Last Week

Last week was very exciting! In addition to celebrating Nikolausstiefel, we had our first snow of the season, and went to the skating rink fundraiser for the big kids' school.

Emily was showing off her new #holidayselfie shirt

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We had our very first snow of the season on Thursday.  The kids were thrilled, and it melted in the afternoon sun.

That night, we ventured back out to the school fundraiser at the roller rink.  Billy met us there, since it was along his commute path.  Since it had snowed earlier in the day, I think most people opted not to go.  Sarah said it was a zoo at their previous one, but we had no trouble parking or ordering the pizza special.

 

I'm almost certain it was the twins first time to skate, and they loved it.

J-G

William spent most of his time out on the floor with two of his friends from school.  I wasn't fast enough to snap a good picture.

I spent one of my twin-less hours making up a secret santa gift for our upcoming MOPs Party.  I used a brand new zipper, though the date on the packaging read 1960. = )

Finished product.

I had an opportunity to help settle an argument afar, by taking pictures of Alice's ears.  We still call her our little elf.

William's homework required him to lay on the floor and make the letter J with his whole body.  The big girls thought it would be fun to join him. = )

Avia brought Grace the McDonald's Hello Kitty teapot from Texas, and my little Hello Kitty super fan had a tea party on the stairs. = )

We got our second, much heavier, snow on Saturday, and Emily was dressed and out the door to play in the snow again. = )

I shoveled our sidewalk, for the first time in my life, and Emily helped me salt.  I did have to get out and drive in it, because Juliet had spent the night with Avia.  But it wasn't as horrible as I had imagined, since it was so late in the day the plows had done their work and the roads were mostly clear.

I'm not looking forward to more snow shoveling, but now that the wait is over (and our carport is working splendidly) I'm ready to buckle down for a long winter.

later days

We have a carport!!!!!!!!

It isn't anything like we were expecting, because Billy decided to be practical at the last moment, and we had sides added and left off the front panel.  Sadly, this means that I don't love it, despite the inner turmoil that it caused. It should keep us from having to dig our cars out from the snow, which is ultimately the point.

They came after their window, but they were working on a Sunday, so I felt bad for them.  They put it up fast, and still didn't finish until after dark!

And so, with out further ado the grand reveal of our new carport:

Hoping this roof it strong enough to keep out all that snow:

So anticlimactic.  But it is done!

later days

Garage Sale, well, Yard Sale

The Friday before thanksgiving, I held a garage sale.  It was cold, and windy, and cold, but it felt so amazing to empty the shed of all the cast offs, it didn't matter!

My outside helpers

Emily made 3 great signs for me to use (she was inside of course!) = )

I used the heat lamps to help warm, and my mom was the primary adult in charge (inside.)  She and the kids helped me move things from the shed to the front area. She also came back with Sarah's neighbor Josh the next morning and he helped us with some of the heavy lifting and set up.

Business was slow the entire day, but I sold my Christmas tree* and our TV stand, and a handful of other things to souls brave enough to get out of their cars.

My mom came out and helped me pack up just before dusk.  We filled my car with what we could and put the bigger items on the roadside.**

what happens to a propane tank that runs for several hours in particularly cold weather

It was rainy and colder on Saturday, so I didn't regret holding it a single day.  And I feel soooooo good having cleaned out the shed!

Once we cleaned out the shed, this little girl found the bike she received 2 Christmases ago. It had a low tire, and there were snow flurries in the air, but she was determined! I spent 15 minutes outside with her

Now, if we could just get that carport put in, my "big projects" list would be pretty minimal!

later days

* ::sniffle:: it was my 9ft tree, and just couldn't stand up in our new house.  That and my photo frame screen were the only two sentimental things that I sold.
**people picked it over and everything was gone before the trash ran!

A Ridiculously Complicated Carport

We are building a carport.  It's actually a concession on our part.  We wanted a garage, but when we spoke to the contractor* he said that we would have to do some major construction on our laundry room just to get a door at that end of the house, let alone add on a garage.  Major construction is not in the budget, but this Texan cannot imagine scraping snow off the car every morning, so a carport was the best compromise.

I could not get a contractor to call me back about a carport either.  This came as no surprise at this point, since construction in this state is near impossible, so we brainstormed a bit more, and decided even a pre-fab carport is better than daily snow scraping.

We found a company that actually answered their phones! ::shock:: and we were able to put in an order for a decent looking pre-fabricated carport.  They were no longer taking orders after that week, so I did things a bit out of order, but paperwork around here is somehow faster than construction.

In the contract for the carport company, it said that our building site had to be level within three inches, so I went to a landscaping company and settled on some crushed concrete to be delivered the following Monday.

They called me Monday to say that with the rain, it would have to be later in the week before they could deliver it.

