Halloween Surprise

I got me a nice little Halloween surprise this evening.

Cody and his roommate have found a new apartment, which allows aquarium type pets, so he came home to get his snake.  And the rest of his stuff, of course.

He won't have to go back until tomorrow, so I'll just leave you with my traditional Halloween prayer,

and bid you all a good night.

Random Thoughts Of A Tuesday Evening

1.  Due to possible severe weather tomorrow, and it being church night, kids here are trick or treating tonight.  In the 24 years I've lived here, I've had exactly two trick or treaters, and none since I've moved into this house.  I bought candy anyway -- just in case.  One year, I didn't buy candy, and wouldn't you know it, that was the year I got trick or treaters.

I apologized profusely, and the kids were very gracious about it, but I still felt bad.  Ever since then, I've always made sure I had something to give out.  Even though I usually end up eating it all myself.

2.  Somebody at work wrote on the bathroom wall:

Every time I see it, I think, "Well, you've come to the right place."

Someone also drew a couple of pictures of male genitalia, and wrote something somewhat obscene, which I won't repeat -- this being a family friendly blog and all.  Classy, huh?  But I guess when you only pay $8/hour, you kinda have to take what you can get.

3.  I don't post about work as much as I used to.  Someone from HR has been searching my LinkedIn profile.  They're supposed to have an open door policy, but those are largely a myth anyway.  Despite what they say, they do retaliate.  They're just a bit more circumspect about it.

4.  For your PSA for today, do not, I repeat, do not chase your honey lemon cough drop with Diet Dr Pepper.  You will regret it.  Trust me on this one.

5.  I forgot what I was going to post here.

6.  I wish I could figure out how to hide the traffic stats on my blogger dashboard.  I get so discouraged sometimes.  I try not to care about the numbers, but I do.  I wonder why my hits dropped from over 100 a few days ago to around 40 these last few days.  Such a drop always makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong.  Or maybe I just got boring.

7.  BTW, I don't make $8/hour.  That's what they pay the temps.  I make a bit more than that, which I think is why they're trying so hard to get rid of us older folks -- so they can replace us with someone they only have to pay $8/hour.

8.  For the love of all that is holy, floss, people, FLOSS!!!

9.  I guess that's it for now.  Goodnight.

Spiders (No Pictures)

They say when spiders come into the house, it's a sign of a snowy winter to come.

I've killed five in three days.

Five. Spiders.

In three days.  In my house.

Take that for what it's worth, but me, I'm going to start splitting all this here firewood up.

Two More

It kind of felt weird this weekend, waking up without a home renovation project going on.  I almost didn't know what to do with myself.  It was actually kind of nice, being able to relax, and do just enough puttering to keep boredom at bay.

It isn't supposed to get cold again until next Thursday night, so I moved some of my plants back outside.   While I was doing that, I went ahead and cleaned the moss off my back porch, and pulled up all the little plants that had sprouted between the bricks.

That very last row of bricks had rolled over and had dirt and gunk built up behind them.  I cleaned all that out and got them lined back up.  I put a couple of landscape timbers there to hold them in place.  I wish I'd taken a before picture, so you can see how much better it looks now. 

Once I'd finished that, I said to myself, "Might as well get that closet door painted while I'm up, so I did.

I first put a coat of Kilz primer on it, and let me tell you, cleaning that up was a mess.  The more I washed, the more there was.  I started off with just a couple of spots on my hands.  I started washing, and it started growing, and spreading, and getting everywhere.  Before it was all over, I had both hands completely coated up past my wrists.  I scrubbed, and scrubbed, and scrubbed, and got my hands almost clean.  Then it would start growing again -- like oobleck.

I even said that at one point.  "This stuff is like oobleck,"  I said.

I was frustrated and confused, and wondering what the heck was going on, but I persevered kept scrubbing -- thankful all the while I had bought the gallon jug of mineral spirits instead of the quart--and finally got myself and my tools clean.  Well, mostly clean.  I've still got a few spots of primer on my hands and arms, but they'll wear off eventually.

