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 1341:
As I wrote about yesterday morning, the remodel, which I thought was off to a good start, took a negative direction when we discovered that one of the caps sealing the plumbing in the bathroom didn’t hold, consequently leaked into the plywood over a section of the floor and down the studs to the ceiling over our den. I’m not sure how long the leak had been going on but it was certainly enough to do a lot of damage.
The dripping stopped as soon as my husband cut off the water, people from the remodeling company were there within the hour to assess the damage and ensure the cap was adequately sealed so we could turn the water back on. Then people came from the asbestos removal company, set up a dehumidifier in the bathroom, assessed the damage in the ceiling and by 3:30 in the afternoon they had set up this little plastic containment so they could safely remove most of the den ceiling, and set up a dehumidifier there. About 4:30 the company that checks to make sure that there is no residual lead or asbestos after removal of everything came and spent about 90 minutes gathering up air to test. He assured us that both the bathroom itself and then what he could see in terms of up from the den looking through the hole looks very clean and no sign of mold.
What we don’t know is how long that will take to completely dry stuff, and at least this morning there is still water coming out of the tube that is connected to the downstairs dehumifier and dumps it into kitchen sink. We don’t know whether this will delay the next section of the remodel project which is supposed to start next Wednesday.
I spent most of the day downstairs while workmen were coming in and out so that my husband and our dog could be upstairs behind closed doors. By the end of the day the constant noise of the work they were doing, and then the dehumidifier, had really gotten to me, so I was exhausted by dinner time.
However, I still got in my four short walks and I did make a little progress on my sales data gathering, well as had a couple short phone calls.
It isn’t nearly as noisy upstairs, (the dehumidifier behind closed doors), so we spent the evening upstairs, and until the noise abates, we will stay up here (or sitting on the patio if the sun comes out). We watched some TV on my husband’s lab top before turning out the lights, and we both slept well. As did Leeza.
Normally she moves between dog bed downstairs, the couch downstairs, the landing on the stairs, and only about 4 in the morning does she join us in her dog bed upstairs. But we couldn’t have her wandering around downstairs, so we fenced the stairs so she couldn’t go down, found room to put her dog bed at the foot of our bed and she happily slept there all night.
This morning I did a lot of straightening and cleaning downstairs, since everything that is normally in the den got pushed into the living room, and after I post this, I will take my first walk. I anticipate a quiet day, where I will get back to the sales data.
I was supposed to do the last part of my series of three posts on the origins of the short story, Madam Sibyl’s First Client today, but decided to postpone until Monday. Instead, I will start to think about what to put in tomorrow’s tada post (smile!).
Photo’s are of the den, with the little plastic house holding the dehumidifier, the sky on my last walk yesterday, and Leeza this morning. We are in the guest room, she is actually standing up, with only her front part beside me on a chair, looking out with her chin on the sill. Looks terribly uncomfortable, but she seems to be falling asleep!
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Poor Leeza must think “the sky is falling!”
Ah, remodels! I've watched a number of friends do them. I'm sorry to say they never go as planned. 🤨