My son is now 19 years old, a college sophomore, an E3 in the Army, and rents his own home. Right now he’s in the stand-on-my-own-two-feet time where he doesn’t call regular, doesn’t answer all the texts, and is busy building his life. That’s fine I get it. However we did make an appointment to go up to Madison, see his new house he is renting, and take him and Sara out to lunch.
There’s football on TV women! Mom making his picture and girlfriend trying to make him SMILE!
His new digs were built in 1904. It has narrow staircases, hardwood floors, and exposed stone basement. The bathroom was obviously a converted bedroom but why they choose the largest bedroom in the house is beyond me. As for condition – it’s a typical student slum. LOL! I’m sure he loves it just as much as I loved my student slum apartment.
We drove down to State Street which is the street from campus to the State Capital building. It’s also the center of shopping, dining, and drinking. The main drag if you will of Madison. At University of Tennessee in Knoxville we had Cumberland Avenue. They have State Street. We wound up getting a deep pan Chicago style pizza and watching football at bar.
Below are a few sites of Madison and the trip to see Aaron and Sara.
This is the Red Gym a landmark on campus should you ever visit. I went up to a writer’s seminar years before Aaron went to college. It was in a building near the Red Gym. I drove up early that morning in the snow, parked and made it to the conference. Every direction or lecture referred to this building. It was my first time in Madison, I didn’t pass it when coming in and had NO IDEA what they were talking about.It is a very historical and distinct building Madison. The castle like look is explained by it being built to serve a dual purpose.This one of the many lovely buildings on campus. I don’t remember the name of it but it’s where Aaron would catch the Badger Bus last year to come home and visit Sara.Construction – I’ve never been to a large campus that didn’t always have construction going on some where.A view down State Street to the capital building.
Kenosha Light Station, National Register of Historic Places #90000995
Saturday when I attended the Pike River Rendezvous the Kenosha History Center was having a fund raiser for the restoration of the Simmons Island lighthouse. I made a donation and toured the keeper’s house as well as a bit of the lighthouse. The house is completely restored downstairs. Upstairs is in process with one room is complete.
I didn’t go all the way up in the lighthouse. The deck up there was closed so there’s not much to see at the top. It was extremely hot so I just went up part way and enjoyed the wonderful wrought iron stairs in there. Why don’t we make every day things beautiful any more? Like stairs and warehouses?
The lighthouse and the keeper’s house were built by the federal government in 1866. It is 74 feet above lake level. The light only operated for 40 years but light keepers lived in the house until the 1940s. There are other harbor lights they tended and posted weather warning flags on this lighthouse. It is being currently being renovated. It’s funded by donations and grants. It was placed on the National Register of Historic places in 1990.
So obviously keeping a blog with everything else I’m doing isn’t working. I’m rethinking what I’m going to do with all my social media and blog. I’m thinking of turning this into more of a personal journal than official writing blog. Apparently that will suit my style.
For those who met or followed me on Facebook. I don’t do that any more. Ever since Facebook updated their system to track you even when you sign out, I stopped using them. I considered that an invasion of privacy and apparently so did the FTC. You can now find me on Google+ because it’s a system that turns off when you log out. They already had their brush with the FTC with Google Buzz and cleaned up their act. I’m me over there too, Mary Louise Eklund feel free to circle me any time. Also say hi in the comments.
I’m also on Twitter. Love it as I can shout out to the world from my phone when a thought is worth sharing. I’m marylouiseklund over there. Note one e for the end of Louise and the start of Eklund in that handle. Also over to the right my tweets run so you’ll see links I think are interesting shared there.
Now to tell you what I’ve been doing since August.
Three Gems – Jewelry Booth
Hmm, I’ve been doing craft shows selling my jewelry. I’ve had a booth with two of my friends Paula Lawlor and Jean Rabe. We’ve had great shows and really bad shows but in the end I just want to support my craft addiction. After the first of the year we plan to open an esty store. I’ll let you know about that when it happens.
Jean is moving at the end of January, her husband has taken a new job a bit south of here. He’s already moved there. I sure will miss them. Jean was a bit part of our writer’s group. She brought years of experience in writing and editing to our group of newbies. Now we’re on our own after January.
As for our little jewelry/craft group. We’ll go on with lessons learned from this year. There are some other crafters interested in joining us. After the holidays we’ll meet, choose what craft fairs we want to do starting in the Spring and start the application process for them.
Mike a the Emporer’s palace Tokyo
Mike had active duty in Japan. This was months after the big earthquake in northern Japan. He did get to go sight see once before the work started. We got to chat regularly over the internet. No we didn’t use Skype but instead Yahoo IM but the voice chat. I think he enjoyed Poland more last year because with that group he got to see more of the host country. Here he was on base most of the time working the night shift. Never know what you’ll get but the Navy still lives up to its promise of seeing the world.
