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Stacy and Carol open“Start a List” after technical difficulties and chat about feeling overwhelmed by nonstop “adult responsibilities” and how one task sparks many more. They discuss ongoing decluttering projects, a poorly attended neighborhood yard sale, and home-maintenance headaches including roof inspections, potential shingle recalls, and needing a tree cut after repeated fence damage. Carol describes managing repairs for both her own home and her elderly father’s, where mouse and groundhog problems, wet boxes, attic cleanouts, and a leaking roof have cascaded into major work. They share mishaps like oversleeping for a shift, allergies, toilet problems (including finding a dead mouse), septic backups, AC failure during an event, and car repair frustrations, while noting the need for perspective and inviting listeners to share their own stories.

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Transcript

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Hey everybody. Welcome to Start a List with Carol and Stacy. I'm Stacy. I'm Carol. And I'm laughing because we've been trying to get on this meeting for 10 minutes. Yes. I I have look I have been making a fist, but I'll let your camera I will make a list next. But yes, it's crazy. Technical difficulties, it happens. Apparently, I had my camera still open in another app, and so I couldn't get on this app with it. So here we are now. And yay, smiling and happy to be back. We can't get it together lately. We've both had a lot happening and going on. And um if I'm available, she's not available. If she's available, I'm not available. And so um we're doing this real quick before we jump into our next activity. Yes, yes. And yes, I'm still cleaning out. She called yesterday and said, What are you doing? I said, I'm cleaning out my garage now. And she goes, Oh, Lord have mercy, you're always doing something. I'm like, always cleaning out something. Yeah, but here's the problem. When I do one thing, it creates another five activities. My sister and I have joked before that um, we'll start a project, then you get in the middle of that project, and then you start doing something else within that project, and then now you've got two projects, and then neither one of them have been completed yet. So yeah, I'm guilty of that. I mean, yeah. I just don't do projects now, I'm just leaving it. I'm I'm on a mission to start 70 new things in my life. I mean, I've been waiting to show up at your house one day and there won't be anything left in it to clean out. Oh you'll just be sitting on the couch and that's it. No, but I keep getting it'll be I'll get a phone call or something and be like, hey, can I bring my so-and-so over there and store it? And you know, a truckload later, then I've gotten more stuff to clean out. But I took some stuff to my parents. Their neighborhood had a yard sale yesterday and today. And so I took not much. I took a big area rug and a runner that I've had stored in my garage for seven years. Why I can't, I don't know. It's very nice for my other house, and I don't know why I was holding on to it, but it doesn't go with anything that I have now, and then a desk that belonged to Lewis, and I thought surely somebody will buy this. They'd had the worst turnout at this yard sale. I think they were aggravated. It's a lot of work, and then you sit there. So now I've got to go pick up the big stuff. They're not having it today, yeah. They did, but there was like nobody there. I mean, it's they still haven't sold it. No, so I'm like that. I they just finally called it off. They were like, we're going in. I mean, you can't sit there. Would you like to would you like to bring it to me so I can shovel it around and scoot it from place to the rug is really nice. It's from Lowe's, it's huge. It was in my other house. And I thought the rug and the runner together were only I had 75 on it. And I said, I'll take 60. That's a bargain. Yeah. Okay, first. Actually, I might buy that for my den from you. So before you, when you do go get it, swing by to let me look at it. I will. You may not have it needs to be cleaned because it's been in the garage, it's been rolled up, but it would need to be cleaned, but I'm just like it'll give me something else to do, it'll give me another project. Yep. Well, and I worked too much this week. That whole two and a half days really got me. Uh uh, no. Well, I had um, I, you know, back to our um uh reoccurring event. I definitely had an old person moment. I don't know if it was old or just worn out, but uh I overslept this morning. I was an hour and a half late to my shift. Oh my lordy. Whoopsies. I mean, there's glad you came. I walked in, I was like, I'm so sorry. And I said, you know, when I do something though, I like to go all out. So I didn't want to be five minutes late. I want to be an hour and a half late. No, not not 15 minutes late, but man, I sure I guess I needed that extra hour of sleep. I I was so embarrassed. I feel very tired today because um my allergies are acting up, and I need to get I put drops in my eyes earlier, but they feel um not itchy, just kind of heavy. Oh yeah. It's