Tag: journaling

I Am Such a Sissy

We just got back from a long weekend trip to Castle Rock, Colorado to see my best friend in the whole world.  Castle Rock is located on the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains about 2 hours or so from the foothills.  It has been decades since either Mitch or I have been to Colorado.  So we went sightseeing to some of the areas attractions.  On a whim the four of us decided to drive up to the top of Pike’s Peak.  My parents had taken me up when I was a child but I had forgotten anything about it other than going.

Pike’s Peak has an elevation of 14,110 feet above sea level, 31st highest peak out of 54 so it’s no slouch.  For some reason though, I didn’t think that 14,110 feet was so high, I don’t know, maybe I was suffering altitude sickness or just that impoverished model of reality that I live in.  Because for someone that is not a fan of heights I thought that driving up a winding narrow two lane road in thin air sounded like a great idea.  The ride started off nicely with great vistas of the mountains in the background and dramatic cliffs climbing all the way up to heaven. 

We hadn’t even gotten half way up when one side of the road was a huge drop off with no shoulder.  The side of the road just ended and there was nothing but space.   I was terrified to look out the window and over the drop off for fear that the mere force of my body weight angled toward the car window would cause us to veer off the side and plummet down to our deaths.  Consequently I found myself leaning over toward my friend trying to will the car’s weight and balance toward the middle of the road.  Yes I know a truly rational thought. 

When we finally reached the top of Pike’s Peak and got out of the car the second thing that totally surprised me was how cold it was.  Yes I know, we just drove vertically 14,110 feet and the air should be colder, but at the base the air temperature was 68 degrees why was it now 28 degrees and I was not dressed for 28 degrees.  Plus I was shocked at how little air there was to breathe and I was sucking in as much I could get, but there wasn’t much to go around.

Once I finally decided to quit being such a baby I marveled at the height we were at.  We were two thousand feet above the tree line with only tundra and rocks scattered around.  The view was magnificent, which as a matter of fact, was what inspired the song, America the Beautiful.  After warming up in the visitors’ center, we loaded up and headed off back down the mountain.  Lucky me we are going to be hurtling out of control down the mountain at break neck speeds around fifteen miles an hour or so.  Woo hoo.

Grace and Brains Too

With my usual grace, I was able to maim myself once again with yet another innocuous object.  In this case the skeleton key on my necklace was the weapon of disfigurement.  Mitch constantly asks how I am able to cut or bruise myself on something that doesn’t pose any threat to the majority of the human race.  I have a gift that’s all.  I don’t a pose a threat to anyone else, just myself. 

My injury occurred at work on Friday, while trying to be ecologically conscientious.  The company I work for recently passed out blue bins to each of us for the express purpose of paper recycling.  We are responsible for filling the bins and then carting the bins downstairs to the warehouse and dump the paper in specially marked boxes.  I normally try to empty my bin when it’s about half full, because when the bin is full of paper, it is very heavy.  Or maybe I’m just a wimp.  But in this case I haven’t had a chance to empty it in about a month so it was pretty full and heavy.

I lugged it all the way to the warehouse and when I hoisted it up to dump the paper into the box, the lip of the bin caught the skeleton key whipping it up and smacking me in the middle of my forehead cutting me.  I almost made a smart ass remark about workman’s comp when I turned around to see the HR manager waiting patiently for me to finish dumping my bin so she could dump hers that she had pushed in on a cart.  Not only am I “graceful” but evidently not very smart either.

An Unproductive Day

It’s just a rainy Saturday, a perfect day to get caught up on cleaning the house, the closet or some other productive household chore.  But I’m just not in the mood.  This is something I’ll regret tomorrow or the next day, but not today.  Today, I just want to relax and do nothing productive.  The dogs aren’t even any fun.  They’re lying curled up on the bed snoozing, enjoying the rainy day too. 

The only one who is getting anything accomplished is Mitch.  He is diligently working on the re-construction of the guest bathroom.   He’s mudding and sanding and re-mudding and re-sanding the sheetrock seams, giving it his best shot, even though applying mud and sanding is not his forte.  Of course this is adding to my guilt level, knowing that I’m being a slug and he’s slaving away. 

I feel like painting something, maybe the kitchen.  Painting is therapeutic for me.  One small problem, I have no paint and haven’t even picked out a color yet.  But that doesn’t stop me from thinking about painting the kitchen; it just adds to the mental guilt list of one more thing I could be doing if I had been more proactive in deciding on a color and buying the paint.  I could run to Lowes and hurriedly pick out a color and just start painting.  Of course we all know how well my painting projects go. 

Good thing it’s a small kitchen.

