It’s day 8 of the roof construction. We were told it would take 2 weeks. We knew it would be a major disruption. We know the crew is working as hard as they can around the Texas weather.
That said, I’ve got to vent. This is a whiny post. You have been warned.
I’m so sick of the roof construction. The dogs are stuck inside. They bark. People are hammering, pneumatic tools are going, and the level of noise is just constant. I’m stuck inside. I’m very set in my ways. This is driving me slightly batty.
It doesn’t help that our roof has been designed by some architectural maniac.
Just make a damn rectangle. What is this nightmare?
To top it off, one of the ebook retailers spontaneously rolled back some updates on our books, so the painstaking edits are all negated. We don’t know why. We are fixing it. Our website refused to migrate, and although that issue is now fixed, it took a whole day to sort it out. Now my made up language at Vulgarlang isn’t saving. I can’t access the save menu. My subscription order spontaneously self combusted through no fault of my own. My HEB account – gasp! – has somehow become so borked that I cannot add any methods of payment. I might have to get it deleted. I have to talk to support to do it.
I’m my own one woman magic wave. Everything digital around me is exploding. ::eyes her PC:: Don’t even think about it. How will I play Solasta if you croak? It’s the only thing that’s keeping me sane.
I have talked to various “support” so much in the past 3 weeks, it’s unreal. Last week and the week before, I had a Zoom every day. Every day. So much zoom. And support chats. All the support chats ever.
::stares::
Too much talking.
Orkin guy is outside spraying everything. The dogs are barking. It’s that or spiders and scorpions in the office.
Zen. There has got to be some zen around here somewhere.
And this concludes our Edition of Introverts Today. You might think from all the public appearances and lectures that I’m an extrovert. Nope, I’m an introvert trained in public speaking. And this introvert is seriously overloaded.
When I feel overwhelmed I put in my earbuds to listen to a fine Ilona Andrews audiobook (generally while also doing crafts or building in Sims 3), but I’m thinking that might not be the huge gift of enjoyment and peace for you that it is to me.
If it helps, you have helped many in the BDH find their Zen. 🙂
Also, every single time you talk about roof noise I think of Curran and Derik hammering on Kate’s roof in Magic Bites.
Thanks for all your amazing books (I’m doing an annual re-listen of all the Hidden Legacy books right now— LOVE that series so much!).
P.S.
I do not care for Graphic Audio books in general, but my husband has a hard time getting into the audiobooks that I so adore (he will listen to podcasts, which I mostly don’t care for). I bought Sweep in Peace in Graphic Audio (I already have the traditional audiobook) because my husband likes the idea of a “radio play.”
We will see if I can tempt him into the BDH with me! Also, the Graphic Audio version of Sweep in Peace is so good that I preordered Magic Bites in GA form even though I already have it as a traditional audiobook.
Both teens are into the Innkeeper series, and are sorely disappointed that Sweep of theHeart has not been adapted. I’m saving Magic Bites for our next road-trip. My husband cracked up at Arland’s caffeinated adventures, so I want him along for the Kitty, Kitty ride
Aaaaaaactually, I can’t say too much until the ink dries on everything, but there is good news about the adaptation of Sweep of the Heart by Graphic Audio! Watch this space 😀
Please don’t leave us in suspense!
Announcement coming soon, but it’s good news 😀
Squee!
Perilously close to swearing at us, I infer. At least you didn’t use the P-word.
😂 I know I would get my mouth washed with Horde soap
hooray!!
Yup, Curran on Kates’s roof is my first thought as well. Unfortunately, the IRL roof work doesn’t seem quite as fun as the book version.
Oh my, all I can do is say sorry! You are allowed to whine, it’s been more than the normal life annoyances. (Your house does have an interesting roofline)
The website snafu sounds horrid. Re HEB, if you’re using their app, have you tried deleting it and redownloading? I’ve had considerable luck doing this with other apps that suddenly stopped working. Last night I did it to my graphic audio app because it wouldn’t play the new book. Grrrrr, but it did work.
I guess the e retailer also has system issues? Ugh. Hang in there!
Same! Only my book played but was basically fast forwarding while playing so only screeches were coming out if my phone. I had to delete and redown load the book which for some reason takes hours. It worked though so hang in there.
Sorry to hear that, ladies! I did let GA know, hope you can listen now.
I feel for you. I am currently hiding out in another floor’s break room, prepping myself mentally to be talky for a 1300 meeting.
