Posted on 2015-08-01 in HomeMade
Okay, I “fixed” the controller by finding out that a few zones just don’t work.
It could be something that needs to be programmed but the screen is busted… So I have a new controller coming but until then I won’t have to wrestle the spiders to manually start up citrus hill.
Posted on 2015-07-31 in HomeMade
I’m not sure if this counts as a /HomeMade/ because we just bought our way out of this problem. But I like the progression from the kids making Cardboard Furniture to going to the store, to getting it delivered while the kids slept (at 10:30pm).
One added awesomeness is that we finally decided to go get the furniture because the day before we heard from our loan officer that we were “cleared for closing” or that we were vetted for our loan and could get our loan papers drawn up.
This, for us, was the signal that we could actually go spend some money on some furniture instead of sitting on the ground. BUT, when we pulled up to the store I got a call from our mortgage people saying that the whole thing was dead in the water because our escrow company had mishandled the fees sent to our mortgage broker for my loan estimate.
I had to call four or five people to sort everything out and for some reason, even though I have been unabashedly candid about my inexperience, I seem to be the most competent person involved in this home purchase. That is a scary notion.
We bought the furniture anyway. Â My couch chairs showed up at the door 9 hours later and Mariel’s couch shows up some time a week or two from now.
 
Posted on 2015-07-31 in HomeMade
“When you give a Matt a Muffin”
There’s a children’s book that most young parents know about lately called “If You Give a Moose a Muffin” where some moose wants a muffin, but needs jam, and a sweater, and sheets, and other things in an ever cascading list of gating events.
This morning I got in a good one. Needed to fix the irrigation valve, but needed my multimeter, which needed a new battery, but needed a jewel sized philips head screw driver to open the case and then I needed a good 9V battery which is packed away “who knows where”, then I found out that the fuse inside my /good/ multi-meter had blown so I needed to get one from radio shack, closest radio shack is… no where, they are all dead, so need to get one from amazon, but I might as well get those spa chemicals I needed so I check which of those I needed, and while I’m at it I might as well do the chem check on the spa, and while I’m out there I should look at the irrigation control to see why zone 5 and 6 aren’t working, but I’ll need a multi-meter for that… MAYBE COFFEE WILL HELP THIS SITUATION!
Posted on 2015-07-25 in Happenings, HomeMade
Phew – yesterday was a big day. We (Kevin and I) strapped the water heater, painted a tiny spot outside the house, cleaned up a million palms trees and weeded/mulched some stuff (Tami and Mariel handled all that). Ooh, and fixed some irrigation and emptied more boxes.
Found a spider that cast a big shadow. Used a wide variety of tools which confirmed by bias for collecting them.
And then had a semi furnished little dinner party after that.
Lots of homemade.
Multi-disciplinary tool use day. Used circular saw for the 2×4″ standoff behind the tank. Rotary tool to adjust the size of the water heater strap. Tapped and drilled a new hole through the steel, filed off the ends to reduce bleeding, ratchet for driving the lag bolts into the studs and clamps galore.
And I was able to lend out tarps to a neighbor, use my pull saw to cut some palm bark, and the ladder to get the joist painted (where it was cut for dry rot before tenting). Usually I feel lots of guilt for hoarding so many tools – but today kind of made up for a huge chunk of that because I had /almost/ everything we needed to complete lots of muffins .
Posted on 2015-07-22 in HomeMade
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/California_Quail/id
Saw these two little birds walking in the yard today.
Posted on 2015-07-22 in Happenings, HomeMade
Buying a home is a like a new hobby in that there is no limit to the amount of time, worry, and money you can pour into it.
I wanted to post all sorts of home stuff but watned to redesign the site a bit first, or maybe make an offshoot for storing just home related stuff.
But now I’m thinking “MOAR CONTENT BETTER” and I’ll throw more stuff at the wall and do a post process sort.
Tagged as “HomeMade”
First thing is to make a place to put the list of things to put the list of things on in order to put the list of things somewhere.