this is so true!

i came in to work this am and found a bunch of funny little notes on my huge white board. this one is by far, the funniest, and the most true. hee!

The Wisdom of Youth

Heidi is helping me work through some career counseling because she knows how to do that and is kind enough to spend the time to do that with me. I have been feeling pretty down on myself lately because it seems that I just can't be happy in any job, and since the common denominator in all the jobs I've had is me, well, it seems that I'm the problem. Also, I've switched fields so many times that I have to think it's becoming obvious to employers that I'm really restless. And Heidi swooped in while I indulged in self-pity and pointed out that the decisions I've made were not always strictly career-related, that some of them were made due to other circumstances going on in my life at those times, and that some of the jobs that I didn't enjoy were jobs that I had expected not to be enjoyable, right from the start. So in essence, she took my self-defeat and helped me turn it into insight. I think she's going to be a great counselor!

ahhh-k-waaard

everyone knows i'm a sucker for a pretty face. what you might not know is that i'm just as much a sucker for a hot shirtless guy out for a run. so, when i passed just such a young fellow the other day, i had to resist the urge to shout a "woo woo," monica-style, and instead, i just openly ogled him as i was driving past. i ogled him right up to the point where our eyes locked and the horror set in as i realised the guy i was shamelessly gaping at is one of my tenants.

in case you're wondering, the goats are the closest thing i had to a picture of a jackass.

here's that problem i mentioned.

so, things were humming along on the demo phase of the kitchen catastrophe until i uncovered this. the 2 whitish columns on the right side of the photo are heat ducts for the 2nd and 3rd floors. ugh. i'm so mad at myself for missing this during the planning phase. i actually spent several hours at different times looking at everything in the basement that runs into the kitchen area. i must've looked at the elbows for these ducts at least 10 times and i never once thought that they were running right thru the middle of my project. now, as i see it, i have 3 options. 1. cut out a doorway, forget about the pass-thru, and continue, disappointed, with the rest of the project. 2. possibly remove the ducts and replace them with electric baseboard heaters in those rooms. 3. call the HVAC guys to see if these can be re-routed and what it would cost.

none of these make me happy. :-(

project stoppage

rather than do any more demo work toniht, i decided to take a 2 hour nap and then do some prep work. at least i'll be ready to go tomorrow or wednesday.

in an effort to control some of the dust, i have hung another tarp between the dinin room and living room. i'm still sneezin pretty much constantly, so if anyone has more tips on minimizing the spread of plaster dust, bring 'em on!

Day of rest

I have been making a focused effort over the past several weeks to reserve Sunday as a day of rest. Now, for me, this doesn’t mean that I don’t do anything; rather, it just means not working as much on projects or doing heavy labor and instead, relaxing, reading, watching television, and visiting with friends and neighbors. This also means that I don’t have any real updates on the kitchen project to post for today.

Monday’s post will be a different story. Houston, we have a problem…

Harry Potter

One of the reasons Heidi was over last night helping me (and thank you again, Heidi, especially for doing the dishes!) was because we were waiting for the much-anticipated Midnight release of the final Harry Potter book. Thank goodness. I mean, that kid has been in school FOREVER. Anywhooo, we went up to Barnes & Noble to get a numbered wristlet for Heidi-hoo, and then we went to B-dub's for some wings, and then came to my place to wreck the kitchen. Yeeee-aaaah!! Sometime during that period, Randy called and I believe the exact quote was, "this crowd makes the Star Wars fans look cool." Heh. Nothing can actually do that, Randy, but good one. And yeah, the whole thing was, well, about what you would expect. I also told Heidi at one point when all the HP fans were in line and getting a little edgy that I felt like Rachel when Monica takes her and Phoebe to Brooklyn for discount wedding dresses, except I needed a whistle. It was all in good fun, though, and I also got to meet Uncle Barry and Adam, they of the Pettyjohn clan who helped in the big painting extravaganza the other day. And now, I am completely exhausted and a little shaky from being up so late which reminds me that at least half of the pain of a hangover is the lack of sleep, because I feel hung over now, except without the dizziness and fuzzy mouth.