They “fixed” the roof at work last year. It took 10 months. They dropped heavy loads (by crane) right above my desk. That was honestly terrifying. So I moved to another desk. Because I moved, they came and looked at the roof support structure and determined it had been damaged. So they cut out the portion of roof and patched it. That was month 1. I had a water feature by my desk for ~8 months. Plastic and a series of trash cans to catch the water. Wanna know how much it rains in South Mississippi? Last year was a record year – 10’ of rain.
So yeah, I feel your pain. Here’s hoping your 2 weeks is actually 2 weeks. Thankfully our roofers switched their schedule so they weren’t working the same schedule, and I had a home to escape to.
I seriously hope your day gets better. Sending you all the hugs. Maybe take the dogs to a park for awhile.
Upon reaching that degree of misery, while there is no cure, treatment is possible. First you must select items you procured (for you maybe yarn) for me gemstones find a spot and contemplate your precious and be soothed. Refuse any interruptions until refreshed and finish with copious amounts of tea. Rinse and repeat as needed.
That all sounds very….. peopley. I would be in the same state you are.
Sorry that all is happening to you. At least your eyes aren’t red in areas where it should be white. My eyes were extremely red early this morning I looked like I should be an extra for the Walking Dead.
I put eye drops in my eyes and it helped. However, they’re still a little red.
I told my boss if she saw me she would’ve asked me what’s wrong. 😎
As an introvert also I will mention that once the roof is done, it will be beautiful and never leak again.
See you Saturday zooming🙏
The local news channel was borked the other night. They couldn’t do the news from 4:00-5:00. At the dentist yesterday he couldn’t pull up my file on the computer or do X-rays because they had a new panorex xray machine installed that messed up their entire system. A lot of people are posting about computer issues the past 2 days. I think Mercury went retrograde a few days early! Sending positive thoughts for peace and quiet soonest.
I feel your pain. Last year we replaced our roof. It took 55 squares of shingles and is steep. We had four dogs at the time, two boxers, one Aussie and one white foo foo dog. They barked the whole time. As a part of the re roofing our solar panels a had to be taken down and put back on. That was another five days. Who knows why but some of the solar panels are no longer working. They say there is some corrosion. Luckily this part is under warranty.
Next week they replace the bad panels. We have since added a great Pyrenees pup.
I will be at work but my husband will be a bear the whole week.
**Introvert trained in public speaking**
Yep its draining! I hope you get some quiet time and rest soon. Advice from my extrointorvert daughter. When feeling overwhelmed sometimes crying for 10mins helps. She doesnt know why it works and why 10mins is her magic number. But she swears by it and offers it to everyone.
🫂
I commiserate with you. We replaced our roof after field mice killed it to feast on my grandfather’s table in the basement one very cold winter, (I kid you not.) The hammering and hordes of men staring at the damage still echo in my brain. Sending hugs and your choice of healing beverages!
Sending hopes of peace and zen! Good luck with the roof and the tech!!
I suggest a cup of tea and some fiber therapy (aka knitting). Maybe some noise canceling headsets would help too.
mercury retrograde?
Is something in the air? Because I’m having a bad glitch/support chat week too and we just found out our water pipes need replacing because the city is upgrading its water system and will add more pressure to our ancient pipes. Last summer was also filled with garage construction and kitchen upgrade to lower cabinets (pull out drawers) and a spice rack was added to the old ironing board cabinet. (Result was awesome though.)
Walmart package was delivered to a guy at a pharmacy so two chats over that and a phone number for our refund. Safeway ignored my no substitutions order and gave me a page of substitutions only to tell me that I didn’t select no substitutions. (I did so twice to be sure. Previous week it wiped out my whole cart.) I’ve asked that they escalate to programmers because their delivery web page has so many glitches.
But construction noise WHILE dealing with various support chats and calls is the worst. Plus you can’t really explain the noise and being shut indoors to your pets.
My sympathies! I’ve had my old email address hijacked and have been changing contact info & passwords for weeks. Then I lost my cell phone. Then a flat tire–like a pancake. But then I found the phone!
Things come in threes, so they say. I’m hoping that’s true and my latest 3 are done.
Deep breath. Deep breath. Take yourselves and the do’s off on a daycation to your kids house. Dogs might still bark but at least no drill or hammer noises
Dogs not dos.
Awww!!!
Apparently SpaceX Starship exploded today but they called it a success and everyone cheered. Their guy called it a “rapid unplanned disassembly” which i guess is an official term!
Sending Zen vibes. Calming quiet noise cancelling vibes.
My company has a very high percentage of introverts. One of the divisions is entirely extreme introverts. When the boss suggested we all turn our cameras on for meetings, everyone bought camera stickers. When the same boss suggested we have a Zoom happy hour on Fridays with cameras on; no one from the division came. Our manager asked us why and was told:
Oh, you mean Unhappy hour.
