Today, I discovered another joy of home ownership. I picked up the phone to make a call, and no dialtone. Only now, because I'm a homeowner, if there's a problem with the phone line, it's not the landlord's problem; it's my problem!
Interestingly enough, my DSL is working enough to let me post this blog entry (though the connection does keep cutting out), even though I have no phone service.
Hooray for technology!
My AT&T service appointment options? Saturday between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. (way to narrow down the window there, folks) or Saturday between noon and 4 p.m. I picked the one that didn't leave me shackled to my house for 12 hours.
We'll see how many minutes before the technician arrives my dial tone comes back. This is an extra fun game, because if everything is working when the technician arrives, I get to pay a $55 fee. Yay! If there is a problem, but it's inside my house, I not only get to pay that fee, but the technician will tell me the super-secret current hourly rate for service, so that I can decide if I want the problem fixed.
This game just keeps getting better and better.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Dream, Dream, Dream
Good news: I went furniture shopping the other weekend, and finally found some pieces that I liked.
Bad news: I came to the uncomfortable realization that I can't afford to buy furniture right now.
Much of the reason that I haven't been writing is that not much has been happening. I'm still slowly rebuilding my savings after buying the house, and most of the things that I want to do cost money that I don't have.
I did borrow some tools from my folks last weekend to start tearing up my back yard. My plan is to do some experimental digging and poking about to find what I have under the baked dirt and assorted weeds in the parts of my yard that aren't trees, bushes, or roses. I know I have some chunks of concrete. Raking leaves on Wednesday, I discovered that I also have a lot more gravel than I'd thought. (It's the small, reddish kind, so it blends in pretty well with the baked dirt until you start moving it around with a rake.) Initial excavations in a corner of the yard uncovered large and gnarly roots. There may be a fair number of those. In addition to my own bushes, trees and roses, my neighbors trees and bushes clearly have spread their roots far. My yard has the enterprising volunteers to prove it.
Three of those volunteers are lovely sapling ash trees that will take out my back and side fences if I let them grow. Although it pains me, I have been slowly removing them, one yard waste bin full of young branches at a time. So much for trees of mystical portant in my backyard.
I'm still trying to identify the fourth volunteer, which I'm inclined to let grow. It's not in a bad place, and the trees of its type around the community look nice and (importantly) not too big.
Eventually I'd like to put in a couple of fruit trees (I'm thinking avocado and peach) and start filling in with flowers and edibles. It would be nice to start getting rid of the grass. (Have I mentioned yet today that I'm allergic to grass? Every kind of grass I have? Especially the kinds that I have to keep mowing all the time?) Nice to have something to replace the weeds with, too (other than bare dirt).
Soon.
Bad news: I came to the uncomfortable realization that I can't afford to buy furniture right now.
Much of the reason that I haven't been writing is that not much has been happening. I'm still slowly rebuilding my savings after buying the house, and most of the things that I want to do cost money that I don't have.
I did borrow some tools from my folks last weekend to start tearing up my back yard. My plan is to do some experimental digging and poking about to find what I have under the baked dirt and assorted weeds in the parts of my yard that aren't trees, bushes, or roses. I know I have some chunks of concrete. Raking leaves on Wednesday, I discovered that I also have a lot more gravel than I'd thought. (It's the small, reddish kind, so it blends in pretty well with the baked dirt until you start moving it around with a rake.) Initial excavations in a corner of the yard uncovered large and gnarly roots. There may be a fair number of those. In addition to my own bushes, trees and roses, my neighbors trees and bushes clearly have spread their roots far. My yard has the enterprising volunteers to prove it.
Three of those volunteers are lovely sapling ash trees that will take out my back and side fences if I let them grow. Although it pains me, I have been slowly removing them, one yard waste bin full of young branches at a time. So much for trees of mystical portant in my backyard.
I'm still trying to identify the fourth volunteer, which I'm inclined to let grow. It's not in a bad place, and the trees of its type around the community look nice and (importantly) not too big.
Eventually I'd like to put in a couple of fruit trees (I'm thinking avocado and peach) and start filling in with flowers and edibles. It would be nice to start getting rid of the grass. (Have I mentioned yet today that I'm allergic to grass? Every kind of grass I have? Especially the kinds that I have to keep mowing all the time?) Nice to have something to replace the weeds with, too (other than bare dirt).
Soon.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
