The organization ain't really organized

I have been spending the last few days attempting to, in internet parlance, unfuck my habitat.

Okay, to be honest, I just discovered that site when I was Googling "Unfuck Your Habitat" in an effort to properly credit whomever came up with that term.  I think I'm going to need to look into it a bit further.

But at any rate, my general impression of the concept was basically doing the little, and sometimes big, things needed to keep the domicile from being a giant clusterfuck of hopelessness and disorder.

That being said, I've been engaging in the re-arranging of cupboards and drawers, filing of receipts, and purging of stuffs and whatnots.  Frankly, there hasn't been quite as much purging as I had hoped, but I can't win them all. 

I've been visiting Pinterest again in hopes of picking up some DIY home organization tips, but I find a lot of the stuff involves a lot of resources I don't have on hand.  I did try this tip, which I had been curious about for some time, regarding folding T-shirts for easy access.  This is what I ended up with:

I am physically incapable of throwing out T-shirts.

Compared to the tutorial:

It's not a bad system.  The pictures on the original post exaggerate the amount of extra room you end up with.  Folding T-shirts in this manner doesn't reduce their volume at all - they still take up roughly the same amount of space.  The author mentioned cleaning out old ratty shirts, so maybe that accounts for the change in occupied space.

Also, the tutorials I've seen on this don't seem to account for someone whose clothing is not all the same size/volume due to fluctuating weight and other things, so unless all of your t-shirts

I do find it easier to look for something to wear though.  The real test will come on laundry day when I find out how much of a pain it will be to put newly-laundered t-shirts back in the drawers.

Sometime back The Well-Travelled One, being well-travelled and all, introduced me to the concept of rolling all your shit military style. 

This I like.  I may have gone a wee bit overboard.

My dingy as fuck dishtowels. If anyone needs ideas for Christmas/birthday... don't get me these.  I don't want dishtowels for my birthday.

My pajama/bathing suits/various ephemera drawer

Underwear and socks.  ROLL ALL THE THINGS.

Yes, I can now officially say the internet has seen my underwear.

In tackling the kitchen I realized a few things:

• I have a disturbing number of pairs of scissors
• My kids went through a cupcake phase that only seemed to last long enough that we managed to accumulate a ridiculous amount of cupcake liners, yet I don't recall actually having cupcakes more than three times in the last two years.

Last night I went through all my bills, receipts, old birthday cards and came to the conclusion that I probably have enough of this crap to insulate my house should I come across an industrial strength paper shredder.

Today I intend to tackle the basement and get the rec-room area, which we don't use since we lack anything recreational to put down there (mainly a TV.. we've got about 10 game consoles to hook up to a TV, but no TV), back into some semblance of shape after the Great Christmas Excavation, known to laypeople as 'Pulling out the tree and decorations'.

Speaking of Christmas... does anyone else find it weird that right after Christmas, all the big box stores have sales on storage and organizational equipment, as if to say "Here, it's time to pack away all the useless shit we've been guilting people into buying you for the last four months?"

I think we've been scapegoating the wrong animal.

I don't want to jinx it, but I honestly and truly think spring might actually be here.  I also thing we may owe The Groundhog, (or groundhogs, as it were) for I'm starting to think there is another fuzzy woodland creature to blame for this never ending winter.

Easter is awfully late this year, isn't it? Late Easter, late spring.  It's the damn Easter Bunny's fault! He's been using the Groundhog as a convenient scapegoat.  Bastard.

Ah, well. Such is life. I'm starting to feel the spring time in my bones, in between listening for the almost constant running of the sump pump.  There's so much snow to melt!  My driveway and yard is a maze of channels and slopes created by my lovely Well-Travelled One in a never ending attempt to divert water away from the house's foundation.

This is probably the closest I will ever get to owning an island property.  Let's hear it for low-lying areas.

