Well..I gave up at 5:37 this morning when I lay there for a few minutes and quickly realized that I was not going to get back to sleep…but, I went to bed at 10:30 from boredom so I guess that’s okay….feel okay this morning and that is from resisting the urge to have cocktails to celebrate finishing the cupboard doors yesterday…I am a little disappointed in my work on them when I missed some obvious flaws in them that should have been repaired…I guess I can say they look like distressed antiques since they are 82 years old…and I still fall back on my idea that they are okay since they are now clean and that’s really all I wanted…and with what I had to work with, they are okay….still pretty darn sore from all of the work I’ve done this week and I am glad I get to take the day off the bike tomorrow…I am going to get on the drawers today so I can have them done tomorrow….they built some really crappy dividers in the top one and I think I’m going to remove them since they are so half assed and I need them gone to get at the bottom of the drawer where it looks like they just poured paint in them….so, it looks like another all day work day to get the drawers ready so I can paint them tomorrow….not much to do today…going to get on the bike early to get my miles in and I may start cleaning my dishes so I can start putting them away since the insides of the cupboards have had 10 days or so for the paint to harden….but maybe not…the drawers are in such sad shape they could take all day…more later…
Monthly Archives: February 2022
My free covid tests came today…
Well…it was a little bit of a surprise when the free covid tests that I ordered showed up in my mailbox today…I read that I didn’t qualify to get them with having Medicare but I’ll take it…and I now have 6 n-95 masks that I got at Meijers the last two weeks with groceries so I’m set for a while…still not going out for anything but groceries and to depot for supplies and won’t until the hospitals are no longer full out here and the infection rate subsides some…I wonder if I’m still being too careful when I see almost all of the rest of the people everywhere who aren’t doing anything to mitigate the spread of the virus? I guess I don’t follow the herd when my health is concerned…but I am considering having cocktails soon since I do miss it a bit and I do need a reward for all the work I’ve been doing lately…but not tonight…darn…
Got the doors finished…
Well…that was pretty easy…got all of the fronts of the doors for the kitchen finished with two coats of paint on each….but I did notice that one door was not sanded enough so there is a little line where the filler was put in…and the bitch is that you can’t see it until it’s painted so that door will probably need to be removed, re-sanded, and repainted at some point in the future…but not now…just want to get the doors installed first and take some time to get the kitchen finished…will probably do the drawers tomorrow but won’t be able to sand and paint them until Sunday even though my Sundays are supposed to be my one day off for the week…it would be nice to have all of the kitchen cabinets completely finished Monday so we’ll see how it goes…I think I’m taking the rest of the day off after all of the work the past week…I can use a little veg time…more later….
Biden is doing it right…
Well…damn, what a difference a real president makes on the world stage…as Putin rattles his sabers and threatens Ukraine with an invasion if they don’t roll over for him and stop working with the west to guarantee their sovereignty, can you imagine what would be happening if the idiot boy was still in office? Yep, he would be rolling over for Putin and half of Ukraine would be Russian territory by now…but, Biden is not taking any of Putin’s bullshit and is working with NATO to respond to his threats with the only thing he understands…power…and we are making it clear what the cost will be if he does invade…the Russian economy will be crashed and it will cost him billions personally…and he won’t have a reconstituted USSR that is his real aim. I understand the people who are protesting and have sent letters to Biden opposing war in Ukraine, but appeasement of people like Putin just doesn’t work…and I think that Putin is thinking in terms of the previous guy who was so scared of everything and his administration was so incompetent that he could basically do whatever he wanted anywhere in the world with no consequences…and that is no longer true when you have a competent president who truly values our allies and works with them as a team to meet Putin’s blustering…no matter what China says….why they are supporting Putin on trying to stop NATO expansion, I don’t know but I think it is more a sharp stick in the eye to a newly muscular American foreign policy…and it costs China nothing as they try to extend their influence across the world…so, I think Biden is doing it right and I hope he keeps it up…
February 4th
Well…up at 4:51 this morning but was able to get back to sleep until a little after 6 and I’ll take it…it’s 2 degrees out there right now and I am happy that I don’t have to go anywhere for the next couple of days….just checked the weather and it looks like not much snow for the next 10 days and that gets us 10 days closer to spring…it hasn’t been a bad winter for my first one out here and I do need to check to see if this is a normal winter for Muskegon or if I need to plan for a worse one next winter….with all of the work I’ve been doing on the house I’ve let this place go a bit and I need to clean and straighten this place up some after I get the kitchen done…but I still need to finish the doors this morning and start planning the painting of the rest of it….the downstairs cleanup is going to be a little worse than I expected…I guess I didn’t have the dust corralled as well as I thought and there is a light film of it everywhere…but that can’t happen until I sand, fill, and paint the drawers and I will get at that after the doors are hung Monday….the cortisone cream did work on the rashes I got from sanding yesterday and they are not itching nearly as much as they were….but, I’m still concerned that this is going to happen every time I expose myself to dust and that is still going to happen a lot as I prep for painting…not much to do today….just going to get the bike ride in and then get painting on the fronts of the cabinet doors that will probably take most of the day…but it will be easy with no detail work to do so I can just use a roller to get a good finish….oh, I did paint one of my detail touches on the edge of the countertop where they had painted it white and I changed that to the same grey as the doors and the walls of the kitchen…it looks pretty cool and I can’t wait to see how it looks with the doors up…more later…
Poor Zuckerberg…
