Business as Usual

Come January first it’s difficult to avoid the inevitable “New year? New you!” assault on our already fragile psyches. This bullshit is everywhere!

Just this morning, upon starting up my computer, I was encouraged to “get fitter in 31 days” and teased to investigate the “4 things that will change my life in 2014”. (I’ll admit I was intrigued. Only four?)

Frankly, I didn’t read either piece. Nor have I fully investigated what’s in my blog reader. I’m willing to bet that all kinds of folks have composed these same sorts of posts. While I’m sure that I could come up with my own list — numbering, I’m certain, more than a mere four things that would change the course of my existence in 2014, I won’t be doing any such thing. If I were crazy enough to commit scads of time to this type of nonsense, I promise you that I would not be inclined to share anything that could possibly be used against me — mostly, I’m certain, by my husband. Yeah. I can just picture Fang and the psychiatrist poring over that kind of list.

I may be a little kooky, but I’m not nutty enough to give Fang that sort of information. If he wants to have me committed, he’ll have to do the work himself, take his own inventory, gather his own information. I’m surely not going to make it easy for him.

It’s not that I don’t have goals. It’s not that I don’t believe that writing them down makes them more tangible and, therefore, more achievable. It’s that I’m not narcissistic enough to believe that anyone else, outside of Fang and the court-appointed psychiatrist, would want to spend their time reading about how I’m going to address spice rack organization. (For the record, I’m not. The vanilla and the ginger will just have to learn to coexist.)

I will say this, though. I will continue purging the hovel. That’s something that I resolved to do last year — and I did, do it last year, that is. It’s just that I didn’t finish it. It’s been a semi-successful project, but it’s still a work in progress. I didn’t give myself a time limit when I embarked upon it, though it would be nice to have it done by next Christmas. Barring any major setbacks — like, for example, Fang giving me a hard time about painting the wall in our bedroom plum (I think he’s got his heart set on something in the cinnamon family) — I’m pretty sure it can be done.

You never know with Fang though, do you? He does tend to get worked up about things like paint colors and towel bars. I’m never quite sure what-all he’ll choose to fall on his sword over on any given day. It could be festoon valances. Or area rugs. He’s got definite opinions on area rugs — none of them positive.

For those of you who have been following along this year, I’m sure it will come as no surprise to you that Fang thinks area rugs are “stupid”. Not, perhaps, quite as stupid as shelving, but stupid just the same.

I haven’t had the heart to tell him my plans for the bookshelf that’s coming out of my daughter’s room (as soon as she gets some wall shelves, that is). These plans involve the two things that Fang hates most — painting things and hanging things. I’ve been toying with the idea of improving the bookshelf by experimenting with milk paint and I’m certain that a French cleat is the best way to hang such a thing. So, that should be fun for Fang.

What Fang also doesn’t realize is that I have big plans for “Beatle Fest Weekend”. It’s the weekend that, for him, means spending some time relaxing with his brothers and his cousins. It’s the weekend that, for me, means that I’ll get to paint the hallway butterscotch — in relative peace and quiet. I may even go nuts and, if time allows, turn that old door that I purchased into a coat rack of sorts — I am envisioning a crackle finish.

In many ways, this year’s resolutions are no different from last year’s or the year before that or the year before that. They all involve driving my husband just a little bit crazier. And, you know, I enjoy that sort of thing. What’s nice, though, and what I don’t think Fang has been able to fully comprehend (or appreciate), is that at least he can now mumble to himself, twitch, and talk smack about me while his ass is plopped on his new grey chair.

Soon, he won’t even have to look at the ugly green curtains while he’s enjoying his ridiculous reality shows. Very soon, he’ll have some lovely white faux wood blinds to keep the light from interfering with his big screen. With any luck, there may even be a ceramic owl lamp in our future. (Fingers crossed, people! Fingers crossed!)

This year, then, it will just be business as usual here at the hovel. I’ll keep you posted! (I’ll bet you can’t wait to see that owl lamp!)

Mind the Manual!

I like to think of myself as a “straight-shooter”, a “tell it like it is” kind of gal. And, for the most part, I am that. I try to be as honest and as straightforward as I can be without being mean. There are, however, certain situations that call for the use of other, more subtle methods of persuasion. These situations include, but are not limited to, any time I find myself in a position where my husband and I are at odds over how to go about a thing — recently, during “the hovel purge”, we have found ourselves in such a position on a number of occasions.

For many years I have been threatening to throw together something called “Fang’s Manual For Living”, which, for the sake of brevity, we commonly refer to up in this joint as “The Manual”. We refer to it pretty often. Oh, yes. We do. Seldom does a day go by in which Fang does not utter something along the lines of “Mind the Manual!”

