Procrastinator

Since returning from my California vacation I haven't done anything to the house except my normal housecleaning. Once you clean up the mess (which I always do before a vacation) you hate to start working and creating another mess.

But I have been busy. I launched my new personal website that I'm pretty pleased with. I'm going to set up another one like it for this blog. It should go a lot faster now that I kind of know what I am doing. With the new website, my pictures and blog will be together and organized with pages of video, also. Which reminds me that I promised a video on applying shellac. I hope I can deliver.

But for now, at least today, it isn't raining or snowing and the temperature isn't freezing and you know what that means.....see ya on the water fishing!

Colonnade, China or Book Shelf? (pics)

Click here to my new posting website. (I'm still in transition remaking my blog)

My Family's Antique Cookie Cutters (pics)

I'm in transition to Wordpress on my own website. I'll be linking to it for new posts.

Cookie Cutters

Roto Rooter Rescue

(See previous entry) My husband came home this evening and called Rotor Rooter and they came out in just a couple of hours. They kept us informed on their progress to our house with two different phone calls. That was nice as we could do other things and not just be on the look out for them to arrive.

From the sound of things, we weren't the only ones having this problem with the basement drain today.

The water is all gone but I'll still have the cleanup tomorrow. I'll probably be throwing out the area rugs we had down there. I'd just as soon have exposed cement anyways. It would be easier to keep clean. Plus the rugs were a lint trap near the dryer and hair magnet from our lounging cats.

Even though it costs a lot to have these guys come out, I can't imagine having to have to auger the drains ourselves even if we had the equipment. Yuk!

The Black Lagoon

We haven't been home from our vacation for 2 days and something goes wrong in the house. I'm was getting all the laundry done from our trip and was just greeted with black water standing in part of our basement. The basement drain isn't working. In fact, I can pretty much swear the water was coming up from the drain....and from the bottom of an old toilet that hasn't been used in 7 years.

At first I thought the toilet was leaking along the bottom. I tried to turn off the water and couldn't budge the faucet. I took a vice grips to it and managed to turn it slightly. Either it is already off or it is permanently fused from non use. But there is no water in the inside of the bowl of the toilet so that means it is coming from under the ground and backing up out of the bottom of the toilet and floor drain.

It is black, like ink, and on the edge is movement. I looked closer and saw little worm-like things moving. Maggots? I can't smell anything, thank goodness, because I'm so miserably sick with a bad cold. I've been complaining about my cold but now I think my cold is a blessing!

I just phoned my husband at work to give him the news. I guess it could have been worse and happened while we were gone. At least I can move things to higher ground as the water is rising. Or I could have come home to a copper caper like what happened to my sister's house in Pittsburgh. Someone broke in (destroyed 2 antique doors to do it) and stripped all the copper pipes and even the water meter out of her house and left the water gushing into the basement. Luckily, her floor drain worked.

I Want to Live in Santa Barbara (pics)

Santa Barbara was just another city to me until my sister guided my husband and I to a walking tour of the main parts of the city. The area is full of outdoor cafes, brick and tile pavers, hidden nooks and alleys that are so clean it is like Disney World. There is a distinct Spanish/Mediterranean flavor to the architecture. The little shops are so awesome! The weather was 81 degrees. The pier was even better than all the ones I've been to in San Francisco.

We saw a house for sale, a real dive and tiny, for over $700,000. A little out of my price range, ha. You could get a mansion in Erie for that! I was told Oprah has a house in the area of Santa Barbara.

We saw a homeless-looking guy on a side street with a bike packed to the gills with his things. He looked very much like Ed Begley Jr. Hmmmm, I guess it is possible he's researching a part for a movie but then I'm pretty sure he is just a homeless guy. My sister and her husband have celebrity sitings all the time, just not this time. Oh, well. If I was going to be a homeless person, I wouldn't do it in Erie where the weather is so cold. I'd hitch hike to Santa Barbara and sleep on the beach. Even if you had to go through the garbage, it would at least be gourmet.