Argiope aurantia

We have a lot of spiders here. This is an old house, on the edge of town, with owners who don't go "above and beyond" in their yard maintenance. Generally we avoid getting bitten by being careful with our behavior when we encounter them. Pretty much, if it comes in the house it is fair game, but is very likely to be safe if it stays outside, even in the windows.

Occasionally it makes for a nice home school lesson.

I present for your enjoyment a picture of a lovely specimen of Argiope aurantia.

This is a female. Males are not so large nor so colorful. These are also referred to as the Common Garden Spider and the St. Andrews Cross Spider (because the way they tend to sit makes an X with their legs.) They are found all over North America and even as far south as Central America. They are not agressive and their bite is not dangerous.

Notice the thicker strips in her web? Those are called stabilimenta. Webs with stabilimenta tend to catch fewer insects, but get destroyed less by birds bungling into them. There was a web on the front porch before I dug out the ivy that had a very pronounced zig-zag stabilimenta through the middle. I doubt this is the same spider, though. 180 degrees around the house is a whole other world when you are a 2 inch arachnid.

My lovely doesn't have to worry much about birds flying into her web, being within an inch of our picture window. I imagine the lights at night draw insects to her. We have had tree frogs on our front porch taking advantage of similar conditions there.

To show the impressive size of my new pet (LOL) I took a pic with my fingers near her. Of course, there is glass between us. Harmless or not, I am not getting my digits this close without the glass.


I also took a pic trying to make her look like a 5 foot spider in a tree. It wasn't easy to get the focus to work, so it doesn't quite look right. It was fun anyway.

Blech!

There is a bathroom in my house that I never use.
#1, I rarely go downstairs.
#2, It has been broken for a while. The toilet is wonky and we haven't been able to spare the couple of hundred $ to hire the plumber. No biggie, we have two other bathrooms.

Never using this restroom has proven to be a HUGE problem this afternoon.

I have been downstairs for the last few days trying to catch up on the mountain of laundry that leaving that chore to the minions doesn't seem to get done. This evening, as I was moving the queue of baskets closer to the laundry room, I happened to catch a glimpse of something odd out of the corner of my eye.

The ceiling in the unused bathroom is turning black.

The aforementioned area of ceiling is directly under the shower in our master bath upstairs. You can imagine my reaction.

What the ...?! Son of a...!! (that is "heck" and "gun" for those of you who don't know me in person.)

Needless to say, I was feeling a bit gloomy as this evidence of my "new" house's true age reared its ugly head. Leaky pipes somewhere under the shower. We are probably going to have to tear out the whole floor/ceiling to get this fixed. (And by "we" I mean the contractor my husband and I hire.)

I have started to cheer up a bit since the realization first hit.

#1, before the end of the year we should have enough money (end of year bonus) to cover the repairs. (and tax refund will definitely cover it if the bonus doesn't)

#2, I HATE our master bath. It is TINY. I never shower in there. (I am not TINY.) The shower is smaller than an old fashioned phone booth. The entire bathroom is smaller than...hmm...I can't think of anything comparable...a department store dressing room, maybe?

Why does that cheer me up? you ask. Well, that side of our bedroom has two doors, the bathroom and a walk-in closet. The closet is just as deep as the bathroom, just separated by a wall...and if we are going to have to rip the floor / bathroom to the guts...Do you see where I am going with this? I don't really NEED a walk-in closet.

That moldy/algae-ish whatever it is that has been growing under our secret leak could be just the push we need to do some nice minor remodeling.

PS- My daughter, who is in charge is cleaning the cat litter box in the downstairs bathroom, said she noticed the spreading blackness, but didn't know what it was so didn't think it was necessary to notify an adult. grrrrrr, we are definitely going to have a talk...

Procrastination at all time high

Well, maybe that should be "all time low" since I have finally been getting to work.

When we moved in in April I decided to have the garage be our classroom. It is just the right size, has 3 desks built onto one wall, came with a big book shelf, was carpetted and had heating/AC. We moved the school stuff in, one of our tables, the biggest fish tank...and a lot of junk that had no where else to go. That was problem number 1. There was so much junk, put wherever, that I said could be put away later, that having anything like a lesson was impossible. School since then has been done at the dining table after a nice round of "go get this book" or "go to the garage and see if you can find a pencil." Some days there was no school at all, just because.

Yesterday I decided I had had enough. We needed to move all of the junk that did manage to make it into the house and had cluttered up my craft room and move it to the garage and move the school stuff to the craft room. That way it would be near where we spent our days anyway. DH suggested I just move the laptop to the garage and spend my computer time on it there instead of at my desk upstairs. Brilliant.

That saved us a heck of a lot of work. Although, the garage was in such a disarray that it has taken most of the afternoon to make it usable. Still, easier than moving all that stuff here and there.

My main trouble is that the laptop is Vista and it is taking some getting used to. I am sure I will manage.

Today's Picture from My Life- the park near my in-laws' house. In the morning, I believe.

