Tag Archive | personal: home ownership

Sleddddddd (a blog post)

Jan3

Hello all!  It’s wintertime!

And I have a SLED!

Have I mentioned this sled before?

I mean, it’s nothing exciting; it’s a plastic molded sled of the sort you buy your kid so they can go down the hill, or at least it’s really similar to the one I had to go sledding downhill at the nearby park (Rochester is on the plain that used to be in Lake Ontario, so the option is the park with a hill (which may have been manufactured, I never asked) or… well, that’s about it.  In Ithaca, I could sled half my commute, if I was feeling daring.)

What it is, for me, is just about the size of the totes we use to haul firewood.  Continue reading →

I Found Another unposted Blog Post!

Dec12

this one written October 21!

 

So, the first year we were in our house, someone came onto the property and just started picking apples.  Claimed they knocked, but T. was in the garage and they didn’t, say, leave a note or anything, they just started picking.

T. told them to Get Off My Property and, as far as we know, they’ve never come back.

I giggle about this sometimes.

Couple years ago, this guy who looked like a hipster except with a thick Eastern European accent stopped by and wanted to photograph our tree.  I told him only if he took some apples. 😉  He took like three reusable-shopping-bags worth and came back later for more.

Last year, a nice guy brought us a gallon of cider BEFORE he started picking apples, and brought us some maple syrup too, and then more cider.  Took a lot of apples – we did not have any shortage, let me tell you.

Just got a note from him the other day and, in addition, there’s a nice older lady who stopped by with her grandkids to pick some apples.  Hooray!  I am super thrilled by people who come to me to get apples.  (Especially when they leave cider behind).

But only if they ask first.

Or, you know, happen to bike by while we’re picking apples.

Or come with a good recipe for something we haven’t done with apples yet.

(And we still have more than enough for ourselves, let me tell you, even without breaking into the weird apple trees in the hedge row).

Also, tonight for dinner: Kale Apple Soup.

Na-na-na-na na-BAT BAT

Nov12

Warning: the below contains frank discussion of cats being tiny predators, and also sometimes dumbasses.

Also, while I cannot find this in my posted blogs, I wrote this in mid-July of this year, so if you have read it before, a), I apologize, and b), please let me know.

Na-na-na-na na-na-na-na na-na-na-na na-na-na-na…

🦇

Continue reading →

Apple-Picking

Oct21

So, the first year we were in our house, someone came onto the property and just started picking apples.  Claimed they knocked, but T. was in the garage and they didn’t, say, leave a note or anything, they just started picking.

T. told them to Get Off My Property and, as far as we know, they’ve never come back.

I giggle about this sometimes.

Couple years ago, this guy who looked like a hipster except with a thick Eastern European accent stopped by and wanted to photograph our tree.  I told him only if he took some apples. 😉  He took like three reusable-shopping-bags worth and came back later for more.

Last year, a nice guy brought us a gallon of cider BEFORE he started picking apples, and brought us some maple syrup too, and then more cider.  Took a lot of apples – we did not have any shortage, let me tell you.

Just got a note from him the other day and, in addition, there’s a nice older lady who stopped by with her grandkids to pick some apples.  Hooray!  I am super thrilled by people who come to me to get apples.  (Especially when they leave cider behind).

But only if they ask first.

Or, you know, happen to bike by while we’re picking apples.

Or come with a good recipe for something we haven’t done with apples yet.

(And we still have more than enough for ourselves, let me tell you, even without breaking into the weird apple trees in the hedge row).

Also, tonight for dinner: Kale Apple Soup.

Toilet Troubles, Grilled Cheese, and Garlic

Aug20

 It’s possible that I mentioned that we got a water softener a little while ago. 

And by that, I mean my mother, sick of me putting it off, found a plumber in Ithaca, picked out a softener, had it installed, (SCHEDULED the installation), and paid for the whole thing. 

Um. 

Sometimes I manage to stop Mom from getting carried away.  Sometimes. 

Not always, clearly. 

So, the problem was, before that we’d installed a toilet. 

And hard water – and our water was both orange and REALLY HARD – and toilets are a bad combination, it seems.  Our toilet wasn’t really flushing the way it oughta anymore. 

So we took the tank off the toilet and scrubbed iron residue off of every bit we could find, put it back together – nope . Still not working. 

That means, as far as we can tell, that the problem is in the bowl, probably in the interior bit where the water swooshes around before shooting into the bowl proper. 

Thus, tomorrow or Saturday I’m buying a new toilet.  Le Sigh. (by the time this posts, I may have already bought one.  Still Sigh) Continue reading →