Insanity coming to a close

It has been a crazy 9-10 months. This is just a summary of the many things that have gone on or been worked on.

• Moved wife and kids into an apartment in Florida with as many belongs as would fit. This took a couple trips.
• Put kids in brick & mortar school
• Put house up for sale - assuming would find job in Florida.
• After 5 weeks we put both kids in Florida virtual school for all but one class each. So wife drops kids off at school each day for 1 class.  The Florida virtual school, Hillsborough county virtual school and Hillsborough county regular school all tell you different things  regarding enrollment and other requirements - sigh. At any rate, kids are 5+ weeks behind with the switch.
• Job hunted from Virginia for nearly a month.
• Packed house into a POD storage unit and shipped to Florida. Moved a few belongings to mother in-laws house.
• Picked one of 2 jobs I had offers from.
• Had to leave travel trailer at house in VA initially
• Moved self and some more belongings to FL apt with family.
• Got braces for daughter - about a year later than we had planned due to waffling on move for a while.
• Moved travel trailer to storage area at apartment - has roof leak so had to cover with tarp (which promotes mold ..).
• House hunted and hunted
• Wife had cataract surgery done on both eyes
• Bought house - now we have 2 houses and an apartment
• Sold travel trailer at large loss. It may have fit in side yard but not comfortably and would have caused some problems.
• Had another kidney stone.  Number 7?  Maybe higher.  Had expensive ride to hospital this time - wife and family were all well over an hour way (probably 2+) at the time.  Hopefully be a couple years before another (at worst).
• Sold VA house
• Moved everything from apartment to new house.
• Still haven't got son his drivers license - he isn't in a hurry and traffic here is crazy at times.
• New house has many "minor" needs
• Main breaker went bad on day 1 (likely related to transition of power).  
• Dryer exhaust run is wacky and long - new dryer shuts off thinking that the exhaust is blocked. I need to install an external dryer vent booster such as this.  Still researching.
• Lots of light bulbs out.  Replacing everything with LED lights.
• Master bath vent broken.
• Haven't gotten around to trying the jet tub yet.  Not sure if it works.
• Fan/light fixture in front bedroom has bad light sockets. Will use master bedroom fixture + new light.
• Dining room switch got very hot - fixture using too high of wattage incandescent bulbs. Installed new dimmer with dedicated on/off and LED bulbs - now fine.
• Wiring in house is odd; number of breakers just labelled "lights" but no indication of room or scope.  Looks like some outlets are on same breaker as major appliances.  Mapping out what is on each breaker.
• 12 x 16 shed has hole in roof, floor and it full of roaches, etc.  Tore it down - took to landfill (approx 6k lbs of junk).  Wired off of water heater.  Will replace with metal building (soon I hope). 
• "Office" was built with no permit and needs lots of work to make usable and code compliant.  This is longer term project.  Office exterior door frame is rotted and termite damaged (long ago it appears).
• A number of other outlets and switches needed replacement. Started to replace those.
• Not efficient use of storage areas - putting in rubbermaid/closetmaid rails/wire shelving in pantry, laundry area, etc. This helped a lot.
• Used closetmaid rails and brackets and some wood to make decent adjustable desks and shelving for my kids.
• Master bath - one sink has leaking drain line.  On todo list - only using other sink.
• Kitchen cabinet shelves were "droopy" - added some 1x2 to back side to straighten/strengthen them.
• Exterior ends of house need to have some wood patched where rot occurred.
• Fence around back yard is falling down just about everywhere - need to talk with neighbors once we straighten more important stuff out.
• Pool needs to be refinished at some point - gunnite is worn away in many places.
• Master bedroom lacks light on ceiling fan.  I've got a new fan/light and am still trying to work on replacing it.  The ceiling fan fixture box was undersized and ceiling joist layout is odd there - access is only from the room unless I shrink a lot. Just need to take some time and work through it.
• Microwave trim pieces cracked and fell off.. need to degrease and epoxy.
• All carpet in house needs to go.  There is carpet throughout the master bathroom and it is in poor shape.  Looking into options now.
• Motorcycle lost one of 2 cylinders one night while going from apt back to house and got caught in a rain storm.  Assuming water got to wiring or plugs but have no time to fix - might try new plugs and some dielectric goop to seal plugs better; saw that online from some others.  Was fun riding along at ~60 (in 65/70 zone) at full throttle on one cylinder when 2nd cylinder would "kick in" for 20 seconds or so.  
• Replaced car brake pads; a dealer commented on them but didn't say how bad.  I think they were looking for an easy buck at that time.  I purchased and held some brake pads and rotors for about 3 months until I had time to deal with.  Pads still had 5k or so life left and rotors are not too bad.  The pads I purchased (correctly based upon model) turned out to be wrong - looks like during the major model change they switched to the brake system off the larger/heavier model they retired.  I replaced the pads only this time - next time I'll put on the rotors (if they are the correct ones.. sigh).
• Got truck in for a couple oil changes.  Didn't intend to drive "Herbie Jr" aka "Duckinator" that much but between rain and motorcycle issue..
• Finally have dentist and family practice doctor; working through catching up on all our "maint" work. I'm thinking I will need to have some work done on one knee again - all this moving took a toll.
• Had one gerbil (Shadow) die.
• My father is working on building us some book cases (a big thanks to my family) - we have a significant number of books and stuff is just stacked in boxes on their sides right now..  That should clean up much of the tornado look.
• Work has had a number of challenges - lots of new things to learn which is nice but also some other things that have been less nice.  Hoping things improve.
• Got a good chunk of the new house paid off with proceeds from old house - new payment is much nicer.  Big sigh of relief..
• Need to plan out a car for son.  Maybe a hybrid would be better around here. Still researching.

I'm sure I forgot a bunch of stuff  but this gives you an idea - it has been busy to say the least.

[Edit 2017/07/05]  Adding on painful plumbing job.  Toilet was running more and more.  Made best guess on replacement kit of internals - guessed wrong.  Had to guess because toilet shutoff valve would not shut off.  The valve was very close to wall so I was trying to avoid cutting but after a long attempt at removing without damage it was obvious the compressing fitting was tightened to the point of squashing the tube.  I finally cut it off, took out some drywall to give some room and had some issues with the torch as I tried to solder in a short extension.  All my last 15-20 years of soldering had been either overhead or flat I guess - my torch was not producing an even flame when tilted so low and even with 2 soldering blankets I ended up torching some paper backing in the wall (maybe related to stucco work - not sure). A little fast patting put out the flame fortunately.  I did have the fire extinguisher sitting there but it would have been overkill slightly.  I'm planning on a torch head with a hose for any future work.  Good news is my solder joint was good and my install of the new 1/4 turn valve was successful.  Bad news is that the 2nd toilet repair kit I picked up was the right size but missing a critical part (that I of course cut apart/off the old toilet since it was stuck). Another run to Lowes it was.  Eventually it all came together but it wasn't a restful holiday weekend. All this was combined with trying to organize a room for an office along with the garage which looks like a tornado moved in.  It is getting there but.. note to self.. don't move oneself again.. hire a company.  Sigh, I also just found this "Hexpander" tool - would have saved me hours of time and probably made the job very pain free if it works as well as demonstrated.  Not sure I do enough of this to warrant it but if I ever have to help my kids with some similar plumbing..

Everything is in the house at least.. many praises for that.

Psalm 127:1English Standard Version (ESV)

127 Unless the Lord builds the house,
    those who build it labor in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city,
    the watchman stays awake in vain.