Pink Leader's Pontifications

24 November 2008 @ 11:39 am

Okay, so Friday I mainly accomplished the renewal of my driver's license (an hour wait, but time to read Wicked) with a really terribly washed out picture, a nap, and a start on emptying the kitchen. But Alan did take me out for dinner so I could get some yummy stone ground grits at the Old Hickory Grille, and then home to watch a movie in the basement.

Saturday was a lovely birthday of sleeping in a bit, breakfast in bed (best Alan evar!), a fun time at the event hanging out with frineds, a call from the parents, dinner out afterward with

sircorby ,

theblueleader , and Caleb, with the Griffith's nearby, vanilla bean cheesecake, and being sung to by

cathgrace 's darlings before getting on the road home. Shopping wise, I picked up some more silk for embroidery, specifically green for the leaves on my MIL's panel, got a copy of

caemfind 's knitting patterns, a lovely hand made bronze needle by

nq3x , and some weaving stuff from Ursula's Alcove.

Sunday was a big day of accomplishment as we:

purchased an OTR microwave and new disposal
Alan finished washing and patching the hall bath walls
cleaned and emptied the kitchen cabinets and counters
and did 4 loads of laundry

Alas, I didn't get to test drive any bugs, nor make the Salvation Army run. But I realized that we'll have more stuff for donation after the kitchen is done like our old working microwave, a pile of unused stuff from the bowels of the kitchen cabinets, and maybe even the mushroom lights from the kitchen, and lord only know what else I have sitting around waiting to be donated. Or, if anyone wants/needs:

a microwave (works fine even if 20 years old),
some hall light fixtures,
some inverted mushroom light fixtures,
an old panel mirror (~42"x36") with just a little blips around the edges,
a pale gray cotton shower curtain,
some translucent sage green window panels (54" long?),
some old coffee mugs, plastic pitchers, an old broiling pan, sports bottles, salad spinner (though Theo will likely want me to keep that), and gosh knows what else I dig up...

The above items can be delivered to anyone in need at Unevent, but otherwise will likely go to the Salvation Army.
Oh, and I plan to do the IKEA run and maybe some groceries after work this evening.

We got the wonderful Kirsten for company last night, and she is currently diligently working away on painting the hall bath. We finally settled on Behr's Himalayan Mist, which should be a subtle tinge of blue, hopefully bright and cheery, but also calm and soothing. I also left the contractor from Long Fence and Home happily ripping out our old cabinets, so I can't wait to see how far he gets when I get home tonight.
busy, busy...

Tags: demolition, home

Mood:

accomplished

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03 November 2008 @ 11:26 am

Ding Dong! The wallpaper is down...

The pussy-willow paper is down! hooray!

We are scheduled to have our guest bathroom remodel start in a week or less. As I was pulling the towels from the guest bath yesterday to do laundry I realized that then was the time to finally remove the striking wallpaper. So, after starting the laundry, and futzing a bit, I got to work taking off the towel bar, switch plates, shower curtain rod, medicine cabinet, and Alan helped with the mirror and TP holder removal. Then I got to indulge in one of my favorite activities and the wallpaper came down very easy. There is still a bit behind the light that needs to come down, but the majority is removed to allow the workers to do their thing. I still need to wash the walls to remove the glue, but I tried a small patch last night and it shouldn't take too long. (Update: Metro Bath and Tile starts tomorrow morning! Awesome!)

It is a bit of a love-hate relationship. I love to remove wallpaper and I hate wallpaper in general, but I admit to a bit of fascination with the strange paper they put in the hall bath. It is unique, and ugly, but also a bit compelling with the tones of silver and gray, shiny, with streaks of deep red. I did save some large pieces that I hope to comb through to find a good section to clean up and frame for posterity. Alas, I don't think the framed section of wallpaper will fit with the color scheme of the new bathroom, so I'll probably display it in my sewing room or something like that. I also did remember to take some before pictures for comparison after the remodel is complete.

Other than some destruction, we had a lovely Saturday night and Sunday morning celebrating Robear's 50th Birthday with good food and excellent company down at Two Dog Hill. I got a bit of puppy time, and Robear and I indulged in some pumpkin fluff on pancakes for breakfast. Yum! Happy Birthday Bear and Moe!