It was a lot easier when I got to using the paint.  Two coats, easy clean up, and it was done.  I have a few spots to touch up, but it looks really good.  At least I think so.

Oh, and yes, as a matter of fact there are four knitting bags sitting right there.  And no, that's not the half of them.  There are many, many more knitting projects scattered throughout this house.

With my living room finally finished, I'm pretty much done with painting projects for a while, so I toted all my painting supplies out to the shop (keeping just enough out to do my shutters) and moved my furniture back into place.  And by furniture, I mean this chair and the wood box -- which isn't a box at all.

I've been debating.  When it's time to remodel the kitchen/dining/living room area,  I'm thinking about closing this door off and making this into a reading nook.

Then I would widen the door between the kitchen and living room.  The back wall of the living room is about even with where that scarecrow is hanging.

I'd take the wall out to there.  It wouldn't be completely open plan, but it would be more open than it is now. 

I don't know yet what I want to do.  I'm not a big fan of open concept, but I'm thinking resale value here, and that's all the rage.

It'll be a while before I can afford to do anything that major, so I have plenty of time to decide.

Books and Horses

When I was a little girl, books and horses were two of my very favorite things in the whole world.  My dad was also an avid reader, and frequently took us to the public library.  It was from him that I acquired my lifelong love of reading and libraries.

One of my favorite books to check out of the public library was one called Big Black Horse.  It's an abbreviated, children's version of Walter Farley's The Black Stallion.    I checked it out so much, they might as well have given it to me.  My name was just about the only one on the card.

I mentioned once that used book stores are going to be the death of me.  Well, of my budget, at least.

Yep, I found it.

I had the tracking number, and it was supposed to have arrived today.  However, the mail carrier came and went, and no book. 

"Oh, well,"  I thought.  "They'll bring it tomorrow or Monday." 

Then, along about 3:00 PM, I heard my door bell ring.  It was the mail carrier!  She'd completed her route and was headed back to the post office, when she discovered she'd overlooked a package.  She drove all the way back out here to bring it to me!  Now, that's what I call service!  I so appreciated that, I went to the local Facebook page and gave her a shout out. 

In other news, I gave in to peer pressure and bought some poison ivy medicine.  I found this:

It is Benadryl and calamine lotion combined into the same tube.  It took about half the tube to cover all my spots, but after I put it on, I ... still itched.  Sigh.  All it will take is time.

But it's been a whole week now, so we are on the down hill side.  I'm looking forward to not itching any more. 

Dear Everyone

If you would stop interrupting me every two seconds, and actually let me -- you know -- finish a sentence, you just might find I will have already answered the questions you keep interrupting me to ask.

So, please stop.  Just stop.

Interrupting, I mean. 

The world will be a better place if people would just shut up and listen once in a while.


Thank you.

That is all. 

Poison Ivy

My thanks to all of you who expressed sympathy over my plight -- or should I say my blight -- with poison ivy.

I also appreciate the suggestions from those of you who seemed to think I'd never encountered poison ivy before and was huddled in the corner whimpering and wondering what to do about it.

I got news for you.  This ain't my first rodeo.  And believe me, everything you recommended I've tried before...except for the one of you who told me to go to the hospital and get a shot.  Um, no.  I am not rushing myself to the emergency room for this:

Annoying, yes, but hardly life threatening. 

Anyway, I've been around this block before, and I know once the blisters form, there is nothing for me to do but to ride it out. 

And maybe invest in a Hazmat suit...

Finished!

After I posted yesterday, I put one more coat of paint on my bricks while watching LSU totally take down Mississippi State.  Which, oh, by the way, you are not going to beat Alabama with field goals, no matter how good your kicker is.  But I digress...

I let it dry overnight, and when I got up, I declared my fireplace renovation done!  Well, for the most part.  I've spotted a couple of touch ups I need to do, but I'll get those when I do the closet door.

I still have to get the mantle hung, but I'm going to have to order hardware for that.  The previous owners just had big 4 inch nails driven through at an angle, but I want to get the right kind of mounting brackets.  I've looked locally, and I've checked the Lowe's app to see if they had it up in Batesville.  No such luck.  The only place I found the kind I want is on Amazon.   But, other than that, and putting the trim up, it is finished.

