Well…up at a little before 6 this morning and had a really crappy night of sleep with the effects of the all of the dust from yesterday still making me feel like crap…and my eyes are still scratchy and I have a head that feels like it is full of concrete so I think I’ll try the nasal spray this morning to see if that will help…I am glad that all I have to do today is wash down the cabinets and get ready to paint tomorrow…I do need to do some laundry so I can get my work clothes cleaned for painting tomorrow…need to try to find the ones I used to paint my son’s house since they are pretty raggety and perfect for painting….it was nice to take the airlock plastic down yesterday and that signaled the progress I’ve made over the past couple of weeks….we did get lots of snow yesterday and overnight and I think it was over a foot which means I won’t be going out for the grocery run tomorrow…they don’t plow the streets out here and I’m sure the Miata will get buried if I try to make it out but I really don’t need to go out for anything until later in the week so that’s okay….even with the dust ingestion and not sleeping, I feel okay with getting back to no cocktails starting Sunday and I will continue it indefinitely…maybe even permanently since I like how I feel in the morning after being good…it appears that the sore on the side of my tongue that has been bugging me for a few days now may be healing…I get them a couple of times a year and it makes it really hurt to swallow but it is better this morning and that is cool…not much to do today….just going to clean up the kitchen and wipe down every surface including the walls and ceiling to get ready for paint…and then go out to shovel the snow again….and then repeat that again when it snows more….more later….
It’s nice to have my kitchen back…
Well…after all of of the work and dust and cleaning…it’s nice to have my kitchen back…or at least a little back where I can start to use the counters again and not work out of the dining room…it is going to take a couple of more weeks until I can call it done but I’ll take the little bits of progress…and know that I’m over the hump with it and can see the light at the end of the tunnel…I’m not sure if it is as good as I wanted it to be but as I’ve said before, I’ve had enough of working on it and it is never going to be perfect with the house 82 years old…I could have lived with it as it was and I did for almost a year…but it wasn’t clean and that is one thing I can’t live with…I’m not sure how much work I’m going to be able to do tomorrow…my back has started to hurt like crazy along with my hands…and my eyes haven’t gotten over all of the dust and feel like they are full of grit even though I’ve been flooding them with eye drops all day..I did forget to take some of the nasal spray allergy meds that help but I’m too close to taking a red dot for that so I guess I’ll wait another hour and then take an ibuprofen, too…this has been one of the biggest projects in one room I have ever done and I am worn out….damn, it’s going to take a month to get rid of the dust in there…just cleaned the blinds a bit and I think I have more dust on my clothes than on the blinds…oh, well…
The Juncoes are feisty today…
Well…I’m sure what has changed but I hadn’t had one bird on my feeder for the past couple of weeks but today the Juncoes are all over it and pushing each other off the sill…and I don’t understand that since they are sparrow sized and there is plenty of room on the sill and feeder for all of them…even had a few titmouses that have poked their heads up and looked in the window today…I don’t quite have a Juncoe mosh pit but it has been close at times and it has been fun to watch having 5 birds out there at once….I did get out to shovel the snow and we have had over a foot out here today…and that didn’t help my hands with the pain at all….it even hurts to type right now and I am glad I have an easy day tomorrow so they can start to heal before I get painting Wed…sure hope I don’t have to paint left handed since that would be really ugly…it’s hard enough to get a good paint job right handed and I did way too much work on prep to do a crappy job painting the cupboards…it’s probably going to take 3 days to paint the inside and outside of them so it looks like I won’t get to the doors until next week…and I need to let the paint harden before I start to put stuff back in them but I can do that without the doors on….but I’m not going to put anything back in the kitchen until I have the whole thing finished and the grey paint on the walls, the baseboards sanded and painted white, and painting the ceiling in the eggshell white that I used on the windows…okay, that’s enough…need to start thinking about dinner….
When are they going to arrest Newt?