Tags: cleaning, demolition, home, party

Mood:

pleased

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04 September 2008 @ 03:21 pm

GBU

The Good: Les Mis (obviously!), Corby's time lapse movie of the porch demolition, and that last weekend I also finished re-hemming my navy blue petticoat up so it won't drag when next worn. Now to work further down my list...

The Bad: I joked that I wore my purple sweater-dress to match my bruises yesterday. I've got a bruise on my ankle from when I hit myself with projectile 2x4 as I was destroying a roof section with a big hammer. I've also got an inexplicable bruise on my right index finger. I haven't tried knitting or sewing with it lately to even see if it is possible, hoping rest will help.

The Ugly: Originally I was going to say my scratched up arms (roofing shingle scratches look an awful lot like the results of bathing a cat), but I'll have to defer to politics. I've been trying to avoid both conventions, thankyouverymuch. BTW, choosing a conservative woman for VP still isn't getting my vote. Yes, the sound bites I heard of her speech yesterday were witty, but talk is talk. Also in the ugly category is the weather. I'm sorry Coronation has to be canceled, I had hoped for sunshine on Saturday for canvas cleaning, but instead it looks like I'll have to drag Alan out to Lowes and/or Bray and Scarff to look at other kitchen options. Actually doing shopping in advance this time. What a concept. I guess our kitchen cabinets qualify for the ugly category too.

Was up too late last night since I was too keyed up after Les Mis to go immediately to bed. Tonight and tomorrow night we have two companies coming to our house to give us a presentation/quote on our kitchen. I don't plan on any rearranging, other than drawers down below would be nice. We had hoped to get away with refacing, but replacing might be the better option, but then we have to consider counter-tops, which we had not so far. Quartz, Corian, solid surface? Hooray for Consumer Reports Kitchen issue. Luckily the flooring and appliances are all fine. Oh, must remember to budget to replace the tacky mushroom ceiling lights.

Tags: crafty, demolition, home, politics, sewing

Mood:

sleepy

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01 September 2008 @ 10:43 pm

recovery

Home now.

Demolition was lots of fun busting stuff up. Kit's Crew destroyed the porch roof, much of the concrete porch, an extraneous chimney and got a start on removing the extra sistered rafters for the now non-existent porch and spacers.
-Saturday morning was removal of the porch roof in chunks. That afternoon was dedicated to cleaning up some of the removed roof materials and starting the jack-hammering and sledge-hammering of the concrete.
-Sunday was more concrete demolition and chimney destruction. I spent all day moving broken debris to the dumpster, busted up concrete and then the chimney debris pile.
-Today I got to try the jack-hammer, and then handed it back to Alan. Conceptually fun, but murder on my lower back. So I then moved more debris and helped knock out 4 of the sistered rafters and spacers before quitting for lunch and collapse.

I forgot my camera, so all 70 demolition photos loaded to my flickr account, including women operating the jackhammer, are from Corby's older camera. Pictures were also taken with the other camera, but I couldn't read the files from the card, so hopefully Corby will load those sometime this week with the cable he left at work.

The camera wasn't the only thing I forgot at home. I left my work gloves and baseball cap, sunscreen, and--- antibiotics. Luckily enough pleading with the local CVS pharmacist and I got enough to cover me for the weekend so I only missed one pill. hooray.

I think I've worn more socks this weekend than i did all Summer. So we have loads of laundry covered in concrete and dry wall dust, and the laundry is proving to be quite an achy experience what with the bending over to sort the loads, load the washer, load the dryer, and then the hands tired from picking up chunks of concrete need to pick up and fold clothes. sigh. I'm sure it builds character.

Tags: demolition

Mood:

sore

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31 August 2008 @ 10:04 pm

Day two of demolition

Day two of demolition saw much destruction of concrete, and the superfluous chimney...

Tags: demolition, pictures

Mood:

accomplished

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30 August 2008 @ 07:21 pm

First day of Demolition

Timber!!!

Tags: demolition, pictures

Mood:

accomplished

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17 June 2008 @ 03:55 pm

relaxing water

So last night I indulged myself in a nice long soak in our relatively new master bath. I read some, played with strawberry daiquiri smelling bubbles, stretched the aches, and just soaked for the better part of an hour. (I can't stop your mental images and they are likely better than plain observation would be, so go ahead...)

