GETTING A LIFT

 With all my physical issues this past year, I became more aware of how difficult it might become living in a house with two stories. Larry had surgery this year, too, and he realized the challenge our stairs could pose as we get older. We discussed downsizing to a single-story house. We’ve even begun to dispose of some of our “stuff.” (Not a bad idea altogether.)

However, we have already made a lot of improvements to this house consistent with the way we live.

Larry started researching the alternatives to allow us to stay here, even with the stairs.

For several reasons, we eliminated the option of a chair lift. They take up quite a bit of room on the steps and partially compromise the treads. Also, our stairs have a 90-degree turn in them, and it would pose a challenge.

He finally located a small one-person lift—like an elevator but smaller. He made an appointment for the salesperson to come out to the house to see if it would work.

The engineer (Larry, of course) had picked out a location  he thought might work, but he was afraid the unit would be too large.

However, the representative from the company (Stiltz) suggested coming to the house to check. We agreed.

Ryan arrived with a neat app on his phone. He could point it at a spot, and it would tell him if there were room to install the equipment.

He found one location in the living room going up to our guest room. Uh…no. Then he found another from our dining room to our office. Nope to that one, too. He finally checked the area Larry had selected—and it not only would work, but it would fit perfectly. And we wouldn’t need to cut a hole in the ceiling.

Last Monday morning at 8:00 a.m., Mark arrived to begin the installation. By early afternoon, our hall was completely draped in plastic, heavy tarps were secured to the stairs, and the floors were covered in cardboard. It looked like we were going setting up for a haunted house!

The first item was to cut out a section of the 2^nd floor handrail for access to the upper hallway from the lift.

I didn’t realize the pieces of the section of handrail would be used to build the external gate—and that it would match the existing handrail.

Then came days of drilling and hammering and sanding to construct all the other parts necessary for the installation, including the electrical work. The dust and dirt were confined to the hallway because of the plastic installed there.

At last, the unit itself and accessories arrived.

First, the supports were brought in and installed.

Finally, on Saturday, after six long days, the installation was completed, and the lift was ready to be used.

The lift sits in the curve of the stairs. It works very simply and holds only one person at a time. But it really makes living with the stairs easier!

I think we are going to be very happy with this solution.

A House is a Hole…

There is an old saying that a boat is a hole in the water into which you pour money. The same can be said about a house: it’s a hole in the ground where you pour money. Since Friday the 13^th, we have been pouring lots!

When I broke my leg, we noticed that the toilet in our bathroom seemed to be leaking a little bit. We stuffed a towel around the bottom to catch the moisture and changed it out a couple of times a week.

When my daughter left after the first of the year, we also noticed that the one in the guest bathroom was starting to make strange noises every time it was flushed.

Time to call out the plumber.

He arrived on Friday morning, and by the afternoon, he had completely rebuilt both of them. No more leaks, and the guest one had a completely new flush mechanism. Not cheap, but at least both were working well. (And they were nearly twenty-five years old, so a refresh was not unwarranted.)

Then, on Saturday evening, the 14^th, we were watching a TV show and heard a giant CRACK, sort of like a huge blast of thunder next to the house.

Larry looked at me. “Was that on TV?”

“I don’t think so.”

We looked out in the yard, and one of our large pine trees had come down. The roots had given way with all the recent rain.

I have hated the tree ever since it showed up as a volunteer a number of years ago. I asked Larry many times to remove it, but he liked it and wouldn’t get rid of it. I actually feared exactly what happened—or worse. And the pine needles were clogging up the motors and filters on the waterfall. Larry dutifully cleaned them out periodically, but he refused to do anything about the tree.

We live at the top of a hill. The very top was cut away when they built our house in the late 1970s, and the material removed was used for fill for the houses across the street. They have topsoil. We do not. We are on bedrock (good for earthquakes, but not so hot for growing things).

Plants don’t do very well in the yard because there is nowhere for the roots to take hold. I have been afraid that one of the trees would come crashing down on the house. They were getting tall (about 35 feet each—and there were three of them).

The good news:

• ·         It mostly missed the house and fell into the back yard
• ·         The only collateral damage was to a couple of irrigation water pipes and outside lights
• ·         The gutter was bent but not so badly that it has to be replaced.

We called a local tree service, and they sent a couple of guys out right away. They cut up the big branches and stacked them in the front yard, promising to return early on Sunday morning (at 7:30 a.m.).

They arrived right on time, as promised, with a huge truck and a wood chipper, and began cutting up the debris. We also asked them to cut back the other two large pines, trim the jacarandas, and shape the Japanese maple. (These projects were years overdue.)

It took nearly six hours, but by the afternoon, their truck was full of tree trimmings, and the work was completed. We were very fortunate, even though it was a very expensive job. At least no damage was done to our house!

Several thousand dollars later, the big tree is gone, and the others are now trimmed down to a reasonable size.

I still hope the rest of 2023 will improve…

France – Day 10 – 4/7/2018

We woke after a fairly good night’s sleep in Giverny at Le Rouge Gorge. We had a real queen-size bed—finally. When we showered, we discovered one of the maintenance issues of the house. Most of the water came out of the seam where the sprayer should have screwed onto the mounting piece. It came out in all directions. Even though there was a shower curtain, because of the force of the water hitting it from all angles, the curtain could not keep it inside the shower. I stepped out into about a half inch of water on the floor. The bathmat was soaked, and I used my towel to try to sop up some of the overflow. Fortunately, the heating was accomplished with radiators, so I draped the towel and bathmat over the radiators to dry.

