Happy Valentine's Day to Me

So Eric & Garielle came home from Shabbat school yesterday -Eric was lugging a big box into the house. It's an early Valentine's Day present, he explained.

What was it? A compound mitre saw. Ha ha ha! Now I'm committed to following through on this do-it-yourself streak I seem to be on!

Michael Jackson and white design trends

The two aren't related, but it makes a catchy blog title, don't you think?

First of all, let me say that I'm short on time and short on common sense. I have only a couple of hours to take a shower, whip the house into shape, and get a bunch of things done before Garielle's play date arrives. I have no time for this blog entry.

So I was reading in the paper this morning that Michael Jackson is coming back to the U.S. Yes, this made the news, somehow.

I don't know why every fart this man toots is something of interest to the media. Is it something of interest to the public? One might say that it is, otherwise the media wouldn't run it.

The truth is, I'm an admirer of Jackson. I won't go so far as to say I'm a "fan," because I don't own any of his CD's. (Okay, I did pay to download some of his tunes off the internet, but that's it.) But to say that his music isn't totally rockin' and to say that he's not a major talent is to tell a lie. I totally dig his music and his videos. And I think as he aged, he got better. Sure, he's a little weird looking, but that's not a crime. A lot of people are weird looking.

Jackson personally? I don't want to know.

In fact, I hate meeting "stars" in person. I have no interest in knowing what they're "really" like - unless of course they're exceptional, such as passionately philanthropic about an interesting cause, or committed to some noble principle. But I don't have that expectation of stars, and I'm not not disappointed when they're just plain old people. Because you know what? Most of them are.

I just want to enjoy the fruits of their talent.

Of course, if we happen to run into each other at a cocktail party or a fundraiser (because I go to so many of these where stars are present, you know), and if they happen to be interesting people, sure, I'd like to get to know them, just as I would be interested in getting to know an interesting person who is totally anonymous.

What I'd really like is for Michael Jackson to get back into the studio and make some more music and some more videos.

"Oh, but what about the time he jeopardized the safety of his baby by dangling it over the balcony?"

Yes, that was bad, bad, bad. He really shouldn't have done that. Thank God nothing happened, and perhaps upon reflection, Jackson regrets that.

Any parents out there? (show of hands) Okay, when Garielle was probably a little too young for it, I put her in the "big" bathtub to see how she would do, instead of her little plastic baby bathtub. She was able to sit up well, and the water wasn't very deep. Nevertheless, she was nervous.

After she seemed more okay, I turned my back on her to attend to something on the counter, and she said "Mommy, Mommy!" I said "You're okay, sweetheart," but I didn't turn around. She cried "Mommy!" again, so I turned around. She had accidentally lopped forward into the water. Thank GOD her head was turned to the side so her face wasn't submerged. She wasn't able to pull herself back up to a sitting position.

If she had her face forward, she would have drowned.

Someone told me that every child seems to give their parents one "warning" incident, and if you ignore it, the next time is fatal. I don't know if that's true or not, but that was my warning. Believe me, I was MUCH MUCH MUCH more conscientious after that.

Am I stupid? Am I a bad parent? No to both. My IQ tests above "genius" level (it's true, which is why everything I do is sheer genius - ha!), and I think I'm a pretty good parent.

Anyway, this is why I can't crucify Jackson for the balcony incident. Yes, it was a lapse of judgement, and it was a dangerous one. But thank god it's okay.

On to the next topic:

I also read in the paper that it's official - the design trend is the "absence of color." According to the article, taken from USA Today, we've had so many years of being bathed in all that color that white is "refreshing."

No it's not.

All that white is boring. It's like looking at an endless maxi-pad. It's sterile. It's even a little frightening. ("Am I in Heaven? Dang, it's dull.")

I'm going forward with my red room, damn it. Maybe in five years, I'll be tired of being bathed in all that color, and I might "refresh" by going white. We'll see.

Light at the end of the tunnel

I haven't felt good all month. It's been frustrating, because I haven't been nearly as productive as I want to be, and I haven't been to the gym, either.

So I finally took a sick day yesterday. Today, I feel better than I've felt for weeks. I'm not quite to 100% yet, but I'm really happy that I seem to be on the upswing. Feeling sick is so annoying, and I just hate it. I have too much to do for that crap.

I hope to find time this weekend to finish ripping that carpet out of Garielle's closet. It seems every weekend gets taken over by other priorities. For instance, this weekend we have visitors on Saturday, and we have to finish Garielle's school project on Sunday, and Sunday evening we have dinner plans. So Saturday morning I have to use to get the house tidied up. Maybe Saturday evening I can do some work while Garielle watches a movie. (Eric has a concert to attend.) Or maybe Sunday morning.

