Doing Our Part to Stimulate the Economy

I am thrilled to report that, despite the inauspicious beginning, Jody and I are half way through with our insulation projects. We had the water heater replaced with an HE unit and moved to a more logical position in the basement, the crawlspace underneath the 1st floor bathroom insulated, and old insulation pulled out from the sill boxes in the basement and replaced with sprayed-in foam.

Yeah, I didn't know what a sill box was, either, but I can talk a good game.

Next on the list is to have the attic air sealed, the old insulation ripped out and replaced with 14" of blown in cellulose.

To give you a picture of how badly we needed this work done, the old water heater was at least 20 years old, the 1st floor bathroom used to be a good 10+ degrees colder than the rest of the house when the door was closed, and while current building code requires that attic insulation is rated no less than R38, we've got about R6 up there. Oy.

My primary goal with all of this work is to first keep the house in good shape (read: prevent it from crumbling around our ears), with the second goal being an increase in efficiency. Apparently the attic improvements wil also keep the 2nd floor cooler in the summer, which is great, because it can really cook up there, despite the AC being cranked up.

I'm also hoping that the new attic insulation prevents new ice dams from forming (the old ones have just about completely melted away in the recent heat wave) because I swear to GOD that there is a new crack in the molding or along the wall seams every time I turn around and it is driving me absolutely BITCHCAKES.

In other house news, we had been thinking about having our garage redone. Currently, you can get a car in there, but being able to open the doors is another matter altogether. In this neighborhood, it seems like you have two choices: use your garage for storage or strip it bare to the walls so you can park you car in there.

We had given some thought to putting on a new garage, and then doing a garage with a bedroom on top, but I had a revelation about a week ago and thought what I would say if a neighbor were to undertake such a project. Since the answer to that scenario was "nothing nice," Jody and I have agreed to put that one on the back burner for the time being.

That's enough outta me for now--I'm going to go and do my impression of a Hungry Hungry Hippo.

What's the What

I'm sure I'm not the only one that's crazy busy these days...the good news is that it's busy of the totally normal, average, boring (yet Christmas crazed) variety vs. the what the fuck do you mean I have cancer?! variety, so I've got that going for me.

Which is nice.

I've even managed to push my "condition" so far to the back of my mind that I haven't given a whole lot of thought to the lab work results that have yet to come back (or be revealed to me), although of course blogging about it made me think of it, so of course I just fired off a quick email to Dr. Chemo.

Otherwise, I'm just trying to stay on top of the pile: ready the labels and stamps and what not to get the cards out within 24h, keep the laundry cranking along, work on dismantling the many, many piles that accumulate throughout the house, and generally try to give a little more sense, logic, and order to the way things are organized and put away.

Or we could just burn the house down--ice dams and all--and start from scratch.

24/7/365 366* (and counting)

It's my cancerversary today--one of many commemorating various battles of my cancer war, but this is the big one--the one year anniversary of the first time they told me "you have cancer."

It was a week after Thanksgiving and I had a late appointment on Friday. We went into it with big plans to go to a fish fry for dinner so I could eat my face off after having done the whole fasting and bowel prep thing in advance of the colonoscopy.

It was cold, and it was snowing. It was the first time I'd ever been in UW hospital. We parked on the top of the parking ramp.

They gave me a key on an elastic ring for the locker where I would store my clothes. I wore my long wool socks, thinking I was clever. I remember getting wheeled into the room, but very little after.

Coming out of sedation, I would ask Jody what time it was before falling back to sleep. We had to wait for something, so why not sleep? This happened again and again, although I didn't realize it at the time.

Eventually the nurse came and brought us into a room. Getting brought into a room is never a good thing, but my Versed-addled brain didn't make this connection. Jody had seen it coming ever since they said we had to wait. His train wreck was in slow motion, whereas mine happened at full speed, if through a fog.

Cancer.

It couldn't be cancer. They must have gotten it wrong. How much can they tell from looking at something, anyway?

Cancer?

But I'm young! Fit! Vegetarian! Clean family history! I have a four month old, for Chrissake! It can't be cancer! It can't be.

Can't.

But as we know all too well, it was. Despite all the odds so clearly being in my favor, I had rectal cancer. Ass cancer, if you prefer (I know I do). What the fuck were we going to do?

Burn it.
Cut it.
Poison it.
Bomb it to the stone age and then salt the earth so it never comes back.
We hope.

A year ago today they told me I have cancer. And I'm still here.

---

I had a bad day yesterday. Not cancer-bad, but related to it, so in the vicinity. I was all ready to post something really depressing and maudlin but Jody and I had a chat and got my emotional train back on the rails.

I made a plan. Something to distract, cheer me up:

I got my Suzie Homemaker nails done.

My nails are the longest they have been since finishing chemo--which is to say not long at all--and I wanted to do something indulgent and solo over Violet's nap.

The color is Russian Navy and is appropriate on so many levels:

• When I met Jody, he was in the [U.S.] Navy.
• Like my daughter's name, this color is a shade of purple
• This color is also blue, like the "awareness" ribbon of my fellow colorectal peeps.

It's also totally badass.

Speaking of those last two items--ie my ass and it being a bad one--I applied to be a model for the 2010 Colondar. I'll let you know if I'll be flashing my scars for the masses when I do. :)

*I stand corrected--it was a leap year. Of course it was...

An Open Letter to a Lazy Ass Contractor

Dear house renovation guy,

When you came to take a look at our place to give us a bid on how much the various insulation projects around the house would cost, you were a consummate professional: knew your stuff, didn't talk down to me just because I have a vagina, and we even connected on a have-lived-everywhere level. I dropped the hint that we had bigger renos in our future with the idea that if this project went well, there could be more $$ down the road.

But that was three weeks ago. THREE WEEKS and it's only getting colder here in Southern Canada and I would really like to have these projects at least STARTED before the snow falls.

When I called you last week (Wednesday? Thursday maybe?), you said that you were in the office and hoped to get the quote to me that day. I said that I'd look forward to reading it by the end of the week (wanted to give you a little cushion) and that was the last I heard from you.

Now, I know that I'm not your #1 priority, but it would at least be nice to get the sense that I'm at least in the queue for services. I mean, I thought that with the housing market (and really, the whole flipping economy) in the tank, all you guys were scrambling for work? No?

I'm starting to have the feeling I would get back in my dating days (aka The Dark Ages) when I would call a guy and he'd be all "yeah, we should do something, I'll call you when I know my schedule" and then he wouldn't call and I'd be all "BITCHCAKES!" and would curse the phone and eventually go out with my friends and get pissed at a local bar and then run into the guy as I was coming out of the mens' room (the ladies' was occupado, of course) and then have this totally awkward conversation since I had seen him flirting with a half dozen blondes earlier and had written something nasty about him on the chalkboard over the toilet.

So, I'm going to do as Jody has said and vote with my feet and if you do come crawling back, I will expect some courtesy discount for my trouble (10% should just about do it).

Sincerely,
Crankymouth

Trials and Tribulations of a Semi-Urban Homeowner

How hard is it to find an outdoor wall sconce with a motion detector that isn't totally fug?