( pictures... )

Tags: demolition, health, home, pictures

Mood:

relaxed

6 comments | Comment

14 May 2008 @ 02:42 pm

Leaving on a Jet Plane...

Today Barney arrived to start the demolition on our master bath before it is made into pretty pretty remodeledness.
knock knock knock knock bang smash jigga jigga riiiippppppp.....
Barney has no idea how much I'd rather be helping him, but the bathroom is small, I'd just make a mess, my back and arms really don't need the abuse, I'm finally on antibiotics for this bleck I've been fighting/succumbing to, I have to work, and well, he's the professional. It was fun to see parts of our bathroom troop out the front door piece by piece as I was checking in online and tracking down the Rx from the back-up doctor and the pharmacy to see where it was. sigh.

This evening we fly out to Boston (staying in Braintree) for two nights, and then on to Plimoth Plantation for more embroidery and some visiting with my MIL. I've got a small stack of print pictures of our sailing expedition to pass onto her, which I know she'll appreciate. (Reminds me, I still need to make a disc of pictures from Jan and March for my Mom.) Hopefully this will be a nice relaxing, fun, and invigorating break and I'll come back a little sore but rested. That's my plan anyways. Can't wait to see our list of items in the MFA. Me, my camera and my back-up batteries and memory-card, and notebook are totally ready. Must contain drool. I really hope those pink, green and gold garters are sprang, but they could be a simple braided pattern. We'll see!

I am packed and ready to go. I did most of my packing last night, and have clothes, activity bag (knitting, embroidery, reading, camera), directions to places, and toiletries. Oh, and my wallet in case I forgot anything. One of the other small pluses to having our bathroom remodel starting a few days early is that it will go on for 3 days when I'm not home to have to get up early, and use the hall bath, etc. If I'm really lucky (and Barney's really good) it will all be complete to my satisfaction (aside from the back-ordered light) before Sapphire. I won't count on it, but that would be awesome.

Tags: demolition, home, plimoth, travel

Mood:

excited

2 comments | Comment

04 February 2008 @ 04:48 pm

productive non-SCA weekend

I had a good weekend. (Too good of a weekend if you ask the bathroom scale...)

Friday night we were lazy and ordered a pizza while we watched the Tomb Raider Double Feature on HD TNT. It was cool, with limited commercial interruptions, and I got to contemplate outfits for Bob's next party. Alan had also started a fire in the fireplace, so I watched much of the movies from the floor near the fire with my knitting in hand. I got a start this weekend on a pair of stockings for Plimoth Plantation, and so far things appear to be going well.

Saturday was

alisandramel's Bridal Shower of amazing pinkness. The pink was apparently to annoy her, but there were pink balloons, pink napkins and cutlery, and folks mostly came in pink-ish PJ's. Though Mel in her custom pink union-suit was the best part. We had a great afternoon of sitting around and chatting, and reading from a 1950's book of articles on a Successful Marriage (yes, I found the article on petting amusing), and playing the TP dress game, and eating way too much tasty food, including the biggest, densest, and tastiest cake I'd had in a long time. We all had such a ball that we even overstayed the time allotted, and finally removed the burden of playing hostess from Christy and left.

I had carpooled to the event with Theo, and got a ride home from Vic who was staying with us overnight. I had offered to those who wanted to continue the Slumber Party theme into the night that our home (with bartender) was available. I also called the

attack_laurel and her Bob to come on over since I had a feeling she'd like some Vic time too. We hung out and partied well into the evening with delivery chinese food and sushi, as well as purple drinks from the bar, pool and girlie movies in the basement, and lots of fun chatting in the living room. I ended the evening knitting in the basement, after folks had gone home, and watching Firefly. I then went upstairs to clean up from the party, re-load the dishwasher since Mel's sis had put in items that aren't dishwasher friendly, re-stacked to include other found items of glassware, and dug through the trash to find the missing spoon, japanese soy sauce dish, and pair of permanent chopsticks, before setting the dishwasher to run overnight.