Aaron in his first dorm room
Aaron moved out into a dorm at University of Wisconsin in Madison. He’s doing so well. He comes home regularly to see his girlfriend Sara. As a result we get to see him regularly. As you can see he’s having a great time a college discovering odd things like an old gas mask without the filter and public transportation.
Having a great time at college!
I rediscovered the fun of having ideas, doodles, plans, notes, and such all in one nice book. My new journal book of choice is a large moleskine with grid paper. The great thing about gridpaper is I can draw out floor plans of settings I create in my stories. I can do calendars, and such. Also when I take a notion to sketch it helps having a grid. I’m not a good sketcher but at times it makes me happy.
Yes we were THAT close to him
We didn’t just sit around all the time but did do a few things without going to a single theme park. We took an airboat ride out on a local lake. That was lots of fun. We got to see alligators and other wild life. I told Mike it felt like I was riding a couch across the water. I loved it and would like to go do it again sometime.
Leu Garden Roses
We toured the Leu House and Gardens. There they have a wonderfully historic house with beautiful gardens. Mrs. Leu loved roses and her rose garden was unbelievable! The roses were in bloom and I did enjoy making pictures of them until the mosquitoes came out at dusk! Didn’t see the rest of the gardens as we ran to our car to avoid the blood thirsty swarms! Next time going more toward mid day when the sun is high and mosquitoes are low.
Early Stages of the clean up from the plumbing disaster
Life’s not all been crafting, moving and vacation. We did deal with a huge plumbing issue that happened when the sewage pipe from the second floor cracked and drained through our walls and into our basement. The whole basement had to be redone. That took a while to get in order but our insurance covered most of the cost. THANK GOODNESS!
Grandpa Mac holding Baby Aaron
We lost Grandpa Mac this fall. He was Mike’s maternal grandfather, Dale McAllister. It was sad but a blessing Grandpa was freed from his body. He’d not been in good health and had to be in a nursing homes. We’ll miss him. The funeral service was excellent the minister recounted many of his funny tales make all of us smile remembering the man we knew.
As for writing, I’m working on a Steampunk novel. I’m using the characters from my two published stories. It picks up just after the Steampunk’d story. All of it takes place on the Plebeman estate. It’s been fun and soon the first draft will be done and sit on the hard drive to cool before my editing/rewrites. Then it’ll be out to betas.
Next big project will be an urban (but really rural setting) fantasy set in town I grew up in and my parents still live, Greeneville, Tennessee. I’ve been working on that story concept and plot for months. It should be fun to revisit the area but with a fictional twist of course.
As for genealogy, I’m still plugging away at it. I’ve come to terms that I will always have a filing cabinet of information awaiting input into my family tree program. I’ll always be collecting more documentation and always be behind. All this despite I only deal with dead ancestors and relatives. Such is the life of an amateur genealogist.
We haven’t had any snow that stuck to the ground until today. I’d been counting my blessings and hoping for a snow-less winter but that’s too much to ask for in Wisconsin. I count my blessings that it is late starting this year and hope for an early spring, say oh in March!
Hope the holidays are treating you well. Now that you know what I’m up to give me a shout out to tell me what you’ve been up to. You can reach me here, Google+, Twitter, Flickr (where you’ll find this photos in large sizes and many more from these events & other things), or at either of my e-mail addresses marylouiseeklund at yahoo.com or gmail.com. I try to make it easy to be found.
View of the offending pipe from the hole in my bedroom wall
I can tell you in a house the same stuff flows down to the basement. It all started with a quick load of laundry so I could pack my favorite pair of nice shorts to wear at the parent orientation.
Okay, okay I’ll back up a bit.
My son, honors graduate, has been accepted to University of Wisconsin Madison (UWM). He’s majoring in Bio-Chemistry in the College of Honor Science and Letters.At UWM there’s a freshman orientation for students and parents called SOAR.Ours was the 12th & 13th of this month.We went there after work on the 11th to be ready bright and early on the 12th for our first day of orienting, which brings us back to the laundry for those nice shorts I was wanting to pack.
I was in the laundry room and looked over to the corner to see water flowing from the finished area of the basement into the drain in the unfinished part where the laundry is. Being very sharp and on the ball despite the stomach flu I said, “That’s not right.”Yes I said those very words as I walked out onto soaked carpet that stank.
Long story short… we did what we could to take care of the water with towels, Shop-Vacs, and left dehumidifiers running. Also Mike, my dear Hubby, spotted the problem – the sewage line from the second story was cracked. Yep it wasn’t a water leak I’d been walking in – it was a sewage leak, the flow I saw was from a toilet being flushed.Let’s all say EWWWW!!!
We wrangled the cats upstairs so they didn’t have to be in it. Left them the automatic feeder, water and fresh litter boxes.They murmured something about we get all upset about a missed litter box then we go soak the whole damn basement. We told them to shut up then headed to Madison.