I'm slowly but surely working on some spring cleaning.  I'm thankful to have been able to be productive at all, however.  Friday morning, as I was preparing for work, I was struck with a case of dizziness, or vertigo or whathaveyou that confined me to the couch for the majority of the day.  I called into work, since I was not in any shape to sit up, let alone attempt to operate a motor vehicle.  The feeling staying with me into the early evening, so I spent the day sleeping and watching Game of Thrones.  I've Harry Pottered this particular series, which basically means I ignored it for a while, wondered what all the hype was about before finally getting curious enough to check it out and now I'm marathoning the hell out of the first three seasons, in an attempt to catch up.

When I woke up Saturday, I felt fine, if leery of the vertigo suddenly deciding to come back.  I took the girls to Open Mic at the cultural centre, and today I swapped out the old and broken handles on my dresser for some new ones.  I was left with just enough of the old ones to replace the broken handles on T's dresser, which came from the same bedroom set as my dresser and bed.  I also managed to clear out a wooden wardrobe that was being used for general storage, but will be moved into T's room , as the kid has entirely too many clothes.

So far the dizziness has not returned.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it won't. 

This my half-assed 2013 wrap up

Thanks to Aunt Becky, I've got a handy-dandy survey-style template with which to outline some of the highlights and lowlights of my year, which is good, since a full run down of this year would probably be a novel.

1. What did you do in 2013 that you’d never done before? 
I did an 8 kilometre hike through the Bruce Trail with full-pack (16km if you count the return trip) and children in tow.

2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don't think I actually made any, except to make it through another year if it kills me.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? 
One of my bestest pals and his lovely partner had an adorable baby girl.

4. Did anyone close to you die? 
Another of my very close friends lost her mother to cancer, which was quite the loss. Nancy had always been beyond kind to me and she is missed quite a bit.

5. What would you like to have in 2014 that you lacked in 2013? 
Flood coverage. A fully functioning sump pump. A well insulated roof and properly sealed duct work. Oh, hell. A complete freaking home makeover.

6. What countries did you visit? 
I stayed within Canadian borders this year.

7. What date from 2013 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
September 30th. 2013. The day I got my cancer diagnosis. Worst day ever.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? 
Maintaining my sanity, and keeping my plants alive. Some are even thriving.

9. What was your biggest failure? 
Trying to make fucking gravy tonight. I swear, once upon a time I successfully made gravy, but I've completely lost that skill somewhere.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? 
To quote one Ms. Steph Gas "hahahahahahahaha. yes."

11. What was the best thing you bought? 
My TV, after the old one caught fire. Also, my hiking boots. Going for a hike after months of wearing cheap-ass Zellers running shoes was an absolute revelation.

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration? 
All the people, including but not limited to the Well-Travelled One, the kiddies, the parentals, and numerous friends who have been insanely supportive through all the bullshit that went on this last quarter. I may need to mention the Well-Travelled One twice, just for the sheer fact that he hasn't run screaming. You'd almost think he liked me or something.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed? 
Almost every person I've had to deal with on a professional level lately, with a very special fuck-you-very-much to insurance companies and Service Canada.

14. Where did most of your money go? 
Plumbers and restoration companies. Also, Mountain Equipment Co-op got a good chunk of change out of me.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? 
I got pretty teary-excited upon finding out my cancer was stage one, and wouldn't require chemotherapy. However I still think I may have been more excited getting pointed out by Hugh Dillon at the Headstones concert in July.

16. What song will always remind you of 2013? 
I don't think I have a specific song for this year. I know I listened to a lot of the Mountain Goats and Murder By Death. Although I could say that "Titanium" has been my theme this year (along with tMG's "This Year")

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? Maybe not sadder, but way more stressed out.
ii. thinner or fatter? Sameish? Down about 7 or more pounds worth of colon
iii. richer or poorer? poorer. Oh, poorer. Definitely poorer.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of? 
I wish I'd done more of the home improvements that I meant to do in the summer when I still had the strength, ability and finances to do them.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of? 
Putting stuff off.

