Bob Vila does NOT live here....

Once upon a time there was a girl who wanted to sell her house (and yes the blog title might need to change...). She had a realtor come by and he suggested she redo/paint the bathroom, the foyer, the downstairs bathroom, and fix the seams and paint the office. He said he would give her the number of a good painting crew. Before she got that number, however, she talked to her friend Rob who is pretty much a Bob Vila. He said, "you can paint right over the wallpaper - just spackle the seams, prime and paint. It's easy!"

Easy. Accomplishment. I am woman hear me roar.

So Girl Next Door went to Home Depot and bought $200 worth of paint and prime and spackle and "stuff."

Then Girl Next Door remembered Rob also said, "If there's any loose wallpaper, just tear it off or cut it out and spackle that." Girl Next Door assessed the wallpaper and saw many spots where it was coming down. So she grabbed a corner and started pulling...and was left with this... So she spackled like Rob told her and it looked like this...

And then she taped everything and thought she was ready to paint.

But when she primed where the wallpaper but not the sticky backing peeled off the wall, the paper bubbled. So she spackled again. And sanded again. and primed again. This pretty much went on for 5 days in a row. Finally on the 6th or was it the 7th? day..she finished.

But she needed new light fixtures. As part of her initial Home Depot run, she picked up what she thought were the same lights so that she could switch them out. But they weren't. And because they weren't, this would involve removing the original bases, drilling new holes, measuring, blah blah blah. Translation: No Frickin' Way...

So she went back to Home Depot but they didn't have the right size. Thinking about what new lights in a new size meant (no frickin' way) she searched Home Depot.com and found the right lights - miracle!!! And Ordered them - free shipping bonus!! Saturday she unpacked the lights....and one was BROKEN. noooooooo. One was not, so she killed the electricity, put up the new light, put on the electricity (each killing of electricity requires a trip to the basement 2 floors below...), and....No Light. So she ran to the basement, killed the electricity, ran upstairs, she took it apart, saw that she didn't wrap the wires carefully, rewrapped, reran to the basement, AND - LIGHT! Woot!

GND decided one new light was enough. Son came home for the weekend and said, "you're kidding right?" Ok ok, back to Homedepot.com....maybe next week.

Then Girl Next Door thought - "If I try to do this myself I won't get the house on the market until NEXT May...." By then Realtor had sent her the phone number of Painters. Painters came, gave her the most reasonable estimate ever....they showed up the next day...and in ONE DAY the painters removed wallpaper from foyer, spackled entire foyer, painted foyer and trim, painted living room ceiling, spackled and painted small bathroom, painted front and back doors, fixed the seams in the office and painted the ceiling AND the walls. In One Day. For $1300. Remember how Girl Next Door spent $200 for Home Depot supplies? Plus 6 days of labor?

BEFORE:

(You can't see the ugly textured wall paper in the photos above & below that is peeling off in places....)

Bathroom. What WERE we thinking??!!

Back door....

AFTER:

Office (above) the seams were all coming apart.

It's not fancy. It's boring. The entire house is beige and white - the perfect canvas on which someone else can paint their dreams.

At least, I hope so!

Oh and Home Depot being so awesome, Girl Next Door took back: 1 can of prime, 1 can front door paint, various brushes, rollers, trim painters, 1 tub spackle, 3 light fixtures (1 broken 2 didn't fit). She got a refund on all that, plus a $20 credit because the cashier felt bad that the light arrived broken. I bought 4 flats of flowers that were on 1/2 price sale, 2 bags of grass seed 1/2 price sale, weed killer 1/2 price sale, other necessities, (yes girls can find necessities at Home Depot! Stop smirking!) and spent only $38. Gardening - Yeah this Girl Next Door KNOWS how to Garden!!!

Who Knew Cheap Toilet Paper Had a Purpose?

I hate cheap toilet paper. I hate going potty at work or anywhere that has cheap toilet paper. I thought companies bought cheap toilet paper because they were, well, CHEAP.

I never understood why grocery stores sold cheap toilet paper. Who bought that stuff? And Why? My butt hurt just thinking about buying cheap toilet paper.

