Window Replacement - A Photo Blog for Today

Yesterday was window day. We pulled out both the extension ladder and my adjustable ladder from the garage and set them up on opposite sides of the window. DH had gotten a new glass sheet cut at the hardware store (they did a CRAPPY job), and we were reusing the aluminum framing from the old window on the new pane. 

This is a photo blog post today - pictures and descriptions only. Easy, peasy - LOL. 

#1 - The wood panel has been removed 
and as he removed it, he started putting in 
some new plastic tabs for the new window 
pane. My ladder is on the right, you 
can see the top of the extension ladder on the 
left. If you recall, this is the upper section of 
the house, so ladders were essential. There's 
a large bush directly in front of the window 
which made reaching to where we needed to 
work challenging in some cases. 

Here we've put the new glass panel into place. 
It fit fine (a little short, but fine) from top to 
bottom, but was a total PITA to get in from left 
to right. It took a LOT of pushing to get 
everything positioned correctly, and DH fully 
admits, after working on it, that we NEED new 
windows. THAT will be expensive! 

Here we're almost finished. This time I'm on 
the extension ladder and he's on mine. You 
can see that there's a rather large gap at 
the top. We ended up cutting some clear 
plexiglass tabs and using those instead of 
the white plastic tabs. The window won't 
be going anywhere now. You can also see 
how VERY bad the window frames are - they 
really need replacement. 

This Grandmother Dragonfly was watching us 
from the new fencing for more than an hour. She 
was perfectly content to just sit in the sun and 
bask. She was quite large - we get very big 
dragonflies up here. I'd estimate her length at 
about three inches and her wingspan at 
about three inches as well. She was perfectly 
contented to let the "stupid hoomans" do their 
thing on the house. LOL

Just to the right of my ladder is the drop down 
to the lower patio area. The windows to the left 
are the computer room windows, and then everything 
takes a steep drop down to the den windows 
and back patio door. See the green cage in 
the center front? That's where my pea trellis is. 
We've been having a big problem with critters 
digging up our peas, so DH finally broke down 
on Friday and put a cage around them. Hopefully 
they'll get a chance to grow, now. 

So, that was our Sunday. Originally we were going to clean the gutters from the patio side too (since we had the extension ladder out) but, our one-hour window replacement turned into a three-hour major chore, and we decided to skip the gutter cleaning. We'll probably regret that decision, but it seemed wise at the time - LOL. 

Here's hoping you have a fantastic Monday. We're in the middle of thunderstorms, so I suspect people are swimming indoors today and everyone will be disappointed - at least until noon or so. I'm grateful that I don't swim on Mondays, so I missed getting caught by the rain and lightning this time around. Have a glorious day and I'll be back tomorrow. Slava Ukraini. 

A Little Bit of This and a Little Bit of That - Random Thoughts on a Wednesday

Apparently DH was quite disturbed by the change in lighting afforded by half of his western window being blocked by a sheet of plywood, because yesterday he went to the local home improvement store and had them cut a new glass pane to measurements he gave them. He's got new set screws and plastic tabs also, and said that replacing the window pane will be a Sunday job. *sigh* I'm only going to hope that it goes smoothly. I don't want to be picking up more pieces of glass from around my zucchini patch. 

Apparently the lack of appropriate lighting is 
driving DH a bit crazy. He bought some glass and 
mounting screws and brackets yesterday, and 
we'll be replacing the wooden board with a pane 
of glass instead. Huzzah. My Sunday tasks have 
been assigned. LOL

Yesterday was a busy day at the shop, made busier by the fact that I had a nice Etsy order from a previous customer that I had somehow missed. I immediately got to work on the sale and managed to get it processed and invoiced and out in the mail on my way home last night, sending a note of apology for the slight delay to the customer. I know better - I should be checking my online sales every day. But life got in the way. I think it actually turned out a bit better, however, because I was working with Chickie, which meant she could deal with 90% of the customers and I could concentrate on the sale. 