20. How will you be did you spending Christmas?
I spent a good portion of Christmas morning on the phone and the Facebook trying to locate someone who could come and jump my car, seeing as the battery had picked an inopportune time to die. After getting it started, I ended up forgoing plans with family since my sisters house was host to some sort of plague that me and my broken digestive system felt that we should avoid like.. well... the plague. So I spent a lot of the day being bummed out. Then we had pizza.

21. There was no #21. I don’t know why there was no 21.

22. Did you fall in love in 2013? 
Only more so.

23. How many one-night stands? 
Um, well... I got two new night stands. Does that count?

24. What was your favourite TV program? 
Got obsessed with Revolution and fell in love with New Girl.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Kind of hating the woman at Service Canada who gave me attitude and then proceeded to lose my Record of Employment

26. What was the best book you read?
1985 by Jian Ghomeshi. I'm a sucker for pop culture, nostalgia and randomly placed top five lists.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery? 
I've been loving the hell out of Murder By Death.. Whom I guess I actually discovered at CMW in 2012, but they've been getting really heavy rotation this year.

28. What did you want and get? 
I don't really want for much, or covet anything, really so nothing is jumping out at me. I wanted a camera. I got one for Christmas from work.

29.  Wait.. is there no 29 either?

30. What was your favourite film of this year? 
I've only seen a small handful of movies from this year and most of them were pretty underwhelming. I've spent more time filling in the list of movies I should have watched ages ago. I think the one I had the most feelings over was Leon the Professional.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? 
I turned 33, and drove to Tobermory to camp with the kids and the Well Travelled One.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
An almost complete do-over.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2013? 
I don't have much of a fashion concept. I got a lot more practical and tried to work on getting some good quality basics that will last for some time, while supplementing with the occasional fun thrift store find.

34. What kept you sane?
Dark, inappropriate humour.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? 
I, like most of the Internet, have a huge love for Jenny Lawson.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
I've been following the fast food and retail strikes with a lot of interest. They deserve more, especially since we are talking about more than just high-schoolers needing extra cash.. These are people trying to raise families and survive.

37. Who did you miss? 
A lot of people. I haven't been terribly social this year.

38. Who was the best new person you met? 
I don't feel like I've met too many new people this year.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2013:
Always buy the flood insurance. ALWAYS BUY THE FLOOD INSURANCE.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year (because this Meme is apparently written for tweens): 
"Someone say a Hail Mary for this house. Bless the corners and burn the devil out."

Wherein I lose a shed, my neighbors regain seven feet of property and my kids hopefully gain a work ethic.

Upon gaining possession of what I like to call The Fun House, I stepped out onto the deck to gaze out over my postage-stamp sized queendom.  The northwest end of the teeny tiny yard contained what could generously be called a shed, although for all appearances, it had a greater resemblance to some bombed out pile of wood rot.

I had to reef on the plywood doors to open them.  Cautiously I had stepped inside and upon gazing at the ceiling (or lack thereof) and then at the floor (or lack thereof) I immediately marched back inside and informed the children that they were not, under any circumstance, to step foot inside the 'shed' or they would die.

No, this was not a threat.  It was a simple fact.  The thing was clearly a death-trap.

Oh, there was also the matter that this structure, if you will, encroached a good seven feet onto one neighbour's property, and two feet onto another.  Far be it from me to guess at whether or not the shed, which the Well-Travelled One and I have guess to be roughly 60-odd years in age, pre-dated arbitrarily drawn property lines or the shed was unceremoniously dropped onto what was 'roughly' the corner of the yard.

Anyway, this encroachment kept us from doing anything about it for a number of months as we pondered what the etiquette is in demolishing a frighteningly unsafe structure that straddles two properties.

Last spring, I had chance to meet the neighbour who has the misfortune of sharing this monstrosity and with some hesitation she asked what we planned to do with it.  When I mentioned that I hoped to tear the blasted thing down, I have never seen someone's eyes light up so brightly..

