My Vacation

Of course, after you read this, you’re going to think I have a warped way of “vacationing,” but when you don’t have much money, you got to do the best with what you got.

My First MRI
On Thursday, I went to the doctor because of some pains I had been having in my arms, shoulder blades and chest. Considering the blood pressure issues I had earlier, I thought it would be wise to FINALLY have this checked out (it’s had been going on for weeks). She said it wasn’t my heart, but thought that I had a pinched or damaged nerve in my neck, so she scheduled me for my first MRI ever! I’ve heard horror stories and was given some advice from previous MRI survivors. Much to my relief, it wasn’t the tube kind, but the open kind. This is where I have to tell on myself. The place was called Edmond Open MRI. This should have clued me in to the type of MRI machine they used, but I just thought that meant that anyone could come in to get an MRI. I didn’t clue in till last night when Suzy said “oh, so you had an open MRI.” I’m a little slow sometimes. As for results, well they didn’t find anything in the neck, so I get to go back in and have another one done of my head (and yes, I’ve already been told by several people that they won’t find anything.)

Painting Project
It has been a few months since I’ve taken on any major home improvement projects. On Friday/Saturday, I finally finished painting the downstairs hallway. I started the paneling last fall, and finally got to the walls. I even painted the door (thanks goes out to the roommate for prompting me to paint the door red.) Actually, this project isn’t completely done because I didn’t have anyway to paint the entire stairwell, so that will have to wait till I can hire someone to come finish it (hopefully by the end of the year). I have this great mirror I plan to hang on the wall, but I didn’t know how heavy it was and I needed to get drywall support screws that would handle the weight (since of course the studs don’t line up where I need them to.) I hope to have that hung this week. There is still some touch up work that needs to be done, but the major part is over. All I have left downstairs is to tile the hallway, kitchen, guest bath and laundry room (sounds like a lot, but it really isn’t). I also want to paint the downstairs bathroom eventually, but I don’t want to move the toilet twice, so that will get done when the tiling does (whenever that is).

White Tops
I spent some of my time off shopping for a white top to go with a pair of shorts that I bought. If I had paid close enough attention to the style of the shorts, I probably would have just returned them, but I didn’t and washed them…hence the need for the RIGHT shirt to go with them. My thought was that a baby doll top that was longer would probably work, but all the tops I bought made me look pregnant. I know the argument – those tops make most women look pregnant – but something about me seems to scream “soccer mom” (we’ll get to that in a minute) and people are always asking me how many children I have, so I would just prefer not to add to that line of questioning. Anyway, after buying (and returning) three different tops, I ended up settling on a combination that was totally unexpected, but works (and doesn’t make me look like I have a “bun in the oven”).

Haircut
So I got my hair cut again on Thursday. I liked the lady that cut it, but not thrilled about the cut. I don’t know why 1) almost every hair stylist I’ve gone to in the last two years insists on cutting my top layers too short and 2) cut my hair in such a way that I look like a soccer mom (I told you we’d get back to this discussion). It’s not bad really, just hard to style. I keep trying to find pictures of cuts I like, but everything is so weird or so ancient looking. I constantly see people that have cute hair, but I can’t seem to end up with that on my head. Maybe I just need a camera phone and start taking pictures of people I see on the street. Hopefully they won’t think I’m some stalker.

So, that was my vacation. I only got to sleep in twice, but I guess that’s better than not at all.

Add "Electrician" to the List

Cheryl, if you’re reading this…I’m still alive.

Last night, I decided to play electrician. It all started when I went to clean all the paint off of my hands before church last night. I walked into my bathroom and the lights wouldn’t come on. You could tell they would get brief momentary electricity, but nothing permanent. Because I have been trying to get so many other things done in my house, the bedroom has been neglected, so I didn’t want to call anyone for help. This has happened before in another room in the house and I watched Jay fix it, so I decided I could do this myself.

I went to Lowe’s, bought a new switch and cover, went home and proceeded to replace it myself (and yes, I turned off the power in the bathroom). I was doing okay until it came time to take the wires out of the existing switch. I couldn’t get them out and couldn’t figure out how…so once again I made a call and it was Roger to the rescue (at least over the phone). I was going about it the right way, I just needed to put a little more UMPH into it. Of course the old switch was nothing like the new one, but we got that figured out too. Thirty minutes later, I had light!

I’ve been wanting (in some cases “needing”) to replace all the switches and outlets in the house. Now I have the confidence I need to do it (that could be dangerous).

The Fun Never Ends

A comment from Tams made me realize I need to write an update to the dryer and the painting.

First the dryer…

I guess the fact that I was brave enough to attempt to take the dryer apart counts for something, but I wasn’t too successful. First I managed to get the top off with a little bit of effort. Getting the front off proved to be a little more difficult. There were these two sets of wires plugged into each other and I had to unplug them before I could remove the front panel. They were not made to unplug easily. This would count for the first phone call for help. Eventually, I figured out how to get them apart and got the front panel off without incident.