This week sucked. I hate everyone.
Go away and leave me alone.
I would have to wear adult clothes.
You want me to talk? To people?
We finally had to explain that the entire division had scheduled Fridays as ‘Quiet Day’. No meetings, no chat, silence. The entire day is blocked off with meetings that have no meeting links or locations and no one attends.
I hope that you get a Quiet Day.
Teamwork done right! 😀
That sounds about right. I am so glad I work from home. I get to wear my BDH and Cutting Edge t-shirts. Plus not a lot of interruptions from people. 😶🌫️
Tea, pets and earphones with your favorites playlist. Annnd, breathe.
I so get the last paragraph! I’m an introverted extrovert.. recently heard that means I’m an ambivert. Ahh labels!
Your comments about the roof made me chuckle. My brother is a general contractor who is frequently called to estimate shingles/steel roofing on multi-level roofs. After one particularly frustrating day, he went off on a rant about “@ssh@[+$ with Adobe, whoo! Look at ALL the chunks of roof I can make! The b@stards aren’t the ones explaining to a homeowner WHY their roofing job is so expensive when their buddy only paid blah de blah for his SQUARE house!” He thinks architects are sadistic little gremlins, who might need to be pelted with balls of their own waste.
Mercury is in retrograde….. maybe go have a mini spa day …
I feel you and feel for you.
I hope all the digital stuff starts working for you and that the roof is done soon.
Yes, even dogs who normally like people are instinctively protective of their house.
Do.not.touch.the.house.
Set on auto-repeat.
Can recommend tea for soothing frazzled nerves.
Electronics and computers and help desks, oh my!!!
May it all resolve soonest!!
Some tea, some knitting, and some game play seem to be required, STAT!
Umm, it looks like you decided on a metal roof. I agree that metal roofs last a really long time. But they are harder to install. Aren’t you thinking of selling and relocating? I recently installed an asphalt shingle roof with a 50-year warranty. They did it in a day. My lakefront house is 5,000 square feet. So not a small job. I love you two but I think this issue was self inflicted.
Our roof was replaced in 2011 with a good quality 30 year shingles. It needed to be completely replaced in 2021, so about 10 years. If the hail storm is strong enough, it can require replacement in 3 years. Unlike the genteel South Carolina, Texas specializes in golf ball sized hail hurled with the kind of velocity that breaks glass and car windshields. Let me put it this way, we have hail damage to our wooden fence. It looks like someone shot it with a shotgun. 🙂
It took us 2 years to convince the insurance company to replace the roof. This is our chance for a metal roof at a huge discount.
Ouch 🤕
Maybe it was a shotgun, you are in Texas 🤔
Idk whether you happen to have a big magnet thingy on a long handle about waist high, but if you do, then that’s good to drag around the ground around your house after the workers leave to catch any stray nails.
We have one that came from the in-laws and we use it for that whenever we have work done. So, idk how old ours is or whether your workers use one (we’ve never had them aware it even existed- but they want it as soon as they see us using it and giving them back a bucket of nails they’ve dropped). Anyways, it’s super helpful to keep the dogs paws from possibly stepping on a nail. Good luck! Happy Renovations!
As a fellow introvert, I can sympathize! I hope everything sorts itself out smoothly and soon!
I live in an apartment complex and on a regular basis the gardeners come through and trim the oleander bushes right in front of my apartment. The bushes are 5 ft away from my windows and front door. The tools that they used to do this are so loud that I cannot sit in the living room and comfortably listen to the tv or read a book, gasps while clutching my pearls heheh. I go and hide in the bedroom. Then they come through with the blower because God forbid anyone should use a broom. This is the only thing I have to compare to what you’re going through and I know it’s not even barely comparable. I don’t know how you guys are doing it. I know it’s unreasonable to think that you could just pack up all the animals and go stay in an Airbnb until it’s over. This is what happens when so much of our lives revolve around our homes. I hope it’s over soon.
All of us, introverts, understand your pain.
Introvert virtual fist bump and hug.
Good information to have if/when I need my roof replaced. I’ll make sure we rent a Airbnb to avoid the chaos.
I’m sorry this can’t be fixed with a cup of tea…🙁
Sounds like you need to secretly escape to a hotel without telling anyone…and..just..breathe!!!! Do whatever is needed to get back your inner peace. 🙂
Construction noise is the worst. And, people who don’t live in the house are around all day. Terrible. As another introvert, I feel your pain. Hang in there!
