Chimney Fire??

all right, this really could be the start of a soap opera...
but last night we noticed some additional glowing in our fireplace and after some poking and shifting of the "surround" (the cast iron attachment that blends the insert to the original brick fireplace and makes it pretty) i saw a wee little fire happening on top of the insert.
this is not supposed to happen.
so, we dampened the fire and kept it really low until the extra fire died out completely and then we let our fire go out too. i called the guys who installed it and they sent out a crew early this afternoon. turns out there was a design flaw with the model (vermont castings wood burning insert with catalytic converter) the place on the top where the liner meets the insert wasn't originally secured because there was about 2 inches of overlap and i guess they thought it'd be fine. typically as a stand alone unit, it would have been fine because you'd use a different liner, but our chimney has bends (as do most) and the liner we used is flexible so it seems that as you get a good fire cooking, the liner can wiggle it's way out of the insert and that's where the trouble starts because flames can lick up outside the liner and ash can pile up, etc etc. we were lucky that we're a little neurotic about paying attention to the insert when we've got a fire going (it's a completely enclosed system so technically you could walk away from it). so the company had a fix kit and that's what the guys installed, basically securing the liner to the insert so it's a tight fit that won't wiggle out at all and we shouldn't have any other problems.
but last night, i'll tell you i was about fed up with house issues. we're still not flushing the toilet paper. i've been told this is how they do it in europe, so maybe now we've got a fancy european bathroom experience to offer our guests but really, i just wanna be able to flush it.
i did discover today (while waiting for the chimney men) that we CAN do small loads of laundry without any additional flooding. this is really exciting because i was running out of socks.
also more good news today is that the small water damage from that storm with the crazy winds that came through several weeks ago--it's covered by the homowners insurance.
thank god for small favors.

The SEWER!!! (insert creepy movie music here)

a-hem so it's been a while. i know i know.
i've been busy getting married :)
and now just when i thought i could get some new gutters....
our back drain floods. and the basement toilet looses water at an alarming rate. and we shopvac and bail out the flooded drain so it doesn't freeze and bust a pipe.
and we call roter rooter who you should know, won't charge you to snake a line if they can't clear it. but he couldn't clear it, which was the beginning of the really bad news.
so we had another plumber come out to clear the drain from inside at the stack pipe and then he scoped it, we've got it on vhs so you know, the next movie night at our house when you can flush the toilet again will feature popcorn and "The SEWER!" daa daa DAA!
so we can't flush, shower, wash dishes, etc. (thank god i got the laundry done) and we get to have the basement floor dug up for about 10-13 feet depending on the damage and we get some new piping...it's exciting times at the homestead.
it's expensive times at the homestead...and those gutters? yea that's a pipe dream that won't happen probably for another year... sigh.

luckily we've got some pretty amazing friends who've just moved into the neighborhood and have opened their home up to us which i think takes a lot of love--i mean they literally JUST moved in and i remember when we did that, we didn't want to share that experience with anyone because the house was our cool new toy. but they're both better people than us. :)
they play well with others, make up super comfy beds and leave me breakfast sandwiches every morning NYC style. it's a pretty amazing thing. and we're lucky they like us so much because it could be until next week that we're using their toilet, their shower, and washing their dishes.

ah home ownership....sometimes it makes me miss apartment living.

but sewer gases--i thought they could kill you but it wasn't so bad....

Oh Boy!

you know it's been a while since you've updated your blog if you have to reset your password...
okay so i will finally succumb to the nagging of certain readers (as if there's more than one...) and provide some updates:

let's see, wedding prep is well under way, we've got one month left and it's crunch time, when not freaking out about that, i think we're doing just fine :)
some news about the house...perhaps to be accompanied by pictures if i can get some emailed to me by the previously mentioned reader of said blog.

1. the yard looks lovely when it's mowed!
2. there's a very large, well stacked wood pile behind our garage--why?
3. we had a fireplace insert installed, as well as some chimney work done so that hopefully this winter we can warm our little toes at a roaring fire and keep the heating bill down. the best part for me about this is the wood pile--i negotiated a free cord (aka truckful) of wood in our deal--i love that stuff.
4. we got two new block windows put in the basement and replaced the woodwork with cement around two other block windows in the basement so that hopefully we'll have no more termite access and less drafts from outside.
5. somebody painted the back porch and the back door--it's bright! and cool :)
6. i started the prepping to recaulk the back door and unfortunately came across some loose bricks, so we've got a visit from the mason scheduled for sunday to give us an idea of what needs to happen. and we'll probably get some repointing work done too in some other places while he's at it...oh boy.
7. there's a ping pong table, it made it onto our front porch but we bent the hell out of the legs in the process...so hopefully soon our super handy woodworking pal will help us make a new base for the table and there'll be some pong tournaments in the porch. until then, i've got the net set up on the dining room table--good times :)

okay, i'm leaving you there. there's much more to say, lots going on, but work continues to be crazy busy. hopefully it won't be another several months before i'm back...hopefully i'll remember my password...