Now comes the fun part. I had to figure out exactly what I had to oil. Hence the second and third phone calls for help. I’m not very knowledgeable when it comes to motors, so I wasn’t sure what the shaft was. After doing some entertaining descriptions of what I was looking at, my brother managed to help me figure out what to oil (even gave me some helpful tips to make sure I didn’t get any oil in the motor.)

I then proceeded to put the front cover back on. Problem was, I didn’t pay close enough attention to how the drum fit around the door, so I made the fifth phone call for help to my Uncle Roger. Though quite mechanical, he had never taken a dryer apart before, so he wasn’t sure how the drum was supposed to attach either. I decided to do what looked logical and put the dryer back together and turned it on. The squeak was gone, but there were now two new sounds that sounded worse than the squeak! This resulted in call for help number six. I held the phone up to the dryer so that Roger could hear it. Thankfully, he offered to come over later in the week and look at it.

On Thursday when Roger came over, I began to take the dryer apart (showing off my VAST new knowledge). I took the first screw out, laid it in the cabinet above the dryer and then proceeded to take the next screw out. Not sure how, but some how I dropped it and it went down the lint trap (to which Mgam & Randy both later suggested I turn it upside down and shake it. Thanks guys.) I looked at Roger and said, “I did NOT just do that.” To which he replied (laughing), “yes, you did.”

So we got the rest of the dryer apart. The belt had slipped out of place when I was putting it back together. Roger fixed that and we also discovered that I had put the cover back on wrong…but it did take two of us to get it back on correctly – so I didn’t feel to bad about that.

So far, the dryer seems to be working – even though I’m a little paranoid about every noise I hear now, not knowing if it’s normal or not.

Now the painting…

This really didn’t go too badly. It was a fun bonding experience with the new roommate.
We got it done pretty quickly (probably would have gotten done faster if we hadn’t spent so much time talking). At first the color looked really good. It was supposed to be a warm yellow color…something neutral. By Monday night when the paint had a chance to dry good, it became evident that what is on the wall does not look like the sample or what is on top of the can. Part of the problem is you can still see shadows of the blue that was underneath (despite to layers of Kilz). The color now looks more like a flesh tone crayon than what I desired it to be. It definitely needs another coat, but there really isn’t time to do that before the new roommate moves in, so it will be fine for now (with furniture, you won’t even be able to tell). I’ll probably try a different color when I try painting it again.

For now, I’m just focused on getting the woodwork painted white in that room (half way there) and getting the cabinet doors and the door to the laundry room painted and put back up (also half way there). I feel like all I do is paint right now and I REALLY need to clean up my room. Maybe this weekend. =o)

Oh, and by the way, the edge paint roller from Shure Line is a big waste of money. Way too frustrating!

Me vs. Power Roller (And I Think It Won)

Sometimes you just can’t win! This weekend I had all these things I needed to get done at home and only partially accomplished one of them. This coming weekend, the new roommate and I are supposed to get together and re-paint her room. This was going to require putting Kilz on the walls to cover up the previous color. So on Saturday, I pulled out the power roller and started priming.

The process started out well, but two walls into it the paint started dripping terribly which slowed down the process considerably. Three-Fourths of the way through, I stopped getting any primer on the roller and since the can was now considerably light, I decided it was time to purchase another can of Kilz. So I cleaned up, changed clothes, and went to Lowe’s (my home away from home). When I got home, I was tired and sore, so decided to put off finishing till the next day.

Sunday afternoon, the last thing I wanted to do was finish, but I knew I needed to. So after a brief nap, I put on my painting clothes and got ready to start working again. When I went and pushed the button on the power roller, it wouldn’t work. Since it runs on batteries, I figured they were dead (this was the 2nd room I had painted since I put the batteries in). I put the roller back in the Ziploc bag (to keep it from drying out), changed clothes, and ran to Walgreen’s to get some batteries.

When I got home 15 minutes later, I heard this strange noise. I ran upstairs and the power roller had started working on its own and the bag was full of primer (at least it wasn’t all over the carpet.) So I took a break to call my mom and whine (and cry a little because I’m just sick of everything that has been going on), and took the roller apart and cleaned it up a little so that I could actually use it.

I would like to say this is where our story ends, but it doesn’t. Once I finished with the big stuff (I still have trim work to do), I took the power roller downstairs to clean it up (this is the down side to the power roller…the clean up). This didn’t go as planned either. First, some part came loose and started dripping water from the base. So I fixed that, but I couldn’t get it to work properly after that. I finally decided to forget it and opted to throw away the attachment hose and just buy a replacement hose the next time I go to use it. This meant that the clean up process was a lot more difficult and took longer than normal.