like pressure, not so much pressure. Sometimes when my allergies act up, my eyes feel tired. Like yeah, you know, like they just feel heavy and tired. Yeah. And so that's it, but it's okay. Did you have an old person moment of the week this week? Did I? She doesn't remember. That's it. There it is. Um, I don't remember necessarily an old person moment of the week. I worked two and a half days, and then I had the cleaners came, which I'm not complaining because I love my cleaners, and then I had to have the roof inspected, and then I I did go get my nails done and run some errands, um, you know, grown-up stuff that's boring. Right. Well, I yeah, I I'm at this point in my uh this season of my life, it's not boring, it's becoming uh the norm. We are um we're dealing with a lot with two, I'm trying to take care of two homes and my home, and then of course my elderly father's. And bless his heart. I guess his is just gonna implode and I'm gonna have to rebuild it by hand. Hammer in a nail. I've been working. But anyway, um, it literally I will go to his house and fix something or clean up something, and I'll find four more things wrong. And but um yeah, I was working on his garage cleaning out and literally kept finding wet boxes. The boxes I were was moving around, water was everywhere on the floor. I'm like, where is this water coming from? And there was a little old cooler sitting in there, and I thought, or an old like refrigerator, you know, those little like a little tiny one. Yeah, and I thought, well, maybe this had water in it. And I went, wait, not for 40 years in the attic. There's no way there's still water in this thing. So I'm looking around, I only looked up, and sure enough, there's water damage on the ceiling, water damage coming down the walls. So I too had to have a roof inspector come out, and now mind you, this is after we went to uh Home Depot because dad said I've got a 30-year warranty. Guess what? It was only on the manufacturing of the shingles, so we didn't have a warranty to get a new roof. So now are the shingles like worn out or are they missing, like have they been blown off in a storm? Uh they've been damaged, but it's over 20 years old. It's just it they need it, it needs a new one. So I don't know why that kind of stuff just well, I think it's stressful. But you've handled it really well. Like we I don't know about that. I called her the other morning. I said, I'm leaving the country. Because what happened now? I just doing that kind of stuff. Number one, you know, that's part of owning a home, which you don't own that home, your dad does. You know, you have to do upkeep and all that kind of stuff. But I sometimes it's just like I don't want to do adult things. I told her I was like, look, just subs cancel your subscription to all the adult um responsibilities. Like, you know, yes. I let's do it. Where do I send me the link because I'm I'm in, I'm in to be out. And uh yeah, I'm like, I can I see the manager on life activities because uh I'd like to speak to the manager. I got a comment card or 12. But uh yeah, I told her, I said, well, maybe we could print up some senior discounts on life. Because it it has, you know, the term they say, well, life keeps lifing. Well, at this at this juncture, um, the light in the end of the tunnel's been turned off. So I so I didn't know this, and I'm grateful that they told me. My mom and dad, they live in a neighborhood with a homeowners association, and they found out that the shingles on their roof are uh under a recall, potentially. So the homeowners association has had to get involved and get a roofing company out there. You have to file a claim with the um what are they called? Roofing shingle company, whatever. Because they're disintegrating too quickly is the problem. And you know, nobody wants to have to replace their roof any sooner than possible because it's expensive. So then my sister had um, I think she had something done on her front porch. I can't remember, but she found out hers are the same brand. And I'm like, you've got to be kidding me, because the same builder built my house. So I called to find out, like, hey, just I'm thinking maybe they just happened to use a different company with mine, right? Oh no. Nope. So she gave me the name of a roofing guy, and he would and he came the other day and he was super nice, like the nicest guy. But I really thought, Lord, please don't let my roof, because then I'm like, then I gotta start this claim process, and then they have to determine how much of it they're gonna pay to replace, and then you have to pick up the rest of it, right? Like there's still gonna be money out of your pocket. Yeah, I did a really good inspection, and they said mine did not look as bad as the ones they've been seeing. Good. So they didn't feel like right now the the shingle company would you know wanna give me money to replace it. So he said, but get it, let's check it again in six months to a year just to see how the wear and tear is. Because it's you can only do it for 10 years, and we've got three more left. We've been here seven years. Well, but I was just standing there going, Come on, get throw me a bone. I don't want to