Unplugged

To do and done

I thought about writing a long (probably boring) post about all we've done to get ready for our vacation. Instead, I'll leave you with my original to-do list in pristine condition, followed by how my to-do lists end up looking.

To do list

And it's done

Necessity and all that

We finally have no more industrial fans and dehumidifiers in our apartment, but it’s not because the walls are dry. They are not.

To solve the problem of the remaining wet drywall, Bostonian cut another large hole in the wall and physically removed some of the wettest bits. This picture shows you how we’ve covered the hole (to keep curious cats named Wally from getting between the wall and bricks) yet still allowed air to flow. We got that box from Ikea and you can see we just used duct tape to hold the lid in place. But it still smells wet where that hole is so this morning I stuck our little fan in the box, pointed it at the hole and turned it on high. No mold for me, thanks, I’m trying to cut back.

We are still dealing with a lot of dust in here. We’ve swept several times but I think that’s a losing battle until the floors are put back in. The concrete is old and isn’t sealed so dust is just a way of life right now.

Also, I probably should have worn my noise canceling ear buds all week long. My ears are still messed up from all the racket we had in here for a week. Hopefully the ringing subsides quickly.

I was deleting files from an SD card and ran across this video of Wally and Eddie which was taken last May when our second set of floors had just been installed. I find it comforting—this too, shall pass, and in the meantime Kent and I are doing well, the kitties are doing better than they were, and at some point we’ll have floors that stick around longer than eight months.

The Boston version of a casserole

Most of our neighbors contributed to this gift bag which one of them brought by tonight:

It's got three bottles of wine, a bottle of Tums, a bottle of Advil and a box of chocolates. That was super sweet and made our night. We didn't open the wine yet but we will, although maybe we should save it for during reconstruction.

Guess who didn't contribute? Yes, readers, if you said the Nasties and the Ferals, you'd be right!

Success!

Kent finished his second shirt yesterday. He made this one from better material and used the Colette Negroni pattern. He says this shirt went together more easily than the McCall's pattern, mostly because the directions are so well written. And the shirt fits beautifully.

Notice, too, how well he lined up his plaid across the front and across the collar. I didn't take a picture of the back, but his yoke matches up too. He's taking this one to Jamaica next week--NEXT WEEK! WOOHOO!

And this time he's smiling.

Stress fractures

Stress fractures can be caused by unusual or repeated stress. I’d say repeated water damage counts, wouldn’t you?

• All horizontal surfaces in our home are covered with a fine layer of gritty dust. That won’t be going away any time soon. In fact, when the repairs get going, I know it will just get worse.
• The cats are not doing all that well. Chloe escapes by sleeping in the bedroom (we have that door shut both for noise mitigation and to keep as much dusty crap out of there as we can). Wally and Eddie have been crying loudly at us and it’s truly amazing how loud they can be. All three cats are on our laps for extended periods of time, far more than they normally do. Plus Chloe is picking fights with the boys. I’m sure it’s because she’s so tense.
• Wally has been doing something he loved to do in the basement of our home in Kansas City. He'd go down there and just roll around and around on the concrete. I think he's a little happy he can do that here because he's been doing it a lot. The downside is that his fur has gotten very dusty. I need to wipe him down with a damp washcloth because I can hardly bear to pet him, he's so dusty. 
• I feel short in the kitchen. I’m surprised at how removing the inch of flooring makes such a difference in where the counters are to me.
• Our apartment is crazy dry right now—the humidity is 32%. Our sinuses ache and our eyes are dried out and gritty.
• I thought of two things to be thankful about this go round. First, we discovered the issue Thursday. That meant we could get the leak capped on Friday and we have this week to start sorting out repairs and so on. Second, I’ve been planning on doing a lot of touch up painting around the place, but hadn’t done it yet. Good thing, huh.
• We are both so distracted that we both clean forgot about the red slow cooker sitting on the counter last night, full of a new batch of chili. I woke up at 5 AM and knew it had been sitting there all night long. I need to make another batch of soup (that’s what we eat for lunch in the winters) but we have no more white onions in the house. So I need to go get one.
• Apparently I tweaked my knee the other day so now I’m feeling ancient and decrepit.
• I’m looking forward to sitting on a beach in just over a week. I just hope nothing bad happens here while we are gone.

Loud and noisy

Unless you've been through a fire or water damage situation, it's hard to picture how dirty and messy things get. When the restoration guys tore down part of the ceiling yesterday, all sorts of wet, soggy moldy debris fell down too. Now everything is coated in dust, there's grit and bits of concrete everywhere and of course it smells weird here. Not water weird, we got things out fast enough, but just weird and not at all like home.

This video is probably quite loud but since I'm in the apartment with the fans and dehumidifier and air purifier going (great big industrial beasts they all are too), I can't hear it. You'll have to tell me if the noise comes through in the video.