Just in time, too, because it was down to 40' when I got up this morning.  It wasn't cold enough in the house to turn on the heater, but a little fire felt just right.

Oh, and by the way, if you ever paint your bricks behind your wood stove, be sure to take the painter's tape off your stove pipe before lighting a fire in said stove.  It will smolder and burn, and fill your house with dense, stinky smoke.  It...uh, it happened to a friend of mine...yeah...

With that first fire also came the first burn of the season.

I usually wear gloves when handling the bigger logs, but for some reason, today I didn't.  It actually looks worse than it is.  It hasn't blistered yet, so it might not even leave a scar.  I know it sounds crazy, but being a brazer, I'm kind of used to being burned.  This one doesn't even hurt any more.  Unlike my poison ivy, which still itches like crazy. 

Anyway, chilly morning...fire in the grate...it seemed a perfect day to add a few more squares to my sock yarn blanket. 

Right now, I'm adding the yarn from the mini skeins I bought at Fiber Fun In The Sip.  They have enough yarn that I can put a square in my blanket, and still have enough to add one to my sister's. 

Finally, my Christmas cactus have started budding. 

Three of them so far have buds, but these are the biggest ones.   It's going to be glorious when they all bloom.

A Monster

Years ago, I was still a kid, my mother made herself a salad one day.  She kept adding stuff to it -- lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, and so forth.  When she was finally finished and sat down to eat it, she saw how big it had gotten and exclaimed, "I've created a monster!" 

I think that's what has happened to these stupid bricks.  I've created a monster. 

I was almost done.  So close I could taste the finish line.  Only, last night, I had an idea.  Whether it was a bright idea or a mistake remains to be seen.

And what was this idea I had?  Well, I'll tell you.  I got the idea that I would get my darker gray spray paint and paint my bricks with it.  Once it was dry, I'd go over the whole thing with my lighter gray brush on paint.  I was thinking this would layer the colors, and give more depth to my paint job.

Before I went to bed, I sprayed the darker gray, so it could dry well.  However, when I got up this morning and started painting with the lighter gray, it started beading up and rolling off.  I got very discouraged for a moment, thinking I had really messed up and would have to start completely over.

After backing away and catching my breath, I thought maybe I could get my belt sander out and just knock the paint off the surface of the bricks, and that would leave the darker paint in the textured parts.  That's kind of the look I was going for anyway.

I ended up having to sand it by hand, because I didn't have coarse enough sanding belts, but it didn't take too long to get it roughed up -- if you don't count the copious breaks I took.  Hey, it's my day off. 

I briefly considered just leaving it like this, but I didn't.  I put a coat of the lighter gray on it.  Oh, and I still have to paint the base.  I haven't even put one coat of the light gray on it.

I'm going to put another coat on it, probably tomorrow.  It's taking a long time to dry, because it's chilly and damp today.  It is turning out a little bit darker than I would have liked, but I think it'll be OK.

It'll have to be, because I'm not re-doing it.  After it dries for a week or so, I'm thinking of taking my sanding sponge and just very lightly scuffing the corners and edges, to give it a little bit of a distressed look.  Then I'm done with it.  No matter how it looks, I'm done.

Although, as I was typing that, I got the idea...what if I got some flat white paint and sponged over it?  Hmmm....That would lighten it up some, but the gray would still show through.  Something to consider...

Let me see what I've got out in the shop.

Remember I told you yesterday I'd gotten into some poison ivy?  Here is just one of about 5 patches of it.

This is the worst one, but not by much. 

Prime Time

Well, dang it!

I thought I was being careful yesterday when I was cleaning behind the fence.  I was trying to.  Trying to be oh, so careful, but I ended up covered in poison ivy anyway.  Sigh...I was going to get my herbicide out there today and spray it down really well, but I didn't get around to it.  Maybe I'll do it tomorrow. 