We can regularly be overheard saying things like, “Oh, I can’t use a butter knife in lieu of a flathead screwdriver? I didn’t realize that. That’s in ‘The Manual’, is it? Okay. Now I know. It won’t happen again!”

Of course this is an outright lie. And, I will definitely employ the same method again. Why? Two reasons. First, I’m not going to go through the trouble of digging out the toolbox when a butter knife, which is far more accessible, can very easily tighten the screw on the drawer of the kitchen cabinet — a drawer that, as luck would have it, actually houses the butter knives! Second, because his rules annoy me. So, there!

The reason I’ve yet to compile this tome is because I’ve always thought that it would be a great deal of work for very little return — Fang has a lot of rules. While it would provide an amusing look into the way in which my husband’s mind works, it probably wouldn’t be useful to anyone living outside of the hovel.

And then it occurred to me that there may, indeed, be large numbers of folks who have their own Fangs, their own significant others who have their own manuals. I’m here to tell you that ignoring their rules isn’t always the best way to go. They get a little excited when you do this. There are, however, other weapons in the arsenal that can be employed.

This is especially important to know when you find yourself in a position to deal with matters that are included in Chapter Four. Chapter Four covers, among other home improvement tasks, hanging things on walls. Getting around the rules set forth in Chapter Four often requires that you bring out the big guns.

If you find yourself in this unfortunate position, do not despair. All is not lost. Use this recent conversation between Fang and myself as your guide.

What I really want is to put some sort of inspirational quote up on the wall over the television — possibly something from “Harry Potter”, I haven’t decided yet. I know that Fang will think this “stupid” — and not just the quote that I may or may not have in mind, but the idea of any quote on any wall.

What follows is an example of how I managed, through what others might term “manipulation”, but that I like to think of as “mental sleight of hand” — it has a much better ring to it than “manipulation”, don’t you think? — to bring Fang around to my way of thinking. Sure, he hasn’t wholeheartedly embraced it, but, as you shall see, he has reconciled himself to this design choice.

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Hon, the living room looks swell, but I think we need to put a few pictures up on the walls. Ya know, I was thinking, some fine art might be nice. You like that sort of thing.

Yes, I do. Like that sort of thing. I’m weird like that.

After Christmas I’d like to paint and get the new blinds. Once that’s been accomplished, I was thinking that we could put a ledge over there. (I say this as I point to the blank wall in the dining area.) I’d like to create a gallery of family photos and such. I’ll put them on a ledge and display them that way. (I say this because I KNOW that Fang has an affinity for family photos. Feel free to substitute whatever your partner has a soft spot for — I hope it’s not ceramic replicas of rodeo clowns, but that’s really your problem, isn’t it?)

You want to paint??? Again???

This room has never been painted. At least not by us. So, I’m not sure where the “again” you’re referring to comes in.

We just painted.

To be clear, “We” only painted Fangette’s room. “I” painted the hallway and the bathroom.

Let’s get back to the blank walls.

Let’s!

I feel like a ledge is another way of saying shelf. Is it? Because I don’t want any more shelves. You have a mania for shelves. You see a blank wall and think, ‘That would be a nice place for a shelf!’ I don’t understand why you need to put shelves everywhere.

Because they hold and display things. And we have things. Things that need to be held. Things that need to be displayed.

But, you’ve got all of these shelves! (He says this as he is pointing to the two 16-unit cubby shelves that line the living room wall.)

Agreed, but they’re more for storage. I’d like the ledge to be for displaying things.

Stop calling it a ledge. Let’s just agree that it’s a shelf and dispense with the lying. And, what kinds of ‘things’ are going to be displayed on this ledge, I mean, shelf?

I just told you. Family photos and such.

Yeah. It’s the “and such” that worries me.

Don’t worry your pretty little head over it.

You’re going to put bowls on it, aren’t you? Or roosters? Or owls? You are, aren’t you? I know you are.

Perhaps. We’ll see how it goes.

How what goes? Your trip to Home Goods? I’m telling you right now that I don’t want to see any bowls or roosters or owls up there. Or platters. I forgot about platters. No platters. That place is ugly with platters. And owls. And roosters.

And bowls. You forgot to mention bowls.

Yeah, them too.

I’m not making any promises.

Oh, my God! The walls are going to be lined with shelves aren’t they? And platters!

Don’t worry. There’ll be family photos sprinkled in.

