Never Ever Ever Ending Lists

About a week ago I returned home after a little trip to Switzerland and Germany.  I think I am just now starting to get over jet lag. This sounds like a good thing but to me it is not.  For some reason I think the 6 hour time difference provided me with a large amount of energy and I’m starting to lose it. I think the other contributing factor to my increased energy level is that, while I had a great time, I was so incredibly happy to be home. My husband and I have had a pretty crazy couple of months with a lot of stress, and coming home from this trip just felt like a relief that we could relax.  Anyway, the reason I bring this up is because I have been knocking out project after project…none of which are of any excitement. You’re welcome.

Aside from the bench, I have cleaned the family room, guest bath, and guest room from top to bottom. I grocery shopped and washed all of the dirty vacation laundry, plus some. I started cleaning out the office closet. I edged and raked the dead grass out of the yard. I weeded the garden and sprayed the cement cracks to kill tiny shrubs. I laid grass seed where an electrical line was run from my house to the lamp post in my front yard (a loooong time ago).  I went to Lowes Depot and bought a manual tiller, 2 types of weed killer, a stud finder, and several types of flowers. I came home to plant the flowers and pulled the old dead plants from my pots and planted my new live ones… Ok, I have to admit that I knew I had done a lot but this seems kind of insane. Also, I just realized that in my previous paragraph I talked about how I was happy to be home to relax so that made me laugh. But I am not surprising myself. I am not a good relaxer.

I am so happy to get these things completed but there is just so much more to do on my “do it now” list. These include: get rid of the rock pile on the driveway, clean out and plant grass on both side yards, weed the backyard garden and put down mulch, build the rocks up around the well to make a fire pit, clean out the fence area and lay down grass, build stair step garden where the old barbecue was that we ripped out, test the ceiling in the basement for asbestos, move exterior master bath window (happening Saturday!), and clean the rest of the house before Jon’s friend comes and stays with us and realizes that we are complete slobs.

Ugh, there are not enough hours in the day.

It’s funny too that I feel like I have accomplished so much and yet things still appear to be a gigantic mess. Oh, well. I guess I have to admit that things do look at least a LITTLE better than yesterday. Just keep swimming.

Ok, so this photo has zero to do with this post except my mention of Germany.  My projects weren't very fun so I thought I would include a fun picture. This is a photo of me holding a donut. Yes, you read that right, a donut! In the shape of a pretzel! That is why Germany is cool. :) (Random learning in Germany: Germans really do love their pretzels as much as we think they do!)

Taking It Out on a Bench

I had a little bit of a rough day today. The typical methods of licking my wounds include drinking, eating, or laying in a comatose state until something good comes on TV. However, today I decided to try a new method and take it out on a bench.

When my sister-in-law sold her house we helped her move. She was in a giving mood that day and offered me her tired outdoor bench.  It was covered in peeling stain... and spiders. While I feel like I never have time to fix something like this up, my hoarder self took over (as usual) and I scooped it up. It has been sitting in my barage (basement/garage) for about a year but it has been on mind as the weather has turned to summer.

In the midst of my crying my husband suggested that I lay down and I said no, I might as well get something done. So I sauntered to the barage and dug the damn thing out from under the pile of artwork that had been stacked on top. I grabbed my little hand sander and started sanding my little heart out. Surprisingly, the stain came off easily and it smoothed right up. While I am usually a very frustrated worker, as in I start something and I get tired so I just give it up and never return, today I jammed it.  I sanded that thing until it looked pretty good (sorry I don't have any before photos).

I primed it and it is now sitting there happily drying.

This post doesn't really fit the bill of the normal post here. However, I thought I would share because the time spent on this was intensely therapeutic.  As I cried into my primer I started to feel better. And this is another fantastic, and unexpected, example of why home projects are the greatest.

Don't judge the mess behind this bench. We are in the midst of spring cleaning the barage and it's super out of control

Uhh, Really?!?!

