I wrote this in December of 2013 and never posted it. It seems a fitting place to kickstart my plan to finally get this blog off the ground, update it regularly, and actually tell people about it. Just for the record, this year I wore shorts to pick out the Christmas tree. Such is life in Texas.
Last week we had a big ice storm and life in the metroplex came to a screeching halt. We don’t get weather like that very often and we are all ill- prepared to deal with it. The temperature didn’t get above 20 for several days, and I only left the house to procure dog food and a Christmas tree – priorities.
The last time DFW was hit like this was just shy of three years ago, just in time for the Super Bowl, and exactly the same time I moved into this house. Looking at the weather forecast, it was obvious that my plan of leisurely moving over a few days wasn’t going to happen so I took a couple of days off work, rented a truck, threw a bunch of crap in boxes, and the fun began.
Moving sucks. Moving sucks even worse when you are a borderline hoarder with a serious case of ADD who has convinced herself that just throwing a load of crap in the car every time you go back and forth is an effective plan and there wasn’t much left but big stuff. There might have been a little bit of cussing and crying as the temperature was dropping and my tired body was no longer interested in hauling all my crap. We managed to get everything unloaded and decided to drop the truck back early. Good thing, since the temperature kept dropping and we woke up to a sheet of ice covering all surfaces and schools and offices closed.
That first few days in the house was cold. The old heating system couldn’t keep up, and I don’t think that the temperature inside ever got above 62. We tried to go buy a space heater, but everyone else beat us to it, and there were none to be had. I ordered a couple from Amazon, and they managed to arrive a few days later once UPS resumed deliveries and the temperature was back in the 50s. We knew the fireplace was not even in the ballpark of “up to code”, but we sat in lawn chairs in front of it, dressed in approximately seven layers of clothing and surrounded by fire extinguishers and carbon monoxide detectors.
I decided I would rather fight a fire than lose appendages to hypothermia.
A few hours in to that first day the house had some extra surprises for us. Like the fact that there wasn’t insulation in most of the walls, and that we had no idea where the water shutoff valve was. Even with dripping faucets we had multiple broken pipes. Old faithful was spewing half way across the yard outside, and water was pouring out of a couple of different walls inside. Luckily, the neighbors took pity on us and invited us over for pot roast after helping us find the water shut off. The next day we started what was to be a long series of repairs and many trips to the hardware store, where the plumbing aisle was filled with other sad souls in the same freezing cold boat.
We laughed, we cried, we froze, and we drank those first few days.
Sometimes renovating an old house gets a little frustrating. You wonder if it is ever going to end, and you wonder where all your money went when you don’t see many visible signs of progress. Then, you have another ice storm. And this time your fancy new heater keeps the house toasty warm, the windows are sealed better and the drafts aren’t blowing out the candles, there is insulation in some of those walls, and you know enough about your house’s quirks that you can go another few days where it doesn’t get out of the 20’s and you don’t have ANY broken pipes and you aren’t wearing a coat indoors. So maybe progress is there after all, and I just need to look a little harder.
