Ready to Go

We spent the day getting Gladys ready for our extended leave.  The good thing about spending only half a year at each residence is that every six months, I am force to thoroughly scrub out the refrigerator!  I also took a sponge to the microwave and the oven, ran the dishwasher for the last time, and have one more load of laundry tonight to make sure that everything is washed and put away.

This afternoon we took a little break from cleaning floors, packing bags, and scrubbing bathrooms to walk around the mall and to do a little shopping.  I have few pants that will actually fit me when we get to Green Bay since my medical condition has caused me to lose weight, so I bought a pair of jeans at Kohl's and a pair of dressier pants at Sear's (their Lands' End store).  I don't know why I even bother with sizes anymore.  Depending on the designer, the style, and the cost, I now have clothes in sizes XS, S, and Medium for tops and sizes 4, 6, 8, and 10 in pants. While the 10 pants are a bit big, I have not been able to fit into a size 4 since fourth grade!  Ridiculous.

We did a great job this year in eating out the refrigerator.  A pound of butter and a little shredded cheese went to the neighbors, and very little actually went into the garbage can this morning.  I am pleased that we did not waste much food, although this past week has led to some creative meals. Tonight, since the refrigerator is totally down, we went for one last good meal at Cafe Alfresco.  Rick had his usual burger, and I have a delicious pulled-pork sandwich.  We figured with nothing but fast food before us for the next three days, we deserved one final meal at a good restaurant.  I ate too much.

We leave at 3:30 tomorrow morning, so I hope that I am not so keyed up that I cannot sleep tonight.  We will miss our Florida life, but we are both looking forward to seeing family and friends as we get into our "summer life" in Wisconsin.

Taking Stock

This is the longest stretch of time that we have actually stayed at Gladys, and Rick and I both were amazed when we figured out that the total time we have been "in residence" here in the past three years has been just shy of 12 months. What a change we have made in Gladys in that time span!  I always say, "All anything takes is time and money."  We have invested a considerable amount of money (for us, anyway) and an incredible amount of effort and time.

I started to make a list of what we have accomplished this past 6 1/2 months.  We have

1. Removed the falling-down, rotting north wooden fence.
2. Shopped for and purchased two new sofas for the living room.
3. Purchased the bedroom ceramic jars to help us keep clutter in control.
4. Purchased and installed sun-blocking shades for the front double doors.
5. Purchased and installed new 2" blinds for the Florida room, kitchen, guest room, and both bathrooms.
6. Cut down and removed stumps for dwarf schefflera and hibiscus bushes on the south side of the house.
7. Troubleshot and called in for repairs on the HVAC system. Replaced the thermostat. 
8. Purchased and hung new art for the living room. (Art Fairs are great in Florida!)
9. Removed and disposed of the old stone table and benches from the back patio.
10. Removed the patio and disposed of the old patio blocks. (Thanks for the help, Steve!)
11. Painted the interior of all four closets.
12. Redesigned and installed a new shelving system in guest room closet.
13. Redesigned and installed a new shelving system in the master bedroom closet.
14. Purchased, sanded, primed, and painted eleven interior doors. (This amounted to 44 coats of paint!)
15. Installed eleven new interior doors and added hardware.
16. Purchased, painted, and installed casing for the above-mentioned doors.
17. Purchased and assembled Ikea bed frame and two Hemnes nightstands for the guest room. Purchased two bedroom lamps.
18. Arranged for Oak and Camphor trees in back yard to be trimmed.
19. Purchased, assembled, and installed three upper laundry room cabinets and one sink base cabinet.
20. Purchased and installed system to hang bikes in garage.
21. Purchased and installed countertop for laundry room sink.
22. Purchased and assembled new white bedroom chair.  Re-covered the seat cushion.
23. Purchased and assembled small table for the Florida room.
24. Replaced wiring for the HVAC system that was branched into another wire.
25. Purchased living room rug.
26. Purchased, painted, and installed exterior shutters for the bedroom and kitchen windows.
27. Purchased and installed a Michael Healy house number plaque.
28. Removed and disposed of north wooden gate and remaining wooden fence.
29. Pressure washed paint from the entire house down to the bare stucco.
30. Patched cracks, sealed, and painted two finish coats on entire outside of house. (Whew!)
31. Scraped, sanded, washed, primed, and painted all soffits and fascia boards on house.
32. Purchased tree and metal sculpture for living room. (Love those art fairs!)
33. Removed loose plaster around garage window and resealed window.  Added casing to window to complete the sealing process.
34. Patched leak in garage wall.
35. Pressure washed mold and mildew from driveway and from back cement slab.
36. Removed outside conduit and dead electrical line.  Removed electrical outlet from Florida room and patched and painted wall.
37. Painted electrical mast to prevent rust on roof.
38. Caulked and painted HVAC wire covers.
39. Removed two rotting stumps from back yard.
40. Rerouted downspouts on north side of house into underground drainage systems.
41. Rerouted downspouts on south side of house into underground drainage systems.
42. Re-caulked bathtub in main bathroom.
43. Sealed grout on the front porch.

