Bringing Down The House

 Do you know what this is?  I do.  It's a handy little tool for unzipping the vinyl siding from your house.  It works really well, super easy.  Pray you never have to use one.  Because there are only two reasons for removing the vinyl siding from your house.  Either you don't like the color (in which case you can probably afford to hire someone else to change it), or something has gone horribly, horribly wrong behind your siding.

 Yup....horribly wrong.  It all started with the chimney, but we all know what happens when you get into what seems like a straightforward project.  Right behind that section where the drywall is exposed is my computer desk.  In recent years, when the house is quiet in the morning, I could hear chewing noises.  I kid you not.  I thought I was losing my mind at first, but it turns out the chewing was real.  What I was losing was my house!!  Not even termites, just ants.  Although what's the difference in the long run, I couldn't say.  The house is just as destroyed. Preston assures me that since this is a gable end it doesn't support a whole lot of weight, and he would know, but I still have the nagging suspicion that the siding and cheap T-111 that was under it were the only things holding my roof up. 

This is the part where the chewing was coming from.

So now I'm torn between showing up at work in order to make money to pay for all this repair, and staying home to help repair it!!  I feel so guilty going off and leaving Preston to deal with it alone, but then if I close the shop to stay home and help him, I don't get any work done and no money comes in.

So if my hours are a little erratic this week and next, that's why.  If I could only clone myself.