I use Etsy to sell my Swarovski 
crystals. Right now, I think I only 
have the cubes live. I should probably 
get the rounds and bicones up there as 
well. Gee ... more work to do - LOL. 

Today I actually slept until my alarm went off. It's going to make writing and posting my daily blog a bit more rushed, but I'm 100% in favor of that. I've been skimping on my sleep, or had too many things waking me early. For someone whose alarm goes off at 3:00 am, getting up earlier is NOT a good thing. So it was a delight to realize that I'll be rushed for all the right reasons today. I actually got my 5-1/2 hours of sleep. Huzzah! 

I know I'll be cooking chicken for dinner 
tonight - it's Wednesday. But, that will 
take me through Wednesday and Thursday, 
but leave me without dinners starting on 
Friday. I can cook on Friday, but what 
should I cook? Time to go through my 
recipes and make up my mind on meals. 

So it's a "day off" today, and cooking is on the agenda. I have a totally BARE side of the refrigerator, and that won't do. I need to figure out what I want to actually make to eat for the next week. I have absolutely NO idea of what, though. Nothing is really hitting me right now. I can think about it while I swim, though, and enjoy the sunrise in the pool. Yesterday's sunrise, through the rainclouds, was absolutely SPECTACULAR. I doubt I'll be that lucky two days in a row, although every day is a good day when I meet the sun while swimming outdoors. Have a great Wednesday and I'll be back tomorrow. Slava Ukraini. 

The Third Window Photo and What I Am Reading Now

Yesterday was a day with no drama, for a change. I did have a chance to get outside early and take a photo of the broken/boarded window to share. He cut the wood to the same size at the frame into which the glass had fit. He was a bit surprised to realize there was still one pane of glass int the window - they were double-glazed. I had known that, which was one reason I wasn't SUPER concerned about the broken window. Still, with wooden tabs screwed into the frame, it seems quite secure, even in our windstorms. I'm not sure it would survive a tornado, but then again, I'm not sure if the whole house would survive one of those if it was a direct hit. 

Having half of the window boarded up really 
does change the light quality in the room. It's 
going to drive DH a bit crazy. Yesterday he was 
up an hour early because he was afraid of 
oversleeping. When he's up early, he's intruding 
into my "quiet time" which makes me a bit 
cranky in return. Still, he did a good repair on 
the window - much better than the plastic that 
I had been suggesting. 

So, at least I'm breathing a little easier. The light change really screwed up his sleep cycle - he was up at 5:00 am instead of between 6:00-6:30. That drove me a bit crazy. The early morning hours are mine - time for me to have my quiet time. He does know, from years of experience, that I'm not going to carry on a conversation first thing in the morning. However, I generally prefer silence. He wakes up and immediately turns on the television which is set to the financial markets. Ick! What a horrid way to start the day. 

The first thing DH does after awakening and closing the 
window (which he can't do right now because it has 
a board over it), is he turns on the TV to the financial 
markets. Of course the volume is high - he can't hear 
well. It's loud and intrusive, and the last thing I want to 
be thinking about the moment I awaken is finances. Ick! 

How do you start your days? I awaken long before the dawn, and after a quick bathroom run, settle down and do 30-90 minutes of meditation in various forms. Something to get my mind calm and blood pressure even before I head to the swimming pool or just start my day in general. I don't have a dog who has to be let out, or a cat mewing for attention. My pets have long crossed that Rainbow Bridge. So I indulge in quiet. I know I won't have much quiet through the remainder of the day, so I soak it in and rest my overactive mine a bit. 

I'm not too sure about whether or not I actually 
like this book so far, but his writing is very 
interesting, and his flow of consciousness 
is everywhere at once. It's a bit exhausting 
to read, his flow reminds me of crowded 
city streets at rush hour - everyone and 
everything moving here and there with 
their own purposes, barely crossing or 
interacting with the others on the same 
street or in the same intersection. 

