Springy Sunday
Sunday, February 26th, 2023 10:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snoozefestaudioIt was surprisingly sunny and warm today! The weather reports weren't predicting it, but today was 55F and sunny all day!
Out in the back yard with Yvette in the morning, when Prowly came to find us. But then, a few minutes later, Snoop also came out to see us and snoop around the yard.
Up until now, Snoop hasn't spent much time outside on the ground, but... I guess with the nice weather, he decided to be more adventurous.
Since it was so nice, I opened up the basement hatch door, and the door down there to the shop, which surpirsed Prowly outside! He was amazed that he could get into the basement from the yard!
I brought some white paint and a brush around into the dog yard to give a second coat to the west porch enclosure, near where the new camera is mounted.
I'd redone that enclosure in 2021 and given it one coat of white, but it needed a second coat, and today... nearly two years later, I finally did it.
But I did, because I wanted to put up a little sign I'd ordered from Amazon, that says, "NOTICE: All activities are monitored," with a dingbat of a camera below the verbiage. And if I was gonna put that sign up, I wanted the wall it was on to look finished.
For this same reason, I finally also painted the back door!
In 2021 I'd done a ton of work to that back door on the outside, adding trim around the jamb to keep the drafts out, and adding a strip of wood to the top to cover a gap up there... and then I caulked the trim too.
I always meant to paint the door after that, because it looked like hell, with a dirty white door and a lot of bare woodgrain trim strips and white caulk.
So, I used the cracked pepper paint, left over from the 2021 porch project... a very dark, bluish, charcoal gray... which I'd used on the porch deck.
--<>--
While I was busy painting the back door, Tim was inside going through the last stacks of Mom & Dad's old papers... feeding them into a shredder.
But when he got to Dad's checkbooks, he took a break, because, checkbooks are not easy to shred.
I suggested we burn them.
Next thing you know, Tim and I were in the back yard starting a fire in the fire pit. He had a garbage bag full of paper shreddings to get it started, and I threw in a bunch of branches from around the yard that had fallen during wind storms over the winter.
When we got it going, we burned Dad's check books, and the last of the important papers... as well as all the shreddings.
It seemed fitting that his long visit, which began in early January, when Dad was still alive... ended on this gorgeous springlike day, with a fire out back... burning his check books.
Spring songbirds could be heard, and I saw five cardinals up in the trees while the fire was going.
--<>--
I gave the back door a second coat of the cracked pepper, and then washed the brush down in the shop and put the paint can away.
After that I put up the notice sign, using spray adhesive, on the newly painted porch wall... other side of the rear porch door from the camera. And the back door also looked a lot better.
It no longer looks neglected.
After that I caulked up the holes where the two camera cords go inside the walls... to make the install look finished, but also to prevent bees from getting into the porch to make a hive this summer.
A second notice sign went up front, near the front camera, on the side, inside a window. Not visible from the street, but only to people cutting through the yard... and even then... not super in your face.
I wanna draw attention to the cameras, from casual trespassers... but don't want to look too paranoid.
When I was done with the painting, caulking, and signs, I walked around the house to look things over. It seemed like I'd struck the right balance of... a place that's cared for and has security, but... not ultra paranoid.
And then I saw a package on the front stoop!
My other four blinds, the mahogany blinds, had arrived a day early!
------------{=0=}------------
The sun was low in the west by the time I was unpacking the blinds, at the kitchen table.
Tim, having fully completed every last thing he could think to do around the house before his departure... was at the table on his laptop, doing some web design work for a client.
As he worked, I removed the old blinds, curtains, and hardware from the windows in the living room and Dad's room.
And I saw the garden lights turn on at sunset, just as I'd programmed them to do, last night!
I installed the blinds in Dad's room first, and then the living room.
And after I was done, I took the old blinds from Dad's room, and installed them in the two windows of the music room... which have had neither blinds, nor curtains, for a couple months now.
--<>--
When I was all done with the blinds, I took another walk around the house, in the dark, to make sure any lookyloos won't get a clear idea whether anybody's home or not.
The back room's still kind of a problem, because the rear blinds are easy to see through from the outside at night. But the rest of the main floor?... waaay less on display than in years past.
Kitchen, bedroom, living room, music room, and porch, now all have that perfect level of privacy, where you can see that lights are on, from the outside... but you can't tell if there are people in there!
--<>--
And that lead me to my final security task tonight... interior room light timers!
I'd already put dawn to dusk bulbs in the two kitchen sconce lamps... which means that after dawn the kitchen lights are off. But the kitchen will light up after dark (when I'm at work).
