Ready? Aim....

FIRE!!!

Spring has sprung virtually overnight here in Podunk, Rhode Island. It's been hot out to the point where I am wearing shorts all the time, and the windows on the house (the ones that aren't stuck shut, that is) are wide open to let the spring air in. The trees are starting to get their leaves and the birds are nesting. The flowers that the prior owners planted are in full bloom, and I went out and planted some more bulbs last week and came back into the house drenched in sweat from the early spring heat wave.

But they say about weather in New England, "If you don't like the weather, just wait five minutes." Yesterday the temperature dropped, and we pulled on our flannels, fleeces and sweatpants. Todd went out and foraged for firewood, and we built our first fire in the fireplace. We don't even have the doors for the fireplace yet (it's still on order) but we were so bent on wanting to try out our new fireplace.

The house took on a woody smoky smell that instantly made us both homesick--we both grew up in houses that had woodstoves, woodburning furnaces and/or fireplaces. Every time we smell the smoke from one we both comment on how that is the smell of our childhoods. Now it's the smell of our adulthood, as our home now has somewhere we can burn a fire.

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Next I will take you to Man Town. One of the more important criteria in our search for a new home was a shed that can be used as a workshop. Todd and I both have mad power tool skills, and we are constantly using them for boat projects and now house projects. The shed at the house is an ideal space for this workshop in that the floor in the shed is raised a few inches to that hoses from a central vacuum system and electrical can branch out to every nook of the shop.

When we were still in the purchase phase of the shop, we saw that there were electrical outlets wired to several spots on the floor, which made it great for putting the table saw right in the middle of the floor without having to run an extension cord to it.

When we moved in we learned that as he was moving out Mr. Doofus McAssholeton snipped every outlet from the floor. Not only did he snip the wires, but he cut the wires flush to the floor so that we cannot use the existing cable to wire up another outlet. We will have to run new wires to install outlets on the floor again. Observe:

Can you believe that?? I keep telling Todd that I am amazed Doofus didn't take all the lightbulbs out of the light fixtures. Anyway, we're handy people and wires can be re-run--we've moved beyond the annoyed and into the amused when it comes to little gems like this that Mr. McAssholeton left behind.

The last 2 weeks we have been working on setting up Man Town. Todd has been standing in the space, turning circles and letting the wheels in his brain turn to help him visualize the perfect workshop--where the benches will go, where the table saw, the router and the miter saw all go. We have constructed some fabulous workbenches and soon all the tools will be laid out on pegboard and perfectly organized.

When ever we have undertaken a home improvement project at our old house I would leave a little grafitti behind in an inconspicuous location. There is a small "B+T" surrounded by a heart on the wall behind the workbench in our old house. There is another one under the laminate wood floors we laid down in the dining room at the old house as well.

Here is my first piece of home improvement grafitti in the new house. It's on the wall just under the new workbench:

And now, I present Todd's fabulous new workbenches, here they are in concept:

Here is the near finished project. He still wants to make shelves under them, so that we can stash more tools, however.

Home Sweet Home

It’s been nearly a month since we’ve lived in our new house. Todd and I were very concerned about how the dogs would handle the move—would they pee all over the house because the house smelled like other dogs? Thankfully only Griffen peed in the house once, and Nemo hasn’t at all. Once our furniture arrived our dogs happily curled up on the familiar smelling beds and couches, and they seemed to be more comfortable with being in a different house. Though I look at them and I wonder what they really think about this situation. Do they wonder when they are going to go home?

When we were outside at the old house, we’d begun using the command “Go home” to tell the dogs to go back into the house. I remember the Saturday morning after the closing my eyes meeting Todd’s the first time I said “Go home” to the dogs. We smiled at each other, because it was the first time we’d called this house "home."

I, on the other hand, am taking a bit longer to feel at home here. We bought this house from a man who was reluctant to sell the house. It’s not like we stormed up the driveway one day and knocked on the door and said “Sell us your house or else.” The house was on the market for a good six months before we’d ever seen it. We figured that because the house had been on the market for so long that he’d be willing to sell it.

