Rain, Rain, Go Away.

Well, shortly after the concrete was laid, day before yesterday, it started misting and sprinkling. Yesterday, our contractor told us that if it didn't rain, we'd start stick framing today.

So, I knew to expect rain.  And I was right.  It started raining shortly after he said that, it has been raining ever since and it's expected to rain through the rest of today and tonight.  The new basement is filling with water.  The wood can't be delivered.  We can't back fill. I can't start cleaning the pea gravel, sand etc from what remains of my driveway.

Usually, today is my favorite Holiday.  Instead, I'm standing at the top of a spiral water slide, trying hard to resist the urge to let go of the rail and ride it all the way down to the pool of despair at the bottom.

Courtesy of the ultra cool BitStrips app on FaceBook.  (Check it out, it's fun.)

Floor Pour and More Galore!

Hi all!

Sorry I didn't come back with the new pics as I promised... the block layers did not finish until about 6pm on Oct 21, which was only 3 days shy of a full month since they had started.  I think I might have had a little bout of situational depression set in, either that or the really bad allergies I've been experiencing sapped me.   Maybe both.

So, anyway, let me bring you up to speed with a couple of pics:

The blocks are done!  This was taken from North east corner of the front porch

Because the excavator dug us too deep, we are now below the sewage and had to have something I very much did not want installed -- an expulsion pit -- so, I get to live with and pay for his mistakes for the rest of my time here.  (The electricity to run the pump - a backup electrical supply to run the pump during power outages and routine maintenance and replacement of the pump.)    Oh, plus, the big walk in storage closet I had intended for my Halloween and Christmas decor (I'm one of half a dozen houses in town that are known for our trick or treat mini-haunts.)  I was already having to re think how I wanted to lay out the interior of that small room because that turned out to be the best place to put our sump.  Now, the expulsion pit is in there, too and together they take up such a huge chunk of that area that I don't think I can use that small room for anything at all.  So, yay Mr. Not Really An Excavator But Solicited A Bid As One -- you've made me hate a part of my house and I don't even have the house yet.  Good going.

Taken from inside garage area looking to north west toward back.  The basement has been water sealed and, to the right of the center of this picture, you can see the expulsion pit (the tall one) and the sump just to the right of that. These pits are standard in homes in surrounding cities - one reason I won't live in any of those cities. Had the original house had one when we were house hunting, we would not have purchased it. To say I am extremely unhappy that it is now necessary that I have one is an understatement.

And here's what's going on, today (October 29, 2013:)

Either an Imperial Walker disguised as a cement pump truck has arrived OR a pump truck has arrived to pour our basement floor!  (As you can see, it's supposed to rain -- let's hope it holds off as rain would be bad!)

The pump truck is actually a happy surprise.  I usually drive by the (not a house yet) every morning after I drop my youngest off at school (our real house is just two blocks from the school, our rental house is on the other side of town from the school.)  I didn't expect to see anyone there, that early.  Then, there it was.  So, I pulled into the culdesac to snap some pictures, intending to get out of the van and snap some from closer up.  However, a few seconds after I snapped this, the circle began to fill with work trucks arriving for the job.  So, with parking extremely limited in the culdesac, I decided more pictures could wait and I freed up the space I was taking up.   Here's hoping the rain holds off -- rain right now would be very, very bad.

In other news, as I mentioned, we were the Halloween House on our side of town.  In addition to outside decor and bits and pieces of things I use to make decor from, I had a very extensive collection of  costumes, capes, makeup, wigs, accessories and things to make all of the above from.  And I lost every bit of it in the fire (I did have a very small amount of outside decor in the garage instead of the basement and some of that was retrievable - very little of it, it's in bad shape, but it's set up on my porch here at the rental along with two new - not styrofoam -tombstones I purchased to begin my collection anew.  Anyway, as of the other night, I hadn't found enough to work with to put a costume together for this year to go with my micro-mini-haunt and I was getting pretty depressed about it as this would mark the first year -- in my ENTIRE life (including infancy) that I had not had a costume for Halloween.   I happened to be having a private online conversation with a small group of my online pals from my t-shirt adventure and mentioned that I was probably going to cry a lot on Halloween as my goal had been to dress up for Halloween every year until I die of record-setting old age and that the fire had robbed me of that, too.   One of my pals, whose Corgi had been visiting me in my dreams (I rarely dream of my own pets, so it's very weird that I would dream of one of hers,) started firing off low-budget-quick-to-throw-together ideas and her brainstorming got me perked up out of my doldrums enough to think maybe, just maybe, I could make one more run through the shops to try to get some cheap department store halloween makeup  to work with in addition to minimal supplies I already have here and put something together.  The original plan was a zombie, but I've been watching skull face tutorials online, some of which use a mix of real makeup and the cheap halloween junk and if I can steady my hand enough, I might be able to draw myself into my micro-mini-haunt.  If not, it all washes off and I know how to do a zombie, I'll just be using different materials for the rotting flesh than I've used before, but the basic principals are the same as confirmed by my friend.  Thanks Friend -- give that Corgi a big hug from me.  :)

Here are some photos of Halloweens past... and one at the end of what's left.

