b.rox

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I recently got our energy bill for the period covering the recent cold snap: $500! Granted that was some record-setting weather but still… $500! Ouch. I’m still in shock. Or perhaps I should say I’m floored.
Some of my friends assumed this high bill was indicative of high energy costs here in [...]

The fumigation we’d originally planned for early December has finally been accomplished, and I must say despite the hassle that it’s better to complete than to abort.
All living things have to be removed from the house prior to fumigation, and relocated elsewhere for approximately 48 hours. (Actually that’s not true; indeed, the whole point of [...]

By strange coincidence, I found myself watching The Big Chill Friday night. It’s one of those super-famous movies that I’ve just somehow never seen.
Alas, when the flick was over and I turned in for the evening, I neglected to leave a trickle of water running, as I’d done Thursday night. This, despite the fact I [...]

Friday night my daughter stabbed me in the eye. Not intentionally — she was just waving her arm around. Her little finger somehow got past my glasses, and her nail sliced right across my cornea. When she realized I was in pain she gave me a kiss. Very sweet.
It was pretty painful, but I thought [...]

Overnight New Orleans got pounded by heavy, heavy rain for several hours. Also some serious gusts. We lost power for a while during the night and there was of course some street flooding throughout the city.
The weather has caused our fumigation to be postponed. They were set to tent the house this morning, but during [...]

We’re having our house tented for fumigation to kill off some drywood termites. It’s kind of a pain, because we have to relocate three cats, a rabbit, and a fish, not to mention a baby girl and our own damn selves and our food.
We became aware of the drywood infestation when we inspected. The seller [...]

We are still unpacking.
Many thanks (again) to my mother-in-law for her painstakingly accurate labels.

But three weeks after the move, we are down to just eight boxes.
Make that seven boxes. I just unpacked another one.

I feel like I’m exhaling and relaxing for the first time since — when was it? — late July. That’s when the idea of moving first entered my head.
We’d learned our daughter had lead poisoning and then a few days later I had a close encounter with one of the guys from the corner. Ordinarily [...]

I’m gearing up to sign a bunch of papers in about an hour and a half. First we’re closing on the sale of our old house. Immediately after that we’re closing on the purchase of our new house. The latter is predicated on the former. I have power of attorney so I can sign for [...]

No, I’m not feeling particularly grumpy. Quite the opposite. We are settling in and making good progress on unpacking. We’ll close the deal soon and actually I’m pretty happy about the way things have worked out. But I thought I’d just go ahead and get these five points out of the way.

The stairs are too [...]

After a couple weeks of little to no activity, we got three offers on our house yesterday.
There’s a long way to go to actually close the deal, of course. So I’m not throwing any parties, but I can’t deny that my mind is athrob with a steady pulse of excitement. We might just pull this [...]

Our open house is today, and we hope plenty of prospective buyers will show up. Our old friend Brian Rice recommended that we should have some “soothing, but hip, music playing low in the background.” So here is a mix I call “Soothing but Hip,” eleven tracks of long sweet mellowness, including music by Brian [...]

Well, it’s official. Our house is on the market. There’s a “For Sale” sign in front.

We’ve been very happy here. It’s hard to think that our home for the last seven years might soon belong to someone else. But here’s hoping. If you’re interested call our Realtor, Shannon Sharpe Briand, at (504) 616-7000.
It’s listing for [...]

We are making an offer on a house today. I don’t want to reveal too many details for fear of jinxing things, so suffice it to say that it’s in Mid-City and we like it a lot.
It’s a predicated offer — our purchase of the new house is predicated on the successful sale of our current [...]

I’ve put a lot of my heart and soul into our old house. Xy has too. So I thought it would be painful to contemplate moving. I thought I’d agonize over that decision more, weighing the pros and cons.
But it really hasn’t been that hard. Once I framed the idea as “trading up,” it actually [...]

I was surprised to discover this morning that our one-way street had reversed direction overnight.
Well, it wasn’t a big surprise really. The city had sent me a letter explaining the plan and polling our opinion, but I never mailed the form back in. After mulling it over a while I thought it might not be [...]

I was feeling pretty good yesterday as my remediation work went according to plan. Here’s four photos that show the transition from flaking lead-based paint, through surface prep, priming, and a first coat of paint.

Still needs a second coat. I’m pretty sure I did this safely, with no contamination — no lead dust in our [...]

I’d like to take a moment to salute all the teachers of the world who work so hard for our children. You rock!
Today is the first day of classes at Xy’s new school.

I took her traditional “first day” photo as she left the house. Not easy holding a toddler in one arm.
As I noted last [...]

I’m pretty attached to our old tub. I much prefer a bath to a shower. I find it much more relaxing — therapeutic even. When we were shopping for a house, a big tub was on our short list of desired features. I’m 6′ 4″ and I find I’m not comfortable in many tubs. Our [...]

Problem: When ACORN did lead-paint remediation on our house, they missed one small area around our front door. The lead-based paint that remains there is a little bit flaky and very dry, so that lead paint dust on the threshold has become a problem.
Solution: I’ve been reading up on remediation techniques, and I think I [...]