The money pit

I have been working and worrying days trying to get ready for the fence guys to get here today. Everything had to be moved away from the fence ... tons of old wood, I ended up moving most of that yesterday ... hence, I can hardly move my back is so sore. Then I cut down more than half of my climbing hydrangea. I planted that so many years ago with the promise that a trellis would be added to accommodate it and that never happened. So it grew huge and took over the fence. I won't mention any names WHO made me that promise. The purpose of the hydrangea was to hide our trash cans from the neighbors view from their back porch. Anyway, I still may need to cut it completely down, will find out when the fencing guys get here in the 27th. Oh, and  they are building a trellis into that part of the fence now ;) Maybe I will plant a new one? 

In the meantime, we have NO FENCE with four dogs. They fashioned a temp chicken-wire sort of thing on the newly installed post. Should be fun.

I sawzalled my Snowball Bush Viburnum, the Privet (I call it a Texas Bush) that has grown out of control. It smells so heavenly and reminds me of my childhood, but grew out of control. So after sawing my way through the backyard, it is a complete mess. Between that, the kids toys everywhere and Murphy turning the entire backyard into a mud pool, I fear it will never be back to normal. I love Murphy, but he is too big of a dog to live here.

It cost around $8,500 for two sides of fence. Matt had built the other last year when it fell down. He still needs to add the trellis for the clematis that did NOT bounce back after being severely trimmed. I had about 10 fencing companies out for a couple of months giving me estimates. They were anywhere from 12k-8k. I really don't know how people afford to own and repair houses. Last summer it was 12k for a new torch down roof. And I still have a long list to check off of my repair list.

Our plumber retired years ago. You know, we just had his number memorized and I would call and say "Hey, Bill, so and so has gone out can you make time for me?" ... He worked on our house for years. And then I did not have anyone, didn't even know of any local plumbers, so I called around today and got some quotes, prices, hourly rates. Man, I went into the wrong business, plumbers make a killing these days. The first hour is $250 and $220 every hour after that, $85 for the first 15 minutes. We have a toilet that keeps running and running and now we have to "jiggle it" to get it to stop. I paid an ungodly water bill one month and replacing that toilet is high on my list. Apparently you can not get a certain replacement part for this toilet (it isn't that old), planned obsolescence. AND the  kitchen faucet is close to falling out of the  counter, and the soap dispenser "dispensing end" has been disabled.

The family room TV just went yesterday morning. The day of all the big football games and David ran out to Best Buy and got another. I have never seen him make a purchase and get it home so quickly. We cleaned where the old one was and reinstalled, re-attached all of those confusing cable cords, and the port cable connectors for who knows what ... RGB and HDMI ... whatever all of that is. We got it back up and running before David's beloved Chief's game was on.

It was also our baby-sitting day. Mason is in school most of the day so it is just Noah. She is very funny, she likes to pack her backpack for "school" and then comes in the family room and says "Hi, Teacher" and I have to respond, "hello student". I managed to get clothes on her but that only last about 2 hours then she was naked again, trying to go outside to say hello to the workman.

The one thing making me happy tonight is the promise of a something good on HBO, The Gilded Age.

And life goes on in the crazy Miller household, time for wine.