BLOG IN YOUR FACE

Jaci and I have reached the 3 month mark of owning a house. I have learned a lot of things over the last quarter of a year, but I would say that the most valuable of all lessons is this: Fixing stuff is hard.

Seriously, I am about as much of a handy man as Richard Simmons is masculine. I have just been overwhelmed  at the amount of time and energy that goes into home ownership. I wonder if it is always like this or if someday we will hit a plateau where virtually everything in the house is working well and I am happy with the cosmetic appearance in every nook and cranny of my abode.

Here are just some of the things that I have been working on/screwing up/breaking/getting pissed off at/actually learning from:

Pink Toilet Ring
There is a toilet in the laundry room that the previous owners never touched so the same water has been sitting in there for probably 8 years. I tried toilet cleaner, Scrubbin’ Bubbles,  bleach, dish soap and counter top cleaner. Finally I literally used a flat head screwdriver and scraped away the calcium deposits or whatever the hell that pink ring was.

Mudjacking
The dipsticks…I mean FAMILY…before us had the downspout aimed right at the garage door. So, years worth of rain made the right side concrete slab sink nearly 4 inches. Jaci and I had to hire a contractor to “Mudjack” it, or pump a bunch of concrete type stuff underneath it to raise it back up, because it felt like I was going over a speed bump every time I entered my side of the garage. The day my dog almost fell out of the passenger side of my truck when we hit that bump was the day I decided to take action.

Gutters
One day I saw that the water from the heavy rain was just spilling over onto the ground from the gutters. I climb up there that weekend and the gutter was so full of dead, decomposing material that it smelled like a rotting hot dog and literally the gutters had little trees growing in them. I spent the majority of that afternoon cleaning poopy-smelling mud and dead leaves out of them.

Dryer
We bought a dryer off Craigslist (I know, real reputable for quality, right?) and it would annoyingly turn off mid-cycle. Over the course of two weekends I tore that dryer apart and checked the wiring, the thermostat, heating element, the lint filter, every single hose and belt and NOTHING! Do you realize how many little screws and bolts make up a dryer?!?!?!?!? Finally I realized that the door simply wasn’t shutting tight enough…that was it; the only thing wrong with it…ugh…

Floor Stains
That same dryer left a whole bunch of weird black marks on the utility room floor so I tried Ammonia to clean them up. Nope. Then I tried bleach. Nope. Mr. Clean?  Nope. Comet? Nope. Then I tried our “Soft and Gentle” hand soap. The damn black marks came up like THAT! That’s kind of like War of the Worlds when they attack the Tripods with all the heavy artillery and in the end it takes something simple to kill them.

Blinds
Jaci whipped the vertical blinds open one day and one of them broke off. I ended up fixing it with a yellow twist tie which isn’t exactly an accent color to the putrid white blinds, but oh well.

Unclog Drain
Our drain was literally taking an overnight to drain in the master bathroom sink. So I got the baddest of the bad drain unclogger and although it called for dumping 1/5th of the bottle down the drain at a time, I dumped the entire gallon. I got results! Now it only take 4 fricking hours to drain!!! I am going to try the Girl Robot technique next.

Mowing
Nebraska (or at least Omaha) has gotten rain every day except for 5 in the last 90 days if my calculations are correct. That being the case, my grass is growing faster than an 18 year old guy chugging a RedBull/Viagra Martini. I have to mow twice a week and it still makes my poor lawn mower cough and hack like a 19th-stage emphysema patient trying to expel a tar ball.

Weeding
“Wouldn’t it be cute to plant some Marigolds and some Petunias, honey?” I thought the same thing when both my Mother and girlfriend suggested it. Then I thought if I laid down a whole bunch of wood mulch it would be like a force field against any weeds trying to grow all up in my flowers’ business. WRONG. I am constantly  pulling weeds. My neighbors probably think I have a back problem for as much as I am bent over in awkward positions around the yard grunting and groaning all the time.

Lawnmower
We came across a free lawnmower. When I asked the lady why it was free, she told me that she had bought a new one. Fair Enough. One problem: the starter cord was ripped in half. Why? Because the carburetor was clogged and some Schmuck somewhere along the line tried his damnedest to start the thing even though the carb was as plugged up as I am after a large plate of nachos, thus ripping the cord in half. So I had to replace those two parts before I could even mow my grass, which desperately needed it.

Tarp Hammock
There was moisture in the attic and it was coming from one of the exhaust fans. When it would rain or snow at a certain angle, water would get in and soak the insulation between the rafters. The first step in resolving this problem was to actually  get in the attic.  Now…where, of all places, do you think the only access to the attic is? How about a little tiny door in the ceiling above the pantry, that’s where. So I had to take almost everything out of the pantry and climb up the rickety old shelves. I finally made it into the musty attic. My first mistake was to dig my hand in the insulation so that I could have leverage to lift myself up. Burying your hand in insulation is like burying your hand in birthday cake. Birthday cake with little shards of glass in it. I am still apologizing to God for some of the things that came out of my mouth that day. Anyway, I ended up having to hang a tarp up like a hammock underneath that exhaust fan in order to catch the water coming in and let it evaporate. Boy am I glad I am going to heaven because I am pretty sure Hell probably feels like one giant attic.

