roofs & wisteria

Today the adjuster came to look at the roof on my new home. It, too, was viewed as needing a full replacement. PTL for fair adjusters for both houses. That was an answer to prayer!

The new roof should be on the place I am selling Thursday. I am still waiting on a definitive closing date & time - but it will be no later than next Tuesday (10/7). Hallelujah! (I have asked to do it Friday or Monday, since I am off those days. We'll see if they oblige.)

I'm not sure when the contractor will be able to do the roof on my new home. Since it is not leaking and I am not needing to close on it, I've told him it isn't urgent. He bumped someone else to get the other one done for me. I've let him know that I can be bumped for him to get someone else who is urgent. It may be late October or early November. That's okay.


As for that wisteria ... who planted that stuff?!

It must be payback for my having planted that 6'-high juniper hedge at the other house and left it for the new owner to deal with there. :-)

The previous owners had planted it around three of the beams on the edge of the patio. They had put support beams up around the edge of the patio to support some 2x8s that are across the top, stood veritically, presumably just for the wisteria to have a place to grow & cover. Well, cover would be okay, if it didn't overtake the whole patio in the process! It is coming down! In addition, it is planted along both sides of the wood fence between my home & one of my neighbor's homes -- and on her back patio as well. Fortunately, she dislikes it as much as I do.

Saturday, I spent 9.5 hours working on cutting it down from the patio! Actually, that was about 2 hours spent cutting it down -- and 7.5 hours spent cutting it up! Given I have no pickup truck, the only want to get rid of it is bag it and leave it on the curb. That means cutting it up in small enough pieces to be able to bag it without all the limbs & branches poking through the bags and causing them to rip. What fun! (NOT!)

I still have one "beam's worth" to cut down on the back patio. But by cut down, I mean all the way to a stump, which I intend to have removed. Then, for this year, I am just going to cut it back along the fence line. I will deal with cutting it out next year.

I had told the lady next door (an older woman who is a widow) that I would trim hers as well - thinking it would be no big deal! (Wrong!!) I talked with her again today. She is able and willing to help cut and bag it - so we are going to work on it together. (You know I am a softie for helping "little ole ladies." Guess I just can't help it - and don't want to try to help it.) Next year, I will try to get it cut down there on both sides. She wants it out, too!

Finally selling the other house this fall means that next year I can focus on relandscaping here. It desparately needs it!

a new roof -- wait, make that two!

As it turns out, my "new" home was not the only one on which the roof had sustained hail damage. Before I heard back from the roofer and turned in the insurance claim on this one, I was notified by my realtor that the inspection at the house for sale indicated it also had hail damage on that roof. That was last Thursday evening.

Last Friday morning, I had the roofer go check that one out instead of this one & I put in the claim to the insurance company. The adjuster was there Tuesday morning. It took until late Wednesday to get the assessment from the insurance company - which had the replacement cost about $1000 below the cost estimated by the roofer. Finally got them "talking" late yesteray and this morning we came to agreed upon amount. (The adjuster apparently had not measured correctly.) The roofer should have it replaced no later than next Thursday.

I didn't put in the claim for this one until I knew I had that one worked -- for a couple of reasons. (1) I wanted my insurance folks & the roofer focused on getting that one worked. (2) One at a time is enough with which to deal! So, I called today to start the process for getting this one replaced. The adjuster is to be here Monday morning and the roofer will be here at the same time -- so we don't have the 2-3 day "back and forth" issue we had with the other one.

I still don't have a closing date on the other house. The contract calls for "on or before" 10/7. I'm hoping for next Friday, 10/3. We'll see.

I'm still on 3-day work weeks. No indication yet when Boeing will resolve the strike. Once they do, we will likely still have some "lag time" before returning to a full work week. The strike started at 12:01am on Monday, 9/8. We are hoping that it only goes a month. (Typically, they will go at least 29 days due to contract issues between Boeing & their customers. There's a clause that if there is a strike lasting more than 28 days, the delivery dates to the customer slide without penalty. So, if they go out for more than a day or two, Boeing doesn't want them back until at least day 29.) However, they still are not even back at the negotiating table, so there is no predicting how this will go.

I was so happy with getting a lot done at my new place the first weekend that I had Friday & Monday off. I spent BOTH days last weekend and most of today dealing with issues with the other house. I am HOPING to get some trimming done at my new place tomorrow. They planted wisteria EVERYWHERE here - and it "takes over." I am planning to trim as much as I can with my electric hedge trimmer, clippers & shears tomorrow. I'm thinking I may (later) borrow a chainsaw to finish the job off and cut them all the way back. Or have a tree removal company come take them out completely!

This week was week five of the ten-week class I am taking at WSU. It has been very interesting. However, there's quite a bit of reading & other assignments in preparation for each week, so that has taken time as well. And I've had some things I've done and a couple more that I need to get done for the Home Owners Association here, for which I am secretary.

So, no danger of my getting into any trouble ... I don't have time for it!

I have a contract! ... and other news

For those who have not heard yet, I do have a contract on my Stoneborough Court house. Hallelujah!! I am hoping to close before the end of September, though the contract allows until Oct 7.