I learned today from someone who is a lot more experienced with repainting over darker colors that I’m going to have to do yet another coat of primer if I don’t want the new color to come out with a blue tint. Yeah! I think I’m going to be taking off on Thursday just to get some stuff (including this) done at home.

Stay tuned for our next episode when I try to repair my dryer myself…

Watch Out Extreme Make-Over (Okay, So Maybe Not)

Okay, I've added another "skill" to my repertoire. This weekend I FINALLY replaced the floor in my living room. We started at 2 p.m. Friday and finished around 3 p.m. Sunday. Of course we did take time to sleep and occasionally eat...but not much. We worked HARD. I have not been that tired in a long time. I didn't do too bad. I'm sure a professional could have done it better, but my mistakes will be easy to hide. I managed to only smash my finger 3 times (but it was 3 times in a row). I didn't cut any fingers off, and I only made one major boo boo cutting, but it wasn't significant. And it took EXACTLY 16 boxes with very little waste at the end. I still need to get the baseboards up and do some trim work before it's completely finished. I don't see myself quitting my day job anytime soon to do this for a living. I'm glad I did it because I feel a great deal of accomplishment, BUT it was so much work that it will be a while before I'll want to take on another task like that. Next major project (minus painting) will be tile...but it will be a long while before that happens.

Anyway, the pictures are the "before," "during," and "ALMOST after."

Snow Days

Or shall I say “Ice Days”. At first I was loving that this unusual storm system brought us enough ice that I got over 1 ½ days off work and didn’t have to leave my house. But by yesterday, I had run out of supplies to finish any other projects around the house and was getting some serious cabin fever. The plus side to having to come in to work today was that I got out of the house. The down side is that I probably will not be able to get back into the garage till this melts off (which could be a while since my driveway doesn’t get a lot of direct sunlight. I have kitty litter for traction, but I’m not sure it’s going to do a lot of good. The driveway is so solid that our cars don’t even leave tracks. This is nuts.

So, while I was off, I accomplished the following:

-- Made pillow shams for bedroom (didn’t turn out half bad either)
-- Painted door frames in hallway and doors down stairs (this wasn’t the most productive since I painted the wrong side of one of the doors so the inside is white and the outside is brown instead of the other way around.)
-- Dusted and vacuumed the downstairs.
-- Finished taking down most of the red gingham stuff in my bedroom. The bulletin board is the only thing left and I’m putting that off because it’s going to be a pain in the butt.
-- Did some laundry.
-- Made porcupine meatballs (the hamburger was intended to be for the tacos I’m supposed to make Randy for helping pick up my new flooring…yes, I finally bought flooring for the living room, just haven’t been able to pick it up due to the weather.)
-- Cleaned my shower (I HATE cleaning the shower).
-- Balanced my checkbook.

The only thing that needs to be done that I haven’t done is shred the stuff in my shredder pile…but I haven’t been that bored yet – though need to get on the ball and do that soon. And if I get brave enough to make the drive, I need to go to Hobby Lobby to get trim for my other throw pillows and more Kilz so that I can paint the correct side of the door.

I am thinking about sledding down my driveway this evening…just to say I did. I’ll let you know how it goes. Maybe I’ll use my recycle bin. Hmmm…

Update:
I got brave enough to make the drive and well…people are STUPID. That’s about all I have to say. And to the woman driving a brand new SUV…someone probably should have told you that driving a SUV doesn’t make you invincible on ice before you almost ended up in the Lions Fun Park Pond (no joke, she came seriously close).

Blog Neglect

I know I haven’t posted anything lately. It hasn’t been from intentional neglect. I’ve actually sat down to write several posts, but never had time to finish or post. The jury is still out on whether this one will make it to blogger land or not. Here is the Reader’s Digest version of everything that has taken place lately:

I’m in LOVE!
Sorry, not with a guy – with a truck. Last Thursday I rented a pick up to go to Kansas to get a bed from my mom’s house. Enterprise gave me a brand new, black Chevy Colorado. I am so in love with that truck. The gas mileage wasn’t bad for a truck, but still not as good as my little economy car. I was sad to have to turn it in. Only 3 payments left on my car and the temptation to trade it in is getting tough. A truck like that would be practical for me, but not economical. My goal is to try and hold on to my car for at least another year.