What about the fine art? Where are you going to put the fine art? If you’ve got all these shelves with platters and pictures where will you put your fine art? Huh? You didn’t think of that, did you? And do not say that you’re going to hang pictures behind the television. I don’t want any pictures back there! They’re liable to fall and bust the TV. You know I don’t want anything back there.

Yes, I know. You’re very concerned about the remote possibility that the next earthquake that hits New Jersey will cause pictures to fly off of the walls and “bust the TV”.

It could happen. We had an earthquake here a few years ago. Do you remember that?

I do. I was in the kitchen sorting through plastic ware. Do you remember how you thought that I was somehow responsible for the tremors that we experienced? Do you recall how you thought that whatever I was “up to” in the kitchen had caused the house to rattle and shake a bit?

Well, how did I know what you were doing?

You were in the next room in a five-room apartment. And, really, putting away plastic ware does not, generally, require sledgehammering, does it? I mean, I would have had to be using such a thing to cause the shaking and rolling that we experienced in that minor quake.

Okay, so we do have to worry about earthquakes.

Nothing even came close to falling off the walls in that — the largest quake we have ever experienced here in New Jersey. Not even close. Frankly, if you hadn’t thought I was ‘up to something’, you wouldn’t even have noticed it.

On the subject of you being “up to something”, let’s firm up this fine art thing. Let’s get back to how you haven’t figured it into the shelf/photo equation. And, let me remind you, earthquakes or no, nothing is getting hung up behind MY television. Nothing.

I know. I know. Nothing can be hung above or behind a television EVER. It’s in “The Manual”. Chapter Four, I think.

I believe so. I’m glad you’ve familiarized yourself with that chapter.

I have. But, I was thinking that there is a great deal of “dead space” above that television. You know what would eliminate this problem? One of those thingies. You know, those thingies that allow the television to hang from the wall. Those thingies are nice. They are designed to allow the television to tilt and to telescope. Are you familiar with them? Having one of those would eliminate all of that dead space.

They’re called brackets, I think. And, are you crazy? Those things can’t be safe.

They must be safe. Hundreds of thousands of people install them every day.

Hundreds of thousands of people ride roller coasters every day, too. They’re not safe either.

Oh, please. Let’s not have another roller coaster conversation.

Let’s not. Let’s get back to the fine art that you are NOT going to hang anywhere near my television. A television that will also not be suspended from any wall by any bracket. It’s fine where it is. On a stand. A nice stand with drawers. A stand that I spent four hours putting together.

A stand with one drawer askew.

Never mind that. It’s fine. You’re the only one who notices it.

I’m the only one who says anything about it. Everyone who sees it notices it. I’ll bet the students at “St. Mary’s School For the Blind” would notice it.

Whatever. What’s your plan for this “dead space” behind the television. I’m intrigued.

Have we abandoned the fine art conversation?

We’ll get back to that. What’s going on behind my television. That’s what I’d like to know.

I was thinking that I could put a quote up there.

Absolutely not. Quotes are stupid.

Really? How, I wonder, if they’re so “stupid” did they become famous quotes at all?

Okay. Quotes aren’t stupid. Quotes painted on walls are stupid.

I could order a decal. It’ll be nice.

No decals.

I don’t think “No Decals” is in “The Manual”.

I’ll work it into the revision. No decals.

Because they’re stupid, too.

When they’re decals of quotes they are.

What if I got a decal that read: “Mind ‘The Manual'”?

Now you’re just being ridiculous.

Okay, I’ll figure something out. After we paint and hang the ledge.

That’s fine. Whatever. Just no quotes.

What about roosters or owls?

I give up.

Okay.

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Do you see what I did there? With a bit of finesse I skirted my way around “The Manual” and his lack of vision where wall quotes are concerned. I’ll get my ledge. I’ll get my platters, my bowls, my roosters, my owls. I’ll display my family pictures. I’ll fill that dead space with a quote. He’ll be fine with that, knowing that it could have been a rooster. And this, my friends, is how these things are accomplished.

You’re welcome.

photo credits:
rooster

Dining Out May Be An Option!

Our furniture arrived late last week. That’s the good news. The bad news? I’ve got a great deal of purging to do. A great deal.

I made a pact with myself when the hovel purge began — if something doesn’t have a place, if I can’t fit it, out it goes. That’s easier said than done, of course. I find this decision particularly difficult to stick to when it comes to kitchen items.

It’s killing me to toss perfectly good plastic ware, for example. I know I’m having a hard time, specifically with the plastic ware, because it’s expensive to replace. I’m trying to limit myself to hanging on to just two of each size/shape. Also, if the pieces have become separated from their lids, they’re goners. (Luckily, many of them have been! How that happens is still a mystery to me, but, I’ll take what I can get at this point.)