The "musty" smell in my garage turned out to just be the damp weather - hallelujah! But in the process of determining that, I did learn that I do have hail damage from one (or more) of the spring hailstorms. There is a roof specialist coming to assess how bad it is (aka if it needs to be replaced). In the meantime, someone has loaned me a dehumidifier to pull some of the excess water from the air in the garage.

The loan of the dehumidifier is a "God story." I had brunch with friends Saturday and one item on my "to do" list for the afternoon was to buy a dehumidifer. On their first stop on errands they were "off to run" they saw another friend of mine & mentioned we had just had brunch and I was headed to buy a dehumidifier. She had one that wasn't being used and immediately sent me a txt. Praise God for friends! Both the one with the dehumidifer & the one who "happened to mention" I was in need of one!

At least I am not like my friend, Joyce, who had both her sump pump and an additional pump going with two people bailing water in addition to that to keep the rain from flooding her basement Friday night / Saturday morning. The "house with the lake view" no longer has the appeal to her it once did! Floridians, of course, realize you don't build basements when the water table is only 6'-8' down. Kansans have NOT figured that out yet!

Wichita would have likely made the national news with the problems caused here Friday & Saturday, if it weren't for the far worse flooding conditions caused by Ike. Our rain did not come from Ike - it was just a line of storms that moved up from the southwest and dropped rain at the rate of over an inch an hour for hours at a time; then would break a bit; and then the next bad wave would hit. It rained from Thursday evening until Saturday morning. We had major streets that were rivers instead. Some of the highways outside of town were closed, including a portion of I35 for a while. In areas within Wichita where the Cow Skin & Calf Skin Creeks go through, some homes had their entire basements filled with water (again!) all the way up to just inches from the main floor. I'm not sure why these are called "creeks" when they can quickly become raging rivers. I guess when they were named and it was just open plains, you simply picked the teepee up and moved it.

I am enjoying the extra time off from work right now and trying to use it wisely. I got one major project (unpacking & organizing the content of the boxes in my storage room) done Friday. Tomorrow, I am going to start on the garage. It will likely be a multi-day project.

I'm doing discipleship two nights a week now plus the class at WSU on Thursday evenings. The class has been interesting so far. Three weeks down; seven to go. The homework is heavier through most of the rest of it, so I will have to focus a little more on that. Plus a few issues to work with in the home owners association of which I am secretary. So ... life's not dull! :-)

ups and downs

September has descended upon us. Here in Kansas it has been unseasonably cool. We're used to it still being sweltering for the Kansas State Fair in mid-September, but not this year. We've been in the 50s & 60s at night and 60s and 70s in the daytime. Too cool too fast! Fall's great. It's what follows it that I don't like! As for other things ...

On the good side ...
My friend who returned to the Lord in July is doing wonderfully! She is growing by leaps and bounds. The revelation of God's Word that she is receiving in her own prayer and study time is phenomenal.

Also on the good side ...
My friend in Atlanta whose son has been in a coma for over two years now is seeing significant signs of improvement. It has been so significant, they have a physical therapist working with him and he is almost to the point of being able to sit on his own. It's amazing how responsive he is - yet still in a coma. They recently removed the tracheotomy he had for all this time and his oxygen levels are higher without it than they were when he had it.

On the not so good side ...
My house on Stoneborough Court that went on the market on January 20 has not yet sold.
But on the good side ...
I finally have had offers on it - three of them in less than a week. Hopefully, I will come to terms with one of them and will be closing on that by month end.

On the not so good side ...
Due to the Boeing IAM (shop floor) workers going on strike, Spirit is on "slow down" for production. Boeing has cut their delivery schedule significantly while their shop is down. Since they are still 80-90% of our income, that has a drastic effect on cash flow. Hence, the shop has been cut to 3-day work weeks and the professional ranks (including management & executives) have been asked to do the same.
But on the good side ...
They have decided that we can use our "Reserved Sick Leave Fund" to fund the additional two days per week. It's complicated, but that's a good thing for most of us. It's a fund that we had accrued as part of Boeing that was still "credited" to us but we could only use under certain circumstances which would likely never apply for most of us. Unless the strike is exceptionally long, I can use credit from that fund without having to use my standard "Earned Time Off" (we no longer have separate vacation & sick leave, it's all one pool) or taking leave without pay. PTL!! That was VERY GOOD news today!
In effect, I simply get two extra days a week off for some period of time. Most of you know I normally work a 4x10 with Fridays off. Now I will have Mondays off as well and only have to work 8 hrs on Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday. I'm no longer anxious for the strike to end immediately. :-) Three or four weeks of having an extra day off might actually help me get caught up around the house. [Actually, I do hope it ends as soon as possible for all of those affected.]

On the not so good side ...
Speaking of around the house ... I noticed a "musty" smell in my garage. At first, I thought it was just something left from leaving my umbrella in there to dry or getting the rug in there wet with it, but it persisted. Not yet sure what is causing it, but I have a repair man scheduled for Friday afternoon to check it out. I'm concerned it's coming from the attic. Not sure if I've had some hail damage I didn't realize or what. I'll find out Friday. I'm praying that whatever it is can be easily remedied & repaired without a great deal of expense.


The other news is that I am taking another class this semester, this time here at WSU. It's a 10-week program for a "MiniMBA" Certificate. Two weeks down; eight to go. So far, it has been very interesting.

If I have all that time off coming up, maybe I'll actually post more frequently! (Note that I did say "maybe.")