Imagine this. You just moved into a new house a few months ago. All of your cute little neighbors 40 years your senior invite you to a yearly block party down the street.  You stroll down to the party the day of and make polite chit chat with all of these people you hardly know.  You begin talking to two men who start to do that thing where they are talking about you right in front of your face because they want you to react to something but they don’t want to say it to you directly.  I don’t recall the exact conversation but it was something like, “Haha yeah she’s working a lot on that house. I wonder if she’s going to keep that headstone.” And the two men chuckled whilst I stood there in a state of confusion and social awkwardness regarding how to respond to such an odd presentation. 

In mere seconds my thoughts went from what are they talking about, to suddenly, my mind flashing to the end of my driveway side yard. There lays a large rectangular chunk of granite… I mean they are joking right? NOPE. My now husband and I hurried back to our home to flip this behemoth over… to find that fricking piece of granite was a headstone! W.T.F.!?!?!?!????!!!!  ? !   ?     !

Now before you get all “Ew, OMG I would HAVE to move out of there,” I have to tell you a little more.  To clarify, there is no body buried on my side yard.  This is a classic case of cheap, old stubbornness. The story the neighbors told is that this headstone was for the sister of the woman who lived in the house until she passed (not in the house!).  There was a misspelling on this headstone so instead of just telling the headstone company to dispose of it, she kept it. To decorate her garden. So now I get to deal with it. Yay me!

I could not handle the weird as hell yard décor so I had to get rid of it immediately. However, I’m not sure if you know this. Granite is ungodly heavy. I mean, seriously. I am really, really strong but this was too much. However, I am not one to just give in, because like the owner of this headstone, I am excessively stubborn and I had my sights set on disposing of this thing. I wasn’t able to lift the damn thing up so devised a new plan. I tipped my big garbage can dumpster on its side and rolled the granite into the garbage can.  Victory! Well, until we tried to push the garbage can back to standing. My husband and I pushed, rolled, shook, kicked, wedged, and every other verb you can think of to try to stand the damn thing back up.  It didn’t work. Finally, my sweet, sweet neighbor Mark found us exhausted on the driveway and asked if we needed help.  He had the magic touch and we got it on its feet!

The next struggle was actually moving it up the driveway to the street for pickup. This again was a team effort but we succeeded. We were praying and praying the garbage men would take it… and not call the cops so we covered it up with leaves. I once filled a garbage can completely with dirt and they refused to take it because it was too heavy.  Ok, wusses, if a girl can get the can to the street all by herself you should be able to pick it up.

Learning from this “headstone disposal” project: Garbage men WILL take a headstone that is extremely heavy if in the dumpster thingy… but they won’t be happy about it.  They left me a note basically saying don’t ever make your garbage that heavy ever again.  And as long as there are no additional death markers in my yard, I can definitely comply!

You Can Ring My Bellllllllll, Ring My Bell

I recommend listening to this song as you read this post.  Don't even try not to dance.

While I am often inappropriately proud of myself, I'm pretty sure nothing compares to the first home project I did completely on my lonesome. My mom is the master of home improvement projects so I have relied on her help or her flat out just doing it for me countless times. I can't remember why, but I decided that I wanted to take on one project without her: installing a new doorbell button.  The original one worked but the button was cracked and I was terrified of death by doorbell electrocution. Now I get that some of you experts out there know how incredibly simple this is, but I was shocked to recently find out how some people at work thought I was AMAZING because I had done this.  I mean I totally ate it up, but I was secretly surprised by their reaction.

At the end of the day, the entire project probably took about an hour.  I went to Lowes Depot (I don't know which, but I live at both of these stores) and purchased a fun little button that lit up.  I brought it home, turned off the electric which I'm not even sure anymore was necessary, followed the instructions of taking off the old button, and wiring the new one.  I mean dear lord you would have thought I had just completed brain surgery.  I was strutting around the front yard like nobody's business.  And I am not even exaggerating a little bit that once I turned that electric back on and the button lit up, I rang that bell roughly 20 times. Luckily, I wasn't married at this point for anyone to try and tell me how to do it or to become annoyed at the beautiful song of the doorbell which button I installed.