Apparently the former owners of my little abode were unreasonably attached to the shed in question and had, on numerous occasions, refused to have the thing torn down, even after the neighbour offered to have her son and potential son-in-law come tear it down for FREE.

Not long after, The Well-Travelled One embarked on a mission over the summer months to single handedly dismantle this portal to hell, at risk of personal injury and respiratory infection from gord-only-knows what airborne toxins were kept in with all the animal bedding and so on and so forth.

This weekend we borrowed my parents pick-up truck and approached the back-yard neighbor about accessing the shed from their yard.  Never have i seen someone so excited about the prospect of someone driving a Dodge Ram across their lawn.  We proceeded to make upwards of five trips to the local dump, filling the box (not the cab.. See, I got it right this time!) to the brim with all manner of rotted wood, torn vinyl siding, I don't-even-want-to-know what kind of pathogens and enough nails that I could have built a replica model of the Eiffel Tower, to scale.

Okay, so I might have exaggerated slightly there.

We even got the kids in on the project with the promise of a decent hourly rate for helping out.  The little one was unfortunately limited in what she could do, given her size and tendency towards unwieldiness. However, she was able to put her destructive streak to good use by helping break down window frames and chunks of wall with a claw hammer, and otherwise helping to fetch tools and such.  

Surprising was how well the oldest took to the work.  I've been struggling lately with how to deal with my 12-year-old's sense of entitlement and adversity to hard work when it comes to earning money.  I've been tearing my hair out in frustration as she complains about not having money, wanting expensive things and yet not being willing to work towards them, unless absolutely convenient, and then completing task seemingly with the least amount of effort possible.

Thing is, when she puts her mind to it, she can work hard and work well.  When we went back-country camping, she was the most vocal about her inhibitions where the 8km hike was concerned, but she made it through with little complaint.  Yesterday was a prime example.  She was hesitant at first with helping me load and unload, gingerly picking up small pieces of wood and carefully placing them on the truck.  Rather than slowing down as they day wore on, by our third and fourth dump trip, she was tossing and and heaving beams onto the woodpile like a champ and leaping in and out of the truck box with the agility of a gymnast.

Both the girls worked exceptionally hard, as did my love, and by the end of the day, the former death trap had been reduced to a manageable pile of rubble, a scant 2-3 more loads and the cursed thing should be gone.

The Days are just Packed.

Whoa.  Neglectful much?

In my own defense, it's been nothing but go-go-go for the last 2-3 weeks.  I've officially been a homeowner for two weeks now.  When I first took possession of what would come to be known as The Funhouse (a previous, unpublished blog post was tentatively titled "From the Dollhouse to the Funhouse) due to the various DIY/WTF home improvements, I experienced some initial buyers remorse as the Well-Travelled One and I walked through, cataloguing every bit of chipped paint, every crack and every misguided wiring job.

Overwhelmed by the seemingly daunting tasks ahead, I had sank down on the stairs and sobbed in terror.  Holy fuck, I am NOT ready to be a grown-up.  He had out his arm around me and reassured me that it was all going to work out fine - the problems were all small and far from insurmountable - and continued to reassure me for the next week as we made numerous trips from The Dollhouse to The Funhouse and back, loading the car with boxes each time so no trip would go wasted.

I lived part-time in Home Depot, Rona and Canadian Tire.  I cried tears of frustration when attempts to paint the eldest child's room was thwarted by the previous owner's shitty, half-assed paint job and then sucked it up and moved on.

I suffered a few minor coronary episodes shopping around for carpeting for the girls' rooms, one being in the basement with a concrete floor and one having been previously "carpeted" with an overly large, untrimmed area rug that had not been trimmed to size and which had a school of Goldfish crackers living under where the bed had been.  We had a run-in with a carpet saleswoman who not once, but twice, used ethnic slurs in her sales pitch, you know the one - the one about a certain religious group and haggling.  Rhymes with getting "Schmoooooed".  For fun, when we left, I wished the lady "Shalom!" and junked their quote, which was too expensive even if I did want to do business with bigots.

