Home Improvement 2017

The kitchen backsplash was replaced yesterday, so there’s no gap between the countertop and the tile. Long-time readers may recall that the original backsplash was discolored wallpaper.

Now the tiles will match the counter and cupboards, although I lost my hand painted fruit tiles.

The project wasn’t without glitches. Because there are no bullnose tiles, the tiler attempted to finish the edges near the window with some fancy cutting. It would have looked great if the window were centered and outlets didn’t force him to cut away at odd angles.

Instead, the tile looked uniformly wonderful at both ends and turned into a jigsaw puzzle in the middle. I contacted the business owner and she agreed that running the tiles to the edge will look better. I’ll have to paint the edges when I repaint the windowsill and recess.

The master bath is in progress.  The broken tile, chipped sink, and rusty bathtub were eyesores.  (Not to mention baths became impossible when the switch to stop up the bath got stuck last year.) So it was an exciting project.

On Tuesday it became even more exciting because La Casa de Tontería (aka The House of Nonsense) was built by the infamous Jerkface MacGuyver.

I’ll keep you posted. (Literally.)

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Readin’, Writin’, and Recuperatin’

I’m happy to report that The Old Man aka my father came through the operation with flying colors. And I seem to be well, too.

“Seem” being the main verb.

March 2017 will go down in local history as the Month of Pestilence. My colleagues at The Young Human Factory were dropping like flies, succumbing to every virus and bacteria our young humans brought us. When the rascals weren’t incubating more diseases, they were raising pets like lice and Scarcoptes scabiei.

Dealing with the Budgetary Crisis

No, not Congress. La crisis presupuestaria de la Casa de Tontería. To non-Spanish speakers: Need mo’ money in da House o’ Nonsense, eh? (I added the last word so Canadian and Yooper readers would understand.)

Last week, I got one bid (and another pending) to replace the driveway and the walk. The previous neighbors had trees growing right at the edge of the drive, which heaved the concrete. The husband was reluctant to cut them down until I pointed out that they would undermine his own house’s foundation.

Since they left and the bank sold the house, the decaying roots caused the cement to tip sideways, creating a dam where the downspouts pour out.  The summer has been very dry, but marked by torrential storms that made a shallow pool between our houses. Not only was the tar-like sealant washing away, but air bubbled up when even a child on a bike crossed the drive.

The walkway problem is typical for the builder, known affectionately as Jerkface MacGuyver.  Because the backfill around the foundation wasn’t properly tamped, the soil has compacted and the concrete tipped. Now the sidewalk leading to the front step tilts toward the house. As with the driveway, it pours water toward the foundation.

I had money set aside for the Garage Plan (a three-year project so well-thought out and  thus far so well-executed, government project planners would weep over their relative incompetence. Not that I’m bragging. I’m merely stating the facts with a sneer.).  Since I envisioned a new driveway leading to the garage, I felt comfortable using funds for this masonry project. I still have time to add to the Garage Fund.

Or so I thought.

2016 DIY Writer’s Summer Camp

Monday marked the first day of summer, which serendipitously was the first day of summer vacation  (which I spent most of it at work with colleagues moving books & furniture, naturally!) Yesterday was an unwinding day, so today – TODAY! – is the first day of my DIY Writer’s Summer Camp.

For those of you who want to join in, here’s what I’m doing this week:

• Reading  The Productive Writer by Sage Cohen for help organizing time and space. No, not SPACE the final frontier – my desk and filing spaces will suffice.
• Working on my boy-meets-robot novel. Happily, I discovered back-up copies of some lost files, including a character I’d excised who solves problems I’ve been having with making the narrator more likeable.
• Studying Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game for structure; e.g. chapter length and plot points.

 

 

If life hands you lemons…

…make lemonade. If it hands you lemonade, make popsicles. If life hands you popsicles, attract all the sugar-loving flying insects that bite and sting.

Yes, it was a day like that.

I’ll never make it as a window-washer

I’ve gotten tired of rain-freckled and streaked windows, so I decided to wash them yesterday.  Bad decision. It was sunny but breezy and cool, so not only did the solution dry fast, but every puff of pollen seemed to adhere to the wetness.

I’ll try again later this week, on a cloudy and windless day.

Squirrel-gardeners

Squirrels* don’t like crocus bulbs. I don’t know if they taste bitter – the bulbs, not the squirrels – or if they’re poisonous. All I know is that in the fall, I kept finding bulbs lying in the yard and having to replant them.

However, not all the bulbs were abandoned. Squirrels like to bury acorns, and crocus bulbs are about the same size, so…

There are crocuses in the oddest places.  There’s a beautiful one in the front lawn, all by itself. It has pale lavender petals with dark purple veins. Then there’s two or three yellow ones near each other in the loose dirt where the oak stump was ground down.

A lot of purple ones appear near the fence. I can see them from my bedroom window. I believe those came from the front flowerbed.

But the bright orange-yellow crocus that’s sticking up from the wood chips under the birdfeeder? That’s not one of mine. I suspect a particularly industrious critter carried it there from the neighbor’s behind the fence.

Too bad the squirrels don’t have an instinct for weeding and deadheading!

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*M’e the Fashionista dubbed them “demon rats” when we subletted in a house infested with them.