Category: Random

Handy Home Improving

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Any homeowner will say that the job of improving, maintaining and updating a home is never done. Even friends of ours that live in brand new houses are always doing something. Our story is the same – it’s always something.

That something (besides the dishwasher) was the master bathroom toilet. For weeks it would fill. STOP. Fiiillllll. STOP. Fiiiillll some more. STOP. And on and on until it was done filling. And because our water pipes are in the attic (yes East Coasters, they are in the attic because we don’t have to worry about them freezing) the process was heard throughout the house as the pipes banged with each pause. Not exactly what you want to hear at 3am – or worse, at 5:30am because the sound will inevitably wake up Baylie.

Now when Peter and I were both working, we would have certainly called a plumber and gladly handed over the $100+ to fix the toilet. We were both working 60+ hours a week and it made sense not to waste the precious time we had outside of the office on trying to fix something we know nothing about. But now that we only have 1 income, that’s no longer the case. And after a quick pep talk from my mom – the woman who can fix anything – Bay and I ventured out to the plumbing supply store. After a quick explanation and a new flush valve, we headed home to fix our commode.

Fixing a toilet is a challenge. Fixing a toilet with a busy, curious and eager-to-help 20 month old is an Olympic sport. Thankfully she was very content to play with the extra parts that came with the new valve (yes, there were supposed to be extra parts, I asked) and hand me rags to mop up the water. 20 minutes after we started we were calling everyone we knew to make them listen to the toilet flush without pausing. Yes, we fixed it and fixed it right in one try – $20 worth of parts, a patient salesman at the plumbing supply, some elbow grease and a blind eye to the fact that there was toilet water leaking onto the floor and we did it. The best part is that when we called Peter, A. he was stumped by what the hell I was asking him to listen too and B. was convinced I had called a plumber. When I actually showed him what I had to do to fix it, he was most impressed.

I contemplated taking pictures of my work in anticipation of a blog, but realized that pictures of the back of the toilet was pushing it. However, this goes down as my new “best” when it comes to home improvement. Next up: sprinkler repair!

Appliances With Attitude

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Almost four years ago we moved home to Arizona from Washington DC. We had decided we were going to renovate our rental house for us to live in and started the project prior to our 40 hour drive across the country. We walked in to this:

More than once we had a “Oh sh*t. What have we started??” moment. But the house came together beautifully and 9 months after we started, we ended up with this:

We had only minor snafus along the way – one of them being the dishwasher installation. Because we were total novices at remodeling a house and managing the contractor and the sub contractors, supplies (we learned the hard way to buy our own materials and hire someone to install them) and the physical work we did ourselves, we didn’t catch that we had measured the hight for the dishwasher from the sub-floor rather than the tiled floor. And when you’re using 1 inch thick and extremely inconsistent sized Saltillo tile, this is an issue. Long story short, we had to chip out the tile under the counter and in front in order to get the dishwasher in place. This resulted in a very serious condition called Appliance Attitude.

Yes, the damn thing developed a negative attitude towards work because he knew that he had job security. Often at night I would hear Dishwasher chuckling as I loaded up dirty dishes. Then in the morning when they were still dirty he would mumble under his breath “What are you going to do about it, lady? Chip out all the tile, haul me away, put in a new dishwasher, relay the tile and then seal it?? I don’t think so!! Mmmmwwwaaahhhaaaahhh!!”. Dirty bastard. And the worst part was he was right – it was way too much work to get a new dishwasher. So I called the factory service – who were no help. I changed detergents and even – gasp – washed the dishes before putting them in to be washed. Some of it helped, but not enough. So this past Christmas, we decided it was time. We were going to do the work and get something that actually cleaned our dishes instead of just making them appear clean but smell funny.

And that’s when it happened. Dishwasher decided he wasn’t going out in handcuffs, he was going out in a body bag.

Tuesday night I was settling into bed and Peter was working out on the couch when we both heard a very loud and ominous BANG. He came flying into the bedroom saying that he thought someone had thrown something at our front window. We both proceeded to investigate and Peter proceeded to ignore my snarky comments questioning why someone would choose to break the front window rather than one of the two glass doors on either side of the window to get into our house.  We settled on the dishwasher and when we opened it, we were greeted with a plume of smoke and steam. Not to mention all of the “clean” dishes were covered in a crunchy white substance. There was the telltale sign of a problem in the bottom of the dishwasher – a tube thingy was split wide open and a wire was hanging out – it reminded me of the Sad Mac face with two X’s for eyes and it’s tongue hanging out.