In the meantime, I'll just sit here and itch.  I have some ointment, but it doesn't seem to be working too well.  Frankly, when I get poison ivy, nothing works too well.  Yes, I'm that sensitive to it.  By the way, I once got the worst case of poison ivy Iv'e ever had through a long sleeved shirt. 

Let's talk about more pleasant things, shall we?  My bricks are all primed and ready to be painted.

Halfway through priming, I had a change of plans.  See, I was thinking that spray paint would get down into the grooves in the bricks better than brush on paint.  However, while I was priming, I saw that it wasn't working as well as I thought. 

I had to run to the store for some more primer, and on the way, I thought, "Let me just see what they have in the already mixed up, ready to use brush on paint."  Then I remembered, I have nearly a full gallon left from when I painted the trim in my living room.  It's even the right color. 

As soon as I got home from the store, I went out and got it from the shop, but by the time I'd finished priming, I decided I was done for the day.  I'm going to get it painted tomorrow, because Sunday morning, it is supposed to get down into the low 40s to upper 30s.  Perfect morning for a fire. 

While I'm at it, I might as well take that door down and get it sanded, primed, and painted, too.

Then my living room will finally be finished.

The next projects will be getting my mantle back up, and my shutters painted and hung.  After that, I'm taking a break from home renovation projects.  Oh, there's a lot left to do.  I'm just tired of doing it.

Also, I'm broke. 

So there is that...

Traumatized

It was the first day of seventh grade.  I had my schedule, and headed out to school.

Now, let me say, when I was in sixth grade, they passed out the schedules on the first day of school.  You went to either the auditorium, the boy's gym, or the girl's gym, depending on which grade you were in.

Yes, my junior high had two gyms, because it used to be a high school.  It had been built back when boys and girls did not have co-ed P.E. classes -- thus, separate gyms.  Funny thing is, sometimes girls were allowed to go into the boy's gym for pep rallies, awards days, or other various school functions, but boys were never, ever allowed into the girl's gym, for any reason.

But I digress -- from my digression.  Junior high consisted of 6th, 7th, and 8th grades when I went.  It used to be 7th, 8th, and 9th grades, and 6th grade was in the elementary school.  My old elementary school was shaped somewhat like an H, with 1st through 3rd grades in one wing, and 4th through 6th in the other.  The crossbar of the H was where the offices, cafeteria, gym and music room were.

When my school district added kindergarten to the public school system -- which coincidentally, was the year my sister started, my older brother and I having gone to a kindergarten in Cove Baptist Church -- they moved third grade to the "big kids" wing to make room for them.  Sixth grade was moved up to the junior high, and 9th to the high school.

The summer between my sixth and seventh grade years, two school districts merged.  Ninth and tenth grades were on what we called East Campus, while eleventh and twelfth grades were on West Campus.

Now that you know more than you ever wanted to about my childhood schooling, let me get back to my story.  When I was in 6th grade, they handed out the schedules on the first day of school.  Within the next year or two -- I don't rightly remember when -- they'd started mailing them to your home before school started.  However, I got said schedule, I had it, and it was the first day of 7th grade...I think it was about 4th period.  I went into the classroom and noticed I was the first one there.  No biggie.  I chose a desk, sat down, and waited for my classmates and teacher to arrive.

Time passed...  I was thinking everyone else must be running late  Really late.  Then the bell rang.  No one else came into the room.  Still I sat, thinking surely people would come soon, even though the period had already started.

Finally, I went to the classroom across the hall and told the teacher there that nobody else had come to my class.  She sent me to the office, where they told me they'd changed that teacher's schedule and had also had to change all the student schedules, too.  Somehow, mine had gotten overlooked.  They made me up a new schedule, and sent me off to my new class.  The rest of seventh grade continued without a hitch -- well, without a scheduling hitch that is.

Be that as it may, that event left me so traumatized, I still have nightmares about it 41 years later.  That event left me so traumatized, even now, when I schedule a vacation day at work, I keep the request form, get a print out of my vacation schedule from the work computer, mark each day on my calendar, then double check, triple check, and octuple check each day before it arrives. 

