Update on my LEAK.

WELCOME to Ms. Fiddlesticks! (Love that name!)  Another "over 50 mom and Grammy" solo woman planning to RV full-time in the future. Like me and Katie.  Ms. Fiddlesticks, I enjoyed reading your blogs and will continue to follow along with your adventures.  I've always said, "If you want it bad enough, you'll do it!"  And we will.  Hope to meet you on the road someday. : )

Update on the LEAK - not good news.

My Homeowners Association has hired a contractor, Art, to act as project manager, and per his request, he is hiring third party companies to do the repairs and testing.  He really seems to know what he's doing.

Last weekend there were two roofers fixing leaks in my and my neighbor's roof (adjoining).  He said there were three areas that needed to be fixed.  The way my neighbor's roof was configured, any rain runoff in one area was going directly into our common wall, and probably has been for years and years.  Finally it came through the wallboard and I saw the water stain.

After a week of beautiful weather, it just started raining, and I'm sure glad the roof is okay now.

I came home from work on Wednesday, and Art had opened up a square in the wall of my bedroom.  He said they pulled it back, and it tilted back the baseboard.  He saw black and green mold on the inside of the baseboard, and the inner wall area was infested with ants, spiders and termites.  He said he put his screwdriver into the supporting beam, and it went right in. So they put the cutout back and sealed it off.  They sealed off a portion of the room from the end of my bed to the wall, put in zippers so they can move from the outer plastic wall, inside and through the next one to the wall.  There was a large hepa filter fan running.

 The dark blue strip is the zipper and the behind the sheet on the left with the red tape is the cut out area. They did take out the piece of wall Friday and sealed it with plastic.

When I mentioned I was having a tight chest for the last year and my doctor has me on an inhaler twice a day, Art said to make an appointment right away to get a chest x-ray and be tested for mold. He immediately had the worker seal my entire bedroom off from the rest of the house.  They removed all my bedding and took it to my laundry room, then took the mattress into my office/craft room, where Katie and I are now sleeping on the floor.  They covered the rest of my bedroom furniture with plastic. 
 

 Furniture covered with plastic sheeting

This thick plastic sheet covers another sheet 

that blocks off the entrance to the room 

I was able to see a doctor Thursday afternoon, they took a chest x-ray (which was the same as last year's so that was a relief), and I went down the hall for a blood test to check for mold, the results will be available Tuesday or Wednesday. While I was there I also had my flu shot, so I felt like I accomplished a lot in that one visit.  I have Kaiser, and I've always been happy with them.  I'm feeling hopeful that the mold was contained inside the wall and won't cause me any problems.

When I got home from my doctor's appt on Thursday, Art came by and said the company that is going to do the repairs inspected the area that day, and probably Monday another company is coming to test the air quality.  Once all the construction/repairs are done, the testing company will come back to make sure my condo is completely safe.

What a deal.  Hopefully in two or three weeks all the work will be done and things will be back to normal.  I've been taking Katie to work with me, and she loves it.  The first day I kept her in her little carrying crate until the weather outside warmed up, then I put her in the car which I park right in front of our office.  She can see me through the window and I can see her.  She kept barking, so I finally brought her back in.  She just curls into a tiny ball and sleeps in the crate.  I take her out for a few walks during the day.  I'm surprised she is so content in that little crate all day, but that seems to be her preference.

 Katie in her crate at work

 Sound asleep

It's been a quiet weekend for me and Katie - just staying in and taking it easy.  I'm actually looking forward to work next week, especially since I am taking Katie with me.

From Me and My Dog, have a nice Sunday evening, everyone!  : )

Virus is gone, this and that

WELCOME to our new followers, Keven and Ruth (and Whiskey) who are full-timers, and are in Mexico. They've been blogging since 2008. Thank you both for signing on to follow me and my dog, Katie as we make our preparations to full-time in our yet-to-be purchased Class C RV.

WELCOME also to Aracelis - it doesn't look like you have a blog, so I can't show it here. But I appreciate you coming on board to follow us on our future RVing adventures. Hopefully it won't be long before we're on the road.

I have my laptop back and everything is working fine. Thank goodness! Thank you for your comments, too. They were helpful. I DID change my AOL e-mail password, which was suggested by Susan and also by Tim, our IT man at work. He said to do it immediately, so I changed it before he took my laptop with him to his shop.

I had to laugh, I had a comment from The Midlife Cruizer that looked weird - she explained in her message that two keys on her keyboard weren't working. Can you imagine typing without a T or a Y? I could easily read it, though, and it made me laugh. Check out her blog and you'll see. : )

Rick, it WAS a Trojan - I thought that was a virus, but maybe it's something different?

A couple of people commented about Norton Anti-Virus. I do have a current copy installed, which may have made this episode easier. They are not 100%, new viruses are always floating around trying to get in, but having a good anti-virus is a big help if one DOES get in.

Okay, enough about that subject! 

One thing that was nice about being computerless was that I had an entire evening with no blog reading or writing, no web browsing, computer games, or e-mail.  I spent the evening reading my Kindle, then went to bed, fluffed up a bunch of pillows, got comfortable and continued to read.  I haven't done that in a long time, and it was a nice change.

Thursday I woke up with a bad headache - I don't get many headaches - but I went to work anyway thinking it'd go away.  It did, a little, but then I just didn't feel well.  I think I had the flu, so I packed up and went home.  By late afternoon I was feeling better, thank goodness.