Until The Other Day. Now I am ENLIGHTENED.

The Other Day my basement had a minor flood. It would have been a major flood but I got lucky and made a trip to the basement right after my shower and saw the water coming up through the floor in the overflow drain. HUH?

I suspected the main sewer pipe might be backed up, so I had Son go upstairs and flush the [clean] toilet. Sure enough, water came bubbling up through the floor drain.

HElllllooooo RotoSewerCostMe$600andmyleg Company. They came out quickly, unplugged the drain, sent out two sweet 40-something camera men to snake a camera down my pipe (sounds kind of...well, you know. My mom reads this and so I have to stop right there)...and show me how my sewer pipe just might do this again.

One nice cute RotoCamera man said, "So what kind of toilet paper do you use?" Hell of a pickup line. But I had such a high class answer! "Why Charmin of course honey." And what does he say? "Oh no honey, that's a plumber's dream. Keeps me in business. You need to buy yourself that cheap stuff. The big, fat, soft fluffy stuff doesn't dissolve in the pipes which causes these backups. Better get yourself some recycled thin stuff."

Please tell me he was kidding.

Nope, he was not. He said if I didn't switch, I just might have to spend $7,000 to get new pipes laid (something about my 40 year old pipes being all gnarly on the inside and snaggy and catching the not-quite-dissolved paper. Quite frankly it all sounded a little too personal and I just might resemble some of those comments....)

Anywhoooo, next trip to grocery store, I dutifully went to the TP aisle and bought, gasp, the Store Brand. And put it in the Kids' bathroom. The Good Stuff will stay in my bathroom where I can use it, throw it in the trash can, and take the can outside every night. Totally worth the trip.

Graduation means....Painting the Furniture?

The Captain came up the morning after the Prom and was promptly put to work. Yet another step into our relationship and another endearing quality. He scrubbed my Patio for 2 hours. Then he helped me paint the lawn furniture. This was a white table that I bought with Ex, oh, 18 years ago?

Ex and I also bought about 10 pieces of Wrought Iron furniture - used - about 5 years ago. We painted it all . Some are pictured below. (the magic of spray over rust paint I love it)

All the chairs were wet so we dragged some kitchen chairs outside for dinner....
(I had painted the table the previous year so it just needed touchups and we could eat on it)

And gave a toast to a job well done!

Whew. Oh yeah, and we did some gardening first....Told you he was an awesome guy....

Professional Painting and Expectations

Quick Question for you all about expectations:

I hired a nationally known professional company to paint my kitchen, hallway and a bedroom.

I was told prior to the job and on the day of the job, by the owner of the franchise, that the Foreman would be here "90%" of the time. He might have to leave for paint, but he was in charge. The Owner showed up this morning as promised, hung out with the Foreman as promised, then left. So far so good.

About 2 hours later, Foreman leaves. 3 hours later he is not back. This is a 1 day job.

Now the other painters seem to be doing their jobs. They are polite, quiet (they pretty much don't speak English, but I was told the Foreman would be here, who does. And yeah I speak Spanish anyway), seem to be working. But we have 4 different colors going on. We have spackling, trimming, repairing. How do I know that the right guys are doing the right thing? How do I know they are being thorough without monitoring them?

Isn't that what a Foreman does?

So when I call Owner and say, "Hey you told me Foreman would be here 90% but he's been gone for 3 hours - what's up with that?" And he explains that Foreman had to go somewhere else but I was also told Other Painter was good, too, and all painters are professional, all employees not day laborers, yaddah yaddah yaddah. I wasn't necessarily questioning Painters' work. I was trying to say that the expectation set by Owner was that Foreman would be here 90% of the time to supervise, etc. If Foreman had emergency and needed to make someone else in charge, why not tell me before he left 3 hours ago??

And why doesn't either Owner or Foreman (who has now returned and wants to know what the problem is) why don't they understand any of this?

Am I being picky?? Wait aren't I paying pretty heftily for the right to be picky? So that this will be done TODAY and I don't have to go back another day and complain?

Thoughts??

