Weathering the Weather

Snow is in the forecast. Uggggghhhhh!

I have seen enough snow to last me the rest of the year.  The problem is we have at least two more months of snow ahead of us.  We have been getting hit week after week with major snowstorms.  It has been a major pain managing all of it.

Ross has been a real trooper.  He gets out after every storm and starts clearing it off the roof.  We had water leaking onto the ceilings in two of our bedrooms earlier this month from ice dams that formed on the roof.  Clearing it off is of upmost importance.  Part of the issue is that all our heating ducts run up from the basement and into and through the attic.  The duct then runs to vents in the ceilings.  I guess this was a novel way to run a heating system in the 50s. Novel and inefficient.  Our contractor said that we probably lose about a quarter to a third of all our heat before it ever reaches a room.  What a nice way to spend our money.

We have hired a company to run new duct work throughout the basement to remedy this.  I choked a bit on the price when the contract was presented to me; thank God we didn't need a new furnace as well!  Hopefully this will help alleviate the ice dam issues that we have put up with over the last three years (or at least minimize their effect).  We will still have to clear the snow off the roof as we don't want it to cave in.  We have removed so much this year that you can see that Ross is taller than the roof when he stands on the pile of it.  We are praying for a slow melt off this year as too much melt too quick is going to cause a lot of flooding.

Max has been enjoying the snow.  He likes to run around in it.  He ran out to me on Saturday and fell down in the hole where my leg was (you can see his little head peering out in the picture to the left).  He climbed himself out with a little help from his Papa.  I jokingly told Ross that Max is going to be very confused when all the snow melts as he is right now running around about two and half feet in the air.  He runs right off the porch onto the snow banks, but in reality there is a step down from the porch.  I surely hope he looks before he leaps.  His potty training is going well.  Bootsy and Cloe are still not too happy about his presence.  We keep telling Max that barking at them is not helping his cause.

We officially began our 2011 renovation project.  We ripped out the old linen closet (last weekend) and the tile surrounds (this weekend) in the main bathroom.  I find it funny that there was tile on all the bathroom walls except in the bath/shower alcove.  In there they used a laminated sheet to protect from water penetration.  There was some old newspaper stuffed behind the toilet paper dispenser that I guess they used as insulation.  It was dated 1967; the last major update on this bathroom was over 40 years ago.  We are not surprised.  We plan on gutting the entire room and starting over from scratch.  It will be nice when it's done.  More importantly, it is the last room in need of major renovation.  It will also be nice to not have big projects looming over our heads. Best of all, it's a great way to take our minds off all the snow, and God knows we need the distraction!