Party of Two: A Week's Worth...

...of home improvements. Amongst other activities!

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Sunday, April 18, 2010

Me, Ayize and Grandpa made a lovely trek to the Botanic Gardens. It was a little nippy out but the skies were blue and the sun was shining.

Never seen a purple checkerboard tulip before!

Ayize wanted to stop and smell the tulips. And I mean, like, all of the tulips.

I was so excited to find out the name of my backyard tree: it's apparently a Susan magnolia!

In the afternoon, me and Sarah strolled over to the new house. Ayize was excited to give her the grand tour!

Me beloved "Sue" and one of her beautiful blossoms!

Afterwards, we went to the park where Ayize and Sarah did some slide-racing!

Ayize's World Cup dreams.

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Monday, April 19

Ayize woke up in a very silly mood this morning.

We popped over to the new house to get an estimate on blow-in insulation for my attic from the awesome folks at American Insulation, and it ended up being fantastically low -- about one-sixth of the estimates I'd gotten from other local companies!!!

There were several factors at play here: (1) I'd contacted these people based on a recommendation from a friend of mine -- a general contractor and house renovation specialist -- who is friends with the owner; (2) I was "very nice" (in their words) about a previously-missed appointment, which only happened because the owner's father passed away unexpectedly the morning of our original estimate; and (3) there are a million shady insulation people who have jumped into this business right now, sadly, because they see a way to make a fast buck off of homeowners' motivation to utilize the new tax credits available to people with the recommended types and amounts of blow-in insulation. You have to dig deep these days to find experienced people who really know what they're doing, take pride in their work, and don't want to con you with costs blown up to five and six times their actual value. You'll know you're on the right track when you're not offered fancy printed-in-the-car papers with lots of full-color pie charts "proving" the astronomical amounts of money you're going to save on future heating and cooling costs and bragging about the enormous amount of tax credit the government is going to gift you with. Those people -- and I saw quite a few -- you can rest assured, are shysters. I was lucky to know the most excellent Olli (President of Finn Pro Painters), and through him, to come to know Owen (owner of American Insulation), or I would have probably gone with one of the shysters, since they were all giving around the same price quotes. Phew! I'm so happy I persisted in my dogged search for someone I got a good gut feeling about. It came as no surprise to me when I saw that his family-operated company is consistently ranked "A+" by the Better Business Bureau. They were truly wonderful!

Anyway, I snapped a few "before" photos of my roof, including this one:

...and then Owen arrived. He apologized profusely again for missing our previous appointment, and I gave him my condolences again about losing his father.

Then he got down to business: he climbed up on a ladder and inspected my attic, he walked around the house checking out my wall thicknesses, he stood on another ladder outside and sussed out my roof and chimney...meanwhile, Ayize and I weeded the garden.

When he was all done, he beckoned me to walk with him while he talked. He's a really cool character like that -- just a truly down-to-earth, kind-hearted, soft-spoken guy. First, he gave me the good news: his insulation estimate. He recommended blowing in insulation to the recommended level for Illinois houses of my age, just as the others had, and he used the same equipment and same insulating material as everyone else. Only, he cost -- as I said -- less than 1/6 of everyone else. I was astounded. I showed him some of my other slick, glossy pie-chart-covered paper printouts and we had a good laugh. Then, he broke what he called "the bad news", which was really -- in my estimation -- great news. I had no louvers in my attic and no roof vents (louvers are those slatted window-type things fitted into attic spaces that you can see from outside almost any house, and they provide cross-currents of air flow through an attic space; air vents usually look like little mushroom caps or squat, square pieces of metal and they allow air, summer heat, and moisture to escape out of the attic space). Therefore, I had approximately zero attic space ventilation apart from the aged chimney. Yikes!

But I considered this great news because I had completely overlooked this issue, as had the other shyster estimators who had come to the house. My wonderful guys from North Shore Electric had also mentioned venting issues with the attic, but they weren't well-versed enough in insulation to recommend a solution, and hadn't known anyone reliable that I could use -- though they were around for a few of the earlier scam-artist estimates and their jaws were practically dropping open at the car-salesman attitude and sky-high price tags these guys presented with.

Ay any rate, Owen was now providing me with answers to the questions I'd forgotten to ask, in all the house hubbub I'd been wading through for the past month. I was thrilled!