While the strutting has stopped, the internal pride continues.

 And amazingly, so does the doorbell! Success!

Weed Like To Know if I Should Tear You Out

Clever, eh? Whatever, I'm exhausted.  I just spent like 2 hours trying to identify a plant growing rampant in my "garden" (definition: dirt bed next to my house filled with unidentifiable green things and few flowers).

This started a few days ago while trying to clean out my insanely horrible side of the house.  I found these super pretty little plants with heart shaped leaves and really pretty purple flowers.  I thought oh my goodness I must rip you out and replant you in places that can be seen by people that don't try to cover you up with a trampoline 2 feet from my garden/bedroom window ahemneighborsahem.  Anyhoo, I replanted a few of these little guys next to my backdoor steps and one in front of my mailbox.  Looking pretty, I was far too proud of myself and continued on with my day(s).  Back at it, soon after, I was walking in the back of my yard only to find these same little flowers growing in the middle of my grass.  A split second of me thinking, "How did this flower get here?" turned into: OH MY GOD IT'S A WEED! I began researching to find something called "creeping charlie."  I then ran to begin ripping the just replanted weed flowers out of my yard so my neighbors wouldn't think I'm completely insane. 

Cut to yesterday I was back to working on my side yard, cleverly shaded by the monstrosity that is the trampoline, I began tearing out stumps of bushes my hubs and I had cut out last year. These things were huge so I began using my favorite gardening tool, a reciprocating saw. I was gleefully sawing away when I realized there was a rubber pipe that had sneakily shown up in the dirt.  I have a gas furnace so I immediately thought, gas line, stay away from that.  I began to use a shovel to dig up the stump when suddenly the line popped out of the ground with a nice clean cut it in.  It's as if someone had used, say, a reciprocating saw to cut it (who'd have thunk?). Thinking I was milliseconds away from blowing my dog, me, and my sweet little home up, I called my emergency "help, I might blow up my dog, me and my sweet little home" line, aka mom. 

She arrived to share with me that this was the line that had gone to the gas lamp post that we had dug out a few months back.  The gas line had been shut off long before (confirmed with a contractor at my house for the OTHER lamp post).  She then helped by ripping out the stumps, essentially with her bare hands, like a boss leaving me there like a chump. In the midst of that she told me that those little flowery plants were not creeping charlie but probably a viola or something.

Shyeah right mom, whatever.  But this statement did to me what mom statements do.  Which is completely deny that it could possibly be accurate but put a little bug in my head that mmmmmaybe you need to look into it.  So that led to this evening.  All alone to take care of this house by myself as my husband galavanted to Boston to watch the Reds play at Fenway park, I decided to SLAVE over trying to identify this plant.  After googling 5 million different types of descriptions I was finally led to *drum roll* a wild violet.  

I literally know nothing about plants so I thought is a wild violet a weed or a pretty little plant.  Yes, it's a weed but yes it's a pretty little plant that people leave in their yards for ground cover.  Who knew gardening was so complex with grey area.  I don't know what I'm doing, give me a definitive keep it or rip it out answer, dammit internet. This has left me to where I am now, procrastinating the decision by writing this blog.  You have come to live another day you little weed plant.

Welcome Home!

My dreams of making my sweet as pie little home my perfectly complete sanctuary are totally lost 4 years after purchasing it.  I don't know why it ever crossed my mind that this abode would ever be to my liking.  First of all, I come from a long line of project-doers who never complete anything. And by long line, I mean my mother. Second of all, I can be a procrastinator.  This especially happens after long hours of working on something and it not being completed. Or, after 5 minutes of trying something that I am not immediately at expert level doing.

Although my home is nowhere near complete, I do have to say that I have completed many a project... with mixed results.  But, although I hate to say it, I have learned more than I ever could have imagined about flag poles, 1960s bathroom construction, and actually about myself. It's all about the journey, right?? Or, something like that, yadda yadda yadda.

This is my house before I bought it.  You can tell by the half cut-off words in the top left-hand corner and weird little icons in the top right (a listing photo).