And so the process begins. The handy man is coming today to chip out the tile – the new super fancy and tested by my mom dishwasher comes tomorrow and by Saturday night, we’ll be washing dishes like normal people. And by sometime next week we won’t have a giant, tile-less section in our floor.

I did ask the salesman if the installation people who will be hauling away our POS would let me kick it – he didn’t laugh. There’s probably now a note in the delivery instructions to beware the crazy homeowner.

Happy Valentines Day

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What says Valentine’s more than a dog being tortured with love bug antenna? A love bug herself, that’s who! And if heart-shaped glasses at a friend’s party and a loving cousin who is willing to brave the “Mystery Machine” Jump house with a hundred ankle biters isn’t love, I don’t know what is.  Happy Valentines Day!

Dream A Little Dream

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When I get overwhelmed, I find myself daydreaming of whatever I think would make whatever task I’m working on complete, or even just easier or more fun. In the middle of one of these daydreams while folding 3 heaping baskets of laundry, I “checked in” and realized A. how funny these thoughts are B. how totally unrealistic they are and C. how much better it makes me feel to think of how much happier I would be if I actually had them. So here’s my list:

– A person to come to my house once a week and give me a free, warp speed manicure and pedicure so that I don’t have to spend the time and or money on it and I don’t look like I have talons instead of finger nails.

– A relative who needs a guinea pig for facials and eye brow waxing.

– A floor where nothing ever sticks to your feet because it’s always clean.

– The ability to not only survive but thrive and concur the world on only three hours of sleep a night.

– Unlimited gift cards to the Container Store.

– Free overnight shipping from any website any time.

– Dishes and laundry that do themselves.

Sigh. I guess it’s all wishful thinking until I find a bottle with a genie in it. Or wine. Whatever comes first.

The House of Sick

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I am so tired of writing about being sick – but really, it’s all that’s going on at our house these last 10 days. Thankfully, I’m feeling very much improved today and Baylie appears to be out of the woods as well. However, all my creative brain power has gone into how to A. get all the neglected chores done at super warped speed and B. getting the smell of Vick’s Vapor Rub out of our home. Thus leaving little to none for writing. I started a post and was so bored by not only the topic but the content, I decided to write an excuse post and hope that a much needed glass of wine and night of rest sans decongestants will refill my creative tanks and I will once again be able to compose the blogs that you all come for. Until then – avoid the “crud” going around and stay tuned!

What The Mary Poppins?

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Because B has been sick all week, we’ve been doing a lot of nothing. Our day consists of  administering Tylenol, Vicks Vapor Rub and sitting in the bathroom with the shower on and breathing in the steam. Pretty much anything that will help her breathe easier and recover from this nasty virus.

We started watching Mary Poppins two days ago – one of my all time favorite movies as a kid. As we continued watching it last night, I realized one thing – this is a strange movie. Like Alice in Wonderland / alternate meaning to scenes weird.

First, why is the neighbor’s house shaped like a ship and why does he fire off cannons? I’m not so weirded out by Mary and the children’s trip into the sidewalk chalk paintings, I am however disturbed that Mary then denies that they did this later. And what the hell is the scene with Uncle Albert all about?! Why are they all on the ceiling laughing and having a tea party?? I also think it would be Uncle Albert’s picture  next to “child molester” in the dictionary. I was going to add a picture to the post, but it freaked me out to look at it long enough to save it and add it in…

Thinking back, my other favorite movie as a kid was Old Yeller. For anyone who hasn’t seen this movie – the lovable dog and title character is shot by his master at the end of the movie because he has rabies. When I realized as an adult what actually happened to Old Yeller, I was a little concerned what this said about me and my personality. The more I thought about it, I didn’t realize the owner was killing OY. So really, I should be less concerned about deep psychological issues and more concerned with the fact that I was apparently a very dense child (yes Peter, I said CHILD. Not adult and no, there is no need for a correction).