Well..it finally looks like people are getting tired of Facebook pushing hate and supporting right wing fascists across the world….over the past few days, facebook stock has lost about 25% of it’s value and it couldn’t happen to a more deserving person as Mark Zuckerberg…that means the market cap of facebook has dropped by 200 billion dollars and poor old markie himself has lost 24-26 billion dollars in the past week…and it’s all because people are getting tired of facebook’s bullshit and markie’s love of everything repub and have been leaving it in droves….I’ve never been able to understand the allure of facebook and the only reason I have an account is that the Miata club I belong to moved over to facebook from Yahoo but I very seldom use it for anything else other than to wish people happy birthday and to post photos of the progress on the house….I sure as hell don’t get my news from it since it has been proven that ole markie has built algorithms that overwhelmingly push right wing bullshit in it’s news feed over the facts or truth…so, people…keep it up…keep leaving facebook and keep making ole markie pay…maybe some day he’ll be that has been that people point at and laugh…it can’t come soon enough…
This is new…
Well…as you know, I have been bathed in dust for the past couple of months filling and sanding the cupboards and today the doors for them…and now I think I’ve become sensitized to the dust with breaking out in rashes everywhere that itch and hurt like crazy…and this has never happened to me before even using all kinds of chemicals my whole life…so, I slathered myself in hydrocortisone lotion and I really hope it helps since I am really uncomfortable and don’t need to go to the emergency room…I think I’ll try some antihistamines later if the cortisone doesn’t work and this does not bode well for completing the rest of the house….crap, crap, crap…it’s bad enough that I’m beating the heck out of myself working hours and hours on this place every day…but I can deal with that pain since I live it every day…but this is new for me…at least I got everything sanded and I even got all of the insides of the doors painted two coats today…so tomorrow will be painting the fronts of them and that will be pretty easy since the fronts are all done with a roller and it only takes about two minutes to do each one…but then I have to wait for an hour so it can dry some before the second coat…so, another all day of work but at least there is no dust…other than cleaning up all of the dust from today…but, I’m not going to do that until I have the drawers done since they need to be filled and sanded before I can paint them….owww….
Doors are ready…
Well…are you getting tired of me chronicling every damn thing I do restoring this house? I’m not tired of it yet so if you don’t want to read more about it, just skip over these and get to the political one that I’ll be doing later….I did get the doors finished sanded this morning and looked like a damn ghost by the time I was done….the sheeting I put up to create a room to contain the dust downstairs worked pretty well and it was funny how much dust I had on me when I finished…and I left dust footprints when I went over to shut down the music and then upstairs to get a towel to brush myself off outside before I tracked more of it into the upstairs…but, I still need to go back down there to change the setup and get my other two sawhorses set up so I can paint 5 or 6 doors at the same time since I need to put two coats on and wait an hour in between coats…so, tomorrow is going to be a long day getting the backs of all of the 11 doors painted…I think the doors came out okay and I’m sure they will look much better than the did with all of the excess paint, runs, and drips they had on them…and the grey should hide some of the flaws that remain but if it doesn’t, I can live with it knowing I gave them the best finish I could and they are not dirty anymore. Man, I can’t wait to get my dishes and food back in the cupboards but I am going to wash everything that is going back into them…the dust is just pervasive and got everywhere even with the airlock I had up in the kitchen….at least I made it though with my toes not hurting any worse…
February 3rd
Well…damn, that sucked…up and down all night and I’m not sure why that would be other than today is going to be a long work day with doing the final sanding of all 11 doors for the kitchen and keeping the doors straight so they go back in the same place they came off…I think I’m only going to have to fit one of them after paint since I did the big doors before I started…at least I hope I don’t have a lot of fitting to do since that would mean drilling new holes in my nice white paint on the cabinet frames….so, it looks like I’ll have the doors hung by Tuesday of next week since I am going to take Sunday off after painting Friday and Saturday….my toes are still hurting and I may have to take some ibuprofen before I get to the work today with being on my feet for another 3 or 4 hours…still not sure what the problem is with them but I need to survive the next 3 days of sanding and painting and then I can put my feet up Sunday and rest them….it was a nice surprise that we only got an inch or so of snow when they got lots south of here and I didn’t even have to shovel…but, I may go out and skim what snow there is off the walks and get them salted again since there is a little ice on them and I want to stay ahead of it…had a really cool grocery bill yesterday with not buying cocktail materials anymore…only 11 bucks at Meijers and 8 bucks at Aldi’s and I can’t remember spending less than 20 bucks for a week…not much to do today….just the bike ride and then eating dust for a few hours and I am going to set up my pedestal fan to blow some of the dust out of the little window in my glass blocks…not sure how effective it’s going to be but it may help…more later….
A few last things…
Well…I would be remiss if I didn’t bring today’s date to everyone’s attention…2-2-22…and it’s groundhog day where there is no consensus on whether or not we are going to have 6 more weeks of winter…from what I’ve seen, it’s about 50/50…back to the date…this is probably the last date like this I am going to see since the next one is 3-3-33 and I’m really not sure if I have 12 more years in me…that would make me really old and, while there is longevity in my family, it might be a bit much to hope for 12 more years….it looks like they are putting a second house on the lot across the street that is going to be about 3 feet from the first one that went up…and I know they are going for over 150K but who the heck wants to pay that much to live right on top of your neighbor? It won’t be much different than living in a damn apartment and you will be able to hear everything going on next door and I really, really hated that when I lived in an apartment….but, at least it will block out my view of the ugly, run down rentals that are one street over and they are new so that is cool…and I can luxuriate on my double lot with my big lawn and I don’t have to hear the neighbors…and I didn’t pay 150-180K for mine…and the forecast for price growth for housing this year is about 16%…so if mine is worth 110K now, it will be worth 126K by the end of the year and I will have made almost 40K in the year and a half I will have been here….and that means I’ll have almost 80K in equity by the end of the year…not bad for being broke three years ago…