Sunday Night

Only a few hours remain till I can say I'm finished the spring semester. This picture by way of its exaggerated blue cast and high contrast best describes how I feel. I'll leave it at that.




And by the way... any similarity to Keifer Sutherland in typical 24 promo clipart was completely unintentional! Wait, maybe he's been working on a graduate school project all day too???

Frankenstein Plumbing - Part 2

Just in case you've been holding your breath for some sort of follow-up to the tirade about the leaking pipes in our frankenplumbing cellar, here's some that tidbit of info.

Above, I'm pictured smoothing out quickcrete on the gaping hole which surrounds the check valve. Of course to make things really fun, I went and bought quickcrete with stones in it!! What was I thinking - was I gonna install a mailbox post??!? But, yes, the whole job was finished nicely: water heater, 4" iron sewer pipe replacement, check valve repair, leaking pipe repair, install of supply lines for laundry tub (to the right) and repair of outside leaky spigot.

Rain, rain, go away!

We were feeling pretty confident last week when we heard about the upcoming weekend's forecast for rain. After all, this would be the first rainfall since we had our entire roof resealed, all of the windows installed, leaky plumbing and a backflow check valve repaired. We also had a termite treatment done last week, since our window installers found termites (just in case you didn't think we were having enough fun with home repair!). So the rains came and our main leak remained dry. We were thrilled at the thought of our house finally being leak free.

I started prepping our dinner. We had plans to see the BodyWorlds exhibit with Luke and Amanda; I was experimenting by making vegetarian sloppy joes, lentil soup, and a wheatberry and ricotta cheese dessert. Markus and I heard dripping in the kitchen...and we saw water dripping down from behind the trim on our BRAND NEW sliding door. We have so many water-damaged spots in this house already; we didn't want another so we took the trim off. This was a whole new leak for us to stress about. We put towels around and after a while, Markus went back up to study (yes, through all this, the poor guy is trying to study for a business continuity final exam!). An hour later he came down and suggested that perhaps our rain spout was clogged. Genius! I got a fiberglass pole that extends to paint in high places; he stuck it down the spout and felt an obstruction about halfway down. We couldn't get it loose, so in the pooring rain he grabbed a ladder and drill. I did an excellent job of watching while getting soaked (I call it moral support). He drilled a hole into the spout and some water started dripping out; I encouraged a few more drilled holes. Then it looked like a fountain, or like a baby peeing without its diaper on. Then, Markus used some kind of plier-like tool to cut the spout in between the drilled holes because there was still about 10 feet of trapped water. He was successful in opening the spout, and his reward was getting splattered with the black "stuff" you see all over him in this picture. It looked like a pipe burst when all the water ran out. Ms. Moral Support here, screamed when all the water burst out. Markus' face was covered in dirt - he wiped it off for the picture. After a few more minutes, he was able to retrieve the object that caused this obstruction. It was the tape measure he's holding in his hand. Two hours later, the leak was dry. Problem solved.

Then, we discovered that Camper has a bladder infection; with cats, you only discover this when they're peeing outside the litterbox. As if we hadn't cleaned enough on Saturday, right? Well, after an hour of trying to find a vet open on Sundays, then relenting and taking her to an animal hospital in Plymouth Meeting and spending 4 hours doing that, I come home and we discover some water in our entry area's closet. We find that a pipe under the shower in our bathroom is leaking!!! So, we ripped that apart and are using a different shower for now.

Now we're at Monday. I get ready to head to the airport, but I see that we have a bit of water leaking in the same spot over the sliding door. Make note to call roofer; rain spout wasn't the whole problem. I get to the airport and as I walk to my gate, they cancel the flight. I get rebooked on a later flight, which they cancel an hour later. They cancelled more Indy flights and were sold out on later ones that hadn't been cancelled, so I came back home. I'll fly out tomorrow. We're back to dreading any rainfall, and hoping that we'll find this last roof/siding leak. We're still trying to figure out what to do about our leaky shower; our best thought right now is not to use it!

On the upside, the windows look and work great and our top floor bathroom should be remodeled in the next few weeks. Let's hope the April showers end this week!

Emma

Just to show that this blog isn't just about Weidners, here's a picture of oh so adorable Emma in full Easter regalia:

And if you could stop and smell the flowers...