An extra such bulb is now in the upstairs back room.
But the bedroom, living room, and music room, each have one lamp. So I sat down and set up three timers to control these three lamps and turn them on and off at odd sequences between the hours of 6PM and midnight.
The music room and bedroom are set up to be mirror images, so... whenever the music room lamp turns off for thirty minutes, or an hour... the bedroom lamp turns on... and vice versa. And those intervals are, randomly, either thirty minutes, or an hour.
The living room has it's own radom sequence that's independent of the bedroom and music room.
I programmed a fourth timer for a lamp in the upstairs front room. This will seem random and independant of the living room below.
All four timers have all lights on from midnight onward... because I'll be home by then. The living room, music room, and upstairs front room all turn off at 3AM. Dad's room stays on until 5AM.
--<>--
I set all four to the correct time and plugged them in, but because it's hard to set the exaaact time, and there was a delay, going from room to room, and up the stairs, to get all four plugged in... it means none of them will be going on or off at exactly the top or bottom of the hour.
All four will be ahead or behind the, :00, and the, :30, by two to four minutes, which is perfect, because that looks more natural and human.
I have a final timer to use in the back room, but that won't be implemented until tomorrow night, after Tim's gone.
After I was done with all that, I hung out with Tim in the kitchen for a good while, as my laundry washed, and we saw that there are times when two downstairs rooms are off at the same time (living room and another room) but no appreciable time when all three are off.
How that overlaps with the upstairs, we didn't witness tonight. But I'll get the sense for that as the weeks go by.
--<>--
The whole idea here, of course, is that in the hours after dark when I'm gone at work... generally between 6PM and 12AM... the blinds will be closed, yet still allow a little light through... and all rooms, upstairs and down, will appear to be turning on and off at random, to the casual observer.
Because all the outdoor lights will turn themselves on at dusk, and off at dawn, this extra touch will make it feel... again, to the casual observer... that people are in there, living their lives.
Peeping toms won't be able to tell for sure if people are inside or not.
And roving punks, looking for a crime of opportunity, will get these same impressions, plus note that all four doors are difficult to get to, and under surveillance... in a well lit yard.
Short of a full blown alarm system, this is the best I can do to dissuede a break-in over the nine long hours, between 2PM and 12AM, that me and my car are gone everyday.
--<>--
With all of that said, A padlock is on the way for the dog yard gate.
And all that leaves is a final camera to watch the basement hatch door. Which I'll wait to buy until I've gotten through the end of month bills, and paid down my cards a bit.
------------{=0=}------------
Tim's taking the 12PM train from Aurora Transportation Center tomorrow, out to Union Station in Chicago. From there, the Orange Line out to Midway, and then a flight back to Las Vegas.
It's gonna be sad, seeing him off. We've been on quite an adventure together, here at the house, since he first arrived in early January.
In addition to the whole drama of Dad's final days, and the immediate aftermath of the funeral home, and the memorial at the Roundhouse... we went on to knock out a very long to-do list of urgent concerns...
Selling Dad's car, getting the life insurance, getting the paperwork for the deed transfer notarized, and applying for the transfer stamp...
Painting the kitchen, tearing out carpets, scraping up tiles and linoleum...
Sorting through tons of junk in cabinets and drawers, to find and save the historic gems like the journals, letters, and photos we never knew were here...
Canceling the newspaper, land line, and cable TV, and getting new fiberoptic WIFI brought in...
Tim found a new home for both Mom's China cabinet, and her organ... the two biggest white elephants in the house!..
The cat's graduated to the downstairs, then the basement, then the crawlspace... where Snoop got stuck in the bottom of the cistern!
We put out a ton of scrap metal for scrappers, furnture and electronics for random people to grab, and a fuck ton of bulk items and extra bags with garbage stickers, every week.
We ate together, drank together, and strategized about our game plans for 2023 together.
It's been a crazy seven weeks, and I wouldn't have made it through without his help!
--<>--
But as Springy Sunday ends, I'm in a good position to take it from here, and go it alone for a while.
The only thing really nagging at me is, how Yvette deals with being alone here for nine hours a night.
Over the next eight months, between tomorrow, and the family reunion in October, for Dad's burial... that will work itself out... as will so many other things.
From a new breaker panel, and new circuits in the rooms... to patching and painting the walls and ceilings... to new flooring downstairs...
Tree removal... thrift store adventures to find new furnture and wall art...
Lawn mowing and landscaping...
To cricket recording this August!
------------{=0=}------------
Life with Dad was an adventure.
Dad's final months and days were certainly an adventure!
