Good riddance, window bars

...because nothing says "Welcome to the ghetto" quite like bars over a window.

We're getting back to work on the house; Michael's still gutting the old bathroom upstairs, so I'm prepping the laundry room and half bath on the first floor for painting, since painting those two rooms is a relatively small project that I can do myself while Michael tackles bigger projects. As part of the prepping, I finally took off the bars over the window in the old laundry room/new half bath. For some reason, this is the only window in the entire house that had bars over it, and it bugged the crap out of me. And for anyone wondering if that was really such a good idea to take the bars down, since bars are usually installed on windows for a good reason, yes, yes it was a good idea to take them down. Because they are ugly, and there are more aesthetically pleasing ways to safeguard our home.

Why does nature love our house so much?

It’s been very quite around here lately, especially since we haven’t been home. We spent a week on the Outer Banks like we do every summer, but this year’s trip was cut a day short because Michael had to go to a conference in San Diego. A conference whose expenses were paid for by his work, which meant a free hotel room right by the water to take advantage of. So the only thing we had to pay for was my plane ticket (super cheap, by the way) and my meals. Unfortunately, I didn’t stay the whole week like Michael, but the two and a half days I spent there were fantastic.

So during the 12 or so hours we spent at our house between the trips, you’d think not too much would happen with regard to the house, especially now that most of the major issues have been resolved. Like big holes that have been sealed off but at one time allowed creatures of various sizes to get in. Silly me! I went up to the third floor looking for something and saw that yet another bird managed to find its way inside, probably through a gap between an air conditioning unit and the window sill. I have no idea how long the little guy was stuck inside; not long enough for the cats to pick up on it, fortunately. Michael got him back out, though, but we had to take out the window unit to prevent this from happening again. No big deal, since we don’t spend any time up there anymore, but I thought once the giant hole in the ceiling on the second floor was gone, birds getting into the house would be a thing of the past. Now if we can just get rid of the ants finding their way into the kitchen so that we can stop putting cat food in bowls that are placed in bigger bowls of water that may occasionally spill (and by "occasionally" I mean always), I'd be a happy urban camper.