Wednesday, January 29, 2020

Tips on How to Detect Hidden Water Leaks

Drip dropWhether you own your own home or live in a rented home, you may find yourself lying awake in the dead of night, listening to the dripping sound of water, and wondering where it is coming from. Worse still, you may be unaware of how bad the extent is. Water leakages are often an annoying and costly occurrence. This may especially be frustrating when you are unable to find any visible signs of the water leak anywhere in your home. You may not have concrete proof that even after identifying one leak, there may be more lingering elsewhere. Here are tips on how to detect hidden water leaks in different scenarios.

  • Notice Common Signs
    Checking your daily water usage regularly may help you notice any sudden increases that are unaccounted for. Remember that some activities such as watering your garden may cause a spike in your water consumption. To assist you in checking, you may request your water supplier to send you regular updates on your usage. Experts in leak detection Austin recommend that when you notice a decrease in water pressure while taking a shower or filling a bath, it may be a positive indicator of a leak.
     
  • Likely Signs of Underground Water Leakage
    Be on the look-out for damp patches or pools of water on your floor and first ascertain that your ceiling is not leaking. Certain smells may also likely indicate leakages. Since underground leaks tend to take a while to seep through pores and cracks, it often leads to the growth of mildew and mold, which have distinct odors.
     
  • Likely Signs Water Is Leaking Outside or in the Garden
    If you are unable to find water leaks inside your house, then you should consider checking outside. You can simply start by checking your water meter. TDo this by first turning off any water going into your house, which you can confirm by running a tap until no more water comes out. After doing this, now check if the meter dial is still moving. Once you have confirmed that the leakage is likely to be on the outside, look for signs like muddy patches or better thriving grass in parts of your lawn.

By checking out the likely leakage signs in your house, garden, and even underground water leakage features, you may be able to ease your frustration and save a lot on extra water bills.

Tuesday, January 21, 2020

Decoration Ideas for Your Home

If your walls look a little bare and you need some inspiration for decorating, consider these not-so-typical decoration ideas to add a splash of color to the walls.

    A Fine Day for a Drive
  • Landscape Photography - One great way to add some color to your home is by hanging landscape paintings or photographs. When it comes to landscapes, there are so many different kinds of photographs you can choose. If you prefer wooded scenes, ocean scenes or pictures of sunsets, a nice frame makes that photograph perfect to hang on the wall. If you want something a little different, you could get some alternative energy photography to decorate with. Beautiful wind turbines or images of solar panels reflecting a sunset can brighten a room.
     
  • Tapestries - Another fun way to decorate your home is with tapestries. You can cover an entire wall or just the corner of the room. Tapestries can be made with a variety of materials and come from many different countries. From patterns to scenery to texture, a tapestry can bring a whole new look to a room.
     
  • Upgraded Collage - While many people probably grew up making collages in school for projects and reports, why not make a collage as an adult? If you get a solid frame and cut out pieces from books or magazines, you can make a sprawling picture of the things or people you love. If you get a shadowbox, you can make an even more impressive collage of sorts out of pieces of items you no longer use. This home decoration can be like a little piece of modern art homemade by you.
     
  • Wall Plants - Most people keep plants in their home, but have you thought about hanging plants that grow from wall art or square vases? Put your plant collection on the wall for a bit of unconventional decor. 

Sunday, January 19, 2020

Book List 2019

I've been reading as long as I can remember, but it wasn't until 2008 that I started putting together a list of all the books I read each year. I use Goodreads to keep track throughout the year and then list them all here once the year is over. Even though Goodreads compiles my Year in Books, it's always fun to go back through all the books I've read over the course of the year and see how many pages I've read and how many hours I've spent listening over the course of the year.

Also, once again I'll link to any reviews I did. As always, I have good intentions to review more of the books I read, but I don't always follow through. Let's see what 2019 looked like, shall we?

Again, all books are listed by the month I finished them. Even if I started listening or reading the previous month.