Beautiful Day in the Courtyard

I'm not really trying to show off... but really, the light, weather and mood couldn't have been better on Saturday, April 15th. This is a shot of the house from the courtyard. To the right you catch some Cherry Blossoms, center you'll see the Magnolia, and to the left is a tall Birch tree which yields a healthy, daily and extremely copious amount of pollen. And just to tie in to the recent theme of home improvment, if you look at the windows of the house, you'll notice they are Terratone. Yes, Andersen Terratone - the one and only. The best part about new windows is that they still work as intended by the manufacturer.

Frankenstein Plumbing

Last night Christie helped me move the washer and dryer out of the corner where they had sat on a rotten platform of 3/4" plywood. After that ordeal, we lifted the platform to discover... rubble, and a flat iron plate with four bolts. So, I'm no expert, but it looked like the floor had been jackhammered some years ago and (possibly) a check valve had been installed at that time. It's not clear to me whether the intention was that it would be maintained or not. But... it's clear it hasn't been touched recently, since the washing machine was right on top of that spot.

After the discover, we started digging to uncover a fairly large area of the floor had been dug out. Even more exciting was actually getting to see that a section of drain pipe had a hole - which I suspect was from the jackhammering - that had been possibly patched all this time, and definitely leaking slowly. So, of course all it took was the disturbance of us digging to set the septic water free! Yes, it was gross. But, I fashioned a plug by using a wine bottle cork wrapped with duct tape and some silicone cault around the outside. As of this morning, I believe we were pool-free in that area of the basement.

The plumber will be out this week.

Here are the new pictures

As promised, I took some photos of the house to share our progress. Check them out on the right.

The windows are coming, the windows are coming!

Finally, we have an installation date! Our new Andersen Windows (400 series, Terratone on the outside, Metro hardware on the inside, for those who care) are being installed from April 12-14. Never in my life did I think I'd be excited about windows (or cooking or kids for that matter), but I am. We can only open about 3 of the windows in our house when the weather is nice, and we can't open the sliding door because it has no screen. I travel to Indy Monday thru Wednesday of next week, so I'll get to come home to a few new windows...I can't wait.

I promise, we're going to post new pictures of the house really soon. Markus was in Tampa this week so I spent my nights cleaning. The house looks presentable; I never thought two people, well, just me really, could create so much clutter. I sometimes feel like Pigpen from Peanuts - a trail of clutter is always following me. But, the house looks clean so I think we'll be able to snap some pics this weekend. The only white walls from the pre-move pictures that remain are on the third and fourth floors.

We also took the plunge and ordered some new bathroom stuff for our fourth floor bath (that has to be in good working order before we can demolish the one in our bedroom!). Went to Lowe's and did the special order thing, so our new vanity and faux granite (oooohhh, now I just need the real thing in the kitchen...) countertop will arrive on April 24. We need to paint after the windows, but before the 24th. Add it to the list. Like just about everything in the house, we couldn't get a stock vanity and counter - we had to order custom because of the dimensions. Markus calls this the Frankenstein house. Nothing was standard, but I guess neither are we. ;-)

I start my volunteering as a patient escort at Planned Parenthood on Saturday morning. This is done because protesters stand outside and heckle patients. What I learned during my training is that most of the women going into PP are going to receive the ONLY healthcare that they will receive the entire year, not for an abortion as so many people think. I'll get to wear a cool yellow pinnie that says "Patient Escort" and stand outside from 8-10 Saturday morning. Can't wait - seriously, this is an organization I've believed in for a long time because they provide important medical services to women who might not otherwise be able to afford them - so I'm glad to be serving as a volunteer.

Markus and I also decided to run in the Susan Komen 5k race on Mother's Day. I also saw the Philadelphia Distance Run (sponsored by Thomas Jefferson), which is a half-marathon, is scheduled for Sept. 17 - my 30th birthday. I decided this would be a great way to celebrate such a milestone so we're going to run in that, too. After the Komen race, we're going to kick the half-marathon training into high gear. I'm hoping that a side effect of the training will be a slimmer, more toned body - now that's really a gift I'd like for my birthday!

This is a really long post, I'm realizing. Guess we should post shorter messages more frequently. Check back for new pictures of the house, probably this weekend. Lots of good things happened this week, so I'd like to send some shout outs as a close:

1. My cousin Ashley found out she's the recipient of a FULL scholarship to Skidmore University. Awesome job, girl!
2. My very good friend Becky is moving back east from Portland, Oregon - I'm so excited for her to be back in PA after two years. Welcome back, Beck!
3. My sister Lindsay was asked to be a hair model for a Nexxus show next Monday - we all knew she had great hair, though, didn't we?