have to deal with all this. I'm not Carol, I'm Stacey. Well, because I gotta get a tree, still gotta get the tree guy out here to cut down the big tree. Haven't done that yet. Don't say the T-word. Well, I gotta contact that guy um that you sent, see if he can give me a price on that big tree out back because it's yeah, it we've had trees fall down several times lately, and it smashes the fence in the back, and then periods to get out there and fix it. Again, adult responsibilities that nobody wants. Well, what's frustrating is like okay, we all know we were all brought up, we all know there's adversity, there's gonna be hard times, you know. The whole mama said there'd be days like this song. But when it rains, it pours. It truly now I'm like I'm standing under buckets. Like it's it's not just rain. And it's it I guess it's I can't keep up with the uh you know uh uh cre or uh preventing things from continuing. Well when you get a house too that's that old, you know, there's gonna be some, you know, and poor thing. I mean, he he had um he had seen a mouse. I know you'll uh heard about that on a previous podcast. Dad had seen a mouse in the house, and so I called the um exterminator to come out. Well then that led to him getting insulation replaced, which led to getting the attic emptied into the garage, which led to the wet boxes, which has now led to the roof replacement. Yep. Um, and in the meantime, the toilet was running. I've had a clogged toilet. I actually had a mouse in my toilet. You did? I had a mouse in my toilet. Was it ooh gross? Like a dead one? It was dead. And of course, who's gonna talk who's gonna fish it out? Me. Not I, said the fly. Here we go. Well, what am I gonna do? Watch it. How did you find out you had a mouse in the house? What am I gonna do recess? Well, I'm gonna try to recess. Wait, how did you figure out there was a mouse in there? Well, because I kept smelling something and I thought, what is that smell? Well, every usually it's because someone hasn't flushed or something. And so I'm like, oh, you know, I gotta flush it, and there he is. Floating. And I'm like floating, doing the side stroke, and I'm like, okay. So I scooped him out, threw him in the front yard as far as I could throw him. But then sorry, no, no, gets better. Then I had all my children here for the weekend, and then just mysteriously, one them, but mysteriously, the toilet's clogged. I did everything all the tips and tricks. I even bought the money back guarantee. If it doesn't work, you can have your money back. Well, I wouldn't drive back to Lotus to get my nine dollars. So 150 bucks later, now my toilet's unclogged because I had to call the plumber for my house. And then dad tells me his his toilet was, he said it sounds like a flute in there was going woo. I'm like, okay. So he had to have all the ball flap, all that junk replaced. So now we both have two, we both have working toilets, so that's the good bright side. But um, yeah, it it's been a lot of on the lot, like we said start a list because you know, when you own a home, there's always something, and this has been years ago. We have not lived here too awfully long, maybe a couple years, and things always happen at the at the dumbest times, like when it yeah, not that it's ever convenient for your toilet to be backed up or whatever. Nobody's ever just like, oh, I can schedule my toilet to be backed up on Wednesday. I got time for that. It's always when you don't have time for it, right? Right. And we uh it was a Saturday, of course. Everything breaks on the weekend when it costs triple to have it fixed. Yeah. Or or a Friday afternoon, right? Yep. It's five minutes to five by the five time you follow in the phone number. Yep. And when you when things happen like that, you gotta do it. You can't just sit around with it. And Lewis and Perry had planned to go up to Clarksville, which is about an hour away for the day. They had no more than left, and I can't remember what I was gonna do that day, but I had something planned. Then I went into our bathroom, I went to the restroom, and then I started hearing like gurgling all throughout the house. Fine! And I'm like, that's weird. Now we have a septic tank at this house, never have lived anywhere with a septic tank. So I start investigating because of this noise. I go into our guest bath in the hallway, and gross water has backed up into the bathtub. And the toilets are all like all the water is drained out of them, right? I have to get on the phone and call. I'm like, hey, um, I think you're gonna need to turn around and come back. Luckily, they weren't too far down the road. We had to get that all done. Within the first three or four years of living here, our septic tank pump went out. Didn't you see drywall cracks or something? No, not here. But we had the we had to get the backyard dug up because they had run over the line from the house. The reason why it was backing up into the house when they built it, somebody ran over the line. So from the house to the septic tank, it had a big dip in it. So things were getting clogged up in there. We had to pay to get that fixed. Um I think it was last year when it was the day of um Lewis