Tag Archive | insulation
July 1, 2012  

Thoughts on Life – 7/1/2012 – Moving into a new house

So, we have done it.  We finally moved into our new house a week ago.  We had worked on the house for about a month and a half.  During that time, we had new flooring put in, had new insulation put in, installed new doors and door locks, refinished the kitchen, repainted the rooms, had fans installed in the upstairs bedrooms, reworked the outside flower beds, had our trees trimmed, and generally cleaned up the place.  We got the house for a good price with the idea of putting a bunch of money in up front to get it into the shape we wanted.  I’d say that we came within 85-90% of what we wanted upon moving in, with mostly money limitations keeping us from going further.  Still, we did a whole lot over that time.  We also, of course, worked to pack up our own stuff, so that we could be ready to move in.

Last Sunday, we made the move.  We called up the movers and had them start us out at 9am on Sunday.  They left right around 7pm, making two loads from our apartment to the house.  It went very smoothly overall, although there’s still quite a bit of stuff left at the apartment.  Luckily we don’t have to be out of there until the end of July, so we have time to finish up there.

My wife and mother-in-law did a lot of the work on the house.  I was preparing for teaching and then teaching through a lot of the time getting the house ready, so I had a more limited role.  Still, we all worked on it well throughout the time, and I think we did a good job.

Since moving in, we have been unpacking and continuing to clean/organize the house.  Our space has been increased by about 1000 square feet, so we can really stretch everything out well.  We have had some hiccups along the way.  We are still getting the kinks out in our cable/internet, but we seem to be a good way along the right path there.  We have had a number of plumbing issues, but we really knew that going into the place, and it has just been a matter of getting them taken care of.  We have also discovered that we are going to have to get a second air conditioner in upstairs at some point, as the one in the house is just not able to handle a large house.  Our electrical input to the house is also pretty rough, and we are going to have to get that taken care of.  We are prioritizing what needs to get done and deciding when to pull the trigger on the various things that are needed.

As of now, however, we are quite pleased with the set up of the house and what we have here.  It is a very nice place in a nice neighborhood.  I hope everything continues to go as smoothly.

April 16, 2012  

Thoughts on Life – 4/16/2012 – End of another busy section of life

Well, I know it has been a while, but life just intervenes sometimes.  I just finished another 2-week grading session, as the two-thirds-of-the-way-through assignments came in.  The second set of assignments always goes faster than the first, simply because fewer students are left in class by that point.  It was a moderately successful section of the class overall.  I’m down about a 1/3 to a 1/2 in most of my classes, which is unfortunately normal.  I lost a lot fewer than that over the drop deadline, which was last week.  The reality is that a lot of the F’s that I give out are to students who simply do not do any work and yet do not drop.  I can’t say these exams and projects were any better or worse than usual, but it was a lot of essay grading, as I essentially had four 500+-word essays from each of my students.  It’s times like this that I truly know how much of a grading masochist I am.

Our house buying is proceeding along well.  We are looking to close in early May.  We are at the stage of working with a lender and getting the appraisal done.  It has been a lot of paperwork and a lot of decisions along the way, but we are happy with the way everything has turned out.  We have started planning what we are going to do and when as we move into the house.  We will paint, get new carpets, and put in the major appliances that are missing.  We also are going to do some tree trimming, have insulation blown into the attic, and install solar screens.  With our tax money next year, we are planning to replace all of the wooden siding on the house, as it is the original 1960s siding that was poorly taken care of in general.  We have also started thinking about packing and getting rid of stuff around here.  So, that moves along well.

And, the final piece has fallen into place.  We are having another kid.  My wife is 12 weeks pregnant at this point.  We had our second doctor visit and sonogram today.  It’s too early for the gender yet, but we have begun planning for some of the things we need (which includes the new house, of course).  We are currently working on some gender-neutral plans, but we’ll be able to finalize more once we know if it will be a boy or a girl.

So, that’s been my life over the last month or so.  I hope to get back into regular blogging again, at least until finals get here.