FUBAR

Our hail storm adventure continues... I'm hot and tired, so I'll try to go over the highlights.

We finally got the insurance adjuster to look at the roof. Had several roofing companies come look at it, too. It's a total loss, plus they're going to replace the gutters. Yay? Idunno - are you supposed to be excited about that?

The Hater took the check to the bank yesterday to get them to put it into our bank account so we could pay the roofers. Long story short he spent several hours at the bank ... come to find out they shorted us $8K when we went back to look at the account.

Oh yes.

Several phone calls and panic attacks later the account says it's "pending".

I'm sure the bank manager is tired of hearing from us.

Meanwhile, the roof guys were here today and have finished our roof. In doing so they have punctured the coolant line that goes to the AC.

So the house is a hot sweaty box. I'm a mad hen in a hot sweaty box. I was cocked and ready to tell them that they would be putting us up in a hotel tonight and every night until this was fixed. I wasn't going to be ugly, but I was certainly going to call an ace an ace.

The roofing guys have come and looked at the boo-boo. They say we need to call the builder, that it's the builder's fault that the line that's supposed to be "6-12 inches" from the roof is actually right next to it. The roofing guys did their job right - and it would've all been peachy if the builder had done the right thing to begin with.

The problem is that the builder is out of business.

But the good news is that the roofing guys said that if the AC guy (who comes tomorrow) has to take off part of the roof to fix the problem they'll replace that part of the roof for us at no charge to us. I'm gagged, but at least they're living up to their BBB status.

Meanwhile, it's hot. Baby is down. She's woken up once, but went back to sleep on her own. If she can suffer through, so can we.

If she can't, my boss has already offered a room in their house where we can stay tonight.

So now we're hoping that the "depreciation value" check that we'll end up getting from insurance will cover the AC guy fixing this. (At this point we think he'll just have to sauter/sauder/fix the hole and add new freon/coolant/magic. But we don't know nothing 'bout birthing no babies.)

To sum up:

Hail storm. Bad.

Insurance. Good.

Bank screw-up. Bad, but has been reconciled.

Credible roofing company. Good.

Stupid bankrupt building company. Bad.

AC Repairman.... to be determined...

* The Hater and I are reminiscing memories about being young and staying in houses where there was no AC. Where you cracked the window and had a floor fan in the hallway. Where you didn't sleep that great. Where taking a bath after supper was really a moot point because you sweat all night in bed. It was terrible... and tonight we get to relive those precious memories, complete with not sleeping in our own bed because that room is the hottest room of the house. ... It's a beautiful day to be thankful for working ACs.

* Poor baby. I put her down after she chugged a sippy of milk with red, flushed cheeks. I covered her in corn starch before I put her down - she already has some heat rash on the base of her neck before today's fiasco. I can only imagine what it'll look like in the morning. Meanwhile, it looks like she's inherited Mommy's and Aunt Sister's propensity to glisten. Maybe someday she'll be glad for her efficiency, but I doubt it.

* I've had to move my Synthroid to the fridge because it loses efficacy in the heat. Unfortunately, I bet I have to totally get a new bottle because it sat in the heat for 5 hours before we moved it to the fridge. I'll ask tomorrow in the pharmacy, but I'm thinking this will be another $30.

didn't wash away

For those of you who saw that OKC received about 10" of rain today, I'm happy to report that we did not wash away.

Last night I watched the news before I went to bed. I don't usually do that, but for some reason I thought I should watch the weather. This was random for me because I never watch the news at night. Anyway, on the news it said we'd get a storm in the early hours of the morning, but then would have a 30% chance of rain for the day. It was storming bad in the panhandle, but weren't supposed to have anything bad in the city.

They lied. It started coming down about 7:30 and stormed cats and dogs and iguanas. I was a nervous wreck at work. Everybody kept asking me why I even came in, why didn't I stay home. I called day care to ask why she didn't tell me to just turn around and go back home when I dropped off Baby this morning. She was as surprised as I was that it was coming down in buckets.