Yes I Know Spring Arrived - a While Ago

My few faithful blogging buddies have cajoled me into changing my banner to spring. I admit I am relying on an old banner as - SURPRISE - I have not had time to garden, clean, do any of the things I would like to do! Yes I am working full time now, travelling too much for work, and picking up stomach flu's on the way home from travelling too much for work. Which means I am behind on my work. Which means I should be working not blogging. Anyway...

We are less than a month from D-DAY. Or should I say G-Day - Graduation day. I know it's "only high school," but this is a huge deal for me. Yes I said for me. OK OK it's huge for them, too, but they won't realize it for, oh, 25 years. My babies are leaving, going off to great schools to do great things and someday have a great job and be totally self sufficient so that I can go tend bar in the Caribbean and not have to support anyone but myself.

But for now, they are just leaving. And I am going to miss them. And I feel some [probably silly] burning desire to make this send off as excellent as I can. I refrained from saying "perfect." Nothing is ever perfect. But family, friends, a cool cake, some good food, music, a slide show, a repainted kitchen, repainted hall, repainted bedroom, cleaned windows, uncluttered closets, weeded gardens, new flowers, seeded grass, new college-themed dog collars, cleaned carpets, that's all it will take to pull off graduation weekend.

What? Think there are a few extra things in there maybe? I am the kind of person who needs an "EVENT" to make the chores of life happen. Son's room has needed painting for a YEAR and has been spackled awaiting paint for A YEAR. The painters come tomorrow....

You get the picture.

Anyone else out there need an EVENT to get the ball rolling on household projects??

Oh right - I almost forgot to add to the list "Buy 100 boxes of Kleenex." I'm not the only crier in the family...

A new Discovery and narrowly avoiding Stitches

Once Upon a time I had a nice, new, sharp set of these:

But alas, over time they became very very dull and couldn't even cut this...

I tried stone and various sharpeners, but to no avail. My kitchen guests and fellow chefs complained, until I found this:

And voila, in 15 minutes I sharpened every single knife in my house to a perfect, razor sharp edge, knives as good as new. Except I forgot and while cutting this in my hand
I was reminded just how sharp the knives were, as one sliced swiftly through the entire avocado and right through this in 0.2 seconds....

It's only bleeding a little now....

edited to add: this whole incident had me cracking up b/c it is is so typical of a day in my kitchen! My cooking episode is not complete without a burn or a cut. No worries!

BLASTING MY CAREFULLY PLANNED LIFE...

I have had a little trouble focusing at work lately, despite mountains of work (finally - lots of billable work) to do. I think life and challenges and summer and anniversaries etc just made it too hard. So last week I put together a list of all the work items I can and must accomplish over the next three weeks, accounting for deadlines and home-stuff and a day off here and there to visit with Sisters and Friends. I even calculated approximately how much time I think I'll have to bill to each project to get it done. (This is my world, people, my daily life is billed in 6 minute increments. Really. Not kidding).

I had a FAB weekend as the 2nd Annual Sister Act Tour hit Atlantic city (translation: my sisters and I met there for a weekend. 8-8-08 had to be great! Last year we did NYC). Perfect sunny weather, great fun. Yes will blog more when I get photos...my digital camera died, so I'm countin' on the Sistahs. It took me 5.75 hours to get home, instead of 3.3 because of a mere hailstorm and tornado. I waited them out at a local pizza joint, ate some stromboli and watched Olympic badmitton and finished my book (yep, trashy strikes again). But I wasn't really in a hurry to get home, so that was ok. For once no deadlines there.

I get home with time to spare - time to clean up my whirlwind messes from last week's working marathon, put out the kids' new towels, make the place all nice and clean smelling for their arrival that evening, weed out the damned plant boxes up on the catwalk (see header photo - those pink boxes are hell and I'm never doing them again...yet another postfor another day), and I decide to unpack and do some laundry. This is huge for me; I like to put off the laundry. But something was telling me..."Go to the basement." And as I descended the steps, I thought, "Gee the basement seems damp and hot for a basement with a dehumidifier running......."

