Well…cripes, I may be getting used to these busy days…just sat down for the first time at around 4 and 48 minutes later, I’m ready to find something else to do…got the grocery run in and got my big ham and then hit aldi’s, depot, and the dollar store to get everything I needed for today and found that I didn’t need to stop at depot since all I needed was a drop cloth and the dollar store had them for 1.25 which is half price of depot so I guess I’ll be getting them there from now on…and I got new led bulbs for the fixture in the bedroom, too…then, when I got back here, I got right at painting the ceiling in the bedroom and got two coats on by 11:30 and then cooked the big ham and the rest of the food to go with it and had a huge lunch…so only one meal today I am still so full….the ceiling came out better than I had any reason to expect but it’s just the paint and not me…although I did get lots of painting practice on my son’s house so it’s pretty easy to do it right….and after the paint dried, I hung the fixture up and put the glass shade on it and it looks pretty cool with the shiny copper finish…after that, I decided to do the last repair on the wall above the sink in the bathroom so I can sand it all out tomorrow and get everything masked off so I can paint Friday…need to go out for paint tomorrow….again…but I should be able to finish the bathroom in a couple of hours…and then I am taking the weekend off to get ready to start on the yard as I wait the two weeks for the paint in the bedroom to cure….and I need to order the blinds for the window in there so I can hang them as soon as I get it painted…break time…oh, and after I repaired the wall in the bathroom, I had a two hour window of no rain so I got on the bike and did 15 miles…almost forgot about that….busy day…
All posts by James DeVol
Do you need a better reason?
Well…please tell me you’ve been following the news about the criminal Rick Scott, you know the one, whose company paid a 200 million dollar fine for defrauding Medicare? The one who is now a senator from Florida? He said the quiet thing out loud last week when he put out a repub economic plan that they are going to pass if they take control of the congress in 2022…the highlights are raising taxes on 100 million middle class Americans…so if you make 50K a year, your taxes are going up by almost 5K a year…and if you’re one of the rich, you get a tax cut that will be paid for by the middle class….and if that’s not bad enough, his plan eliminates SS and Medicare in 5 years…leaving everyone who needs it to stay alive to fend for themselves or go back to work at 80 years old…essentially saying if you weren’t able to grift the billions he did, it’s just too damn bad and you can just lose everything and starve….this is what the repubs have always wanted…every person for themselves and the hundreds of thousands you paid into SS is just gone…poof…so they can give that money to the rich since they need it so badly…look, do you need a better reason to vote against every damn repub in the fall? We’ve paid our way our entire lives but that isn’t enough for these pricks…unless people are poor and dependent on them to throw them a few scraps, the repubs won’t be happy….we need to stop them…there is no better reason to crawl over broken glass to vote these assholes out…or they are going to steal what you worked your entire life for….just damn vote…geez…
Got the painting done…
Well….got the painting done in the bedroom! The white anyway….and now comes the two week wait for the paint to cure so I can mask it off for the grey for the walls…I am really looking forward to see how the bit darker grey is going to look in there…should be pretty cool…I hope….I am really happy how the trim and ceiling came out even with the 82 year old plaster….and my patches on the ceiling are so much better than the ones that were in there that I can live with them…and I’ll keep chanting French Chateau every time I notice how flawed they are…but they are good enough for me and look so much better than they did…like I almost knew what I was doing…almost….can’t wait to see how the wall patches look after painting and then start to gradually move my stuff in there…not sure how I’m going to set it up yet but I have options I don’t have in the small bedroom…..I think the echo in there is going to be a little weird but putting the bed and dresser in there will probably help with that….man, I never thought I’d get to this point with it when I was deep into it…glad I decided that I had done enough work in there and didn’t keep trying to make it better…cripes I’d still be working on it next year….
April 13th
Well…boy, had some weird dreams last night that included boats, fireworks, and weird house stuff and that was pretty cool…and I slept four straight hours before I woke up the first time…and then was able to get back to sleep for 3 more and I’ll take that any day….with it being over 60 outside right now, it only makes it harder to know that the temps are going to crash for the rest of the month starting Sat…I mean, 39 degrees for a high in the end of April? I really like being able to get outside to ride and being able to do that make my mornings much more relaxed since I don’t have to rush to get on the indoor bike to start the day….oh, well….I can’t wait to feel my hands healed up after I’m done working on this place for the summer…but I still have outdoor work to do that will probably hurt them some more but I won’t be abusing them every day and I hope that is enough…but I am concerned that the damage I’ve done is going to be permanent and I’ll hurt the rest of my life….already have enough of those pains and don’t need to add more…I did get started cleaning up the dust in this place yesterday but I’m not sure I should have with still having sanding of filler in the bathroom…need to get the paint for that tomorrow so I can get started painting over the weekend…and since I have to wait to paint the walls in the bedroom until the white paint cures, that will give me time to get on the yard and get the front gate repaired…..not much to do today…another 4 store grocery/errand run this morning and it’s warm enough to put the top down on the car but the sporadic rain will probably keep it up….need to get a big ham this morning and that will keep me eating for a week or so but that means I’ll have to cook between coats of paint on the bedroom ceiling…and will probably get on the downstairs bike later….we’ll see…more later….
