Tag: frustration

The Gutting of the Bathroom Day 5

Day Four hit a snag. Big surprise. Mitch started to remove a one foot section of sheet rock from the end of the remaining closet and found the water supply vent pipe. The original plan was to remove the door from its present location which makes it a very shallow closet, cut off one foot from the end of the closet and move the door to the end, making the closet deeper and giving the room a more open feeling. Well not now. Moving the vent pipe would entail a very extensive, expensive and time consuming operation.

Mitch was really reluctant to tell me for fear of me going ballistic. Just one more reason to hate this house. No matter what I want to do, we have to alter and adjust our plans. I’ve thrown so many fits over the past five years, when we first started on this renovation path. But this time I surprised him and just shrugged my shoulders and said, “Oh well, we’ll just leave the door where it is and forget about moving the pipe.

He didn’t realize it probably helped that I had gone shopping earlier and bought the faucets, mirrors and fixtures that I liked without any interference, then came home and had two glasses of wine. I was feeling very relaxed.

Day Five today I’m going to scrape the nasty popcorn ceiling off, which is lots of fun. I have to stand on a ladder, wear a mask and goggles and stretch in the most contorted positions to scrape sections of the ceiling. Get down, move the ladder, climb the ladder, stretch, scrape, get down, move the ladder and on and on. You get the picture. Lots of fun, want to come and help?

The Gutting of the Bathroom Day 3

Day One didn’t go as planned.  I would have expected nothing less.  Mitch wasn’t done installing the new front door that we had to put in to fit the hole in the wall.  I forgot to mention that, sorry.  The new tub/shower we bought wouldn’t fit through any of the doors into the house, so in order to get the new tub inside, he had to remove the front door and cut a bigger hole in the side of the house so that the tub would fit through the doorway.  Mitch started that project two weeks ago and as usual, the three-day project took two weeks.  The original structure of our house was built in 1928, when the short people ruled the world.  Then an addition was added on in the 1930’s.  Whoever built the original structure and the addition used whatever materials were available and there were no building codes then.  The roof comes down and meets the top of the walls at right about six feet.  There is no way to put in a regular height door without a building permit and an expensive front entryway built.  So we did the next best thing, bought a solid wood door and cut inches off the top and bottom of the door so that it fit height wise.  There was still the width to worry about.  The original door was six-foot by thirty inches wide and did I mention it was an old fashioned homemade cabin door with a wooden slide bar?  Straight out of the 19th century.  Not the least bit in anyway energy efficient or even safe security wise.  So the door had to go.  I’ll post pictures.

I took out all of the shelves in the closets and tried removing the metal wall strips for adjustable shelving, but some of the screws were stripped and wouldn’t come out.  So I gave up on getting much accomplished on day one and decided to take the dogs for a long walk.

Day Two, Mitch worked on finishing up installing the new storm door and because the weather was so beautiful, I decided that it would be a good day to mow.  So I mowed the yard, pulled weeds, raked leaves and pretty much blew off another good day to work on the bathroom.

Day Three we actually got started.  Mitch finished getting all of the metal strips out while I pulled all of the trim off around the window and doors.  I pulled all of the base board out.  While Mitch removed the doors and door frames and knocked out the sheet rock that encased the closets I went to the plumbing store and picked up the pedestal sinks we had ordered..  We found the vent pipe from the furnace which will have to be moved from the outer corner of where the closet was and no longer is.  Mitch is getting his money’s worth out of his sawsall that I bought him.  I think that’s his favorite tool. 

Surprisingly, no fights yet.  Is this an omen or the lull before the storm?  I’ll keep you posted.

The Gutting of the Bathroom or Will Our Marriage Survive the Remodel?

Today it officially begins.  My first day of vacation and the start of the Gutting of the Bathroom.  We have the most hideous master bath in the world, (my opinion).  So we (me) decided that we would take a week’s vacation and totally remodel the bathroom.  I mean how long can it take?  We’re taking out the ugly tub and even uglier vanity with the wood grain laminate countertop.  Who puts a wood grain laminate countertop in a bathroom anyway?  The sink had started to chip and crack.  There are two 70’s refugee globe lights hanging from swag chain over the vanity and one huge honkin mirror on the wall, complete with chips and backing scratched off.  I’m not sure how mirror backing can come off when it stays on the wall, but oh well.  When the lights were hung, evidently the person didn’t have a hole saw and cut a square hole so that the square edges of the holes peek out around the circular caps of the lights.  Very attractive and stylish too.  There is also a can light hung on the wall next to the toilet, to help you see for the ever important reading that men do in a bathroom.  The lovely can light was also installed using the square hole for a round cover.  But there is no light by the bath tub, guess you don’t really want to see that well in the shower.  The linoleum on the floor has cracked.  There are three closets just inside the doorway as you walk in giving you a cramped feeling that the walls really are closing in on you.

