Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Water, water, everywhere

There is too much water in the wrong places in my house, which is at least 130 years old, but the plumbing and skylight are less than 5 years old.

We have a slow-draining shower, a slow-draining sink, a toilet-tank intake that pours out water every time you sit on the commode (and until we figured that out, it was causing leaks in the ceiling below), a skylight that leaks when rain hits it just so--all of which piss me off all over again at the pothead contractor who did the renovation, but let's not go there.

The weekend's big storm confirmed what I've been guessing--there's also now a leak in our bedroom near the front window, right above where my toes are when I sleep. (The bedroom is on the second floor of our three-storey house.) I think this means that the third-floor window casing is leaky, and since the windows are all of the same vintage we'll probably have to re-do them all.

We also have squirrels in the walls.

The repairs will get done, but some of them maybe not this year ... or next. I feel terrible about money from the store without having my house falling apart around me. It makes me feel that much more vulnerable and crazed, and I wonder if I'm sabotaging myself financially so that the store won't succeed and I'll have to get a real job, which I don't want, but financially what I'm doing is insane and possibly irresponsible.

Have I mentioned that I'm not paying myself? And the store is losing money? This is as expected, for the record--it's losing much less money than last year, which bodes well for next year, but even if we break even next year I'll have a hard time paying myself before offering my staff health insurance. Assuming I hold out that long.

Expecting something and living it are far from the same thing.

5 comments:

niobe said...

I'm sure I'm missing something, but how could you think that you're sabotaging yourself?

It sounds like you're doing everything you possibly can. An old house and a new business are a very difficult combination.

Scrivener said...

I didn't understand the sabotaging yourself thing either. It certainly sounds like you've got your hands full, but I dunno how that means you're subconsciously hurting yoruself.

S. said...

Sorry, folks, that was confusing. I should have put a link in from the beginning to the post where I described misplacing the deposit. I'll add it now to the main post.

There is also a whole unbloggable thing involving my tax phobia, so consider the lost deposit to be a metonym.

Jody said...

That's a lot to deal with -- we had a lovely old house in CT that just drove us crazy with all its drip-drip-drip problems. The constant anxiety about what might need repair next: uff da!

But: it always felt great to fix something, and know we'd made a big improvement on what the previous (idiotic) owners had slapped together. So there's that.

Anyway, courage.

S. said...

Jody--today I found another drip, from the showerhead of the slow-draining shower. If it speeds up a little, or the drain slows down enough, it would be possible to get a kind of Zen contemplative pool going in the third-floor bathroom.

Courage, yes. Thank you. A good reminder.