No, that was not the case. We entered into an agreement with the guy three times before we managed to make it stick. It took a total of seven months to get the deal to work out after numerous tantrums by the seller. Our friends and family thought we were crazy to keep dealing with this guy, because it is a buyer’s market in Rhode Island (and just about everywhere else in the US) and that if he didn’t thank his lucky stars for having such a willing buyer, then we should walk.

But we fell in love with the house. We looked at others and didn’t find another house in the 7,000 some odd houses that are on the market in this state. After the seller threw the February tantrum (he threw so many in this process that I’ve begun to classify them by month) I said to Todd, “I am so over this guy. If you want to keep fighting it’s up to you. I am done with trying to buy this house.” He kept working at it, and I didn’t want to hear about the drama involved anymore because all it did was make me mad.

Finally the seller, whom at this point I’d begun calling Doofus McAssholeton, cried “Uncle” and we managed to set a closing date—which he ended up delaying by two weeks after we’d signed the agreement because he apparently had forgotten to pack his things and wouldn’t be ready to move out on time.

We finally arrived at the closing, and the extreme drama continued right up until the moment he signed the papers. After he signed his share, he stood up from the table preparing to leave.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” the attorney asked him.

“What?” Doofus asked.

“The keys. You have to give them the keys,” she said sternly as she looked up from the mountain of paperwork that Todd and I would have to sign once he left.

An offended look passed over Doofus’s face, “They won’t need the keys. I’ve never locked the place and I’ve never had a problem. Besides, you guys are just going to change the locks, right?”

Every mouth at the table hung open. The attorney finally spoke up, “You need to give them the keys. The transaction is not complete until you give them the keys.”

He stood there seemingly confused at the concept of having to turn over the keys to the house he just sold. He relented, reached into this pocket, and then muttered something about how we should enjoy his house then stormed out of the room.

That night we slept in the house for the first time, before we’d had the chance to change the locks. Every single noise woke us from the sleep that seemed to be just a few inches out of our reach. The baseboard heater in the living room made a noise that sounded just like footsteps coming up the hardwood stairs from the basement. Every single noise made me paranoid that Doofus McAssholeton, the reluctant seller with who knows how many copies of the keys, was coming into the house to make trouble for us.

The next day Todd headed out to Lowe’s to get new locks and new garage door opener remotes, because Doofus had neglected to give them to us. This was also the day that I turned in from Beej the Fearless to Beej the batshit-crazy-paranoid. Every time Todd left the house, I’d instantly fled into a nervous panic. I was alone in the house, the phone wasn’t hooked up yet, and I don’t have a cell phone. Normally I would love to be alone in my vacant new house—wandering from room to room, daydreaming about the possibilities that paint and furniture would make real. No, I paced the floors in between cleaning the mess that Doofus had left behind. What on earth would I do if Doofus showed up? I couldn’t call Todd, or the police. Every time a car drove by the house my heart would begin to race until Todd returned home. Finally the phone was hooked up, Todd had changed the locks and reprogrammed the garage door openers so that they would work with our new remotes and I felt somewhat safer.

During that week a car with Massachusetts plates parked at the end of the driveway. It sat there for a good half hour, as I started nervously out the window at it and bit my fingernails down to nothing. I finally summoned some courage, stuffed the cordless phone into my pocket and walked down the driveway to get the mail from the box. I kept my eyes on the man in the car as I walked, and only took them off of him long enough to peer into the mailbox. He was sitting in the car talking on the phone—you know, actually using his cell phone responsibly and not using it while driving. I let out the breath I’d been holding as I walked back to the house, trying not to laugh at myself for being so paranoid.

We’ve since unpacked most of our things, bought furniture and slept here for 28 nights. Each morning I would shed a few paranoia molecules until I had none left. I’ve learned the house noises, and find them comforting instead of scary. After a seven month struggle I look around me and think “I am so happy we are here!”

Can A Rash Spread and Get Better at the Same Time?

The creeping crud I picked up from the hot tub is getting better. But it’s spreading too. How is that possible. You'd think that when it's getting better it won't spread, right? It's now on the backs of my thighs, and I've seen a few more spots on my arms. It hurts a lot less, and I can wear jeans again without pain. On Sunday night I was completely horrified with myself because I wore sweatpants into the Chinese restaurant for dinner. I don’t like to go out in sweatpants, unless I am to or from the gym.