The Weremoth

I had no idea that danger was lurking waiting for me this morning as I went through my morning routine.  I took the dogs for their early morning walk, where we dodge deer, raccoons and loose gravel (you have no idea how dangerous the lone piece of gravel is until you step on it in the dark).  Thankfully, the morning walk was without incident, for a change. 

Coming back home, the dogs got their carrots and I jumped into the shower.  After my shower, I started putting on my makeup, totally unaware of the danger just waiting for me.  I pulled out my makeup drawer reached in and grabbed my moisturizer smeared it on my face, and then went after the eye cream when I felt the ever so slight flutter against my hand.  I jerked my hand back just in time to see the rare extremely dangerous weremoth make its escape to the back of the drawer and into the dark recesses of the cabinet.   I just narrowly escaped with my life.  Not sure what a weremoth is, well they are big, huge, black, white or maybe purple, it doesn’t matter.  They strike just when your guard is down and you’re totally relaxed, like putting on your makeup.  I knew without a doubt that it would fly out of the drawer and latch onto my neck and suck out all my blood. 

Having only just started putting on my makeup I had no choice but to finish as quickly as possible keeping one eye on the mirror and what I was doing and one eye on the drawer hoping the weremoth wouldn’t sneak out and stage a blitz attack on me.  Where was Charlie when I needed him?  He always loves to eat moths.

I just hope I remember that it’s in there waiting and lurking for the perfect moment to fly out and kill us all in the middle of the night.  Maybe Mitch will find it first…

And It Just Doesn’t End

Two coats of gray primer and three coats of red paint just to paint a door and I’m not sure that three coats of paint will be enough to give that finished look.  Seriously?  If I had known that red was such a difficult color to work with, I would have gone with blue or green or anything else, maybe purple.  A simple one day project has taken all week and I’m not sure it’s really done yet.  I’m waiting for the third coat of paint to dry.

After the second coat of paint had dried I peeled off the tape protecting the glass panes and the door knob.  That went badly as well.  I should have used Frog tape, but no I used the regular blue that has worked in the past.  The blue tape hung on to the red paint with great tenacity.  I peeled off huge chunks of red paint on the metal strips between the window panes.  This meant that I had to make another trip to Lowes to buy tiny paint brushes to touch up the flubs.  I have started to doubt my sanity at attempting this project. 

I have only painted one side of the three doors mind you.  I still have the back side of the doors to paint.  Today is Sunday one week ago on last Sunday I started this insanity.  Guess what, vacation is officially over, tomorrow I get to go back to work, who hoo. 

At least Mitch has had a productive project laden vacation.  He gutted the bathroom, ripped out the tile floor, floor below and the subfloor in four days and in the last two he has re-installed the subfloor and floor.  He’s now ready to go buy the backer board for the tile and tile the floor, which he’ll get done this week.  Me, I’ll probably have to apply another coat of paint. 

A wadded up newspaper and a match is looking awfully good right now.

Another DIY Project Gone Horribly Wrong

Another stay at home working vacation for us.  This one is to redo a recent remodel, which sucks.  We gutted the second bathroom off the kitchen four years ago.  We removed the old ugly gold enamel cast iron tub and institutional sink and replaced them with a corner shower stall and cute pedestal sink.  It looked great, but the shower started to leak so we have to rip it out and fix the leak.  This has entailed ripping out the shower and the tile floor to see how much of the floor underneath the tile was ruined.  Most of the floor was water soaked so Mitch has had to tear out the floor and a large section of subfloor, leaving a huge hole in the floor looking down into the basement.  What fun redoing a remodel.

While he is immersed in the redo I thought that this would be the perfect time to do some of my pet projects that need to be done and haven’t had the time to accomplish.  One of the projects is a quick and easy one day spiff up.  I wanted to paint the three metal entry doors a new color to brighten up the look of the house.  Simple easy project, pick out a color, buy the paint and paint the door, right?  Leave it to me to turn a simple three step process into a four day ordeal. 

After weeks of looking at paint chips, I finally decided on a red hue.  I bought the paint in a quart size can, playing it safe just in case the color didn’t look as good on as it did on the chip.  Sunday afternoon after I got home from Lowes with paint in hand, I covered the floor with newspapers, for the drips. There are always drips when I paint.  I taped off the door knobs and the little strips between the window panes in the kitchen door.  I will never have windows with the little panes of glass because taping off the little panes was a pain in the neck.  I was finally ready to paint.  I started with the kitchen door and all of its’ little window panes.   I stirred the paint again for good measure and dipped the brush in the can and spread the first coat on.  It was horrible.  The painted surface looked like I had used my hand and was finger painting.  Large streaks of the unpainted door below showed through.  I couldn’t believe it; I had never had that happen before.  I thought maybe because the kitchen door hadn’t been painted before it would look better after it dried and I applied a second coat.

