More of the house

Here are a few more pictures of the house and updates that have happened... No, I did not do all the updates today. I'm not THAT amazing...though still pretty amazing ;)
These are the pictures that Mom took of the house when I was considering buying it back in July.


Here is a picture of the furnace that is...wait for it...original to the house that was built in 1967!!!! I had quite the experience with it...the pilot light went out and I couldn't get it back on (which is exactly what happened with the water heater that ended up needing to be replaced... I wasn't so excited about the fact that I was living THAT deja vu again) and so I called the heater guys and they came and looked at the heater and said "Wow..that's old. Furnaces usually have a life span of 20 years or so and it looks like it has gone well past that time frame." He then proceeded to tell me that he is legally able to leave after lighting the pilot light that I asked him to light but that he REALLY would not feel comfortable with that. That the burn area was too large and was melting some wires that connect to the thermostat, that it burns really hot (which melted the carbon monoxide sensor that I had sitting on top of the furnace), that it had a gas leak, and a few other things that weren't working right. SO....I got a new heater (which was really nice because the house was around 50 degrees inside) and it is nice and energy efficient which made a nice little difference in my taxes this year. SO, my fear of my furnace spontaneously combusting and burning the house down has been eased a little bit.

Project #1...the floor. It looks SO much better. Thanks Mom for ALL your help with this!!!


Project #2 Painting the living room.


Project #3 Painting and updating the bathroom.

The home

Well, here I am, trying to blog again. I decided to show a few updates that I have done to the house so far and talk about being a home-owner.

Today was day number two in the battle against the pyracantha bushes in my back yard. I hate those things with a passion. There were very few casualties other than the plants. My arms look like I was trying to give a cat a bath...my pruning sheers will never be the same again... While I was chopping the dang things down, I discovered a few different things. Here is a short list of my discoveries among the shrubbery...
- A knife
- 3 frisbees
- A barbie leg
- A railroad tie (actually, my rake found that under a pile of leaves...my wrists and elbows didn't appreciate the abruptness of the discovery)
- A dead, mostly decayed animal... Cat? Rabbit? Not sure, didn't care to look closely enough to find out.
- A live cat that knows how to climb trees and come flying out at me to make sure my heart is still beating
- A bike pump that looks like it was from the 1930's
- Muscles in my stomach and back that I THOUGHT I was working on strengthening but have realized that I haven't been as much as I thought.
- I don't have to go to the gym on the days that I'm going to do yard work.
- An ability to work by moonlight since projects always seem to take longer than you ever expect or plan
- The last half of the yard always takes MUCH MUCH longer than the first half of the yard
- Opera is NOT good for the yard work sound track
- I need to make sure to be good or else my personal hell will have a garden of ONLY pyrocantha
- Thorns CAN go through jeans and draw blood.
- I am stubborn enough to accomplish any task that just demands time and tenacity
- My ipod knows how long I can last and makes sure to last just as long :)
- I have a neighbor on the other side of the hedge! and all of her dogs, except the one without teeth, are very nice and won't cause any harm.
- This battle will be worth it eventually...

Pictures were taken to show the results of Battle 1. Battle 2 pictures will come soon, it was just too dark to take the pictures tonight.