Salvaged the light…
Well…as I said before, I was going to try to salvage the overhead light to try to keep my costs down since I’m spending hundreds of bucks a month just getting the supplies I need to keep going forward here…so, I took the fixture down and it wasn’t plaster but 4 coats of paint on it and I don’t understand why they didn’t just unscrew the caps and drop it down so they wouldn’t get paint on it…but, they didn’t so I took it downstairs and hit it with heavy duty oven cleaner and after two coats and a little scrubbing, the paint came off and it appears that it is made out of copper and it polished up pretty nicely with the copper scrubber I was using to get the paint off….so, it can go back up Thursday after the paint dries and it will look pretty cool…it looked like the fixture had never been removed since the house was built with the electrical tape they used to cover the bare wires hard as a rock that I had to chip off to get the connections loose…so it looks like I’m on schedule to finish the room in a couple of weeks after the white paint cures and I can mask it off to paint the grey on the walls…on to the bathroom…just might be done for the summer by the end of April instead of May…4 months off? Sounds pretty damn cool right now….
Still more progress…
Well…it’s been another one of those days where I have made progress on the house and that means the work in the bedroom is winding down and should move into waiting time after tomorrow…I did get two coats of paint on the baseboards and wash all of the ceiling and walls today..but I ran out of paint and had to make a run out to depot to get another gallon of white paint…should have planned that since I knew that I was going to be painting the trim and ceiling this week but I was focused on doing all the other work that needed to be done in there and it slipped my mind…oh, well…I am going to take the overhead light down and paint the ceiling tomorrow and then I need to get all the plaster off it so I can put it back up and have it look okay….and I started on the last repairs to the wall behind the sink in the bathroom that I will finish up later in the week with hopes to paint in there next week and finish it up with hanging the new blinds…got a bike ride in and started cleaning up the dust in the living room but when it got to 3:30 or so, I had enough for the day and quit….so, all in all, a good day and now I’m waiting for the t-storms to come in later tonight….
I guess “donated” means something different to Elon…
Well…at the start of the Russian war against Ukraine, the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, mad a big deal about “donating” some of his starlink internet receivers to Ukraine so they could continue to access the internet even if the hardwires were destroyed…well…I guess “donated” means something different to ole Elon than it does to you or me….just today, it was reported that you and I paid our tax dollars at the market price of 1500 bucks per receiver for the 1333 terminals that Elon said he “donated”…and the government also paid 800K to transport them to Ukraine….so, I guess Elon couldn’t afford to donate 3 million bucks like he says he can’t afford to pay taxes even though he made hundreds of billions of dollars during the pandemic….that is the problem with depending on the largess of billionaires instead of taxing them and then letting the government put the money to best use…most of these guys are just greedy as hell and to have them give up a penny for the greater good is just too much to ask it appears….so, while you see Elon patting himself on the back for a lie, just remember he was a regular at the trump WH and is just another maga asshole who cares about nothing but himself….geez…
April 12th
Well…that was better…slept most of the way through the night until 5:47 this morning and I’ll take that any day…but, man, I’m sore after all of the sanding yesterday but I’m making real progress in the bedroom and that is a relief…I did get a nice ride in outside yesterday even though it was in almost full thermasuit and the wind was blowing 15 or so…it is a little strange not having to get moving and get on the downstairs bike and it is kind of luxurious to just relax a bit after I get up….and it gets me to working earlier and I accomplish more but I’ll be back on it starting tomorrow for a couple more weeks as the weather goes cold again…but I shouldn’t bitch too much…with this new storm that is moving across the country, the upper plains are supposed to get two feet of snow in places this week…ours is going to be thunderstorms and rain and I’ll take that…don’t want to be shoveling snow in April…I do need to get started on the yard next week and I need to buy the 44 bricks I need for the border around the garden but that will only cost me about 22 bucks and I think it will look pretty cool when it’s done…and I need to condition the soil with some manure and rake up the leaves that have piled up along the fence…I am a little excited to have found that I can repair my front gate and I am going to get that done next week…and I’m going to dig out the gate beside the garage and make that workable….I wonder how long it took for the bottom of that gate to get buried by natural processes? Still thinking about a gate to go across the opening between the garage and the big tree to close off the yard but that costs about 300 bucks and there are other things I want to spend money on first….not much to do today…need to continue to clean up the bedroom I’m working on and I’m going to try to get the baseboards painted today and then I need to work on the ceiling….and I do need to do a whole house dust patrol since everything is coated with it and that is just damn annoying…I think I may have worn out my new sander since it is making lots of noise and the on/off switch is starting to fail..but, damn, 25 bucks to do everything I’ve done so far in this house? That is a bargain to me and I’ll buy another one once it does fail…sure is a nice little unit…more later….
Forgot about the storm…
Well…when I did the first one this morning, I forgot to talk about the storm that rolled through here around 3 am this morning…man, it was loud! So loud that it woke me up through the earplugs I normally wear and then the lightning just lit the place up like daylight or more…and that kept me up for at least an hour and I never really got back to sleep…so that’s why I’m so worn out…4 hours of sleep will do that to you…and there are more storms coming in Wed and Thurs so I may not be out on the bike after tomorrow…but in shorts and maybe a t-shirt for the ride tomorrow…but then down to 39 degrees on Sat…ick…
Damn, I’m beat…
Well…damn, this has been the longest day so far…almost 9 hours including the bike ride and I am beat…just finished up mopping the floor in the bedroom after vacuuming it so I can walk around in there without tracking dust everywhere….and I am done with sanding and filling…whatever I have is what I have from now on…and I know there are are still flaws in the patches I did but I’m done with those, too…I really need to get on the yard and get started with the raking and cleaning up since the grass has started to grow and they will pick up yard waste on trash day now….I do need to get out and get more white paint to do the baseboards and ceiling later in the week but I need to take the overhead light down first to see if I can get the paint off it that was glopped all over it before….and will probably have to paint it black if I have to strip it..we’ll see…I need a break….