There are some other kitchen-related items that I know I can’t part with, but, for the life of me, I can’t seem to find the space to store them, either. These items include, but are not limited to, the toaster, the small crock-pot, the waffle iron, and the extra coffee maker. It may sound easier, to the uninitiated, to toss these things and just say “Sorry, we don’t have a toaster. You’ll just have to ‘make do’!”, but that seems unfair to the toast-eating population that reside here at the hovel — a population that rarely includes me, by the way — doesn’t it?

I could probably get rid of the small slow-cooker. I only use it a couple of times a year. It comes in handy, though, for those occasions when I do need it — Superbowl Sunday comes to mind. It may have to go, though. Folks around here may just have to get used to the idea that there will be no more Swedish meatballs on the menu. (It’s the perfect size for Swedish meatballs!)

I don’t know why I’ve even entertained the idea of putting either the waffle iron or the extra coffee maker on the chopping block. Neither one of those puppies are going anywhere. I don’t care if I have to put them under my bed. They’re staying.

Sure, I could make pancakes instead of waffles, but no one really likes pancakes — by “no one”, I really mean me and Fangette. Fang will, generally, eat anything put in front of him. Fangette and I are a little more discriminating when it comes to your batter-related products. Also, pancakes are far more labor-intensive; waffles are easier to make — drop the batter on, wait for the light to go off, and BAM! they’re done. So, yeah, I’m keeping the waffle iron.

As far as the extra coffee maker goes, I could try to convince myself that I’ll never run out of K-cups, but once in a while it happens. It always seems to happen on those mornings when I desperately NEED a cup of coffee — for those of you familiar with my capacity for coffee-drinking you know that’s pretty much EVERY morning! Unless I have the flu, I don’t go a day without my coffee. Of course, when I have the flu, that’s when I need the toaster, isn’t it?

Just when I think I’ve made some real progress, I’m faced with these difficult decisions — decisions that will have both long- and short-term effects on my ability to function in my kitchen. Part of me would like to box up the whole kit and kaboodle, to be honest with you. I’m beginning to think that dining out may be an excellent option.

Miles To Go Before I Sleep

Unfortunately, pulling a phone out of the wall is no longer an option!

I think I’ll lay the blame for my current state of mind on my stupid sucking-the-life-out-of-me-for-no-money job, my daughter, the ever-delightful Fangette, whose stress level, as a result of applying to four-year nursing programs, writing college essays, and her last-minute decision to continue to play field hockey beyond high school, is about an eleven on a scale of one-to-ten — forcing mine to hover somewhere around twelve, the foolish plantar fasciitis that I have been plagued with and which is making me crankier than usual (just try to imagine THAT!), and, last but not least, the screeching halt that the hovel purge has come to because I have neither the time nor the energy to get back to it in the midst of all this and other bullshit.

Just for shits and giggles, I’ll throw Project Graduation in there, too — add it to the list of the things that are making me crazy at the moment. I’ve got to book the venue, I’ve got to stay on top of the fundraising, I’ve got to figure out the activities — the list goes on and on and on. Luckily, I’ve at least got some folks to help me with this time-sucker. Otherwise, I swear, I’d be getting a DJ and holding it on the football field. I hope it doesn’t come to that.

One would think, though, that here in the 21st Century, in the shadow of one of the world’s largest cities, that I could just organize the Project Graduation stuff on line, wouldn’t one? But, no. I cannot do that. What I can do, what I have done, is I can write emails via websites and wait for a representative to contact me. Sure, why not? I’ve got all the time in the world for that nonsense. And, really, this is all so that they can sell you other things while they have you on the phone — upgrades and such. I don’t want upgrades. I just want to book the damn venue. I want to be able to choose a menu, check off a few boxes, and move the hell along. It’s so annoying, really. I swear I would pay extra to any place that would just make this crap easier. Really, I would.

They should have a “Don’t Bother Me!” package. Everyone should. I have been trying to schedule my daughter’s Senior portrait retakes — of course Fangette is unhappy with the first ones. Can I do that on the internet? No, I cannot. I must spend forty-five minutes on hold — listening, by the way, to John Mayer’s “Room for Squares” album in its entirety. I wasn’t that wild for it back in 2001 when I listened to it on purpose, I’m less inclined to like it as hold music. So, I spent forty-five minutes on hold only to be informed by the “main office” that they could not reschedule my daughter’s appointment.