Well…you know, I really hate these lawless assholes who keep getting away with trying to extort members of congress or who fund trump’s cronies legal bills for refusing to cooperate with the January 6th committee. Just the other day, ole Newt Gingrich was all over fox news threatening that if the repubs take the house this fall, everyone on the January 6th committee is going to be arrested and put in jail for nothing I guess…and ole Newt wouldn’t say what laws they are breaking…which they aren’t breaking any….but all damn repubs think they should be able to try to overthrow the government without any consequences and they are mad that the January 6th committee is going to expose their plot and the thousands of repubs who were involved in it….shouldn’t threats like these that could be interfering with house members doing their sworn duties be illegal? In fact they are, and I wonder why ole Newt hasn’t been arrested yet. One thing we have to remember anytime that old Newt opens his mouth is that he was thrown out of congress for ethics violations and had to pay a huge fine for it…and he divorced one of his wives when she was undergoing cancer treatment to marry the woman he was having an affair with. I really think that the justice department needs to stomp on this crap and do it now to stop others from trying what trump did. Oh, and the other thing that came up today is that some asshole repub operator named Matt Sclapp has started a legal fund that’s sole purpose is to foot the legal bills of trump’s cronies who decided to not cooperate with the January 6th committee…and the first thing that came into my head is that they are funding obstruction of justice and obstruction of congress and I do hope that the committee follows the money back to this ass and hauls him in for questions about how many people he is funding to try to keep the truth about January 6th from coming out….this is the modern repub party folks…lawbreakers all…geez…
Ow…again…
Well…just finished with another 5 hours of work on the kitchen and all I can say is OW….halfway through all of the sanding and cleaning my right thumb gave up and decided to move from intermittent pain to ridiculous constant pain all in one step so I ended up doing most of the sanding left handed and that was really kind of a comedy since I don’t use my left hand much…but, I got it all done and mopped the floor and cleaned the stove and I am tired…you know I’m normally a pretty white person…after all, northern European ancestry and all that…but today I looked like one of those African tribes who used to paint themselves in white mud with how much dust I had on me….my eyes are really hurting from all of the dust and I think I’ll buy myself a set of goggles if I do this much sanding again….the floor in the kitchen was white with the dust and I had to clean the dust bag in the vacuum about a dozen times to keep it working…but I am a little amazed that this little 26 dollar shop vac has done two houses now and it is still working like a champ…and that goes for my new detail sander too…have sanded almost all of the fillers and thick paint with it and it just keeps on going… and I only used two pads to do all of the sanding today and the second one is still like new so that is cool….so tomorrow will be a wash day to get the rest of the dust off the cabinets and walls so I can start to paint Wed…and that will be so much easier than today…I still need to shovel the snow since it has been snowing like crazy all day and I have almost 8 inches so far…but I want to finish my coffee and have lunch first and just take it easy for a while…I am beat…and my hands hurt really bad…more later…
January 24th
Well…that was better…was able to stay in bed til 6:27 but had a hard time breathing all night and I think it’s from repeated days of eating dust from the kitchen rehab that I am hoping is over today…going to get on the last of the cabinets and the big patch and get everything sanded today and then get started cleaning up but that is going to take a full day tomorrow since there is a fine coat on every damn surface….the screen in the window that I have had the box fan in for exhaust is coated with dust that I am going to have to wash in the spring but it helps so much in keeping the air clear enough to see that it is a good tradeoff…and I need to bring my pedestal fan up to force air into the cupboards and keep the dust moving to the other fan…and I am at the point that I am done repairing and I am going to live with what I have and just paint everything…there will still be flaws but the house is 82 years and I could spend a year repairing to make everything perfect but I’m done with that…can’t wait to get the plastic on the kitchen door down today and start getting back to normal….and getting the floor mopped…but I need to get on the bike first…I’m glad I’m back to no cocktails and feel so much better this morning even with the crappy sleep that I really do think I’m done with it….it’s going to be a long day…4 or 5 hours in the kitchen and I will still need to shovel the snow a couple of times at least but the fresh air will be welcome after all the dust…more later…
Just a crappy day…
Well…damn, they just issued a winter weather advisory for out here and it is supposed to snow 6 inches from 4 am to 11 pm tomorrow…and the wind is going to be blowing around 30 all day so it will be pretty ugly for the next couple of days…but, I don’t have anywhere to be so I guess it’s no big deal…man, I had forgotten how much having drinks screws me up physically the next day…it took me til after lunch to even feel partially normal and be able to get to work on the kitchen and get the rest of the filling done and repair the big hole in the plaster that I cut out a couple of days ago…needed to get that done today since I want to have tomorrow be the last big dust day and then clean the kitchen up and wash everything Tuesday…and that will set me up to start painting Wed and that should take a couple of weeks including doing the doors….I do need to order the blinds for the last kitchen window and the range hood this week…it is going to be a month of not putting any money in the bank with having to pay my property taxes and house insurance and that is about a grand before I pay any other bills…so this month will be a wash and puts me behind in saving for the new Miata in the spring…oh, well…won’t have a lot of money going out again until August so I may have to make the rusted Miata last until summer…we’ll see…
So 40 year olds are children now?