And I went into the laundry room - to see water on the floor. And hear water leaking out of my fairly new hot water heater..... first I cried. Yep. Just cried. The water heater is wedged up against the dryer (the dryer I hate that Ex picked out and installed a couple years ago - just after the water heater) which is wedged up against the old, ginormous side-by-side fridge that I hate being in the basement and loved being in the garage but got overruled by Ex last year so 5 boys hauled it down the stairs, giving my son a hyneria in the process and how it's there forever and I hate it, which is wedged up against the furnace.

Can I move the dryer away from the water heater to figure out what the hell is leaking? NOOOO. the washer is in the way at a 90 degree angle.

I cry some more. Lest you think I'm all "Wonder Woman" - nope after the long trip and weekend of no sleep, and admitting some honest personal decision flaws in my life to myself on that long, solitary drive, I'm pretty much tapped out.

Friend calls, I cry to him but only for 3 seconds because my cell doesn't get good reception in the basement.

Then I brainstorm and remember Son is home alone next door and make an emergency call to Mr. Son the Man (no longer crying). Some might think this twisted, but he really loves being the Man around here and knows I will listen to his advice (I heard through a secret source that Ex doesn't give him much credit in the problem-solving arena. I hope that will change. He's really his Father's and Grandfathers' kid in that area). We empty the fridge, move it a little, after moving the old metal "closet" with rags in it, move out the dryer, find the shut off lever for the water heater, but only after Son SHOVES the sink next to the washer before I can say DON'T so he disconnects the pipe that drains the sink and I have that mess to figure out, too.

And now I'm wondering why this fairly new water heater is leaking? and yelling inside my head, "I HATE THIS HOUSE I HATE THIS HOUSE I HATE THIS HOUSE."

And thinking this is what I get for "taking" the house and "making" Ex move out. OK So not true but at the moment I was wishing I were in a beachside condo in Florida already....

Drag my sorry butt up 2 flights of stairs for the 15 millionth time to the office to find the hot water heater paperwork. Yes it's under warranty but all that fine print about getting approval ahead of time. On a sunday night when the hotline is closed, uh-huh.

And I'm looking at the water heater and thinking the top of it looks a little funky. did it explode? Did the pressure valve not release? Or is that gunk up there normal? And I know that Ex would know by looking at it for 15 seconds.

So I make the call. Which he doesn't answer. Surprise surprise...

But eventually I talk to him and he agrees to come over and look. I tell him I don't want him to fix it or anything - just want him to look and see if the top is "normal" or not. "Because, you know, you installed it."

He arrives - and walks past the 2 dozen pink roses on the foyer table next to the Card my parents gave me - and does a double take. I let him.

As he walks down the basement stairs he comments, "You need the dehumidifier on down here" and I tell him, "I just shut it off when I discovered the leak" Pompous ass. like I don't know it's damp and humid in the basement? Duh.

And he is baffled by the sight. First thinks the pressure valve didn't release. then thinks it did. Then says nope it's just lime buildup. And the tank shouldn't leak. (Um no duh - I kind of figured that but then why is there a steady stream of water dripping out of the bottom? Oh yes I did get my sorry butt flat on the disgusting basement floor and shine a flashlight under there and slide a paper plate under there to catch the drips. i know it shouldn't be leaking but it is). So he tells me to call someone. Duh.

Check. I had already called a local hot water heater hotline. Have they called me back? Nope.

So here I sit on Monday morning, unable to take a shower to wash the beach grime out of my hair, waiting for a call to repair my hot water heater. Wondering why I left all that work sitting on my desk at the office and didn't bring it home.....blasting my carefully planned life all to hell and back.

PS Edited to add: happy to report that indeed old friend Brian, who has maintained the heating and air conditioning in our houses for 20 years, was able to drop everything and come out. Home Depot/GE honored our warranty and gave Brian a brand-spanking new heater with no fuss, well except that he had to drag the old one out there. $633 later, I have a new hot water heater, my furnace has been inspected, my air filters changed, and I feel better about everything. I must learn not to panic and to know that with a little time and money, all will be well....
thanks for the support out there bloggers!!

Now back to work for me...

