My new obsession

I’m trying to transition from admin to engineer tech at work, and currently I’m doing about three peoples worth of work in a 40 hour week, and it’s a little manic inducing.  And it’s totally cutting in to my at work internet time, sigh.  On the upside, I’m kicking ass as an engg tech, and there maybe an internal job offer in the works before too long.  So that’s good.

In the meantime, let me just tell you about my latest obsession. Banana ice cream!  Lactose free banana (peanut butter!) ice cream.  All you need is frozen bananas and maybe peanut butter and food processor.   It’s super easy, insanely tasty, it feels very indulgent but also you could eat it for breakfast, because it’s just a banana and a scoop of peanut butter. 

It always works well with frozen mango, although that’s pretty tart and next time I’ll add some sweetened coconut shreds before I blend it.  I’m going to try peach ice cream next. 

It’s just so much easier than breaking out the ice cream maker, and healthier than anything with cream, and better for me, because cream makes me sick and while you can get lactose free milk, I’ve never seen lactose free heavy cream. 

But really, did I mention how GOOD it is?  Yum.

Trials and Tribulations

The basement has eaten my brain. And our bank accounts. The sump pump went in Monday, thankfully, because it’s pouring today. We know the sump works because it woke me up this morning, so at least we shouldn’t flood again.

It’s funny (not really) how quickly money vanishes during renovations.  2k for a sump pump, 1k for new eavestroughs, 3k to replace the fireplace  with in insert that’s not open to the freezing winter air, 2k for cork floors (I’m having trouble getting concrete quotes, but it’s looking like at least 6k, so cork’s looking better and better), 1-3k for radiant heat floors  (falling increasingly off the list of likely)…  Plus the hundreds for baseboards and drywall and paint and shop vac and and and.

But the money’s not the worst part.  We have good jobs, we have money set aside in a house fund and a vacation fund, and while this will clear them out, we’ll be fine.  Money is just money.  It’s the time, and energy, and effort to fix it.  It’s the fact we looking like we’re living in a fucking episode of Hoarders.  Our basement is where David’s hockey collection and all my craft stuff lived, and we have a lot of both.  There are paths caved out from the door to the couch to the table, but who wants to live like that?  I sure don’t.  I have a partially finished oil painting that taunts me every time I walk in the living room – I want to be painting canvas, not researching floor options.  I want to be gardening, not learning how to dry wall.  I want to be able to at least DO some of the work, but instead we’re waiting on various contractors to do the work we can’t, so that we can get started on the work we can.  In the meantime, we’re watching a ton of tv, because it’s the only thing you can do in the house right now.  It’s exhausting. 

Oh, the joys of home ownership.  Ha.

Clearly, we did something to piss off Karma

I woke up at 7 and went downstairs for a shower.  (The nicest shower in the house is in the fully finished basement.)  And slipped on the tile.  On the very wet tile. 

Flooding.  Yes.

Our fully finished basement in now a disaster zone.  1000 gallons of water over the course of two days.  I ripped the carpet up.  I worked until my fingers actually bled, and I really didn’t know that was even possible.  (ouch)   We lost all of the recently installed, expensive carpet.  We had just installed the 8 foot long custom bar my father in law had built – luckily the countertop wasn’t in so we could unscrew it from the wall and put it on bricks.  We’ve lost the baseboard.  We’re expecting to lose the drywall to the 2 foot mark, and we’re hoping we can save the panelling on the rest of the walls.  We saved our furniture and possessions, because we caught it so fast.  We’ve been lucky, for a given value of luck.  (I mean, at least I’m not pregnant!  Shop vacuuming and towelling and ripping up carpet for 17 hours with out stop was awful enough, without being hormonal and pukey.)  We borrowed fans and a dehumidifier and put down absorbing-clay-and-pebbles and I painted mold-resister everywhere I could reach. 

Insurance, however, covers none of it. 

And there goes the August trip to Seattle.  

And possibly the direly needed re-roof of the garage.

And a good chuck of our savings.

Now we’re waiting for my father in law to come to town tomorrow to assess the wall damage.  We’ve had a plumber in, and installing the sump pump will cost $2000 for the pump, but they’re not sure which walls/floors will have to come out to do it.  We will not be putting carpet down, of course, because I’m never ripped up THAT again.  (We’re thinking polished concrete with radiant heating, and a lot of area rugs.)  And scratching out our entire to do list and making a new one, and having endless discussions about plumbing and what we can do and what we have to pay to have done.  (IE: drywall?  Us.  Painting, baseboard and trim: us.  Radiant flooring?  Maybe.  Concrete?  Waffling.  Staining and polishing concrete?  Me.  Collapsing in a pile of despair? No one.)

So.  How was YOUR weekend?  🙂