And I still spend half the day worrying that I got it wrong.

What can I say?  It's the INTJ in me.

In the midst of all that worrying, I actually had quite a productive day.  It started off pretty chilly, though not cold enough to start a fire, and certainly not cold enough to turn on the heater.  But it was chilly enough to make the coffee taste just a wee bit better.

One of the things I've been working on since I moved into this house is cleaning up all the junk the previous owners had tossed over the back fence.  I only had this little bit left,

so I made that my main project for today.  Once I finally got out there and got started, it didn't take long to get it cleaned up.

When I moved in, there was junk piled from the gate all the way to that half rotten tree stump. It looks so much better now.

And it'll be a whole lot easier to mow.

Out of that pile of junk, I pulled all these tires,

plus all this scrap metal,

plus a bunch of other stuff that was just garbage -- and quickly made its way into the garbage can.   I advertised the tires and scrap metal in the local free-bees group.  The same guy who didn't come pick it up 6 months ago said he was going to come pick it up.  Yeah, I'm not going to hold my breath on that. 

Want to hear a funny story?  I was picking up one of those tires and I heard James' voice in my head.

"Lift that from the side away from you, just in case there's a snake under there."  I pick the tire up, lifting the side away from me, and what do you think I found?

Yep, this bad boy.

And a toad, but that's not nearly as exciting.  Big old, beautiful rat snake -- and despite my descriptor above, it's probably a female, judging by the size of her.  I apologized for destroying her hiding place, and let her go on her merry way.  She quickly found a new nest in the rotten stump nearby, where I left her in peace.

 The only other thing I did was to wash my bricks off really well.  I kind of actually like this distressed look, but alas, it'll be primed and painted anyway.

I hope to get that done tomorrow or Saturday. 

Then it will be on to the next project -- my shutters, which hopefully won't take nearly as long.

Lunch and Cacti

I work in a facility that manufactures evaporator coils for home air conditioners.  While we do have some of the repair and replacement market, most of our sales go to new home construction.  As a result, we make most of our sales during the spring and summer months.  We call this peak season. 

Peak season usually ends sometime around the August/September time frame.  This year, the plant decided to have an End Of Peak Season party and feed us lunch.

Usually, when they do these kinds of things, they use a local caterer and food truck operator called Small Time Hot Dogs.  Their hot dogs are very good.  For some reason, the plant went with a different caterer today. 

That didn't work out so well. 

For one thing, they only had one serving line.  One.  For all these people who work there.  I stood in line for -- I kid you not -- 30 minutes. 

Thirty minutes.  Thirty.  Minutes.  

When I finally made it up to the servers, they gave us a choice between a hamburger, a hot dog, or a pulled pork sandwich.  I chose the pulled pork.  It was cold. 

I made my way further down the table and got a plate of nachos.  The person handing them out acted like she didn't want to give me any.  Not sure why.  I stared her down, thinking, "I did not stand in this line all this time to come away with nothing but a cold pork sandwich."  I got my nachos. 

Last stop was a piece of cake and a coke.  Then I finally got to sit down and eat.  Turns out, once I'd eaten my nachos and that cake, I didn't have time to eat that cold pork sandwich anyway.  On the bright side, I didn't have to cook supper tonight.  It was pretty good, once I'd heated it back up. 

Now, I don't mean to complain.  It was free food after all, but I sure hope next time, the plant goes back to using Small Time Hot Dogs.   Maybe it's just me, but having to stand in line for half an hour does not make me feel appreciated. 

Moving right along, it would seem Fall has finally found us.  The weather is forecasting low 50s through low 40s over the next several nights, so as a precaution, I went ahead and brought my Christmas cacti inside.

Yeah, I got a lot of them.  It's my own fault.  When a piece breaks off, I feel guilty just tossing it into the compost pile, so I root it. 

If any local folks want one, I'll be happy to share. 

Dear Coworker

If you've got so much makeup on, you look like a robot, you've got too much makeup on.

Remember, less is more. 

Thank you.

That is all. 

