Welcome, I’m Mary Louisa Locke, the author of the USA Today best-selling Victorian San Francisco Mystery series and the Caelestis Science Fiction series. In this daily newsletter, I reflect on my life as an indie author trying to age gracefully, including my struggles to maintain a balanced life, what I listen to, read, and watch for entertainment, and occasional bits of information I’ve gleaned from doing the research for my novels.
In addition, now and again I will provide some of my fiction to read, for free, on this newsletter. Everything is available to anyone who subscribes, but I am always pleased when someone shows their appreciation for the newsletter by upgrading to paid.
Daily Diary, , Day 1340:
I had planned to start this post with a very positive statement about how the remodel is going so well because the asbestos company that came and completely gutted the bathroom down to the studs was very efficient and finished in one day. The plan was that someone was going to come today and check the air quality and if it was fine, then they would be done, even though Monday and Tuesday had been scheduled for any follow up.
However, this morning as I was sitting in the living room reading my morning email, I heard dripping and I went into the den, which is under the bathroom, and first noticed that there was an odd pattern of water on the back patio. So when my husband came down, I asked him if this was normal for when we have a foggy morning which is what this morning was like.
But as he was looking at it, I noticed that there was a wet spot in the middle of the den floor and then looked up and discovered that there were three large wet spots on the ceiling, one of which was dripping onto the floor. We called the remodel company and my husband shut off the water from outside, which stopped the immediate drip.
I don’t think it started last night because we sat in that room, although I suppose it’s possible, if there was a small leak and it had all night to find its way down that could be happening. It also could be since we both took showers this morning that somehow that had some effect on the sealed pipes.
It is now several hours later, the diagnosis is that one of the caps on the plumbing didn’t hold, and now a man from the asbestos removal company is here to set up major dehumidifiers upstairs and down in the den. Obviously getting everything dry is first step. And it sounds as if they are going to have to replace the dry wall in the ceiling that got wet. The air quality person is coming this afternoon. Suddenly it is good that we have those extra days before the next stage is supposed to start.
Thankfully, neither my husband nor I are the type to get angry or terribly upset about something like this. We didn’t cause it, we can trust that the companies involved with take care of it, and hope that it doesn’t delay the rest of the project or cause any problems down the road.
Meanwhile, yesterday was another day where I took my four short walks and where the knee was often painful by the end of the walk but then calmed down pretty quickly. My finger is also continuing to heal and only hurting occasionally when I’m not careful about how I use it.
I did do yoga this morning, and have taken my first walk. I will probably have a normally scheduled Friday phone call and nothing else in particular has been scheduled for today. So my plan is to finish this post, then work on the third part of my post on why I wrote a prequel short story for the historical mystery series, and work on some of a very long delayed analysis of sales over the last six months. I usually do this every month, but I got behind, and then it seemed so overwhelming I didn’t try to catch up. This means I have August of last year through March of this year to get caught up on!!! But it sounds like a good plan for the next couple of days with loud humidifiers and workmen in the house.
Here is a cute lawn ornament.
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And then the other shoe dropped!
Good for you and Jim having such a good attitude about this. Also great that you are looking for all of the positives. I think most homeowners know that sick feeling of "oh, no, there is water coming through the floor."