These seven weeks with Tim have been an adventure.
And the rest of this year... is certain to be an adventure!
So... stay tuned, I guess!
°¦}
https://soundcloud.com/snoozefestaudio
Out in the back yard with Yvette in the morning, when Prowly came to find us. But then, a few minutes later, Snoop also came out to see us and snoop around the yard.
Up until now, Snoop hasn't spent much time outside on the ground, but... I guess with the nice weather, he decided to be more adventurous.
Since it was so nice, I opened up the basement hatch door, and the door down there to the shop, which surpirsed Prowly outside! He was amazed that he could get into the basement from the yard!
I brought some white paint and a brush around into the dog yard to give a second coat to the west porch enclosure, near where the new camera is mounted.
I'd redone that enclosure in 2021 and given it one coat of white, but it needed a second coat, and today... nearly two years later, I finally did it.
But I did, because I wanted to put up a little sign I'd ordered from Amazon, that says, "NOTICE: All activities are monitored," with a dingbat of a camera below the verbiage. And if I was gonna put that sign up, I wanted the wall it was on to look finished.
For this same reason, I finally also painted the back door!
In 2021 I'd done a ton of work to that back door on the outside, adding trim around the jamb to keep the drafts out, and adding a strip of wood to the top to cover a gap up there... and then I caulked the trim too.
I always meant to paint the door after that, because it looked like hell, with a dirty white door and a lot of bare woodgrain trim strips and white caulk.
So, I used the cracked pepper paint, left over from the 2021 porch project... a very dark, bluish, charcoal gray... which I'd used on the porch deck.
While I was busy painting the back door, Tim was inside going through the last stacks of Mom & Dad's old papers... feeding them into a shredder.
But when he got to Dad's checkbooks, he took a break, because, checkbooks are not easy to shred.
I suggested we burn them.
Next thing you know, Tim and I were in the back yard starting a fire in the fire pit. He had a garbage bag full of paper shreddings to get it started, and I threw in a bunch of branches from around the yard that had fallen during wind storms over the winter.
When we got it going, we burned Dad's check books, and the last of the important papers... as well as all the shreddings.
It seemed fitting that his long visit, which began in early January, when Dad was still alive... ended on this gorgeous springlike day, with a fire out back... burning his check books.
Spring songbirds could be heard, and I saw five cardinals up in the trees while the fire was going.
I gave the back door a second coat of the cracked pepper, and then washed the brush down in the shop and put the paint can away.
After that I put up the notice sign, using spray adhesive, on the newly painted porch wall... other side of the rear porch door from the camera. And the back door also looked a lot better.
It no longer looks neglected.
After that I caulked up the holes where the two camera cords go inside the walls... to make the install look finished, but also to prevent bees from getting into the porch to make a hive this summer.
A second notice sign went up front, near the front camera, on the side, inside a window. Not visible from the street, but only to people cutting through the yard... and even then... not super in your face.
I wanna draw attention to the cameras, from casual trespassers... but don't want to look too paranoid.
When I was done with the painting, caulking, and signs, I walked around the house to look things over. It seemed like I'd struck the right balance of... a place that's cared for and has security, but... not ultra paranoid.
And then I saw a package on the front stoop!
My other four blinds, the mahogany blinds, had arrived a day early!
The sun was low in the west by the time I was unpacking the blinds, at the kitchen table.
Tim, having fully completed every last thing he could think to do around the house before his departure... was at the table on his laptop, doing some web design work for a client.
As he worked, I removed the old blinds, curtains, and hardware from the windows in the living room and Dad's room.
And I saw the garden lights turn on at sunset, just as I'd programmed them to do, last night!
I installed the blinds in Dad's room first, and then the living room.
And after I was done, I took the old blinds from Dad's room, and installed them in the two windows of the music room... which have had neither blinds, nor curtains, for a couple months now.
When I was all done with the blinds, I took another walk around the house, in the dark, to make sure any lookyloos won't get a clear idea whether anybody's home or not.
The back room's still kind of a problem, because the rear blinds are easy to see through from the outside at night. But the rest of the main floor?... waaay less on display than in years past.
Kitchen, bedroom, living room, music room, and porch, now all have that perfect level of privacy, where you can see that lights are on, from the outside... but you can't tell if there are people in there!
And that lead me to my final security task tonight... interior room light timers!
I'd already put dawn to dusk bulbs in the two kitchen sconce lamps... which means that after dawn the kitchen lights are off. But the kitchen will light up after dark (when I'm at work).
An extra such bulb is now in the upstairs back room.