Character

The painter is almost done with my house.  He's got to come by tomorrow and do a few final touch-ups, then we'll settle up.  Before I show you the finished product, here is a before shot for comparison.

And here is the after:

I wish you could see it in person.  The darker color gives the house a completely different character. 

It'll really look good once I get my shutters painted and hung.

I like it.  I really, really like it.

So, I was going to get all pedantic and knit picky, but as I was walking around looking for spots they needed to touch up, I spotted something.   I've lived in this house for 3 years and I promise you, I never saw this until today. 

What is it, you may ask?  Well, I'll tell you. 

It's this:

Do you see it?  Tape on the hinges.  All three of them.  The previous owner put it there when she painted those doors, and apparently just left it.  It's been there since before I moved in, and I never noticed. 

Until today.

Boy, I'm Glad

This was one of those absolutely glorious, beautiful Fall days.  Not too hot.  Nice breeze blowing.  I was able to keep the French doors and my windows open all day and let the fresh air into the house.

Shortly after sunrise, I was standing at the French doors looking out and I said to myself, "Self, that there grass looks dry."  I stepped out and felt it, and sure enough, there was no dew on it.  Again, I said to myself, "Self, you ought to get out and get the mowing done and get that chore out of the way."

And that's exactly what I did.

I was about halfway through mowing my front yard, when two pickup trucks pulled into my driveway.  It was the painter and his employee.  As I waved at them, cut the mower off, and walked over to talk to them, my first thought was, "Boy, I'm glad I put a bra on."

Because if I'm at home, you never know.  I may or may not be wearing one.

Anyway, the painter introduced himself to me -- because we'd spoken and texted on the phone, but hadn't yet met in person  -- and apologized profusely for the delays and the hassle and the headaches.  We walked around the house and talked a bit about the job.  He said before any checks get written, they're going to make sure I'm satisfied with the job.  I showed him this,

and he said, "Oh yeah, we'll touch that up."  He got to looking, and that wire up there isn't even attached to anything, so they're going to just pull the whole thing off, and neaten that edge.  They are going to have to put a second coat up, since we're going from such a light color to such a dark color.

We also discussed how the previous owners were not quite the handymen they thought they were.  I'm in the position where sometimes I have to compromise between what I really want, and what I can actually afford to pay for.  If it had been up to me, we'd have sanded all the way down to the bare wood and started over completely.  But that would be more labor than I could pay him for.  I told him, "If it looks good from the street, it's good enough for me."  For now, at least.

Long story slightly less long, they're going to try to get it finished Monday.  Based on what I've seen so far, I'm loving the colors I chose.  I especially love the contrast between the mahogany and this blue.

If I'd known it would look so good together, I'd have just had them paint the house in stripes.

After they left, I finished mowing, deadheading the last of the spider lilies as I did so.  I brought the last few fresh flowers inside, and mowed the rest down.

In other news, I finished another charity hat.

I put it into the gift drawer, then went stash diving for the next cast on.  I found this ball of mystery yarn in the bottom of a project bag.

I have no idea what it is.  There wasn't a ball band.  I'm thinking it's yarn that was given to me when a friend or relative de-stashed.  Some people have suggested it's Caron Simply Soft, but it's not smooth enough, nor soft enough to be that.  Whatever it is, it's becoming a hat.

I think this time, I'm just going to do plain stockinette with a few random ridges of garter stitch.  Keeping in mind that most homeless people are men, I want hats that aren't so fancy a man wouldn't wear them.  I am making some that would appeal more to women, but most of them will be either unisex or masculine.

Yesterday, my friend loaded up all the blessing bags and delivered them to the Sisters who will be handing them out.  She said they were literally jumping up and down when they saw what was in the bags.  My friend also got to witness the very first bag given out.  Here's what she wrote in our Facebook group:

There was one guy that Sister told me had been living on the streets but was working to get himself cleaned up and had just found a place to live. He had shelter, but nothing else, and he was in the Samaritan House today. She asked me, "should we give HIM one?" I said, "YES! Definitely!" So she asked him what his favorite color was, he said blue, and we found him a bag with a blue hat. He was THRILLED. He had a super-thick Pittsburgh accent, and as he was rummaging through the bag, he said, "Oh, man, 'ere's everything in here!" I was pretty happy to see the first one go into the hands of its recipient.