Chair Rail
First of all, for anyone who thinks like a particular “un-home improvement savvy” friend of mine – a chair rail is NOT one of those things that you sit in and it takes you up and down the stairs. A chair rail is a wood border that is placed on the wall as a design divider. I was going to get help from a friend’s husband, but it was hard to find a good time to have them over. So I got online and found a good do-it-yourself site and borrowed the necessary tools from someone at work. On Monday, Amy came over to help me put it up. It was comedy because we couldn’t figure out how to get the saw to work (we needed to remove the safety pin, but wasn’t sure how). At one point, I called a friend from church and asked him how to make the saw work and my explanation to him was “we’re girls”. We managed to get the first wall up without a lot of difficulty (can’t say my cuts were the best, but wood putty and paint fixed it). Our problem came when we tried to do the inside corner. We could not get it to work the way the directions instructed and couldn’t figure out how to make the miter saw cut it the way we needed it. So we gave up. Yesterday, I decided to give it another shot. I finally figured out how to miter the ends so that they met up in the corner the way I needed them to. I managed to get the second wall up all by myself. I just have one more wall to do and I’m done! Not the most professional job, but only a professional could tell and well – not bad for my first attempt.

I’m Quitting My Job and Becoming a CSI
For the last two years, we’ve been having a problem with cash theft in our building. On Thursday, someone had their wallet stolen out of their office. Granted, it wasn’t too hard for the thief because the last person to leave our office left the door open. What this thief didn’t realize was that he was on candid camera. When my co-worker told me she couldn’t find her wallet and was afraid it had been stolen since the door was wide open when she returned to this part of the building the evening before, I pulled up the security tapes and started watching. Since we didn’t know exactly when it happened, I had to start with right after she last used her wallet – which was a good 6 hours worth of viewing. After two hours, I was quickly approaching the time of day when she left and she was starting to wonder if she went someplace else that she had forgotten about. Then all of a sudden, we both gasped and there he was. The man we’ve caught wondering around the building on several occasions. We watched as he walked into the office, looked around, walked into her office and left. I used my “skills” to view him exiting the back the north entrance vs. the south that it was assumed he would have left. I really think I need to become a crime scene video technician. I’m all about making people pay for their wrong doings (I think I need to work on grace).

Shoes
I have been shopping for at the very least, a pair of black heels to go with a pair of pants that I have. Doesn’t seem like it would be a difficult task, but I can’t find anything in my size that are comfortable and not ridiculously over-priced. It’s becoming frustrating – and I have looked just about everywhere. The only place I haven’t looked (mainly because they close before I have a chance to get there) is the Shoe Gallery at North Park Mall. Shopping for black heels should not be this hard!!!

So that’s about it (at least for the stuff I’m going to talk about on a blog). This is me signing off and hoping to head home at a decent hour for once!

Before and Almost After

Okay, so here are some pictures of my recent projects. I have before and after of the kitchen, but I forgot to take before pictures of the living room. My mom keeps getting after me b/c I didn't take any pictures before I started any of this (when the cabinets and mantle were still brown). It's a work in progress. Excuse the mess. I've had several "projects" going lately and haven't completely cleaned up from all of them.

Anyway, here are where things stand so far. I still need to "decorate". I have a picture picked out for the kitchen that I haven't been able to purchase yet and I need to find some other stuff for both the kitchen and living room. When things are put away, it's still pretty plain. I guess 2006 will be the year for painting and 2007 will be the year for decorating. ;o)


Dining Room (that no "dining" ever takes place in) Before & After


Kitchen Before & After (I still want to put shelves up over the microwave for my cookbooks and replace the tile - but all in good time).



The Living Room Almost After (I still need to paint the rest of the wood trim white and put up a chair rail. For those wondering why I keep painting the wood white, well it was in awful shape and painting is easier than sanding and re-staining.)

And Yet another Day in the Life of…

Seriously, my life is one walking disaster after another. Let me explain.

Last week, I took a few days off, just because I could, and decided to spend my time painting my living room. This was not a task that I had wanted to take on myself because I knew it would take FOREVER to paint. But seeing that the only way it would ever get done, I decided to bite the bullet and just paint it myself. This actually turned out not to be as bad as I thought. I discovered a wonder thing…the power roller. I tried to rent one without success, but when I discovered that I could purchase one for $40, I made one of the greatest purchases EVER!!! I got the whole top half and the first coat of the bottom half painted in the first day with out incident. Day two was another story. Though they were the same brand and sheen, the red paint I was using on the bottom half was a lot runnier than the tan was. As I was beginning my second coat on Tuesday morning, some paint dripped between the tarp and the wall, so I laid the roller down on the tarp and ran to get a rag. When I returned, I discovered that paint had built up on the splatter shield and had run off the splatter shield AND off of the tarp and onto my carpet. I now have two big red spots in front of my fire place. When I tried to clean them up with Goof-Off, the spot turned out bigger and pink! So now I am faced with either purchasing a rug or possibly replacing my living room floors sooner than planned (yes, I know that a rug would be cheaper, but I’ve come across a really good deal on flooring, so if I can find what I want, I might just go ahead and replace the floor totally.)

By the way, I’ll try to post pictures of the “almost” completed room soon.

