Sunday, November 27, 2005

Death by Remodel

In which I decide that I’ve gone abso-freakin-lutely mad and will kill myself slowly (but surely) by remodeling our house.

I had originally written this huge diatribe, detailing with exquisite precision my entire weekend, which revolved around the house remodel mostly, with an early flurry of pie making on Thanksgiving Day proper. Then I re-read it and decided that, though it was all factually correct and painfully precise, it was a bit boring. “Then I tore out the wiring I had just done. Then I banged my head on the joists. Then I swore. Then I went to Home Depot.” Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Instead I’m just going to give the highlights and possibly some of the better particulars.

I lost count of the number of trips to Home Depot. Yes, Intarweb, I do make lists before I go. But sometimes you don’t know that you need a thing until you know that you need it. And you can’t know that you need it while you are wandering the aisles of Home Depot. You only discover that the thing is needful after you get home. And, while I’m on the subject, is there some mystical force that envelopes the Home Depots and hardware stores that make your brains empty of all thought as to what you needed to get before you walked in the store? All I know is that it’s pretty bad when I elect NOT to count as a separate trip the time I went back into Home Depot from the car after having already purchased something.

We made four desserts and took them to a friend’s house for Thanksgiving dinner. They were delicious, as was dinner. I now know the secret of how to make pie crust perfectly. No, I’m not telling.

I went to the grocery store THREE times on Wednesday night in preparation for Thanksgiving Day dessert treats. This after Reha had already been early that day. There’s a corollary in there relating Home Depot to grocery stores, but this time it was mostly related to a small pie disaster Reha had. Sometimes it’s hard to know when to pull the pies out of the oven, but once you can smell burned crust, that’s a sign, you know?

I have resolved NOT to shave until the house is finished. The big downside to this is that, after a couple of days, not only do I want to rip my face off, but my beard now comes in peppered with gray. Didn’t use to do that. Sigh. Make your own “beard down to my knees joke” here.

Reha heard something on the radio that we could save a ton of money on natural gas if we just turned the thermostat down to 60° and if we all wore socks and sweaters we’d never know the difference. I think this will be the year that we all remember as “that year Mom went nuts and we had to shower with Polartec on.”

Power tools are NOT toys. That’s all I’m sayin’ ‘bout that.

I now know how to do three way switches perfectly. Seriously. I’m the freaking MAN when it comes to three-way switches. Let’s not talk about how many times it took until I figured out, though. OK?

I’m so close to being done with the wiring in the basement I can taste it. Then I just have to frame in a closet, frame around the ductwork, do the sheetrock dance, paint the sheetrock and then slap the Pergo down. Just a couple more things, right?

We have 5/8” plywood sub-flooring upstairs. Not 3/4” inch as previously thought. That I bought six sheets of 3/4” plywood and cut one up to fit the windowsill and tried for over an hour to make it fit is not germane to this discussion. I should have measured the old stuff as well, Re.

Thanks to the wonder of FedEx, General Electric’s shipping department, the detailed notes Reha took from the Sears guy, and my modest skills with a screwdriver, we have a working washing machine. We did a load of laundry in the kitchen sink one night since we were out of clothes and had ZERO time to hang out at a laundromat. Quaint. That gets old fast.

I no longer have the use of my glorious, “yes, I am human” opposable thumbs. Winter has officially arrived (5-6” of snow on the ground proves it), and I’ve become dry as a bone and my thumbs (and a couple of fingers) have begun to crack. Eucerin doesn’t even have power over my cracking skin.

Cute pics of the kids playing in the snow tomorrow!

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Holy Crap! Look at all this STUFF down here. It's awesome!

 

Really, I'm glad you made it down here. Almost no one ever comes down here. I'm like in a freaking dungeon down here. I get lonely. But not you. YOU made it all the way to the end of the page. For this I think I've a little crush on you. I don't know, is "love" to strong a word to use in this situation? Well, if it's not "love," then it's very strong "like." I'm totally in like with you for coming down here. You are awesome. Please love me back! I know, I know, I shouldn't be all needy, it's not attractive at all, but you don't know how it is to be stuck down here. Who scrolls all the way to the end of a page anymore these days? Anyway, thanks for shedding some light down here in the depths. I appreciate it. Shoot me an email and I'll send you a dollar, OK?

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