Later in the week I went in to our local office to find out about building codes and what I would need to build a carport.  Turns out we needed a survey done of our property, which might be on file with a certain office, but they never returned my call.  Lovely.  So I called half a dozen survey companies.  Two called me back, one of which was a corporate surveying company and would have been very pricey.  The other company was $150 more than what we were anticipating, but when they are the only ones who return your calls, you have to make compromises.

So we set up an appointment for this week (which was 3 weeks away at the time).  Almost 2 weeks after I called, the office that might have our survey called back to tell me they didn't' have it. But did give me some insight into a simpler method of obtaining a permit.  I went out to the county website, and used some information from their GIS system to give an approximate placement for our carport.

When I brought it in to the village office, it turns out we couldn't build it where we currently park, because it would not be 10 feet from our property line.  = /  Our options were to build in the backyard (not convenient) or on the other side of the house (slightly more convenient.)**

We got very lucky that our leveling dirt delivery had been delayed, because I would have been very sad to have to have purchased it twice.  When they called back to reschedule, we left it open until I got the approval from the village office on a location.

So I redrew our sketch, putting it on the other side of the house.  When I brought it back in, she told me that it had to be 25 feet from our property line, and that our property line is actually 2 feet in from the sidewalk. Our house is only about 5 feet from the sidewalk anyhow. This means that the bottom two front porch steps aren't even on our property.

Once again, I redrew the new location of the carport^, again more inconvenient than before, but this time my mom was the one who dropped off the papers, while I took William to the optometrist.

On Friday, the village called me back with news of an approval, so the twins and I went to pick it up.  I scheduled with the landscape company to come out to deliver on Monday.

Tuesday was grocery day, so I had planned on driving out to the county seat (about 40 minutes) on Wednesday afternoon, but my check engine light came on. ::laugh of disbelief:: so it had to wait.  Thursday morning I dropped of my car at the mechanic with Billy, then took his car out to the courthouse.

My mom was on call to meet the bus for the twins, in case I ran out of time.

When I arrived, I parked in the back, but all of the doors I could see said "no public entrance" on them.  So, instead of trudging through muddy & wet grass to get around the building. I moved the car around to the front.  I had to go through a security scanner to get inside.^^  This may not sound like a big deal to y'all in the south, but I had on a coat, and hat, and gloves... it was annoying.  = )

So, I navigate through the halls to the office.  I explained what I needed, and had all my papers in order.  She asked who would be building it, and when I told her, she said "oh, they are in the system, but don't have a permit on file."  splendid. I pulled up my email to get contact information for her, and at this point they, thankfully, cut me out of the middle.  The permit lady was in direct contact with the construction firm, and was able to request exactly what she needed.

While we were waiting on the email with all of the documents, she looked at my zoning approval from the village, and told me I needed a health permit.  For a carport.  seriously.

So, I walked over to the health department, and because we have a well on our property, we have to have a $29 permit to build, well, a carport.  So I paid their extortion fee, and headed back with my health permit to the courthouse.

I have to be rescreened by security, and this time there is a line, and my time is ticking.  Back in the office they had received the email, but the correspondent had forgotten the signature.  At this point, I had to contact my mom, so that she could meet the bus, but didn't have any service, so I went down the hall to the nearest window.

Back in the permit office, they finally got all of their documents in order, and it was another $130 for a permit to build this amazingly complicated carport.  As she was handing me the approved documents, she told me that now I need to take a 2'x2' board, and I laughed because I thought she~ was kidding.  She was not.

I had to take a 2'x2' board (I asked her if it could be a little bit bigger, so that I didn't have to take out my saw) and put it at the end of my driveway with some super special code so that the inspector could tack up our building permit.  How am I even surprised at this point? I also had to stake out the area that it's going, even though we have a large slab of crushed concrete in place already.

Gee, I wonder where they want to build the carport?

My mom bought me some reclaimed stakes from a thrift store last week, for 8 cents a piece.  At least those were cheap.

The $130 permit was supposed to be up at 9am, but it's still not there.

Once that piece of paper is up, the only thing we are actually waiting on is the construction company to schedule and build the carport in question.  We are really hoping to beat the snow.  Who knew that would be the least frustrating part?

later days

*this is another complaint about the lack of people calling me back in this state.  only 2 contractors out of the dozens I left messages for called me back, and the other one was just too polite to say that he didn't have time.

**we are on a double lot, so we have two entrances leading off of the road, but one of them leads to grass.

^I do want to say that our village office staff was great.  They were helpful and answered the phones when I called.  We just needed more time, which we didn't have, so it was kind of a haphazard process.

^^I certainly understand why you would need a security scanner on a courthouse.  I mean, you don't end up in front of a judge for happy things, usually.  But making the public go through security seems a little over the top to get a permit.  And I do feel like maybe the employees should be screened as well, I mean they would be just as capable of bringing weapons in as anyone else.

~the ladies in this office were also helpful, I just did not like what they were saying.