January 
  1. The Memory Box - Eva Lesko Natiello (audio) - 11 hrs 9 min
  2. A Mutiny in Time (Infinity Ring #1) - James Dashner (audio) - 4 hrs 30 min
  3. Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life - Tish Harrison Warren - 184 pages
  4. Still Alice - Lisa Genova - 293 pages
  5. Vox - Christina Dalcher - 336 pages
  6. The Rule of One (The Rule of One #1) - Ashley Saunders, Leslie Saunders - 258 pages
1071 pages | 15 hours 39 minutes

February
  1. Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again - Rachel Held Evans - 270 pages
  2. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine - Gail Honeyman - 327 pages
  3. A Murder in Time (Kendra Donovan #1) - Julie McElwain (audio) - 18 hrs 39 min 
  4. The Spitfire Girls - Soraya M. Lane - 328 pages - 328 pages  - (5 stars) 
  5. The Lost Girls of Paris - Pam Jenoff (audio) - 11 hrs 41 min
  6. Answering Jihad: A Better Way Forward - Nabeel Qureshi- 176 pages
  7. The Wife - Meg Wolitzer 224 pages
1325 pages | 30 hours 20 minutes

March
  1. Gilead (Gilead #1) - Marilynne Robinson (audio) - 8 hrs 54 min
  2. Crosstalk - Connie Willis - 498 pages
  3. MAD Librarian: You Gotta Fight for Your Right to Library! - Michael Guillebeau - 402 pages
  4. Rhythms of Rest: Finding the Spirit of Sabbath in a Busy World - Shelly Miller - 226 pages
  5. Under a Painted Sky - Stacey Lee (audio) - 10 hrs 11 min
1126 pages | 19 hours 5 minutes | a review for all 5

April
  1. Scrappy Little Nobody - Anna Kendrick (audio) - 6 hrs
  2. Five Feet Apart - Rachael Lippincott - 288 pages
  3. Charlotte Morgan and the Lemonade Stand (The Number Investigators Book 2) - Martin Tiller - 61 pages
  4. Daisy Jones & The Six - Taylor Jenkins Reid (audio) - 9 hrs 3 min
  5. Elevation - Stephen King - 146 pages
  6. Bathed in Prayer: Father Tim's Prayers, Sermons, and Reflections from the Mitford Series - Jan Karon (audio) -  7 hrs 20 min
495 pages | 22 hours 23 minutes

May
  1. The City of Mirrors (The Passage #3) - Justin Cronin - 602 pages
  2. Love and First Sight - Josh Sundquist (audio) - 6h 25m
  3. The One and Only Ivan - Katherine Applegate - 325 pages
  4. The War That Saved My Life (The War That Saved My Life #1) - Kimberly Brubaker Bradley - 316 pages - (5 stars)
  5. The Tales of Beedle the Bard: The Illustrated Edition (Hogwarts Library) - J.K. Rowling - 160 pages
  6. The Kitchen House - Kathleen Grissom (audio) -12 hrs 57 min
  7. The War I Finally Won (The War That Saved My Life #2) - Kimberly Brubaker Bradley - 400 pages - (5 stars)
1803 pages | 19 hours 22 minutes

June
  1. Inside HBO's Game of Thrones: Seasons 1 & 2 - Bryan Cogman - 192 pages
  2. The Other Daughter - Lauren Willig (audio) - 10 hrs 39 min
192 pages | 10 hours 39 minutes

July
  1. The Wife Between Us - Greer Hendricks, Sarah Pekkanen (audio) - 11 hrs 25 min
  2. Once We Had a Horse - Glen Rounds - 32 pages
  3. Light from Other Stars - Erika Swyler - 305 pages
  4. Song of Susannah (The Dark Tower #6) - Stephen King - 413 pages
  5. Good Omens - Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman (audio) - 12 hrs 32 min
  6. Murder on Birchardville Hill - Ruth Buchanan - 123 pages
 873 pages | 23 hours 57 minutes | reviews for 4 out of 6

