The roof is done!

The roof is all finished!
It's actually been done for more than a week but there were a bunch of loose ends to tie up.

Here it is when they first started


Here it is halfway through.


And the finished product.


I think it looks really nice, they did a good job. Unfortunately some crazy stuff happened while they were working on it.
Two of our newish bushes were crushed and killed. They're two years old and survived the winter where we got tons of really heavy snow. I have no idea what they could have done to kill them but they did a very thorough job of it. And then they stuck the broken off branches back in the ground so they would still look like a bush.
They also broke two blocks in the retaining wall. Then flipped the one over so that the broken part wasn't as visible and replaced the other with a block that doesn't match the wall.
And the third issue was how little marks of tar got all over the siding where the shingles hit it after they were thrown off the roof.

We brought the issues up to the owner of the company so he reduced the price of the roof to pay for the bushes and had the guys come back to clean the tar off the siding. He's not going to do anything about the wall but we didn't ask him to, it's in pretty bad shape and we don't really care since it will need to be replaced in the near future.

The guys had to clean the house twice to get all the tar off but it looks much better now. Probably better than it did before they started.

We're really glad they took care of the damage but a little annoyed that the guys tried to hide the problems rather than bringing them to our attention. We understand that things happen when you do home improvements. It made us more mad that they didn't say anything than if they had come to us to start with.

But right now, all's well that ends well.

Satin Sheets

We have a set of satin sheets. I think I got them at a black Friday sale several years ago. They're really nice and warm in the winter time once you get past that first super cold minute.

We didn't use them last winter because I was pregnant...

Tangent - I read a suggestion somewhere about using satin sheets when you're pregnant 'cause it makes it easier to slide in and out of bed. I guess they were forgetting the whole pregnant ladies get really hot thing.

Anyhow.

JR suggested we put them on the bed before it got too warm to use them so I pulled them out last week.
I don't remember them being such a huge pain. The pillows were sliding out from under my head and the blankets were sliding all over the bed, they even made my back hurt trying to sleep on them. It was awful. I think we had them on there for 3 nights before we couldn't take it anymore and switched to the regular cotton sheets.

Then, on top of that, they were super hard to fold and when I carried them upstairs in a stack they just started sliding to the floor.

Maybe we'll try again in two more years.

Aren't I clever!

I had to buy Kaida some stuff from Babies R Us, including waterproof pads (that kid pees on the changing table several times a day). The pads and sleep sacks came in those heavy duty plastic envelopes. The kind with snaps that have a little hanger for display purposes.

I tried to think of something to do with them since they're pretty sturdy but I came up blank so I tossed them in the waste basket. But later that night I remembered all of the shoes that have been passed down to Kaida. They've been sitting in a shopping bag on the floor of her nursery for a long time.

These plastic envelopes seemed like the perfect solution so I dug them out of the trash and put them to use.

I'm so resourceful.

Blood

Today I gave blood.

There was a blood drive at church so I signed up. I haven't given blood since college. The main reason being that the Red Cross doesn't operate blood donation sites here, just blood drives. I looked them up right after we got married but couldn't find anything. A couple years after that I heard about a drive in the office park I was working at so I went to try to donate there. That's where I found out that Central Blood Bank does the collection in and around Pittsburgh. And that you can't donate blood until a year after you've visited the ruins in Mexico because of the chance of malaria.

I guess after that I didn't think about it again, I still didn't know where to go, and I had a job. And then I had a baby.

But now that I've donated with Central Blood Bank I'm sure they'll start hounding me and I'll learn all about the places I can go to donate.

Anyway. I don't remember it being quite so draining. I mean, I couldn't play in a soccer game after donating but I could walk up some stairs and stand around. After I carried Kaida upstairs to change her diaper I had to sit down. I guess I'm getting old. And it is lame.

So I think I've only donated at two other blood drives before (I would normally just go to one of the Red Cross's permanent sites) but this still seemed a little disorganized to me. I had an appointment for 11. I was 10 minutes early. They took me back to do my questions at 11:40ish. Why did I make an appointment if they were just going to take all the walk-ins ahead of me?

And their instructions weren't very clear. I understand that they say the same instructions a hundred times a day. But I only hear them once and if you're walking away from me and pointing at things while I'm on the other side of a wall from you, your meaning is not going to come across very well.

Maybe Blood Drives get the B-Team, especailly weekend blood drives.

I'm going to get some water now, and go to sleep.