While in Madison we scheduled the plumbers to come out for an assessment. Once we returned they determined it was a wrought iron pipe as old as the house (over 70 years old) that had cracked from old age and use.The repair would involve pulling all of it out and replacing it. That would have to followed by an abatement of the sewer water in our basement.By then the water had evaporated leaving behind… well what sewer water leaves behind.Thank goodness the crack wasn’t large enough for sewer “mud” (okay we all know what it is and it’s not mud but let’s stay with nice plumber euphemisms okay?) to come out.Just for the water that ran over & around it to then flow out into my nice textured Berber carpet.
This necessitated call to the homeowners insurance. You know, I just needed to get another ball rolling with that mud that goes downhill or in our case, down pipe. I was told what they needed to determine coverage.All I had to do was get the plumbers, sewer abatement company (who knew there were such people), and the restoration company all in agreement then start work. Oh I had to schedule them in the correct order. Needless to say a weekend stalled all of that.Come Monday I started juggling again.
Which brings us to today… Today was the plumbers action day.I was prepared by being awoken at 6:15 this morning by a freshly shower husband chattering away about things to ask or tell the plumbers upon their arrival.Then I got up, made coffee, and left said instructions with the plumber’s answering service lest I forget them once caffeinated.
I then practiced the fourth thing I’ve listed on my business cards and cat wrangled. We have three cats, one elderly girl named Mo and two aging brothers named Puss & Boots but called Red and Blue (long story another blog post).There was only going to be one room with a door not affected by the proposed wall cutting to remove the pipe.It was my office. I set up a litter pan and water bowl in the office then wrangled three cats into the room and one greyhound out of the room.It became a crazy house as I caught Red and put him in, his brother Blue would do kitty Matrix moves to get out while the door, swollen by the humidity, wouldn’t close.Then I’d catch Blue to find the door was now stuck shut.I struggled with it while the large black tomcat in my arm continued do his best Neo Ninja moves.Finally, all three were in the office.
The plumbers showed up and I explained how I needed the billing for their time broken out because the insurance would cover assessment time and access time but not actually plumbing time. Go figure. Still better than I expected though, so props to USAA.
What followed was a day of watching a house we’ve worked to make a home become undone. Walls we lovingly painted or agonized over the wallpaper selection were cut into with holes large enough to fit a man. Insulation dust filled the air but with it being 101F outside couldn’t open the windows to vent. There wasn’t a breeze. It cleared once those holes were made.Toilets were set in places they don’t go like tubs and back yards.(Yes neighbor’s it’s a new planter enjoy!)Then came what the whole shebang was about—removing the sewer pipe that serviced two floors.Much banging, ringing, sawing, cracking, thumping, shouting, and aromas I’ll leave to your imagination occurred as over 20 feet of 6 inch in diameter cast iron pipe was removed from my walls and paraded down steps, through my dining room, or up steps depending on where the section was pulled.It was placed next to the toilet enjoying its day in the sun.
Ahh, now to put the new PVC pipe in. So again with the banging, sawing, shouting, and thumping. I again brought water to sweating but grateful plumbers as they worked through lunch.Then it was done.
Once again I have indoor plumbing. One of the nicest niceties of modern life was restored. I now have a new appreciation for it since we’ve done without it for a bit.Kinda like I love my electricity after that two day power outage last month.Is the world trying to tell me I’ve forgotten the lessons of Hurricane Hugo?Taking my cue from Scarlett—I’ll think about that tomorrow.
Where am I now in the downhill flow? I have a Swiss cheese house that smells like wet swimsuits in the basement.The holes cut in the walls, ceilings, and floors now allow the scent to waft freely through the rest of house.However, we can now use all the plumbing in the house without fear of adding to the eau d’toilet in the basement.The abatement is yet to be done.It’ll start Friday morning with my ceremonial cat wrangling.
What’s involved in that? Basically tearing out the finished part of the basement (carpet, linoleum, paneling, ceiling tiles, and contaminated furniture) power washing what’s left with an anti-mold, anti-virus, anti-bacterial, anti-anything bad then putting industrial blowers, dehumidifiers, and such down there running for 3 days straight while keeping all living creatures (humans, cats, and greyhound) out of there.
That will leave me with a stripped basement in my fresh smelling Swiss cheese house that won’t give me roto-virus. After that the restoration guys will be booked.They will patch, carpet, linoleum, paint, panel, tile, and anything else until it’s like new.Then it’s new furniture time, the guys pick the replacement couch for their freshly cleaned man-cave.Which Aaron will only enjoy for a week or two before he moves to Madison.
So basically I’ve learned sewage mud may roll down but it takes cooperation at all levels, inside and out, to clean it up. Doesn’t matter if you’re at the top or the bottom the cleanup will affect you.Just do your best to manage what runs your way, call for help to manage it if you need to, and know that in time it’ll be fixed.Oh, and keep your cats from falling through the holes in the wall & floors in the mean time.
Mary Louise Eklund 