I decided to paint the second door and see how it looked.  The other two doors have had three different colors on them so I was sure that they would look much better.  I was wrong.  Both the second and third doors looked as bad as the first one.  The only thing I could do was to wait for them to dry and hope a second coat would fix everything. 

Monday (day two) morning came and the paint was still tacky.  I couldn’t believe it, this has never happened before.  I grabbed the half full can of paint and headed off to Lowes for some help and guidance.  I explained the problem, what the doors look like and what could I do to fix it.  Those two women couldn’t have been more helpful.  They asked lots of questions and explained that red paint had lots of pigment in it and could account for some of the problem and the brand of paint I had picked out was not very good for coverage.  I wished that had been explained to me the day before when I bought it.  It was decided that I needed to prime the doors with gray primer because gray primer works best with red paint and switch brands to Valspar, which I’ve always had good luck with anyway.  The paint department manager didn’t think I would have to apply paint stripper and start all over.  After much discussion we decided that I could probably get by with just painting the primer over the top of the tacky painted surface.  They refunded the full price of the half used can of paint and of course the only size can in stock was a gallon, my usual luck, but they only charged me the price of a quart.  I went home and went about applying a coat of primer, hoping that this was just a little set back.  No, not my luck.

I applied the gray primer and it looked as bad as or worse than the red paint below.  The brush grabbed the paint and left blobs and smears all over the door.  A wadded up piece of paper and a match in the corner is starting to look really good right now.  And just because I’m a glutton for punishment, I decided to paint one of the other doors to see if it would turn out any better.  It didn’t.  This time I stopped at two.  I’m not a total masochist.  I decided this would be a good time to mow the yard.  That I can do without it turning into a major ordeal. 

Two hours later the paint was dry so I thought why not put another coat of paint on to see if there was any improvement.  What did I have to lose, what’s one more coat for the paint stripper to have to take off if it didn’t work?   Surprise there is a god.  The second coat covered the first very nicely.  It looked like what primer should have looked like.  Maybe there is hope. 

Tuesday (day three) I wake up ready to paint a second coat of primer on the remaining door so I can apply the real color.  Tuesday morning, it’s also only forty five degrees outside, too cold to paint a metal door.  I have to wait for the sun to warm up the metal before I can apply any paint.  Waiting sucks.

Just a Routine Visit to the Vet?

Even a routine visit to the vet to get the dogs their six month bordetella vaccination is never dull.  People can call dogs “dumb” animals if they want, but those that do evidently don’t actually own dogs.  Our three love to go with us everywhere and when we can accommodate them, we do.  Before Orso that was easy for us.  AJ and Charlie were always happy and content just to be in the car with us.  When we got Orso, dog rides became arduous to say the least.  He will howl and bark at us when he doesn’t get to get out of the car to go in when us.  Getting to ride in the car being out and about isn’t enough for him, he wants to get out of the car and go inside the store with us too.   Now he has succeeded in getting the other two to bark and carry on along with him.  Very painful on the ears, plus the looks from other bystanders are very embarrassing.  We’ve even been paged while shopping at Cabelas, that “the station wagon with the barking dogs, has left your lights on.”  I made Mitch go and turn off the lights on the car; I didn’t want anyone to know who owned the heathens.

A trip to the vet, no big deal, right?  Wrong, Orso remembers where places are and how we get there.  Once we start out on our treks, he gets his bearings and depending on where we are going he starts howling and barking at us, even before he knows whether or not he gets to get out or has to stay in the car.  Very annoying, makes me crazy having a dog bark at the back of my head to yell at me.  Coincidence, no,  because he doesn’t bark at us at the gas station or when I drop Mitch off at work in the morning, he knows that we’re not staying.  Not so dumb, huh.  He knows the road to the vet and starts barking and raising hell as soon as we pass the grocery store. 

Today we had the added bonus of road construction.  Yay.  Lane and road closures, oh goody.  The road to vet is closed and the only way in was to take the roundabout and go through the very exclusive golf course and housing addition that the vet’s office is by.  Here we were driving a seventeen year old station wagon with three dogs sticking their heads out of the windows barking at golfers and residents as we snaked our way through the detour to get to the vet.  We looked like the poster child for chaos.  Thank god no one holding a golf club was within throwing distance to our car.  Though I’m sure we caused a few muffed shots. 

After today I think the city may rethink their detour route after all the nasty phone calls they will probably receive.

And The Heat Goes On

The heat and the drought just keeps coming.  It’s like a blast furnace each time you walk outside.   Taking the dogs on walks is short and slow.  They don’t want to be out in the heat anymore than we do.  Of course this is the year that we’ve added two raised beds to grow more vegetables.  Two more beds means two times more watering, which translates to a much higher water bill.  This is a double edged sword for me.  I love the taste of home grown tomatoes, nothing like a big juicy home grown tomato.  With this drought we have to water almost every day just to keep the plants from withering. 

