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Friday, December 7, 2007 in I Forgot To Pick A Category

That was better

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We went and got groceries yesterday afternoon. It was much more fun this time, although I forgot to take the camera again to take picture of the bird balls. They were gone at any rate.

Yes, in the freezer section, near the meat, was an end bin with packages containing two huge frozen balls of… something wrapped up and all the label said was “BIRD BALLS”. I know what they meant, and what they were for, but I bet a lot of people did a double-take.

Before you read much further, you have to go here and read the comment my friend Glenda left yesterday morning.

Back now? Okay, good.

By the time we got to the checkout, we were in a jolly mood still, and I hunted for just the right checkout girl and not The Mean One. (Later Emma told me that maybe her heart was too small that day.) I was considerably pleased to find one of my favorite cashiers working. We alwyas have a great chat with this one. We were partyway through our huge load and I had alreayd given apologetic smailes to the sad and eternally patient lady behind us.

Then Glenda & Katie showed up. “Don’t let this one skip ahead!” I joked with the lady behind me. I’ll give her credit – she did crack a bit of a smile. Glenda and I had a bit of a laugh – yes, we were talking over heads of people, loudly. (man, I bet the kids were so embarrassed. Or just used to it.)

I got to the total, which was not bad. “We’re not supposed to tell you,” the clerk said in a stage-whisper, “But if you spend over $200, you get a free gift card.” Crap, I’d forgotten! This is also the good part about being nice to clerks. She told me to go grab some more stuff and my head whipped around in a panic. There’s ever-patient lady behind me. There’s Glenda with three items behind her.

“QUICK! GLENDA! GIMME YER STUFF!”

So I paid for her things, then I needed cash back, and we had to re-do the totals and I swear the lady behind me needs a nice award. We got away from there lickety split after that. No sense pushing our luck. :D

Later, Emma and I were over at the mall where a guy in a Deluxe Santa Suit was making his rounds. Emma said hi in her chipper way as most kids stood there stunned. After he jingled his way around the corner, she said to me, “I know Santa’s not real, but I still believe in him anyway.”

Me too honey.

On our way to the car, she said, “Darn it, I forgot to give him a free hug.”

Wednesday, December 5, 2007 in House stuff, pictures included, renovations

Some discoveries are good

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Sometimes, when we are working on the house, we find that shock us (not literally thankfully), bewilder us, and confuse us. Other times, sadly not so often, we find things that bring a smile, a little slice of the past poking in to say hi.

While running wires again last night, we figured out a couple things. The holes in the joists where the wires ran through were made with a hand drill. This was evidenced by all the chunks of wood chips which were half circles and slightly angular. This also explained why the holes were not quite level. Made it hard to pull on the wires. :)

Drilled

So I was comforted a little, that eighty-some-odd years ago, some guy in overalls had to contort himself across the floor, just like we were. Except we were undoing all his hard work and replacing it.

Inside the floor, between the joists, is the aforementioned wood chips, some dust & dirt, some plaster chunks and the occasional bit of interest, like that tag we found. This time, I found a neat square of plaster face down almost under the wall. Must be from when they cut the first hole for the first lightswitch, I thought. I flipped it over and noted there was a bit of brown paper, or wallpaper backing, obscuring what was underneath. I gently pulled it away.

Wallapaper & plaster, art deco

Original wallpaper. Faintly art deco. The only down side is the piece is so small.

At least it’s better than what I found in the downstairs bathroom. The bathroom which is a DIY bad dream. The tileboard is installed sideways in there, and yes, you can tell. The floral sprays every other tile are certainly sideways. In one spot, since it goes up the wall halfway, I can pull on the edge a bit to reveal the wall underneath.

I kinda wished I hadn’t, for there was the wallpaper of the renovation before that. Brace yourself, it was probably from the late eighties, early nineties. It is hunter green and cream plaid.

I think we’ll leave that room for a while.

***

We will be off to Aunt Boo’s for the afternoon, so here’s hoping Uncle Leroy will give us lots of blog fodder. Or tomorrow I could tell the story of Grandma Betty. She’s not our grandma and her name’s not Betty, but there you have it.

Monday, December 3, 2007 in House stuff

No wonder it was cold…

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We made an interesting discovery yesterday while trying to keep the dining room end of the house warm. (The bedrooms are okay, just so you know.)

When you come in the back of our house through the carport, there is a mudroom area, a doorway, then the dining room in the house proper. Ron was poking around and discovered that not only was the ceiling of the mudroom UNINSULATED with a cold empty attic area above it, there was also a HOLE in the ceiling in the mudroom closet.

The 4″ hole was where a light fixture had been and it went straight up into cold air. It was up in a corner, and near the front, so to see it you had to practically stand *in* the closet and look back. We covered the hole, and as a temporary measure, I put up some thick heavy fabric over the doorway.

Within minutes the temperature difference was *amazing*.

Next weekend, we’re moving a door in there.

Sunday, December 2, 2007 in I Forgot To Pick A Category

The long and short of it

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Long hair. If you are the mother of daughters, you know what I mean. Hair has been a longtime issue here – the weeping and wailing, the gnashing of teeth, the tangles… oh the tangles.

