof is being replaced that will also include everything connected with the roof like if the roofers need to replace some siding around dormers, taking down, cleaning and replacing gutters, etc.
Edited to add ~~ I wrote the amount of the check I received to show that this, to me, was a miraculous intervention.
And I have to give deeply humble thanks to my Heavenly Father who I do believe took care of all this. I had already cancelled appointments with 2 other roofers because I was worried about them needing to come into a hoarded house. But for some reason, I immediately called this roofer even before talking to my neighbor who was having the work done. Turned out that roofer and his company were a very small, very actively Christian group of workers. They are extremely ethical and professional. All the things that could have gone wrong simply smoothed out. The insurance man could have asked to check inside for himself to see if there was damage but he didn't. The insurance company could have refused the amount but they didn't. The insurance company paid a huge amount even before I have signed a contract with the roofing company. My neighbor said the same storms had done the same damage to their roof but their insurance company was only doling out the checks in small amounts as work was finished.
My little family here is very, very blessed indeed!
TML that was such a cool story you told about your Kitty sticking around to watch over you and you being able to see him. I hope he continues to stay with you.
mylittlescholar it's funny how our perspective changes with age. Younger people seem to want to lose weight so they will look more attractive. I knew I was getting older when I wanted to lose weight for health reasons; appearance was a bonus but no biggie. Now I know I am even older when I lose weight that I don't want to lose. Oh well......
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Post by desposito on Mar 5, 2024 16:28:30 GMT -5
Ha ha catcats--bringing all that water in made me tired--that's why I'm making myself do something outside every day, I need to build back my gardening muscles! In fact, I'm going to go out and get 6 more gallons before it gets any colder--I just went out to put more birdseed on the porch and wow, it's cold and damp. The temp is 42 but it "feels like" 34. Tomorrow the sun will come back out so it should feel warmer out there.
Diane
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Post by desposito on Mar 5, 2024 16:35:43 GMT -5
Danny, I remember you saying the roof cost would be covered, I do think that's pretty unusual. The insurance I have has a big deductible for roof issues because I don't have any proof of the roof being replaced, ever. I asked my handyman if he remembers my sister ever replacing her roof and he said no--I'm sure he would have heard about it if she did, and he knew her for 15-20 years. So, I just have to limp along with small repairs. I do have a good gutter/roofing person that I trust, found him totally by chance looking at ads, which is something I don't like to do but the couple of people I know around here didn't have a recommendation for me. I'm waiting to call him because I have a doctor's appointment on Monday and he doesn't always tell me before he comes, and I want to be sure to be here when he does. I will call next week.
Diane
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Post by danny15 on Mar 5, 2024 17:08:23 GMT -5
Diane, I'm glad you have a good roofer/gutter man to help. I don't understand all the ins and outs of insurance but I know it is a good company. Apparently not having a mortgage simplifies things. I was in the loop of emails among my daughter, the roofer and the insurance man but I didn't understand it. My DSIL is in insurance so he was helping with things too. We have lived here over 42 years now with one roof replacement many years ago. Home ownership is getting to be more of a burden. I love the perks but the work, not so much.
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Post by desposito on Mar 5, 2024 17:25:02 GMT -5
Okay, 6 more gallons are inside.
I had hoped to order the plants I want from one company, there are a few native plant nurseries that are good, but of the three I checked out, none had all three plants that I'm looking for. So I placed an order with one company and will have to place a second order to get one of the plants. I'm trying to be frugal this spring, I need to save some money to buy something from the pollinator guy's sale that he always has at the library, but that doesn't happen until May. Not to mention, I won't have room in the yard for much more unless I get the handyman to make one more area to plant, and for that I'd have to buy another load of dirt.