Okay, so fast forward to Sunday. We were having a class cookout Sunday night after church. I had gone to Sam’s bought everything we needed. I even had a system down for Sunday. There were only a few things I needed to do before that evening: 1) cut lettuce, tomato, and onion; 2) make ice cream; 3) meet Chad at the church to load ice chest, pop, and charcoal supplies in his car; 4) load my car.

I had the whole thing timed out. 2:00, cut lettuce, tomato, and onion. 2:45, start making ice cream. Ice cream is supposed to take 20-40 minutes to make. I was allotting myself an hour plus a few minutes to spare. Meet Chad at the church at 4:30 to load ice chest. Leave church a little early and run by the house to get the rest of the stuff for the cookout.

Things were going well. I got a head start on cutting the L-T-O. I saved the onion for last because I hate cutting onion. I was making my last cut into the onion when I sliced my finger open on a knife. Hind site, I should have gone and gotten stitches, but that would have messed up my schedule, so I just cleaned it really good and put a lot of pressure on it with a bandage. I still had another onion to cut, but I decided I was done with knives for the day.

Next I started the ice cream. This actually is so much easier than it seems. Yes, it takes more steps than just running to the grocery store, but it’s not hard and it tastes so much better. I had borrowed Suzy’s ice cream maker so that I would be able to make two batches. I mixed everything up, poured the contents into both of the containers, and started the mixers. As far as I could tell, things were going fine, except it was taking a lot longer than I expected. Good thing I allotted myself an hour! A little after 4:00, my ice cream freezer had finished, but Suzy’s was still going. Her ice cream maker has a clear top, so I look close and realize that her dasher is moving. For those of you asking, “What is a dasher?” It’s the paddle in the middle of an ice cream maker that makes the ice cream. The dasher isn’t supposed to move, only the can. The fact that both were moving was a bad sign! So I turned it off and took off the lid. The ice cream had hardened around the edge but was still liquid in the middle. When I went to try to remover the dasher, ice cream splashed up in my face and all over my clothes (btw – I was already dressed for the evening at this point). So I clean myself off really quick and hit panic mode. I now have 15 minutes before I’m supposed to be up at the church, I’m covered in ice cream and I’ve got a big problem on my hands. I run upstairs to change and attempt to call Chad. I have NO SERVICE on my phone (my neighborhood has horrible cell reception). So I knock on Melissa’s door and ask her to call Chad for me and tell him I’m running late.

I ran back downstairs and grab a hard plastic spatula and begin scrapping the sides. Meanwhile, my roommate comes in to see if she can help. I had her continue scraping while I ran to the church. When I get back from the church, Melissa has gotten all the ice cream scrapped and ready to be hardened – then she looks at me and asks “did your spatula have a big chunk out of it before you started this?” Oh, you guessed it, there is now a big plastic chunk of while spatula somewhere in the vanilla ice cream! Here is my dilemma – do I toss out the ice cream or just tell people to eat carefully? If you were at the cookout and ate from the last batch of ice cream, you know the answer – you had to eat carefully. To my knowledge, no one ever found the spatula.

You would think that would be the end of the evening’s mishaps, but nooooooo! Chad and I had a little miscommunication, and I beat him to the park instead of him beating me and getting the grill started. So we got a late start as it was on the coals. But to make matters worse, we couldn’t get the coals to ash over fast enough. I have learned a few things about cooking with charcoal, but we’ll save that for later. It took several douses of lighter fluid and my freaking a few people out to get the coals anywhere near hot enough to start cooking. Finally after 7:00, we start putting burgers on the grill. Basically we were cooking about 4 at a time and thawing the rest out at a rapid speed. I was feeling the stress and obviously someone else noticed because all of a sudden I hear someone behind me asking “so how is it going over here?” It was my new best friend, Dusty. He offered to do the “Church of Christ” thing and take over the grill because that’s the “man’s job”. (Don’t get mad at him ladies, he was joking). I gladly turned my spatula over and then we were cooking. He is my new hero because by this point I smelled like sour milk, lighter fluid, smoke, and sweat and I was DONE! They got a pretty good system down: Dusty sacrificed his eyeballs and did the grilling, his roommate cracked the jokes, Nicole kept the grill loaded with fresh burgers, Melissa was in charge of the tray of cooked burgers and I just delighted in the fact that I could finally relax some.

The rest of the evening went fine – well until this morning when I had a dream there was a ghost in my house and I woke up totally freaked out, but other than that – it’s all good now. And I’m glad I only do this cookout once a year!!!!

The Great Paint Caper

Well, this weekend didn’t exactly go as planned. I was thinking about going to Missouri to FINALLY get to see baby Zaine, but because I’ve been sick and craziness with their schedule, we decided to postpone the trip for a couple of weeks. Since I now had a free weekend and a gift card to Lowes, I decided to finally finish painting my kitchen (you know, that project I started back in February!)

