Clearly Not Everybody Gets It

Today I went to Target and took one of my green bags with me. They even have signs up now that say you save 5 cents if you use your own bag. I laid my bag on top my stuff and the clerk asked me if it was mine. I said yes. I turned to put the pop in my cart and when I looked back, he had put my stuff in a plastic bag and was loading it and my empty bag in the cart.

When I told him he was supposed to put the stuff IN the bag I brought, he did it, but then put the now empty plastic bag in my green bag. I took it out and gave it back to him. I'm sure he threw it away. Good grief!

Taking Woolly Mammoth to New Levels

We have always joked that Bailey is a woolly mammoth because of how furry she is. Today she led her band of merry siblings in an adventure that caused her to be even more woolly than usual. Today's project was to work on installing a new exhaust fan and light. Dad was up in the attic trying to get above the bathroom ceiling. I went to pick up lunch. When I came back, he was going outside to brush himself off. Then we ate lunch.


After lunch we went upstairs and Bailey was just exiting the attic porthole. A few years ago, I had 16 inches of new insulation blown in, and Bailey had about six inches of it stuck in her fur. Then I looked in the hole and Riley was still in there. I got Bailey cleaned up, but Riley didn't want to come out. Here she is back in the attic, nearly up to her neck in insulation.


Eventually she came out and I had to wash her off with a washcloth.

In other news, the bath tub is in and I can shower! I was a little nervous that we weren't going to get the tub through the door, and then I wasn't sure how we were going to get it laid down. But it worked!

What's in Your Living Room?

Probably not a bath tub!


Luckily the old bath tub is out and the new one should be going in soon. How do you get a 400 pound cast iron tub? In a million pieces!

The Shower Still Stands

But that's it. Only the bath tub remains in the bathroom, with plastic around it so I can still shower. And there were no surprises, like water damage or a rotten window sill. Now I just have a garage full of trash to get rid of! Thanks to dad who did all of the work this week.

Project On! The Before Chapter.

Now that the red room is finally complete, it is time to move on to the next project. Next up: the hall bathroom. This bathroom has always been near the top of my list to redo but has gotten bumped to the top as the shower faucet started dripping, then the drip became more of a stream. So the plumbing needs to be replaced, so might as well redo the whole room, right? There is more urgency because this morning I couldn't even get the water to shut off in the shower!

The Before pics: (I'm not sure these adequately represent how lousy it looked and was before). Plus this pic shows the cabinet before I nearly set it on fire.


This tile floor was under the carpet (yes, carpet in the bathroom, glued directly to the tile!)

Dad and I kicked the project off officially on Thursday by uncovering the top part of the window that was hidden behind the tub surround. Yesterday we removed all the remaining tile, the floor, and the cabinets and toilet. The floor had to be removed all the way down, including removing a concrete subfloor and tile.


Only the shower is left because it is the only bath tub and I don't want to be Pig Pen. The trick will be to minimize the time I have no shower. Here's where we are now, minus the cabinet:


In case anyone is curious, I'll post a few pics. Stay tuned!

How Much Does a Scrapbook Weigh?

A ton, if it is in the form of years and years of stuff waiting to be put in a scrapbook. I have, on occasion, had bursts of creativity and gone all out with scrapbooking. However, this rarely happens. Most of the time, I just continue to collect stuff in shoe boxes, waiting for the day I feel compelled to get working, and never able to find anything in all the shoe boxes.

Well, this weekend I was relieved of much of that burden. I've decided it doesn't have to all be at the level of my other stuff. I just would like it to be in order and out of the boxes. So I bought a bunch of 2 inch notebooks and now I'm working on getting everything in the notebook in order. Some things get hole-punched, some things just go in plastic sleeves.

It isn't elegant, but it would allow me to find something if I was looking for it. The three-ring notebooks allow me to add things in if I find something, or move stuff into another notebook if it gets too full. And someday, if I have a burst of creativity, I can move up to something more fancy. And the pictures stay in their photo albums.

I feel like I've been freed from the weight of all these potential scrapbooks. I still have a long way to go to get everything in, but I emptied three shoe boxes and one giant box. So here's to my new plan!

Windmills are Coming!

(In my head this is said to the tune of "Santa Packs Are Coming...")

Apparently interesting things do not happen to me now that I am not traveling, so there has been a dearth of posts around here lately.

But as I was driving home from work, I crossed over the train tracks and there was an entire train loaded with the giant blades of those huge monster-ish windmills. Each blade had its own train car, and there were bunches. Maybe they were headed somewhere else, but somebody is getting a lot of them. They are much bigger than you would think. We passed the blades on oversize trucks on the highway once and they are BIG.

I have all the Europe summary to get written, but I'm not yet motivated to do it. I should before I forget it all...