And when he quoted me a price for the three custom-cut louvers that would be required to be built and installed to replace the non-standard size of what was actually there beforehand (this picture is hard to make out, but there were just three sealed glass squares in the attic before, yikes), plus the cost of the four air vents they would need to buy and install, I was amazed -- it really was that low. I could hardly believe my luck in finding these folks!

We shook hands to seal the deal and made a date for the work to be done. I was overjoyed and relieved!

Afterwards, I ended up spending the entire day at the hospital, because I went in for a simple procedure and it turned into a big ordeal, almost ending in surgery under general anesthetic. Ugh! Long, sordid story.

But anyway -- once I was all better, I was happy to escape and come home!

We went by my sister Akari's house to see my nieces, madison and Sophie, and to play. I was too exhausted to entertain Ayize anymore and the girls were happy to "babysit" for awhile. I'm so lucky!

There had been a Scholastic book sale at their elementary school that day, so my sister read the kids a funny story and they also listened with rapt attention while eating their dessert (ice cream).

Ayize was still clueless about ice cream at that point, so he threw a handful of goldfish on top of his scoop of mint chocolate chip and used the spoon to fish them out. They did have some dollops of ice cream attached to them (ewwww), but for the most part, he pretty much ignored the majority of the sweet treat itself. Go figure!

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Tuesday, April 20

We started our day with a trip to the gorgeous Lovelace Park, where our friend Nina was coming to play. She was in town with her hubby, three-year-old, and new baby, who I had yet to meet. Very exciting!

But first, as I sipped my coffee and played with Ayize in the sandbox, I was dismayed to see him joyously make a discovery in the sand...a fecal loop. Ugh!

Nina and baby Emmett in the Ergo. Mom enjoyed the very-jolly platform swing there!

Emmett watching the big boys snack and make funny faces at the picnic table, tee hee!

In the afternoon, Ayize and I headed to Currey Park (the name of the playground adjacent to the Chiaravalle Montessori). We had to make a quick pit stop at North Shore Electric, though, to drop off the remainder of my bill.

We were thrilled to see that Eniz (right) and Casey (left) were at the shop, and they were sweet enough to pose by this sculpture -- made by the owner of NSE, Brian Lamberg, in his spare time! -- so I could add them to this blog. They were such a huge, wonderful part of our "new homeowner" experience. Thanks again, guys!

Then it was onwards to the park.

Jonah McJ was "in uniform", i.e. wearing an item from his beloved Cubs wardrobe.

Lukey's grinning mug greeted us upon his arrival.

Angelic baby Olivia, asleep in her Ergo.

Brady busily explaining to me about what he's doing with these sticks.

Brianna happily scooping sand. The kids were thrilled to be outside, even if it was a bit nippy.

Luke, Jonah McJ and Ayize had a sudden attack of the springtime crazies and started rolling over and over in the sandbox, giggling like crazy!

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Wednesday, April 21

We spent a very jolly, very active morning in our Wiggleworms class. Afterwards, Ayize and Greta ran around the church building grounds...

...and Jonah joined in, not long after!

That afternoon, we met Tamara and Brianna at the library, and the kids had a great time playing with these flexible plastic carry-all baskets. They toted trains, wooden blocks from the shape table, select books, well-worn plastic wild animals, Colorforms, and a couple of baby dolls.

When we got home, we found a housewarming gift from Grandma: this lime green flexible plastic carry-all basket from the Japanese market for hauling laundry up and down to the basement. That woman must be psychic!

Ayize was thrilled! He decided there was only one thing left that hadn't yet been toted...

himself.

I obligingly carried him all over the house, laughing.

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Thursday, April 22

Yet more humorous uses for common household items.

I had bought this to strain pasta at our new house, but he had other designs for it.

After a quick breakfast, we flew to the new house to meet Janice Cha, my longtime co-worker at CARE (the volunteer arm of the Evanston Animal Shelter). She had managed to find a gorgeous dark wood dining table, with two additional leaves for extra guests, and four decorative accompanying armchairs with tie-back seat cushions, for our dining room! And this was just the beginning of Janice's amazing contributions and "matchmaking" for our new digs...but more on that later!!

Anyway, Janice and her lovely friend had already arrived as we pulled up, and they lugged the table and chairs in, to boot (I was hardly any help as I tried to wrangle an excited Ayize out of the way, lest he knock his domepiece on a fast-moving portion of the heavy table). We assembled the whole set in the dining room and Janice showed me how to add the leaves.

Sooooo wonderful! And a lovely match for our home! Here, Ayize did his best Vanna White impression as he proudly shows off his new dining room set.

Thanks, Janice!!!