I’m also the utility police at home.  I walk around turning lights off, raising or lowering the thermostat and turning the faucet off in mid tooth brushing.  I am just plain cheap when it comes to wasting electricity, gas and water.  I rant on about saving energy, conserving water and recycling everything we can possibly recycle.  Mitch made and installed three rain barrels around the house so I can water the gardens with rainwater.  This year all of the rain barrels are bone dry, no water to even dribble out. 

We decided to use soaker hoses to accomplish watering more efficiently.  The problem was that the three raised beds were too far apart so we were wasting a lot of water in between.  Mitch solved this by cutting up the seventy five foot hose into three sections which he snaked through each bed then connected the spaces in between with regular hose pieces.  This has worked out very well for us.  Now we’re only watering the vegetable beds and not everything in between.  Of course the yard has gone dormant and I’m hoping will recover next spring. 

Whether you believe in global warming or not, this weather pattern sucks and I’m ready for it to be over.

We Were Not Alone

Our normal morning walk at o’dark thirty, 4:30am actually, started as always.  Me trying to get the dogs and leashes under control.  AJ will only walk on my left, Charlie and Orso don’t care which side they walk on as long as Orso is on the outside and Charlie is next to me.  Orso and Charlie will switch from the left side to right multiple times during the walk almost always by crossing behind me causing me to have to juggle the leashes around to keep from getting yanked around from behind.

On this particular morning, the walk started off with our normal chaos, sniffing, peeing and snatching grass to munch on during the walk.  But when we got to the long stretch of road that has no houses on either side, a ravine on the left and a wooded hill on the right with houses on the hilltop, the dogs discovered we weren’t alone.  Something was keeping pace with us.  The invisible stalker was up on the hill to our right.  Orso discovered our stalker first, stopping and sniffing the air with his head held high, straining at the leash to get a closer sniff.  Charlie soon caught a whiff and joined Orso straining at his leash too trying to get closer to whatever “It” was.  I looked around in the gloom, but couldn’t see anything, I listened intently to try and catch any rustling sound to try and determine where and what was out there, but I didn’t hear anything.  I tugged on their leashes to pull them away from the area and hopefully leaving the thing, whatever it was alone and hopefully leaving us alone too.

But no, our invisible stalker stayed with us, keeping pace staying high on the hill and being quite stealthy.  The only giveaway was his scent which evidently was tantalizing to the dogs.  Me not so much.  I couldn’t smell, see or hear the stalker, so I was getting pretty unnerved trying to keep the dogs under control and alert to a possible threat.  The rest of the walk was uneventful when we got past the dark stretch of road and back into the glow of the streetlights.  Of course that was until Orso shook his head and I about jumped out of my skin.  Just a little jittery, silly me.

The Call Of The Wild…Sorta

Camping in the wild lends to unique sounds from the calls of the local inhabitants claiming their territory or seeking a mate.  Hearing wolves howl late at night is both an exhilarating and unnerving sound, knowing you’re not alone and wild animals are nearby, protected only by the wall of a camper or the thin material of a tent.  Camping out in the wild you expect and hope to hear the noises, that’s one of the reasons you’re out there in the first place.  Since I don’t go camping, my idea of roughing it is that the ice machine is at the other end of the hall, I usually only get to hear the late night sounds of wolves howling on National Geographic.  So imagine how unnerving it was to wake up to the sound of howling at midnight in our bedroom. 

I bolted straight up out of a semi-sound sleep looking around trying to find the source of the soulful howl.  The howling came from across the room, inside the bedroom.  Living in the Midwest, we don’t have wolves, a few coyotes, but no wolves, so you can imagine how being roused out of my sleep to the eerie howl would be a bit strange to say the least.  The sound didn’t come from outside, because the dogs were still asleep and if there was an interloper outside our window, the dogs would have jumped up barking and throwing a fit.  AJ was asleep in the round bed next to my side of the bed so he didn’t howl.  Charlie was asleep at the foot of our bed, so he didn’t howl either.  No, the howling came from the dog bed next to Mitch’s side of the bed.  Orso was dreaming and for some reason he howled in his sleep.  The weirdest part was the neither of the other dogs stirred a bit.

Why I have no idea, because when they’re awake, they don’t howl.  I know, I’ve tried to get them to howl, but they won’t cooperate.  So I’m usually standing around howling all be myself, looking pretty silly.  Most dogs run in their sleep or make small woofing sounds, but I’ve never heard them howl.  So now I have a dog that dreams he’s a wolf.  Next he’ll start sleep walking, raiding the fridge.  I see lots of sleep interrupted nights ahead.