We have the shiniest house on the block.

Actually, that isn't my intent at all, but the house is coming along VERY nice. I suppose they will be working on the trim today?

It happened. While inspecting the paint job we found another problem with the house. Ugh! I just knew we would find something else. Just along with the "there is always something" reality. The gutter is pulling away from the house in one area, and is exposing some of the house (whatever is under the stucco). Like, it scraped the stucco off when it pulled away. Not good! We think it is possible that the painters made it worse, walking on the roof and such, but it was probably already a problem. Didn't see it before, but not sure we have ever looked at the house that closely.

The plus side is we have all summer to figure out what to do with it.

I don't expect it to be an overly expensive repair. The hard thing in these cases is finding the right person to deal with it. When it came to the "ugly" crack on the side of the house, I asked a home inspector and a couple of realtors who to hire for that kind of work. No one knew! How annoying. I suppose we just need a roofer who repairs gutters, or even just a gutter person, though we may need someone else to patch the stucco. Blech. Or maybe we just need a jack of all spades handyman. The plus side is that it is on the lower level of the house. So we don't need people with specialized ladders and such - always harder to find.

IT took me about 8 years to get this crack fixed (in the end, the painters took care of it - what I understood after starting to research painters a few years back). I don't think I have that luxury with this repair. It's a wee bit more than a superficial crack...

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Today I got the gas bill for April, and we used about 50% more gas than last April.

I think it has been cooler (REALLY stormy!). But, this week is summer-y, and seeing the bill reminded me that I hadn't been turning the hot water all the way up in the shower, like usual. I probably usually turn the hot water down sooner.

It was easy to do today - was sweltering a bit. I already marked the summer level and the winter level, so just turned it half way between, this morning. Will see how that goes. This week, the summer level would probably do. We may turn it down more before May is over. IT was like 85 degrees yesterday.

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Today is a big day. Working all day, and going to aerobics in the p.m.

Dh told me he needed to run to the store for bread. I told him I could pick up 2 free loaves at the bread outlet. I haven't been to the outlet in ages because I haven't been to aerobics in ages. I still think that works out well - to only get mounds of bread when I go to the butt kicking aerobics class. They are in the same vicinity. For today, just getting free bread. Maybe Saturday I will do more bread shopping.

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I got a note re: charity pickup next week. Perfect! I've got a bag all ready to go, from the clothes purge last weekend. I just have to remember to set it outside Monday.