Back, Bathrooms, and Hummingbirds.

Today started out kind of jumping around. First of all, I really tweaked my back moving a shelving unit Saturday. It wasn't that it was all that heavy. I think that I just twisted wrong. It initially hurt, but working in the damp and cold aggravated it something awful. With a bad right knee and knotted muscles on the left side of my spine, I was really in a pickle. I had to lift my legs with my hands to get into the car. 

I tried to avoid making things worse the next day, but predictably, that did not work at all. I pulled in a lawn chair to 'back butter' the tile for the bathroom, but even reaching those out to Tim did not help the situation. 

Tim bought a heating pad for me, and I used a lot of Ben-Gay, but by bedtime, I have a confession. I had one temazepam left from the last time that I twisted my back wrong, and lord knows how old that was, but I took it anyway. I went to bed with my heating pad. 

I am pleased to say that when I woke up this morning, I certainly wasn't 100%, but I could move, albeit slowly and carefully, taking special pains not to twist anything. 

Tim had to go to the reassessment hearing. We bought a house for $30,000 5 or 6 years ago, and they appraised it at $138,000.  We are honestly confused by this. We expected an increase, but it is a 1140 square foot, 2 bed, 1 bath house that they listed  as being a two family dwelling (how that mistake was made is not clear). They also said that it had a fireplace. It does not. It is a very old house which sits over a hand dug earthen basement. The basement is not a useable space at all. It's sole purpose being to access the drains and pipes of the house. 

She made the changes, but the thing she was most interested in was the neighbor's house. Like us, he owns multiple houses, which are poorly maintained, the porches covered with garbage and debris. The woman taking the notes at the meeting advised Tim to take those pictures to the next meeting, that they will certainly impact the property values of our houses. This neighbor has long said that he is friends with an official on the zoning committee and so he will never be cited. I guess, in the end that turned out to be good news for the neighborhood. 

So. Tim felt better. 

We had to get down to the new house right away. Tim had set a trap for the raccoon. We caught one, but that very night, another helpful raccoon wandered in to do a quality assurance check of the cat food at 3:30 AM. Tim set the trail cam up to keep an eye on the livetrap, and sure enough, there was something in the trap this morning. It was Tiger, who I hadn't seen for a while. 

When we got there, he meowed at us. We opened the door to the trap and he followed me into the garage to get breakfast.

Then we got to work. We finished the tiling. Tomorrow, we will grout it. 

Tim did grout the floor. I did manage to make myself useful sponging the excess grout with him later. 

I heard Tim talking in the living room. A humming bird had managed to get itself inside. I picked him up gently and carried him outside, and was delighted that he sat on my fingertips for quite a while looking around in an unbothered way. Finally he flew off, straight up to the very top of a huge pine tree. 

It is not a good picture because it was a quick snap with the phone. 

I sent it to my sister who lives within sight of the new house. She didn't know the hummingbirds had returned, so she was delighted too. 

This is her picture from last year. She was sitting on the porch enjoying a sunny evening, and this fellow flew down and landed on her toe. He sat and watched her for quite some time. 

I will close with a laugh. 

or this...

We bought the bead board that will go around the bottom of the bathroom walls. We will install that tomorrow, and then we'll be ready to put in the bathroom 'appliances'. Pretty excited about that. 

oh...and I bought the shower curtain today.