If your house isn’t for sale, you might be thinking that only a few exterior photos of it, if any, exist on real estate websites and on Google Maps. Think again. The screen capture shows the photo that accompanies the listing on Zillow for my Mud Bay house — an overhead shot of the neighborhood overlaid with the label “Off market.” While a similar photo would be ideal for all off market houses, that doesn’t always happen when a home is not for sale.
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Every summer my war against the ants at Treasure Island enters a new campaign. It’s not a fair fight. The ants are always on offense while I’m always on defense trying to protect a long porous border. There are no peace talks, no MOU that buys time for negotiators to work out a settlement. That’s why I usually resort to the nuclear option (see photo).
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I’m slow to change what other people have done. Accordingly, I end up living with thing I don’t like for years. Such was the case with the Shark vacuum cleaner at Treasure Island—a clunker I hated as much as any appliance I have ever used. Last week it died, and hate has quickly turned into love for its replacement (see photo).
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The cutting board in the photo is not just any cutting board. It was a present from my sister. As the “before” view shows, I went far too long before attempting to restore it. As the “after” view shows, the product I used helped refresh the board’s original matte luster.
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My lower driveway has a small sinkhole. It isn’t deep enough to swallow a car, but it does need a new top patch every few years. When my neighbor and I poured the concrete for its most recent patch, we added two containers of charcoal cement color to the mix. Three would have been better (see photo).
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I’m still learning things about my new GE gas range. One “feature” that’s not covered in the operator’s manual is shown in the photo. When the kitchen is completely dark, I can see two small rectangular green lights reflected on the wall behind the stove. What’s up with that?
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Garter snakes (see photo) apparently do well on properties that border Mud Bay as I see a lot of them. But that’s not because I go out searching for snakes. Tide, aka the Mud Cat, is a snake hunter and brings home a freshly caught live snake at least once a month just like her male predecessor Pi used to do. Mission over, it’s up to me to deal with her prey.
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It took most of April to replace my old gas stove (see photo). Along the way I hope I learned to have a bit more patience and also not to use Home Depot’s installation services for any future appliances I might buy from them.
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You can tell I’m bored when I’m writing about whether to open a piece of junk mail (see screen capture) that arrived a week ago. The USPS uses a more professional term — marketing mail — and that’s likely what it is. But are there enough outward clues to decide whether it is worth opening?
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The insulation upgrade to my 50-year-old house was completed on January 6th. So far, I don’t have enough data to know if I’m going to save significantly on heating costs. This week’s cold weather would be a great test of whether the upgrade is making the house more comfortable except there’s no good way to measure that.
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