(Insert Item Here) Improvement

It's the season of maintenance and improvement...

For the last two weeks or so, I've been tinting the windows on my house. This is in an effort to increase the energy efficiency (the stuff I'm buying allegedly reflects heat in the summer and retains heat in the winter), reduce glare, and increase privacy. It's been kind of a long project, partially because I'm rather particular with the results, partially because it's difficult to do the job alone, and a bit because I'm doing one or two windows as time allows. I'm happy with the windows I've finished so far, but haven't completed the main windows in the living room, which is really where I want the glare reduction. I figure that if I'm going to make a mistake, that I don't want it to be on these windows.

I'm also painting my windowsills. The old paint is flaking off pretty badly. This is another slow job... mainly because I'm being anal about scraping the old paint, but again, I'm stretched a bit thin. I realized yesterday that there's no way I'll get the painting done before winter. But I'm going to try anyway.

I got a new roof put on as well. Today I'm supposed to get new soffits and fascia, and tomorrow, new gutters. When the guys tore off the old shingles, they said that it was a difficult tear-off because my roof was twice as thick as a normal roof. For some odd reason, I took that as a compliment.

Greg and I got his jeep running again yesterday too. We put a new fuel sending unit into the gas tank... and the gas gauge still doesn't work. But that's okay... the main reason for dropping the tank was to get the crap out of it. After getting the tank remounted, we picked up my younger daughter for some off-road fun. I really love that Jeep. Too bad I can't afford it. On second thought, it's probably a good thing that I can't afford it. I think I'd get into a lot of trouble with it.