I left work between waves of storms around 11 this morning to get Baby before the next wave was supposed to come through. I ended up having to take several U-turns and get home in different ways, but we got here. Baby was screaming in the car seat by the time we got here though. (She's still not a fan of riding in the car for more than about 10 minutes.)

Apparently the 5 consecutive hours of morning storms caused the fronts to change and now the wave of bad rain that we were supposed to get is actually hitting about 50 miles south of us. Good for us because we couldn't take the rain and hail combo right now. Not too terrible for them because in the morning rains they didn't get much.

Tomorrow we're supposed to be back to just normal summer rain showers. I have full intentions of taking Baby to day care and heading to work like I did today... but I may look at the weather in the morning before I leave the house first.

just kidding

I dressed Baby in a sweet little pink hand-me-over sundress that still had tags on it this morning for church. She was in a good enough mood. We headed down the street and pulled into the church parking lot at 8:05 for the 8:15 service.

She sat quietly during the prelude. Played with a bear during the special singing, but before it was over she promptly let her toddlerhood show and started screaming. I picked her up and took her into the hall, where she continued to be unhappy.

I decided to take her back in during the introductions, where everybody shakes hands with each other and says hi. There's commotion, and I was sure we could sneak back in without much fuss.

We did.

But before the first hymn could be announced she started sceaming again. Screams that were not thwarted by a sippy cup of milk, cereal bites, or the special book that only comes out at church. The preacher was trying to tell about a sign-up sheet he was going to pass around where people could sign up if they'd like to volunteer to help with special music programming.

She screamed louder.

I scooped up her and the diaper bag and tried to gracefully exit. These were tear-inducing massive screams. People looked. Some of them smiled, some of them glared.

It was silent except for her screams.

I said as I carried her down the side back to the exit, "It's okay, honey. It's for volunteers. You don't have to sign up." Some people giggled. I heard the preacher say as I was walking out, "She'd probably like it because she would be around the communion juice."

I had her strapped back into the car seat and we were pulling out of the church parking lot at 8:30. This must be a record.

up on the rooftop, reindeer paws

Not exactly reindeer paws, but the first of many roofing companies doing recon on the roof and quoting us a price. He said our neighborhood was the worst roofs he's seen in town, and that our roof was the second worst he's seen overall after this storm.

Apparently there are a myriad roofing defects - something about not enough vent boxes on the roof. He says that made them hotter, which made them break more. Also, he says that when they laid our shingles they put them straight down onto the plywood without the tar paper (or whatever the black lining thing is called).

It'll be interesting to see if the next roofers say the same thing.

The insurance guy comes to see the roof on Saturday. More on this story as it develops.

weekend roundup

I was in the middle of a fantastic post that I could've sworn that I published. It was just the right amount of intrigue with just the right amount of funny... but it's gone forever.

It's been a good weekend.

The Hater went to the after-hours clinic on Friday because he thought he had bronchitis. Turns out it wasn't that or his asthma... but just really bad allergies. The doctor told him that it's the worst that Uglyhoma has seen in years, that even people who don't usually have allergy problems are having attacks. So he's now on steroids, more allergy medicines, and super-duper cough medicine at night. He says he's "on 'roids and narcotics, just like all the home run hitters in the 90s".

Some good friends dropped in yesterday afternoon. They're looking at houses. I think it'd be six colors of awesome if they moved into this neighborhood!! We gave them all of the Dt Dr Pepper that Sister didn't drink while she was here. They are DP people by default.

Baby has kept us very entertained this weekend. She loves to back up and sit on her potty, clap her hands and "YAY!" for herself. We, of course, clap our hands and sing YAYs, too.

Her newest trick is kicking and throwing fits while trying to change her diaper. It's such a mess. When you think you've figured out how to contain her legs and start cleaning she tries to roll. This has been going on for a few days. Screaming, tears, kicks, rolls, and a very frustrated Mommy who ends up wearing a whole lot of diaper rash cream. ... Today I figured out if I use the straps on the changing table and cinch her down she can't roll, which means I can just focus on keeping her legs in check. She was still screaming and kicking, but it was much easier. She fought so hard that she stripped the screw that holds one of the straps in place.