Saturday it poured down rain and all the mildew and dust from packing the house up had nestled its way into my sinus and bronchial cavities so I was good and miserable and not quite sure if I was going to have movers, but with much help from friends all ended up working out well, if a little soggy.

Going back to work, I had loads to catch up on and I'm still, this week, trying to empty out the inbox. Unpacking has gone much better, the place is slowly but surely coming together with a lot of help from the well-travelled One, who has been a lifesaver, to be honest.  My misgivings upon taking possession have all but dissipated and I find it feeling more and more like home, everyday.

I look so the sixties soccer mom today

I do, I look like a total sixties housewife today.  Sleeveless blouse, khaki pants, big headband.  Such a MOM.

I'm ten minutes early to work today so I'm making a quick post.  I've been kicking ass this week at the whole 'getting-the-kids-out-the-door-and-to-school-on-time' thing.  Most days, if we make it for the bell, it's a good morning.  Today and yesterday we were ten minutes early, even after picking up the girls' stepsister (because I'm the best ex-wife ever) yesterday, and spending ten minutes searching for my iPod today.  That with the garbage out, cats fed, beds made, AND house relatively tidy.

Maybe I'm going through some kind of undiagnosed manic thing.  *shrug*

The eldest child leaves for camp with her school tomorrow morning, so I'm aiming for another awesome morning like the past two so the bus doesn't leave without her.  This is her first over-nighter without me, her dad that isn't to her grandparents' place so I'm going a little 'emotional-mom' over the whole thing.

The awesome part is that about four different schools in the area are going, including their school from last year, so she'll get to see a lot of friends she hasn't seen in a while, plus a few of my friends kids who happen to go to different schools.

In the meantime, I get some additional one-on-one with the little one.

I put up a tire swing in the backyard for the girls, as I have a bunch of tires hanging around from the Aveo, plus a mystery tire that has been in my yard forever.  Despite the large number of trees in my yard, not a lot of them have what you would call incredibly strong branches.  It must have been a sight for my neighbors, me making repeated attempts, while streaming obscenitites, to toss a rope 15 feet into the air in hopes of actually catching the specific branch that I believe would hold the weight of both my daughters.

Eventually I got the rope around the branch a couple of times, and knotted it around the tire roughly six million times. Unfortunately, after a few test runs, the knots around the branches tightened themselves, and now the tire sits about a half-inch from the ground, so I'll be re-tying the tire portion tonight so my kids don't lose their legs as they get squished between the tire and the ground.

Well, the 9'oclock whistle has blown so I'm signing off.  Cheerio, all and enjoy this lovely day.

Awash in a sea of McDonalds toys, Lego and Barbie shoes.

A few facts about me:

I live in a pretty small house (2 bedroom, roughly 800 square feet)

My kids have way too much shit.

For this reason, today I faced the grand undertaking of A) cutting them loose of some of this shit B) cleaning behind, around and under the various dressers, shelves and other nooks and crannies that was home to all their shit and C) find a way to organize and store remaining shit, so that the children are able to keep the place in some semblance of order.

I need a drink.

Oh look, here's one right here.  Lucky me.

So I can safely say that the girls bedroom is now immaculate.  The rest of my house looks as though a herd of drunk elephants ran through it.  Blindfolded.  Carrying large shoulder bags while suffering from vertigo.

It ain't pretty, let's leave it at that.  But that's tomorrow's project, along with laundry and going through their clothes.  That's right, today was just toys, books and the like.  I haven't even touched their clothes.  I have a weeks worth of dirty laundry in the hamper, yet they still can't close their drawers.  That ain't good.

As it stands I have a nice little pile in the corner of stuff to get rid of, and roughly one bag of garbage.  Getting rid of the stuff may pose a problem though.  You see, I think I may have been black-listed by Freecycle for what I thought was a perfectly innocent post.

