Updates ...

The health department approved our deck permit, since the septic tank is nowhere near the deck. Turns out it's probably under the driveway, which is not good either. And the septic tank is another story in itself. Turns out it was put in in 1953, without a permit. Go figure. It will be pumped and evaluated on Friday ...

Back to working nights tonight. Been filling in for vacations, working days, the past 10 days. Sucks. Oh well, you live, you learn, you move on ...

Finished painting the shed over the weekend, and it now matches the "new" house. And now people won't be asking us if we own the garage next door, which is the color of the "old" house. We'd love to own that land, but that's probably not going to happen ...

Haven't been to the gym in quite a while. Been kind of leery since I caught a staph infection there during the spring. But with softball and general summer sweating, I'm now a svelte 165 pounds, down from 190. It also helped that I didn't drink beer for about a month while on antibiotics...

Catching up ...

Two things -- check out Ed's blog for an update on the Deck-O-Vation (and other assorted weird things he finds on the internet). He's done a whale of a job on the deck, and I'm so proud of him. This place is going to look so much different and so much nicer when all the construction is done and the siding gets put on.

And my Cubs are still the hottest team in the National League, and now are only 3 1/2 games behind the Milwaukee Brewers in the NL Central, and only 3 games out of first place in the wild-card race. It's going to be a great finish to the baseball season...

Home renovations

It's taken about 3 years, but we're moving and grooving now. Ed has done a fantastic job re-doing the deck. I have a picture here, but his blog has much more detail.

We're also going to be putting new siding on the house. Not only will it make the house look brand new, but it's really going to help on the insulation, especially in the heat of summer.

We're doing Preservation siding, which is supposed to be the best in the business. We're going from a dark blue (as you can see in the picture, which also shows the damage to the siding that's already there) to Coastal Sage, which is a medium shade of green. The doors, windows and gutters will be a cream/beige/wicker/ivory shade, which should really set the place off well.

The order was placed today, so construction on that should begin within a month and be done in less than a week.

I can't wait.