The closets seem to be drying out decently well. We are hopeful that they can be salvaged and that we are not going to have to do any sort of major mold remediation right now. If we can just get through until we have the money (and time to plan) to do a renovation of the master suite then we will be able to rip out those walls and floors completely and start over with everything new right down to the studs – and perhaps aluminum studs to even further mitigate mold risk.
I went into the office this morning. I had to drive back up to Carrollton at lunch so that I could stay home with Liesl while Dominica took Oreo to his vet appointment. His new vet is really close to our new house which is great. Only about five minutes away.
Oreo did very well at his checkup. The vet was very pleased with his progress and his itching has mostly gone away. He is into a “normal dog” category for itching. He is still very cold much of the time, that is a big deal still. But otherwise he is doing much better.
The vet snipped some of his warts. Dominica and the vet joked about what a warty dog Oreo is. Must be something in his body chemistry. He has always had several pencil warts. Dominica asked about Oreo’s horrendous stomach skin tag. The vet said that she could just snip it off – and so she did. Oreo was a very brave little boy who didn’t make a peep. Such a good dog. She cut it off and sewed him up and bandaged him. No issues at all.
On the way home Dominica stopped at McDonald’s to pick up lunch as I have been missing lunch the last few days and if she didn’t pick something up quickly I would miss it today as well.
I ate and ran back to the office to work for the afternoon. I worked until quite late, around seven. Liesl was still asleep so I was not concerned about getting home quickly. At seven I went over to the apartment to get the last of the stuff. The gang was all up at La Cima but we really couldn’t make it out today, far too much needs to be done.
I managed to get the final load of stuff. The guitar, the last server, a few odds and ends and a big pile of dress clothes like dresses and suits. Unfortunately trying to get them all down the stairs proved to be a bit much for me and some of the clothes fell down the apartment stairs. Ugh.
Dominica got Liesl up and showered just before I arrived home. We drove out first to Lowe’s. We picked up some additional LED bulbs as we totally love them now that we have tested them, one new hanging plant that will be going up shortly and the chemical that we need to treat the mold. We also hit Walmart and then went on to Denny’s for dinner.
We tried to eat somewhere other than Denny’s but it is always so late by the time that we try to get food that nothing else is open. Dinner was good, though. Liesl likes it there. It is quiet. We are often the only people there. And she loves the ranch dressing that they use with everything. She likes to just dip her fingers it in and lick them off. She also likes their mac and cheese.
After dinner we came home and installed the new lights. We replaced the flood light in the back yard with the LED outdoor flood that we are trying out. We went from a 150W incadescent bulb to a 16W LED that looks better and seems to illuminate more. It is estimated to save around $350 over the life of the bulb. Not too shabby of an investment.
We moved our bedroom to all LED too. Four bulbs at 6.5W each. So our entire bedroom is lit with just 26W which is great. Down from around 300W previously and it looks so much nicer too. We are going to slowly replace everything with LED where we can and fluorescent where we cannot.
Our house is currently insanely inefficient. Everything in it from windows to doors to appliances to lights was as bad as you could get. The washing machine and fridge were major first steps and some of the high profile lights are getting switched. We are seriously looking at replacing many of the windows and doors as they are all ancient and you can feel them leaking air. Not so bad in winter but will be a major problem for us come summer when we are attempting to cool this place. The lack of insulation in the attic is a top priority as well.
After switching the lights we put Liesl to bed and then did the mold treatment in the closets, laundry room and hit both of the “under the sink” locations that had been identified yesterday as well for good measure. The stuff is salt based and safe around food and clothing which is awesome. Fingers crossed that this does the trick.
I hooked up the SAM-SD (HP Proliant Dl185 G2 running OpenFiler) tonight, after a full year of it being disconnected, so that we can start getting access to all of our already converted movies and television shows again. We have been missing that. We didn’t get a chance to really test it out tonight but at least I can see that the server is up and working and is connected to the network and the almost two terabytes of data is all intact. Pheww. That thing has been moved an awful lot so we were worried.
For the moment the server is just sitting on chairs. We were trying to figure out tonight where we are going to put it long term and were worried about how much noise that it would make in the house. From tonight’s test of a “worst case scenario” in the garage, it is pretty quiet. Too loud for me to work in the garage with it on but fine for people in the house. Once we start to “finish” the garage it should be fine. Totally silent in the house and just background noise in the garage / office.
It was after two in the morning when I finally managed to head off to bed. I have to be up early tomorrow for a conference call just after seven. A short night for me.
Tomorrow, during lunch, we are having the “big” ultrasound that we had to reschedule from last week. So I will be meeting Dominica and Liesl there for that.
Oreo was doing well all evening. His stitches don’t seem to be bothering him at all.