One of the ways I'm trying to free up some space in their room is to get rid of the giant metal single-over-double bunk beds they currently have, and get a set of twin bunks.  So I posted on our local freecycle group that I was looking for a set of twin bunk beds.  I included in my ad that I might be willing to trade for the set I have currently.

Well, an hour later I got a nice little verbal spanking from the moderators:

Greetings,
Freecycle...s' only purpose is to keep usable items from going to land fill sites.

One of the rules that you agreed to when you joined Freecycle was that "bartering" was not allowed. Everything must be free.

Because of your inappropriate posting your future postings will be moderated to insure [sic] that you abide by our rules.   

Here's my posting:

My girls currently have one of those metal framed Single-Over-Double bunk beds but it takes up way too much room. I'm looking for a set of twin bunk beds so we can open up some floor space in their room.I'd be willing to trade the bunk beds I current have. The bed and the mattresses are in good condition, the frame is red.

I dunno.  Maybe it was because I forgot to add the word "also" to the "willing to trade" part.  Either way, Bite Me Freecycle.  Oh, and an extra effyoo because that should be 'ensure' not 'insure'.  So, yeah, it looks as though my posts are going to be moderated to make sure I'm not offering sexual favours or drugs or something in exchange for bunk beds.  Or bunk beds for crack of sexual favours.

This is a giant pain when you have stuff to get rid of.  After my verbal spanking, I sent a short apology stating that I would be more careful.  Pretty congenial of me if I do say so myself.  So since then I've made roughly 8-10 posts both for things I am looking for (for all ye crafty endeavours) and stuff I'm offering (namely, my kids shit) and not a single thing has shown up in the group or the mailing list.

So thanks a lot, Freecycle.

this half-assed weekend post is brought to you by a simple dude

Ain't got much to do, but there's always lots to say...

Holy wah, do I ever feel accomplished today. Five loads of laundry, cleaned the bathroom, moved the dryer back into the house, cleaned the fridge out, grocery shopped and succeeded in having the children help me by cleaning not only their room (as is expected on any given day) but also the living room and the mudroom. Got the bathroom done, but man.. my shower stall is craptacular and kind of gross. If I were planning to buy this place, I'd be ripping that sucker out.

Facebook's photo uploader is irritating me at the moment. I started uploading some pictures from Thursday night's Big Sugar concert about an hour and a half ago and it's still only uploaded five of them. *shakes fist*

Excellent show by the way. It was supposed to be the opening show for the Barrie New Music Festival. Yeah, the logic of kicking off a New Music Festival with a band that formed and was popular about 10-15 years ago kind of escapes me, but hey.. I'm not complaining.

However, if I was one of the other bands scheduled to play Thursday night I would be complaining, since they kind of got the short end of the stick in a time-slot the same as 'the big show'. As it was, there were two bands that I wanted to see that night as well, but ended up missing, the first being A Primitive Evolution, a group fronted by the wickedly talented Brett Carruthers who I went to public and high school with, and the second being the Schomberg Fair, whom I had the privilege of seeing earlier this summer and would happily see again.

Guys, consider this free promotion my apology for otherwise sucking and missing your shows. I held not the tickets.

The Trews opened the show, and I enjoyed them enough, considering I'm not a real big fan of theirs, and tend to file them in the same 'Schlock95' category as bands like Nickelback and Default. Okay, but nothing impressive. I wasn't terribly sad that we missed the first half of their quite long set.

The show took place at The Ranch, which as you may have guessed is a country bar, and I don't mean the good shit like Johnny cash and Patsy Cline. No no, it's that Alan Jackson Boot-Scootin' wal-mart country that generally makes my teeth itch. So generally if I am there, I am probably shit-faced since it's the only way I can handle being in that place for more than five minutes. It was nice to DD this night since they were NOT playing country. WHOO. It's unfortunate, because as far as bars go, it's HUGE and has a great layout. Oh, and Go-Go cages.