and Josie's wedding reception. Our AC quit working on a Saturday. Congratulations. And it I remember it was 100 degrees. It was so hot, and I was trying to get ready, and I finally Perry was trying to fix it. We've had some issues like when we have storms, it'll trip a breaker on our AC unit. I have the same issue, right? And we need to have like a surge protector put in that's also on the list. Everything costs money, you know. Yeah, just had that done. Okay. Yeah, so new breaker panel. Oh my gosh. So we need to do that. Well, this something had gotten our thermostat that time, but I was so hot that day. I packed everything I had to get ready. Um, and I went to my sister's where they had AC and left him to deal with it. Because I swear it only happens on a weekend. Yeah, I know. Well, I remember my children, bless their hearts. Um, they would always get the highest fever ever on about Friday at about four o'clock or Saturday mid-afternoon. When nobody's open. Yeah, and either your option was the ER or a walk-in clinic. Well, we didn't have as many walk-in clinics. Like now there's one on every corner. Back in the day, there wasn't very many. And we'd have to wait and self medicate them and all the things, but yeah. But I just um I don't know. I think and um everybody I'm talking to, they're like, and you know, then I feel kind of ashamed. Like I don't want to complain. I know these things are happening and go going to happen. It's just I'd rather spread them out, you know. I don't really in the back-to-back, you don't you didn't ask for that on your subscription. I did I don't want a solid month of it. Like, can we just have one a month? Give me a chance to take care of one before the next one comes. But like my poor sister-in-law, her, she's had tons of issues with her vehicle, and she was like, uh, you know, without it for a week and waiting around for it. And she had visited some close friends, and she's like, I am going, I'm dying of embarrassment. I'm like, what happened? And she said, brand new, right out of the bay, and I go to have dinner at their house, and I leave a big black oil stain on their white concrete driveway. Oh no, no, and she had had the rear main seal replaced. And guess what? They're not putting it on. Oh, it's leaking again. It's leaking, it's either not sealed correctly or whatever. So now she's got to go be without her vehicle again. So she's just struggling with that. And then I hate dealing with vehicle stuff too. I'm like, just I'm just getting a new car. That's me. I'm like, oh, the tires need replace, I'll just get a new one. I know. I've literally been kind of going, should I trade this thing? I have a tire pressure sensor light on. I'm like, no, I'm gonna go get a different one. I mean, it's driving me nuts. Yeah, I get that. I hate dealing with car stuff too. Well, like I said, even grown-up stuff, again, it's all adult responsibilities. You know, when you're little, you're just like, I can't wait to be a grown-up. That's blah, blah, blah. Then you get there and you're like, yeah, it's all well. I think there's I'm a beginning to believe in the the minions or the whatever the bad minions are, like bad minions or bad fairies. Like there's gotta be a bad fairy somewhere because I'm getting whacked on the head with the bad wand. But yeah, I mean, like enough already. And bad wand. And then I'm all huffing and puffing and frustrated and overwhelmed and overstimulated, and then I'll get brought right back down. I had a close friend that she had been sick, and I finally saw her recently, and I was like, Oh, how are you doing? You know, she had been dealing with chemo, and she's like, Well, she was driving one of the wheelies. She said, Well, I got so weak from my chemo that I fell and broke my femur, and I'm like, Oh, and I'm sitting here upset about a yeah, mouse in my house. Well, it's all relevant. We definitely both of us to keep things in perspective, are very blessed and have zero reasons to be complaining. We're just being silly like we always are. My dramatic and ridiculous, and all the words, all the words. That's what makes us who we are, but you know. Yeah. And I did read something funny. It said, No matter how bad things get, you can always make them worse. Yeah. And I'm sure the people out there listening have been have dealt with or are dealing with the some of the same exact things, you know. And it it is it's the domino effect, y'all. And yes. Well, yours is double. You've got a double track going because you're having to deal with, you know, things with your dad's house and your house, and you get like you said, you get one thing taken care of, and then something else pops up, but well, trees, water, and um any kind of yeah, pests. Those are all oh, I forgot. We've got a groundhog family that had babies over in the backyard at dad's house. He's like, I'm gonna get my traps out and catch them and carry them off to the river. I'm like, Dad, call the exterminator. Like, you're gonna fall and break your hip trying to carry a trap out there to catch groundhogs, but even though they are they're very cute. But really, we had a family, a rabbit had babies in our backyard. Luckily, way in the