I really want to get at that bedroom so I can start putting the shoe molding in. Eric & I agreed that I should go ahead & buy this compound mitre saw that is on sale at Canadian Tire. I know that I don't need it for shoe molding, but it would certainly give me the opportunity to play with it and see how it works.

Have I posted in here about my frustrating at getting into a woodworking class? I finally found one, an all-day Saturday thing, coming up in Feb. I was prepared to sign up, but then was invited to attend a weekend conference in the place of a colleague who is on sick leave. So there goes that weekend.

So it looks like I'm just going to have to figure this stuff out on my own. I brought a bunch of books home from the library on power tools, woodworking, and carpentry. Each book goes to great lengths to talk about safety, so I'll be sure to heed that advice.

Of course, I don't even have a place for the saw to live. I want to create a workspace in our basement . . . excuse me a minute - HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!! . . . . so maybe some day that will happen.

So, changing the subject without a transition:

Also on my mind is that we need to incorporate a few more Jewish rituals into our home. I'm thinking that we should start having proper Shabbat dinners, with the candles and the whole bit. I think it's a good tradition for Garielle.

So on tonight's menu - homemade pizza - ha ha! It's what we have on hand. I have some white candles and some Star of David candle holders. Off we go.

Designers are in a rut

In my previous post, I said that interior designers are either sifting through the old Sears catalogs for the tackiest stuff, or they're just copping out and doing everything in whites. I thought I'd offer some examples of what I meant.

Here is a very sterile room. I just know that if I ever visited and sat on their furniture, I'd start my period.














Please tell me nobody actually lives here. Do you get the sense that guests are not welcome?














I think we've been watching a little too much Antiques Roadshow.













Precious, precious, precious! Undoubtedly, what the camera didn't capture was the teddy bear collection off to the right and the Precious Moments display case on the wall.














This room screams "We are old and we are Republicans, but we have damned good taste." Nobody explained to them that the department store isn't where to go for your wall art.















Sears - circa 1985. It screams "finer hotel room."














Is this a room or a salad?














This one wins an award. It's bland and chaotic at the same time.














The images above were borrowed, without permission, from the HGTV website.

More living room ideas

It's really hard to find living room ideas that I like. It seems that a lot of what's being done these days is just chaos. It seems designers are sifting through the Sears catalogues of the 1970's, tossing what was groovy, and keeping what was tacky. And it seems to be a growing trend to pack rooms with as much crap as possible, OR to go virgin white.

Anyway, I found a few rooms that I like and that I might use for inspiration when the time comes.

I like this room a lot. We could use our existing living room furniture in this room. We already have the yellow chair, and the sofa needs reupholstered anyway.

I like this room too, except it's just a tiny bit bland. I do like its crispness, however.

Now here is an example of way too much stuff going on in a room. However, I do love the colors, especially the green wall.

What a crazy week. What week - - what a crazy month!

So my first week on my new job went pretty well, but I felt like I was coming down with something the whole time. I'm not alone - seems everyone at the office is straggling around, not quite sick but not quite well. It's very annoying.

I haven't had a chance to rip that final bit of carpet out of Garielle's room. There just hasn't been time. (Why am I not doing it now, you ask?) Because I'm online researching dishwashers while laundry is going in the other room.

We did get a new garbage disposal - hurrah! The next piece is the dishwasher. We shopped today but may have hit a height snafu. Our old dishwasher was a Maytag Jetclean II. It came with the house. The repairman said that Maytags are awful and they konk out early. I went online and rating at places such as epinions seem to back that up. So I swore I wouldn't buy another Maytag.

Alas, Maytags are slightly shorter than other brands, apparently. The space we have available is 34" and a smidgen. The Kenmores we looked at today all require 34.5". The salesperson said that most models require 34.5" but for some reason, Maytags are shorter than standard.

So we came home and measured one more time, just to be sure. And yes, it appears that we have 34 1/8" available - barely. Eric said "Well, let's just get a top of the line Maytag."

I went online and it looks like what we HAD was a top of the line Maytag. Urgh.

I emailed the Miele people and asked them if any models were 34". I said "Please don't make me buy another Maytag!"

Then I googled "dishwashers 34"" and came across site after site indicating that 34" is the standard height for dishwashers.

Really???

So now I'm all confused.

Is 34" really standard or not? If it is standard, why is it that Maytag is the only one who adheres to it? That would make it rather not standard, wouldn't it?

Okay. Here are my issues to resolve:

- get a dishwasher. Not a Maytag!!!!
- get the oil changed in my car & get new wiper blades while I'm at it.
- get the dog groomed.
- pull up the carpet in Garielle's closet

When those four things are handled, I'm having a martini.