Go-Go cages, as it turned out, were a great way to reconcile my claustrophobia with my desire to actually SEE the band. I am short, and many people are not. I also like to dance but do not like to have my personal bubble invaded too much. So yay for the go-go cage.

So as I said, Big Sugar put on an excellent show. I remembered seeing them back in 1996 when not too many people knew who they were (with the exception of one of the guys in our party who has seen them somewhere in the ballpark of 40 times) and thinking they put on a very high-energy RAWK show. RAWWWWWKKKKKKK. They're also one of those bands that I always forget just how many songs of theirs I actually DO Know.

But yeah. Still waiting on photo uploads. Blargh. May paint tonight. I finished a tryptich based on three songs by Hawksley workman and I am quite pleased with how it turned out.


"Oh, You Delicate Heart", "Smoke Baby", and "Paper Shoes".

I need to organize my craft/art closet. I re-hung a cupboard door today, so I felt all cool and handy. Dad is coming tomorrow to help me finally fix the back-door knob before the snow flies.

I feel like going to look at my fridge again and marvelling at the clean-ness. G'night folks.

I rarely vote or get legal abortions anyway..

Even though normally this goes against everything I normally stand for, today, just for today I'd like to say a big old 'effyoo' to the feminist movement and all it stands for.

Why? Because today I had to move a dryer, by myself. BY MY FUCKING SELF. An apartment sized one, yes... but still... it was HEAVY.

And just because we CAN do all things that men can do, doesn't mean we always should, or even WANT to.

I sure didn't WANT to move a dryer all by myself. 20 years ago, I could have reveled in the idea that if I wanted to move a dryer by myself I could, but that in reality, there'd be a strapping male around to move it for me.

50 years ago, the idea of a woman moving a dryer by herself, while plausible (if she were freakishly large, or born with an excess of testosterone) would have been laughable.

100 years ago it would have been questionable if that was even a possibility. Which it wasn't, as the dryer had yet to be invented.

So yeah, bite me, Feminism.

....


I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. I love you.

Stand Back! I'm trying Plumbing!

So I was gifted with a gently used, apartment sized washer/dryer set over the weekend. Being that my home is a small one, I've got the dryer set up in the mudroom (and will eventually find somewhere to plug it in). The Washer is in the kitchen and it's on wheels, allowing me to roll it on over to the kitchen sink when I want to do some laundry and hook it up to the faucet.

I am very excited (and a little sad) at the prospect of being able to do my own laundry whenever I want.

Theoretically.

Getting said washer/dryer combo set up is presenting a challenge, to say the least. When I took the aerator off the kitchen faucet, I discovered that the hoses that hook up to the washer are way too big to fit onto the teeny-tiny faucet. So after work today I took a jaunt to one of my favorite places in the world... Canadian Tire! Let's face it, I love any place that gives you actual paper money (okay, fine, colorful play money) for shopping there, rather than some kind of intangible points system.

As much as I love Canadian Tire, I'm always a little overwhelmed going in there.. especially if I'm feeling particularly girly.. like I'm immediately suspect. Not 30 seconds into the store a red-shirted employee asked me quite friendly like if I needed help. I was barely in the door. Maybe it was the flower in my hair or the awestruck look on my face, or the cloud of estrogen that I apparently walk around in, but my need for assistance was palpable.

Nonetheless I struck out for aisles 51/52 on my own with an appreciative "Thank you sir! That remains to be seen!"

I should ask for help.

More accurately, I should measure things before I go places rather than attempt to guess. Because right now I'm sitting here, with an adaptor that's about 1/8th of an inch too small, and a weeks worth of dirty laundry and absolutely no motivation to drive back into Midland for another part. *sigh*

Maybe there's a nice rock I can beat my clothes against somewhere.



The newish washer


Just a smidge too small.


At least this part fit.


Le sigh.

I'm a freakin' genius.. or not.

I have battled the broken three-hole punch and emerged triumphant. I have made that three hole punch my bitch.