But all that goes away starting today.  We are going to move the tub/shower to where the vanity was.  Two of the three closets are going away forever.  In place of a vanity, there will be two pedestal sinks and a cabinet between them that is actually two pieces, the base cabinet will have a granite countertop on it and the upper cabinet will be hung on the wall and have sides that meet the base.  There will be two much smaller mirrors and there will be NO swag lights in there anywhere.

So far, we’ve argued over every piece for the bathroom.  Mitch has traditional tastes and I am more modern, contemporary.  It has almost gone to blows in the home improvement stores.  I had almost come to the conclusion that this marriage will never work, because our tastes are so vastly different. 

First is was the tub.  Mitch declared that we could only have a one piece tub and shower combo.  “Because no matter how careful you are or how good of a job you do caulking, the damn thing always leaks.”  Try finding a really nice looking one piece tub/shower combo, there aren’t that many out there to choose from.  Then is was the sinks.  I found a really nice looking square pedestal sink that he hated, saying it looked like it was institutional.  The really big argument came with the cabinets.  Nothing readymade really grabbed either of us.  I was willing to buy unfinished and make it work, but Mitch hated them all.  He found a custom cabinet shop and went to talk to them without me to get some design ideas and costs.  I just knew that custom cabinets would cost a fortune, granted they would be worth it, but I am working on a budget and figured the cabinets would bust the budget.  Surprisingly, the price was very reasonable, so now Mitch and I could focus the next argument on the design of the cabinet.  I said he is traditional, well if you have a fireplace mantel with a candlestick on one side, there needs to be a candlestick on the other side.  That’s Mitch.  Make me crazy.  This is when I started to doubt our marriage.

We finally found the tub by accident, we had gone to buy tile for the floor and there high up on the rack on display, was a one piece tub/shower combo that I actually liked.  I had Mitch drag one of those ladders only for use by store personnel over for me to climb up on and check it out.  We bought it on the spot and called one of our friends to come and load it in their truck and take it home.  We found two very nice oval pedestal sinks at a plumbing supply store and ordered them.  After long heated debates, Mitch took me to the custom cabinet shop so that I could look at and touch actual cabinets instead of sketches on paper.  We made a decision and now it’s on order.  Things are starting to gel.  I still have to go get towel bars, mirrors, faucets and lights (without Mitch), but I think we might make it.  I’ll keep you posted and let you know how our progress goes.

Is Journaling the Way to Go?

I’ve been told that journaling your thoughts are very important.  Sometimes I’m not so sure.  I have feelings and emotions that I would love to express but can’t tell anyone nor can I write them down.  If I write it down and someone was to read it, could hurt their feelings.  I was raised to be very cognizant of others feelings and to not intentionally hurt someone.  I know how I would feel if it were me.

I’m not talking about anarchy or murderous thoughts.  You know when the everyday events in your life just get to you.  Those little feelings and resentments just start to build and build.  I feel that I’m getting slammed from all sides, work, home, life in general.  Just feelings of being helpless to change my life and not having the courage to stand up for myself.  If I write it down, then I might see how trivial and small the issues really are.  Maybe that’s the point of journaling.

Great White Hunters? (final excerpt)

Mitch waited until Todd left and said, “There are never any birds in these places.  My father would take us into the woods all the time and there were never any birds in the woods.  Oh well, let’s go and get this over with and then we can head over the hill and down into the back side of this field.” 

Against Todd’s advice, Mitch decided that we would both go down into the draw.  The draw had a mixture of snow and frozen mud.  There wasn’t really any easy way down the slopes into the draw.  The good news was that there was a wide open area with very few trees that I could use to slide down to get in the middle of the draw, because I could tell it was not going to be a question of if I was going to slip and fall, but when.