Then I dive into my day - usually reading whatever book I'm in the middle of with my breakfast. Breakfast comes AFTER whatever exercise I'm doing that day (today it's swimming). I'm currently reading "The Satanic Verses" by Salman Rushdie. I'd heard about the book for a long time, and finally gave into my curiosity. It's ... interesting. Is it worth the muss and fuss? Maybe. I haven't finished it yet. But I am enjoying his writing style in it. Have you read it? What did you think of it? As an author, he's undeniably talented, but his thought processes are a bit challenging to follow. I'm sure everything will be as clear as mud by the end of the book, but it's proving to be an interesting journey. So, I'm off to the pool. It will be a cold run in and out, but the water will be glorious. Have an excellent Tuesday and I'll be back tomorrow. Slava Ukraini. 

Transgender Day of Remembrance and the Window Saga in Pictures

Today is November 20th, also known as Transgender Day of Remembrance. The total number of transgender people killed over the past year is more than 450 people. I can't post everyone's names, but I will link to the Human Rights Council listing of the 46 transgender and gender non-conforming individuals who died since January 1st in the USA. Please allow your thoughts to turn to these people who, world-wide, face a very hard fight for acceptance in their countries. I invite you to click on a random name and look at the photo of that person. This was a vibrant individual who might have made incredible contributions to our world, cut down because of hatred and prejudice against them for NO legitimate reason at all. Here's your link: https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/marking-the-deadliest-year-on-record-human-rights-campaign-announces-release-of-annual-report-on-violence-against-transgender-and-gender-non-conforming-people

Following the recommendation I made above, let me introduce 
you to EJ Boykin, aka Novaa Watson, 23 years old and killed 
in June this year. As happens too often, he was misgendered in 
some of the media and police reports. He lived in Lynchburg, 
Virginia. 

Now, on to the next group, I promised photos of my window repair, so here they are. 

It was a blustery, very cold day. They arrived, carefully 
looked things over and removed the cardboard we had 
over the inside. After looking at the rod iron grating 
we have as well as the actual mounting strips for the 
window, the lead decided that removing the grate might 
not be necessary. 

They removed weatherstripping and caulk from the front, then 
came inside. The second person seemed to be almost 
superfluous, except his job was to hold the pane in place as 
all of the supports were being removed. It actually was a 
pretty important role, but it was freezing cold outside so I'm 
quite sure it wasn't a favorite job. 

After the caulking had been removed, they began pulling 
off the metal weatherstripping. They had pulled out the 
multitude of screws holding the metal in position. Progress 
is being made. LOL

That job of holding the pane into place became more and 
more important as the bracing was removed. Soon the only 
thing holding the pane into position was one skinny very 
young man who (as I told Chickie) should have been 
applying to Hogwart's School of Wizardry because he would 
have fit right in. 

Finally the old pane was removed completely and carried to 
one of the two vans. The goal was to lean it against the van, 
the reality was the pane shattered into thousands of pieces 
on the sidewalk and into the curbside. OOPS! I was relieved 
that hadn't happened when the window was in place, it would 
have been a massive mess. 

After more cleanup and prep work, they were ready to install 
the new pane of glass. Chickie and I were huddled at the front 
of the store, both of us wearing our winter coats. The wind was 
blowing in through the large open space. I was grateful 
it was winter so we didn't get any birds or insects into the 
store through the large opening, but we had to deal
with the cold. Here they are almost 
ready to pick up the new pane and put it into position. 

They very carefully lifted the pane into position, made some 
minor adjustments, and started replacing the metal stripping, 
screwing in new bolts into the pre-drilled holes. I suspect the 
original pane had been there since the 1950's or so, so it was 
a bit of a touchy job, but the worst was the size of the pane - 
84" x 80" - huge! After all of the screws were tightened, the 
lead put silicone sealant all around on the exterior, while 
the younger flunky began collecting and cleaning up the 
glass from the shattered pane. 

