Sleepy

Last night it was pouring. The first rain since I put up the new rain gutter. I woke up to the rain, and couldn't go back to sleep until I checked to see if everything was working. It seemed to be working mostly ok, with a couple of drips where the water wasn't quite getting in the gutter. But no big deal. So I tried to get back to sleep. This was at 2:30am. At around 4am I took half a Benedryl, apparently that did the trick. I woke up again around 7, totally out of it, to Diana worrying about various water collecting around various parts of the house. I put a strategically placed screw into the gutter to hold it closer to the house at one point, and figured if it hadn't washed away in the last 30 years, one more day wasn't going to hurt, and left for work.

Can someone tell me how big a problem if there are puddles of water that are in the dirt next to the house? The way I understand it, the water can soften the dirt and the house can settle a little more easily and can cause cracks. Does this happen over a period of days, weeks, months, or years of moisture?

Anyways, we need to talk to someone about landscaping a couple areas of the house so that the ground slopes away and carries the water away. I think I need to redo the gutter along that roofline, and clean out some other ones so they don't overflow. And it would be REALLY nice to attach some of the other downspouts to the existing drainage system, but that's a big job.

Anyhoo, lots of work to do.