I think this goblin ate hubby.

This DIY chemical peel stings a little, I hope it's working!!

Mr. Graves was my newest dummy. This was his debut year, 2011. We tweaked him considerably, last year, so that he looked more like a real person pretending to be a dummy.

The gloves I have on with my reaper costume are (were) professional studio grade costuming. Hoping to find another pair.  LOVED them!  Actually built this costume around them.

Me with my (floating illusion) ghoul dummy (only her mask made it out after the fire.)

Thug afterlife.

And this is all that's left. The two tombstones are new. You can't see my giant reaper (I call him Guido because his face structure and black robing reminds me of Father Guido Sarducci) but he sort-of made it out OK after the fire, too.  I had to do quite a bit of repair work and when I'm home again, I'll do more extensive/permanent repairs on him.  Bonesy and the Jester will have to be completely rebuilt and re-costumed.  Their body forms are rotting and mildewed.   The hanging bat's face is partially melted - he actually looks gnarlier with it that way, so I thing I'll keep him as-is. But his electronics no longer work.  The stick is a sign post that will point the way to the graveyard on Halloween night.  No sense putting it out til then.  Now I have to figure out how to light this with no outside outlets and all my lighting stuff gone.  :(  

Off Topic for a moment.

Editing to add -- found out last night that the nexus law in my state has been stricken by our state Supreme Court.  Stlll happy to have found this new one, but also thrilled that I might get some of my old ones back.   And MORE good news!!   Lots of work got done yesterday at the house.  The block laying is supposed to be finished, at long last, this weekend.  I am staying out of their way so they don't pause to talk to me!!  New post with lots of pics soon -- STAY TUNED!)

I hope to have some new pics and lots of news after the weekend.  In the meantime, the nexus law in my state continues to get me dropped from the affiliate programs that used to butter my bread (not mention buy the bread, the butter and the butter knife.)  Such was the case last week.  I lost another one (which means they're growing, so I'm happy for them, even if I'm sad for me) and I had to try to find a new advertiser to replace the one I lost.   I did find one, a really good one that fits a much larger, longer-term advertising hole left in the wake of the nexus law:  FYE, but I've had so much house/insurance/other stuff on my plate that I haven't had time to go through my site and plug them in, yet.  (I really do need to get on that, asap, though.)  I'm really excited to have found them and to have been accepted into their program.

They did send me a note today about a sale that I thought maybe some of you might be interested in checking out for a price compare, if you have a music shopping list to fill anyway.  (NOTE:  This **IS** an affiliate link because that's what they sent me.)


Weekend sale at fye.com 20% Off New & Used Movies & Music with purchase of $35 or more Plus Free Shipping Valid 10/17- 10/20 only code=LTREAT


Ok, hopefully, new news & photos soon.  The block layers STILL aren't finished, we're falling further and further behind schedule, but supposedly, they're bringing in a bigger crew this afternoon & working through the weekend to wrap it up and get us moving forward again.  While they tend to that, I'm staying out of their way so we don't tempt them to stop working to chat with us.   I'm quite tired of delays and we are already further behind schedule than we can afford.

Half A Basement

At about 3pm, they reached the half way point on the basement walls.   The first corner of the upper courses was laid after we left and we came back later to snap a pic for the blog.

This afternoon about 3:30pm.

This evening.

Work Resumes (Pics added)

Work has resumed on my block walls.  Believe it or not, we're really only about 1/2 a week behind the new schedule, now.  If no more horrible things happen to the guys working on it or their loved ones, hopefully, it'll be done in time for framing to start next week.  We'll see.  I'm afraid to get my hopes up - tired of feeling like I've been punched in the gut every time I look forward to something and then it doesn't happen.

Here are the pictures I promised to take and post.  Enjoy!

At lunchbreak, today... front wall in progress.

At lunchbreak today:  View from the back of the house.

This evening:  View from northern corner on front of house.

This evening:  View from front of house.

This evening:  view from pool deck stairs on south side of back yard.

Mel.

This Is Getting Weird.

