Category Archives house

Lots of Bzzzz-ing in the family

Flying insects of the stinging kind be gone!

That is the message from our family after too many of these suckers have gotten too up close and personal with us.

1 – Friday while while my parents were visiting my brother and his wife they went apple picking. They apparently got some bees angry and one stung my mother.

2 – Yesterday after shopping at BJ’s, JL was putting JSL and his carrier into the car. Suddenly he yelped and started flapping his arm. Yup, he was also stung by a bee. His arm must have blocked the path of the angry bee and  voila! Luckily he is not allergic. He just has a small welt and is very itchy this morning.

3 – Just before dinner last night I was going around opening windows since it was cool out. I had to climb up to open the kitchen window since I am vertically challenged. I opened the shade all the way and climbed up. Then I yelled to JL. I found a bee/wasp nest in the awning that is over the window with a few pesky friends right on it. GRRRR!

With some research we are not pretty sure that those stinging neighbors that are on our house are paper wasps. The nest looks just like the one pictured here on Wikipedia. In addition to the the Terminex website makes their behavior match up where other buzzing pests do not. So later this morning JL will be heading to get something to spray the nest with (at night of course) to dispose of these critters.

Hopefully the count stays at 3 and does not need an addition later.

C’est Moi

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There’s a horse in my living room!

Oh wait, never mind it’s just a GIANT centipede. Seriously we could have put a saddle on this thing.

We had just walked in after the open house for PreK kids at NHL’s school tonight when the following happened (Side freak note –> My baby starts school in a week – ACK!).:

I am barely into the dining room and JL screams to me to get a tissue quickly. What the heck? So I look and see they are right near him. I am afraid to ask, but quickly realize just what he’s trying to corner. Trapped by NHL’s toys that are in the middle of the floor is a monster centipede that is trying to escape.  Thank goodness JL managed to get this creature and dispose of it.

YUCK!

I am not exaggerating here. This sucker was at least as long as my pinky finger and much wider with legs factored into the equation. I mean when it moved I saw it’s legs moving from across the room.

Seriously these things give me the heebie jeebies. Just the thought of them makes my skin crawl. I had never seen them prior to moving into this house and apparently they are rampant with all of our neighbors. I don’t mind if they are here since they are harmless and eat spiders, but stay in the basement darn you! Clearly this bad boy had been feasting in a good location.

On that note I am off to read and sleep. I shall report on 4 year old physical fun tomorrow.

C’est Moi

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Rough weekend

This morning NHL and JL got up and let JSL and I sleep a little longer. I got up just in time to make sure JL was ready for the handy man that was coming to look at repairing the siding on the house and checking out our basement pipe that keeps spewing. The man came and did both things for a very reasonable price. After that I took a shower and tried the sample of the Venus Breeze razor that I was sent and I am in LOVE! I used it since I didn’t have the time to use my electric razor. Man this was so nice. You don’t need shaving gel and it left my legs feeling amazing and no cuts either!

Once I was done and had tossed a load of towels into the wash we went out to the mall. We went to EB to get Big Brain Academy for the Wii (with a gift card) and then went to an early lunch in the food court since it was empty. JSL was sleeping so the three of us were able to get things and eat. Then JSL woke up and I fed him a bottle of milk I pumped before we left. After this we went to Borders to look at things since I have a ton of gift cards for there. We all went to the restrooms there. I took JSL and changed his diaper and JL was with NHL. When I came out NHL was curled up on JL’s lap. He was acting tired all morning and JL thought he was warm. No temperature this morning.

We got NHL a few books (buy 2 get 1 free) and went home. JL had to carry NHL to t he car since he was so out of it. We got home and he napped. At 4:00 NHL was up and acting odd and was warm. We took his temperature and it was 100.3 so I went to CVS to get some meds since the liquids we had here were WAY old. At dinner he started talking a mile a minute. NOT a good sign. At 7:45 we took his temperature since he was really acting odd. It was 102+ with the motrin in him. My parents went to get us Tylenol. He got that at close to 8:00. At 8:45 his temp was 103 – so we called the doctor. The new woman was on call. She called at 9:15 and told us how much to give him (more aggressive on the motrin). So we have our game plan for the night, but are always afraid since he had the febrile seizure July 17, 2004. . . ACK!

So at 12:30 we have to wake him up for more Tylenol and 3:30 for Motrin. Then we’ll see how it goes. Meanwhile JSL is sleeping in our room and he’s all cranky. UGH! We’re doing our best at keeping the little one away from NHL, but it’s tough in small quarters.