Look out below!
Then I thought I had better clean the inside window sills. The things had dirt and dust caked on then half an inch thick! I swear they had NEVER  been cleaned. Some kid had wrote their name in the dust a long time ago and it was still there. I think it said “George Burns Was Here” or something like that. Anyway, so I open the window and not 10 seconds after I began cleaning the sill I hit the screen and it pops completely out and goes falling two stories to the ground below. I had to lug it back up and then spent over an hour figuring out how to put the damn thing back in again.

Lawn Fertilizer
You would think that if we can land a man on the moon, we could at least make lawn fertilizer that only takes one application per year. But, NOOooOOOOooOOooOO! I came to figure out that most fertilizing programs (including the one I foolishly decided on) require 4 applications throughout the year! And the stuff is expensive! To make matters worse, the first application that I put down I broke the wheel on the cheap ass push spreader that came with the system. Now when I fertilize the grass, not only do I bend over and grab my ankles trying to buy the stuff (metephorically speaking that is), I then have to push around a whack spreader on one wheel! Next year I think I might go all natural when it comes to lawn fertilizer and by “all natural” I mean my dog’s poop.

U.F.O landing pad
There is this spot in the front yard that I really do think is the International..wait…interGALACTICAL  hub for all extraterrestrial aircraft. It is a circular bare spot of grass that I cannot get anything to grow on! I have tried grass seed. Nope. Then I tried the stuff made out of old newspaper that is dyed aqua-blue. Nope. Finally I tried transplanting grass from the back yard. Nope. Nothing will grow there! I don’t even think my Grandpa’s ear hair would grow in that spot and trust me, I think that stuff could grow almost ANYWHERE.

Must…Have…Tee…Vee
When Jaci and I moved in there was one, count them, ONE  cable outlet. There was cable virtually throughout the house in the form of wires ran through holes in the wall and through ceiling tiles…but only one actual outlet. So, I had to install a whole bunch of cable outlets so that [Jaci and] I could watch Sportscenter anywhere [we] I wanted without it feeling like [we] I [were] was stealing cable from somewhere else with a 500 foot cable cord spliced 18 times.

And then, of course, I go and break something
I was hooking up the T.V. in the basement, or “The ManCave” as I like to call it, and I couldn’t get the old cable cord off of the back of my T.V. So, I did what any man in my situation would do: I tried forcing it. Ugh, I ended up snapping the “male” end off of the back of my T.V. rendering it useless. So, I had to figure out how to hook up a VCR that we have (that is literally from the late 1980s) to my modern day T.V. through the RCA inputs (ya know, the Red, Yellow and White cords). Luckily Jaci knows her electronics because I really think quadruple bypass would have been easier…

Tree Limbs on Roof
The big old Hackberry tree in my back yard is spreading like Herpes onto the roof. The branches are putting scratches into the shingles and even growing into the chimney! I gotta climb up there and cut them away ASAP.

A/C
And that brings us to yesterday. I came home from work and Jaci, God bless her heart…she knows me and my tendency to FREAK OUT very well, told me to sit down on the stairs before she told me what she had to tell me. I did. Then I was informed that while I was at work, the air conditioner stopped working. I went storming outside to see if it was a fuse. Jaci came screaming after me telling me not to touch the thing because Miranda (a veterinarian intern at the Omaha Zoo who is staying with us for 6 weeks) tried to pull the fuse out earlier and was given one hell of an electric shock in protest by the air conditioner. Needless to say we went to bed in an 83 degree house and I don’t have a clue how to fix the dang thing and a technician is coming tomorrow morning who will probably charge me 50 dollars just for introducing himself and asking if he can use my restroom. Just what we needed in time for the wedding, since weddings are so cheap these days and all.

Ya know? There are a lot of hassles and headaches that come with owning a house. Its not easy, but one thing that I failed to mention is that there are trade-offs. And I’ve got to admit, those trade-offs trump all of the stuff above. I get to share something with the love of my life; my best friend. I get something to call my own and be proud of. I have something that is worth going to work everyday to keep it. Having a house makes me want a family. Also, we have had over 20 different guests come to see us and stay the night. People that may not have come to Nebraska had they not had a place to stay with Jaci and I. Having a house means having great neighbors to lean over the fence and bullshit with and having random garage parties. It is a primal feeling: I am the Alpha Male, protecting my cave; maintaining it. It is where I keep my mate. It is where I start a fire (microwave) and cook the meat from the hunt (meat counter at Bag and Save). I am man! ME FIX STUFF!!!