In my last blog entry, I mentioned that shortly after work began on the block walls of my basement, our block mason's wife was in a terrible accident.  (She has surgery again, this morning and my best thoughts are with her.)  And I posted pictures of the work that had been done when he and his crew returned to the site.  Until yesterday, no further work was completed and for nearly a week, I had no clue why work had been discontinued.  Yesterday afternoon, when I made one of my regular visits to check on the hole, they had returned and I found out what had happened.

The last time I'd seen my block mason, the crew on-site consisted of Our Block Mason, His Regular Crew Member, a Second Crew Member and the 2nd Crew Member's son.  Shortly after I left the site, they got an urgent phone call that the Second Crew Member's healthy, young sister had suddenly passed away. (Possibly an unexpected allergic reaction to a prescription medication she'd just begun. Very tragic and my heart goes out to her family on their loss.)  As the four of them had traveled together from out of town in one dual cab truck, they hastily shut everything down, cleaned up and closed the site for the day, then made the 30 minute drive up the highway to take 2nd Crew Member and his Son to their family.   After they dropped them off and extended their condolences, the Block Mason and his Crew Member decided to return to my site to get in a few more hours work before sundown as they knew they'd be short a man for the remainder of the job.  As they were heading back, they got another urgent phone call -- Regular Crew Member's healthy young sister - who lives a few  hours north of here had suddenly suffered a stroke.  They turned the truck around, immediately, to return the regular crew member to his family so they could pack and head north to be by his sister's side.  That left the block mason with no crew. This is why work was stopped.   The Regular Crew Member returned, yesterday afternoon -- his sister is in bad shape but is expected to recover (I am keeping her in my best thoughts, as well.) The 2nd crew member is understandably still grieving with his family and attending to arrangements none of them thought  in a million years they'd be making.

Corners are in place to lay remaining bottom half straightaways - scaffolds up to begin top half courses.

The reason I titled this blog entry "This Is Getting Weird" is because it's starting to seem like the Universe is intentionally trying to delay our return home.  And that it's now hurting people to do it.  I know it's all just coincidence, but each and every step of this process has met with roadblocks and delays... some due to the incompetence of others, some due to vacation season, some due to red tape, some due to our own state of shock and grief slowing us down and some due to the lack of tools we're used to having to accomplish the kinds of tasks we had to undertake and having to find ways to accomplish those tasks without those tools.

It's been a long journey through a dense jungle and at times it has felt as if we were stuck in quicksand or were cutting our path through the tangled foliage with a swim noodle.  I'm tired. I'm homesick.  I'm anxious to reach our destination and rest my head on my own pillow, in my own bed, staring up at my own ceiling.  Today is one of those days when it seems that destination is no more near or real than if I'd set out in search of Eldorado, Atlantis or the fountain of youth.   May tomorrow bring the mirage of home into sight once more, on the horizon.

  

 (Work is tentatively scheduled to resume, this afternoon, if all goes well with our Block Mason's wife's surgery, this morning. Perhaps I'll have pictures and a brighter mood, later today or early tomorrow.)

UPDATE:  Nobody had showed up at the site as of 3:30 this afternoon.  I hope his wife is OK following her surgery.  My mood regarding our own situation remains somewhere between sad and panic.  We are nearing the point, now, where any more delays will put us past the date of our insurance deadline  for completion and content replacement -- and I don't exactly have anywhere to put an entire household of content until we have a house to put it in, so the content replacement deadline is already a likely bust.   Even what I should be pre-ordering, now, cannot be ordered because insurance hasn't cut a check on any of the content I've submitted over the last 2 or 3 months.  We keep being told "by Friday."   I wish they'd tell us which Friday because the freezer we've chosen is on sale right now and will not be after this Friday.  :`(   I am really hoping to get it at the sale price and we just don't have it, out of pocket.  Today is one of those hard days -  I want to go home so badly I ache to the marrow of my bones and to the pit of my soul with homesickness and no matter how fast I run toward it, I seem to get no closer.  

Walls, walls, beautiful walls!

We had a pause in construction for a few days.  This one was more than understandable. Our block mason's wife was in a terrible accident, from the sounds of her injuries, she's lucky to still be alive.   We're very relieved to hear that she is home from the hospital and recovering and also very pleasantly shocked to say that our block mason still has on schedule.  (I know, right?)  There's some rain coming up in the forecast, so that may yet knock us back a few days, but here are the pictures since work resumed a couple of days ago.  Enjoy!  (I know I am!!)

These are the pics from the first day they were back:

Rounding the corner toward the front of the house.

As seen from where the front of the house will be.

These are the pics from their second day back (yesterday:)

They made it to the front corner on the north side of the house

And they've started on the south side, behind where the garage will be. (Plus had more blocks delivered.)

As seen from where the north side of the house will be.

Onward and upward! (Literally.)