August 31st, 2010
First off, I’d like to say how disappointed I was to find that this lady is no longer keeping this blog smoke and ochre. Rats. There are so many nice, nice pictures and all on it. But, you know…a kabillion, bazillion, and 93 blogs on the intarwebs and so little time.
Now that the energy devil is not sucking my aura away every day, I’m finding I have enough get up and go to get a few things done. After we decommissioned the old building on Friday, I skated. R had the day off (LBJ’s birthday, doncha know), so he took me to work, went home, slept in, then came and picked me up. We didn’t do much..picked up Taco Bell and came home. I crashed at some point and foo…what did we do Friday evening. I don’t even remember….OH! Crap, of course! Sylvan‘s party! Oy, such a knucklehead I am. Her first novel is coming out, officially on Tuesday! I’ve read the first…second?…draft, but changes were made after it went to the publisher…anyhoo, her BFF, the self-same Laura of Pushing Furniture fame, threw a surprise party. R, W, and I went. It was fun, and we totally surprised Ms. Author. 
Then we came home and I was kind of sick at 4 AM. Nauseous…and for awhile didn’t know which, erm…end….would be a problem (hoping that it wouldn’t be one of those, ah…double-ended things. I HATE that). But as soon as I “went,” the nausea went away and I was able to go back to sleep. Got up about 9:40 yesterday and spent a good bit of the day washing dishes and general clean-up, then went to Lowe’s and Tar-Jay. Spent way more money than I should have. Dammit. But I had most of the $50 GC Laura’s BF gave me for my birthday left. I bought a composter thingy. Now to get it set up. I had made a really cool FREE composter out of hardware cloth and a hula-hoop, but the dog can knock it over too easily to eat the scraps and eggshells. I’ll use that for grass and weeds before adding to the bin.Dorky dog. I got some plastic potted plant pans, a nifty cobalt blue glass mister (on clearance for $1.62!), and some hose parts to repair hoses. At Target, I got some groceries, another pair of black leggings, and a few items of make-up. Yeah, make-up. Gotta problem with that? 
I also picked up a metric-ass-ton of paint chips at Lowe’s and then sat on my bed and played with kitchen design until two AM!
One of the reasons I never get anywhere is…well, it’s a many-layered thing…like an ogre. It is my decorating ogre. I can’t make up my mind…then I have no money…and I change my mind…things go out of style…I have no money….I get more craptastic hand-me-down furniture that needs “fixing” (refinishing, etc.) and just looks like early Salvation Army meanwhile….then I change my mind…and I can’t decide on a color scheme…ad nauseum.
I’ve gone from warm, earthy tones in the great room to working off the grey and charcoal palette in a print I have, back to the warmer tones. I want a mind of Mexican feel to the kitchen and since the two rooms are, um…rather linked, to suddenly go to greys and blues would be weird. Also? I have this olive fabric, like 22 yards of it, for a slipcover for the sofa, and it wasn’t fitting in with the greys in my mind. Well, it would, but there are tones of blue, charcoal and a deep, deep red-brown in the painting. I dunno, it might still work. Otherwise, I’m not sure what to do with that piece. Feh.
So anyway, here’s the latest grouping, sort of, of colors. It seems a bit washed out on my monitor. paint link
There’ll be more of this, but I started this post three days ago, so I’m posting now.
Categories: My House, Projects, Week in Review |
Tags: Kitchen, My House, projects, remodeling, Self | Comments Off
August 16th, 2010
lj-music: Shuuush of the dryer
My hands have been killing me lately…sometimes making me yelp in the middle of conversations…just deep aching, in the big thumb muscle, the joints and the bones between the joints. And the left hand is numb on top of it all. I have so much to do and no one else to do it. And before you ask, no it’s not carpal tunnel. It’s arthritis and the numbness is due to thoracic outlet syndrome. I’ve had arthroscopy on both shoulders and I don’t get the numbness in the right side nearly as bad as in the left. But the pain…in the hands and shoulders, and the grip weakness…oh.my.goddess. Anyway…not sure there’s much I can do about it. My take home pay is going down because UT’s not giving raises* but our insurance premiums are going up. At the same time the deductibles and out of pocket cap are going up…so I’m paying out the fucking wazoo for insurance I can’t use. Nice. Goddamned Republicans. GOP=Grand Obstructionist Party.
Several years ago, one of the NCOs at work had gotten her son a pair of hermit crabs.
He wouldn’t take care of them, so she gave them to me. The poor things were in the little clear plastic Kritter Keeper they came in, with an inch of *growls* aquarium gravel, and she was giving them TAP water. GAH! So I did a bunch of research and spent about a 100 bucks getting a crabitat set up. Little guys were most appreciative and showed me by almost immediately moulting. The bigger one moulted several times and then went down and didn’t come up. Spikey had “disrobed” over the tank heater and dried out. So he’s buried with Caldwell, the Betta Fish, under the Texas Mountain Laurel in the front yard. So…that left Tiny, who is now way bigger than the larger one was when we got them (he was itty bitty at first, hence the name).
