Tight spaces!

More adventures in landlording; we were in bed at a bed and breakfast when we got a call that one of our furnaces was out. Thank goodness for Home Service Plus; they came out and fixed it. Twice, because the first fix wasn't quite right.

And then we got a text that the water had stopped flowing in a half bath. Fortunately, they have more than one bathroom in that house, so it wasn't a total emergency. Turns out that half bath is over a crawl space, and one that was well insulated to keep heat from leaking into it from the basement. Seriously people; don't put plumbing on uninsulated exterior walls, especially when it passes through an uninsulated crawl space first.

P got to thaw out the pipes, since I had places to be. But I got there just in time to help out with the heat tape.

So I got to army crawl up into this tiny space, which was just big enough for a half-pint sized lady to squeeze in to. It made me grateful I had crossed "spelunker" off my list of potential careers. And after 30 minutes of scraping my knuckles and getting fiberglass insulation in my sleeves, the problem was solved!

Questionable decisions!

In the process of fixing up the Queen house, I may have made some questionable choices. Mostly when Perry wasn't there to rescue me or tell me that perhaps I should reconsider my methods.

So, I had to paint the back entryway, which has a set of stairs to the basement. I had to paint the ceiling, including the part above the bottom of the stairs, which was a pretty serious reach. The extension ladder was too tall, and the a-frame was almost tall enough.

So, I had to improvise a little bit. I stepped back and remembered that I had a step ladder. And I put 2 and 2 together....

Double ladder! Always a good idea to balance a ladder on another ladder. Never the wrong choice. But it worked. And the ceiling got painted, and it looks much better.

I learned some other things too. I already knew that you shouldn't paint yourself into a corner when doing floors, so I didn't make that exact mistake. But I may have glued myself in.... just a little bit.

I did manage to get out of the bathroom, but it involved standing on the tub and bracing myself against the opposite wall, and then jumping the last little bit. But I giggled about it at the time; maybe the glue fumes had something to do with my problem-solving process. And I felt a little like Catherine Zeta-Jones in that laser scene in Entrapment:

With way cooler kneepads.

Winter calm

We're currently on a house-buying hiatus (for another couple of months at least), and all the houses have people in them. So, other than a new faucet here and a sheetrock patch there, we're kind of done. Which is a weird feeling.

Yeah. That's the spot.

So, we have time to do other things! Like a quick winter camping trip on the shortest day of the year. We were in a little state park cabin but nearly had to spend the night in the woods because we went a little bit too far out on our trek and the light ran out.

Cool hat selfie!

And we've been expanding the rock collection. Turns out grandpa Walt has a pretty impressive pile of rocks, which he is more than willing to share with anyone silly enough to want them. Everybody's got a hobby.

And the craziest thing of all is that we cancelled the internet. Yep, no internet at home. Except on our phones, of course, so we're not going to start twitching from the lack of email access. But cell coverage is so spotty over North that it's no fun at all to scroll down Facebook anymore. The theory is that we'll get way more things done in our lives; I'll keep you all posted!