Many hugs.
Not sure if it’ll help or hinder concentration, but certainly relaxation: I’ve recently discovered these amazing 1-10 hour rendered (or combination rendered + real life) inmersive YouTube videos in the ASMR / Ambience genre, mostly products of the quarantine.
Oceanside cafe in Rio with Bossa Nova music and crashing or gentle waves? Check. Cozy log cabin in the alps with a crackling fireplace and snowfall? Check. Space station cabin bedroom with a view of the stars and earth? Yep. Experiencing rainfall while laying in a tent/camper van in the middle of the forest. Taking a bath at an ancient Roman bathhouse. Inside a hobbit’s home with sounds of cooking or writing. The Penderton drawing room. Spring sounds and flowers at a lakeside home. Fantasy alien world with fairies and flowers and amazing colors.
In my work-from-home days I have these on all day. The more I ‘thumb up’ the more I discover. All free!
I’ll happily share the channel names if anyone asks (if permitted) or in email.
Oh, I love those!
I use some to boost up boring tasks. Do I need to clean? World of Warcraft Alliance Tavern Music. All of a sudden I’m doing quests! I’m a wench!
Some of them are pure magic if you have ADHD, like the 10 hour high-frequency Brown noise- it’s like I just have the best night sleep of my life and I can finally focus! And it you put it in headphones it blocks the loudest snoring or construction noise- ask me how I know 😂
In other website investigative news ……. like Nancy Drew I was snooping around my favorite IA website (as usual) to find any changes since the last time I visited (yesterday)…… and lo and behold….. ……dun dun dunnnnnnn!
There is a blank book-holding template with RYDER 2 news coming soon!!!
Now, most likely maybe its been there for ages but it is still worth a collective BDH happy dance Friday……. and an investigation report (of website snooping skills) worthy of a nod to many teenage years reading Nancy Drew.
Any who…..If the coming soon reveal is part of the IA website migration shenanigans & led to BDH breaking news worthy (or not) of a happy dance Friday- it still makes my day🎉🎊
But if wishes were horses, hopefully the roof-pounding will stop long enough for House IA to have a quiet restful weekend.
The website redesign is likely to move things around and add new features, indeed 😊
But for the moment, project announcements have no changed: House Andrews have decided to not announce ongoing projects until the manuscript is completed or the book is ready for pre-order, in order to manage both reader expectations and workload.
At the moment, the offering is the Wilmington Years series, which is paving the way for the sequels of Blood Heir.
Hope this helps 🙂
Yes Thanks Mod R ……..
I am still 💃💃💃 quietly on the inside.
Love this image of roof construction + Tuna. Your new roof is gorgeous!
We were having pent-up dog issues, and we signed on with a doggie day care. Not every day, but one to two times a week, half or full day, for that mental stim that chills them out *and lets them sleep through the night*. Thank you to the working parents who came before us and paved the way for an easy drop-off and pick-up system at doggie day care. If we miss the dogs, we can find their dog group on a webcam. Ours are wandering around the room while the others relax on a bed at nap time.
You need a vacation.
Mercury entered retrograde today until May 14th 😭😭😭
And Texas weather has gone crazy!
Hopefully BHD sends you some good thoughts to help you find zen. And by Zen I mean you had better name a pet “Zen” so you can find it.
Ok, this is a dumb response, as you and I both know that holistic methods just make the bad critturs giggle. But along with all that Orkin, maybe aroma therapy including peppermint? Supposed to have the effect of repelling all things buggish and rodentish. I don’t know, it certainly repels me. Candy canes should smell of peppermint and maybe toothpaste. The ambient air? Blech.
But hey! It’s calming and helpful, and maybe it will magically get the dogs to stop announcing the roofers are working.
By the way, that roof is going to be GORGEOUS, and you will have a shiny 35 years of no trouble (one hopes).
Hi Nancy, peppermint essential oil is toxic to dogs. Most essential oils are actually toxic to dogs and cats so aroma therapy is straight up banned at our house. We rely on select, carefully curated incense and candles instead.
Here is some fake outdoors to look at…more pretty Texas. ⭐
This too shall pass.
Two words – soundproof earmuffs. They have been a sanity saver for this introvert who works in an open office. I’ve threatened to get ones with kitty ears.
from one introvert to another I totally get it.
some days I feel like the Grinch: the noise, noise, NOISE, NOISE,
So when that puts you on edge it makes everything else so hard to deal with.
can you escape to the spa, for just an hour or two? sit in the steam room or get a massage? can the doggies go to a kid2’s house or a dog park for the day?
Good luck figuring it out!