The New House

Here is the new house before we moved in. Mom and the girls included. You can see that most of the front yard is taken up by parking lot. The house was used as a business building for the last 10 years. I suppose I could eventually reclaim the yard, but then again, I have found having a parking lot to be incredibly convenient, even when I don't have 20 cars visiting.


Big fireplace. I cannot wait to decorate for Christmas. But then again, I always love decorating for the holidays.


The kitchen, BEFORE we moved in (Read- It is much messier now.)


The kitchen from downstairs.


Brick planter-thing. This house was built in 1968 and is a little weird. I am planning to cover the brick top with plywood and put my 55 gallon fish tank here.


This is in the garage. Three little desks built onto the wall. This used to be office space. You better believe it is classroom space now, Baby! (or will be once I get it set up right)

House Ahoy!

Well, we have not closed yet, but we have been notified that that is pretty much a formality (my paraphrasing) so WOOT! WOOHOO!

We are kicking the moving into high gear starting tomorrow and renting a truck probably next Saturday to get the deal done. Yay!

I am not all that pleased to lose my anniversary to a move, but DH says we can have a make up anniversary later. You better believe I will hold him to it.

What an anniversary present! A house! Yay!

Yada yada

Sorry the blog has be so quiet lately. We have been moving stuff over to the new house DESPITE not having closed yet. (I know, I know...) The seller said that if we were certain we would be getting the mortgage, he was ok with us moving some stuff over. DH says he is certain we will be approved, so we schlep boxes across town. Nothing huge, nothing that can't be moved out again if the worst should happen, nothing nailed to the walls...I think we're good. It will definitely help having gotten a head start once the approval does come in and we only have a couple of weeks to get out by the end of the month.

No Panic

DH said that as far as he could tell, after talking with the Churchill Mortgage
guy, we are almost definitely getting the loan. So, about 90% done with house shopping then.

We took Mom by to show her the place. She had been there when it was DH's office, but only just to pop in and pick him up one time a long time ago. It looks very different now without all the computer desks, etc. I took some pictures to show interested parties over the net, like you and people I know from forums and old friends in Alabama, etc.

If all goes well we should be moving in early April.

Offer MADE and ACCEPTED

The appraisal came back a little over what we could pay, but the owner accepted a lower offer. We could be moving very soon. We need to get the mortgage and then we're in. I love it!

5 bedrooms, 2.5 bath, 2 story, 2 car garage, family room, living room, dining room, huge picture windows, 1 acre yard with lovely old trees and room to play, only 2 miles from DH's office

I'll keep you up to date.

(Pray that the bankers won't be buttheads.)

House Chosen

We have picked out a great house for us. DH is dragging his feet. I think he is nervous about making such a drastic step. I am hoping we can be out of here within the month, but we'll have to wait and see. I'll post some pics of the place once it is ours (fingers crossed)

House Hunting

We found a really great house. It is big enough for us and then some and it isn't too expensive. We should find out in a few days whether we will get the financing. I really hope so. We could be moving in March. How exciting! (I hope I am not sick then.)

The House might SELL

Well, I got home from the Poetry Reading (see below) at about 4pm. There was a message on the machine form the realtor basically saying, "It is 12:30. I am coming by to show the house at 1."

At least by the time I found out there was no reason for me to panic, I had already missed it, lol.

I called her to find out if everything had gone ok and to find out if showing a house twice in a week was a good sign that it would sell quickly.

She said:
1. She has shown the house 3 times.
2. The house has been fine, I should not panic about how it looks, especially since...
3. The people who saw it today told her they were going to go to the bank to find out if they could get the money.

She said they realize we have rights and we aren't going to be kicked out too soon. Still, it is a good thing we already started preparing and planning. This could have hit hard if I had just buried my head in the sand and thought that since the market is so bad that the house would just not sell.

Good thing I made the bed this morning!

House-showing yesterday

If you are wondering why I haven't posted in a while. (I don't think anyone was. No one reads this blog but me.) I had a call from the realtor Monday afternoon to let me know that someone wanted to see the house Tuesday morning at 10. So, I have been cleaning like a mad woman and trying to at least only moderate slobs live here instead of rip-roaring MEGA SLOBS. I think I managed that.

We stuffed all of the dirty laundry into garbage bags and put them in the SUV, lol. Mostly it was the girls' clothes. Today and tomorrow as I am washing them all I am going to make sure that about half (maybe more) go to charity, or friends, or family, or ANYONE who wants them that is not one of my daughters.

DD9 suggested that to make it easier next time someone wants to see the house we should try to keep is as clean as possible in between showings. Brilliant! Why didn't I think of that?

Take a Deep Breath

I just watched a lady I have never seen before pound a For Sale sign into my front yard.

Well, actually, it isn't MY front yard. The front yard actually belongs to my landlady. AND apparently, she has decided to get out of the landlady business.

We are paid up until May, so I am trying not to panic. The housing market sucks right now, so I am trying not to panic. We recently paid off DH's old debts so we MIGHT be able to get a mortgage, so I am trying not to panic.

I am trying not to panic.

I am going to start seriously pitching stuff we don't need around here. But I will hold off on taking the furniture apart. For now.

Things could be worse. I won't panic.