It looks like I have a million zits on my body. Because it’s so widely spread all over my body I’ve already used up one of the tiny tubes of ointment as of Monday night, and am now raiding Todd’s tube. Todd doesn’t have it as badly as I do; he has a dozen or so spots, where mine number into the thousands. I bought the ointment on Sunday and now need more. For some reason the pharmacy won’t let me refill the prescription because it’s too soon.

We have since drained the hot tub, re filled it, ran jet cleaner in it—which involved running it for 15 minutes, then letting it sit stagnant for an hour and running it again. The first time the jet cleaner was run the cleaner got so foamy it began to bubble out from under the cover and down the sides of the tub a la an I Love Lucy episode where Lucy puts too much detergent in the washer and ends up with a house full of suds. After the jet cleaner finished we had to drain the tub again, hose it down, and then refill it again.

Today the guy from the hot tub store is coming to check it out. I keep cracking up at the concept of having a “pool boy” at our house and what might or might not happen in the cabana. But then Todd reminds me that we don’t have a cabana. Not that the pool boy would come near me anyway, see above “creeping crud,” a “million zits.”

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I need to get back into running. I ended up about 10 miles shy of my March running goal. With the move I haven’t run all week. Now that I have this rash I am afraid to run and chafe the sores with a sports bra or sweat on them. The days are going by and my mileage goal for the month is starting to become a joke. The moment this stupid rash is gone, I am getting back into my routine. Up the street from my house is a University of RI remote campus that is insanely beautiful. I will plot out a running route through there when I am ready to get back into it again.

Well, It’s Not Herpes

On Saturday morning I stepped out of the shower and noticed some tiny red bumps on my hips and stomach. I didn’t think anything of it, and figured my skin was breaking out because we have well water at the new house and city water at the old house. I got dressed and went about my day without giving it a second thought.

The red bumps got bigger. And then they spread down to my legs, up my sides, across my back, and a few showed up on my arms. They hurt when I touched them, and when my clothing rested against them. I went to the pharmacy late on Saturday night and got a tube of cortisone and took some Benedryl when I got home.

“Hey that looks like poison ivy,” Todd said, as I pulled out the waist of my jeans to show him.

“How the hell would I have gotten poison ivy on my hips? I am not walking around in the woods naked,” I snapped back.

“Well, the dogs can carry the oil. You touched them, and now you have it,” he replied, ever so patiently.

“Then I would have it on my hands, my face, my arms. Not my hips, stomach and back,” I pondered, looking at the bumps in the mirror, “And they don’t itch. They just hurt. Poison ivy itches like crazy.”

When I woke up on Sunday morning, the bumps were bigger. Todd noticed that he had the same bumps on his sides and back as well. We got into the car and headed for the local urgent care clinic—two degenerates infected with who knows what.

We both went into the same examination room, and waited for the doctor. We joked about what the clinic staffers must think about a couple having the same creeping crud symptoms. “OMG, they must think we’re swingers and caught an STD!” we howled with laughter. We showed the doctor our bumps and we figured out that it must have been bacteria in the hot tub. We got our prescriptions for antibiotics and antibiotic cream, and then headed for the hot tub store.

Sure enough, there is a condition informally known as hot tub rash. Hot tub rash happens when the bacteria is sitting in the lines for the jets, and is dormant. Then when you heat up the hot tub water, the bacterium thrives in that temperature and is just waiting for the chance to strike. The bromine levels in the tub were never quite high enough to kill the bacteria either. Thus hot tub rash is born.

When we moved into the house we did drain the hot tub, and Todd scrubbed it out. We replaced the filters, and bought new chemicals then refilled the water. Neither of us thought to clean out the lines to the jets, figuring that the force of the water and the filtration system would clean any dirt out of there.

We have since drained the hot tub again, and Todd bought some chemical that will kill the bacteria. We need to scrub the underside of the cover, and he has cleaned the filters already.

In the mean time, I will not set foot into that tub again until I look less spotty like a Dalmatian and more human again.