I cannot believe what we have accomplished in the last few months, and that all happened with me working at far less than 100% capacity.   Rick has done an incredible job this year, and a beautifully completed guest room, laundry room, and living room are the results.  Outside, Gladys is now sealed against the elements and sports a bright new coat of paint and new shutters.  

Gladys basks in the Florida sunshine for the summer.

We feel good about the condition in which we are leaving Gladys for the summer.  She is safe and secure.  We have a long ride ahead of us, but we are looking forward to some time off while we celebrate family graduations and birthdays as we allow our weary bodies to recover. 

Too Hot for Everything

My last post was a week ago, although that does not mean that we have been doing nothing during the past seven days.  What we have been doing, though, is low key and definitely not as energy-consuming as our tasks in the past.

This past weekend, we actually washed both the Camry and the truck.  We had hoped to get a good coat of wax on the truck, but I am not sure that the weather is going to cooperate for us to do that.  We are waking to sunshine each day with a promise of rain that has not materialized yet.  And by 10:00 a.m., the sun is too intense to do anything.

We wanted to stick around at least for the first part of this week because I had a confirmed Arrow Environmental Services (read: termite and pest control) appointment set for 10:00 a.m. Ha!  Just like the last time, that never happened.  The last time the man was here, I brought him inside the house, even let him use one of our pens, and watched while he wrote the appointment down on his calendar.  I added it to our calendar as well.  We had problems with this same man the last time we had a supposed "appointment" for which he never showed.  His excuse last time was that his truck broke down.  OK.  Crap happens, and we were willing to accept that.  This time, however, when we called his number, we got no response.  We called his office, and they could not tell us where he was.  We called back later, and then his boss tried to call him, but got no response.

To make a long story short, by the time he finally called us back, Arrow had sent out another man.  This man never sprayed the inside like the first man did, and he did not treat for subterranean termites like he was supposed to.  He said that he would come back later to do that.  Yeah, right.  We are not pleased with this company, but they get some of the better ratings on Angie's List, and they actually are one of the only companies that has workers who are both insured AND bonded.  Arrow bought out our old company, Bay Area Pest Control.  Bay Area was really good, and we suspect that some of the ratings on Angie's List are from Bay Area.  Arrow, we are not so pleased with.  Each of their men seems to be trained a different way, and no two do things in the same way. One of our tasks when we return in the fall will be to look for new pest control.  One cannot be without pest control in Florida, but we are both disenchanted with our current company.

Another reason Rick is ready to go north is because when he was outside with the pest control man, they both watched a three-foot long black snake slither along the north side of our house and crawl into our air conditioning unit. I am sure it was just taking refuge from humans and from the heat, and that last night it crawled away to hunt elsewhere, but it gave Rick the willies (he hates snakes), so he is ready to be done with the not-so-desirable portion of the wildlife down here. The snake probably lives in the overgrown back yard of our neighbor to the north.  His appearance (the snake, not the neighbor) is just another good reason to put up the fence.