If you recall from previous posts, there was an issue with the color I originally chose. I liked the color, but it was not quite the right shade of blue. So Friday night, I went to Lowe’s in search of a different shade of blue. I found a paint sample that looked like it was what I wanted – at least under their light (you know where I’m going with this, don’t you.) So I get the paint and head home. By time I got home, the paint dab on the top of the can had dried and it was not looking like the right color AT ALL. I tried not to panic. I just rolled a small amount on the wall and decided to let it dry over night and see what it looked like in the morning.

Saturday morning, I got up and went into the kitchen. DEFINITELY the wrong color! I called Lowe’s and they said to bring it back in and maybe they could adjust the color. After several attempts, it became obvious it was not going to be the right color. I took my new “custom designed” paint home and started trying to work on Plan B.

I really didn’t have the money to be spending on paint, but at the same time, I REALLY wanted to get the kitchen done. It was getting on my nerves. So I decided to ignore my rule about not using the credit card and went looking for new paint. I honestly went to every paint store in Edmond. One of the places I went, the guy offered to take the bowl I was using to try to match the paint and see what he could come up with. By this point I was about ready to take him up on the offer. I decided to go back to Home Depot in hopes of maybe miraculously finding the right color. My hopes weren’t high since I had already looked through ever paint sample they had when I was originally started this process, but I really wanted to finish my painting and didn’t want to put it off another week.

I walked into Home Depot and start looking at different colors. My best bet was looking like a color from the Disney collecting, when I found it. Granted it’s hard to tell under their lights, but to the best of my knowledge, it looked like I had maybe found the perfect color. Not exact, but so much closer than what I had used originally and I was happy with that. I don’t know if they were out of that sample the last time or if it was a new one…frankly I didn’t care, because I had it now the there was light at the end of the tunnel.

When I got home and started putting it on the walls, it was definitely the right color. I was so happy! I spent the rest of my Saturday painting my kitchen and was actually done at a pretty decent hour.

Sunday evening, I went to start taking the tape off. I had to use a knife to cut through the edges since the paint stuck to the tape. When I started taking it off, to my horror, the paint and seeped through the edges and now there was blue pain on my ceiling and cabinets. This was the ONE thing I was trying to avoid which is why I taped everything so well. I’m now going to have to go back over the edges of my white cabinets and white ceiling with Kilz to cover up the blue and then repaint the trim. I’m starting to wonder if I’m ever going to be done.

So, what did I do with the gallon of paint I now can’t use? Well, when I was rinsing out the roller, I noticed that it was actually a pretty color when it was lightened, so my mom might mix it with a can of white and paint her bedroom. She wants to redo it anyway.

I still have a door to the pantry and baseboards to paint, but I’m hoping to have that all done really soon and when I do, I will post an after picture.

Weekend Rundown

Friday
Spent the evening with Jamie, Elaina, and Melissa playing poker at Jamie’s. First of all, we didn’t play for money. I’m too bad at it to risk losing money I don’t have. I hadn’t played poker in a VERY long time, and really have only played a few times in my life as it is. The girls decided that I don’t have a very good poker face because I kept saying “dude!” every time I didn’t like the hand I had. Also determined that I can’t do color math. I would get so confused when I would try to figure out how to “make change”. I couldn’t figure out green minus blue equaled. I am a little better at Texas Hold’em, but still not great. It was actually a fun evening, despite the fact that my car was covered in ice by time Melissa and I left and the scraper wasn’t cutting it. That ice was just a preview of the weekend to come. Friday night was also the last time I left my house (other than running out to the mailbox on Saturday) till today.

Saturday
I got up and started taping the kitchen and moving furniture so that I could start painting. That took a lot of motivation. I wanted to get it painted, but it was cold and dreary outside so I was tempted to just stay in bed. But I didn’t let myself slack off and I started painting. The first coat looked like a smurf blew up in my kitchen. I did manage to get very little in places it wasn’t supposed to be (unlike the kitchen cabinet experience). Since I needed to wait 4 hours before I put on a second coat, I only got one coat put on – but that’s okay, I felt like I had accomplished something. Also had one of those reminders that God even answers our silly little prayers, which was good was a good boost of faith because I’ve got some biggies I’ve been praying and the answering of this small request was a reminder that He is faithful and He will answer the others too. Maybe not exactly the way that I would like (like this weekend), but the way that is best.

Saturday night, Andrew, Gregorio and Randy came over and the five of us played games. The boys (well Randy) kicked our butts in Tribond, but we had a come back in Oodles of Doodles. We then decided to play Uno, but we were trying to remember what cards were worth what. My comment was “I’ve never scored playing Uno”. I really need to think before I speak. After getting tired of Uno, we decided to move on to Uno Attack. I have not laughed that hard since the day I spent cracking myself up.