Another view of our dining room. I was so excited!

The two leaves, propped up on the wall below Ayize's big Sedona photo, waiting on the sidelines to be stored in our closet in anticipation of our first big dinner!

Later that morning, we met Talya and Kayla at Raymond Park. Coincidentally, Kai's preschool class came there to play. Ayize was thrilled to see "my Kai"...but Kai looked even more excited to see Ayize!

Her teacher, not realizing we knew each other, came racing towards Kai, nervously hollering, "Kai, put that baby down...hello, anyone? Who's baby is this??" Talya and I were dying laughing.

Kai asked us to come to her classroom to watch her -- it was her day to do Show and Tell. Soooo cute -- she showed some stuffed animals, then "telled" about a past trip to Disney World.

Post-nap, we met Jeanine and Brady at Maple Park. Brady enjoyed just "hanging out"!

The the boys discovered this memorial at the base of a tree and took turns "reading" it. In fact, they got so into reading it, that it almost caused a fight between them -- Jeanine and I literally had to calm them down and make them take turns "reading".

Ayize claimed that it read, "Thomas Percy Salty choo choos go over dere." Brady said that it read, "This tree is very important because...well, just because it does construction!" We were trying to keep straight faces on, but clearly, that task was almost impossible.

Dinner time crept up on us in a hurry. Ayize waved goodbye to Brady, who answered, "See ya later!" As they walked away, I heard him ask Jeanine if we were going to play again soon.

Such a sweet moment. I'm so happy that Ayize has such wonderful friends!

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Friday, April 23

We hit a makeup class for Wiggleworms, and pals Greta and Henry were so adorable, dancing together.

Lukey hugged mama Ashley, and new sister Olivia, at the same time! Multi-tasking at its finest.

After class, Jeanine and I walked with Brady and Ayize to nearby Triangle Park to play. Hard to believe our boys still had tons of gas in their tanks, even after the insane antics they engaged in for the full forty-five minutes of our music class (you don't even want to know...)

Next stop: our new house. I was thrilled to see my garden plaque had come home! It was propped up on my back porch, much to my surprise. It'd been accidentally broken by my roofers way back when, and they'd promised to repair and return it. Some time had passed, so I was getting a bit worried. I had called the office to ask, but hadn't heard anything back.

And now, here it was, back in (mostly) one piece (minus a few dings and plus a few white spots). Hurrah!

My peonies were filled with promise.

The guys from American Insulation were finishing up just as I arrived. I signed off on the paperwork and we shook hands. I thanked them over and over. They really did a beautiful job on the custom-building and installing of my new louvers (one of them pictured here)...

...and on my air vents (a couple of them pictured here).

I was absolutely thrilled to have ventilation in my attic again, and to have the reassurance of quality work and honest folks behind it. Having come this far, I was starting to see that true honesty and quality are too often a rare thing in the home improvement industry these days.

Thanks again, Owen & co. You guys totally rocked it!

Another view of one of my new louvers, and beside it, my newish air vent (installed by my awesome electricians, for the bathroom fan). With all this new and exciting ventilation going on, I was walking on air (ha ha ha pardon the bad pun)!

Post-nap, we headed to The Family Room where pals Gretchen and Tony were hosting a spectacular potty party for big boy Henry. The party was amazing -- so many Eat-Play-Love friends gathered in one fun place (the FR is basically an awesome indoor playground); delicious food (amazing Sarpino's pizzas, and snacks, cookies, and cakes galore); and I had the pleasure of being the event's "official" photographer!

I took the liberty of snagging a few group shots of my (adult) pals -- much to the chagrin, I'm sure, of our playgroup mamas -- but (a) they were properly warned in advance, and (b) hey, I had an excuse! I'm the official photographer, bada bing, bada boom. LOL

So pictured here are three of my nearest and dearest gals: Liz, Tamara, and Jeanine...

...and here are three more: Mollie, Rebecca and Ashley. Gretchen escaped both photos but had earned her get-out-of-jail pass because she and Tony posed for some individual pics!

And here are the kids, having a blast.

Colin and Jonah holding a primal scream session...

...Brady, the little rock star...

...Ayize, doing his best Jack Nicholson in The Shining...

...Brianna, looking appropriately frightened by my attire and typically-insane attitude (credit to this lovely snapshot goes to Frau Tamara, danke schon)...

...Henry leading the pack in a rousing game of smash-the-mats...

...and the next incarnation of the mat-games, scooching around them like cowboys.

