Category: Life with Pratts

When this old roof starts gettin’ me down…

A while ago I found a leak in the flashing around the chimney, and it’s gotten worse, so there’s no putting off finding a roofer to fix it. In the meantime, I’ve come up with this temporary workaround that reminds me of the funky idea I had when there was a leak in the basement a year ago last spring.

Shredding my past away

I got started on a major shredding project, getting rid of ancient bills, and of course my old, toy-quality shredder died. Most of the new models I looked at weren’t right for the space I have, then I found the Fellowes P-12C for $80 at BJ’s Warehouse.

Sorting old magazines and comic books takes a lot of time, because I end up reading and remembering, but I was surprised that old bank statements have something of the same effect on me. This is a summary of my checking and savings accounts in August, 1984.

The deposits included business travel reimbursements, because I didn’t have a company credit card. The savings account is interesting. I had less than $1500 (about $3200, adjusted for inflation) and on that I earned over $6 interest. My savings account is much more substantial now, but it doesn’t earn that much in a year, even unadjusted for inflation; but, as you can see, the gain in ’84 was offset by the monthly fee for the checking account.

Follow-up: The shredder died in 2019, having seen only occasional light use.

Winter remnant

It was an extremely tough winter here in Massachusetts. In February, when I was up on the roof shoveling snow, I wondered if there would be any damage left behind. Tonight, I know the answer is probably yes.

It’s raining very heavily, and Eric noticed water in the basement. It was coming down from the chimney wall, and I ended up in the attic (which is really more of a crawl space), and found a leak in the roof where the chimney goes through. The kitchen faucet has a bizarre problem, and I can see it was caused by the plumber doing a crappy installation job years ago.

A couple of days ago the automatic garage door wouldn’t open, and I found a broken wire in the electric eye transmitter that opens the door if the beam is broken. I redid all the wires and now it works. I was hoping that would be my only household emergency this week. Oh, well….