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Jul. 19th, 2007
I <3 Southwest Airlines
Jul. 19th, 2007 11:56 amWe are traveling to St. Louis over Labor Day weekend for a wedding. (Yay!) M and I each happen to have a free round trip on Southwest - we probably would have flown SWA there ANYWAY, but that made it a no-brainer. So I called up the friendly customer service line today and talked to my new friend Anita. Told her what we wanted to do - I had jotted down the flights I wanted to take and had the SWA website up as I talked to her.
She said, "OK. Here's what we're going to do. You're going to buy two one-way Internet Special tickets TO St. Louis, and then we'll use the free flights to do one round-trip and two return flights, because there aren't any cheap fares for Monday." (Duh. Monday is Labor Day. Of course there aren't any cheap fares.) It took probably 15 or 20 minutes on the phone with us carefully coordinating our actions, but I bought one-way tickets for M and TRex and she booked a free roundtrip for me and free returns for each of them. Hooray for SWA operating exclusively as one-way flights. Hooray for going to the wedding! We still have to book a hotel room & rent a car, but the flights are taken care of at least.
(In other I <3 SWA news, I'm flying to Seattle in October for similarly cheap fares, because they had an $80 one-way special. Hooray!)
She said, "OK. Here's what we're going to do. You're going to buy two one-way Internet Special tickets TO St. Louis, and then we'll use the free flights to do one round-trip and two return flights, because there aren't any cheap fares for Monday." (Duh. Monday is Labor Day. Of course there aren't any cheap fares.) It took probably 15 or 20 minutes on the phone with us carefully coordinating our actions, but I bought one-way tickets for M and TRex and she booked a free roundtrip for me and free returns for each of them. Hooray for SWA operating exclusively as one-way flights. Hooray for going to the wedding! We still have to book a hotel room & rent a car, but the flights are taken care of at least.
(In other I <3 SWA news, I'm flying to Seattle in October for similarly cheap fares, because they had an $80 one-way special. Hooray!)
Adventures in Homeownership
Jul. 19th, 2007 01:11 pmRemember our basement drain leaking fiasco? The one that left us with destroyed drywall in the laundry room?
We've finally acquired the stuff we need to REPAIR the drywall. Since they had to cut a portion of the stud away to get to the offending drain, we made a little frame of 1x4 that will substitute for stud. M was mister doubter about my measurements, but it fits beautifully, as I knew it would. We'll anchor the frame to the existing drywall ABOVE where the repair will take place and then attach the new drywall to both the frame and the remaining stud at the top, and the frame and the corner stud at the bottom. We're going to put in a removable panel in front of the cleanout that the plumber put in so that if things get mucked up again we can get in to at least that without requiring major reconstruction afterwards.
We've finally acquired the stuff we need to REPAIR the drywall. Since they had to cut a portion of the stud away to get to the offending drain, we made a little frame of 1x4 that will substitute for stud. M was mister doubter about my measurements, but it fits beautifully, as I knew it would. We'll anchor the frame to the existing drywall ABOVE where the repair will take place and then attach the new drywall to both the frame and the remaining stud at the top, and the frame and the corner stud at the bottom. We're going to put in a removable panel in front of the cleanout that the plumber put in so that if things get mucked up again we can get in to at least that without requiring major reconstruction afterwards.
Stay tuned for more pictures as we actually put in the new drywall and then new rubber molding and paint the whole room (which is ultimately going to be TRex's playroom as well as the laundry room).
Blessed Rain...
Jul. 19th, 2007 03:35 pmIt has been dry, dry, dry here all summer. Our grass is brown and miserable - the gardens are happy, but only because of dliigent watering instigated by TRex (because what toddler DOESN'T love to water?). When we've had rain, it's been a bit here, a bit there. We are strongly resistant to watering the lawn because it's such a waste of water - so we've probably only given it a good soaking 3 or 4 times over the last 2 months. A couple of more localized ones when we did double-duty with kid entertainment and watering.
Today, though, it's RAINING. Not drizzling, not the odd thunderstorm that puts on a big show but doesn't drop much in the way of precip. It's been at LEAST drizzling all day, with a couple of periods of good, hard rain thrown in for good measure. The lawns will be happy. And maybe some of the Japanese beetles will drown for good measure.
In other news, but not enough to warrant its own post, it takes for bloody EVER to iron 11 yards of 60" fabric. Just sayin'.
Today, though, it's RAINING. Not drizzling, not the odd thunderstorm that puts on a big show but doesn't drop much in the way of precip. It's been at LEAST drizzling all day, with a couple of periods of good, hard rain thrown in for good measure. The lawns will be happy. And maybe some of the Japanese beetles will drown for good measure.
In other news, but not enough to warrant its own post, it takes for bloody EVER to iron 11 yards of 60" fabric. Just sayin'.