Sadly, the evening drew to a close. The cowboys and cowgirls took a two-second breather, so I seized my moment for this single still shot.

Everyone said their goodbyes and we thanked Gretchen profusely for a rocking good time.

Then we headed down the street to Nyika's house for another dollop of playtime with Kai and Kayla, plus dinner together. Kayla had us all cracking up with this crazy "hoop skirt"! I don't know what it actually was (a lampshade??) but she looked utterly adorable parading around the house on tiptoes, with her bouncy belle-of-the-ball skirt floating around her like a fallen halo! Not to be outdone, Kai affixed "princess streamers" to her hair. Even the doll -- and even the doll's doll for gosh sakes -- got dolled up. If you follow what I'm sayin!

Everybody piled into my lap for this picture, although Ayize half-tumbled off just before Nyika shot this photo. Then it was time for Nyika's cheese-tortellini-and-alfredo-sauce dinner (my mouth is starting to water just thinking of it, yum yum) plus a generous side of Daryle's delicious roasted corn.

Please pass the butter.

The perfect end to a perfect day!

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Saturday, April 24

We met Tamara and Brianna at Prairie View Park, one of our fave playgrounds, in Morton Grove. Ayize took a bumpy ride down this pseudo-slide.

The two kids had a blast playing Ring Around the Rosie on this pole in the center of the sandbox.

Post-nap, Ayize and I made a pit stop at the animal shelter to pick up cases of dog food. I snapped this shot of Linda Gelb, CARE's President, greeting one of eight or so pit bulls who were out being walked on the grounds. Every single one was adorable, sweet-natured, and filled with typical pitty tail-wagging enthusiasm. It took everything I had to drive away without taking one (or all) home. Sigh.

Next stop: the Skokie Library, where we met Nyika, Kai and Kayla for some fun in the children's playroom. The kids cooked up a veritable storm!

Later, I thought we were gonna get kicked out when the kids spontaneously started this crazy beanbag-hop game! Fortunately, we were able to nip it in the bud, and with apologies to a cranky librarian, we were on our way. (Hey, we were leaving anyway!)

That night, old pal Liza Z and I headed to the new house so she could check it out. After a quick tour of the unfurnished interior, we headed out to the yard. It was a perfectly balmy spring evening, not too warm or cool, and a brisk breeze floating through the yard every few moments. We heard the distant vibrations of thunder though, so we scurried onwards to dinner at El Tipico.

Not long into our meal, the heavens opened and torrents of rain came down. Then the wind started, and it was so powerful that it sent these Smoker's Oasis things (heavy plastic cigarette butt disposals, weighted down with sand -- hard to see in the photo but this was what they looked like as they flew past our table's window) hurtling across the parking lot. One almost hit my car. A serious storm, indeed!

Got home and found even the fish had been frightened -- he was hiding out in his castle!

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Sunday, April 25

A peaceful Sunday early morning spent hanging out around downtown Evanston. Ayize and I strolled to the now-defunct, sorely-missed Italian Coffee Bar (waaaaaah!) first for a delicious Mexican hot chocolate, then splish-splashed our way to Raymond Park so that he could get his frolic on and I could get my caffeine on.

Next stop, Art + Science hair salon, where my buddy Betty kindly gives me complimentary neck trims whenever I get overly-mulletized.

Finally, we headed back to our new house. Ayize happily donned his froggy galoshes again to "help" me take out the trash and recycling (a thousand thank yous to pal Mollie who rescued these nearly-new rubbers from her neighbor's trash bin)!

But before we could make our way to the alley, we stopped short at the sight of our flower. Not because this lone ranger of a white blossom had only recently bloomed, and we liked to check her "progress", but because a brand-new butterfly (moth?) was perched atop the flower's head, wings just unfurled, still green and drying in the morning breezes. Very cool!

Another peek at our peonies. Their little button buds were almost bursting with pink and fuchsia promise!

A lovely surprise awaited us as we entered the back of our garden: a pack of tulips had bloomed, seemingly overnight, along the border fence separating our backyard from the alley! Ayize paused to do some dramatic smelling. Their scent was heavenly, though!

A close-up of our yellow yield. Hurrah!

Ayize awoke from his afternoon nap just as the rain returned. Ugh. We were super sick of our usual free, indoor haunts, so I decided a splurge was in order. We had a 50% off coupon at Jump Zone, so we tooled that-aways, and for a mere four bucks, we spent a super-fun few hours climbing, sliding, bouncing, jumping...