More Homeowneriness... or Homeorneriness?

It was a good weekend. I got the rest of the cabinets primed (inside), I got a few things planted in the backyard, I got the grill out for the first time since I moved, I even touched up all those little spots in the bedrooms where the paint didn't go on quite right... but most importantly...

I CLEANED THE OVEN

This might not sound too exciting. Usually it's not. I would even go so far as to say that under normal circumstances I would HOPE that cleaning an oven would be, in fact, quite dull. But the oven was so filthy with that golden-brown-baked-grease-colored stuff that when the oven light was on, literally no light came through the window. I wish I had a "before" picture to show you. It was... bad. I decided last night to go at it with some steel wool. After a combined 5 minutes of scrubbing and 50 minutes of letting it sit with a damp towel over it, about 2/3 of the ickiness had come off. It really wasn't much effort, which made me a bit annoyed that the previous owners hadn't bothered to do even that much before they sold the place. But hey, it looked a lot better. Then I looked at the auto-clean instructions on the oven. Really looked. Read, you might even say. I've never had a self cleaning oven before, so I hadn't paid much attention to that feature, but... you push a button and slide a handle to lock the door... you set the timer... you turn the knobs to "clean" mode... heck, even I can do that!

So I did. With some advice from people who have had such an oven, I left the auto-clean cycle on for about 4 hours (or, as Jake put it, until the house smelled really bad). It got pretty darn warm in the kitchen (next time I will do this in the winter) but nothing caught fire. That's a good sign. I turned it off right before I went to bed, and when I got up this morning, I opened the oven door and saw this...Ok, there was a bit of white residue on the door, but I swiped it with a regular sponge and it was gone. This is when I started wishing I'd taken a before picture, but it hadn't occurred to me that I would end up with an after that justified a comparison photo. See that black bit on the top of the oven frame? It's outside the seal, so it didn't get auto-cleaned. That is what the entire window and most of the door looked like. That color, and that solid. Now I'm even more annoyed: the previous owners had this kind of magic in their grasp, and they couldn't be bothered to run it... ever, apparently. Not even once, right before they put the house on the market?

Well. I had a great time doing it, and I think I shall make this an annual event. In the winter, though, on a day when I'd be running the heater anyway.

Rain. We're getting a lot of it. It started yesterday, about 3.30 pm, while I was at work. I left at 4. I think I managed to drive home smack during the worst of it. Turns out there's less of that drainage stuff here than there is where a lot of you live. Could be because the soil here is pretty much packed clay... just a guess. Anyway. It was dark enough out when I left that I couldn't see the freeway outside my window, which also meant that it was pretty rough seeing where I was going. Luckily everyone (and I actually mean EVERYONE, not everyone except for two idiots) was content to drive home at about 30 mph. This allowed me plenty of time to process information such as "there's water pooling in the middle lane of this freeway," and "the car in front of me just made a 6-ft high spray of water. I bet I'm about to do the same when I hit that puddle."
According to Weatherbug, we got over an inch of rain yesterday (does anyone know a more-accurately reported site for that kind of info?). So far today, we've had just over 2.5". It's not soaking in. Go figure. That little raised area in my backyard? You can see it on the left-hand side of the photo from last week's post... with the birdbath full of spider plants. It's underwater right now. I went outside to clear the drains in the backyard, and the water was up to the bottom of my calves. The curb is underwater, too. You know what that means, don't you?

PUDDLE SPLASHY TIME!

I am not sure why I bothered to put my raincoat on. But my hair stayed dry, at least. You know how I despise having wet hair.
House update: I did indeed buy curtains and curtain rods last weekend, but only about half of them are up. The necessary combinations of rod/curtain were not all available. Today I did another homeownery task: I bought and assembled one of those grey aluminum shelf stands for the garage. NOW it looks like I live here!

Sorry...

I see that it has been 2 months since I posted anything. Ooops. First I don't post because life isn't interesting enough to write about, then I don't post because life is too interesting to leave me time to post. You guys just can't win.

First interesting thing: I bought a house. My very own. Here it is:

Apart from being in Houston, it's pretty nice. And it is south of I-10, so I have really got it made, if I am to believe Sonny Landrith. He's never lied to me before...









The house has a really nice backyard. I just mowed it today for the first time. Here's the yard.





And here's the mower. Post-mowing, of course; it was too embarrassed to let me take a picture of it clean.

My yard comes with a pet hawk. Two, actually. Maybe even three, but so far I have only identified an adult and a juvenile sharp-shinned hawk. Or maybe they're Cooper's hawks. It's hard to tell; see Figure 1. If only they would stand still so I could measure them... They've been feeding very well, and they like to perch in my tree while eating. I have seen or heard them 5 days this week.


Unpacking and fixing things and settling in have been seriously delayed by a rather annoying amount of work that needed doing at... well, at work. But I have managed to do a few homeownery things, like vacuuming the top of the water heater, and hanging a rod in this here closet.


I really only have one room finished to my satisfaction, but it's an important one: the bathroom.

Today was supposed to be a day of accomplishments. I was going to buy curtains, for example, and hang them. That doesn't seem to have happened though. Buying the lawnmower and using it took a lot longer than I planned... possibly because that trip also included "eating at Fadi's," which is an important accomplishment in its own right, and buying dog food (for Mike's dogs; Mike was kind enough to haul the lawnmower home in his Murano - you didn't think I put it in my coupe, did you?). Now it is 5.30, and it is shower time. If I manage to buy curtains after that, I will be sure to let you know. In less than a month, this time.