If you stop updating it regularly, people will stop reading it!

People, is this true?
There's just been so much happening and I haven't figured out how to get pictures onto my computer unless HJ does it at work and emails them to me. And well, I don't know, pictures just make it all so much more interesting. But I'll try to be more active, I promise.
So what's new?
Well the weekly potlucks have been a grand slam, loads of fun, loads of great food and awesome conversations and cool little hangouts and slowly, I am learning some signs that I retain for more than the minute I need them. What's also been fun about the potlucks is that the people are always different, so there's always new conversations and new friends to meet.
Also, our backyard is in varying stages of being in full bloom, there's wild violets (that's what a neighbor told me they were and she seems to know more about these things) but they are EVERYWHERE all through the yard, it's like we have a sea of purple and I love it. In fact, I love it so much that I haven't mowed yet this season (and it's starting to show). So we'll give it until Saturday so Liz can see our sea of purple and then it's curtains for those violets, but maybe they can spread even more in the mowing. I hope so, it's soooo pretty. And there's tulips, red ones, they're really nice. One little patch of these lillies or daises or some kinda yellow flower that's pretty common and usually planted with tulips (at least in my mother's garden they always were) but I don't know the name of them, they're nestled beneath the pussy willow tree (heh heh) at least that's how we refer to it cause that's what it looks like. The little baby japanese maple tree is still oddly in the semi-center of the yard, I haven't moved it just yet, I want to learn everything I can about doing it so I don't kill it because if that happens I think our neighbor who also grew up in our house will just throw himself on the ground crying or something like that. He's very attached to this tree, particularly when he's had a few beverages. I don't want to cut it down, just to relocate it so we can have the whole yard to run around in and play catch in without the obstruction.
The biggest backyard news is the new veggie garden I prepared with my neighbor Chiara. That was a lot of hard work, we had lots and lots of bulby weeds to dig up and relocate to the side of the house (HJ's excellent idea to battle some overflowing gutter erosion). Then there was the more detailed work of picking out rocks and left over weedy roots, tilling the soil, watching it rain like heck on it and pack it back down, tilling it again and adding "bumper crop" which is supposed to be like Herbal Essence for your dirt, although I haven't heard any orgasmic crys from the yard yet. Then once all that was done we were ready to plant! And here's where HJ helped out, it was great cause you know how she get really grossed out by those "but they're so good for our garden" worms. I had previously planted some sugar snap peas (that are coming up now!!) and we planted the three beds with onions, spinach, and a salad greens mix. After mother's day we'll be planting tomatoes, peppers, squash and string beans. I'm hoping to pick up some raspberry plants to put into the garden too, that would be soooo great. Chiara planted some strawberries so we'll see how those come out. This year we'll keep it semi basic while I figure out the yard layout and slowly prepare the rest of the garden section and see how our crops make out.
On the other side of the garage....I've started to learn about composting, a little bit learning the hard way (like you really shouldn't try to compost english ivy or bethlehem star onion grass) but the other weekend I went to this really cool composting workshop and our friend Meg has been super helpful with lots of composting info, along with several other friends who I never knew composted...funny how people don't chat about rotting veggies and leaves over dinner...
I'm still not sure that I really know what I'm doing but we'll see, at some point we're bound to have some "black gold" for the garden.
Whew, so there you have it, the update on "My Big Backyard" later in the summer, potlucks will start featuring our organic yummies from the garden!

Earthquake? Wind? Freight Train? Casper?