We had brought the coffee and sugar we had bought while at the timeshare, so we made coffee.

The day before, we scheduled breakfast for 8:30 a.m. We walked to our landlord’s place to eat. The breakfast room is shown on the right below.

The owner, Eric, wasn’t there when we arrived at 8:30, so we checked out their garden.

About 8:45, Eric showed up. He started a pot of coffee, but said he had to go into town to get bread. He asked us to come back in half an hour. So, we went back to the cottage, watched a bit of TV and had another cup of coffee.

We returned just as Eric arrived with the bread. Breakfast consisted of containers of yogurt, fruit, and slices of baguette with coffee—a continental breakfast.

We had hoped to get to the garden when it opened, but our delayed breakfast kept us from arriving when the gates opened. Fortunately, we had been able to get our tickets online before we left home.

We started out toward the house. It began to drizzle. We hadn’t brought our umbrellas with us, and the rain increased. Bernie’s jacket had a hood, and Bob wore a hat. So did Larry, but I had nothing to cover my head. We sent Bob and Bernie on ahead. I waited under cover while Larry went back to the cottage. He returned about twenty minutes later. He had about a seven-minute walk back and then had to hunt for the umbrellas.

This was the only day when we actually had rain most of the day.

When we arrived at the garden, we found Bob and Bernie and gave them their umbrella. They continued through the garden while we toured the house again. (We had seen the garden four years earlier, and very little was in bloom.)

I remembered entering the house for the first time and being surprised that most of the artwork on the walls were Japanese prints. We were somewhat familiar with most of them from living in Japan and seeing others in the museum the day before.

I still loved the delft tiles in the kitchen.

When we were there before, we were told the paintings hung in Monet’s studio were reproductions of the ones left there when he died.

As we entered the kitchen, we spotted Bob and Bernie outside. Larry went out and discovered they hadn’t gone through the tunnel to the lily pond, so he showed them where to find it.

Then we went to the gift shop. While I looked around, Larry found a sofa and watched a video of Monet painting at the pond and in the studio. I got a t-shirt, and Larry picked out one for himself. We picked up a couple of gifts, too.

While at the Monet Museum in Paris, I spotted a children’s book in a kids’ area, but when we got to the gift shop there, I could not find it. However, at the shop in Giverny, I found it and bought it for our great-grandniece, who will be seventeen months at Christmas. I had also gotten her a coloring book at San Chappelle. So I had one Christmas gift taken care of.

When we finished our shopping, we decided to find Bob and Bernie to tell them we were going to lunch. We found them nearly through with their visit. So, before we left, we took a few pictures of them on the bridge and in front of the boats on the pond. (They have rebuilt the bridge. When we were there the last time, it had been made of wood. It has been replaced with a metal one, but it still looks the same.

 

The rain continued as we walked back to the hotel where we had eaten the day before. We liked the food and wanted to try something else. We had just ordered when Bob and Bernie arrived. So, we enjoyed a leisurely late lunch.

We walked back to the cottage and lay down for a nap.

Bob had made reservations the evening before at the Baudy Restaurant, since it was the place where the artists had eaten when they came to visit Monet. The reservations were a bit late for us, and we weren’t very hungry.

We went out a bit ahead of them. The rain had let up, so we stopped at the local bakery for coffee and croissants.

We ate outdoors. We were nearly finished when Bob and Bernie went by on their way to the Baudy. We enjoyed our dessert and coffee, and they later reported their dinner was good.

We packed and went to bed early since we would be on the road again the next day.

Next time: Rouen

Let it Go

My brother and I are cursed with incredible memories. We never forget anything. In my case, this ‘gift’ makes it very hard to get rid of ‘stuff.’

We just re-carpeted the whole house and are now in the process of putting everything back. We decided to weed out a lot of the things we really don’t need anymore. But…

What about the items friends made for us? We may not have used them—yet, but we might someday. And after all, thought and effort went into them.

What about all the old photos? We’ve scanned a lot of them, but we have nearly fifty albums plus two plastic file cabinets full. Somehow, we became the repository for all the family photos from both sides of the family. We’ll keep the ones commemorating special occasions, like weddings, but what about the others?

We uncovered grandparents’ and parents’ mini-albums of the formal photos from our wedding and Kim’s. What about those? We have the large one of ours, and Kim has her big one. What about the rest?

There are also quite a few formal portraits of other family members with no children. They are all gone now, so what do we do with those pictures?

I love the song from Frozen, “Let it Go.” I wish I could. All these treasures have sentimental attachments. Some were wedding gifts. Others were presents for our twenty-fifth anniversary. I still remember the people who gave them to us. I smile each time I recall these old friends and family members, and I don’t want to part with their gifts.

Fortunately, we have a large house, but someday, we may want to downsize. What then?

We are taking a little time as we put things back in place to evaluate what to keep, what to toss, and what to give away. I’m sure we’ll still end up with far too much stuff!

I need to start sorting through my shoes. Does anyone wear size five wide? And I really intend to read all these books—someday.

Time to get back to it. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to get this done quickly? Never mind. I probably won’t take the advice anyway.