I’ve been keeping Tiny in a Kritter Keeper, with the proper bedding, water, and a sheet of cling wrap to hold in the humidity, so he’s doing okay. But hermies are social critters. He needs friends. So I’m going to get one or two more crabs and set the terrarium back up. Scorpionis (Thank you!!) gave me another 10-gallon tank. I have this little wooden typing table—so very, very ubiquitous at UT. I think the furniture shop must’ve made a kabillion of them over the years. I took it and peeled the fake wood Formica off the top and painted it. It’s kind of a pale yellowish now, but I think some nice dark green or blue will be a better color for a crabitat. One tank on top and one underneath, then get some of this…
…which is 4” in diameter (it’ll take the crabbies a long time to get too big to get through it)
and connect them…like this
And see if hermies like crabitrails…hee hee hee
I started this post on Friday and now can’t remember what the “associated crap” was. *facepalm*
*We are getting a one-time 2% payment, not a raise. It’ll be in time for Yule and for me, after taxes, etc. will be about $450…better than a sharp stick in the eye, and just in time for presents, but geeze…really?
Categories: Critters |
Tags: about me, my critters, projects, Work | Comments Off
August 15th, 2010
Each one of these is a project–and a story–unto itself, and will engender a list, or lists, of its own.
- Repair pavilion
- Sort, organize,purge bedroom and closet
- Build my bed
- Build outdoor cat run
- Build and install catwalks, hidey-holes
- Tear down roof over back deck
- Demolish existing deck
- Build new deck cover, screened in
- New deck..patio…?
- Landscape front yard
- Landscape back yard
- Repair drain in hall bath
- Replace tub, surround in hall bath
- Floor in hall bath
- Repair or replace dryer….or put up permanent clotheslines?
- Replace garage door
- Build kitty loo
- Finish sewing/craft/studio/office…room…space
- R’s bedroom…paint, floors, etc.
- Kitchen…OMG.
- New curtains in bedroom
- Rework wall’o'books in living room
- Finish purple desk
- Finish washstand
- Finish “buffet” chest for kitchen
- China cabinet project
- Dining room table and chairs
- What to do with family antique chairs?
- Table for deck/patio
- Coffee table madness
- Slipcover for couch and Loveseat
- Paint and attach plant platform to top of dog crate
- Crabitat project
- Tame the jungle in the kitchen
- Finish building R’s chair (I’ve only had the wood–already cut into the proper pieces–for 11 years…ELEVEN)
- Put a coat of wax on Big Dot’s bookcase
- New colors for bedroom?
- Scrape that GOD-AWFUL popcorn texture off the ceilings. Can you believe my Auntie J LIKES that shit? I’m thinking of sending it all to her in a box when I’m done. When they remodeled the house they’re in now, she asked for that crap, on purpose, and had sparkles added…. >.< This is a woman with exquisite taste in everything…except, apparently, ceilings.
Categories: Garden, Lists, My House, Projects |
Tags: My House, projects, remodeling | Comments Off
July 18th, 2010
I’m not sure the Universe will survive this…I actually finished another project.
Okay, so it’s been slightly over a year since I finished the Cat Condo (and now it’s taking me forever to write the post on the cat condo), but I took much less time to get this one done. I had this bookcase in my bedroom that was 8 feet tall and 42 inches wide, and because it started out life as a packing crate, only 7 inches deep. I got the crate from Texas Instruments when I worked in the facilities department and R and I had added some cheap lumber and made it into a bookcase for his office (which is now my bedroom). It was primarily for paperbacks, VHS tapes, and DVDs and was perfect for that. There were 6 upper shelves all just high enough for tapes/paperbacks, then two more “medium-sized” shelves that were about trade-paperback height, and then a slightly higher one, and then one more on the bottom that is abut 11 3/4” high, with a brace in the middle (behind the computer screen in the pic).
I had R cut the top 5 shelves off and trim the sides off to make three separate boxes. The bottom now sits on my desk and the top part formed three floating box shelves in my bedroom. I anchored 2x2s to the studs. Because of our craptastic builder, the studs are 24” on center (instead of 16”) in that room, so the right end and the middle I secured with 4” wood screws to the studs and the left end I had to secure with a toggle bolt. The 2x2s are cleats to which I screwed the boxes. Just waiting for the touch-up paint to dry. (When the room was R’s office, the case was unpainted, when I took it over I painted it “Cotton Whisper” to go with the “Pensive Sky” walls, and one “Painted Turtle” accent wall”
This is the base, in my office/studio/sewing room (ig..look at the clutter!)
And here are the three floating shelf boxes..the camera kind of “wide-angled” it, so they look warped, but they really aren’t. And they are all the same size, level, and evenly hung, even though the pic doesn’t show that very well. I only had to buy corner braces, an 8’ section of 2×2 (I had one piece already), and some 4” wood screws. All the rest I had. This is the “Painted Turtle” accent wall, and the color is off in this photo, of course. It’s a deep, cool warm green…and yes, the green in both pics is the same color.
Wheee! Can’t wait to get my stuff up on them…Dry paint, Dry!!
Categories: My House |
Tags: My House, projects | 2 Comments
June 6th, 2010
A clean fridge is a marvelous thing.
A clean refrigerator. Aaaah. My hands are raw and I’ve dripped soapy water from one end of the kitchen to the other, and most of my groceries (except dairy) sat out all day. But the fridge is all washed and the crap cleaned out. I took out every shelf and door pocket, took them apart and scrubbed ‘em with Method Purple Spray (which, by the way, works better than anything I’ve ever found on that tough, sticky kitchen grease), and also with soapy water, rinsed and dried, and reassembled them. Also took a bunch of stuff out to the compost. The person who messes it up will not be a happy camper.
The freezer side is next. Then to conquer the rest of the kitchen. Ennui be damned!
Oh, and the spousal unit laughed his ass off at me taking this picture.
Categories: My House |
Tags: cleaning, Kitchen, My House, projects | Comments Off