This year for sure I want to dig up the tiger lilies that are along one fence, they aren't doing well anyway and I would much rather put something else there that the pollinators can enjoy all summer. Like more salvia, or a couple of those wonderful "sunflower" plants that grew next to my porch last year. I put sunflower in quotes because I'm guessing it's not a typical sunflower. I don't know if I mentioned this here, but I kept going out to that plant looking for seeds so I could save some to grow this year too. I could never find seeds, and assumed the birds were getting them all. But finally when the blooms completely dried up I took a few totally apart, and I found some seeds--but they were not typical sunflower seeds with a shell. They looked closer to the seeds from the "Mexican Sunflower" plant I have--which is not a true sunflower. So I suspect it is more related to the family that the Mexican Sunflower is in (Tithonia). But then where did the seed come from, if not from the bird seed that scatters all around the porch? I assumed it was a true sunflower because it must have come from the bird seed, and I know there are sunflowers with that growth pattern, of multiple small blooms instead of large. But whatever it is, the bees loved it, so I'm glad I finally got some seeds from it, I would like to see if I can grow a few of them but put them in better places than along the porch, where I had to keep tying it back so I could walk on the sidewalk. This was the plant where the bees all liked to sleep.
So far the only seeds I have planted are salvia because it's a little too early for the others. It sure would be nice to know when the last frost will be, I would love to get an even earlier start so things bloom quickly for the early bees, but all we can do is guess.
I'm running out of energy so I'm going to do some decluttering before dinner.
Diane
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Post by mylittlescholar on Mar 5, 2024 18:10:12 GMT -5
that is so interesting, danny15 ! When I flew out of CA after the fires of '18, I sat next to a guy who worked with insurance adjusters. (He did the "take off" calculating all of the specs and then expenses to rebuild--a job requiring skill and experience.) He opened up after I expressed I understood what he was doing (thanks to DXH) and told me about some of the best and worst insurance companies. The best ones, for the really expensive homes, just wrote a check for the highest amount of coverage. I would tell you what they were if I could remember!
I am done. but I have not gotten to the freezer yet. I want to put a roast in the InstaPot. I have 2.5 hours before packing dinner up for DMIL tonight.
what I remember I've DONE: got dressed suited up
started laundry train flipped laundry hung stuff to dry pulled LD & 3's Christmas bag out
put cooler outside to drain
brought small table into kitchen consolidated small appliances found homes for a few things
pulled out all the leftovers from the fridge created a meal cleaned up called D & M sorted and folded paper and plastic bags put them in their storage places
NEXT UP: rest pull stuff out of freezer set up instapot fry veggies I cut up last week and make meal
LATER: send pics to people work on art gentle exercises (overdid them yesterday and OWIE last night)
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Post by danny15 on Mar 5, 2024 19:22:51 GMT -5
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Post by danny15 on Mar 5, 2024 19:52:26 GMT -5
The Struggle Bus was still carrying me along today but there was a little more work.
DD1 and I went thru a bunch of clothes. It's time for the spring things to be accepted at the animal thrift store. She carried piles to me, I said keep or donate, then she dragged everything down to the breakfast room next to the laundry room. I sat on the little stool there and sorted the donates into wash piles and we got going on those. The dirty keepers can wait for later laundry.
Then we did the fun stuff. There were piles of clean, keeper t-shirts. We sorted according to color and what's on the front (dogs, flowers, sea turtles, etc.) and hung them on colored hangers on racks in my upstairs bedroom. The kitties were stretched out on the bed watching. Now when we want a particular color or graphic we don't have to push thru hangers to look. We check the little index cards I had written a while ago to see what color hanger goes with what grouping. The cards will be in the night table drawer. It's super detailed and kind of complex (the t-shirts are sorted seasonally too) but I love the controlled organization.
DD1 was so happy to get her summer t-shirts up. Her favorite is a graphic from Life Is Good years ago. It has a cartoon seagull on a wooden pile in the water and fries in his mouth. It says Happy As A Seagull With A French Fry. She has one in every color. One of our favorite things was to get dive-bombed on the boardwalk feeding fries to the gulls. They snatched them right out of our fingers. Love it!!
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Post by desposito on Mar 5, 2024 20:39:04 GMT -5
Oh I'm going to steal this! "Happy as a Seagull with a French Fry!"
I've been emailing with the handyman about possible bathroom work--I'm still trying to make up my mind but I'm leaning back towards just a shower.
Time to get ready for bed--good night everyone, see you tomorrow!
Diane
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Post by oust on Mar 5, 2024 21:19:20 GMT -5
DH was outside looking at some yard work/clean up, its bad outside but we do have a bulk pick up this weekend so he may be able to get some stuff out, one black bag at a time is good enough as long as we keep it up I did a decent clean up in the kitchen and a long steam mop of the floor errands and gas this afternoon back to work tomorrow
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