Now, I am mostly a longtime short hair lover. Odd, huh? Considering all my girls have almost always had long hair. I had long hair once. Okay twice. There was that summer I was ten. I look at the pictures and think what great blonde waves they were. There were also Farrah bangs and huge 80′s eyeglasses, but we’ll overlook that.

I also grew my hair long as an adult. I stopped cutting it after Sarah was born and let it grow out. I’d get it trimmed every couple years or so, but it refused to grow past my shoulders and was so thick, the top layer held down the waves underneath. It also started morphing into a mousy brown. I hated brushing it, hated styling it even more.

I cut it short again after my grandmother died. Seemed a good time.

This brings me to the other day, even though it’s not about my hair. I’ve always let the girl’s hair grow long and straight and trimmed it myself. Every so often they’d go to a salon for something different, but mostly I trimmed it. Until the two older girls were teens, now I don’t touch their hair. :) And neither of them really do too much styling with their hair either.

Emma’s hair has always been an issue. So fine, so blonde and SO prone to tangles. I swear we brush her hair. It looks like we didn’t roughly 20 minutes after we do. It also takes 30 minutes of screaming to get it done, which is why we all get reluctant to do it. Yes, we have taken turns. That’s just for brushing it. Barrettes, clips, and ponytails are mostly out of the question. Besides, her hair is so thin and fine, it falls out in … you guessed it… twenty mintues.

So after a week of pleading, cajoling, lectures, reminders and who knows what else we said, Dad finally laid down the law in a little chat.

“If you don’t get your hair brushed, then we’re going to have to cut it.” This is the bottom line. It has been meeted out before. They all know if Dad says it, it will happen.

Emma’s response?

“I always wanted short hair!” :D

Our collective jaws indeed hit the floor. The next day, after we confirmed she was still gung-ho about it, I cut her hair into a chin-length bob. It had been down to the middle of her back and went below her waist when she tipped her head up. I now have a hank of what I removed waiting in an envelope.

Two new things

She’s happy and looks adorable, and I’m happy it’s easier to brush. Win/win all around.

Saturday, December 1, 2007 in I Forgot To Pick A Category

A 36 hour day would be great, thanks

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Sometimes I sit down here to write an entry and I feel like a week has passed. Sometimes it’s pretty close to a week anyway. I wrote the last post a couple days ago and set it to show up. Handy, huh?

We have been head-down, plowing through, working on massive to-do lists, where one thing gets crossed off and two things get added on to the bottom. It seems like every single item takes three times as long as it should. Like last weekend, for example.

Ron gave me the task of removing the metal strip in the doorways that help down the floor covering. A half-dozen screws in each, then pull on the strip – four strips in all. But almost every single screw was stripped or became so as soon as I turned it a bit. So thus, a ten minute job literally took a good half hour.

There’s a lesson in there somewhere but I am too impatient to learn it at the moment.  I want to finish things up and tie off loose ends NOW.

Did I ever mention we had an offer on our house, but it fell through at the end of last month? Well, mid-November practically. That dragged on for months – since August I think. Someone wanted it and still couldn’t wangle the financing, so we finally told them to come back when they had their act together. Loads of people have looked at our house, tons of people love it. We just have to convince someone to *buy* it.

I’ve also been busy working. Not just on HSJ when I can, but for an actual paid site based on the same software. Again, simple easy things I know how to do are taking way longer than they should because of spotty connections, browser crashes, and a convoluted user interface at a different host, where I have two seperate logins and three passwords, plus an account number. And not quite enough permissions to do what I need to.

Oh and the wiring. If you read Ron’s blog he mentioned some stuff. Again, checking on the wires in just a couple switches led to at least two nights of after-supper-till-bedtime trying to figure how they hooked things up. It was kind of mind blowing, really.

Now toss in three kids and a big house to keep warm and reasonably tidy. Or, at least enough so we don’t have to kick our way through. I actually got behind on laundry this week and Ron had to go hunting for things before work.

Emma also pulled out a loose top front tooth – all on her own. Kinda freaked out over the blood though. She had issues with her hair too, but I want to give that its own seperate entry, because it’s quite the story. And she’s been watching Discovery Kids a LOT. One day, she even told me how she programmed the satellite dish to switch to that channel every day at 4:30pm so she could watch the Magic SchoolBus and not forget. Here seventh birthday is in less than three weeks. We are innundated with facts from the shows she watches – reptiles, mammals, space, chemicals – she’s got it all in a verbal stream complete with pun jokes from ZOOM. (“What kind of shoes do mice wear? SQUEAKERS! Isn’t that funny?”)

We don’t even go anywhere lately, and we’re still  running at top speed every day. And twice a day I have to stop what I’m doing (which is HARD) and go feed people.

I was also sewing up a storm in snatches of time, until my machine went and acted up on me too. The tension is hosed again. Just when I had a bunch of ideas sorted out too. This pushes back some other plans I had.

I hope this doesn’t sound too morose, depressing or cynical – it’s mostly my brain is in high gear, trying to finish up all kinds of thinge before I even *think* of the holidays.  I am well behind where I was last year, that’s for sure. This year, I don’t even know where the tree is going.

But I know where the tree *is*, along with all the decorations, so that’s a good thing.

Lots will happen this month, that’s for sure. We just won’t see any payoffs until next month – after Christmas. I guess this is the part that makes life interesting, no?