They All Showed Up!

After several missteps and misunderstandings of times with service persons, they all showed up to work today. Thankfully they did not show up at the same time.  As a matter of fact there was enough time between departure that we had some time to relax a bit before the next arrival.  Four different service persons today:  yard, plumber, carpet and a new one, a carpenter.



Our yard work was eased considerably by Jake,  Juan and their strong, young bodies.  Three hours after their arrival they had removed 3 unwanted bushes including the root systems, transplanted a crepe myrtle, cleaned up all the piles of trimmings from yesterday, trimmed additional shrubs in the front, spread several wheelbarrow loads of wood mulch, removed the dead garter snake to scare a fellow employee and cleaned walkways of weeds and debris.  Great job, guys!

Anyone concerned about the snake, I discovered it yesterday.  It was dead when I found it.   It was stretched over rocks by my pond.  It is probably the same garter snake I have seen sunning itself on rocks in the back yard several times over the last few years. Dr. Gene Adcock Doolittle looked it over, declared it was really old and probably died of natural causes.  And, yes, I still jumped and said an undesirable word when I uncovered the snake yesterday.

The plumber arrived.  He, too, was young, healthy and almost running.  He declared the 19 year old water heater was just fine.  Then I mentioned the fact that the hall bathtub did not get enough hot water to fill the tub.  So the plumber checked the tub faucet and sure enough there was a problem.  So he repaired the whatever it was and suggested turning the faucet on weekly.  Seems as though the whatever dries out if not used.  So make sure you run you water in unused bathtubs regularly!

After the plumber left, I was working on the mantle wall repair project.  After digging at the foam insulation enough it appeared the mantle was being held up by the foam.  Gene and I simply lifted off the mantel and laid it on the floor.  That is when we found the rotten boards.  For those of you that did not know, we fought a leak in our fireplace wall for almost 16 years.  A repair to the top of the chimney and a cricket built to divert water solved the problem. Not till we began the repair to the hole in the sheet rock used to help in finding the source of the water did we know about the rot.

I had a really long nose and sad face when Aaron from The Carpet Shoppe rang the doorbell.  He was here to look over the area where the carpet, tile and laminate would intersect.  After the discussion regarding the laminate, etc. we turned to the newly discovered problem.  Aaron gave a name for us to call and that is why and how the fourth service person came to our home.

Donnie arrived in less than an hour from the original phone call.  He was working in the area, had a few minutes and was able to work us in.  Now we will have a few days delay for the install of new wood to support new sheet-rock above the fireplace.  I get to texture and paint the new stuff.  Once all that is completed, then the tile, laminate and carpet can be installed.  Last the mantel will be reinstalled.  I am figuring this is all just karma because I complained that the other 3 service persons had been no shows!