Once down in the draw, we both started off toward the other end with the dogs going back and forth, in and out and not having the trouble I was having keeping my balance.  What looked like snow up top was actually ice-crusted snow up close.  Carrying the gun, not falling on my butt and dropping the gun was immediately more important to me than “no birds.”  Not too safe, huh.  Mitch got up ahead of me about twenty feet and saw what Todd was talking about.  At the backside of the draw, there were birds everywhere.  There were chukars and pheasants just milling around the tree line and the junk farm pieces.  He couldn’t get close enough fast enough.  The dogs were on the birds making them scatter and fly.  Mitch started shooting his gun at the birds and nothing was dropping.  I was down in the bottom of the draw trying to get up the slick icy sides of the slope.  As I was crawling up the hillside, I could hear the gunfire and the birds cackling and the whump whump whump of their wings flapping and Mitch cussing and yelling for me to get up there and help out, and I couldn’t get up the hill.  Just as I had crawled almost up to the top, the shotgun sling slipped down my shoulder.  As I grabbed a tree root to pull up on, the shotgun slid off my arm and slid down the hill back to the bottom.  I looked at the gun at the bottom of the hill and then turned my head back up to where I had almost reached, just inches away from level ground, debating whether or not to slide back down to the bottom of the hill.  I was seriously considering just leaving the gun down there, but I couldn’t, it had been a Valentine’s Day gift.  Still holding the tree root, I turned and sat on my butt.  Then I let go of the root with one hand and pushed off with the other.  Sliding down the hill with only lycra running tights and canvas field pants as a buffer between my backside and crusty ice. 

Mitch was still shooting at birds and screaming, “Susan get up here!  Where are you?  I can’t do this by myself!”

Digging my heels in to stop my slide at the bottom, I just missed a close encounter with a large tree stump.  I yelled, “I’m trying, but I can’t get out of here!”

I picked up my gun and crawled upward again.  I realized that day, that not giving up is essential to hunting.  By the time I finally got out of the draw and topside, all of the birds were gone.  Mitch didn’t hit anything.  Oh yeah, we sure cleaned out the birds for Todd; they flew over the road to the neighbors land.

Great White Hunters?

This year we have been experiencing a real winter, with cold temperatures and snow.  Mitch told me this would be “real” pheasant hunting (you mean all the other times weren’t?).  This was going to be a short trip, just a weekend trip with an overnight stay.  So I didn’t need to pack my whole wardrobe, I was reminded.  But I would need to think COLD and pack “warm”, in other words, my whole wardrobe.  Can’t have too many layers. 

When we got to Todd’s preserve there was another group of hunters just heading off in the direction that we normally went.  Todd came walking over to us and we caught up on what had been going on since November.  The morning was cold with a strong wind out of the north and there were heavy clouds, looking like it could start snowing soon.

Todd said, “I’m going to take you to a different place to hunt this morning.  It’s over by my house and there are lots of pheasant and chukkar that have escaped and are just hanging out around in that area.  I want to get that area cleaned out.”

It didn’t matter to us where we hunted as long as there were birds, and this sounded like it would be just too easy, so we said sure.  We loaded the dogs back into the car and followed Todd over to the property close to his home.  Mitch pulled the station wagon in and parked alongside Todd’s truck.  We got out and surveyed the area.  We had never been to this area before and felt kind of special, like we had made it to the inner circle or something.  There was about 200 acres of more land that Todd owned.  To our left was a corn stubble field, in front of us were small hills and down over the hill was a wooded area.  But Todd wanted us to work a small wooded draw off to our immediate right.  It started at the road and went back into his property about the length of a football field.  It wasn’t very big at all.  Along side of the draw on the left were old junk, parts of some farm machinery, tubes that looked like they were part of a silo and various other sundry items.  On the right side of the draw was where he kept some cattle at the edge of his family lands.  So we had to be careful about shooting in that direction.  Down in the draw we could see a winding creek and open ground with no cover except for the tall trees growing out of the draw.

Mitch was clearly skeptical and we were both a little disappointed.  We thought that we were going to “hunter’s heaven” and here we were standing at the edge of what looked like a huge waste of time.  But outwardly Mitch didn’t show any of his disappointment to Todd.  Todd told us to start at the street and work our way to the back and we could go to our left and work the cornfield and after that we would go farther into the fields.  Todd suggested that one of us stay up top on the outside edge on the right side of the draw and the other one go down in the middle and work our way back.  Todd said he had some things to do and would come back by in about an hour and see how we had done.