I am, indeed a genius.

erm.. if you ignore the fact that I punched the wrong side of 50% of the sheets I needed to punch.

and if you ignore that the sheet protectors I bought already have holes.. rendering it completely unnecessary to punch holes...

...or fix the hole punch.

*sigh*

Adventures in home improvement, part one.

So the house I'm currently living in has been in my family for a few years, and has had my parents, my sister and now myself as tenants.

every so often, I am hit with a need to get all DIY with my home improvements. Let's make this clear, *name of carpenter chick from Trading Spaces whose name I can't be bothered to look up*, I am not.

It started a few years ago with some curtains. I bought some curtains but my apartment was not furnished with the.. erm.. furnishings, necessary to hang curtains. Normally, I would call up my dad for help in these situations, but let's face it, he's a busy guy and I found myself saying "For Christ's Sake, Andie, you are TWENTY-SIX YEARS OLD. You do NOT need to call DADDY to hang some friggin' curtains."

In a fit of 'I-can-do-it-myself-dammit-ness' I ran out to Canadian Tire and purchased a Black and Decker cordless drill, and some drill bits and some drywall plugs. I drooled in anticipation as I waited the requisite 12 hours for the battery to charge, before I could do any work. Not only was I going to hang curtains, but I had high hopes for a waist height coat rack in my front hall so the girls could finally hang their own danged coats. ooooh, it was gonna be SUH-WEET. However to my chagrin, I learned a horrible lesson.

Drywall plugs are sent to Earth by Satan specifically with no purpose other than to frustrate and annoy ME. True Story.

Horrible lesson number two? Drywall plugs don't do much when your drywall is only an inch or two above a layer of BRICK.

Long story short, my curtains lasted less than 24 hours. Luckily, where I lived two stories up, backing onto a large forested area. If anyone was going to go to the trouble of looking in my windows, frankly for their effort, they DESERVED a bit of a show. My coat rack lasted about a week. *sigh*

Not to say that it's all been failure. Since i've moved into my little dollhouse there has been cupboard doors hung, knick-knack shelves mounted that have not fallen down to this day, and I've even installed a nice little rack for my hair-dryers and other hair-phernalia. Holy hell, I love making up words.

Today I embarked on a mission to replace the doorknob in the back door that has never quit hung right since the house was broken into, so after a trip to the restore (where I managed to get a nice knob/lock assembly for about $2.50 - take THAT Home Depot) but I've run into a few issues.

A) The hole for the main assembly needs to be filed or sanded down, as the old hole is not quite big enough for the new assembly.

B) Whereas the old knob screwed right into the wood door, the new knob has two screw posts which go straight through the door so that the one side of the knob essential screws right into the other side of itself. In an epic fail on my part, I drilled the two holes about 1/4 to 1/8th of an inch too close to each other, so the posts are further apart than the post-holes. Go Me.

C) The door itself is about a million years old, and solid wood. Solid wood which has started to show some mild rot around the original door knob (which may have contributed to the general shakiness of the old handle).

So I figure my options at this point are:

A) Get a new door. Don't really want to do this, as it's probably pricey. Being me, I also stand a good chance of measuring improperly and ending up with a useless door.

B) Redrilling the whole slightly closer (the difference is almost imperceptible until you try and jam that sucker into the drill holes), running the risk of cracking through the soft wood.

C) Filling in the holes and trying again a couple inches down, which could prove to be a pain in the ass, ergonomically, and especially frustrating if I Just manage to bork it again anyway.

Stay Tuned.. this could get interesting...


The original doorknob assembly, now detached from the door.


Brandspankin' new, only slightly dinged and irregular doorknob assembly.


The doorjam part. Hell, I don't know what it's called. The wood has been built up with scraps, since a good portion of it got ripped out when the house got broken into a few years back. That's the new piece in there.


Hole for the original attempt. Glad to see that whoever installed the original door was about as skilled as I am.


You can see the black from the wood-rot here. The hole on the left (the one that needs to be closer) is already precariously close to the main hole. Gooooood times.