This morning we started to clean out the garage.  We brought the bikes down and pumped up the tires, but it is really too hot today to ride them.  We just gave up and brought them into the house so they would not rust this summer.  We also started to bring in some other things that we do not want to cook in the heat and humidity for the summer.

One other task that I completed today was to scrub the front porch and to seal the grout in the tile.  We wanted to do that last year, but the grout was too new.  Now that is just one more task to mark off our "to do" list.

This afternoon, we went to the beach for the last time.  Big mistake.  The breeze was coming from inland rather than from the water, so it was breezy but hot.  I waded in the water up to my knees, and the water must be approaching 80 degrees.  I know why the children had no trouble swimming today.  We stayed for about an hour; by that time, our backs were drenched sitting in our lawn chairs, and we were both hot and miserable.  We packed up and came home.  Mid-May is the end of good beach weather in Florida.

Tomorrow we will finish packing so that I can have some time on Thursday to clean the house before we travel north.  We gave our neighbors a key so they can check on the house for us, and we will do a final check on Steve's house on Thursday to make sure everything is fine.

We will miss Gladys, but we are looking forward to getting back to family and friends in the hopefully cooler northern states.

Survivors

I have come to the conclusion that Florida exists today because it breeds survivors.  I am not talking just about the octogenarians who populate the state (although near-by Clearwater has the largest number of octogenarians per capita than any other city in the United States), but also about the wildlife and the plant life.  Florida houses alligators that are pushing the century mark, turtles that have passed the century mark, and trees that started to sprout long before European settlers even found this "new world."  I even have small examples of survivors in our own yard.

Two years ago, while digging around in the back yard, I unearthed a totally buried but intact clay flowerpot. (It somehow survived both being buried and miraculously not being shattered by my shovel when I dug it up.)  For over a year, it sat empty on the stone patio table, once again surviving sun, winds, storms, and scurrying lizards. No one stole it, and the neighbor's children's golf balls failed to bring about its demise.

In that same year two years ago, I also awoke one day to pink wildflowers blooming all over the backyard.  By their very nature, wildflowers are survivors, and although these may have been domesticated at one time, their random appearance in the yard told me they had not been intentionally planted. So up they came, surviving long enough for me to photograph them. My sister-in-law identified them an freesias.  Within days, they were gone.

Last year, the freesias once again made a short appearance.  Although there were not as many, perhaps due to weather conditions, I decided to save one from the blades of our forthcoming lawn service by digging it up and planting it in the clay flowerpot.  I expected that it would wither and die over the summer when we were gone, but for a while, I could enjoy the green leaves and the single pink flower.

I was astonished when we returned in November and saw the green leaves of the freesia informing me that the flower was, indeed, still very much alive.  A true survivor.  All winter long, that little pot has sat outside.  The freesia gets water when it rains, but no other care or attention.  Yet yesterday, while sitting outside, I noticed something from the corner of my eye.  Unbelievably, although I have seen no other freesias in the yard, the sole survivor of my disinterest had once again bloomed into a glorious flower.  I share the pictures with you for you to enjoy.

My surviving freesia faces the sun.

A second bud is about to bloom, so the plant continues to thrive.

Florida is definitely a place for survivors.

We had a great day today.  This morning I had a final appointment with my rhumatologist before we head north . I am happy to report that he said I am "doing exceptionally well" and that I have regained a fair amount of my strength. (That must be due to the sanding, scraping, painting, and digging I have done in the last few months!)  He has me on a course to continue to reduce the Prednisone, and he questioned one of the painful tests (EMG) I am due to have when I return to Mayo.  What he said made sense, so I may cancel that test before I go back to Minnesota.  The good news is that I continue to get stronger and to feel better.  Am I 100% back to what I was before I was diagnosed with dermatomyositis?  No, and I probably never will be; however, I am far better than I was before, and I have to look forward to continuing to make progress.  I still get tired and have to make sure that I do not do too much (like I did on Tuesday), but overall we both are happy with how much my health has improved.

Today's picture showing that the freesia will not quit.