August
  1. Have You Seen Luis Velez? - Catherine Ryan Hyde - 320 pages
  2. The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring Sabbath - Mark Buchanan - 240 pages
  3. The Art of Racing in the Rain - Garth Stein (audio) - 6 hrs 56 min
  4. The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek - Kim Michele Richardson (audio) - 9 hrs 26 min
  5. Enna Burning (The Books of Bayern #2) - Shannon Hale - 316 pages
  6. The Colorado Kid - Stephen King - 205 pages
  7. A Thousand Shall Fall - Susi Hasel Mundy - 178 pages
1259 pages | 16 hours 22 minutes

September
  1. The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland - Jim DeFede - 260 pages
  2. Extraordinary Means - Robyn Schneider (audio) - 8 hrs 7 min
  3. The Two Lila Bennetts - Liz Fenton, Lisa Steinke - 307 pages
  4. The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert: An English Professor's Journey into Christian Faith - Rosaria Champagne Butterfield (audio) - 7 hrs 15 min
  5. The Grace Year - Kim Liggett - 407 pages
  6. Summerlings - Lisa Howorth - 256 pages
  7. These Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901 (Sarah Agnes Prine #1) - Nancy E. Turner (audio) - 13 hrs 47 min - (5 stars)
  8. Love Changes Everything: Finding What's Real in a World Full of Fake - Micah Berteau - 208 pages
1438 pages | 29 hours 9 minutes | 1 reviewed half of them...

October
  1. Sorry I'm Late, I Didn't Want to Come: One Introvert's Year of Saying Yes - Jessica Pan - 274 pages(5 stars)
  2. The Martian - Andy Weir (audio) - 10 hrs 59 min - (5 stars)
274 pages | 10 hours 59 minutes

November
  1. The Furies - Katie Lowe - 357 pages
  2. A Gentleman in Moscow - Amor Towles (audio) - 17 hrs 52 min
  3. Sold on a Monday - Kristina McMorris - 352 pages
  4. Glow (Sky Chasers #1) - Amy Kathleen Ryan (audio) - 9 hrs 56 min
  5. The Words between Us - Erin Bartels - 374 pages
  6. Spark (Sky Chasers #2) - Amy Kathleen Ryan (audio) - 11 hrs 12 min
1083 pages | 39 hours

December
  1. The Flatshare - Beth O'Leary - 336 pages
  2. Lost in Translation: An Illustrated Compendium of Untranslatable Words from Around the World - Ella Frances Sanders - 112 pages
  3. Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved - Kate Bowler - 183 pages
  4. A Study in Charlotte (Charlotte Holmes #1) - Brittany Cavallaro (audio) - 9 hrs 7 min
  5. Red at the Bone - Jacqueline Woodson - 208 pages
  6. A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War: How J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Rediscovered Faith, Friendship, and Heroism in the Cataclysm of 1914-18 - Joseph Loconte - 232 pages
  7. One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow - Olivia Hawker (audio) - 19 hrs 2 min
  8. The Holy Bible: English Standard Version - 1328 pages - (5 stars)
  9. The Dark Tower (The Dark Tower #7) - Stephen King - 845 pages - I finished re-reading the series!
3244 pages | 28 hours 9 minutes
  • Total books - 71 (compare to 63 in 2018)
  • Total pages - 14,183 (compare to 13,698 pages in 2018)
  • Total time - 265 hours 4 minutes  (compare to 192 hours 13 minutes in 2018)
Page counts courtesy of Goodreads; audio lengths courtesy of Audible. My reading goal for the year was 50 books, and I met and surpassed it. I have yet to decide if I should shoot higher in 2020 or just go for 50 again and see how it turns out.

I didn't do such a good job of writing reviews this year - 34 reviews out of 71 books, so less than half. Some of them were just a few words, but I suppose that's better than nothing, right? Still, there were books that I really meant to review but didn't...

 How many books did you read in 2019?  I'd love to hear some suggestions for my 2020 reading list.  Because my already crazy long and ever-growing TBR list can always use a few more, right?

*if you happen to click any of the book covers and buy from Amazon, they say they'll pay me a small percentage.  Every little bit helps, and I thank you for your support!