Heading Back to Campus

At least for now. Who knows what will happen a month down the road given the increase of variant cases. I'm hoping for the best but am prepared to end up completely online again. As of now, I'll return to campus on Monday.

And my big summer project is 99.99% done. All that's left is touching up spots here and there. I finished up the basement windows and downspouts today, along with doing what I could with the doors to the basement stairs. They're not exterior doors, and they're warping because they take a lot of the weather since they're west-facing, but I'm going to leave them until next summer. Then I'll replace them with proper exterior doors.

The house last fall.

The house newly painted this summer.

While I'm excited to have finished painting the house, I now have another issue to address: the septic. I was touching up the attic window and heard a motor shut off. I thought it was my neighbor's air conditioner and didn't think too much about it. When I climbed down the ladder and stood next to the septic, I realized it wasn't running. It's an aerobic system, so it runs 20 hours then is off for four hours. Typically it shuts off around 12:30 am. It was 3:25 pm. The light/alarm system didn't come on to indicate a problem, and the system started up again about ten minutes later. It did this several times through the evening. My worst fear is the system fails and I end up with sewage backing up into my bathroom. Yuck! Hopefully it'll not be this drastic.

Growing up, I lived in houses out in the country. We always had a septic tank, and nothing horrible ever happened. The tanks always worked just fine. The type I have, though, is a different kind of septic. It's supposed to break down the waste and send it out into the drainage field where it comes out as potable water. I don't know if this actually happens, but that's what I'm told. I'm not going to test it. I just don't want sewage backing up into my house. That's not asking a lot, is it?

Septic update: since I started writing this a couple of days ago, the septic issue seems to have been resolved. A tech came out, took the lid off, poked around, and basically said, "If it doesn't shut off and stay off you're good." Yeah, they're going to bill me $95 for that. Good grief. So I talked to my husband about it, and we went to work researching the issue online. We found one post about the same kind of septic system doing this same thing. Turns out air leaks in the lines can cause the system to overheat. The system shuts down to prevent a bigger problem. I got my trusty bottle of soapy water and sprayed the lines. Lo and behold, nearly every connection had nice big bubbles where the air was leaking. The filter, too, was a tea-total mess. I washed the liner, blew out the crud from the filter, tightened down all the line connections, and the septic has been running smoothly every since. My hope is it continues to be okay.

Anyways . . . 

I am now nearly a year into being a completely whole foods plant based vegan. The last weigh-in had me down 17 pounds. The weight loss has been fairly consistent at a half pound a week. I did go several weeks without any loss, but I didn't gain either. All of my clothes are now a bit big on me. I definitely have to wear a belt with my jeans or they will sag. One pair of shorts will actually just fall to the floor. For so long I wondered what it would be like to be thin. I've always felt like there was a thinner person inside me just waiting to be let out. I've finally allowed her out. And it happened without any gimmick, any fad diet, any hours-long working out. It was all because I finally gave up the meat, the dairy, the eggs, and the processed foods. I've not missed any of these foods, well, except maybe a good pepperoni pizza. I do love a greasy pepperoni pizza. But I don't love it enough to eat it anymore. Not when I know what the ingredients do to my insides. I love my insides more.

This week I'm prepping classes for fall. In all honesty, I'm dragging my feet. I sat down to work this morning but ended up going outside to mow. Yes, I'd rather mow when it's 91 degrees with the feels like at 110 degrees. The humidity is 72%, and by the time I was done, I could wring the sweat out of my shirt and my shorts. But the mowing is done, as is the weed-eating. And I absolutely love my mower. I bought a battery powered, self-propelled mower. It's quiet, it does a great job, and I don't have to run to the gas station to get gas. Today I put the bag on to capture the grass cuttings for my compost bin. Worked like a charm!

Another recent purchase I should have made a long time ago is a Dyson v8Animal vacuum. I finally said enough and plunked the money down for a great sweeper. And it really is as good as they claim. I actually enjoy sweeping my little house now. So easy and quick.

Tomorrow my new furnace will arrive. It's the last thing on the list of must-do before winter. The old furnace . . . well, let's just say I learned a crucial piece that took the emissions up and out of the house was missing. All the emissions were actually being spewed into my basement. Lots of carbon monoxide. I'm lucky the dogs and I are alive. I couldn't believe it when I was shown the situation. I'm really excited to put in the new furnace and find out what a difference it will make on my gas bill during the winter. 

The old furnace front.

The old furnace side.

After removing the stack, we found the elbow
missing. All the furnace emissions were just
going out into the basement rather than up
 and out of the house.