Good News

[ysabetwordsmith]

Good news includes all the things which make us happy or otherwise feel good. It can be personal or public. We never know when something wonderful will happen, and when it does, most people want to share it with someone. It's disappointing when nobody is there to appreciate it. Happily, blogging allows us to share our joys and pat each other on the back.

What good news have you had recently? Are you anticipating any more? Have you found a cute picture or a video that makes you smile? Is there anything your online friends could do to make your life a little happier?

Comments

Walking

[mdlbear]

My morning walk today was 1.2km -- farthest I've gone since January. Getting back into walking every day.

[siliconshaman]

After a couple of months looking and getting quotes, I think we've found a building contractor to convert the brick outbuilding into a garden studio, for an estimated price of substantially less than our budget.

Which is a significant relief because the other quotes were right on, or over budget! (when we got them, 6 contractors, half of which ghosted us.)

Over engineer for the long run or a cheap bust now?

[dorkbird]

It sounds like it's going to fall apart if it's that much cheaper. There are always reasons and it's not because the guy or crew feel like working for free!

I'd say hold off as long as you can and find a unionized contractor who can do the work properly. With construction related stuff, I'd always go for the people who live up to "This Old House" standards, who go for "belt and suspenders" rather than cut corners to keep the initial cost down.

Re: Over engineer for the long run or a cheap bust now?

[siliconshaman]

Actually, I think the first guy who quoted 14k was padding his estimate. The other crews all fall within the same range, plus or minus a couple of hundred.

That said, I found all of them through trustatrader.com which is a thing over this side of the pond. So they're all inspected and rated. We don't do Unionized, we have the court of public reputation instead.

Heck, you can go onto the website and see pictures of their previous jobs that the customers put up.

Re: Over engineer for the long run or a cheap bust now?

[dorkbird]

Interesting. I didn't inspect to see where in the world you're at.

Do the customers update many years later when potential problems are likely to surface? Even a bad job could last 1-5 years before crumbling. 🙈😖

Anyway. Hope it works out for you. Beginning a project like this is exciting!

Re: Over engineer for the long run or a cheap bust now?

[siliconshaman]

Yup, there are updates months, even years later. I know I saw one for a roofing job that was dated 3 years after the original.

Yay!

[ysabetwordsmith]

That's great news.

Around here, we're lucky if people even answer their sodding phone.

[bairnsidhe]

A friend of mine is going to be helping my mom in her garden. This neatly solves two issues; he needed extra cash and she needed reliable and trustworthy help.

Yay!

[ysabetwordsmith]

A good deal is when everyone wins.

[dorkbird]

I left some nuts in a nest before going away. I just checked and decided to move them to a different nest. I thought they'd be stolen or cracked for sure.

Physical therapy is nearly done for now-- Probably TMI

[dialecticdreamer]

Today was my penultimate PT meeting to work on my terrible right ankle. Seriously, it'd be more useful if it were actually broken and in a cast, most days!

PROGRESS! Serious amounts of it. I was focused on "Hey, I learned to move these muscles, sometimes ON PURPOSE!" in the arch of the right foot. For comparison, imagine that wiggling one's toes is as hard as wiggling one's ears. I've put four months of daily work into learning to move ONE muscle in my feet.

The physical therapist pointed out that I haven't had toe drop/dragging issues since the second appointment.

I've also managed to walk around the block, a distance of 0.4 miles, using the rollator as a security blanket instead of a seat to rest in along the way. Just the once so far, because I tend to get up, but get caught up in other things while waiting for daylight and by the time I come up for air it's two in the afternoon and the world is baking.

BEST of all? The physical therapist showed me the website that she uses to print off instructions, and I've been picking through every exercise for (right now) the ankles and feet, checking to see if I can even DO them, and that gives me a plan of attack for the six month gap before I can ask for another run of PT, this time intending to strengthen calves and work on the too-tight hips and hamstrings. The ultimate goal is to be able to put my left foot on my right knee so I can put my own socks on in less than thirty minutes.

Teach a woman to fish, and so on...

[maevedarcy]

My good news of the day is that I got a 99/100 in one of my finals this week! Still got a week of this semester to go but I'm crushing it!

Go you!

[ysabetwordsmith]

That's quite an accomplishment.

[janetmiles]

Two good news items, one work and one personal.

Work: The search for a second project manager came to a successful conclusion, and he started on July 7. Yay!

Personal: I've learned to sleep with my BiPAP machine. I don't like it, but I can tolerate it.