Delays!

Well, my flooring is still sitting in its boxes.  T_T
We were going to start installing it on Saturday after we stopped by a few estate sales, but we couldn't even get passed step one which required a tool we didn't have...a circular saw.  Jim has been beating himself over it because we saw some circular saws and other tools at the estate sales, but Jim decided against buying them at the  time.  Doh!  Fortunately, we went to my in-laws on Sunday and were able to borrow my FIL's circular saw.  Hopefully, we can get started on the flooring this week.
I've done some research on lady bugs, and it turns out we don't have lady bugs in our house; we have Asian lady  beetles.  They are very similar except that Asian lady beetles hibernate in the winter whereas lady bugs don't.  The good news is that they aren't harmful; they don't eat fabric or wood or cause any other damage.  They also don't breed or lay eggs indoors.  The bad news is that I can't really do too much to get rid of them except vacuum them up and release them outside.  The websites suggested trying to prevent them from entering the house in the autumn by sealing up all the cracks and holes on the exterior.  This is a big, old house, however, and I don't think we'll be very successful with that.
We did manage to clean out some of our gutters on Saturday.  Only the ones on the south-side of the house seemed to have stuff in them.  We only managed to clean the lower gutters since it started to get too windy before we could attempt the higher ones.
I found out one of our neighbors has chickens since I heard a rooster crowing over the weekend.
Jim switched out the shower head in the upstairs bathroom earlier in the week.  He didn't realize that he had forgotten a gasket until he had it all reassembled and tightened.  Oops!  Don't you just hate it when that happens?  He had to take it apart all over again so that he could put it where it belonged.
I promise to post pics once the flooring goes down.