tonight we removed

more cabinets. by we, i mean heidi and me. thanks, heidi! we took down the cabinets where i had just put the baskets (see a couple posts below for the 'before' shot), because once i realised i was going to have to tear down the rest of the ceiling plaster, i decided i'd better take those cabinets down first. turns out that the wall they were on will also need a lot of work (not really a surprise), so the project expands again. the kitchen is pretty much wrecked, and i only have about 8 weeks allotted for the project so it will be ready for my birthday bash.

in other norwood news, someone got into my unlocked car last night and stole my pocket money. they had moved my coffee cup without spilling coffee, which impressed me until i realised that they moved the cup to get my quarters, which was my car wash money, and also were arranged neatly in a daisy pattern in the cupholder. cnkelly thought it was amusing that the only reason i was mad is because they took my daisy, but hey - that's just my way.

slow and steady

this is how the kitchen wall looks now after tuesday's labor. i stopped after i filled 2 cans with debris and my 2 lungs with 100 years' worth of black soot. mmm. even with a mask, i was still sneezing soot all night. i also have to cut the lath where i don't want to tear the plaster down b/c the lath spans several studs and the lath pieces are also staggered. so, it's a bit more involved than i expected, but then again, most projects are.

last night, i helped heidi prep for her painting, which she is just about to post on her blog. i think tonite will be mostly mid-demo cleanup for me, but i'll try to do something post-worthy.

Monday Night Break-Wall

I was trying to come up with something that rhymed with "football" and means "smashing up the kitchen wall". Because that's pretty much how things ended up tonight.

I had called Bri and Rob to see if they wanted to come over for dinner. I had some hamburgers left over from the D0n-0-hoe-down that were going to go to waste, and I suspected they had leftover pasta salad from Sunday night's dinner so it was kewl, Stone-Soup-style. I secretly wanted them to come over so that Rob could look at the wall and tell me what to do next, but I couldn't tell him that, or he'd think I was tricking them into coming over to do work. Heh.

After I talked to the guys, Heidi called and asked what I was doing. When I told her that Bri and Rob were coming over for dinner, her response was "Didn't you guys just have dinner yesterday?" Why yes, we did, but we are all hungry again. Hee! Heidi joined us for dinner, and we got to enjoy Brian's excellent command of the grill against the backdrop of my neighbors' screaming and other unsavory antics in the pool and the blanket of hungry mosquitos swarming around us. In short, I need to figure out a few more logistical issues before the backyard becomes the best hangout spot in Norwood.

After dinner, Rob gave me the go-ahead to just start smashing up the wall with a hammer (I don't know why I am so anxious about doing things the "right way," but it helps me to have somebody say that they approve), and so I did. And here are the results so far:

You can see to the left of the stepladder that I started pulling off the lath as well as the plaster, but then I decided to do the 2 layers separately. Brian, Rob, and Heidi will note that not much progress was made after their departure. That is because A) I decided to get my dust mask and goggles for my own safety and had to really search to find them, B) I decided to drag in some trash cans to hold the debris, and C) CNKelly called and during that work stoppage, I noticed that the plaster dust was getting EVERYWHERE. By which, I mean, all the way into my bedroom, which is really quite a lot of twists and turns. I decided I'd better stop and hang some plastic to try to at least contain the bulk of the dust, and when I got finished with that, I couldn't find my mask. I took that as a sign that it was a good time to knock off for the evening.

From this shot, you can see the remaining cabinet, and the last bit of that dirt ring I mentioned yesterday:

And here, you can see that I've revealed the reason for the drop ceiling, which is that the lath is exposed on the ceiling in about half of the kitchen. So, there's that little bonus project to incorporate into the kitchen re-do.I started ripping out the drop ceiling panels and honestly, that alone made me really happy.

I don't know when I'll be able to pick up work again, because I'm pretty much booked for the rest of the week and since tomorrow is Joe D's birthday, I'm sure I'll be up in Urbana this weekend. So, perhaps my timing wasn't great, but hey - no time like the present to start on a little demo project!

I'll keep posting updates until you all beg me to stop. Hee!