On that note I am off to get some water and rest before we have to fight NHL again to take more meds.

C’est Moi
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Another storm, tree down & even more flooding!

Tonight JL and I were taking the boys to my parents house to head out to do some packing. Well, as we went out the door it started to rain. We bolted to the car. BAD MOVE! We should have turned around and went back into the house. We got just to my parents just as the sky opened up. We sat in their driveway for a good 15 + minutes while it dumped water and hail on our car. The wind was SO bad that my van shook. UGH!

Finally we decided it didn’t look like it was going to lighten up and to slowly drive home. I couldn’t go up the block since a huge tree limb was in the middle of the road. Every way I went there were flooded roads and trees down. Well we made it to our block and saw our next door neighbor’s tree down. It barely missed her house. We pulled into our driveway and eventually bolted into the house. I nearly fell. My flip-flop got stuck in the mud and JSL nearly went flying in his carrier into mud along with me. Thank goodness JL came running to rescue the baby. We got into the house dried off, calmed NHL down, fed JSL and assess things. Of course our damn basement was flooded again. My father is giving me the name of a new person to contact with the city to complain to. I’m just sick of this crap.

Here are photos that JL took of the tree right next to our house that was clearly FRIED by lightning

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Unreal how close it was this time. The poor beautiful tree., but at least nobody was hurt.

C’est Moi

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More house fun – NOT!

Owning a house can be VERY overrated at times – especially when it’s an older one where we live. *sigh*

Thursday morning before going to work JL mentioned that there were water droplets dripping in the refrigerator. Hmmm. . . . strange, but not entirely alarming. So I went and looked at it. We both didn’t think much of it and I kept an eye on it during the day. By the time JL got home from work we noticed it wasn’t as cold as usual, but thought it was from being open a lot when we were getting things out for dinner. NHL and I then went out to get a few things at the grocery store. When we came home I felt the inside of the fridge wall – NOT cool at all.  To add worry to it – I could hear no motor at all. No sound was coming from the thing at all. It was now 8:00 and we all freaked. I had all of my milk in the freezer to worry about. – no less all of the food and things.

We called my parents and they asked if we had recently vacuumed the coils in the back of the fridge. WHAT? I guess that answered their question. We had not done it in the 3 years we’ve been here and I’m sure the people that were here before us didn’t. We found out that the fridge (the only item in the entire kitchen that was not replaced when we did the remodel in there before moving in) was from 2001. . . not old for that type of appliance. We actually found that the average age for them is 14 years. 

After NHL was in bed JL was able to unplug the fridge and vacuum it. We plugged it back in and the motor was running! WAHOO! We cranked up the temperature in it to compensate for all of the time it wasn’t working right (nothing was ruined since it was only up front that wasn’t cool). So now we’re debating getting a new fridge. It bothers me since the other isn’t old at all. I guess we’ll shop around and really research things before we jump into getting anything at this point. Hopefully it won’t be an emergency again where we have to buy it NOW. 

There’s more – *rolling eyes*

The drama doesn’t end there. Yesterday I went out for a little while. Before I left I tossed in a load of laundry into the basement. It was perfectly dry down there and looked good after the flooding from the storm just over a week ago. When JL got home he went down to the basement to put things in to dry. He was greeted with water all over the floor again. We first thought it was likely the sink overflowing (it happens from time to time). NOPE! When I went down a little later I was greeted by the smell of a bathroom – it was disgusting! I looked at the water area and saw sludge on the ground. Lovely – this happened once before. I was beyond pissed and got on the phone with DPW. The guy called his supervisor and they sent someone here (this was at about 7:00). Please note we still had not eaten dinner at this point. 

So the guy comes at about 7:45 and he of course says it’s not really the city (I don’t believe this 100% at all). He tells us some things to do to avoid a plumber since it’s something that frequently happens around here. I am going to contact the neighborhood association here and across the main road. I know there has been a lot in the paper again about people having raw sewage backing into their houses again. A little odd that it’s happening to so many people – no?

So we shall see how things go. 

I am off to get ready. I have an appointment to get my hair cut this afternoon I am doing another donation (I think). I will try to post before and after photos, but JL wasn’t able to do before last night with all of the excitement. I will see if David can do one since JL won’t with it being shabbos. 

C’est Moi
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