Sunday, November 29, 2015

Thankful for Homeowners Insurance (Among Other Things)

Happy (slightly belated) Thanksgiving to those of you that observe it, and happy late November to those of you that don't.  It has been a great weekend of feasting here at chez woolly, and I have a lot to be thankful for.

I am thankful for Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie
We hosted two meals here.  My oldest daughter came home from college (I say that like she's going to college on the moon -- she's in the same town as we are, we just don't get to see her nearly enough because she has silly "work responsibilities" in addition to school), along with my niece Sarah and Koren.   It was a lovely dinner, and I make a damn fine turkey if I do say so myself.

And also pie
Yesterday we hosted Friendsgiving and had a mighty feast of leftovers.  Jess and Koren brought over some of their leftovers to add to what we had left and a second mighty feast was enjoyed.

And yes, there was more pie.

You can tell it's apple pie because there's an apple on it.
I baked a lot of pie, y'all.

I am also thankful for homeowner's insurance -- and yes that probably should sound a little ominous. The drywall ceiling collapsed in the remodeled attic space that is connected to Morgan's bedroom, and there was evidence of moisture damage in the decking of our roof.

I have certain basic expectations around what I need my roof to do.  Keeping water on the outside of the house is somewhere near the top of that list.  (You had one job, roof...)

Carl and I had replaced the roof after we had a lot of hail and tornado damage about ten years ago.   Carl actually ended up doing almost all of the work himself, with occasional assistance from some of our friends.  I learned during this time that while heights don't bother me, ladders do.  So I didn't end up helping all that much.

Anyway, we were giving each other the side eye and wondering if we'd somehow managed to screw up the roof (and it took ten years to notice?  I don't know, we were both kind of freaking out due to the giant freaking HOLE in the ceiling of one of our upstairs rooms.)

This is not good.

Carl called a roofer to come out and give us a quote.   Wonder of wonder and miracle of miracles, the roofer said "looks like wind damage to me, you should call your insurance company."   Which we did, and long story somewhat shorter the insurance dude agreed and cut us a check.

So Carl called the roofers back up and scheduled them to come out and replace our roof on Thursday.  Last Thursday.  Yes, THAT last Thursday.  The one with the turkey and cranberries and pie.

He very sensibly broke this news to me while I was at work in Franklin and too far away to smack him.

That said, while I wasn't entirely prepared to be woken up at 6:30 in the morning by cheerful men running around and banging things on my roof (at least they were cheerful), the whole thing was done and over with by 2:00 p.m., and my roof is replaced and paid for.  And we weren't having dinner until 5:30 anyway, so no harm, no foul.

And hey!  We have enough money left over from the insurance payout to fix our septic tank.

The one that's under the deck that the previous homeowners built.

Sigh.


I might have started a bit of a Christmas sock on Thursday, in between cooking a feast and listening to pneumatic guns firing on the roof.


Just to take the edge off.  You understand.


No comments: