Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone.

The wall...get it? The Wall.
Anyway. Here's our new wall.




By the way, did you know they were saying, "No dark sarcasm in the classroom" ?
I always sang "The doctor has the same dark classroom."
Also, The walls all kind of look like Hellraiser.
But I digress.


And here's kind of a cool view from the back.


And here's the pool, um, I mean the garage:

movin' on back

The concrete truck was here.

park [paːk] the car [kaː], in Harvard [haːvəd] Yard [ya:d].

Things are shaping up for the garage. Considering we had a one car garage that housed, well, everything but a car; it's going to be a welcome change to have space for three cars. (More to the point two cars and all that other stuff). Here are some pictures of the footings, and you can see how the driveway is going to come forward and wrap around the house.

compare and contrast

Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

Here's the wall. See, not exactly straight.



And here's the crack.



Everything else passed muster. So it's just the west wall that is going down.

well that just fissures!

It seems as though we have several cracks in the foundation. The west wall (front of the house) is bowed... not in an, "oh, we can just make it into the oval office" kind of way, but more like a "we need to tear it down so that the new house won't collapse kind of way."
And so it begin$.

oh no, goodness

That's what J kept saying over and over as we watched the house (finally) get demolished. "Oh no, goodness! Oh no, goodness!" He didn't seem upset, more concerned and similar to how I felt, Wow! Is that really happening? Wow. He was also extremely concerned about our beds. Even though he's seen our beds, SLEPT in his own bed in the apartment, he repeatedly uttered "Where K's bed? Where J's car bed" as we watched what he only could have assumed was a giant metal dinosaur taking bites out of our house.
So, here it is before






And here it is during

I'll get some "After" pictures up soon.

I wonder if they would have taken my old Skid Row CDs

Since the home wreckers still were not able to wreck our home today, we had the trees removed. The individuals who did said removal also apparently dabble in scrap metal recovery. They asked if they could have a few things, and we said sure. They proceeded to strip the house of the gutters, vents, railings, plumbing, and window screens. Use them well tree removal guys, use them well.

I drove past tonight. The orange safety fence is up, and it looked so bare. It was strange, like it wasn't our house any more.

still standing

Demolition was scheduled for Friday, but the village inspector arrived two and a half hours late. The demo company said that it was too late to get started at that point, so it was postponed to Monday. And as of this posting, our contractor is waiting to hear from them.

I feel like I'm in a waiting room while a family member is going in for surgery, and they keep delaying things. In this case I guess it would be major reconstructive surgery. Or would this be euthanasia...I'm spending way too much time on this analogy. Anyway...we wait.

the writing is on the wall

To keep the kids occupied while I was trying to get everything out of the house, I let them draw on the walls. They really enjoyed it. I must admit, I couldn't help myself - drawing on your livingroom wall with a Sharpie is quite liberating. Oh, I should add, I only did this when J was elsewhere. There was no way he could understand the difference between drawing on walls ready to be demolished and the new apartment's walls. I'd like that security deposit back.