What they could do, in addition to giving me the number for the local studio (the people who can supposedly help me)– where I was prompted to leave a message that they “guaranteed” would be answered within twenty-four hours (I am STILL waiting for them to return my call — clearly their idea of a “guarantee” and mine are somewhat different) — is that they could sell me a $300 picture package. This is something that the main office could do immediately. So, my choices were to leave a message with their satellite office and wait twenty-four hours (HA!) for them to get back to me or shell out several hundred dollars for pictures that I don’t want. Their response to “Why, in the name of God, is YOUR number on the flyer at school advertising retakes? Why?”, was, crickets. They may have said something after the thunderous silence that followed my query, but I’ll never know. I had by that point hung up and dialed their local studio — the people who are all about guaranteeing things that they have no intention of delivering. I don’t hold out a great deal of hope that I’ll even have the pictures prior to my daughter’s high school graduation.

Did I mention that I’m doing all of this — including working — practically one-footed? Well, I am. I’ve gone to the doctor regarding my foot. Following a cortisone injection, an ultrasound treatment, wrapping, icing, stretching, arch supports, anti-inflammatory medications, several $40 co-pays, and an enormous amount of frustration, this stellar medical professional advised me to “stay off of it”. That’s sound advice for your average office worker or for someone who, I don’t know, sleeps for a living, but it’s not a care plan that I can be compliant with — not without some help from him or from his worker bees.

I explained to him that I would have to be placed on temporary disability in order to follow his instructions as, if I don’t work, I don’t get paid. We don’t have any paid sick days where I work. He countered by telling me that when I return in three weeks (THREE WEEKS!) if the pain is still unmanageable then we could visit the “disability thing” (his words). It is a testament to my good nature that I did not tell him to “go suck an egg”. Instead, I calmly explained that I have collected disability twice in my lifetime — once following the birth of my daughter, once following a surgical procedure that required me to keep my head stationary for almost six weeks. In other words, I’m not some gal who’s trying to “milk the system”. I don’t think being put out of work for two weeks and collecting money from a government fund that I have paid into for over thirty years is going to put undue strain on anybody. Working through this pain and inflammation, though, that’s certainly putting undue strain on me. (Not to mention those around me — I can’t speak for them, but I’m sure they’d agree that I’m something other than delightful these days!)

I’m not sure what, exactly, the problem is. It could be that this is what the State requires before they will qualify me for the short-term disability — he wouldn’t answer me when I asked him this very direct question — I suspect that he may not know. It could be that the person who fills out the forms in his office is backed up or out of the office with his or her own malady. He or she could be cruising the Caribbean. I simply do not know.

What I do know is this: I’m giving this exactly three more days. If it doesn’t feel significantly better, I’m going to find a doctor who will do what needs to be done — if that includes filling out a few forms so that I can have the necessary time out of work — while still being able to pay my bills — in order to facilitate the healing process, so be it. If there is another solution that will allow me to work pain-free, I’ll take that instead. You see, I’m not trying to take advantage of Uncle Sam here. Really, I’m not. I just want to feel better. Is that too much to ask?

I’d like nothing more than to crawl into bed now, but I can’t. I’ve got emails to write, essays to read, and messages to leave. And, it would seem, miles to go before I sleep.

photo credit: phone

Forging an Alliance

Reinventing myself is highly unlikely at this stage of the game. To be honest, I don’t know that even if the possibility for large-scale change existed, I’d be all that willing to embrace it. I kind of like who I’ve become — with the possible exception of the “stressed-out” me. She’s kind of a bitch. She needs a “chill pill”.

What I’ve come to realize is that I’m at my most content when I am in the process of creating something — sometimes that “something” is as simple as dinner, other times it’s more complicated, but certainly not Herculean, like a piece of writing. Sure, these are often small accomplishments, but they are accomplishments just the same. Something is almost always better than nothing.

Creating order out of chaos, which has taken shape in what I’ve come to call “the hovel purge”, has been full of lessons — not to mention trash bags, paint, and umpteen trips to the home improvement store! I’m happy to report that it’s going well — there have been some fits and starts, some successes and failures, some scaling down, and some compromises along the way, but all in all, I’d say that this reorganization project is well on its way to being an achievement that I can be proud of.

Who would have thought that through the simple act of decluttering, I’d learn something new, something that could be applied to more than things. Mostly I’ve learned that tossing what doesn’t work or doesn’t matter while keeping the things that do is about much more than just things — it’s about everything.

Picking up a paintbrush, sorting through a drawer, making a curtain — these are all activities that I have engaged in following stressful shifts at work — I have found myself looking forward to leaving behind the physical and mental strain that comes with a day of working in a restaurant and taking up the physical and mental strain that comes with a night of painting — of recreating — a wall or a bench or a bunch of towel hooks.