So today, I’m feeling a little like Phoebe (from Friends, not the dog that we found last weekend) when she realized that her mother had edited all the movies she saw as a kid and never knew the full meaning behind them. I’m now a little afraid too of watching anymore childhood favorites for fear I will learn that they too have some coo coo meaning and or further prove that I was in fact, a very dumb kid.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

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This past Sunday morning we hosted a small brunch for a group of friends. While prepping the delicious dishes we would be enjoying, I noticed two dogs sniffing around in our front yard.

And thankfully this time, they weren’t our dogs out there unbeknownst to us.

At first, I thought they were our drunk neighbor’s dogs who he lets roam the hood to poop in other people’s yards. If the neighbors complain, he comes over and picks up his dog’s “deposit” and claims he didn’t know they were out. Which we all know is a lie, but because we don’t want the drunk a-hole in our yard and he desperately wants to get back to his V-Dub bus with his cooler (not kidding, he sits in the back of it and drinks –  we don’t live in a hood, but I see where it sound like we do…) we all pretend that it’s true. Upon closer inspection, these dogs were wearing collars, something our drunk neighbor doesn’t find to be important. So I walked out front with a treat to see if either one of the dogs would come to me.

The Chow mix instantly took off, but the Black Lab came right to me. Her tag said her name was Phoebe and she instantly assumed the “gopher” position – sitting down but with her paws in the air – and absolutely adorable. So I called the number on her tag and left a  message for the owner that she was with us and her friend was most likely close by. You see, Bear T. Dog got out of our yard several years ago and was found on a semi busy road by a very sweet woman who coaxed him into her car right after witnessing him almost being run over. So in an effort to repay the cosmos for the favor of returning the sweet and “uses-his-brain-for-evil-rather-than-good” Bear, I tied Phoebe to our bench out front and gave her some water. I was assuming that her owners would be calling any minute frantic that their dog(s) were gone.

An hour passed. Another hour passed and still nothing. We had friends over for brunch and still no call. All the while Phoebe sat on our bench, laid in the shade, barked at passers-by and lapped up her water.

Until her collar broke.

Peter went in from the back patio where we were having brunch to check on the napping kiddo and found that her very old plastic collar snap had broken and Phoebe was nowhere to be found. I called the number from her tag again and still, no answer.

So now in an effort to do a good deed, I’ve not only not found this dog’s owner, but I’ve let her run back out into the wild with no collar. Awesome.

The strangest part is that the owner has still never returned my voicemail. In an effort to keep myself from imagining horrible scenarios and crying myself to sleep while clutching Bear under one arm and Travis under the other, I’ve decided that both dogs have found their way home and the owner chalked the voicemail up to a drunk dial.

Bear says: “What is this ‘uses-his-brain-for-evil-rather-than-good’ business?!? Oh, and do you think you could bother to get me a haircut?? I’m starting to get dreds in my beard. And stop feeding random dogs my treats, damn it.”

What My Christmas Gifts Say About Me

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So this is belated, but it’s still funny so here  goes.

My sister gave me the following two gifts:

My first thought was “amazing gifts that will get used daily”. Then I started to think  about what her gifts say about me:

1. I have great sister who really knows me.

2. I got two gifts that will definitely get use.

3. I may have a bit of a caffeine addiction.

4. Perhaps I talk a little too much about my love of wine.

5. My sister is a smart ass.

Resolution Backfire

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Per my New Year’s Resolution to do more gardening so that I can show B where food really comes from, we did a big gardening day a few weekends ago. Peter completed the “salad table”, I planted the rose bushes I got for Christmas, Freesia bulbs and Amaryllis bulbs, carrot and onion seeds, and lastly prepped the raised bed to plant tomatoes next month. I also fertilized everything within an inch of their little plant lives.

All the while Baylie was hard at work digging, putting rocks in a bucket, and moving her toys from her play house to the raised bed garden and then back using her wagon. Engrossed in digging holes, I didn’t realize Bay had traveled through the open bedroom door to retrieve my favorite Tory Burch flats left on the floor. She proceeded to fill them with dirt and rocks and then present them to me with a look of satisfaction that only a mother could appreciate. She was so proud of herself, I had to laugh! Thankfully, they were easily emptied and no damage.

I’m now showing her how to fill pots rather than shoes.