Progress

So today I ripped out the rest of the carpet in Garielle's room, except for her closet. I'm so glad I invested in a set of really high quality knee pads - they cost like $40 and look like part of a space suit. But they really helped when it took me 2 hours to crawl around on the floor pulling out staples and nails.

The next step is to pull up the carpet in her closet, pull up the nails, etc. Then I have to figure out how to get shoe molding in. See, the wood around the perimeter of the room indicates that there was once some shoe molding, because it's quite a bit darker than the rest of the wood. And the ends are uneven, not quite being covered by the baseboard.

So I guess I need a miter saw. It's hard to believe I need to invest the $150 - $200 in a compound miter saw. I thought the only other alternative was a miter box, but I see in this woodworking manual that I bought yesterday that there is a non-power miter saw outfit kind of thing.

There's a Lee Valley woodworking supply shop here in town. When I get to the point where I'm ready to put in the shoe molding, I'll go there & visit & pick some brains.

In the meantime, I started reading this woodworking manual last night. It's so interesting!

There's sooooo much to be done with this house, and progress is so slow. It's just about impossible to do anything during the week. Weekends are necessarily full of all the stuff there was no time for during the week - laundry, tidying the house, and so on.

As I've been intermittently trying to clean out our basement as well, I have about 5 carloads of stuff to take to storage. Plus the carpet that I ripped out remains in garbage bags in our hallway. I was going to put them out with the garbage, but Eric thinks there's a better way to dispose of them. He's not clear on what that is. However, I don't want those bags to sit in the hallway much longer. So if they're not out of the hallway by next weekend, I'm taking them to the landfill myself. And I guess I can't keep waiting on him to help me take stuff to storage, so I might have to do that by myself.

Here are other things that desperately need to happen in our house. If they're not handled by the time I get around to them, I'm doing them myself:

The back door needs replaced entirely - including storm door. I think the frame needs some work. Before now, I figured we'd have to bring in a professional. But now I'm starting to think perhaps I could do it, with the right tools and some instructions.

The front door needs replaced entirely. For this, we will have to call in the pros. That whole wall upon which the door resides needs completely reworked. There are these fake glass blocks along the side of the door, in the actual wall of the house. Turns out they're plastic stuff, and one good kick will knock them right in. Fortunately we don't have much worth stealing in our house, but still . . .

The door to our den just sort of ripped off the hinges. It's a french door thing, you know, glass all divided into squares. Eric took the door down & put it in Garielle's room, against a wall. I moved it out and put it into the hallway because HELLO, I'm renovating in there, don't be putting a bunch of stuff in there! Problem is, Garielle saw it and pretended to open it. I about had a heart attack envisioning the door coming down on her head. I asked her to never, ever touch it, and she hasn't done so.

Anyway, after I finish Garielle's room, that's next on my list to fix.

We haven't replaced the dishwasher or the garbage disposal yet. Again, the pros for that.

What's left to do in Garielle's room:

• Pull up carpet in closet
• Install shoe molding
• Paint baseboard, shoe molding, trim
• Touch up walls where I accidentally put my feet while yanking out carpet, nails, and so on
• Decoupage the wall plates & put them on.
• Move furniture into her room.
• Hang paintings, mobiles, etc.
• Lower the clothes rack & shelves in closet.
• Decide what to do about her doors. They're ugly.

Then, unless there are other emergencies, I'm going to rehang the door to the den, then turn my attention to the back door.

After that, I'm going to look at the living room floor and decide if I want to install laminate flooring. I think I do want to.

If I decide to do that, I think we'll see about painting the living room first, while the hideous gold shag is still on the floor. Eric doesn't want me to do this myself. He wants to hire pros. The thing is, the wall curves into the kitchen - there's no sharp corner. So we almost have to paint the kitchen at the same time.

Which brings me to the kitchen ceiling issue, but I'm not that far along yet. We'll get there.

I have tools.

I went to the gym this morning, and then had a massage. Ahhhhh!!!!!!

Then I went to Rona to find a few things - kneepads, a toolbelt, and so on. I ended up buying quite a few things for myself. Instead of a toolbelt, I got a tool apron - it's a big, guy-like apron. I also bought some protective eyewear, kneepads - really nice ones, work gloves, a utility knife, a small thingy of spackling compound, an adjustable wrench, and a few other things.

I just can't figure out this "saw" business. I posted a question on the Be Jane message boards, and we'll see if I get a response. A lot of the instructions say to make this or that cut with this or that type of saw. I just don't know - can I use a manual saw or do I have to buy an electric saw? And can I just buy one and start using it? Don't I need someone to show me how to do it? Seems like I need to take a class or something, or have my dad show me how to use one. Well, having my dad show me is not an option.