It’s helped my marriage , too. While I certainly have a good number of friends and acquaintances and a job that requires advanced social skills, what I really am, underneath it all, is a loner — possibly even more so than my quieter and more reserved husband. I live very much inside my own head. Allowing my husband to board the redecorating train wasn’t easy at first, but now I sometimes even allow him to act as the conductor. In doing so, we have forged an alliance — mostly against my daughter, the self-proclaimed “Queen of Disorganization”. As alliances go, it’s working out rather well.

For years we argued about furnishings — he’s more the “I want something comfortable and don’t care if there’s an afghan covering the ripped cushion on my favorite chair” kind of guy. I’m somewhat less willing to live like that. Mostly, though, I had just given up. I simply refused to argue about the ripped chair. And then it dawned on me that, together, we could probably find some middle ground. And we did. While I would one day love to have a beautiful velvet settee, for now I’ve settled for the slipcovered Ikea stuff — the stuff that I can toss in the wash. And I’m happy with it. More importantly, so is he.

If only I could get my kid to stop leaving a trail of shin guards, hockey sticks, turf-encrusted sneakers, and backpacks from the front door to her bedroom, we’d be all set.

Related posts: The Hovel Purge posts

photo credit: chair

How NOT to Spray Paint!

Some days I feel like I work on a chain gang. I know. I know. More #middleclasswhitepeopleproblems. While I am white, I don’t know if I’m middle class — I don’t even know if the middle class exists anymore. Let’s just leave that subject to the economists and the social scientists, shall we? I really just want to bitch about housework.

At this writing, my refrigerator needs a good once over (really, it could probably use a twice over, but who’s got time for THAT?). I really should liberate that half-load of towels that is languishing in the bottom of the hamper in my daughter’s room — I’m sure they would enjoy swishing around in the Kenmore in the company of my bed sheets — I can ALWAYS make a full load of laundry up in this joint. No worries there. The cleaning supplies — the ones I liberated from the hall closet and under the sink — are currently making their home in the middle of my kitchen floor. They, like almost everything else in this place, are awaiting a long overdue organization intervention.

In fairness, the kitchen WAS clean and organized until the other day when I decided to paint the adjacent hallway. I’m sure you can relate to how these projects take shape — I had to clean out the closet in the hallway before I could paint the hallway — it was there I discovered a cache of cleaning supplies (more of a horde, if I’m being honest). In my quest for something heretofore unknown to me — organization — I decided that I needed to consolidate these potions and poisons with some of their more accessible compatriots — the ones that were hanging out under the kitchen sink. Consolidation is the key to organization! At least I think it is. I have very little experience in this area.

I also needed a base of operations for my painting supplies. I placed the brushes, the pots of paints, the sandpaper, and the blue tape aside of the ammonia, the cleansers, and the polishes. They were happily hanging out together until my search for the sponge, the putty knife, and/or the caulk gun disrupted the controlled chaos and replaced it with, well, just chaos. Now, of course, what we’ve got going on there is what is commonly known in the business as a “hot mess”.

In the midst of the mayhem that the hallway project has become, I took an old metal cabinet outside and spray painted it — because I decided that it needed to be black. I decided that it needed to be black immediately. It needed to be black concurrent to the hallway being blue. I wonder if you can imagine what comes next? If you were able to see me — and unless you’re planning on showing up at my door, you won’t be doing any such thing if I have anything to do with it. There will be no pictures of me in this post — I still have some modicum of self-respect left, for crying out loud! Once you have a mental image, though, you might be inclined to toss me, along with the pile of debris in the kitchen, into the “hot mess” category.

Did you know that spray paint — that stuff that adheres to rusty metal — also bonds, perhaps forever, to one’s skin? It does. All I can say is this: “Wear gloves, kids, like the back of the container (probably) tells you to!”

Who can read that teeny, tiny writing on the back of the can? Children can, that’s who — though I’m sure there’s some warning on there about children USING this type of product, there’s certainly no law against them READING about its use. I should have hired a kid — mine is never any help in these situations. In truth, I only read the first couple of lines under the WARNING! heading, so I’m not certain what, if anything, the manufacturers had to say about children using their product. I only got so far with it before I decided that I would need a magnifying glass and the power of seven suns to actually make out that which was imprinted upon it — likely with spray paint — in the smallest font known to man. I don’t even own a magnifying glass (at least I don’t think I do — who knows what I’ll find in those “office supply” baskets that still need sorting through). And the space travel required to find a planet with seven suns? That’s just out of the question.