You know,  when I was a kid, I thought Jesus didn't know what he was talking about when he said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive."  Now that I've been on the receiving end of the blessings that come with giving, I understand just how right he was. 

I Was Walking Down The Road

No doubt you've seen the video of the Scottish granny reading The Wonky Donkey to her grandbaby.  For those of you who somehow may have missed it, take 4 minutes to watch it.

Click here:  Scottish Granny

The video became so popular that they had to do another reprint of the book.  Guess what arrived in the mail today?

Not only that, if you click through to the video above, there is a link in the description to buy the book.  If you buy through that link, the Granny gets a commission.

As far as I'm concerned, she totally deserves one.

Another Sleepless Night

It would seem that yesterday, I ate something that did not agree with me, and I ended up with what is known colloquially as the squirts.  Let's just say, if I were having a colonoscopy, I'd be all ready for it.

I spent most of last night dashing to the bathroom.  And in your Yes-Becky-Is-Human TMI moment, I have to confess that there was one time I didn't quite make it. 

There I was, at 2:30 AM washing diarrhea off my backside...and changing my night clothes. 

It was at this point I said to myself, "This is not a good time to have toilets that don't flush."  It was shortly after this point I found myself afraid to go to sleep for fear of an encore, so I have been up quite a while. 

Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I was able to flush my toilets.  They just drained very, very slowly, so I was afraid to flush too much.  The good news is, by the time I got to work, what ever had caused my brief digestive distress had passed.

The better news is, the plumber made it out to the house this evening.  Turns out it was just a clog -- too much toilet paper -- and he was able to snake the line and clear it pretty quickly.  Whew!  Then I said, "Since you're here, can you look at my sink?"

See, the sink in my hall bathroom has nothing over the drain hole.  Nothing.  No stopper, no strainer -- nothing.

Kindly ignore how dirty my sink is at the moment.  I haven't cleaned it since the plumber has been here. 

I bought a screen thing, but not after dropping several items down the drain. 

Eventually, the sink stopped draining altogether.  I tried the Draino.  I tried plunging.  I even bought a sink snake.  Nothing worked.  So, a few weeks ago, I took the trap off, thinking I could clear the clog manually. 

Only the trap was clear.  I figured then that the clog was back inside the walls.  That was a bit more than I felt comfortable digging in to.  It wasn't that big a deal, because I'm here by myself, and I have another sink.  But today, the plumber was already at the house and I said, "Might as well get him to snake that, too." 

He started snaking, and you would not believe the stuff he pulled out of that sink.  It took three snakings, but he finally got the clog cleared, so yay!  After seeing how much junk had been dropped down that drain, he said, "Make sure you keep that screen in there." 

The best part is, it only cost $325! 

OK, that's still a lot, but not nearly as much as I was fearing.  I might have enough left over to buy a bowl of my co-worker's skgetti.

Good Thing

It's a good thing I had today off.  I got so stressed over how I was going to pay the house painter and the plumber -- not to mention all the dental work I just had done that I still need to pay for -- I hardly slept at all last night.  The last time this happened -- the plumbing, not the house painting -- it cost me $1200 to fix.  I'm hoping and praying it doesn't cost that much this time around.

Now, if I hadn't already contracted with the house painter, it wouldn't be a problem.  Indeed, I tried to contact him and cancel the job, but he said he'd already bought all the paint and stuff.  I told him to go ahead and get the house painted, since he'd already bought supplies.  I'd been saving up in a separate account to pay him, so I guess I'll have to take out of my regular savings to pay the plumber -- which means things will get mighty tight around here until the overtime starts up again.

Be that as it may, as of this posting, the plumber has yet to show up, but the house painter -- or rather, his employee --finally has, nearly a month behind schedule.  He apologized for the delay, and said his schedule has been crazy.  I guess me trying to cancel the job lit a fire under his behind, and he decided to make me a priority.