So this afternoon, I ripped out half of the carpet in Garielle's room. I could have ripped it all out but then I might not have had the time to get all the staples & nails out, which is a bad, unsafe thing. So I opted to do half very well and make sure the floor was very clean and safe. Then tomorrow I'll do the other half.

And now I need to go consolidate and accumulate tools and stake out which tools are MINE, MINE, MINE.

Plans, glorious plans!

By the way, if you don't see my picture posted in the profile, it's because the domain where it lives has expired. I should probably consider renewing it. I haven't decided yet.

So we've had something going on every single night this week, and we have something going on tonight as well. I hope I can get a few things accomplished over the weekend!

I'd like to pull the carpet out of Garielle's bedroom. I never did find a utility knife in the house. I know we have one. I'll find it soon after I purchase a new one, surely.

Then, of course, I have to make sure the floor is safe. That's the thing about these projects. I can't just do some now and finish it later. It's now or never. I have to pull out those strippy things along the edge of the floors and then make sure there are no nails, staples, or large, pointy wood protrusions emerging from the floor.

At that point, I have to make a decision about the floor, based on what I discover after the carpet is pulled up.

And here's my other project. This should really impress Eric. Our bathroom sink keeps clogging. Eric keeps dumping Drano down the drain, and using the plunger. It gets a little better - - for a time.

Well, this weekend, by God, I'm going to fix that damned thing the right way. I'm going under the sink.

Before I do either of those two ambitious things, I'm going to reread the instructions to make sure I have the right tools. And I'm going to buy myself a toolbelt. So there!

I will be a Jane.

So Eric is cautiously supportive of this do-it-yourself enthusiasm I seem to have sucked myself into of late. His reservations make me all the more determined. He has a good point though - I do tend to start projects and not finish them. He said he doesn't want me to get into something and then never get around to finishing it, or get in over my head and have to call in professionals.

I mentioned in an earlier blog entry that I tend to get obsessive. Now, my obsession seems to be getting the house into shape. Last night, I couldn't even sleep. I sent Eric an email of the tape recording loop that was going around in my head last night. I'll copy paste it here:

Need to rip out carpet in G's room, then fix up floor and/or get rug, then paint trim.
Then start living room. Could I paint it myself? Sure! But would it take me a year? Could I do it in a week? It would save us a lot of money.
Why do I keep fantasizing about being a handy woman? I've been having this fantasy for years and years. So far, I've painted a couple of rooms and occasionally changed a light bulb.
I need to get our tools consolidated and organized.
I wish I had a tool belt. If I had a tool belt, I bet I could lay laminate flooring in the living room all by myself.
If the basement were organized, I could set up a little area just for tools and things.
I bet I could replace the back screen door all by myself. I bet I could replace the toilet downstairs all by myself.
I bet I could put a second story on our house all by myself.
I wonder if I could get all that done by the time the Tokols got here.
We should have a seder. I should sew a nice, elegant tablecloth for the occasion. I should set up a sewing area. We don't have the space for that. Maybe I should build an extra room off the back of the house.
Let's paint the living room red! I really want to!
Where do we move the furniture in the living room and dining room during the floor renovation? Do we shove it into the kitchen?
We should move that marble topped sideboard downstairs, it's aesthetically wrong upstairs.
We need to take a load of things to storage.
We really can't move forward on the basement until we do that.

So, damn it, the first thing I need to do is FINISH GARIELLE'S BEDROOM!!! I'm getting so close! Maybe I can work on it tonight. If I just rip out the carpet . . .

But I need a utility knife. I'm sure we have one somewhere, but who knows where. I can't buy something new when I have one in the house, right?

So I need to find a place to capture our tools and things. Maybe I should do THAT tonight. And maybe I'll uncover the utility knife in the process. And if I've gathered up & organized what tools we do have, and I still haven't uncovered a utility knife, I'll buy one.

And maybe I'll buy a tool belt.

Could I be a Jane?

I love going to this website:

Be Jane

I've been peeking in from time to time, and yesterday, I bought the book:

I've just begun to read it. This morning, Eric asked me how I like it, and I said that I love it, love it, love it!

So, here's the thing. Eric and I had the "serious talk" a few days ago about how we really need to be more economical in 2007. However, we have this house we're living in, and in addition to needing major beautification, we also have some practical repair jobs that need done. The dishwasher is still on the fritz. The roof is going to need repairing. We need a new furnace. The front and back doors are not acceptable, nor are they safe. Additionally, we need some serious yard word done. And, although this isn't about the house, our cars are getting up in years and we're going to have to replace them eventually.

I've been reading the blurbs from all the Janes who contributed, and so many of them got started in the do-it-yourselfer realm because they had no money to hire things done.

I wonder if I can be a Jane.