Jefke.com

hey kids

long time no see-well lots to catch up on, so let’s get right in to it shall we?

so, as i mentioned the house closed and this past friday we closed/settled. i tell you the final number on the sheet stung a bit, but not as much as 2 mortgages. well, i take that back, we’re about 4k short on our bridge loan, but hopefully we can figure something out. while i’m greatly appreciative that the moons and stars and all that aligned for use to sell a house in less than 10 days in this market, i’m sick of people tell me how luck we were, and even more sick of people saying “well obviously it was priced right”–

yes we’re lucky, and no it wasn’t priced properly, they still low balled us but 15 k on our asking price that was 9 k lower than we actually wanted to list at. granted we got about 3.5k back in bargaining, so in the end, they beat us up a bit. but i suppose karma is a bitch, as we beat up the people we bought from. and will it may have been ‘priced right’ and it sold i’m still pissed we didn’t make more on it, cuz of the sucky market. ok there i got that off my chest, i feel better ,ok i don’t but lets pretend i do ,ok.

last weekend we did the annual trip to the renn fest. this was a particularly good year as the capt seemed to really enjoy it, he clue’d in to the freak show element of it as well as the wonders of ‘all food on a stick’ and really enjoyed the jousting. other than that, i have to say it was basically the same thing as all the other years. which is not to say bad. just the same.

this past weekend, right after the weight of a house was taken off my neck, we got some sort of hurricane offshoot or something, and as near as i can caluculate got about 9 inches of water over 36 hrs. (at least that’s how much was in the previously empty recycle bin.

much of that water flowed every so naturally from the front of our yard in to our basement, some through seepage, some through a hole in the foundataion under a 60 year old window. the water would then rush down the foundation wall and then behind the panelling, finally out on the floor. after a few hours of soaking up the water with towels that we wrung otu in to an empty tote container, i finally got pissed and went after the panels, to see where all this shit was coming from. hours later, i figured it out, was covered in mud and was about to try to stop the leaking with my beloved spray foam insulation.

suddenly the deja vu hit me. i was right back to our first winter in the old house, can of foam in hand, trying to fix all problems. cursing my words “next house we buy something where people have lived–so i don’t have to deal with this sort of shit”. instead of depolying the foam i went to home depot.

there was a gathering of men around the sump pumps at the depot. seems others were having some flooding problems as well. unlike the others that were getting pumps to drain their basements, i was actually trying to get something to drain the 1+foot of water that gathered directly in front of the window with the leak right beneath it. all oh 6000 gallons of water wanting to drain to lower ground, in this case, the lower ground was my fucking basement.

i got one, as well as some more corrugated drainage tubing, some redi lock hydraulic cement, and some other shit and headed home.

with the capt’s supervision, i was able to drain out the window well, then some of the standing water wanting ot get to the window well and mix up some cement and sorta patch up the hole beneath the “window”. then back down to get the rest of the water up and pray for sun.

ah home ownership.

baby 2.0 is doing well, for those of you keeping score at home. due date is halloween, natty and i are still working over birth/logistic plans-see, working 1.5 hrs away (give or take) and then planning on delivering in a birthing center 1 hr away from the house makes for some interesting contingency planning. interesting indeed.

i thinki may have mentioned that after we moved in to the new place, we put in a 5k fence to keep mr. henry in his new, semi wooded and wonderful yard. he then systematically tested every inch of said fence to figure out ways to get out. after about the 9th time, i laid out 300 bucks for a do it yerself invisible fence kit. after much himming and hawwing, i laid the wire (you don’t techincally have to bury it–who knew?) then weeks when by as we tried to find time to train him on it. so then finally, one saturday, in a fit of enthusasim, i put on the collar, and run him toward the wire, waiting for the beep, to know when to pull him back and praise him accordingly. well, little did i realize that the collar shipped with the active ‘zap’ prongs on it, not the training ones. so henry got a jolt, and judging from his reaction, a pretty big one. (whooops)

long story short- he won’t even go in to the lower, larger yard AT ALL now. so 2 fences, no dog. fucking jefke.com classic, no?

he’s all depressed now to. fucking perfect.