I have it on good authority that his Auntie Edna read him the riot act as well.  "I recommended you.  You'd better not make me look bad!" she admonished.  But she also told me some of the things that had happened to put him behind -- his grandmother's house had gotten damaged, plus he'd had to move -- things like that.  I understand that things happen.  I'm just glad he's finally getting it done.

The bad news is, I'm such an introvert, that with him here -- even though he stayed outside the whole time, I didn't feel like I could really relax.  What was really bad was my blinds were open.  I wanted to get up and close them, but didn't want to make him feel like I was hiding from him.  Even though I was.  He packed up and left about 3, so I at least got to enjoy part of my day off.  Hopefully, he'll finish the job tomorrow while I'm at work, so this awkwardness won't be an issue.

And just what did I do while I was huddled inside my house hiding from the painter?  I knit a charity hat.

Well, part of one, at least.  I'm not particularly enjoying knitting this hat.  The yarn is Red Heart, which is a bit of a crap shoot these days.  Some colors are an absolute joy to work with.  Others aren't.  This is one of the ones that isn't.  It is very coarse and stiff.  It will soften up with washing, but it's still not very pleasant to knit.  Next time around, I'm going to go up a needle size and see if that helps.

A couple of weeks ago, I got the bright idea that I would take all my fall scented wax melts out of the packages and put them into this container.

When I wanted to use one, I would just reach in, grab one at random, and be surprised.  It sounded like a good idea at the time.  However, the one I popped into the melter today smells so good, I want to go buy some more.  Only I don't know which scent it is.  So, I can't.

Yeah, I guess I really didn't think that one through.

I Could Just Cry

Do you see this?  Do you know what it is?

It is what I came home to this evening.  It is what is about to make me cry.

No, I'm not talking about the Creeping Charlie that could survive a nuclear blast and the subsequent fall out.  I'm talking about my clean-out.   The clean-out that I came home from work and found just like that -- with the cap off and a big wad of soggy toilet paper next to it.

I knew one of my toilets had been flushing kind of slowly, but a bit of plunging had set it right.  At least I thought it had.  Apparently, all I'd been doing was working the cap off my clean-out, and the soggy paper had overflowed out of the top. 

What's a bummer is that I just had all that sewer line replaced three short years ago, shortly after I moved into this house.  I'm kind of paranoid that the entire pipe has collapsed, like it did the first time.  However, the water is draining, just very slowly, so maybe it's just a clog.

I put a call in to the plumber I normally use.  I'm hoping he can get out here tomorrow to look at it.  In a fortuitous turn of events, I just happened to have a vacation day already scheduled. 

I just hope it doesn't cost too much for him to fix it.  And I'm starting to understand why my dad said home ownership is for the birds. 

I'm Done

I'm done.

I am done stripping these bricks. 

I've decided that I've gotten all the paint off that I'm going to get off. 

The only thing left is to wash them to make sure I've gotten all the stripper off.  I'll probably start with mineral spirits, then give them another going over with just plain soap and water. 

Follow it up with a good rinsing, and we will be ready to roll. 

Moving right along, a few week ago I bought some super bulky weight yarn on clearance to make charity hats.  I got this far on the first one, and realized I wouldn't have nearly enough yarn to finish.

Undaunted, I ripped back a few rounds, added another band of ribbing and voila', a headband.  Even that was pushing it.  I had this much yarn left once I'd bound off.

Here is the finished product.

When I started on the second one, I decided to stick with ribbing for the whole headband. 

Irony is, since I didn't switch to the larger needles like I normally do for the body of a hat, it looks like I might have enough yarn to do a whole hat.  I'm going to go as far as I can, and see what comes of it.  I may end up doing a ponytail hat, but that's OK. 

For you knitting muggles out there, a ponytail hat is one with a hole in the top for a ponytail or bun to stick out. 

Finally, look at next weekend, Y'all! 

Look at next weekend! 

Could it be that fall has at long last, finally arrived?