So close

Happy Mother's Day everyone! I hope it is a beautiful day wherever you are. Here in sunny Philadelphia (well, for today), the weather is absolutely gorgeous. 80 degrees and lovely.  Goslings are down by the river, primroses are coming up and the bees are buzzing.

All of my news is as it has been for 2012 - great and awful. It has been THE roller coaster ride of my life. 

Start with the great news:

My porch is so close - so close to being done. I still have a ton of work to do on it - but at least it will pass inspection now. Check it out! No more struts! But you can clearly see what still needs to be finished - the railings need to be fixed. Andrew will be coming for that on Monday (he says.) I really hope so - I am ready for this to be over.

 

There are some wonderful improvements - not least of which is the front step. It is not a mile higher than everything else. Just a normal step now. 

Jacques approves. He enjoys walking along his new porch, rolling around in the left over sawdust.

 

Andrew had new posts turned for the porch as well. They match exactly which is great. I was envisioning something awful and patchwork-looking. But these are exactly the same. I just have to paint them. So sometime this week I need to go to Home Depot and get the matching paint.

There is also the matter of the clean up - Andrew needs to take some, Wally needs to take some - I am looking forward to getting everything back in order where I can mow the lawn correctly.

It was also the four year anniversary of my owning my house this week. I can't believe it. Four years. That's as long as high school! In honor of that, I'm including one of my most favorite features of my house, the roses in the front. They are blooming, like clockwork this time of year. 

Blogger has reformatted their posting page and it doesn't work the way it used to so I am fighting with things a little bit here. I hope everything comes out legibly.

The other big repair has also finally happened - the ceiling on the first floor has been repaired. Can I get a hallelujah!

Here it is freshly finished. Since this picture was taken - it has dried considerably and is almost white. I still have paint before the inspection people come but that shouldn't be too much trouble. Lots of work - but not too much trouble. Wally also put more tar and sealant on the 2nd floor windows. Cross your fingers that this is it for a while up there.

 

I have done some knitting - although in this case it is crocheting:

Here's my new sweater. It is beautiful alpaca. My aunts take an upholstery class with a lady that raises alpacas and sells their fur. This is the natural color of the animal. Stupidly, I plowed ahead with this pattern thinking I had enough yarn... nope. Not even close. Thank goodness the lady was able to track down more of the same color! I am so grateful. It is really beautiful and warm - so warm. I love it.

In other bad new - or just the craziness of living in West Philly -my car was broken into on a Sunday morning. Know what they took? Three boxes of kitty litter and a large package of toilet paper. No the change, nothing from the glove box... kitty litter and toilet paper. !!!??? What? Someone told me it was probably junkies looking for anything. They saw this in the back of my car and went for it. I can just see it now - there's some guy in a trench coat under the freeway going - "Yo - psst - hey buddy - check it out - I got toilet paper - $5 bucks a roll (opens his trench coat and inch)." Boy people have to be pretty desperate.

  

I started the process of getting the glass fixed and of course it turns out that they didn't just break the glass they also broke the retracter - so that's extra fun for repairs.