Be Careful What You Wish For...

is a lesson that I got a good reminder in recently.  Earlier this week, southern Indiana had it's first somewhat vicious spring thunderstorm.  At school later that day, I jokingly said that it wouldn't bother me if a few shingles got ripped off our roof so that I could get it replaced.  My siding is beige, and my shutters and garage door are now black, but the roof is a brownish-red.  I'm not in love with it by any long shot of imagination, especially now that the shutters and garage door are finished.

I was getting ready for bed the night that I made that joke and looked up at the ceiling in the kitchen.  Right next to the light fixture was a wet spot.  Well crap.  Then in my infinite wisdom, I got a chair and lightly poked the spot to see if it was wet, or if I had just missed that discolored spot for over a year (not likely).  Next thing I knew, the discolored spot looked like this...

Fantastic!  You'd think one of these days I'd learn to stop messing with things.  So I had to call the roofer the next morning, and he very kindly accepted my 8 am phone call and came out the next day to check out the roof.  It turns out the rubber boots around the bottom of the attic vents had dry-rotted completely off, which was the cause of the leak.  There's also a couple of strips of edging that need to be put up, so that will be done next week.  It wasn't as urgent as the rubber boots. 

It was a bit of a scare thinking that some of the tax return money that was going to go into the beach vacation fund might have had to be used to pay the insurance deductible for a new roof...although I won't lie...I already had the new shingles picked out in my head.