It took until early afternoon for the store to warm up again from the 30 minutes or so when we'd had no glass in the window, but eventually things returned to normal. I still need to put up some of the signage that we had removed, but our "OPEN" sign is up, turned on and working. I did that first thing. I went outside later in the afternoon to sweep up some pieces of glass on the sidewalk that had been missed. I decided to ignore the shards in the street. So ... the long saga is almost over. I still need to get the final invoice from the glass company. It wasn't emailed to me yet, so I'll be phoning them on Monday to get that going. I need to send it on to my insurance company. Then I'll consider the saga complete. 

Have a truly excellent weekend and I'll be back early Monday before I run off to the pool. Please, look at that list of people in the beginning of today's post and click on a random name. Just reading about that person will help cement them as a person worthy of respect and someone whose potential will never be realized. Mourn for that person because they deserved a full and rich life. 

Upgraded By Necessity and the Window Saga Wraps Up

I wanted to get a duplicate of my current blender yesterday morning, and the Target website had stated they had two available at the location I used. Unfortunately, although I examined the aisle of blenders very carefully, my specific model was not among them.  I ended up with the next model up - the 1400 Watt instead of the 1200 Watt I had at home. I still get two more drink containers which is handy, and the blade is the same, which is also good because it does a good job. The most important thing was the main pitcher and that was 72 ounces, just what I wanted. It was $40 more *le sigh*, but that can't be helped. I'll start saving for a Vitamix IF they have one with the container size I need. 

I got the Ninja Pro 1400 Watt system. I'm not 100% 
sure if it comes with the food processor bowl on 
the far right or not, I haven't unpacked it yet. I have 
it sitting in the back of my car until later today. I know 
the food processor bowl costs more than $60, so if 
it comes with that, it might be worth the extra $40 
the system cost me. Still, it was an expense I really 
didn't need, especially around the holidays. 

Why is the container size so important? There are a lot of blenders out there, and they have a variety of containers with amounts vastly different. The recipe I've developed for my Ogre Juice (Alkagizer) makes over 72 ounces and fits four storage containers perfectly. Each of the storage containers fills one of my travel glasses perfectly. It means I don't have to be bothered blending every day or two. I can do a batch of four and if I pace things well, I only have to mess my kitchen up one or two times a week. 

This is what my front window bottom had looked like 
after I had the glass company silicone a second sheet 
above the shattered glass. Without that, with our 
lowering temperatures and harsh winds, we probably 
would have completely lost the window before the 
new pane was ready to install. 

We have a new front window, I'm delighted. The guys were at the shop around 9:15 am or so, and got right to work, pulling the weather stripping away from the old glass and removing the old pane from the opening. I had originally been told it would require three people because of the size of the pane, but we only had two, and they seemed to manage just fine ... except when taking the old pane to rest against the side of one of the trucks. 

(I sent some photos to my email to share with all of you, but they haven't come through yet and I have to leave for the pool in 15 minutes. Photos tomorrow if all goes well). 

As soon as they had put the pane against the truck, it shattered, scattering pieces of glass from large to tiny across a wide area. It was quite dramatic and quite the mess as well - LOL. Of course, that left us with no window in that large space. Chickie went back and grabbed our coats. We huddled in our coats for the next half hour while the opening was cleaned and prepped, and the new pane was carefully brought over. 

When they lifted the new pane into position I admit I held my breath. If this had broken at all, we would be stuck with boarding the store up for more than a month while a new pane was being made. Fortunately, they did a great job placing the pane. There is one small spot where I might be getting some air leakage, but I might just caulk that up a little bit to help keep the cold air out. It should be a pretty minor thing. 

The pane looks lovely. I did get our "Hours of Operation" sign updated and mounted in the late afternoon, and I'm re-doing the other signs we need today and mounting them Saturday morning. We also usually have a large "BEADS" sign that we put in the middle of the pane. Right now I left that off, but we'll be replacing that on Saturday also. It brings in a lot of customers, so I think it's important to have it there, even though it blocks full view of the street. 