Sunday
Got up and got ready for church. As I was getting ready, I heard on the news that it was sleeting really bad outside, but so far, no mention of services being cancelled. I was having a serious debate about whether or not to go. I’m so pathetic, but my biggest concern about going was that by time I came out, my car would be covered in ice again and I really didn’t want to scrape it. I’ve decided this is another reason why I need a husband – to scrape the car when it’s covered with snow and ice (the other reason is to do all the handy work around my house I’m too afraid to attempt myself). Anyway, I checked the news one last time before I left and found out services had been cancelled. So I put on comfortable clothes and did something I rarely do…made breakfast.

Since I was trapped in the house for the rest of the day (my driveway is really steep, so I wasn’t about to attempt to leave), I decided to put on a second coat of paint. This turned out to not be as productive as I had hoped. 1) I needed trim brushes and a smaller roller to get in some tight places; 2) the rollers I bought were for medium texture and I really probably needed rough texture because it was taking more coats to get a solid coverage; 3) the color didn’t turn out the right shade of blue. I don’t hate the color, but it doesn’t match my pottery. It turned out to be more of a navy than a dark cobalt blue. I knew the colors weren’t going to be exact, but Jenny and I thought they would at least compliment each other. Turns out they don’t. I’m already going to have to go buy more paint, but my dilemma is, do I try once again to match the color or do I choose a color other than blue and start over. Of course if I do that, I will have to Kilz the wall first. I just can’t win! What’s worse is I kept waking up during the night wondering “what do I do about the color in the kitchen?”

So, I finished painting and decided to crash on the couch and find a good movie. Don’t know how many good movies I found, but plenty that made me cry. I had such a headache by time I went to bed. As I’m lying there wishing my headache would go away, I start to think about things needed to be done first thing this morning – especially since our office wasn’t opening till noon. One of them being calling and postponing the pick up order for our copier since it died and it has to go to the copier hospital. Side note: I could really get used to going to work at noon. I got up, read my bible, took a shower, ate lunch, did some things around the house. Did not feel rushed like I normally do. It was GREAT!

It has been a fairly relaxed day – which I really needed. This week has the potential of being one of the most stressful weeks I’ve had in a really long time. I might post why later, but it seems premature to say anything at this point.

But that has been my weekend. I’m ready for it to warm up. I guess I kind of got my snow day, but I would have much rather it been on a weekday.

A Work In Progress

I'm posting this in hopes that I won't talk myself out of doing it -- especially after all the work drama this has created (they wanted me to work on Saturday which is a long story and I really didn't want to because I had already sat this weekend aside).

Anywho, I should have taken a very beginning BEFORE picture, but this is my current project, a.k.a. the kitchen. The cabinets used to be a dark brown They were pretty beat up, so I decided painting them would be easier that sanding and staining. So far I think I was right, but "easy" isn't the best descriptive word here. I never dreamed it would take as much work as it did. I started painting them Thanksgiving Day. I finally finished after New Years (I think - around then). I have also painted the mantle/bookcase in the living room and some of the trim in the kitchen (you can't see the blue tape, but it's still there.)

So now, my plan for the weekend is to FINALLY paint the kitchen walls. It won't look like the same place when I'm done, I promise you! I'm excited about finally having some color in my house. What I'm not excited about is taping, taking down the blinds and moving the pie safe (that's the big brown thing). It would be very tempting to not tape or take down the blinds, but if I learned one thing from painting the cabinets, the clean up if you don't is a lot harder and takes a lot longer than the preventative measures.

It will be so nice to actually be able to use all of my counter tops! It will however be a while before this room can be classified as "finished". Seems that painting over my hardware didn't work as well as I planned, so I will have to replace the hinges afterall! And I will be painting the doors as well, but I wanted to wait till spring when I could take them outside. Oh well. So, if all goes well, this is the BEFORE picture and I'll have AFTER pictures soon!

Baptism by Fire

I have always had the worst luck, so I don’t know why I thought my venture into home ownership would go smoothly. I know everyone keeps telling me how much I’m going to love it, but right now, it’s just draining my wallet. Don’t get me wrong, I like my new place and I’m looking forward to being all settled in and having everything fixed up the way I want it, but it hasn’t even been two weeks and I’m starting to wonder what the heck I was thinking! Let me give you the run down:

Thursday, Nov. 17 – Closing Day
The closing went pretty smoothly and quickly. I was excited to find out the day before that I had gotten a new dishwasher out of the whole deal. Things were looking good to go. I leave the closing and run by the new place to drop off a few things and make sure nothing needed to be done before we started moving in. When I went to leave, my garage door wouldn’t close. I finally got it down manually and had to make my first homeownership repair call. Luckily the repair guy was able to fix the problem pretty easily, but I will eventually have to have some work done on the garage door. Yeah me!