Sunday morning was waffles and chicken mango sausages with Vic before she got on the road to visit with a friend before heading back home. (Vic was kind and helped me unload and reload the dishwasher before she got on the road.) Hooray for fun guests. Then we settled down to the work at hand. Alan had plans to take down and rebuild the 90 gallon fish tank in the living room to do a fish rotation before the delivery of the new 90 gallon fish tank and stand for the den. While Alan was playing with fish and fish poo water, I set to working on the closet re-org in the blue guest room. Phase One was planning and buying materials from the Container Store Elfa shelving sale a few weeks ago. Phase Two was demolition of the old cheap closet system trying not to tear up the walls too much. Phase Three was completed last night before the bulk of the Superbowl, which was spackling, sanding, painting and cutting in on the edges of the closet. Now that those are done, we can get on with Stage Four which is installation of the Elfa closet system and putting back away more organized of the pile of stuff currently taking up residence on the guest bed and floor of the guest room. We pack a goodly amount of stuff in that 7'x5'x2' space. :)

Sadly the weekend ended with the Patriots losing, me screwing up a row in the knitting and having to take it out and re-doing it poorly (twisted stitches), and us losing our two pink-striped torpedo barbs and the jawless rainbow fish in the trauma of moving them to a holding tank while the living room tank is redone. sigh.

Tags: cleaning, crafty, demolition, fish, knitting, party, tv

Mood:

blah

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04 September 2007 @ 09:05 pm

Demo-nation or Coro-lition weekend...

On my door at work I printed out and posted this picture from Theo. The caption I gave it is "What did YOU do this weekend?" Heh heh heh.

Alan I started off our weekend with a trip to Coronation for a transfer of royal stuff as well as to witness Val and Arielle's last court and the Coronation of our new Crowns. It was a wonderful last court, and I admit that I was very touched at the gift of a Undine from Arielle's hand. I also got all teary at Gabrell's well deserved Queen's Order of Courtesy. I tried to get more pictures but each time I pulled out the camera, I had to set it down to go up in court, for Gruffy's Pearl, Alan and I's Undines, and then for Duchess Isabel's due Nonpareil. Valharic and Arielle's reign was wonderful, sincere and inspiring. I do not envy Logan and Rowan for following them. May Their reign be equally inspiring.

I was really not feeling well. I half thought of hitching a ride home with Kynny or Lisette, but Alan and I headed down to Troy for the demo party. Despite getting a nap in the truck, I was a bit grumpy, so I got a Happy Meal and a nice long nap once we got there, and Alan set to work busting stuff up. When I woke up I was feeling much better, and helped with the making of the cooler full of mojitos, and had a lovely night hanging out with bad women and the rest of our destructive friends.

We had a lot of fun at Corby and Thjora's tearing stuff up. Sunday I got in on the action, first helping to remove the nails from the breezeway roof joists, and then helping Corby, Bonnie, and Philip install the new clear corrugated plastic roof, to let in more light. Then Theo gave me a nice lesson on how to operate the the front-end loader, and with some tips from Robear, I excavated ten loads of dirt and added to Fort Red Clay in back and the front fill area. Insert Tim Allen big machine grunt noises here. It was lots of fun, perhaps too so. Afterward, we had another relaxing evening of great company and tasty food.

Monday was too busy for any in progress pictures, but I did try to take some of the end result. Since Corby was on the backhoe, I cleaned up breakfast dishes, and then went to help Thjora and Bonnie take the insulation out from the dining room's former fireplace box. Then BonBon and I got to work on tearing out the dividing wall in the laundry room to make it nice and bigger. That was when I discovered how much the crowbar was my friend. Love the crowbar. Then Robear, Bonnie and I started to take down the non-structural header between the foyer and living room. A job that Alan helped us finish up while Robear gave Thjora a primer on operating the front-end loader and backhoe, TLB.

Happily I got another go on the big moving equipment and created another big pile of dirt excavated from the former carport area. All in all a good day's work. Actually a good weekend worth of work on behalf of many hands. Folks and pups were dog tired by the end, and well deserved of rest.

Finally Alan and I departed for home, got McD's on the road for dinner and made it home around 8. I had just enough time to head out to IKEA to get the parts for a new cabinet for our dining room, thus ending the weekend of massive destruction with a bit of creation. We still need to install the hardware on the doors and drawers, but it is already being useful. Now I just gotta figure out what to do with my mom's old busted buffet.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Oh, and the latest little meme:

NerdTests.com says I'm an Uber Cool Light-Weight Nerd. What are you? Click here!

Tags: demolition, events, meme, pictures

Mood:

amused

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