We won’t even discuss that common sense would dictate that a person using this type of product should wear protective gear — possibly something resembling a beekeeper’s suit — we will NOT even discuss it. What we will discuss is my success — because that’s what I’m choosing to focus on. I’m happy to report that the cabinet is now black.

The fact that I look like a victim of a spray tan gone horribly wrong? I’m not going to get all worked up over it. Hopefully it’ll fade. If it doesn’t, I suppose I could just look for work in a minstrel show. Of course (and thankfully), I’ll probably need a time machine for that. Frankly, if I had access to a time machine I’d be far more likely to use it to travel to the future — a future where my house is organized, painted, and redecorated — so what if I have to go through life explaining that I’m speckled because I’m an idiot who can’t read the warning labels on a can of paint? At least I’ll be able to come home to a relaxing environment, wrapped in the bosom of my loving family — the ones who won’t be seen in public with a woman who looks like Al Jolson’s far less talented cousin.

If you liked this, you can read more about “The Hovel Purge” here! Enjoy!

photo credit: spray paint

Help Wanted: Bathroom Attendant

The shelves can only hold so many towels!

Once again I find myself in a battle of wills with Fang, the traditionalist. This time, it’s over a ladder. (Under a ladder would just be bad form, not to mention bad luck!)

A couple of days ago I reported that I had painted my bathroom. Everyone knows you can’t paint your bathroom fuschia and put the same old crap up on the walls that had been there when the bathroom was tannish-pink. Everyone does know that, right? Well, if you didn’t, now you do. You’re welcome!

I’ve always had storage issues in my bathroom, as I have zero floor space— and I do mean “zero” — a problem that no amount of paint will remedy. In an effort not to hang the wastebasket from the ceiling, I have to be creative. I must employ other storage solutions. I hung some shelves, but they won’t do for towel storage on a daily basis. While looking for some new bath hardware, I stumbled across something called an “over-the-door towel rack” — perfect! Of course I got it home and it doesn’t work properly — no amount of jimmying or repositioning will make the door close with the presence of the towel rack.

As much as I liked the towel rack, I’m pretty confident that I could not convince my family to do their business in what amounts to an al fresco environment — plus, who needs to see that?! It also occurred to me that even if they could be convinced and I could learn to live with the bathroom door being forever ajar, it might be slightly uncomfortable for guests — at least the one’s whose company I enjoy. It would, no doubt, work to my advantage for the odd unwanted guest, though. I could just ply them with beverages, knowing that they would be forced to leave once they found it necessary to heed the call of nature.

Alas, the over-the-door towel bar did not provide the necessary solution to my problem, but I am enamored of the concept. “No big deal”, I thought, “I’ll just get one that ATTACHES to the back of the door. That’ll work just fine!” And it would’ve worked just fine — if only such an item existed here in the Northern Hemisphere in the early part of the 21st Century, which, of course, it doesn’t. As anyone who owns a computer and is faced with such a dilemma is wont to do, I turned to my old friend, Pinterest, for inspiration. I found that some folks, including some lady called Martha Stewart, had solved this problem very simply — by attaching two or three towel bars to the back of their bathroom door! Well, why didn’t I think of that?

With this keen idea in mind, I began to look for three black 18″ towel bars to use in lieu of the over-the-door towel bar. If it was good enough for Martha Stewart, it was good enough for me! Guess what? This turned out to be an exercise in futility — because black, I guess, is not de rigeur these days in modern bathroom accessorizing. Black! Not readily available! What the….?

Well, that’s not entirely true. If I want to purchase a decent black towel bar, I can — but I have to do so from one of those specialty stores or websites — to the tune of upwards of $80/bar. That’s $240 — in American money — to hang a few towels from something black on the back of my bathroom door. That’s ridiculous. I could employ a bathroom attendant for less. You know, like they do at some of your finer restaurants. She (I wouldn’t be comfortable with a “he”) could just come in every day and hand us towels, spritz us with the perfume/cologne of our choice, and ask us questions like, “Do you need a safety pin?”

I was beginning to think that this, the hiring of a bathroom attendant, would be easier than finding a simple way to address my towel hanging needs — and then it hit me — I could just hang a ladder on the back of my bathroom door! It, like a towel bar, has rungs! As luck would have it, almost immediately, I found two ladders that would fit on the back of the bathroom door! Success!