Oh the questions, there's just soooo many...
For those of you who've kept up on HJ's blog, while your wild imaginations may have led you to believe we had some bed spinning fun a week ago, it was nothing like that. What happened was we were almost asleep, around 11:45pm (give or take a few minutes) and the bed moved just a little bit, kinda like it would if your partner was turning over to get comfy but neither of us was turning so maybe there was leg stretching going on? Nope. We checked in with each other and sure enough, neither of us was moving intentionally. What could it be? My first thoughts went to some distant small earthquake because when I was a kid, there was something like this that happened and it was enough to make the house move a little bit, clinky glasses and such but it was from a small baby earthquake over an hour's drive away. And of course, being a house obsessed new homowner, my thoughts went to the structural integrity of the house, so I got up, put my hand on the wall (because that should tell me everything) and I listened. The bedroom door had moved a little bit too because you could hear it rather than see it--you know, that sound that latex paint makes when it sorta sticks, if you painted the side of the door too thick, something like that. I was able to re-create that sound so I felt pretty confident about the direction of the movement. We went into the hall to see if something big had fallen, or if we could hear anything else, nope. So back to bed, and of course, we moved a little again. And let's take a brief moment to clarify what I mean by "movement" if you were to put your finger out in front of you and sway it 1/2 and inch to the left and then 1/2 an inch to the right--that was the extent of it. It was soooo slight it wouldn't have even had a chance of calming a cranky baby. I don't think we would have noticed it at all to be honest except that we were laying so still in the bed waiting for sleep. So, yes, there was some nervousness because while it's not my first inclination, I am susceptible to my sweetie's concerns of ghosty friends hanging out and playing with us but it didn't creep me out enough to keep me up, I was so tuckered out I slept deeply (as usual) and woke up all sorts of refreshed in the morning and curious about any local seismic activity (which apparently there was none).

But here's the cool thing--we weren't alone! Check out the philly blog link and you'll see what I mean:
http://www.phillyblog.com/philly/showthread.php?t=32289

So there's all sorts of logical ideas to explain this little weirdo experience. Of course, I'm also open to suggestions on house cleansing, etc and we did the sage thing and I think will be doing some church incense thing too because hey, it can't hurt and it makes the house smell pretty.

What I think this really means is that we'll be having some bitchin' Halloween parties because with descriptions like the one on HJ's blog, we can build up the hysteria and have a spooky scary house HA HA HA (voice over by Count Dracula). I just hope people still come to the potlucks...

218 HOUSE PARTY!

At some point in the house buying process, I realized that the address of our new home was easily translated into an actual date and talked with HJ about having a "house birthday", pretty much an excuse to have a party, but to also use this time to celebrate this amazing house that's really everything I ever wanted and while I can't speak for HJ, I do know she's totally in love with the place too. There's been quite a few blessings that've come our way with this house, how we've made it a home, and the great future we both imagine having here. So what better way to celebrate all this cool stuff than with some of our super cool pals? I'm really excited, it sort of feels like it'll be a complete surprise because we don't really have a tally of how many folks are coming, so we'll either have just enough of everything or way too much but either way that's okay. Some friends have already said they're bringing new pals so it'll be a nice fun beginning in that way too, I'm hoping the wood in the backyard is dry and that we covered it well enough so we can have a backyard bonfire in the middle of all the snow. There will be pictures later of course, and hopefully I won't wait forever to update again. It's hard to believe we've been here just 6 months, in some ways it feels like forever, and then other ways it feels like we just moved in, it's a great reminder though when I start thinking of all the projects still left to be done--it helps me to pace myself a bit better ;) See you Sunday!

Cold Kitchen

Why oh why is our kitchen so cold?
The rest of the house gets so nice and toasty, with big honkin radiators that I've just learned I can make even more efficient with some homemade radiator reflectors. And did you know that the valves on your radiators, be they water or steam, should be in one of two positions? On, or off. Apparently inbetween doesn't regulate the heat at all, it just puts a strain on the pipes. I love the internet...so many helpful hints.
But out kichen, it was "updated" in the early 80's or perhaps the late 70's but there's no gigantic radiator like all the other rooms and I wonder if this is part of the problem. Or is could be the mystery wind tunnel in the corner of the cabinets, literally BREEZES flow from it. I think it's got something to do with the chimney you can see from the outside but not from the kitchen, I wonder if there was originally a wood burning stove in the kitchen, we could use one...or maybe a fireplace for cooking--but really is the house THAT old?
I've weather stripped the door (as seen previously with my pal Dan) and HJ and I weather stripped the windows, the storms are down, the only thing left really is to vaccuum seal the windows and try and figure out how to block up the wind tunnel. HJ keeps suggesting we put up a heavy curtain to segregate the kitchen from the rest of the house to keep more warmth in the rest of the house, but then I'm afraid we'll have icicles hanging from that dumpy drop ceiling.
What additionally weird is our bedroom is directly above the kitchen and it's a furnace up there pretty much any time of day, even when the heat's not pumping, it's super warm and we haven't even weather stripped those windows yet. p.s. I'm in love with "windjammer" you can seal up anything with that stuff AND supposedly (although I haven't tested it yet so come spring I may really be eating these words) but you can just peel it off when you're done with it. neat huh?

On other notes, I've been doing a bunch of research on our neighborhood trying to find out when exactly our home was likely built and what style it was built in, and I'm learning so much about architecture, it's really really cool. But could come across as boring if I tried to write it all out...so I'll spare you.

Anyone with additional suggestions for warming up our cold cold kitchen, please share!