Homework

No pictures please!

This is going to be a new thing.. an entry with no pictures. I recently acquired a new automobile. It is quite cool if I do say so myself. Anyhow... point is, it was expensive. Also in the past few months I have dropped money on a new roof, gutters and a table saw.

So... I decided that I need to get back to my no spending mode that I had imposed on myself for new years. I was able to do it quite well for a long time. In fact I saved a huge amount of money up just by making sure that I limited or restricted my purchases. It's really hard to distinguish things that I need and want.

• Did I need a new roof? no/maybe, the existing one worked fine... was just ugly and old.
• Did I need new gutters? yes because the basement was flooding.
• Did I need a new car? no... The Camry is in great shape, though that means it's also a good time to sell it.
• Did I need a new table saw? no... I wanted to make furniture though... so it was necessary for that particular task... but not needed in general.

In that light I decided to finish up old projects. Anything that was 'almost' done. So that I could wipe if off of the list before I start anything new. This weekend I knocked a few things off of the list. for good!

Shower: When I initially sealed the shower, I wasn't very good at it. In any way. this resulted in a ugly thin, cracked uneven and generally useless seal job. Any time I thought about doing it, I had just gotten out of the shower. So I made an effort to take a shower Friday night and get it sealed up first thing Saturday morning. It looks a lot better. I might want check over the next few weeks to make sure that I did a good job.
Also, between the door frame and the shower there was a piece of wall that was just big enough for another piece of trim to slide in there. I had bought this a long time ago but never painted it and put it in. It was a little tight at the bottom. But I got it to work.
Last thing I did was fix the door. It was a little wobbly for some reason, so I tightened up the screws on the bottom bracket. Good as new.

Bushes: For some reason I let the bushes on the right side of the house go nutso. I trimmed a lot of it back week before last, and found a lovely rash waiting for me shortly after. I went back to it this morning at 8:30am (sorry neighbors) and cut them nice and neat. Right after the maple tree I noticed a lovely overgrown section of poison ivy tangled all around the privets. It was enormous. Needless to say I am not going near that unless I have a serious game plan.
I also cut the lilac by the shed way back. It was getting unruly as well. the privets on the driveway were trimmed and the hemlock out front got a few clipped from below.

Stairs: The nail holes in the stairs were never filled and stained. I used some putty, got it nice and smooth with a combination of spit (eww gross) and a rag. Let it dry and used a stain pen (just like a paint pen) to make it all pretty.

Weeds: I knocked out a bit of the weeds by myself and took a break. Odie came over and helped me drag branches from the bushes out to their respective piles. We spent a little time in the garden pulling weeds. At that point it was far too hot to be out there. So we called it a day.

That's it... for now. I am sure that you will see more about what I do this month. I have an underlying plan behind it all... we'll see if I can pull it off, I'll tell you about it later if I do!