That was my excitement for Thursday. Today I'll polish the liquid silver I didn't have time to do on Wednesday, work on the new signage for the shop, and do what I can on Stage 4 of my holiday cards. I'm not completely ready to go on all of them, but I can do part of them at least, and start joining the four stages into a single folio. Step-by-step, that's how this goes. I also need to clean the shower, it really needs a good scrub. 

Have an excellent Friday, I'm heading off to the pool for a delightful swim. I'm doing my mile, but I still need to increase my speed. That's what I'll be concentrating on over the next few weeks. Enjoy your day and please, stay healthy and be kind. 

Swimming Thoughts and Window Speculations

I successfully grabbed a 5:00 am swimming slot for tomorrow and Friday, so I'm set for the week. Reservations can only be made 72 hours in advance, and there are a total of 10 open slots for swimming for each slot. People like Jeannie (our Senior Olympics Gold Medal winner) grab two continuous slots - she swims for two hours ... well, closer to 1-1/2 hours since she doesn't rush to get into the pool. Still, we have a total of five lanes in the pool and with a restriction of two people per lane maximum, the total number of swimmers is 10. 

I'm not a fan of chain swimming. I don't think anyone really 
is. When you're dealing with a group of people who swim 
similar times, it's not horrid, but when people are swimming 
who vary in tempo, it can be horribly annoying. 

I admit I find that a relief, although in pre-Covid days, Rosemary and I usually shared a lane, and I can only recall two times when we needed to share with a third person. I really hate chain circling, I think most swimmers aren't fond of it, When you're forced to chain because there are too many swimmers for the allotted lanes, it's rather horrid. You're stuck behind the slower swimmers, or you can attempt to pass, but doing so puts you in the way of the swimmers returning to the start wall. Limiting our numbers to no more than two per lane eliminates that issue completely. 

Now that I'm somewhat comfortable in the water again, it's 
time to start working on technique - fine tuning and 
refining. My kick right now is horrid. I need to work on 
my flutter kick and get the power back into it. I also need 
to refine my arm positions and once again, try to work 
on kick-turns. I'm totally horrid at those. 

I'm not back to full speed or strength yet, by any definition. I have absolutely no power in my legs, they kick out behind me, but they're not doing their job in helping my propulsion. As usual, I can't "dolphin kick" at all because it bothers my back, and about the only way my legs give propulsion is with a frog kick during breast stroke. My arms carry me through both freestyle and backstroke. When I grab my kickboard for a couple of laps with just my feet, I stall out when my shove-off propulsion has diffused. I'll have to look up some exercises for my kicks once I'm caught up with my computer work for today. 

Looking at the window in daylight, before DH did a second 
tape job on the cracks, it's not really great. It's a very large 
pane of glass and it's going to be an expensive replacement. 

I spoke to our insurance company yesterday and they said the window is likely the responsibility of our landlord, but to send them the relevant parts of our lease agreement and photos and they would let us know for sure. I suspect they are right, and I'll probably have to approach our landlord by the end of the week. We get along very well with out landlord - we moved in 1993 or so, do most of our repairs by ourselves, and he has never, in all of that long span of years, raised our rent. He has repainted the interior once, and fixed the roof from leaks several times, did some work on the plumbing, and recommended a good furnace guy to us when our furnace broke mid-winter several years ago. He lives around the corner. His Dad was friends with my father-in-law, which was the "in" we needed to get the property when we needed it. All in all, it's been a great relationship, and I don't want to rock the boat. If necessary, we'll pay for the repair and just expense it on our taxes. 

The best premise is that someone was riding the 
Lime scooter (legally or illegally) and hit the 
join between the sidewalk and our store's apron, 
losing control of the scooter and having it 
strike the window. I don't think the break 
was purposeful, I think it was an accident. 
Still, we'll end up paying the price. *sigh*

So, that's all the news today. Not much going on ... same old, same old - LOL. A few more rivers to ford, but we'll manage to pull our way through them. I hope you have a truly splendid day and I'll be back tomorrow, and please, be kind and stay safe.