Busy Weekend

OK, to start off, I've made a few bids at this online auction site fasttrackauctions.com where they liquidate fixtures and equipment from stores and restaurants. CubeNeighborKelly and I got some cute chairs from an auction a few weeks ago, and then on Friday afternoon, I won a bid for some baskets. Kelly had recently suggested that I get some baskets for storing snacks and pantry items and these seemed like they might work for that. Plus, they were a bargain at a total bid of 75 cents. Yup, 75 cents. So, I won the auction with that bid, and with the buyer's premium and tax, my grand total was 92 cents. Hee!
Unfortunately, as I looked up the directions to the pickup location, I found that the location that I had read as "Springdale" was actually "Springboro," approximately 25 miles further than anyplace I had planned to travel Saturday. I mentioned this to my friend Kim at breakfast and she kindly donated the 92 cents for the baskets because the whole thing was so funny and she loved the idea of me giving the guy exact change. So, this is the 92 cents:
So, after breakfast, I went to get the baskets, which included a loooong side trip to the Springboro Tourist Information Center (who even knew there was one?) and a couple of cute little consignment shops and a stop at the post office to send a letter to Kim. I bought another basket, which will eventually hold my in-progress stitching projects, at one of the consignment shops.

Here are the 75-cent baskets once they were in my kitchen:

And the other basket from the consignment store. Note that Stella is in the picture for scale. Or because she has to ruin everything.
After picking up the baskets, I headed over to CNKelly's house to help her fix and paint the fence by her patio. This involved sawing, nailing, sanding, and painting, and we aren't finished because there are multiple layers of paint needed. I'll post a picture when this is all finished because it's going to be really cool. After we got the first coat of paint on, we sat down to watch Kelly's daughter play kickball with some neighborhood friends. When it was time for me to leave, we had to move their bikes out of the driveway and we lined them up, Baby-Biker-Bar style:
Also, Kelly was deadheading some daylilies and accidentally took an open bloom off, so I stuck it behind my ear for the ride home:

And it turns out that they are called daylilies because the blooms only last for one day, which I learned when I came out this morning and the bloom was closed up even though I had put it in a little vase.

When I got home, I decided to use the rest of my evening to put my pantry items into the baskets and put the baskets on top of my kitchen cabinets. This meant cleaning the cabinets. Now, I know I'm not the first person to think of cleaning the cabinets, but I might be the first person to think of cleaning these cabinets, because they were majorly nasty. So much so that I decided not to take a photo, for your benefit. You can thank me later.

Once I had emptied the cabinets along the Wall to Be Destroyed Later, I decided to go ahead and take those cabinets off so that I can get this project underway. I also started peeling the wallpaper, which had also been painted with a few layers of paint, including the purple color that I loved in my upstairs bedroom but hate as a kitchen color.

This is a view of the wall when I remembered to take a picture, which was after I took the first smaller cabinet off: and this is the wall as it looks now, with both cabinets gone and a nasty dirt ring around where they used to be:
Mmmm, tasty! It turns out there's quite a bit of damage to the wall on the kitchen side, so I'm thinking I'll end up knocking out all the plaster on the kitchen side and hanging drywall on the bottom half (the top half will stay open so the kitchen and dining room are open to each other).
I plan to start chipping away at the kitchen side of the wall sometime this week so I can decide exactly what's going to happen with this wall.

By the by, Rob mentioned tonight that some guy was in the news because he was in jail on a misdemeanor violation of working on his home without a permit. I didn't know that was something people were incarcerated for, but it explains why all the convicted burglars, rapists, and murderers get paroled early, so they can make room in the jailhouse for the home-improvement-without-permission guys. If anyone ever breaks in and kills me, I'll be able to take comfort in knowing that at least the house won't collapse while I'm being violated and terminated.

couple things

1. I have done something horribly wrong with a load of laundry, because a bunch of clothes smell like feet. Yes, feet. And though Heidi explained that this was probably because I forgot to add detergent to a load, I still have a problem because I managed to fold and put away all the loads before I discovered this problem. So now, I'm trying to sniff all the clothes to figure out which are affected, but this is not working, as I discovered - too late - yesterday. I thought the shirt I had on passed the sniff test, but later in the day I noticed that foot smell again. I think I'll end up having to just wash everything again.
2. I believe that I have a spider, or perhaps a very hungry mosquito, living in my bed. I have about 6 or 7 separate bites all over me and they itch like crazy. I actually scratched one of them so much that it scabbed over. This can't be good.

the lovely bricks

so, i love old things, and i love things that are free, and i really love rescuing things that might otherwise end up in a landfill. so, j-dub really hit it on the head when she tipped me off to these bricks. we took walt over to her workplace yesterday and picked all these up. yay!