Baby is dancing all of the time now, too. She loves swaying back and forth and jumping all around. Her big finish is spinning in circles until she's so dizzy that she falls down, followed of course by clapping hands and "YAY!".

The upcoming week should be another doosey. The Hater has a long week ahead of him with late nights of work. I've got a late church meeting tomorrow night and a late work meeting Tuesday night. We've cooked a few meals ahead of time so all we'll have to do is nuke them later in the week.

The insurance adjuster is supposed to come inspect the roof this week, too. All of our neighbors have gotten total losses after the storm, so we're expecting the same. Then it'll be a matter of calling around and seeing who can give us the best deal. We're hoping that we'll be able to afford the artsy-fartsy hail damage shingles instead of the standard shingles that we had. We'll be glad when all of this is behind us.

I'm also sick of roofing companies ringing my doorbell at all hours to tell me how great their company is and why we should choose them. Blah. Between them and the door-to-door exterminators I'm about ready to get a NO SOLICITATION sign and putting it in my dead asparagus ferns at the door.

(Yeah, they're dead. I've not gotten around to replanting those yet. Or any annuals this year for that matter. We've been busy... then we've had allergies... then we had the storm... and now it's crazy hot outside... )

duct tape dresses: lessons learned

So you want to make a dress out of duct tape. Nevermind that you have no experience in such things. Nevermind the naysayers that are convinced you are simply nuts. Determination and several rolls of duct tape will you get you there.

First you need to do several internet searches about duct tape projects to get the basics down. Once you have a slight idea about how everything is put together, find a pattern to use.

I wanted to make a dress for my daughter, so I looked for an "easy-sew" pattern for a little girl dress. This was my first experience going through patterns. Each book had a section for what were supposed to be "easy" things. I found this one there and it cost about $2.

Next, buy tape. I had no idea how much I would use. I overbought because I wasn't sure. Her dress ended up being two full rolls of 22yd Duck Tape brand white duct tape, plus a little of a third roll. I've also bought one roll of flamingo pink tape and one roll of blue and green tye-dyed tape that I plan on using for embellishments at a later date.

First we measured baby to see what size dress to make. This seemed simple enough. However, I did not take into account that each piece we cut had a 5/8" seam allowance, so the little summer dress looks more like formal wear (way big on baby, but that's fine; she'll grow into it).

I wish I had pictures to document the next parts, but I don't because I was not that forward-thinking. If I ever do this project again I'll do better about taking pictures.

My Sister helped with this project. Next we took long pieces of duct tape and overlapped them, sticky side up. About every foot we went over the sticky part with cling wrap. We did this until we had one large sheet of "material" to use. The pattern told us how big of a piece we needed. It took us about two hours to make a 4.5'x4.5' piece. (I can't imagine doing this by myself - it seemed like a two-person job to us.)

At this point Sister declared she couldn't have any more fun playing duct tape games with me and I was on my own to interpret the greek that is reading a dress pattern. Honestly, I halfway read the pattern and halfway just used common sense to figure out how the pieces went together.

When choosing the pattern I did not look closely enough to see that parts of it were actually ruffled. When I came to that part it took me a little while to figure out how to ruffle duct tape. I ended up making pleats and holding them with scotch tape and then attaching it to the dress with duct tape. It was an adventure, and finished it, but I felt like I was reinventing the wheel throughout the process.

(back of dress - note the tie!)

(close-up of collar)

Another unforseen problem with a white dress out of duct tape is that it's very difficult to photograph. Light bounces off of it, making it look shiny. Nice, but loses all detail.

(front of dress)

I should note that initially baby was afraid of the dress. I tried to show it to her and she turned around and ran in the other direction. This happened several times that I tried to show it to her on Saturday after we finished it.

However, last night she put it on and pranced all over the house. It was huge on her, but she didn't care. We kept telling her how pretty she looked and she owned it.

Totally fierce.

Would I do it again? Yes, but not for a while.