Another Hunting Trip

We just got home from pheasant hunting in Central Nebraska.  There were ups and downs with the trip.  We even made a few discoveries.  We bagged eight birds.  That was an up.  The weather was way too hot, 75 degrees with 25 mile an hour winds.  That was a down.   We walked through prairie grass fields that were six feet tall plus in spots.  And so dense I couldn’t see the dogs with their neon colored bandanas through the tall thin reeds right in front of me.  When one of the dogs would flush a bird, it would hang suspended in the sky for just a split second before it caught the wind and take off making that whump, whump, whump, sound like a helicopter.  They were very hard to hit in the high winds and when one was shot, the pheasant were hard to find in the dense grass.

Charlie was the star of the hunting trip.  This was his best year ever.  He didn’t range out too far, stayed in close and checked on us frequently to see where we were in the tall grass.  He flushed two birds right off and retrieved both of them.

One of our discoveries was that not all hunting dog breeds are hunters.  Mitch has had such high hopes for Orso, our chocolate lab.  Orso, the water dog that doesn’t especially like water, doesn’t retrieve and doesn’t use his nose to hunt.  He is four years old and has absolutely no interest in pheasant hunting.  His idea of pheasant hunting is chasing after Charlie and AJ in the field to see what they are doing and then running back full bore into me to make sure I’m still there.  Try walking on uneven terrain carrying a seven pound shotgun, wearing an ammo belt full of shotgun shells and a quart of water and have a ninety pound dog bash into you. 

Mitch shot a pheasant and before picking it up called Orso over to find the bird, hoping he would show some interest in the dead bird.  Orso walked up to the bird, put his paw on it and preceded to start pulling feathers off of the bird.  A huge no-no.  Then it even got worse.   I shot a bird and called the dogs to find the bird.  After not getting the retrieve as quickly as I thought they should, I ran down the hill to where the bird dropped and there was Orso and now AJ pulling the feathers out of the bird.  Orso was teaching bad habits to our best hunting dog.  That was definitely a down.  Needless to say, Orso is not going on any future hunting trips with us.

Our Not So Happy Family

I didn’t want Orso, I didn’t even want to go see him when Mitch said, “Come on we’ll just take a look see.”  We had AJ and Charlie and I was quite happy with just two dogs.  Orso was a rescue that one of his co-workers’ son had and needed to find a home for.  He was 10 months old and a huge brown clumsy, lovable dog.  Very calm and just wanted someone to want him.  So we took him home.   Charlie hated Orso on sight.  We thought that Charlie would come around in a few days and all would be calm.  Not so.  The attacks just got worse.  Orso would look at Charlie, or just walk into the same room as Charlie and the fight would be on.  Orso would yelp and scream and Charlie would rip into him.  These attacks were not just a show of force or putting Orso on the bottom rung of the pack.  Charlie wanted him dead and gone.  Blood was usually drawn on Orso.  One day I tried to break up an attack in the yard and Charlie bit my hand drawing blood.  Mitch grabbed him and slammed Charlie to the ground and held him there until everyone calmed down.  That was when I told Mitch that something had to change.  I didn’t want to come home anymore.  Not to the tension and chaos.  I was done. 

The dog behavioralist our vet recommended turned out to be a godsend.  On the first visit she just sat at the kitchen table and talked to us, while watching the dynamics of our inter-relationships with each other.   She helped us realign our pack, spot the signs of eminent danger and how to counteract and prevent the fights.  The change didn’t happen overnight.  It took hard work and vigilance on our part to spot the signs of impending doom.  We are still very aware of Charlie and the “psycho” switch.  Without her, one or more of us wouldn’t be here today.

Hunter Anarchy (first excerpt)

This is the first excerpt of a story of one of our first hunting trips to Nebraska.  Since hunting season is very close and we’ve started getting the dogs in shape again, I thought it was time to get my act in gear again and start writing again.  I took the summer off and now it’s time to focus again on my dream.