But the bedroom, living room, and music room, each have one lamp. So I sat down and set up three timers to control these three lamps and turn them on and off at odd sequences between the hours of 6PM and midnight.
The music room and bedroom are set up to be mirror images, so... whenever the music room lamp turns off for thirty minutes, or an hour... the bedroom lamp turns on... and vice versa. And those intervals are, randomly, either thirty minutes, or an hour.
The living room has it's own radom sequence that's independent of the bedroom and music room.
I programmed a fourth timer for a lamp in the upstairs front room. This will seem random and independant of the living room below.
All four timers have all lights on from midnight onward... because I'll be home by then. The living room, music room, and upstairs front room all turn off at 3AM. Dad's room stays on until 5AM.
I set all four to the correct time and plugged them in, but because it's hard to set the exaaact time, and there was a delay, going from room to room, and up the stairs, to get all four plugged in... it means none of them will be going on or off at exactly the top or bottom of the hour.
All four will be ahead or behind the, :00, and the, :30, by two to four minutes, which is perfect, because that looks more natural and human.
I have a final timer to use in the back room, but that won't be implemented until tomorrow night, after Tim's gone.
After I was done with all that, I hung out with Tim in the kitchen for a good while, as my laundry washed, and we saw that there are times when two downstairs rooms are off at the same time (living room and another room) but no appreciable time when all three are off.
How that overlaps with the upstairs, we didn't witness tonight. But I'll get the sense for that as the weeks go by.
The whole idea here, of course, is that in the hours after dark when I'm gone at work... generally between 6PM and 12AM... the blinds will be closed, yet still allow a little light through... and all rooms, upstairs and down, will appear to be turning on and off at random, to the casual observer.
Because all the outdoor lights will turn themselves on at dusk, and off at dawn, this extra touch will make it feel... again, to the casual observer... that people are in there, living their lives.
Peeping toms won't be able to tell for sure if people are inside or not.
And roving punks, looking for a crime of opportunity, will get these same impressions, plus note that all four doors are difficult to get to, and under surveillance... in a well lit yard.
Short of a full blown alarm system, this is the best I can do to dissuede a break-in over the nine long hours, between 2PM and 12AM, that me and my car are gone everyday.
With all of that said, A padlock is on the way for the dog yard gate.
And all that leaves is a final camera to watch the basement hatch door. Which I'll wait to buy until I've gotten through the end of month bills, and paid down my cards a bit.
Tim's taking the 12PM train from Aurora Transportation Center tomorrow, out to Union Station in Chicago. From there, the Orange Line out to Midway, and then a flight back to Las Vegas.
It's gonna be sad, seeing him off. We've been on quite an adventure together, here at the house, since he first arrived in early January.
In addition to the whole drama of Dad's final days, and the immediate aftermath of the funeral home, and the memorial at the Roundhouse... we went on to knock out a very long to-do list of urgent concerns...
Selling Dad's car, getting the life insurance, getting the paperwork for the deed transfer notarized, and applying for the transfer stamp...
Painting the kitchen, tearing out carpets, scraping up tiles and linoleum...
Sorting through tons of junk in cabinets and drawers, to find and save the historic gems like the journals, letters, and photos we never knew were here...
Canceling the newspaper, land line, and cable TV, and getting new fiberoptic WIFI brought in...
Tim found a new home for both Mom's China cabinet, and her organ... the two biggest white elephants in the house!..
The cat's graduated to the downstairs, then the basement, then the crawlspace... where Snoop got stuck in the bottom of the cistern!
We put out a ton of scrap metal for scrappers, furnture and electronics for random people to grab, and a fuck ton of bulk items and extra bags with garbage stickers, every week.
We ate together, drank together, and strategized about our game plans for 2023 together.
It's been a crazy seven weeks, and I wouldn't have made it through without his help!
But as Springy Sunday ends, I'm in a good position to take it from here, and go it alone for a while.
The only thing really nagging at me is, how Yvette deals with being alone here for nine hours a night.
Over the next eight months, between tomorrow, and the family reunion in October, for Dad's burial... that will work itself out... as will so many other things.
From a new breaker panel, and new circuits in the rooms... to patching and painting the walls and ceilings... to new flooring downstairs...
Tree removal... thrift store adventures to find new furnture and wall art...
Lawn mowing and landscaping...
To cricket recording this August!
Life with Dad was an adventure.
Dad's final months and days were certainly an adventure!
These seven weeks with Tim have been an adventure.
And the rest of this year... is certain to be an adventure!
So... stay tuned, I guess!
°¦}