I instructed Fang to abandon the Google search for the perfect (and affordable) black towel bar. I was relieved that he could finally stop showing me “oil-rubbed bronze” accessories, all the while trying to convince me that “oil-rubbed bronze” is the same as black. (For the record, let me tell you what I told Fang, “‘Oil-rubbed bronze’ is NOT black!”) I explained to him that our prayers had been answered. I showed him the ladder that I had found on Etsy for $50 (FREE SHIPPING!) and the one that I had stumbled across on Ebay ($30.10 with shipping).

At this point, I figured that we would haggle over the $20 price difference between the two items that I had found — the $30 one would require me to paint it or to stain it (no doubt there would be some sanding involved, as well) — the other one would be ready to hang right out of the box. If I’d wanted to paint things, I could have just bought the “oil-rubbed bronze” bullshit and done just that. I don’t want to paint anything, so the $50 number is, obviously, my first choice.

Not surprisingly — I know Fang all too well — his problem is not only with the $20 price difference. His problem is also with the fact that I want to hang towels from a ladder mounted to the back of my bathroom door — because, as he so eloquently pointed out, “that’s just stupid”. I’m not even going to get into the dialogue that followed THAT comment, but I will tell you what I did do — I showed him the many, many examples of people hanging towels on ladders that exist on the internet. And there are many.

What there are not many of, however, are photos showing the ladder itself hanging from the back of a door — most people lean them up against a wall — most people have the floor and the wall space to do that sort of thing. Even if I hung the trash bin from the ceiling, freeing up the necessary floor space, I wouldn’t have a wall to lean it on. What I can do, though, is hang it on the back of the damn bathroom door.

He then went on to grill me as to how I was going to accomplish such a feat of engineering. Seriously. My reply: “Oh, I don’t know. I thought I’d get crazy and use a couple of screws.” He is still convinced that I can’t “make it work” — as if I’m suggesting that I can fit a square peg into a round hole. This task, as I see it, will require four things — a drill, wall anchors, screws, and a screwdriver.

I’ll just wind up doing it, as I do every other home improvement project, when he’s not around to watch me. And then it’ll be done. And I’ll have my back-of-the-door towel rack. That I’ll have been right about the ladder? That will just be icing on the cake, my friends, icing on the cake! If, for some unforeseen reason, the ladder thing doesn’t work out — I fear that I will be forced to resort to plan B: the bathroom attendant.

photo credit: towels (me)

“Miss Marge’s” one-armed vanity chair redo!

Just an update on a couple of my painting projects — I know some of you were interested!

Here’s a pic of the “new” side table — Alas, I cannot find the “before” pic! But, trust me, it was old and ugly… I used some homemade grey chalk paint — then I projected the image onto the table top, painted it out, and “Voila!” — I finished it off with some dark soft wax… I’m not 100% wild for the results here —- I must admit, but it’s done and I’ll live with it for a while before I change anything. I still have to do something to the top of the “blah!” coffee table — I’m thinking of the NYC skyline or the Eiffel tower… we shall see 🙂

Here, though, is something I am far more proud of…. let me give you a little of the “back story” on this old doll… she belonged to my friend’s mother — “Miss Marge”. I really enjoyed any time I spent with “Miss Marge”… she was a cool old gal! Since her passing, her daughter has been going through her home, tagging things to be kept, things to be sold, and things to be given away. In the midst of this extremely difficult job, my friend thought of me. She kindly invited me to come over and have a look around. She wanted me to have a piece of “Miss Marge”. I was moved and delighted. I found a couple of things that I am planning to update. One of them is this old one-armed vanity chair. The minute I saw it, I fell in love with it — much as I did with “Miss Marge” all those years ago.

Look at that leg!

Great bones, right?

Who could resist the lines or the gams on this old gal? Not me. That’s for sure! She needed a bit of cleaning, some paint, some white glaze, a bit of distressing and, of course, a new “frock” — I was up to the challenge! I think she came out great. She will now occupy the coveted spot in my front hall — where she will reside below one of my all-time favorite photographs — V-J Day in Times Square (Alfred Eisenstaedt, August 14, 1945) — I think they look great together (sadly, my limited photographic skills did not allow for a pic that shows them together)!

And now, for the “after” pics — and, believe it or not, I chose the fabric — kind of folk-arty, right? — and when I got home discovered a can of “oops!” paint that I had purchased for about $4 was an almost perfect match — it was destiny!

How cool is this?

Hello, Gorgeous!

Now, of course, I have to figure out what color to paint the metal pantry (also courtesy of “Miss Marge”) that lives across the corridor from this baby. My husband suggested “off-white”, but I’m thinking more along the lines of an “apple green” with a red rooster graphic — Of course I am!