After the doctor's appointment, we drove north to Tarpon Springs for a little shopping and then for a lunch on the beach.  Summer has arrived in Florida, and the temperatures are in the high 80s to low 90s right now.  The beach, however, always has a breeze and the cooler water temperature keeps the beaches very comfortable.  We packed a picnic lunch and our Kindles, and we had a delightful early afternoon.

On the way home, I saw a really strange sight.  The road we were on passed over a small gully and creek.  Sitting at the edge of the water, as if trying to dip his feet in to cool off, was a left-over from Christmas, discarded, four-foot high plastic snowman.  Well, maybe he wasn't discarded.  Maybe he was an escapee from a garage somewhere, and he was just trying to beat the heat.  There, yet again, was another survivor in this crazy state.

Filthy, Finished, and Fatigued

We got up early both to beat the heat and to give us time to get this project completed so we could have the afternoon to relax.

The glueing of the pipes together went well.  Our house is set on a bell foundation which means that at the corners, the foundation walls flare outward with more concrete.  This caused a few problems with the downspouts fitting as securely to the walls as they were before, but that is a small concern.  Water always flows downhill, so the rainwater from the roof will still find its way into the underground pipe.

We are both absolutely fatigued.  We tried to put in the edge stones with the intention of getting the river rock, but when we started to lay out the string lines for elevations, we came to the conclusion that we need to put in the front paver sidewalk first.  Other elevations need to feed off of the sidewalk, so for now, the dirt just goes back into the hole.  We are too filthy and fatigued to worry about it until the fall.

The pictures tell the story better than I can at this point.

Over 51 feet of pipe snake its way along the
south wall foundation.

A view from the front before we added the
final section that comes up to the ground
level to disburse the water.

The final section of pipe contains a cap that
will keep grass and critters out, but will
pop up when the pipe fills with rainwater.

Mounds of dirt remain to be replaced above the pipes.

The finished project, for now,  has the dirt back in place.  If it
splatters, it splatters.  Dirt happens.

The lack of downspouts makes cutting our lawn
easier for the lawn service and gives Gladys
a cleaner look.

We have done a tremendous amount of work today, even though it does not look like much from the above-ground viewpoint.  We are just glad that this is the last major project of this winter.  We have never spent this amount of time in Gladys all in one stretch.  Rick is sick to death of painting, and I am just overall tired of getting up each day and working.  We are finished for now, and that is a good place to be.

Down and Dirty

As anyone who  has ever attempted even the simplest of remodeling tasks knows, a single task is an impossibility.  Thinking of repainting a wall?  Sure, but before we do that, we really should take out that old socket, and we really need new baseboard, and if we do that, then the next room will look drab, so... and the list goes on.

When we got up this morning, we considered buying some river rock to put around the front and the north sides of the house.  With the painting done, we are now left with either ditches next to the foundation where we painted below the ground level, or dirt put back which splatters up each time we have rain.  With the rainy season just starting, we know that our house will look terrible if we do not put some rock or sod next to the foundation.  Sod won't grow; we are too far into the hot season for any sod to take root unless we plan to water it each day for the next two months.  That, of course, will be impossible since we are leaving for Wisconsin in a couple of weeks. We really don't want sod anyway.  We have long planned on a row of edge stones to hold in the smaller river rock which we want to encircle the house.  That will provide a base for water to fall without splattering up any mud.

Once we got outside, however, the Evil Demon of Never-Ending Remodeling (EDNER) reared his ugly head.  EDNER reasoned: If we have the trench dug for the edge stones and river rock, shouldn't we go a few inches deeper and just bury the underground drainage system we want on the south side of the house?  And since there is a natural, always-flooding gully between our neighbor's house and ours, shouldn't we be responsible neighbors and take it out far enough so that when the water comes up, it will drain to the street rather than back into the gully?  And as long as we are bringing the water from the back of the house to the front, shouldn't we tie in the little front bedroom section downspout also, thus taking care of two downspouts and water problems at one time?  Damn!  I hate it when EDNER makes sense.

The result is that we now have a 50-foot trench dug.  We have gone to Lowe's twice since one Lowe's did not have enough 4" pipe, and we have at least one more trip to make since a couple of pieces put themselves together incorrectly.  (Oops!)

