Halloween Scenes

It's been a while since I've posted.  In September, I was contacted by several event and marketing companies I occasionally work for and requested to take on a few projects.  By the time I finished saying yes, I had three straight weeks of work back in Nashville.  So I had to put my work on The House of Goodwill on hold.  My plan was to return in the beginning of November for three last weeks of work on the house before the holidays.

But life does not always go as planned, does it?

A week before Halloween, I got home from work to find out that my father had a heart attack.  Two of my brothers were immediately making plans to go be with my mom - and dad - so I waited to hear more.  Long story short, my father began to recover and I finished my last job.  But now, instead of returning to The House of Goodwill, I'll be heading to Florida for a while to see my parents.  (More on this story to come.)

For now, I thought I'd share a few pics from Halloween last year at The House of Goodwill, since we're not doing much this year.

Last year, Halloween fell on a beautiful, warm autumn day.

It was so peaceful at the lake.

We had a pumpkin carving junk food party in the evening.

My son (adopted from Colombia) had only carved a pumpkin twice before in his life.

And he did a great job, with a freehand pumpkin design!

My pumpkin before my dog ate one of the ears off. (?) 🙄

He was cute on the porch with my ghost from Goodwill, no?

Fortunately, my husband's good at a thousand other things...😉

We re-watched "The Others" with an inflatable cat a friend lent me.

The moonlight on the lake, Halloween evening.

Beautiful!

It was such a perfect night.

Happy Halloween! 👻

It could've been worse...

It was the middle of July when I received one of those phone calls that every homeowner dreads.  The call was from our friend in Tennessee who mows our lawn at The House of Goodwill; we were in New York.

"There's a water leak coming from the house," I was told.  My heart almost stopped; no one wants to hear about a water leak in their home when they are sixteen hours away!

So, long story short, it turned out that the water leak "coming from the house" was actually a water leak outside the house (still not great, but MUCH better than inside!).  There is a hose faucet in the wall outside the house that had quit functioning before we left town.  The hose knob no longer worked; you could only make the water come out by turning a screwdriver in the hardware somehow.  (I say somehow because I don't know how it worked, my husband was the only one who could do this.)

Anyway, we never did figure out what made it start leaking in July, but it did.  Apparently it had been leaking for a while, we were told the garden bed along the wall (with all the bulbs I had planted in it) was flooded with water.

At least it wasn't in the house, right?

So my husband called and explained to our friend how to turn it off with a screwdriver, which he did.

Disaster averted.  (I sure love my Tennessee friends!)

So when we came back to the house in September, we called the plumber for an estimate to fix it.  We figured they could replace the knob that afternoon, problem solved.

But it's NEVER that easy, right?

"$2200," the plumber told us.  $2200!  To fix a knob!  How?

Well, as it turns out, the genius who originally plumbed the hose faucet, mortared the pipes into the rock wall next to the house, five feet below the ground.

And as it turns out, the part that needed to be replaced (because the original was put in almost fifty years ago) is no longer made.  We didn't need just a new knob, we needed a whole new pipe section.  Therefore a six foot hole would have to be dug down to access the pipes on the back of the wall, and the pipes would have to be somehow chiseled out of the rock they were mortared into.

"We don't normally see plumbing situations like this," the plumber said wryly.  

But $2200?  

Here is the original hose knob, mortared into the wall.

The house is built into a hill, so the other side of this fence is all earth.  To access this hose knob, a five-foot deep hole needed to be dug on the other side of this wall.  Of course, I was concerned about the shrub and peony over where the hole needed to be.

"I'm going to do it," my husband said determinedly.  "I'm not paying $2200."  He figured if he could figure out how to install an irrigation system - which he did back at our home/house, and which taught him some basic plumbing - he could handle this repair.

I love it when my husband is the cheap one!  ('Cause usually it's me.)

Ironically, often when my husband declares he's going to do some big project himself that he's never done before (to save money), I'M the one dragging my feet, and wondering if it's worth spending the money for a professional.

But at the end of the day, I'm cheap.  I'm not going to say no.

So here are some pics of how my husband (and my son who assisted), spent the weekend:

It was his first time using an excavator, and I think he enjoyed it!

He even managed to dig the hole underneath the shrub and plants without moving them, so that they never had to be displaced and replanted.

That impressed me! 🙂

He did all the plumbing work in the five-foot hole.

And here's the new hose knob, installed so that any part that may break and need replacement in the future can be accessed right in this front part, no digging needed.  See the intact plants just above?  

They finally finished putting the dirt and grass back together today in the rain.

Job complete!

My husband decided to rent the excavator on a Friday because he'd be able to keep the rental for two days but only have to pay for one.  So for a final cost of around $500 (for hose/pipe parts and the excavator rental) the project got done, saving us about $1700.

I have to admit, the man is good at saving money.  And now that he's refaced compromised drywall AND mastered the excavator, he's probably going to regret it.

Because now I'm pretty positive that he can do anything.  Hmm...what else needs to be done?

And just to be clear, this post is titled "It could've been worse" in reference to the water leak, not the repair job. 😉

Did I mention this man makes dinner for the family almost every night too?  I won't.  It would just be too much...

Welcome home!

A couple of weeks ago, we returned home to the home/house in Tennessee after a few months break in New York.  When we left, I asked the neighbor kid who was going to mow the lawn each week, if he'd use the weed eater in the front yard only.  In the back, I've almost always had some small plantlings that I was trying to grow along the fence, that were often overlooked by zealous landscapers - my son included - who either mowed them down or "weedate" them.  Every year I lose a few this way.

(For years I have tried to grow different shrubs - for both beauty and privacy - along our 6' fence, with mixed results.  I've lost quite a few to the intense summer heat or winter freezes, others to the weedeater, and still others to random factors I don't understand [like the beautiful weigela I had for years that suddenly shriveled up and died within three days.  Maybe it was underground moles?]  Of course, our frequent coming and going doesn't help, since I'm not there every single day to nurture them; though we do have an irrigation system.  This is why I'm always continually trying to grow at least a couple of new little shrubs.)

Anyway, I figured we could just weedeat the back when we returned (no one sees the backyard behind the fence anyway); that way my little plant babies would have their best chance to succeed.

So the neighbor kid did just as I asked (and he did a great job!); therefore, this is what we returned home to in the back of the house:

Here is where my daylilies and irises grow.  They're in there somewhere!

Here's the awful crabgrass that thrives in the sweltering Tennessee heat and which I've found no good removal method for.

The squirrels broke into all my cans I store birdseed in.

They ate three huge bags full! 😠

(And left me a mess!)

And here was the GREAT part, in the front yard!

I always throw seeds from fruits and vegetables in my compost (even though you're not supposed to), because doing so always brings me some fun surprises each year.

I composted all my plants in early summer to feed them.

After being gone a couple of months, I returned to find this pumpkin growing in front of the tree in my front yard.

Of course I left it!

I may not be able to sustain a real vegetable garden with all of our moving around,

so I'll take what I can get!

There's a huge butternut squash vine growing at the mailbox, with multiple fruits.

I have to keep tucking the plant back over to the side so my son doesn't drive over it.

It took nearly a week to get the yard back in shape.  It's amazing how fast (and how big) weeds will grow!

So once the yard was back in shape, we left again (of course) to return to The House of Goodwill to pick up where we left off.  It never ends.  Good thing I enjoy the work!  (More or less. 🙂)