The kids are at our neighbor’s house watching a movie. Don’t know when they’ll be home, but we’re enjoying the quiet so far. *lol* The neighbor called us and said they just started “Shrek.”
The weekend will be pretty quiet as well – it’s supposed to cool down so with any luck we’ll be able to do some yardwork. Denis ripped out 90% of the ivy from the front of the house last fall, but now that spring has arrived, the remaining 10% is trying to grow again, so we really need to get rid of that once and for all. So if the weather holds out and stays in the mid-60s like they are predicting, then we should be able to crank that out.
In other news, the new house that got built in our already-established neighborhood is completely done. I’m shocked. It only took 3 months from pouring the foundation to laying the sod. Either that house was REALLY poorly built, or the homeowner is in the construction trade with a lot of contacts. There’s no way a “regular” person can have a house in that fast a time. I have to say – it looks really nice though and totally fits in the neighborhood.
As for us, I got a recommendation of a plumber to replace our water heater. We considered going with a tankless water heater because they are more efficient than tank heaters and can reduce utility bills. However, since this isn’t our “forever” house we are just going to put in a regular tank water heater, knowing that we’ll be building a house and moving long before this new heater needs to be replaced again. And when we build? Tankless, baby!! Either that or installing a solar water heater (which I’d actually prefer).
During the late afternoon I actually went looking at home plans (one of my favorite hobbies) and actually found that one of the major homeplan sites has “passive solar” designs available now! Unfortunately, they are all hideous. Which is surprising. When I designed a passive solar house a couple years ago with the program Denis gave me for Christmas, the street-side of the house was a lovely farmhouse with a front porch and normal roofline. It was from the BACK that you could see it was an obviously passive solar design. And in my mind, the back of the house can be ugly – no one is gonna see it. But I guess the floorplans I found presume the southern exposure is going to be the front of the house (in our case, on our land that we own in town the BACK of our house will be facing south). That’s the only reason I can think they were all designed that way.
Okay, let me go see what’s on tv. I wish I had brought my book home from work – if I had known the kids wouldn’t be around tonight I most likely would have been able to finish it. Oh well, hindsight.