october was a busy month away from the house. there were two "service outage" weekends on the south shore train for track upgrades, so i spent both of those weekends in chicago.
29-31-oct. halloween weekend. originally thought i might return saturday night to enjoy festivities in chicago, but instead spent weekend at the house. made trip to lowe's with friend lee from south bend, was able to buy electric heat tape and foam pipe insulation tubes for the plumbing in the basement. will need to get installed before winter to keep pipes from freezing.
6-nov. no south shore trains. stayed in chicago.
13-nov. stayed in chicago again this weekend, went to see robyn perform @ the metro.
20-nov. the last weekend of good weather before spring. also my first visit back to the house in three weeks. arrived to house on last train out friday night and promptly went to bed. waking up saturday morning refreshed, i started plotting my day. my plans originally were to insulate the pipes in the basement for winter (planning on keeping house heated in winter but low when not there). but since the weather was exceptionally nice, i was able to get outside & rake the entire lawn (in under an hour), taking all the leaves and creating a huge compost pile in back yard.
after raking the lawn, i continued my outdoor activities by painting the eaves on the south side of the house noticing that my neighbors weren't parked in the driveway immediately adjacent. i was hoping to get the eaves trough installed as well on sunday, but my plans changed.
not feeling like making dinner, i stopped at mcdonald's and tried the "mcrib" sandwich for the first (and last) time. enough said. after my unsatisfying sandwich, i started tackling the excess beer in the fridge. a couple beers later it was decided that the front of the house definitely NEEDED to be painted before winter. i had bought two gallons of paint in april to test a color combo for the entire house, but had yet to use it. i had started scraping the peeling paint on the front of the house a few weeks prior, hoping to have good weather at some point before winter to paint. starting with the front porch, i painted the main wall the "mountain smoke" gray, then proceeded with the blue for the projecting portion of the living room. once the porch area was done, i proceeded outside to continue on the lower portion of the living room in blue that i could reach (and that had previously been scraped). it didn't take too much time to do all of this & before midnight i had completed all i could safely (without getting up on ladder) at night (drunk).
21-nov. woke at 8am, two aspirin and a cup of coffee started my day. i immediately set to work on the painting project. my goal was to have the entire facade prainted by dark.
dragging the ladder out, i was able to continue scraping the upper portions of the living room exterior, then immediately followed that with a coat of blue. once that was done, i proceeded with the front attic portion above the porch, scraping and painting that as well.
after lunch & shopping my attention returned to the house for the second coat of paint. there wasn't as much need for a second coat on the paint i had applied during the day, which i could see well as i applied and didn't have as many thin cover spots, though i still had to take a paint brush to get the under side of the lap siding in many spots. so the second coat was a quick touch-up job, this then was followed by a little trim painting (just to touch up some spots at this point, full trim painting in spring).
after day of painting i decided to stay sunday night at the house and take the 6.46 train back in the morning heading directly to work from the station.
just after falling asleep sunday night, i woke hearing what sounded like mice in the attic. the noise went on for some time then i heard it in the kitchen and then the dining room. at this point i got out of bed to see if i could catch the culprit in the act, to my surprise there was a cute little bat crawling along the floor in the dining room. luckily he didn't take flight and just huddled upside next to the stereo on the floor and i was able to capture him using a trash bin and piece of cardboard (sliding under overturned bin). i took the prisoner outside to the front porch (closing the front door behind me to prevent reentry) and removed the bin, the bat spread his wings and took off back into the wilds of michigan city.
22-nov. took the 6.46 train back to city, slept part of the way back. got back into city just in time to be greeted by a massive rainstorm. by the time i arrived at work i was thoroughly soaked (the wettest ever short of full submersion in water).