The trench from the back of the house.

The trench as viewed from the front yard.

The clock reads almost 2:30 p.m., and we are well beyond quitting time on such a hot day.  No rain is predicted all week, so the rest of this task will have to wait until tomorrow.  Will it get done?  Certainly.  Once we get the pipes glued together and buried, then phase two starts as we level the ground above the pipe, put in a little paver base under the edge stones, add a bit of the fill back over the pipe, lay landscape fabric above the fill,  and then pick up stone to cover the fabric and to give us the look we want around the foundation of the house.

We are just trying to keep Gladys clean while we are gone, but now Rick just came out the the shower and said that he just wants to finish the pipe and then fill it all in with dirt anyway.  I know that he is tired and discouraged.  Sometimes projects are better left thought about and not attempted.  That way EDNER does not have to get involved.

Internal and External Storms

The last time I posted, I wrote about Duke Energy's hired crews coming in to trim the trees around the power lines.  That has lead to major turmoil.

The crews came back the next day to hack away at our oak tree.  They did not bring in a bucket; instead, two men climbed the tree while a third remained on the ground to haul away the downed limbs and branches.  At first the men were very high in the tree.  The only problem we had with that was that they had no regard for where they dropped the branches that they cut.  At least a half dozen fairly large branches were dropped on the roof of the shed on the property behind our house.  OK, the shed is old and starting to rust, and the house has been vacant for two years; however, their disregard for that property resulted in several 6 - 8" dents in the metal roof of the shed.  If the shed roof did not leak before, I am sure that it will leak now.  Their disregard for property had us wondering about putting in a fence someday.

Our oak before the tree trimmers attacked it.

The oak after the trimming.  The workers were going to
cut some of the lower branches from the right-hand portion!

As the men descended the tree, one got to the branch that hangs over our back yard.  They had already cut away the branches near the line.  Then, with his power saw going, he started out onto the major limb that we paid $250 earlier this year for a professional tree service to trim.  The Duke Energy hired worker was about to cut down even more!  Rick stood under the branch (in the "Drop Zone") and told the man that there was no need to cut any of those branches.  Note that the branches were UNDER the wires and growing downward and away from the wires anyway. The man started to argue with Rick that they needed to trim more branches.  At that point, Rick totally lost it and told them all, "Get the hell off of my property, now!"

To make matters worse, when Rick tried to talk to one worker, the man said that he spoke no English.  Rick demanded to talk to a supervisor who did speak English.  When the supervisor came, the man who "spoke no English" spoke perfect English in explaining to the supervisor what the problem was.  That sent Rick over the edge.  Dishonesty drives him insane.  Just be honest.  If the worker did not want to deal with Rick's questions and rage, then he should have said, "I cannot answer your questions.  Let me get a supervisor."  We both hate it when people try to play the race card.  Just be honest.

The supervisor came and tried to explain what rules they had to follow.  Rick asked them all to leave our property, and since they were done with most of their hacking anyway, the did leave.  Rick put a call in to the city arborist to come back to our yard to look at what they had done.

Now totally upset, Rick was in a foul mood for two days.  He was ready to put the house on the market and to walk away from all of our hard work.  We have gotten to the point where we are almost done with the outside.  He has one more final coat of paint on the soffit behind the garage, and the overhead painting is then complete.  I have to wash the windows and screens and put them back up.  I also have to scrape and paint the windowsills on the Florida room east and north sides and the windowsill on the garage.  Then our painting of the house will be complete.

Meanwhile, another concern is the house kitty-corner from us in the back.  That house is in foreclosure, so the renters were asked to leave.  When they tried to buy the house, the bank (for whatever reason) refused to sell to them. The house now has been vandalized and is standing wide open.  We made a call to the Code Enforcement office, left a message, and actually received a call back.  We feel good about what the city is doing to monitor the vacant or foreclosed properties.  The man Rick talked to told us he is monitoring that house weekly, and that he is in the process of getting the bank to take action to repair the vandalism and to replace the doors to the house.  They also are aware of several propane tanks in the back yard and other problems with the house.