Sunday, Nov. 20
Sunday morning I’m getting ready for church when I start to hear a strange noise. I knew that mostly likely it’s nothing and that I was just being paranoid because I’m in a new place, but I decided to check it out to be on the safe side. I turn off the T.V. and I definitely was hearing a noise – and not just any noise, it sounds like there is someone in my kitchen. Okay, now I’m really freaked out. So I dial 911 on my cell phone and have my finger over the call button and head to the top of the stairs. I don’t know what I thought I was going to do next because I had nothing to protect myself with – it was all downstairs. So I stand at the top of the stairs a few moments longer and definitely – there is a noise coming from my kitchen. Then I hear a noise on the front porch, so I gain the courage to peek out the window. It’s the painters!!! The seller didn’t tell me they were coming and the noise I heard was them setting up their ladders – which sounds like they’re in the kitchen.

So I get finish getting ready for church. When I go to leave, they’ve taped a drop cloth to my garage, so they had to lift it up. Great – now they know that for the time being, I live alone. Very comforting – NOT! So, I decide to take my time coming home from church hoping that MAYBE they’ll be gone when I get home. No such luck.

As I’m pulling onto my street, I notice 3 police cars parked in front of my house. My first thought, “Lovely, they tried breaking into my house and he neighbors called the police.” As I get closer, I notice that they have arrested a woman in my front yard. I have no idea why, but I’m glad it’s not because she was breaking into my house. I think she’s the daughter of one of my neighbors – sure hope she doesn’t live there!

Then Monday morning, I wake to hear a noise above me. My first thought that it was just Jeana, until I woke up enough to realize that Jeana doesn’t live with me anymore and there is no one above me… I’m on the top floor! It was probably just the house settling, but it was 5:33 a.m. and I was WIDE awake. Needless to say, I’m now overly paranoid about EVERY noise I hear and I’ve had to start turning on the sleep timer on my T.V. so that I can fall asleep. I keep thinking I need to get a security system, but if it accidentally gets set off (which I hear they do) that will only freak me out even more.

Tuesday, Nov. 22
I’m working on trying to get things unpacked when my doorbell rings. It’s my neighbor and he came over to ask me if I knew that water was coming out the side my house through the foundation. Went outside and sure enough…there is water coming out the side of my house. So I go inside to investigate and low and behold, there is half an inch of water standing from behind my fridge to about halfway into the dining room. I pulled the fridge and everything else away from the wall and start finding towels. As I found out this morning, there seems to be a leak in the pipe that attaches to the fridge – if you have an ice maker, which I don’t. So the plumber disconnected the pipe and if I ever get a fridge with an icemaker, we’ll just run a new pipe. Much cheaper than tearing out the old one and finding the leak.

That same night, I started hearing this loud humming noise every so often. Come to find out, my heater wasn’t blowing hot air. Thank heavens for the home warranty because the motor was out on my heater. I would have much preferred for the heater to be out completely so that I could get a new one, but as long as I don’t have to pay for the repairs, I’m good.

Wednesday, Nov. 23
I finally get around to changing the locks on my house. I was so proud of myself because I managed to take the locks off myself and take them to the locksmith to get them changed out. Only cost me $22.50 instead of paying $65.50 to have them come out. Problem was, my mom was “helping” me and she popped the whole thing out instead of just letting me take the core out and when I went to put the deadbolt back on…it wouldn’t go back on. I tried everything I could think of for 3 days. Finally I called our maintenance guy here at work and he came over and whittled out enough to get it back on. I hope this is the last time I have to change the locks!

Thursday, Nov. 24 – Thanksgiving Day
The traditional “turkey day” was spent painting the insides of my kitchen cabinets. We decided by doing it that way, if we didn’t get it all done, we’d at least be able to put my kitchen stuff away. Lesson I learned from painting the kitchen cabinets: Make sure the house is open when you use Kilz, be sure to wear some sort of head covering when using Kilz (doesn’t come out of the hair easily) AND when painting over dark wood, use more than one coat of Kilz to avoid doing 4 coats of white! I think the cabinets will look good when I get done, but “done” is the operative word here. I was going to Kilz the outsides yesterday since I had the day off, but it was way too cold and windy here to do that. Hopefully there will be another nice day sometime soon.

Monday, Nov. 28
After spending a long afternoon and evening unpacking the kitchen, I went upstairs to get ready for bed when I noticed an orange stain on my bathroom rug. Seems my toilet is leaking at the base. As we speak, I’m waiting for someone with the warranty company to call me back and let me know when the plumber is coming.

I have to say, it kind of makes me laugh. Things like this always happen to me. Whether it is cars, homes or relationships, anything I touch inevitably fall apart. I could whine about it, but it won’t change things, so I’ve just learned to expect it and laugh -- and realize I will be in debt the rest of my life because of it. Which, if anyone out there would like to donate money towards the “Stacey’s Debt Reduction Fund”, let me know. I take cash or checks (and would take credit cards if I had a way to scan them.)