This morning I had the oil changed in my car, filled up the gas tank, and went grocery shopping.  A handyman came over late morning to do some work around the house for two hours, and I got lots of little things fixed that were bugging me and that needed to be done before I lease the condo.

Then the appraiser from my condo insurance policy came by to look at the rain damage to my wall and carpet, took some photos and was on his way.  My HOA is starting work on the damage, the contractor and one of his workers was here yesterday and today checking things out in my bedroom, on the roof, and the outside walls.  They will start the work, I think, on Tuesday.  They are going to put up two plastic barriers from wall to wall with a "zip" (?) passage between the two just in case there is something toxic when they open up the wall.  There was a mold issue with another unit, so they are being very careful. The contractor seems to know what he is doing.

I put together a fabulous fruit salad for my lunch, along with a grilled cheese sandwich.   It had fresh Costco pineapple, super SWEET, raspberries, blackberries and blueberries.  They were all really sweet, and I have half left over for tomorrow.  Great salad - it felt like a summer day, the sun was shining and I was eating a fresh fruit salad!

I cleaned out my stuck/clogged shredder, organized some files, did a little cooking, vacuumed, balanced my checkbook, ate my dinner and now I'm done.  It was a busy day, but now my weekend is clear.  I got so much done today, I think being home from work yesterday and doing nothing gave me extra energy today.

Nothing photo worthy to post for the day.  Sunday was my grand daughter's birthday and I attended her cheer competition at San Diego State University.  I'll report on that and have some photos next time.

From Me and My Dog, have a great Friday evening, everyone! : )

Hallelujah, it's Christmas Day

Hallelujah - The Canadian Tenors

 I love this song by these guys! 

The tempo seems a bit slow,  but this is the best version I could get on YouTube.

Thank you all for the nice (and funny) comments about Katie in her Christmas Reindeer outfit - She DOES look like a deer in the headlights - that was a good one!  Exactly what she looks like.  And I'm SURE she was thinking, "Hurry up with the damn picture and get me out of these things!"  She is such a good sport.  She looks kind of scared, but she was really okay with it.  I have written before that, although I think she is a really good dog and I love her madly, she doesn't get cute expressions on her face like a lot of dogs do.  But once in a while...  like in the reindeer stuff, she actually has an expression!  LOL  (Even if she looks miserable.)

Katie had a fantastic Christmas with Tom and Trish and the kids.  The baby Graydin, who is going to be two in April, LOVES her and loves to chase her. At their house, which is huge, he chases her around and around the downstairs, which Katie loves, and Graydin just giggles and keeps running.  The only problem at my place, which is about 1,100 sf including the small kitchen, two bedrooms, a dressing room, and two baths, which leaves a very small living/dining room, is that HERE, Graydin can catch her!  At first he tried to kick and hit her, he is very aggressive, but it didn't take long for him to learn that he needed to be nice and gentle with Katie, and by the end of the day he was playing ball with her.  So cute!

Every one liked their presents, the turkey dinner turned out great, and we all took a walk down to the lake to feed the ducks. After dinner and presents everyone settled down to watch a Christmas movie, during which Gavin, six, and I found some peace and quiet in my room and I read him a dinosaur pop-up book that I got him.  It's a beautiful book with very intricate dinosaurs that pop up on each page, with 4 to six little booklets with little pop-ups on each page, too.  Wonderfully done and he loved it.  Hard to pronounce those dinosaur names, though.  They were spelled phonetically also, but were still hard to pronounce.

  Trish and Tom at dinner

 Kennedy, Me and Gavin (recognize the antlers and scarf?)

 Graydin wearing his sister's Uggs - Katie with her ball

And everyone loved the Make Ahead Mashed Potatoes!

With all the rain we've had, I noticed a leak in my bedroom yesterday.  I e-mailed the home owner's association and got the go ahead to contact the man they use for leaks, so I sent him an e-mail to call me.  I couldn't believe I got a phone call this morning at 8:30 am, and he was here at 9:30 to check it out, on Christmas!  He said there's a two day window to check it out because of the mold possibilities.

We've had some real issues here, because for at least 15 years our absolutely, positively, awful board that was representing us for 15 years (we have a new one now) did absolutelly positively nothing in the area of maintenance to our condos. We're just all learning that not only did they do pretty much nothing, when the did any maintenance or repairs they used "bandaids" and the wrong kind of bandaids.  Nothing was done correctly, and now the current owners are paying, and are going to be REALLY paying soon for all those years of deferred maintenance.  Our entire roofing system is bad, was done wrong.  Roofer went bankrupt, and the current HOA board can't even find the paperwork.

So, what I found out this morning is that the poorly done roof and gutter system on my condo is gushing water that's getting into my walls, under the concrete that my place is built on, it's all wet, my carpet is wet underneath, etc.  Part of my living room underflooring has shifted.  I, along with others in my model, will probably have walls taken down and re-built, the underflooring redone, etc.  Some are already in progress.

The only good part is that I may get a new carpet in the bedroom and a new sliding door in the living room.  But you can bet we are all going to get a huge assessment in the next month or two.  There goes my RV fund!

From Me and Katie, Merry Christmas evening, everyone!  Hope your holiday was the BEST!  : )