back. Phoebe never discovered them. That's my dog. Um, but I would every morning I'd go out with her and I'd there'd be the the mom and the daddy rabbits in the backyard, and she would spot them. I was a nervous wreck till these rabbits got gone. And because I didn't want her to get out there and hurt them and stuff, but uh plus catch something from them. Well, like she catches if it's out there, she's catches it. Um, because she's always got a parasite or something. But we didn't have groundhogs, but we have a mole problem in our yard, and I can't get rid of those either. And we have tunnels everywhere. We've been we've had this for I can't the past couple years, it's like there's an entire village of them in our front and backyard. And we've set traps and can't we can't catch them. That might be maybe why your uh trees are falling. They're just they're just messing up the roofs. Those little I mean they're gross too. They're like little rodents. Oh, and they're nice. We've caught a few, but I mean, like I said, there must be like a village of them, and the yard is lumpy from it, and it causes like dirt, pop, you know, little tubs. Yeah. Um, so that's annoying. I don't know how to get rid of them. Any suggestions? Uh we put the traps out, but my gosh, you but we need 800 of them to put out. Well, I was gonna say how what uh area do they how much area do they everywhere. They're in the front yard, the backyard. Oh, I mean the trap. Oh, they're not trap. They're like that big. But they're big metal spike things that you put in the ground and then it's gets them. Oh like they go underground and then it set the you'll see if you've caught one, the trap pops up and then oh, okay. Like I guess it snaps their neck. I don't know. It's a nice, it's an underground mouse trap. Well, I panicked, I panicked and bought a box of mouse traps, and they're not nice ones, they're they're the instant kill ones. And uh like you put the cheese on the time you put the cheese on, but they're they look like uh they're just plastic with a spring. They're very sticky traps. Lewis came down the stairs one time carrying one on a sticky trap, and it was like my dad tried to tell me. I know he said, get the glue traps, set the glue trap. I said, I cannot, I cannot do that. I'd rather just do the instant out and you're done. But um I've been hi. She's probably gonna want to go out here in a minute. She didn't do anything when I took her out earlier. Well, I um I just got the industrial mouse traps and I tried cheese for two nights, nothing. Now there's peanut butter on there. I am determined. Y'all tune back in because I'm determined. Well, maybe the one in the toilet. Oh, she's I'm sorry. I'm gonna have to end so she's maybe the one in the toilet was it, and you already got it. No, this was two weeks ago. The reason I know it's not must be the brother, it jumped from the hearth onto the couch while my daughter was up late one night eating a candy bar, and I'm like, great. Oh lord, she saw it. She freaked out. I would totally have freaked out too. I've could it was patting me, she said. Like I jumped up on the thing. I had one we first moved here. Hold on, last story. Of course, we we could kind of live out and the it's not the country anymore, but it's out. And you know, when you move in somewhere new and the ground's been stirred up, I opened our pantry one morning getting ready for school, and I had bare feet, and a mouse ran across my foot, and I screamed so loud. My husband and son were both in other rooms, and Harry goes, I literally thought, well, I've never heard you scream like that. Somebody has gotten in the house and has got a gun to your head. I was like, nope, just a mouse ran across my foot. But then we heard it go, you we excuse me, heard it go up the wall. I know. And then we have them in our attic as well, and I don't know how to get rid of them. I mean, we have little, I don't know. Every now and then we find a dead one up there. You have to put, and that's what was wrong with my dad's house and mine. You have to put bait up there, then it runs them down away from their home. Now they are living in the house. Speaking of rodents in the wall. My dad's the outside of his house has some wood on it. A bird has cut a hole or pecked a hole about six inches wide and has gone down in the wood between that and the wall. And and now, so now we gotta fill that up with foam or something. Make sure all the animals are out though before you do that. Well, I know I was banging on it, but my ladder wouldn't reach, and I wasn't about to get on a ladder, but anyway, so we hope you all have enjoyed this uplifting episode. And we'd like for you to add to some of your comments, send us some of your comments about crazy things, domino problems that you guys have experienced. Because I know we are not alone. Oh, definitely not alone. That is for sure. All right, um, thanks again for tuning in to season two of Start a List. And Miss Carol's gonna take us out. All right, remember, don't make a fist, start a list. All right, guys, see you next time. Hang on, I got one more thing. Yeah, sorry. Call down seven times, stand up eight. All right, see you next time, guys.