What's On My Mind

Coming off of Independence Day is always a big downer for me, because not only is there the inevitable let-down after the hustle and bustle of getting ready for the big D0n0-hoe-down, but also, as I’ve mentioned recently, Pat’s birthday was July 9, and each year that passes just reminds me of how much I lost when he died.

 

I have a lot of friends who are close to their siblings, and a lot of friends who aren’t that close to theirs, and some friends who don’t have any siblings, so it’s hard to explain what this is like in a way that makes sense to everyone. But I thought of a way to explain it like this: I was watching something about Oprah’s school for girls and one of the little girls was expressing how important it was for her that both she and her sister be accepted to the school because she didn’t know what she would do without her sister. “Without my sister, I think I would die” is what she said. And therein lies the problem, because without my brother, I didn’t die; I just wished I had. And this isn’t to say that my life depended on his or that I’m in any way suicidal, but it is to say that I still, 3 years later, can’t figure out what my life is supposed to be like without him in it.

 

If you have a sibling, that’s a person who probably shared in your childhood, and who experienced your family and knows, at least to a certain extent, what that was like for you. And if you have a friend, that’s someone who shares in your life now and who you expect to be in your life in the future. And if you’re blessed to have a sibling who is also a friend, then this will resonate with you the most, because that’s someone who shared your history and who you expect to share in your future, and so losing that person is just devastating. It’s hard and it’s lonely and it sucks and I don’t know why it happened and no matter what kind of sentiment people offer (and believe that I have heard them all), there’s nothing at all that eases the pain. But having good friends helps, for sure, and so I’m grateful to the people who come and get me when I need to be dragged out of the house, and the people who rescue me from crying fits at work by taking me for ice cream, and the people who leave notes and send emails and even the people who pray for me when I don’t even know they’re doing it, because it’s all of these people who keep me moving forward, taking one more step, and trying to figure out what to do with myself when I would otherwise be utterly lost.

 

happy independence day

i could probably write something profound about all the blessings and freedoms we share as americans, but i know there are others who can say it better. plus, i'm exhausted and almost asleep. so i'll just say that i had a great 4th and i loved spending time with my peeps. i love my peeps! and i missed my peeps who couldn't make it, most notably my papa Joe D. but everyone who wasn't there was in my thouhts today. i'm so rateful for my friends and family near and far. also, on a slightly sadder note, my godmother mentioned that next Monday would've been Pat's 30th birthday. I really miss him, in a way that words cannot describe. i try to focus on remembering happy times and thinking about what a good guy he was, but i still hurt so much from losing him and holidays and birthdays are a painful reminder of that.

to end on a happy note, this was the smoothest 4th party yet, thanks to ALL the uests who helped in so many ways. and, mark your calendars now for the Centennial Celebration!

Clean Sweep

This weekend at my house was just like the tv show, except there was no Tava Smiley and no yard sale and no big reveal at the end. Oh, and no tv cameras. So really, it wasn't much like the show at all. except that we did round up a BUNCH of junk and put it on the curb as you can see. And once again, I was reminded of what an amazing and wonderful group of friends I am blessed with. On Saturday, CNKelly, Starratt, and Juli came over to help finish what Heidi started in the dining/craft/office area. They also went upstairs and helped clean up the rotten mess that the bad army boys had left, which i will have to blog about some other time. Then we went to Juli's where her husband cooked dinner for us and her kids and CNKelly's kid put on a show for us. Sunday, Heidi came back over and cleaned my desk AND my kitchen and Bri and Rob stopped by to carry out the nastiest dirtiest stove I have
ever seen and then we did yardwork while waiting for pizza. So yeah, I have the BEST friends. Ever.

The Bearcat

Bearcat is a doggie I watch sometimes when my friend Lyn is out of town. I figure he's about 10 years old now, or more, because he was full grown when I first met him 7 years ago. Lyn's family rescued him when they took their dog Hershey (since gone to doggie heaven) to the vet and the vet had some puppies that had been dumped there. Lyn's husband is a professor at UC, so I think that, combined with the crazy grey fur, made the name Bearcat perfect.

Bearcat used to be absolutely wild and rambunctious when I came over, but he's really slowed down in his old age. The funniest story I know about Bearcat is that they took him in to the vet one time and the receptionist looked at him and exclaimed "hey-it's Rat Boy's brother!!" So yeah, I guess Bearcat lucked out in the name game, at least.