Well…it is a little gratifying when you see a huge meltdown of the idiot trump and one of those happened yesterday…it all started when the January 6th committee sent a letter to Ivanka asking her to come in and answer some questions about what she saw and heard on January 6th during the attack on the capital…and with all of the court losses last week and with the walls closing in on that criminal family, trump just blew going on and on about the “terrible” dems and that they are going after “children” as part of the investigation and threatening there will be payback when he gets re-elected…now, when was the last time you considered a 40 year old woman a child? Ivanka was a paid government worker for 4 years and was involved in all of the crap that went on with the trump administration and made hundreds of millions of dollars in graft while she was in the government…and as being a “special advisor” to the president, I’m sure she has relevant information that would help with the investigation into what trump was doing on that day and in the days leading up to the insurrection…so, of course they want to talk to this “woman” who definitely is not a child…and of course she will refuse and then be referred for contempt of congress…and that’s what daddy is so afraid of…his little princess is in real trouble and there isn’t a damn thing he can do about it…poor baby…geez…
January 23rd
Well…it was a fun time last night with going out to hang with some old friends that I haven’t seen for years and it did one thing for me…I think I’m done with drinking for good…feel like crap this morning and didn’t sleep at all last night and I really don’t like it…and being out with a bunch of unmasked folks freaked me out and now I’m just waiting for the infection to start and that was just stupid to even go out…and some of them were even unvaccinated and I just can’t believe it….probably the last time I’ll ever see them and that’s okay…I did get a bunch of stuff done yesterday with sanding the upper cabinet but I am taking the day off today since I feel so lousy…and part of that is all of the dust that has plugged my head since I forgot to take my allergy meds last night…man, I can’t wait to get back to the new normal of feeling good in the morning….I really don’t miss trying to find a place to park at bars and being around so many people….it’s just too much work and I prefer being by myself….not much to do today…taking the day off completely to recover and I don’t want to do that anymore….I do have to shovel the snow later since we got about 3 inches of snow last night but that can wait since it is only 14 degrees out there and the snow will stay powder and easy to do…and that will be the only work I do today other than making lunch…going to make the alfredo sauce that I have been thinking about for a couple of weeks for lunch and I have chicken thawing that needs to be marinated for later…only had a grilled cheese yesterday and that is not enough…but that is the normal story for me…more later…
I keep making more work for myself…
Well….another morning of working on the kitchen and I keep making more work for myself as I notice things that need to be done…and there are way too many things to be done and I think I need to just stop and put a limit on what I’m going to do or I’ll be working on the kitchen for the rest of my life…after I got the final sanding done on the upper cabinet, I decided to get after the 2×2 section of the wall that looked like they just threw plaster at it and then painted over it…and I just couldn’t let that go so I took it all out and now I have a big section that needs to be plastered but I just couldn’t leave it like it was…and then I got after the edges of the ceiling where they just slathered on the plaster and never sanded it down to be even with the rest of the ceiling….and now I’ll need to fill that edge to even it out and then sand it before I can paint the ceiling or walls….and I took out a small section of the skim coat on the ceiling that was peeling so that needs to be patched and sanded…you get the idea…I need to just make a decision what is acceptable to me for on an 82 year old house….I think I’m almost there to put and end to new work and just finish up what I’ve got going….there will be time to do the other detail work the rest of the year…just want the kitchen done….