Weekend of Labor

It's been a loooong weekend. Our back deck has been badly in need of a paint job for the last year or so, so I decided a long weekend would be the time to tackle it. Because the dogs usually hang out in the back yard when we're away from home, I needed the kids to be home for a couple of days to entertain the dogs and take them out on a leash.

I started prepping the deck several weekends ago, sanding and scraping the loose paint. On Friday, I spent several hours finishing the sanding and scraping, but had to stop when it got dark.

Saturday morning, I scrubbed the deck and rinsed it off, then had lunch while it dried. M helped me put on the first coat, then we let it dry overnight. Yesterday I put on the second coat: three hours and forty minutes from start to finish.

BEFORE

AFTER

Today was supposed to be my day of rest: an Orinda Idol rehearsal for B in the morning, a quick run to Target, then SimCity and yesterday's Sunday paper. The animals had other plans, though. B took both dogs out this morning, then we left them in M's care. Shortly after we arrived at the rehearsal, my phone rang. It was M, letting me know that one of the dogs had somehow made her way up the stairs and done a #2 on the carpet (despite having been taken outside less than an hour before). I told him to pick up what he could, and I added carpet cleaner to my Target list. By the time I got home, one of the dogs had added a #1 to the family room floor. This is their third day confined indoors, so I don't know why they're suddenly having trouble today. Last but not least, we had put Otto temporarily into his winter quarters (because he can climb the stairs onto the deck). It's pear season outside--the neighbor's pear tree is dropping pears all over the back yard, which Otto loves. I'll just let you imagine what happens when you let a tortoise eat tons of pears and then put him in a confined space: let's just say that the garage door has been open for the last half hour, airing out the garage.

Rain, Rain, Go Away

Okay, I know we need the rain, but I need to it go away for a couple of days so DH and I can fix the leak in the family room. It started about two weeks ago when we had one of those storms where the rain comes in sideways--I think it worked its way under the roof. Since then, we've had a lovely hole in our family room ceiling.

I had a pickup rehearsal/help session for Voci members tonight, and interestingly enough, two of the four singers that came also had leaks from that storm. I guess I can't complain about ours--one of them has a new leak over the bed in the master bedroom, which has got to be much more inconvenient!

Sump Pump

I'm working at home today, while the plumber replaces our outdoor sump pump. He finally finished about 15 minutes ago, after a trip to the hardware store to buy a pipe fitting. (Actually, it was three hardware stores, because the first two didn't have the piece he needed.) And the job took longer than expected, because for some reason our sump doesn't have a standard electrical outlet for the pump, so he had to do a wiring job.

We noticed last spring that our sump pump wasn't working, so I bailed out the hole and discovered that the circuit breaker tripped every time I lifted the float up. Since summer is dry here, I procrastinated calling a plumber until last month. It's always something with older houses--we also had to redo the front sprinkler system this summer. I wonder what's next...