When Rick told him about the damaged shed in the house behind us, the man said that the shed is within the 5-foot easement at the back of the property and that it will probably be removed.  He also told us that utility companies and the city have the right to go into that area and do whatever they want.

That information did not give us a warm, fuzzy feeling.  If we put a fence there, they could ask us to move it if the city needed to come into that area.  We talked yesterday and today about moving the fence six feet forward into our yard to avoid possible problems in the future.  That would cause another problem, though.  We would still be responsible for adding a gate so we could go back there to trim the "no man's land" area between our moved-forward fence and the actual property line.  What a no-win situation! One solution causes another problem.

A second option that we discussed was just forgetting a fence along the back and putting in shrubs to give us privacy.  That is what the former owners of Gladys did; unfortunately, by the time that we took possession of the house, everything back there was totally overgrown.  I was shocked to discover, though, that Rick and I had totally different perceptions of what we should plant.

I wanted a soft-scape of various shrubs (some flowering) that would give us privacy while also providing different colors and textures to the whole back of our property. Shrubs like Bush Allamanda have beautiful yellow flowers all year long, and bougainvillea with its pink, white, red, or purple flowers can be trained to climb a well-placed trellis.  Bougainvillea also flower all year long. A Powderpuff shrub has pink or red flowers to add color to a yard, and Florida Privet, Small Anise, Dwarf Oleander, Bay-Cedar, or Cleyera offer various textures and hues of green as well as the potential for seasonal flowers. What I did not want was a uniform, all-green, structured hedge like we see across the street from us in Wisconsin.  They are a pain-in-the-rear to keep trimmed, and, in my opinion, are just plain booooring!

When we discussed shrubs today, Rick showed me a picture of a green, structured shrub and said that is the only thing he would consider.  Wow!  Talk about opposite opinions.  He did not want "something scraggly that is growing all over,"  and I did not want something that was hard to maintain and that reminded me of Wisconsin.  I want the gardens to be tropical, not northern.

Sigh.  OK.  So since neither of us was willing to compromise, we scratch the shrub idea.  I will plant some shrubs later for accents, but nothing as a hedge.  Soooo... that leads us back to the fence.  If we put it on the property line, we run a risk of it getting damaged or of us having to remove part of it (which would be virtually impossible if each post is anchored with 150 pounds of stone and cement).  Otherwise, we can move it six feet forward which would rob us of yard space, add an awkward view of the tree, add the cost of another gate, and make us go behind the fence to mow it. Dilemma. We put out string lines to see where such a fence would be placed.

One thing we did learn (thankfully now) was that we do not want to put a shed within the five-foot easement area on our property, since THAT the city may ask us to move.  We can change our plans to put the future shed elsewhere.

Today Art came back to look at our trees.  He said that everything Duke Energy cut down would grow back within three years, but he also was glad that Rick stepped under the tree when he did.  Art also told us to NOT move the fence forward.  He said that moving the fence would not necessarily protect it from danger or damage, and that the city has so many buckets and lifts and gadgets, that they probably would never ask us to take part of the fence down.  He said, without really saying so, that we would not encounter any problems from the city with the fence just within the property line.  He said we would not want to block the view of the tree, and that we would not want the hassle of going behind a moved-forward fence to mow.  If someone from the city assures me that the city will not ask us to move the fence, I can live with that opinion.  I hope that we can put the fence in as originally planned.

The hammock is great, but the pillow needs a cover!

Today greeted us with torrential thunderstorms, so we spent the day indoors.  While Rick investigated yard drains and other future projects, I took out my sewing machine and made four covers for our hammock pillows.  We are now ready to give it a test drive when the weather finally cooperates with us... which may not be until next Monday.

Fun, tropical fabrics add a bit of flair to the hammock
while protecting the pillows from the elements.

Our options on how to proceed are numerous, but the more we learn, the easier it is to decide the best courses of action.  We do not totally agree, but in the end, I hope that we make decisions that will allow us to relax and to enjoy what we have done to Gladys and to her yard.  So far we are happy with the inside.  Next year our attention and decisions will focus on the outside.