Daring to Enter the Sacred Domain

Well, it's time. I have tried to ignore it. I have tried the "easy way out." But I have to admit it. I picked up a nasty-assed virus on my home computer that spybot search and destroy can find - but it cannot kill it. The demon is virtumonde and it is nasty. I have used my work laptop to google this badboy and am now entering the realm of the computergeek that is faaaaaar beyond my capacity. Even bleepingcomputer.com warns:

"I do not recommend using the tool without guidance from a qualified malware removal specialist!

Hell, I got the damned thing probaby surfing/downloading somewhere I should not have OR didn't keep my McAfee up to date. or something. So why not download/install/run a computer virus program that is waaaay the hell over my head? What have I got to lose? A few days? A few brain cells (from banging my head against the desk)? Surely not my dignity. And I have come to the conclusion that my computer can't get any worse. I guess smacking it around really doesn't work:

Should I wait for my cousin DF to come over, who is rumored to be in the area next week? Oh, if I had a brain and an ounce of patience I would. But my brain departed somewhere just before I "caught" this virus. And patience has NEVER been my strong point. And hell, it only took me 2 hours to get a lawn mower running - that's an ancient machine running just on a gas/oil mixture. Why the hell not delve into the world of computers, the world that has confounded and confused me ever since the day my college roommate dragged me to the MAC lab and insisted I learn to use a PC???

The fact that I now look like this is HER fault..

Wish me luck. If you don't hear from me by Tuesday, send in the GeekSquad.....

All images courtesy of Google Images - original artwork credited to those listed and is NOT my own.

Getting it off my Chest

I need to get something off my chest. And what better place than a blog?

Or maybe its more like clearing the air about my chest.

See, back when I started this blog, I didn't think about anyone actually reading it. And in my stream of consciousness, I wrote this. See that third line tossed in there as an aside? the Boobs thing? Geez, I can't believe the stir that caused. Emails. Phone calls. Comments. Funny!

Once and for all yes I had "breast augmentation." Really. I didn't realize it was such a big deal. And for those of you who haven't seen me since May 14, 2007 ("D" day - or more accurately "C" day), I am not the next generation of Dolly Parton. No, it was the opportunity to fix the ravages of breast-feeding twins plus add a little to the before-kids size that I never quite thought was big enough. And I did it for me. To feel better about me. I posted about it on my other blog, under Self-Indulgences. That's how I felt about it a year ago. Today I sing it loud and proud.

The funniest thing is I didn't say anything about the specifics when taking time off work - I just said it was for "girl stuff." And I wore clothes to try to "hide it" at first. Because I had some silly fear that they wouldn't take me seriously as a lawyer if I had bigger boobs. (HUH? Don't ask...) Anyway, I later discovered that the men in the office noticed in 30 seconds or less. I guess they are not as sweet and innocent as my cousin DF. (see comments) But fortunately, they were too wary of a lawsuit for harassment to say anything. Then how do I know? Bossman told a friend who told his brother who told me....twisted but true.

I am happy with the "new me." I don't regret doing it - I only regret that I didn't do it 10 years ago. And I don't ask for people to understand it if they can't. I have friends who think it was silly of me. And that's ok, because I didn't do it for them. I did it for me.

Follow-Up to the Leveler

Follow-up to this post. OH Ex not only mocked my "below standard" leveler, he also challenged my son when he said, "No dad it's supposed to be in there at an angle" (when they were popping the bubbly piece back in that popped out WHEN THEY DROPPED IT). Ex said, "Why in the world would you need a bubble at that angle? Might try the next step up next time you buy a toool." Oh you are a tool pal.

GET THIS: Mr. Dishwasher installer man showed up yesterday (MY NEW BFF). And as he was finishing up and patiently showing me how the new dishwasher was level and the cabinets were slightly crooked - he whips out his kewl leveler - compact and shiny metal and magnetic so it sticks to the metal thingy your leveling - clearly a TOTL leveler. And IT HAS A THIRD BUBBLE! AT A 45 DEGREE ANGLE!! SO vindicated. I asked him about it - and Mr. Patient and wonderful Dishwasher Installer explained that for steps or something at a 45 degree angle you'd need it - not something you'd need often, but handy to have.

SO THERE MR. VILA WANNABE. Oh and your cabinets are crooked....