We rounded up everyone and set out for Todd’s preserve.  We had quite a crew with us this trip: the Booth’s, Judd, Hank and Steve, then Mitch and me, and this time another father and sons’ group, the McKay’s, Buck, John and Joe.  Eight total, plus Buddy and AJ.  Buck’s sons have hunted deer, turkey and quail, but have never hunted pheasant.  None of the rest of us could be considered master hunters, so this would prove entertaining.

At Todd’s we made the necessary introductions and completed the preliminary paperwork, hunting licenses, and conservation stamps.  Because of the large number of hunters, we asked for more birds to be released.  We mistakenly thought with all of the bodies tromping around we would scare up more birds.

Todd pointed our merry band in the right direction and Mitch tried to get everyone in some semblance of order and not just a bunch of lunatics carrying guns scaring all of the birds off.  That was a lost cause from the start.  People were scattered all over the hillside and the cedar break.  I decided it would be safer for me to stay on the outside edge of the invading horde.  I didn’t want to be anywhere near where the guns would be going off.  I looked over at Mitch and could see the frustration all over his face.  Poor man, he was so used to an orderly routine when hunting with his father.  Everybody had a position in the line (that invisible line that hunters form when working a field) and by God; they better stay in that position.  Now Mitch was faced with total “hunter anarchy”.

There was no rhyme or reason to the hunters’ placement in the field.  Judd was wandering off down the hill; Buck was almost on top of Hank, if Hank swung his gun up to take a shot, he would probably whack Buck.  One of Buck’s sons was too far in front of everybody, probably running the birds into the next county.  Mitch and I finished the cedar break at the top of the hill; we started working our way back towards the rest of our group.  A pheasant flew up in the middle of the merry band and it sounded like a fourth of July celebration.  They were spread out in a rough backwards semi-circle, facing away from the draw.   The bird flew up behind them; everyone started shooting at that poor bird.  Six men unloaded their guns at that bird and all of them missed, not even a feather was ruffled.  I don’t think that bird quit flying until he hit Omaha.  Mitch and I stood there and watched in amazement.

I looked over at Mitch and said, “They suck!  We are never going to shoot anywhere close to all the birds Todd set out.”

Mitch shook his head and said, “This is going to be a long week.”

(Some of the names have been changed to protect the innocent.)  Come back for more of the story.

Oh God Not Now! (final excerpt)

At that moment, Paul walked up and started to talk to us, saw the look of my face, and asked if everything was all right?  Paul always looks out for me, knowing that Mitch sometimes has too much confidence in me, so Paul worries.

I said, “Everything is fine.”

“Oh I’m sorry, I interrupted you two,” he said thinking we were arguing.

Mitch said, “It’s not that, Susan just needs to use the ladies room.”

So Paul moved off and Mitch handed me his packet of travel Kleenexes as well and said, “When we start off working this draw, lag back and find a secluded spot and make the necessary adjustments.”

It seemed like it took forever to get everyone rounded up and get moving.  The six of us started working the draw in a “vee” shape with me towards the back.  Mitch walked over to me and pointed out a dense area ahead.  I spotted a likely spot, fairly secluded with two trees and tall underbrush, just the ticket to cover my exposed body.  All the while, I was thinking to myself that if I have bloodstains that show, I would never hunt with these men again.  I would just die of embarrassment.

Just as I was settling in and had laid my gun down and was in process of taking off my shell belt, I noticed Patrick, one of the members of out hunting group stop about 100 feet in front of me.  I stood there watching as he laid his gun down and sat down on the ground.  He unlaced his boot and took it off.   I stood gritting my teeth, waiting, hoping he would hurry up.  I prayed for lightning to strike him dead.  He then adjusted his sock, taking all the time in the world.  I was to the point that I almost shot him myself.  I was so frustrated that I could only stomp off down the draw, thinking he didn’t know how close to death he was.  I caught up to Mitch and he asked if I got everything taken care of.

“No!  Patrick decided to sit down and take off his boots.”  I was almost in tears.

“Well let’s find you another spot and this time I’ll stand guard,” he said.

Luckily there was another spot not to far ahead that actually had better cover for me.  I undressed and checked and found out that it wasn’t as bad as I had first thought.  Using both Kleenex packs, I made the necessary adjustments and tPaulfully nothing showed through my pants.

 That was the last time I went hunting without taking along extra tampons, even if I had just finished the week before.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this story. I can smile now – but not then.